Plantar Fasciitis

I'd have to say that plantar fasciitis is the devil's #2 weapon against man, right up there with pride! I had it for about 6 months back in 2004 and beat it for a while, only for it to flare up later.

After reading up on the injury, I learned that, essentially, the thick muscles and ligaments on the bottom of my feet had torn. This caused my feet to tingle with pain during the course of the day. The tissue would begin to repair itself while I slept, but every morning when I woke up, my first step out of bed would destroy any healing that had taken place. Wearing hard-soled dress shoes to work compounded the problem, but I didn't have any other option.

What cured my ailment, you ask? Well, thanks for allowing me to share! I tried rolling my foot over golf and tennis balls, but that only provided temporary relief. Anti-inflammatories weren't a 100% solution either.

I ended up wearing a Dynasplint night splint to bed for 3 months to get rid of it. (Talk about patience, Amanda was a saint for living through that!) The folks at Dynasplint say that the boot applies a "low-load, prolonged-duration stretch." This just means that, in addition to fixing the angle of my foot/calf in a stretched position, it would apply slight and continuous tension through the use of springs. Most of the boots I had seen in running magazines could fix my foot/calf at a fixed angle, but this pales in comparison to what the Dynasplint did.

While I wore the boot, I also gave up running cold turkey for another 6 months -- very hard for me to do. These days I'm back to running about 15 miles a week, mostly in 5 mile increments, and have been able to keep the injury at bay with the help of some good insoles.

I stumbled across Shock Doctor insoles. I forget what tuned me into their product, but I do remember calling the company and speaking to a vice-president about using the insoles to treat plantar fasciitis. Given my situation, he recommended the Ultra2 insoles. They have a very strong stabilizing structure going all the way up your big toe.

Many runners spend big bucks on custom orthotics. Luckily, I found something off the shelf that worked. And since there was no retailer in my area, they offered to send a free pair to try as long as I agreed to give my podiatrist a few extra pair. That's a deal!

Dave's word on . . .

Here begins a stream of posts that may seem to be out of place. Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to research a lot before I make a decision. I also tend to have very selective memory retention.

Since I've spent many hours becoming literate in a variety of things, I thought this would be a good forum to share that knowledge with others and also use it as a reference for myself.

With this blog, you'll notice going forward that I'll be adding posts on things I have researched in the past or am currently researching. This includes things like personal finance (life insurance, annuities, IRAs, mutual funds, etc.), technology, cooking/recipes and where (and sometimes how) to find good deals. Stay tuned!

Good deals on running gear

If you're a runner, when it comes to running shoes, you're either one of two types. You either buy the same shoe over and over again and hope and pray that the manufacturer doesn't discontinue your shoe or (2) you generally don't care, but try to get a good shoe at a decent price.


I fall into the latter category. Over the years, I've learned that I tend to get less injuries if I replace my shoes every 300 miles or so. How do you count that out? Well, about a year and a half ago I bought a Garmin Forerunner 305 from TigerDirect.com. It's done a good job of helping me log miles for my shoes and, as a fringe benefit, for my dog. She's run over 300 miles to date!

When I first started logging my runs, I tried using Garmin's GPS software. It really isn't that good. If you're looking for something better and free, I'd encourage you to try SportTracks software.

OK, back to running shoes. My feet tend to do better with Nike Structure Triax and New Balance 718/719/720 shoes. There might be other brands that work for me, but these 2 have done the trick so far. New Balance has a website they sell close-outs on, New Balance Web Express, and Altrec.com usually has pretty good prices on Nike Close-outs.

I've tried phoning some of the Nike Factory Stores with limited success. If they have the shoe you want in stock, they'll ship them to you. It turns out to be a pretty fair deal.

I had a bad bout with some Nike Air Max Triax about 5 years ago and ended up with plantar fasciitis. My left shoe would make this woosh sound because of what turned out to be a hole in the air pocket. (The shoes were purchased at the outlet store.) I didn't know they were defective until a hundred or so miles afterwards, and a month or so after I replaced the shoes the injury fully appeared.

That's a problem that I wouldn't wish on anyone . . .no fun. Basically, the ligaments that run underneath your foot become torn. Your body tries to heal itself, but because you're constantly on your feet, it never has a chance to catch up. At night, it will begin to heal, but starting with your first step out of bed in the morning, you re-tear those ligaments that have healed overnight. Ouch!

So the moral of the story is, "Kids, listen to your shoes -- and to your body!"

I'm a runner

Just so we're clear on this, I'm the guy you've driven past, merrily running around town when it's like 20 below zero out. I don't know why God wired me that way, but I'm a runner through and through.

I'll grant you this: it does get hard to motivate myself to run when it's bone chilling cold outside. I almost always find a way to get myself out to do it.

The times I most dread going for a run are (1) approx. 2 days after it snows and (2) right after a hard rain. Here's why. With the snow, I normally run on the Constitution Trail (or here or here), and it's way too easy to get sprained ankles from running on hard, crusty, icy and uneven ground.

After a hard rain, I just don't like to run on all of the worms that have crawled onto the pavement to avoid drowning. Yep, it's true.