Pain Relief!

After five days of moderate to mild lower back pain - at its worst Sunday and especially Monday - I went to see an excellent chiropractor after work, and he did some major adjusting.  I took a short walk tonight, the first time to walk normally and pain free since Saturday.  What a joy that is!  I take it for granted that I can walk with little effort, and when something goes wrong, it is a real eye-opener.

I am not sure what caused the pain.  I had some back pain after a week in California - four different beds in eight nights and hours in airports and in jets.  But it never got too bad and faded after a while.  I wonder if trying to run more messed something up?  The chiropractor said that running, and especially long-distance running, is not good for one's back.  I told him I had a like - dislike relationship with running.  He replied that his relationship with running is more dislike - dislike.

So having decided to try to run some of the half-marathon, will this mean putting my back at some risk?  It sure is complicated.  All I know is that I love walking and can live without running as long as I can walk and hike.  So maybe I need to play it safe and just walk all 13.1 miles of the Crawlin' Crab.  It's not like I am going to win the race, or even my age group.  I think I know the sensible thing to do.  The question is, as a male, will I do the sensible thing or not?

Does Anyone Have a 350 Pound Gorilla?

It had been something like 10 months since I saw a doctor for this pain in my left knee.  But clearly, the things I was doing were not working - including not running for essentially the last 13 months - and it was time for a new direction.  So last week, I saw a new doctor for the problem.

They took X-rays of both knees.  He poked and prodded.  He asked me questions.  Finally, he said, essentially, that he felt the problem originated in leg muscles that are much too tight.  The tight muscles pull on the knee and put pressure on it.  He said, after watching me stretch, "You should be able to touch your heel to your butt."  But instead, between my heel and my butt, there was enough space to put New Jersey.

I thought about this, and came up with two possible ways to make my heel reach my butt:

Scenario A: Start eating a 12,000 calorie a day diet.  In  about a month, my butt should be so big that I won't have any problem touching my heel to it.

Scenario B: Lie on the floor on my stomach, and bend my lower leg backward.  Have a 350 pound gorilla sit on my shin, resulting in my heel reaching my butt (and beyond, possibly).

I discussed these ideas with the doctor.  He suggested something even worse - stretching.  Lots and lots of stretching.  I don't like stretching (obviously).  If I have an hour to work out, I want to work out for 58 minutes and stretch for two minutes.  Or maybe one.  I just don't enjoy it.

But I can't afford the groceries to consume 12,000 calories a day, and I couldn't find a gorilla, so I am trying it his way.  If that doesn't resolve the problem in about four weeks, the doctor said come on back and we will do an MRI, and see if there are micro tears in the tendon, or something of similar ilk.

I started with the physical therapist on Friday.  She did a lot of evaluation.  "Boy, are you tight!" she said.  Several times.  "I'm going stretch those quads.  It may hurt a little bit."  Seconds later, I was screaming in agony, crying and sobbing like a little boy.  "Whoa!" she said.  "I haven't even touched your leg yet.  Maybe we'd better skip that one!"  Now, that was embarrassing!

So she asked me to touch my toes.  Piece of cake.  I squatted down, and touched my toes with ease.  "Without bending your knees," she added.  Oh.  So much for that.  "Boy, are you tight!" she added, just to make sure I got the message.

So we worked on all kinds of stretches, and using three pound ankle weights to do five different leg strengthening exercises.  I am supposed to do these every day, and I have for the most part.  I even went out and bought ankle weights.  Do I enjoy it?  Not at all, although I know it is not that bad.  It is just one more thing to try to have to find time to do.  Having to keep working for a living sure takes away time for everything else.

But I'll try to keep stretching.  I want to run again, and at the least, I want to walk and hike without my knee hurting a ton.  In the meantime, if you have a large gorilla....

How Do You 10K?

