Thanks, I needed that! The run today was just what I needed. I've had the blahs off and on for weeks. I've just been enduring, waiting for my PF pain to go away and for winter to finally end. Last night I felt especially glum. On Jan 18, the MLK holiday, I pushed the pace on a solo half marathon distance training run in old shoes (500+ miles) and ended up with PF pain. I felt good about my performance in the Painter's half marathon that Saturday, but it aggravated the PF. I used my Strassburg sock for weeks along with other treatments I've used successfully in the past, but even with backing off on pace and distance in my training it didn't seem to be getting better. For the last 3 weeks I've only been running every other day and at a very easy pace. Thursday I finally made my first visit to a podiatrist. His diagnosis was, not too surprisingly, Plantar Fasciitis. He took an x-ray of my foot. He said my foot looks good, but that I have a high cupped arch that strains the fascia when it compresses. He recommended a 3/4 length sports orthotic to support my arch to prevent it from over-compressing and straining my plantar fascia. I like it when things make sense to me. The orthotic won't be ready for 3 weeks. Meanwhile, I've decided that running on my foot hasn't made the PF worse, and not running hasn't made it better, so I might as well just go for it. This morning I cut the arch support area out of an old light-weight insert I used to run with and put it under the insole of my shoe to give my arch a little additional support. It seemed to work well. I ran with Larry, Wayne, Kevin, and Kent this morning. I was only planning on 8 miles, but when we reached 4 miles Wayne, Kevin and I decided to go 10 instead. I just felt like I needed to push hard mentally this morning. I just blogged my runs for the last three weeks this morning, such as they were, and my fastest average pace for a six mile run was 9:50/mi I think. This morning I ran 10 miles and averaged 8:58/mi, running the first mile in 10:06 and the last mile in 7:35. The first four or five miles were at an easy pace, which then gradually picked up to the end. The last few miles I felt pretty tired and just tried to hold on and push through it. As I said, a good hard run was just what I needed. If I can survive the forecast snowstorm tonight and tomorrow, maybe the warm sunny weather predicted for next week will mark the turn around, and the beginning of a shiny new running season. One can hope, and hope is a powerful thing.
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