Bottom of foot pain question

[gdeann]

My husband has joined me in our goal of completing c25k! We are in week 4, doing run 1 last night. Starting last week, he developed a pain between the arch and the hard part of the heel. Kinda in the spongy part of the heel. He is telling me he can't feel it when he runs but it hurts later. As he gets up moving for the day, it seems to loosen up and doesn't seem to hurt as bad. Any advice in what may be causing the pain? Thank you so much!

[Fraz73 Graduate]

Does he get stabbing pains through his foot when he gets up on a morning? It could be plantar facilitis. There's a very good article on it here:

runnersworld.com/article/0,...

Not sure if this will hyperlink but if not try copying and pasting into your address bar

[Legion Graduate]

It does sound a bit like plantar fasciitis. Is it worse when he first gets up? One simple thing to do is to stand on the bottom step of the stairs (on the ball of the foot) and drop your heels, to stretch the foot. This can help quite a lot. If it's persistent then it's a good idea to look at shoes - are they giving enough support, is there a tendency for the foot to roll in? Plantar fasciitis is apparently quite common in runners (according to my doc, although mine started when I was pretty inactive) so maybe he's not getting enough support from his running footwear, if it only started when he started running? I bought some orthotics from Boots (heel pads) when my feet were bad and used these in my everyday shoes, and they helped a lot. I'm very fussy about what shoes I wear now, as I know some just aggravate the pain. My running shoes are great and I don't need the orthotics in them, as they are supportive enough already.

[Greg_M Graduate]

I have been dealing with a touch of this recently and found a combination regularly applied of:

1) Icing

2) Exercising the foot by doing the "spell out the alphabet in the air with your toe"

3) Exercising the sole of the foot by making "toe fists" in the carpet.

Worked it through. It took some time: couple if weeks but I could keep running just did lots of the above.

Massaging the sole of the foot by rolling a tennis ball about with it can be nice as well

It is likely a symptom of some link in the chain not being strong enough so work on lower leg strength (cakes, shins,ankles etc) as well to help prevent it returning

[gdeann Graduate]

Thank you so much for the responses! We are thinking it is a bit of plantar fascilitis plus weak muscles. He is having some calf pain as well. We also decided we are not stopping the program so no better time then now to invest in some decent foot wear. We are making a trip this weekend to a store that specializes just in running gear. Thank again for all the advice!