"How do you 10K?  That is the question that the television keeps asking.  The goal is to get more people to sign up for the Monument Avenue 10K, a totally fun race with 40,000 of your closest friends.  My answer this year to that question, apparently, is "I don't!"  And that feels strange, and a bit sad.

I've participated in eight straight Monument Avenue 10K's.  Unless I have a change of heart, and even more importantly, a change of knee, my streak will end this year.  My left knee continues with its sore area and I am not running.  I could walk it, of course - I routinely walk 4 or 5 miles at a good clip, so 6.2 is not that big of a stretch.  But I don't want to pay $30 or $40 to walk 10K.  If I am going to do it, I want to go for a PR - which is totally out of the question, since I am not running and have hardly at all, actually, since last year's 10K the end of March.

I have decisions to make - do TNT in 2013, my sixth time?  If so, do I walk?  Run? Cycle? Tri?  If I run am I risking more injury?  Should I try another doctor and get a good look at the knee?  I've been more consistent with the PT exercises, but not religious about them.  If I were religious would it do the trick?  Or is something wrong that is just not going to get better?

I have more questions than answers right now.  But as to the question: "How do you 10K?", my answer, reluctantly, is "In the spring 2013, I don't."  But it feels sad to answer that way.

Knee Pain Update

My knee pain is a lot better.  I've now not run since the Monument Avenue 10K on March 31, though.  I see people out running and my skin turns a curious shade of green.  Nor am I walking as much as I have in the past, but it is now at the point where walking doesn't bother my knees, so it is time to step that up - and time to try some hiking.  I got a different pair of patellar support bands from the doctor, since the first ones did more harm than good.  I've also been doing specific exercises a fair amount - you can read about some of them over here.  I've been taking an oral anti-inflammation medication twice a day, and rubbing this topical liquid on my knees two to four times a day (it is supposed to be four times but easier said than done while at work.)  That medication is nearly gone and I can't wait to be done with it.

When will I run again?  I don't know, but I see the doctor in two more weeks.  I may try a little running before that point and see how it goes so I can discuss it with her.  But mainly, I want to try to walk more and go for a hike.  A nice long hike!

Hey, Isn't This Supposed to Help My Knees?

On Thursday, the doctor told me what I needed to do for my sore and aching knee: (1) an oral anti-inflammatory medication (2) a topical anti-inflammatory ointment (3) foot-turned-out leg raises 100 times a day (4) physical therapy.  Then, she added, "And knee bands.  I want you wearing them on each knee every waking moment for the next month, unless you are in the shower!"

Knee bands?  What are they?  Well, I think they were invented by the Marquis De Sades.  They are about an inch across and cinch with velcro straps around the knee just below the joint.  They felt miserable right from the get-go, but I wore them to work.  I wore them all afternoon.  I counted the hours until bedtime.  Hey, what if I go to bed at 8:00?  That might help!  I wore them after work while having a cool and refreshing Legend Brown Ale, one of the best beers ever, on the deck of Legend Brewing Company.  Maybe the beer would help.  It didn't.  I finally got home about 7:00, and contemplated going to bed right then so I could take the damned things off.

But instead, removing my trousers to put on a pair of jeans, I noticed how red and irritated and sore and painful everything was where the bands were.  I took the bands off, because it seemed like lunacy to keep wearing them.  "I'll put them on in the morning," I thought.  But in the morning, I still had bright red marks around each knee after nearly 12 hours of not wearing them:

So, I have not worn them since, and don't really intend to.  I walked 4 miles, briskly, this morning and things felt pretty good.  I'll do the other stuff - the drugs and the exercises - but these knee bands?  The Marquis can have them back!

Another Run, and Continued Heel Pain

It has been two weeks since I did a run of more than two miles. Now that I am going to participate in the Shamrock Half Marathon in 14 weeks, I need to start running consistently. So this morning, I put on a few layers, gloves, a hat, and started running, going just over four miles. I did a run - walk combination, the same splits as last time. It seemed harder, maybe because it was cold and I had layers on instead of shorts and a tee. Or maybe, with as little running as I have done in the past year, it just is harder.

