This is War

I have begun waging war on my plantar fasciitis. It will most likely be a long battle, but today was a victory of sorts. I had very little discomfort when I woke up this morning and had a successful, pain-free run this afternoon. There will be good days like this, but I also realize there will be bad days ahead. I'm not out of the dark yet. Probably far from it. However, today was one of those good days to enjoy.

I think today might have went well in part because of some aggressive therapy. I'm quite pleased with an idea that I had that seems to be working out. Yesterday, I devised a way of tying long, wide Ace bandages to stretch the foot out. I looked at splints used for plantar fasciitis and also the Strassburg Sock, and the concept on how they work is pretty simple. My "Ghetto Plantar Fasciitis strap" seems to mimic the same principle. I'm hoping this will work out, but only time will tell. So far, so good though.

Note in the below picture how the bandage is wrapped around the ball of the foot, and the strap comes between the big toe and the other little piggie next to it. This can get uncomfortable after a while between the toes, but you don't have to go between the toes. However, I think this does give a little bit of a better stretch since it's coming over the top of the foot (skull added for dramatic effect):

More of a side view:
I wore these all evening yesterday and also to bed, though they did become a bit uncomfortable in the middle of the night and I took them off. I also wore them around most of the morning and afternoon today as well. I'm getting better at tying them comfortably.

In addition to this, I've been taking Ibuprofen and also rolling golf balls along the arch of my foot. Yessir, I'm taking beating this thing quite seriously, especially since I don't want to cut back on my mileage too much and I feel if I can go into overdrive in other areas I can hopefully make up for it.

As for today's run, I put the pedal down a bit and flew along the transfer station route at a good pace. The bridge just down from the transfer station was washed out, I guess from the five inches of rain we got last night from what was leftover of tropical storm Hanna. No biggie, just waded through it. There were some ATV guys on the other side who looked somewhat impressed I was doing that. They were very friendly and all, but c'mon guys, it's only water.

Ran 5.6 miles @ 7:21/mile pace.
Paved and dirt roads.
Very hilly.
Lower 70s, sunny.
Shorts.