The Taming of the PF Monster

Well it appears that I've beaten back the planter fasciitis that I've been suffering from for about a month. I'm really tickled about healing it so fast since I've known people who have suffered for years from it. That wasn't an option for me since I had to get back to racing shape before the State Games.

I'll start by recounting how I ended up with PF to begin with. I had been steadily improving by doing my walk training every other day and pool running and good stretching on the opposite days. About a month ago I decided to add two extra days of hard race walking workouts to my training plan. This did several bad things: First it violated the golden rule of training; don't increase more than 10 percent each week and never increase distance and speed workouts both in the same week. Also by doing more walk training I was doing less stretching since I didn't do the stretching after a walk like I did after a pool workout. It took about 3 weeks of this to give me a good case of PF.

PF is pain on the bottom of your foot especially around the heel. It's worse in the morning when you first get out of bed and if you try to train on it. It's constant but those are the worse times. Any time you are on your feet or walking it's painful.

Healing it effectively and quickly required a lot of different actions:

Not walking barefoot even in the house, go from bed to well cushioned shoes.
Wearing compression socks (Tight fitting) to bed, this is like wrapping with an ace bandage.
Buying cushioned insoles for all my shoes, work, play and training. The sock liners that come in most athletic shoes are not very cushioned.
Rolling my foot on a tennis ball several times a day for a massage of the injured area.
Stretching everyday, not missing a day, everyday. I found that going to the gym hot whirlpool was good because it keep the muscles warm since I couldn't warm up with training, but a tub at home with hot water works also.
Taking Advil in the morning for the pain and swelling and then Aleve for all day pain relief.
Icing the bottom of my foot with a water bottle that has been in the freezer.

Doing all these things and resting from training for 2 weeks did the trick, I'm back to training but building back up slowly and I'm going back to the every other day walk training schedule with pool work and stretching on the opposite days.

Thanks for reading.

Rambling Panda