I generally stuck to my splits, but a few times, I seemed tired and out of breath, and walked a little longer. Another time, I ran a quarter mile around the track to see what my running pace is: 9:30 per mile. So I decided to do some math. My running speed of 9.5 minutes per mile means I average 9.26 feet per second. My walking speed of about 14.5 minutes per mile means I cover 6.07 feet per second walking. Given a run split of 1:05, I run 602 feet in that time, and my walk split of 1:30 means I walk 546 feet in that time. So I average 7.41 feet per second overall, which means an 11:53 overall pace per mile. That is if I strictly follow all my splits, which I didn't completely today. Today, my 4.1 miles took over 50 minutes, or a slower pace than 12 minute miles. So I have a long way to go.

The bummer is, my left heel has hurt all day. This plantar fasciitis has hung in there with a vengence for 7.5 months now, and it clearly means to bug me still. I should have iced it, but it didn't even cross my mind until this second.

"Slow Heeling"

Folks have told me for some time how painful and slow to heal plantar fasciitis is. Like anything else in life, until you experience it yourself, you don't really know for sure. Now I know. After just over six months, I continue to have significant heel pain. I have a slow healing heel, or "slow heeling," I guess. Combined with my foot surgery in late January, most of 2011 has involved a pretty sore foot. No real complaints, because at least I was able to get past it enough to walk the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. I can't imagine not being able to walk that.

I am not sure how to totally heal my foot at this point. I want to do some long distant events in 2012 for sure, and need to get past this in order to do that. I need to get back to more consistency with my exercises and stretches. The plantar fascia itself is so much more flexible than it was six months ago. But I still have this painful area on the inside left heel. When I roll my foot on a frozen bottle or foot log, I can feel this little "popping" feeling as I roll over one part of it. So there is still damage in there to heal. For now, I guess I will walk some, hike some, avoid running and extreme long distances, and stretch as much as I can. It is so much better than it was, just not good enough yet.

A Freak Injury in 3-Day Camp

When you are training for an endurance event, such as the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure or a marathon, one of the things in the back of your mind is a freak injury. I got two of these last year just before my half marathon in Seattle - a rolled ankle and a slight tear to a calf muscle. I was lucky, because had either been a little more severe, it could have knocked me out of the race. I had a similar incident the first night, Friday, in our muddy camp.

I had eaten dinner and returned to my pink tent to rest a bit and read. After a while, I decided to go back to the main tent to watch the camp show. It turned out that I was too late, but as I walked down the mulch path that the crew had put down, my left heel stepped on a large chuck of mulch, like a piece of a branch. The force lifted the opposite end into the air and pivoted it backwards. A fraction of a second later, my right foot swung, toes first, into the piece of wood made immobile by my weight. I was wearing my open toes crocs because of the muddy conditions, and I drove two toes right into the wood. The pain was such that I nearly said a very bad word. Maybe I did. In any event, I knew I had done some damage.

I got up a couple of times during the night to take a pee, and each time, my right foot hurt a good bit as I limped along. In the morning, I could see that my toes were bruised and there was a slight cut. Then I worried about getting an infection from having mud all over my feet and tried to remember when my last tetanus shot had been. I washed my feet using my water bottle and put on my running shoes. I could walk okay, although the 21 miles that day would not be pain-free. But I decided that at the first aid station of the day, I would stop and see if they had any antibiotic.

Stepping Up

I started counting my steps when I signed up for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure in early April. How many steps would I take between then and the event a week from now? Of course at the time, I had no idea that plantar fasciitis would strike and strike hard. I've been dealing with that for about 4.5 months now. Even so, I took my two millionth step this past Tuesday since my starting point in April. Given the pain I've had in my heel most of this time, I am actually a little amazed by that. That averages out to 12,361 steps a day, every day, pain, rain, shine, work, weekend. Since my heel pain has started to lessen a couple of months ago, I've averaged nearly 16,700 steps each day.

