For those of you who have had PF, I wonder if you could weigh in on this. T1 and T2 present an opportunity to re-injure it. Did you guys tape it? The barefoot run from the swim to bike is what I am more concerned about. I am considering leaving a pair of crocs at the swim finish and putting those on. Did you end up doing anything special around this? Thanks in advance. It may be that I just need to HTFU and not worry about this stuff.
I found that the medical tape (at least the kind my doctor provided) didn’t hold up well during the swim. By the time I got out of the water it was coming off and I had to peel it off before getting on the bike. I never bothered with it again and I was fine. If you can ensure the tape will hold though then I’d say go for it. Maybe tape it up a few times and do some pool swims and see what happens?
Mine was so bad there was no way I could do a triathlon while I had it. My recovery involved a sleeping boot (the hard plastic 90 degree splint that makes you wake up screaming in pain the first few times you wear it), calf strengthening exercises, core exercises, ice baths, more calf raises, massage with that blue spikey rubz ball, no running, no heels (i’m a chick), only flat shoes - - no built up heels period. Absolutely no flip flops. It took a year and a half but it is finally gone and I can wear heels for work functions and special occasions without issue.
My running shoe of choice to ease me back into walking and running is the Saucony Kinvara (no heel to drop)…I did a lot of “steep treadmill” walking in a pair of Vibram 5-Fingers once I could actually get my foot in them without pain - - the goal there was to retrain the forefoot land while walking on a treadmill and to strengthen the core / glute (actually, this step came before running in the Kinvaras). For casual shoes I swear by TOMS and basically anything with a unstructured and flat sole. That’s what worked for me - - I couldn’t have entertained still participating in tris. If you can, the Crocs sound like a good idea - - just no flip flops. The foot bed of the shoe should be stable under your foot so that there is no side to side movement that can further irritate the fascia.
I made it through last season taping my foot during training. It’s not optimum to race with a bum foot but If you want to try it use really good tape, MY PT provided me with this stuff that is not supposed to be used without a pre-wrap. First the entire foot and achiles was wrapped with the pre wrap tape. Then strips were run along the length of the foot and conforming to the arch and up the mid of my achilles. Then strips were run across the foot from the arch side to the opposite side, the tape was not connected across the top of the foot in fact it barely went up the side at all, if it was too far across the top of the foot it didn’t allow my foot to flex and would cause a lot of of pain along the sides. The trick to taping it was to ensure that you didn’t pinch the foot, keeping the tape loose enough to support the foot but not so tight that it pinched and hurt your foot. If you do it wrong you’ll know right off the bat as soon as you run on it. When I swam I wore a tight fitting compression sock over the tape. It took several iterations to figure out the right tape/prewrap tape and sock combination to get it right but I was able to finish 2 HIM and 1 sprint tri’s with this method. I also was having 1-2 sessions a week of PT which consisted of ART, Ultrasound, Cold laser and strength/stretching exercises. I also wore the Strassburgh sock any time I was able to. I will also say I didn’t get completely better until I took about 3 weeks off of my feet in October. Good Luck I have felt your pain - hopefully you can have a quick recovery!
I ran my race with socks and I put the tape around the socks like a brace in advance. The running period between the swim and the bike is short so you shouldn’t worry about it.
If it’s that bad then you don’t need to race, otherwise HTFU. You’re going to run at a minimum a couple of miles, but you can’t make it 800 yards barefoot???
I had it last year and raced on it, just know it is going to hurt.
If you want it fixed find someone who practices “The Graston Technique” and they will get you healed.
It works!
Thanks everyone. I am actually 3 weeks into pain free running (after being injured with it all winter) and slowly building mileage back up. Race day (Rev3 half Knoxville) will be 4 weeks injury free if things keep moving in the right direction. My original post is around not wanting re-injure it in transition which seems to me the greatest chance for tweaking it. The transition has a run up stairs out of the water and across the street and into a big parking lot/transition area. I think I will be fine as long as I’m careful I may try to put a pair of shoes or crocs at the swim finish. I am still not even walking around barefoot let alone running across pavement barefoot.
Be careful using the crocs coming out of the water. wet feet with crocs on dry land can equal easy slipping (learned the hard way). Last year I did Florida 70.3 with PF. Never an issue on the bike but I wanted to tape my arch before the run. I pre-cut the tape the night before and stuck the pieces to waxed paper. Got to T2 and spent an extra 45 seconds putting on the tape.
if you really want to tape it, get some kenesio tape - experiment with how to tape the arch a bit before your race and make sure to wrap the ends under so that adhesive is hitting adhesive - it will stay on during the swim. When I was having PF issues I would tape an arch strap out of 4 pieces that I could wear for 3 days before cutting off, this included running, swimming, biking.