Healing

I am supposed to be starting stage 2, explained here, today, but since my feet still hurt I had to refrain from running. I really wanted to, but I don't want to hurt myself more and set myself back more. Darn.

I tried to run outside on the asphalt, but my feet were still hurting, so I stopped before I hurt myself more.

I did however try running in place to 200 steps per minute. This felt surprisingly different than my previous barefoot running experiences. I noticed I placed a lot of the force on my fourth and fifth metatarsals as opposed to it being on my first and second. I also noticed the muscles on the bottom of my foot working harder than before. I tried to be as loosy goosey as possible.

After about 10 minutes of running to the 200 bpm cadence, my feet hurt. I stretched and stretched and stretched, essentially following these stretches. After all that stretching the tennis ball trick made my feet feel so much better. I am not experiencing top-of-the-foot pain yet... kind of waiting on it. I need to stretch more before and after my runs though. I need to force myself to do this!

Tomorrow I have an 8 hour drive, then rafting Sunday. I might blog those days, might not.