From prevention to treatment, learn the facts about Running with Plantar Fasciitis and how to stop the pain.
If you’re running with plantar fasciitis, you’re not alone! As the most common cause of pain on your heel. This injury plagues lots of people who are constantly on their feet including runners.
What is Plantar Fasciitis?
The plantar fascia is a tissue that looks like a series of fat rubber bands and extends from the heel toward the toes, along the arch of the foot. It’s made of collagen, a rigid protein that’s not very stretchy. The stress of overuse, overpronation, or overused shoes can rip tiny tears in it the plantar fascia tissue, causing heel pain and inflammation.
All of the causes above can overload the plantar fascia, the connective tissue that runs from your heel to the base of your toes. To help you sidestep this common problem, here’s what to know what running with plantar fasciitis, how to recognise it, treat it, and prevent it.
Identifying Plantar Fasciitis Symptoms
Plantar fasciitis sufferers feel a sharp stab or deep ache in the heel or along the arch of the foot. Another telltale sign of the condition: You feel pain as soon as you put your foot on the ground in the morning. The morning hobble you may experience comes from your foot trying to heal itself in a contracted position overnight.
Taking that first step out of bed causes sudden strain on the bottom of your foot, resulting in pain in your heel or arch. The pain can recur after long spells of sitting, but it tends to fade during a run once the area is warmed up.
A third symptom those running with plantar fasciitis might experience is pain during push-off while hitting your running stride.
Common Causes of Plantar Fasciitis
Plantar fasciitis-related heel pain tends to strike those who overtrain, neglect to stretch their calf muscles, or overdo hill workouts and speed intervals. When you have very tight calf muscles, they will pull on the plantar fascia and cause a lot of pain.
A sudden increase in training mileage or a quick increase in speed training means you overwork the muscles when they’re not quite ready, which can lead to conditions like plantar fasciitis.
Gear is important too. Wearing worn running shoes or constantly running on hard surfaces like asphalt or concrete can increase your risk of the condition. Finally, biomechanical issues may also cause plantar fasciitis. Those issues include high arches or flat feet or even excessive pronation.
Running with Plantar Fasciitis Treatment
Plantar fasciitis can be a nagging problem, which gets worse and more difficult to treat the longer you have it. So it’s best to address the issue as soon as you feel pain.
The first step in treating plantar fasciitis is to reduce swelling. You can use Ice, but I’ve found massaging my foot/heel with with a golf ball works 😎.
What is crucial though is to stretch your legs. Particularly your calves to help to alleviate the aches associated with the condition. Use a foam roller, massage gun, or even heal drops on your stairs!
Preventing Plantar Fasciitis
Better than the cure! 💪
To prevent running with plantar fasciitis, run on soft surfaces and keep weekly mileage increases small. Wear the proper shoes for your foot type and gait.
If you’re unsure if you’re in the right shoe, seek out advice from a professional. Getting a gait analysis can help you spot issues with your run form.
Strengthen the muscles in your midfoot with barefoot exercises. Experiment with your running style by shortening your stride and quickening your cadence can also help. A device like a Garmin Pro HRM can help provide this data through it’s running dynamics.
If you want to read more posts on running injuries checkout my posts. Preventing Running Jnjuries and the Most Common Injuries.
