No Time Like the Present…
I had a major flare-up of my Plantar Fasciitis over the last two weeks. After taking over 6 months off from running I thought I had it under control. But, it is back and it is as painful and limiting as ever.
It wasn’t one thing that caused this current episode. I suppose hiking the Boston Marathon a couple weeks ago started the descent. Although it didn’t hurt much after that.
The real culprits were three-fold:
The main culprit was the weekend of the Groton Road Race. I knew I was going to be on my feet a lot so I decided to wear my Brooks Cascadia cushioned trail shoes. I was on my feet and doing field work for a couple days straight. My feet were screaming after this. The cushioning didn’t help and may have made the PF worse.
Then I started doing some speed work to get my fitness back and potentially run up to a qualifying marathon this summer. This additional stress of power-running puts an outsized stress on this injury. Normal running, not so bad, but speed work equals ouch.
The third and final insult was going directly into business travel the day after race weekend was over. Four days on the road in my work shoes and without my night splint was the coupe de grace. By the end of last week I could barely walk.
Like it or not I’m confronted by a new set of facts. My heel is no better than it was a year ago. After injections, rest, therapy yadda yadda yadda… wasted time, money and effort. I cannot in my current state run any significant load or intensity.
A related fact is that without the volume and intensity I can’t run a qualifying marathon by September. So, unless I rely on the charity of others I will not be running Boston next spring.
The epiphany is, as thick headed as I am, that what I have always done no longer works. My traditional hard-charging approach to training and racing is no longer a choice. Or at least no longer a smart choice.
Training and racing the same way as I have always done is going to give me the same results; a sore heel and a cup-full of misery. To keep running myself into this wall would be stupid. But to give up, to embrace that form of inactive nothingness is not an option either. When there is no clear way, we must find the third way.
I find myself once again in undiscovered country. The core of my running, as Mr. Churchill would say; ‘the unmovable iron post in the frozen ground’ has been taken away, for now.
To steal an aphorism from the trite aphorisms file, when one door closes another opens. This is one of those times of ultimate freedom for me. Freedom from expectation. Freedom to discover and learn (which are two of my favorite things – Besides raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens)
I have nothing to prove. I have only to let the malleability of my strength manifest. Now is the time to pivot, and pivot I shall.
I’m very excited, like a little kid on Christmas, at the opportunities unfolding before me now that I have swept the house clean of old trophies and dust.
Come on then! You and I have some adventures ahead!
I am so sorry to hear about the PF flare up again. You have the right attitude though. Hope it heals SOON!
changing your outlet is hard but I know you are creative and resourceful!
Overdoing it, doing too much too fast is a surefire road to injury …. after suddenly running the 10k course with you guys with a very low base mileage and then trying to start a serious training program right after was a recipe for pain.
So i stopped.. and took a Break. It is okay to take a Rest or do cross training:-)
~ or take up an entirely new activity and come back to running sporadically when the Spirit moves you,
…
Sorry to hear what you’re going through, Chris. Wish I had some words of wisdom. I suppose the best thing for the PF is rest, but you’ve done that for a year and after so many years of activity, scaling back to next to nothing is hard to imagine. Also, losing the tradition (and bragging rights) of qualifying and running the Boston Marathon is hard to take, too.
Glen