The last two weeks have been a struggle against weather and physical pain. The last time I posted we were in the middle of a heat wave so I only got two runs in that week which was fine by me because they were awesome runs. The following week we had pouring rain for days. Our jeep had to go in for repairs and while this was happening we literally got caught outside in the storm. My shoes and pants were soaked for well over 8 hours and the rain kept on coming. The following day we took my cousins to Great Adventure and it stormed again and my legs and shoes were covered in damp wet for many hours. The only difference that day was that I actually brought dry clothes and shoes just in case that happened. Yes, I was a Girl Scout and no - I did not learn survival skills there. I was glad to have something dry and warm on day two of bad weather.
By Thursday of that week my feet were aching and sore. I woke up and when I stood up I had severe pain. I waited until Saturday to do another run but the heat was so bad that my cousin started to feel sick and so did I so we had to stop. BLAH.
I rested for the remainder of the weekend as well as Monday. Yesterday I made my irritable self go back out in the park but I made sure to do a full warm up and stretch for 20 minutes. I did module 4 yesterday but I suffered through it. My feet started to ache some more and I was really down about it, but I did finish the run and did a 15 minute cool down with stretches and crunches.
This morning sucked because my feet hurt the way they did when I was recovering from the ruptured gastroc I suffered from back in 2007.
Today was a mental challenge for me. I had to beat down those fears that scream "you'll never be able to do this." I quieted them and decided that tomorrow is a full out stretch day with some core training exercises.
I read a bunch of stuff online and this all sounds like Plantar Fascitis. I do suffer from Fascitis, but this is a very specific type of pain. The funny thing I found out was that stretching the plantar when it flares up is actually counter intuitive. The suggested stretches are for the calf and hamstring plus rest.
I'm going to do this over the next two days and try to get back out on the road one day on the weekend. I do believe this is all related to the two days in the rain because it wasn't happening before that.
On the bright side, many athletes suffer from this, especially runners. This is frustrating and I may have to struggle through it but in the end it's just another part of the challenge; a test of sorts, one which I plan on passing with flying colors.
Never Give Up! Never Surrender!
PS: I stepped in dog shit as well yesterday. Nothing like stepping in what you feel like so you can smell it for the next two miles.
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