First run back!

So last Thursday I had a follow-up visit with my podiatrist to pick up my new orthotics. When I was there, he said I should go ahead and start running about 30 minutes at a time- best news ever! The only cautions were to start out slowly and not to increase speed and distance at the same time. In other words, I should only do about 30-minutes at a time for a little while and start increasing my speed, then move up to 40 minutes and go a little slower, then increase speed, then go up to 50 minutes, etc., until I get to about an hour and then I think I can just keep increasing from there like I normally would.

So of course, Friday I was itching to go out for a run and luckily, Corey agreed to go with me after work which made it even better! We decided to just do an easy 30 minutes and if Corey needed to walk (he hasn't run in four months), that would be fine and probably even a good thing because the doctor said a walk-jog wouldn't be a bad way to start back.

It.was.awesome. I really can't put into words just how much I've missed running and these few weeks off have made me realize just what an important part of my life it has become. One night when I couldn't  sleep, I literally laid in bed daydreaming about the physical and mental relaxation that comes with a long run. I craved it and couldn't wait until the moment that I could run even a short distance again. So getting back out there, even for a little bit, was amazing.

And my feet? Well, the good news is that my plantar fasciitis problems didn't really bother me, neither during or after the run, so I'm really pleased about that. It's by no means completely gone yet and I was lectured a little bit about how I really need to stretch my calves more, but my heels and arches actually felt good during the run and I had no trouble the rest of the day Friday or Saturday. The bad news is that the neuromas in my toes didn't really feel better. This isn't really shocking, actually, but I'm hoping wearing the orthotics may still help since it seems they're often caused by biomechanical problems.  If it still doesn't get better, then when I go back to the doctor I'm going to see if there are adjustments he can make to my orthotics (e.g. metatarsal padding) that will stop the nerve from being compressed and will prevent the pain. So fingers crossed!