Plantar Progression

A couple of weeks on from my last blog about my injury, I hope there were some useful tips that you guys can use to combat plantar pain.

Since Ive been using these methods my foot has been getting a lot better. Week on week I am gaining more confidence with putting more pressure, extra mileage on my foot and now staring to dabble into some intensity. So the intensity part would be doing sessions quicker than my steady/easy running pace, i.e. interval training.

Boy it sucks when you are out of shape during interval sessions, all the negative thoughts running through your head “This is shit!” “I feel heavy and fat!” “why me!” “Just stop its too much” “Legs are tired” “breathing is too heavy” “I can get away with not doing the last rep because my foot is slightly hurting” “Slow down get your breath back” “Take some more recovery, no one will know” “Don’t do a second run tonight, you’ve already trained today” “Should I go on the bike and cross train? My legs feel heavy.”

And thats only a few that I can think of thats been running through my head whilst trying to get fit. However there is something stronger than those negative thoughts inside of me that wont let me quit, wont let me back down, wont let me give up hope. Even when I race and Im having an absolute shocker and possibly on the verge of coming in last place I will not step off the track even if my mind is screaming at me to do so. Any of you guys out there that know what that is please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

In my head I know that pain is weakness leaving the body and that I would rather suffer now in the minutes and hours of intense training than let my results suffer out on the track. 

Back to training though… Each week Ive been doing that little bit more mileage, increasing my running by 5-10minutes every other day. My very first run back was 15 minutes!!! 15 bloody minutes and my foot was agony!! Now for the people who know me reading this know that would have driven me crazy and then leads to the insecurity of “What if I’m not fit by cross country season, everyone is going to be flying and Im stuck at home with a busted foot!” Sometimes these thoughts can overwhelm you so much you use it as a negative and quit till the pain eases completely or you can be felled by that thought and persevere through the pain and keep some fitness before resuming full training.

I couldn’t be doing with letting the thought of others doing well get the best of me to give up and lose all my fitness so I’ve been doing lots of cross training in the pool, rowing machine and on the stationary bike… No cross trainer, I hate the cross trainer! Plus doing lots of weight training to keep my strength up and get the glutes activated. You know I found a good few glute circuits on youtube that you can do in the comfort of your own home. Mostly its girls on a matt with hardly and clothes on, shouting “C’mon girls, squeeze that butt!!” And then my mrs ends up catching me on the living room floor with the laptop in front of me kicking my legs up in the air thinking who is the male in this relationship and my response is “I need to get these glutes activated babe, Im working it!”

The two most important rehab tools I’ve been using at the moment are the pediroller and good old ice massage. The pediroller hits the heel from all angles, bottom and sides of heel and then I get a sandwich bag with water, tie it up, freeze it, then once frozen start grinding the sore parts of my heel on the hard ice surface. The great thing about the ice massage is whilst your breaking down scar tissue, you are also icing the foot to eliminate any inflammation.

Well guys I hope you enjoyed my blog, next one will be all about my training and progression back to running and almost being back in good shape. Tune into the next one so you can see my gradual mileage progressions and also interval session progress that you can maybe use for your own road to recovery.

Thanks for your time guys.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top