For the past months, I have been experiencing a sharp pain in my heels whenever I wake up in the morning, sit for a long time and then decide to get up, or after performing a strenuous activity like running. I researched extensively before deciding to go to the doctor and found out that it could either be gout (which is primarily caused by a high-purine diet – eating too much beans and canned sardines) or plantar fasciitis. I figured it would be the former since I am pretty traditional when it comes to breakfast, and hey, we can never get enough of canned sardines matched with our staple morning food (sinangag), right? I was wrong!
It turns out I had plantar fasciitis all along. The doctor didn’t tell me much – he was too excited to get the diagnosis done and over with and demonstrated various stretching exercises that I could do instead – so I wasn’t able to fully understand what really caused it. But thank God to google and this running book I had purchased recently (look!):
Disclaimer: I suck at photography. 🙂
Anyway, my research told me that I probably ripped my plantar fascia due to various reasons:
a. being overweight (no objections on this one, hahaha)
b. poor foot mechanics (I am a clumsy person)
c. aggressive increase in training load or exertion (this! probably due to running?)
d. arthritis (too early for this, hehe!)
e. diabetes (hopefully not, haha)
f. poor or worn-out shoes (I only have a pair! lol)
I did my self-diagnosis and the doctor in me (or arbularyo, or simply the voice inside my head) tells me that it probably started when I decided to become healthy and engaged into the crazy world of running (+going to the gym and performing lousy weight training and ellipticals). Too bad I decided to get fit too soon, haha.
I am not too stressed out about it since I have to devote more time in recovering, and for me that equates to a few stretching exercises and a lot of sleeping (hooray!), but I can’t help but be a bit sad about it because it also meant that I couldn’t run for a good amount of time (it could take 2 to 12 months until I’m fully recovered). I’m slowly learning to love running and it sucks when you have to abruply stop doing something you’re slowly (but surely) loving to do. The good thing is that it’s temporary, my resolve to run hasn’t diminished, and I’m still very excited to run again! I might slip in a few runs once in a while though, or perform less strenuous ellipticals instead, hehe.
I’ll be sleeping more for now. 🙂
i'm nicosai 