Rehabbing my foot

Early in January, I attempted to go for a run and pulled up after about 6 seconds with a sharp pain in my foot.  It was debilitating to the point I was limping at work and nearly crying. Sitting up in the flight deck with a giant bag of ice on your foot is in interesting experience, to say the least.  (don't worry, we didn't put it in people's drinks!)

After doing some internet medical diagnosis (do not do this, people!) and speaking with my friend Richard about it, we came up with the conclusion that it was plantar fasciitis and I would need to get it rehabbed.  I then consulted with my good friend Nicole who recently had some serious hip operations and has been rehabbing them for a while now.  She advised me to contact her PT, Brad.  I sent him an email and got an appointment set up.

At his clinic in downtown Denver, he looked at my range of motion for a few minutes and quickly confirmed that I did NOT have PF, but rather had some damage to my sciatic nerve on my left side.  He explained to me how the sciatic nerve works, how it's connected from the hip through your butt, down your hamstring, calf, and into your foot.  To sum up my injury, it's like I was putting 100 pounds of pressure on the right side and 110 pounds on the left side.  Eventually, the sciatic nerve scrunches down like a coil, and causes pain.  We would need to stretch it out, uncoil it if you will, and I would be good to go.  He spent the next 45 minutes beating me into submission, nearly making me cry when he went to town on my foot.  He told me I could run again ASAP, and gave me some stretches to do twice a day.

I went for a run a couple days ago, and ran for 25 minutes pain-free in the foot.  My foot, calf, hips, all felt great.  I will start running consistently this week and get back to the grind of tri training. :-)