Plantar Fascism

It started out innocently enough.  An odd pain in my heel.

It could have been the clown shoes.  That’s around the time it started.

It could have been the rock I found wedged in the heel of my Mizuno running shoes.  I have no idea how long that was there.

Rock my sole in the bosom of Mizuno

But the pain continued and swept through my heel like Germany invading Poland, and my plantar fascia put up about as much resistance as a legion of the French Army armed to the teeth with white handkerchiefs.

I feared a stress fracture.  My podiatrist called it plantar fasciitis.

I call it plantar fascism.

I am a runner.  It wasn’t a fracture.  So I continued to run.  I’m an American . . . I couldn’t let the fascists win.

The pain continued to escalate.

I tried stretches.  A night brace while sleeping (which actually enabled me to walk to the bathroom in the morning without pain.)  And ice.  Ibuprofen by the bottle.  I even allowed the podiatrist to inject my foot with steroids.  You’d think the needle alone would frighten away the pain.  Or me screaming like a girl.

As I limped home one day, I had an epiphany.

Runners are well aware of the theology here.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12, versus 12-26:

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body . . . And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

I had to stop running for a while.

GASP.

There.  I said it.  I am sore ashamed.  And my heel was sore.

But one part was making it miserable for all the other parts, and some of my other parts were very unhappy about it.

My heel needed healing.

But I am happy to report (as are my other body parts) that after a brief rest (4-11-13 through 4-30-13) I am back on the road, with only a hint of discomfort after a 6-8 mile run.  I still stretch and ice it down afterward.  I am still wearing the brace at night–just in case.

Because you never know when the fascists (or fasciitis) will return!