Welcome back! I know it has been awhile since I have put out a blog. But now that race season is upon us I wanted to update you on what is new. First and foremost… I have had to cancel my first two planned events. Yup. My foot injury has been bothering me a bit and I do not want to risk injury and lose out on the rest of the season. So out of an abundance of caution I have cancelled both my races in May.

As you know I have been dealing with an injury…Plantar Fasciitis. It feels like it has been a long road to heal this foot problem. For those that have it or have had it… Plantar is incredibly difficult to deal with. It is very painful and affects each athlete differently. Some have good luck and can get back on their feet within a few weeks or a few months. Others deal with the condition for years.

I had never even heard of Plantar until I was diagnosed with it. It is extremely frustrating because it has taken me much longer than I expected to heal.

It happened last August during a 100 mile race. I trained the entire summer to be ready for the Habanero Hundred in Texas. Through 20 years of running I had always had a coach. But after an 8 year long burn out from running I wasn’t sure when I started training if I would stick with it. Maybe the motivation would be there, but how long would it last? So I found a training plan in a book that looked promising. But I condensed the one year plan into 4 months. Looking back on it, that was my first mistake. I had not been running in 8 years, and was 8 years older.

I was so excited to be training again that I just went at it hard. I put in miles and miles of running and had zero problems. I was back to my old self again! I did not experience any injuries. Usually Plantar sets in slowly. If you aren’t aware of what Plantar is…it is basically a severe inflammation of a thick band of tissue that connects the heel bone to the toes.

I travelled to Texas excited to be doing my first race in 8 years. I had carefully planned for this event. It is a flat course but the difficulty lay in battling the extreme heat and several very sandy stretches that many runners struggle with. I chose the race for those reasons. I have always done extremely well in the sand and heat. This was supposed to be my 100^th race of 26.2 miles or longer.

The Habanero Hundred is a 10km loop course. One hundred mile runners must complete 16 loops. The first loop” knocked me for a loop” because it was extremely hot… it turned out to be the hottest race on record. I thought I was going to faint a couple of times. But luckily I had done heat acclimation training and the second loop I was feeling much better. But I was experiencing some pain in my left heel. After the first loop I changed out my running shoes thinking that could be the problem. But after another 3 miles I was having trouble walking. I managed to limp into camp after completing the second loop. I did everything I could to deal with the injury. I massaged my heel…soaked it in ice water, spooned my achilles to relieve pressure…but nothing helped. By this point I could not even stand on it.

I could not believe it. I was a DNF after 12 miles. It was devastating. I just felt numb. I had travelled hundreds of miles from Colorado to Texas and spent 2500 dollars to race 12 miles. Who could have thunk it would end this way? Not me.

So I headed home with my tail between my legs and hobbling along on crutches. Now what? I was not deterred. I went to see two podiatrists and was diagnosed with the same injury by both…Plantar Fasciitis. I immediately got a cortisone injection which is supposed to help with the pain. It didn’t help. Not at all.

I could not run. For 4 months I rested my foot and worked on strenthening exercises. In fact, I worked on a number of treatments to get back to training.

1. There is a great Facebook group that I joined to learn about this injury and how others were dealing with the same condition…Plantar Fasciitis and Healthy Living by Frank Ng. He has developed 6 key strengthening exercises for the feet to help alleviate the pain and get back to functioning normally again. I do these exercises on a daily basis.
2. For the first month, I slept with a boot on at night to keep my foot at a 90 degree angle… gently stretching the foot, achilles tendon and calf muscle so that there was no pain in the morning.
3. I iced regularly with a frozen water bottle, rolling it back and forth under my foot.
4. I went to see a pysiotherapist regulary to learn more strength exercises and develop a very easy plan to get back into walking and then running.
5. I bought Oofos slides to wear in the house at all times. Oofos has a foam technology that absorbs 37 percent more impact to reduce stress on the feet and joints.
6. I bought various foot massage rollers to use while I was sitting down watching TV.
7. I started getting dry needling treatments. Dry needling releases pressure on the plantar and reduces inflammation.
8. I bought a new pair of running shoes that are specifically recommended to help athletes prone to plantar. There are a few shoes on the market and I chose HOKA BONDI.
9. I contacted my old coach and we worked together to help ease me back into a training program again.

Four months after getting injured I started to exercise again. In January I started off with walking 20 minute miles for one hour. From there I progressed into walking 3 minutes and running 2 minutes for half an hour. Gradually we built up my distance into hiking for hours. No pain. Yay! My coach also incorporated a lot of cross training with hours spent on the elliptical and in the pool swimming laps,and pool running.

Now here we are in May. I have scheduled a big comeback season for myself… three ultramarathons, three marathons, and 3 World Records.

I have already had to cancel my first two races in May. I have been getting some niggles in my heel and have backed off running again. I am still hiking long distances but am just too nervous about getting injured again. I don’t want to suffer a setback at an early season race and jeopardize the rest of my season. My primary focus this year are my world record attempts. The races are just for fun and for training.

My first race will be at the beginning of June, A 50km trail race. I have already registered for it. I just don’t know how much of it I will be able to run. It will just depend on how training goes in May. So it may not be fast, but I will finish! And I will finally be able to accomplish what I set out to do last August with the Habanero Hundred…

MY 100TH RACE OF 26.2 MILES OR LONGER… 38 ULTRAMARATHONS AND 62 MARATHONS.

I am hoping to attempt my first World Record at the end of June, early July…just depending on when I hear back from Guinness World Records. I am planning my second World Record attempt at the end of August early September. These attempts do not involve crossing continents or spending months on the trail. They are my pet projects to mainly be excited about running again and bring me joy.

So I will be blogging regularly now as I head into the race season and just hope that this year I can get back to what I enjoy most… running to push my limits. Running for pure joy.