I've walked whenever I can, even if it just up a few flights of stairs at work, or a quick jaunt over to see a co-worker instead of picking up the phone. Even when I took it easy when the plantar fasciitis was at its worse, I still averaged more than 10,000 steps a day. And over time, the count went up and up until it crossed the two million mark.

So injury or not, I feel like I have "stepped up" to prepare for the walk the best that I can.

Not Too Late to Change My Gait

I think we take walking for granted. It is something we learn when we are between 12-18 months old and then we take it from there. It becomes automatic and fluid. If you walk somewhere around a 15-16 minute mile, you take about two steps every second without even thinking about it. But each of those steps requires a lot of separate operations between the feet and legs. There are at four separate major parts to each and every step. We all take thousands of steps every day - I've averaged about 12,000 steps a day for the past few months even with this painful foot injury - without a second thought.

Well, my doctor who is doing the Active Release Therapy decided I should take a second thought. I paid for a gait analysis a couple of days after my sixtieth birthday and learned a lot. It was difficult, especially the part in my stocking feet, because my foot was still fairly painful. We fired the treadmill up to about 15 minute mile pace for walking and 10 minute mile pace for running. Because of the upcoming Komen 3-Day, we concentrated on walking.Among the things I was doing wrong, I was overstriding and heel striking at too steep an angle. I was bobbing up and down, several inches with each stride - all wasted energy. My arm carriage was poor. I didn't have enough knee drive. My hips are too weak and this results in my hips dropping with each stride, especially when running. The doc had a couple of sessions to review the results and work with me on some drills. High steps. Skipping. Arm drive. Barefoot walking. One of the instructive parts was when he filmed me walking without shoes at a 15 minute mile pace. You basically will stride correctly or close to it in order to protect your feet. Notice how much more shallow my heel strike is in this photo as contrasted to the last one. I've worked a good bit to change my walking gait in the six weeks since the gait analysis. I feel like it is working. I know that there are times when I lapse to old patterns. But I think in general, my gait is better - more knee drive, better arm position, smoother and shallower landing, and less bounce. I'd have to be filmed again to be sure. It is tough learning to walk all over again, but I think in the long run, it will be well worth it.

A Soothing Massage

Ah, there is nothing like a soothing, deep-tissue massage. The relaxing new age music that makes you want to drift off. The aromatic, warm oil lightly massaged into your sore muscles. The agonizing feeling of having your muscles, tendons, and ligaments slowly ripped from your femur!

Yesterday, I had my active release therapy treatment for my heel. It was barely painful, but all of my walking this past weekend – 18 miles – had given me some soreness in my left hamstring tendon. Every three visits my health insurance allows a 30 minute massage, and the masseuse that they use is really good. Yesterday being my third appointment since a massage, I went in to the little massage room. “I’ll leave, and you can take your trousers off. The doc said I need to work a bit on that hamstring,” she said.

It started off well – the oils, the music, a light probing touch, focusing on my left foot and tight calf. Then she moved up to the hamstring – a little more painful – and started digging in. “If it hurts, take a deep breath and then…” she started to say, before going silent as I breathed in so deeply so as to remove all of the oxygen in that zip code. When I looked back to see her turning blue, I breathed out. “.... breathe out slowly,” she gasped.

Her strong fingers started digging deep into my hamstring, finding a knot of muscle that must have looked like a python that had swallowed a large feral hog, along with its parents and grandparents. Wow, that hurt! “You know, try some visualizations,” she said, somehow picking up on my discomfort. “That might help.”

“Like what?” I stammered through gritted teeth. “Well, like a peaceful field, with flowers,” she suggested.

