Doc Report

The free clinic by the podiatrist was today. I was there early as promised. The first thing the doc did when he took a look at my foot was make fun of my flat feet. Then he teased me because of my extremely inflexible, well, everything. I don't bend very well. "Relax your feet," he says. "They are relaxed!!!" "No, really, relax them." "That's as relaxed as they're gonna get!" Then he took one look at my achilles and said that if I didn't already have achilles problems, I would have them eventually. Sheeesh! Apparently my achilles are very thin as achilles go. My one saving grace in that regard is my tiny-ness. :-)

He did a lot of palpating of my foot, paying special attention to the heel and achilles area. None of his manipulation caused any pain - good news. He said the problem I described was achilles related but that I wasn't in danger of rupture any time soon - better news. I got the A-OK to continue my training! YAY!!!!!

And to top it all off, he gave me his card, told me he has an ongoing study using some sort of ultrasound machine as a treatment aid, and if I continue to have achilles problems, he would include me in the study and my exams and treatments would be free of charge. WOW!

All in all, it was a great way to end an otherwise so-so day. My day at work was horrendously boring - we had two appointments from 8 - 1 pm. TWO! And one was a suture removal which took all of 3 minutes - snip, snip, his incision is healing perfectly and have a nice day. We didn't even get any money off of it because suture removals are courtesy (as long as we did the surgery). The other appointment was a cranky brat kitty with a mysteriously high white blood cell count. It still only took about 30 minutes and most of that was the doctor talking to the client. Zzzzz...

Then I went to the gym for my second run since my hiatus. It didn't go as well as Sunday and I started to get depressed again. Though there wasn't any outright pain in my heel, I could feel some tightness and these random pin-prick sensations which worried me. I did a 10 minute brisk walk warm-up and stretched before running even! The run itself was very slow and I slowed down to walk periodically as Pat suggested. The whole run felt "off", and not just because of my heel. I felt clumsy and awkward, like I'd lost all my form. When I reached about 4-5 miles, my legs really started aching. Three weeks ago I did 16 miles with no discomfort and now I can barely do 6. After my run, I carefully stretched again, did my core and upper body workout and then went to see the doc. That's when things finally started going my way. :-)

So now I'm sitting at home, waiting for Matty to return. Hopefully he'll bring dessert. He was supposed to bring it yesterday and FORGOT!! Are you reading this, Mr. Antoniou!? I want tiramisu!!

Meow