The Best Laid Plans…….

I’ve been delinquent in my postings the last couple of weeks.  This lingering heel pain has continued to be just that – lingering.  It became slightly worse and, as a result, I haven’t done any barefoot runs in the last couple of weeks.  I’ve been staying with my minimalist shoe runs hoping things would improve but they haven’t.  I’ll get on the table right away the fact that this heel pain is not a result of barefoot running.  In fact, one of the things that has attracted me to barefooting is using it as a way to strengthen the feet and help resolve this pain.  I developed really bad Plantar Fasciitis in 2008.  I got new (flexible) orthotics to help calm it down, with the intent of weaning myself off of those.  In Jan 2010 I successfully did that.  It’s this last bit of issue in my left foot I’m trying to eradicate.

I went to my Podiatrist yesterday and he is strongly recommending a sequence of ASTYM.  He said the Plantar Fascia on my problem foot is really tight.  I’m very enthused.  I’ve read a lot of great things about ASTYM.  After all the work and studying I’ve done around orthotics, foot strength, etc. I’m very interested to see how this goes.  One of the interesting aspects of the technique is they want you to do some level of activity while going through the process.  It helps retrain the tissue while it’s going through the healing process.  I’m going to have to leave it up to the PT as to what he recommends in that regard:  What type of activity and how much.

As somewhat of an aside I ended up talking to the Podiatrist about barefooting in general.  He was very supportive of it and thinks it makes sense.  He said his concern is when he sees people that think the form issues “fix themselves” when the shoes come off.

Jim