Yes, a nice field! I can see it now! It is golden in the sun, with beautiful flowers. A gentle breeze is blowing. Birds are singing. I felt myself relaxing. Ahhhh! Oh, look, there’s a zebra in the field. No, it is a herd of zebra – they are so beautiful! Owww! Holy crap, a group of lions just attacked a zebra and are ripping it shreds as it neighs in agony! Wait a second, that is me neighing in agony! “The visualization isn’t working so great,” I wail. “Try a stream,” she says. “I think if I start visualizing a stream, I am going to see a huge crocodile tearing the leg off a wildebeest, or something like that,” I moan.

She starts tearing into the knot of muscle again with fingers of titanium. “How did I get a big knot like that in my hamstring?” I ask. “Probably scar tissue from an old injury,” she explains. “Try to relax, it makes it easier if the muscles are not all tense.”

Easier for what, I wonder? Easier to tear my strong muscles into a quivering, jelly-like mass of glop?

“Well, I think I’m done with this area,” she states. “Thank God, because I don’t think I could take much more of it,” I wanted to say, but I just give some kind of strangled monosyllabic reply. I’d been seconds away from offering her $100 to stop.

“Now, this area is going to be pretty sore tomorrow, so ice it a lot and take some Ibuprophin if you need to. You may have noticed that I dug in pretty deep at times,” she says. “Yes, I did notice. What gave that away? Was it the way I squirmed a bit? Was it the way I had a hard time relaxing? Or was it when I screamed so loudly that all the glass in the building shattered, and I dug my fingernails through the drywall there?” I asked. “The latter,” she said. “Make sure you drink plenty of water.” “What about wine – like a couple of liters of wine?” I asked, receiving no reply.

I got dressed, tipped her, and limped out to the car. And she was right, it was not only sore today, but all of yesterday, although I was able to walk about 3.5 miles last night. And ice has been a frequent companion to my left hamstring last night and today.

I’ve poked a little fun at my treatment (and at myself), but rest assured, she does an excellent job, and I’ll be back. But the next time I go in there with a sore area, I might just keep that knowledge to myself!

My Physical Therapy Regimen

I've been going to the chiropractor for about two months now for ART (Active Release Therapy), and as reported several times earlier, it is finally working. The heel pain varies, but even on the worst days now, it is a lot better than the best days before, starting about a month ago. Today, I feel almost no pain at all when walking. Last Saturday, walking 10 miles, I had moderate pain at times, and I iced the hell out of my heel that day. The very next day, walking 8 miles, I had very little pain.

It's the same way with the ART - when he digs into that heel, hitting the exact sore spot, it always hurts. But several times lately, it was just normal pain. Other times, it hurts quite a bit. But at no time recently has it hurt the way it did two months ago, when I about shrieked like a little kid who's mom took away his ice cream cone.

Along the way, the doctor has added exercises and stretches, which I try to do most days, even though I usually miss one or two of them. In rough order of assignment, the last couple being assigned last week, these now include:

Foot and Achilles stretch (2 sets 4-5 times a day)

Foot roll (roll sore foot on frozen water bottle or foot log)

Slow heel drop (forefeet on step, drop heels slowly to count of six, bring heels back up to count of three - repeat 10 times)

Towel stretch (sit on floor with legs out, loop a towel over one foot and pull back)

Marble pick up - pick up flower pot glass stones with toes. I'm a pro at this now, and have minimal trouble with either foot. I can pick up 50 stones in about 2.5 minutes with my left foot, and about 3 minutes with my right).

Side planks (Get in side plank position and 15 dips each side, then hold the plank for 30 seconds)

Side leg raises (lie on side, raise leg slowly and lower slower, repeat 15 times - 2 sets each leg)

Front planks (I do these with my forearms down, which I can hold for up to 3 minutes; I also do them hands on floor and lower half way down, like being partway through a push up. I can only hold that about 30-40 seconds)

Runner stretch (for upper calf)

Single leg squats (repeat 5 times each leg, trying to get close to 90 degrees - although it is more like 110 degrees for me most of the time)

Four way elastic band (heavy elastic band anchored under the door, 10 repeats each of four ways each leg: (1) to the left (2) to the right (3) forward (4) backwards

That's quite a list. Many of these are for the hips (abductors and adductors) because these muscles are weak with me and many other runners and walkers. Weak hips can cause many problems, including contributing to plantar fasciitis. Well, time to go do a few of these - later!

