Track and Field Blogs - Nate Brannen

Hey guys, so it’s been awhile since my last blog so I thought I should get back on here and update things a little and let everyone know where I’ve been. Just before the New Year, during a workout, I tore my plantar fascia (yes, very shitty). I had been having plantar fasciitis for a couple months with some days being better than others. It was something I thought would get better, until it finally tore during this one specific workout. I actually just thought I pushed it a little too much and that things would be fine. The next morning I woke up and actually couldn’t put any pressure on my foot, at this point I knew something was up. That afternoon I saw the doctor and decided to do a cortisone shot, thinking it was just plantar fasciitis. If you have never had a cortisone shot into the heel, let me tell you, it doesn’t feel good at all. I gave it a couple days to let the cortisone due it’s job but to my dismay, things still weren’t moving forward and the pain was too much to be just plantar fasciitis. I then scheduled an MRI because I knew something was up, that same morning I had it done and later that afternoon I was contacted by my Chiropractor, John Vargo, who said, “have you seen the results?” My first thought was, ‘No, I just had the MRI this morning.’ I guess they worked super fast and he had the results in hand and explained to me that I had a tear in my plantar fascia at the attachment of the heal. Definitely not something I wanted to hear but at the same time offered me a little relief knowing exactly what it was and why the pain was so intense.

What did this mean? Well that was my first question to him. What it meant was no running for awhile and I was restricted to the pool. I immediately jumped into the pool and began training, something I’ve had a lot of experience with. Some of you may be reading this and remember one of my post entitled, “Patience is a Virtue.” Well it’s true but for some reason I wasn’t listening to my own medicine. Instead of taking the time off during the fall, I ran through the pain and caused things to be worse in the long run. I would love to say, what if, blah, blah, blah. But the fact is, I ran through it, caused something else and now am forced to the sidelines. Just another thing to overcome and build through. It’s definitely not something I haven’t done in the past.

Where am I now? It’s now been just over 2 months since I tore my plantar and I’ve been on the Alter-G treadmill for the last 3 weeks training and running at 75%. I started my first day on the treadmill at 30%, so I’ve come pretty far in a relatively short period of time. Before this, I was spending my mornings in the pool doing workouts and my afternoons on the bike. I managed to, once again, stay pretty fit while in the pool and when I was finally able to get on the Alter-G, this made running that much easier. I’ve been doing some pretty incredible workouts on this machine. It’s been a big savior for me and has helped me come back from this injury while running through it and slowly increasing my body weight based on how my foot feels. Basically, how I do my runs is by heart rate and I’ve managed to do workouts maxing my heart rate at 201. I don’t know how the Alter-G translates to running on the ground but if it’s pretty close then I should be looking pretty once I am finally running at 100% (which is hopefully this Monday).

So once again, I am overcoming small barriers to reach a final goal but who doesn’t. Life throws things at us all the time and it’s those who can overcome them that prosper. Like the saying goes, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

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