Dear Foot Blogger Chick,
The weather is so nice now after that terrible winter and I was so happy to get out and start running again. BUT I am in pain! On the first nice day, I grabbed my shoes out of my closet and went out. It felt so good that I ran farther than I meant to go. Then the next day I went just as far. I thought I was feeling a twinge in my heel but I just kept going. After the first week, it really hurt just to put weight on my foot. What did I do?
Gimpy
Dear Gimpy,
I think that you did a couple of things wrong. Let’s start with what actions were wrong and then move into what is physically wrong.
Grabbed shoes out of the closet
This could be one of your problems. You need to make sure that your shoes are still in good shape when you head out to exercise. It is very hard to tell from the outside if your shoes are worn out. The inner support of your shoes is so important but not visible. You can look at the back of your shoe. In most shoes you will see a wedge of a different color as part of the heel. Look and see if it looks like it is compressed. That is one sign that your shoes could be worn out. The other way to tell is to keep track of how long you have been using the shoes and how many miles you may have put on them. The suggestion is that for walkers, replacing your shoes every 500 miles is about right. For runners it seems to depend on your style of running and how light weight your shoes are. If you are a heavy runner in light shoes, you probably want to replace them by about every 350-500 miles. It can also depend upon how often you wear them and how far you go at a time. While we know it is expensive, you might want to rotate two pairs especially if you run daily.
It felt so good that I went farther
When you are just starting out again, you need to pace yourself. We tend to think about muscles getting sore from exercise or a sudden increase in exercise but you also need to consider your tendons and ligaments. They are not use to the stress either and they can react with soreness. Unfortunately, having sore tendons and ligaments will take you out the game for a longer period of time.
And when you hurt a ligament in your foot
There is a ligament that runs along the bottom of your foot from the heel bone to the toes. This ligament is the support for your arch. When you injure this ligament, you feel heel pain. If you ignore the pain and keep going, you will cause small tears in the ligament. There are several ways that this can happen. Wearing shoes that are worn out and suddenly increasing your workout without giving your feet a chance to get used to the distance are two ways you can injure the ligament.
And that is called Plantar Fasciitis
You have probably heard about plantar fasciitis. This is one of those injuries that can really cause problems for you for the rest of your life if you don’t take care of it.
The first thing that you should do is sit down and rest your foot as much as possible. While you are sitting there, use your phone and make an appointment to go see your friendly local podiatrist. Tell the doctor about the injury and get your foot checked. This is one of those injuries that the faster you catch it and react, the better your chances of healing. Go see the doctor and discuss your treatment plan. And then do what you need to do. Don’t try to use your foot before you have given it a chance to heal. Swim in the meantime for exercise.
It is really important to follow the doctor’s directions so that it does not become a chronic problem for you.
I hope that you feel better soon.
Your pal,
The Foot Blogger Chick
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