Finally, Weekend Training!

Finally, just seven weeks before the three day Komen walk, I was able to do some weekend training. Although plantar fasciitis is far from the worst thing in the world - and probably doesn't even make a list of the top 100 bad things - it has been a real pain, literally and figuratively.

I should be walking 14 miles today. Given that my longest distance to date since getting PF is about 5 miles, that would have been beyond stupid. So I walked about eight miles, nearly six of it with my friend Lelia. We walked in the beautiful Windsor Farms neighborhood. Next time, I will bring a camera. The weather was pretty warm but not sweltering.

It feels so good to be walking again with minimal heel pain. My heel definitely feels some discomfort after the walk. I iced my entire left foot for five minutes, and the heel for five minutes more. I took some "vitamin I" (Ibuprophin). I did some massage with my foot log. If all feels pretty good, I will walk five miles tomorrow morning. And each weekend, I will add a mile or two. If in four weeks, it is looking like I am not going to get close to 20 miles by the time of the walk in Washington, I'll consider switching to the Philadelphia walk. That is my home town, and it is three weeks later, and an extra three weeks for rest and training could be crucial.

But for now, four months since I signed up for this walk, three+ months after getting plantar fasciitis, and more than two months since my sister's death, I am feeling happy and positive about getting some real miles in, and hope to cross double digits in the next week or two.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

"You have plantar fasciitis? When I had that, it took me over a year to get over it!" I received many such comments over the past few months, each of them making me increasingly nervous. I didn't have a year. I had a few months at the most, with the 60 mile 3-day walk for a cure coming up on September 23.

In the three months and a week since I discovered that I have PF in my left foot, I've been trying everything I can think of to get over it. Probably the most significant thing was to start with Doctor Green and the active release therapy (ART) two months ago. The progress was slower than he or I wanted, but it finally seems to all be paying off. And progress has suddenly been rapid, after 6 weeks or so where it moved at the pace of a glacier. It was July 16, the day of the TNT Silent Mile that I finally walked more than a couple of miles. In the 2.5 weeks since, I have noticed less and less pain. Yesterday morning, I walked 4 miles, and realized that I didn't get a little shock of pain with each step. It was more a feeling of discomfort than pain, although I had some minor pain at the end.

During my ART session yesterday, it still hurt when Dr. Green dug his fingers into the sore spot on my heel. But it was not the near agonizing "drive a railroad spike into my heel with a sledgehammer" kind of pain that it has been as recently as my last time (July 22). And when I roll my foot on a frozen water bottle or my foot log, it hurts when the sore area of my heel rolls over it - but not as much. I also stopped wearing the uncomfortable night splint the middle of last week. When I roll out of bed to head to the bathroom, I might hobble for a step or two - but don't almost fall over from sharp pain as I previously did.

I am feeling quite encouraged by all of this. After three months of not being able to walk without pain, I finally can! With the 3-Day just 53 days away, there is no time to lose. My training schedule calls for something like 14 miles Saturday and 12 miles Sunday. That would be crazy to attempt, so I am going to try for seven and five. Seven will be the most since my painful 7 mile walk in Washington, DC to pay respects to our former neighbor's son three months ago, and it will be a good test of whether or not I can start adding miles each week to prepare.

Nine Weeks to the Three Day

Nine weeks from today, two months from tomorrow, the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure gets underway in Washington, DC. When I signed up for this three and a half months ago, no way would I have thought how difficult this would turn out to be. But my crystal ball was cloudy that day.

I envisioned easily strolling along mile after mile, doing short walks during the week and long walks on weekends, seeing what friends would join in to keep me company, or even seeing if some local people doing the 3-Day would want to link up and train. Instead, I have been sidelined with plantar fasciitis for nearly three months. While not the worst thing in the world, it has been amazingly painful.

I feel grateful and blessed that I can finally walk several miles at a time, still with pain, but not feeling like a spike is being driven into my left heel. I am doing everything I can think of to try to get better. I should be walking 14 miles tomorrow, but that won't happen. I hope that within a month, my foot will be well enough to do back to back 10 or 12 mile walks.

It is stressful that I only have two months to prepare. While three 20 mile days is far from easy, it would not have been too bad for me had things been normal. But they are not, and while this is discouraging, it is far from the end of the world. At least I can start walking some miles again. And actually, I have been walking every day - just not intense and continuous miles. According to my pedometer, I have walked approximately 596 miles since April 4, an average of 5.46 miles a day - injured or not. So if I can start doing some long days soon, and my foot holds up, I can do this!

Shake and Bake

Well, I don't know about the shake part, but I got the bake down pat. After finally walking this past weekend, nearly five miles Saturday and four Sunday, my foot didn't hurt too much worse. I've walked a little during the week, and today, I met my friend Lelia for the first time since my plantar fasciitis developed. We walked about 3.25 miles at a steady but not too fast pace, maybe about a 17 or 18 minute mile.

It was hotter than hell. I was soaked in sweat just walking the five blocks from my office to my car to meet Lelia. I had a bottle of ice with me to walk with, and it all melted in less than 30 minutes. I am guessing that the temperature was high 90's with lots of humidity. It was miserable but Lelia told me that it got to 125 F in her husband's place of work yesterday, so it made our hour of walking in the heat pretty tame.

I don't see the plantar fasciitis going away any time soon. I've done everything I've been asked to do, and it just stubbornly hangs in there. Maybe by walking slowly and just reconcilling that my foot will hurt, perhaps a lot, I can get through the 60 mile walk, which starts in two months and two days. At any rate, I am going to have to try to walk more and more and see where it goes. They say to train in all kinds of weather, not just the nice days, and today was a good example of that!

A Final Fifties Walk

My plantar fasciitis is somewhat less painful nearly three months after it first cropped up, and I decided that I should try a short walk. So I got up a little early yesterday and went outside to take a two mile walk. After a week or so of horrendously hot weather, it was a delightful morning - about 60 degrees F. and low humidity.

This would be my last walk as a fifty-something year old. When I think of how many thousands of miles I have walked and run in my fifties, most of them since surviving cancer, it is a little anti-climatic to have the last walk be two measly miles with a sore foot. But so be it - at least I was finally walking a little, something more than a third of a mile from the parking lot to work.

I walked slowly - about a 17 minute mile pace, which is a good 3-4 minutes off my fastest sustainable walking pace. My foot hurts a little more when I try to walk fast. It still seems like such a huge hill to climb to be able to walk 60 miles in a little more than two months, but I must find a way. But Wednesday, there was no point worrying about all that. I just enjoyed being able to walk a couple of miles on a cool morning. My foot hurt a little more during the day - I ended up walking over 16,000 steps for the day - but it seems no worse for wear today. So I talked to the doctor about starting to add some walking, and he agreed. I'll see how that goes, and keep my fingers crossed.

Big Six-OOOOO, here I come! What will the next decade of life bring?

A Million Steps, Sore Foot and All

Preparing for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure hasn't worked out at all like I had planned. Instead of taking long walks five times a week, by myself and with the many friends who have said let me know when I want to walk, I've been stretching, picking up marbles with my toes, wearing a boot at night, and doing some (but not enough) cross training. But even so, I've walked enough to cross the 1,000,000 step count on Friday.

I started carrying my trusty Omron pedometer on April 4, 25 weeks before the walk in Washington DC. I wanted to see how many see how many steps I would take between then and the walk. In those first three weeks, I averaged about 12,500 steps a day, and then the plantar fasciitis kicked in big time. Since then, not only have I not walked a lot, I have not increased the miles each week as I should be doing. Even so, for the nearly 14 weeks I have been recording my steps, I've averaged 10,600 steps a day in mostly "incidental" walking. Since taking my long 7 mile walk in Washington DC on May 4, my longest walk has only been about 2 miles.

But those incidental steps add up, and now I've gone past a million. I wonder where my step count would be had I not gotten the injury? But the bigger question is how will I possibly get in enough miles in the 11 weeks remaining before the 60 mile walk if this sore foot doesn't heal?

Losing my Marbles!

So, Friday a week ago, my active release therapy doctor grabs a jar of marbles, indoor flowerpot stones actually, and sprinkles about 40 of them on the floor. “Pick ‘em up, and put them back in the jar,” he says. “No, with your left toes, not your hands!” It seemed impossible. My toes don’t seem to have a lot of curl, flexibility, or strength, but I gave them a try. It seemed to take about 10 minutes, but ultimately, I got them in the jar without cheating too much. “Practice!” said the good doctor.

So, on the way home, I stopped at Target and bought a jar of them. And I started practicing that night. I didn’t try over the weekend during travels to New York State for my sister’s memorial service, but picked it up again last Tuesday and had been doing it at least once a day. I added my right foot, which was so pathetic that it made my left foot seem great, ironically enough. Maybe it is because all of the work on my left foot has improved its flexibility.

The first few times I tried this, my hands and face were screwed up so tight, like one of the first year students at the Hogwarts School in “Harry Potter” trying to turn a frog into a teacup. “Marbelum leviosa!” I would mutter under my breath, lips and face tight as a drum. It didn’t seem to help. I was terrible at it.

I’ve seen little improvement in my foot pain, but here is one area that I have seen a ton of improvement in: picking up marbles! In less than a week of really doing this, I have gotten fairly good at picking them up with my left foot. I collected 40 of them today in about 2:50. My right foot is still pathetic, but not as much so. So, I will keep on collecting my marbles with my foot, and expect to see improved toe strength and flexibility. Who knew that losing one’s marbles could be so useful?

Tiny Plantar Progress?

I am almost afraid to think it, much less say it, but I think there has been some progress regarding my left foot. Not that it is healed, but the pain is not quite as much when walking my very limited walking. For example, yesterday I was in a car for nine hours returning from my sister's memorial service, and anytime I would stop to get out, it was not bad. Normally, the plantar fasciitis is quite painful for those first few dozen steps after sitting for a while, but not yesterday, and not today. No, I don't feel like taking a long walk or anything like that, but nor am I walking with bad limp for those first few steps. And the last couple of times I used my foot log, grinding my heel into it, the pain was much less.

I mentioned that to the doctor today when I went in for another round, my seventh, of ART. He was pleased by that as he drove a small railroad spike into my heel - just what it feels like, I imagine. He said that the plantar fascia still needs to lengthen but my Achilles tendon and my calf are definitely not as tight as they were. Afterwards, my heel has hurt all day, but not quite as much as it usually does after the ART session.

He added a couple of little tricks to my repetoire Friday - spelling the alphabet with my heel and picking up marbles with my left toes. The latter takes a long time, as the "marbles" are fairly flat indoor flower pot stones, and my toes don't have tremendous flexibility or strength. But here is the interesting thing - each time I do the marble pick-up, I can do it, even though it may take a number of attempts for each stone. But I can't do it at all with my right foot, which is my good foot. So all of the intensive therapy on the left foot seems to be helping with its flexibility and strength.

The other day, I visualized walking pain free - I know that I will do this sometime, and the results for the last few days make me feel like I am heading towards that milestone. Doing this walk in September in my sister's memory is so important to me, and I am going to need to find a way to make this happen.