Almost there?

My last post, I was bummed. The thoughts had crossed my mind that my season might be finished (almost before it began). But after the surprising effects of taping up my foot for a couple days, as well as modifying mowing the lawn (split into two days, with taped up feet) - I found that Monday morning my heel was not nearly as sore as it was the previous week. In other words, while I may have mildly aggravated it during the weekends activities, it didn't get nearly as aggravated as it had on other weekends.

This week I also scheduled an appointment with a sports medicine doctor, but that appt isn't until June 1. Given the progress I've seen this week, I think there's only a 50/50 chance I'll end up continuing with that appointment. It may seem silly to ditch an appointment (and the potential subsequent PT and exercises that would follow), but my reasoning is simple: Upon reflection, I have little reason to believe my issue is PF that has developed under typical conditions where it develops. While the end result may be the same (overuse of the tendons in the heel and general tendonitis), the cause came about because of a completely different reason: that I was trying to land on and use the front part of my foot almost exclusively while running over the past few months. This was such a radical departure from my typical form that of course it overstrained certain parts of my body when I didn't give it a chance to build up strength. Since my old form has served me well for so many years (I was just trying to eek out a bit more performance), I believe I can fully attribute this issue to doing too much, using a new form, too fast. So I'll keep the appt on the calendar, and see how things are over the next week before cancelling.

Also this week, I did some further research into how to tape up the foot to relieve even more stress from the tendon during the recovery process. So the past couple days I've done that (which involves some taping on the underside of the foot in a criss cross pattern). Earlier this week I was feeling around the heel and found a knot of what I believe to be the inflammation - as it was very similar feeling to the inflammation the doctor found when I went in for the IT band last year. So the past few days, I've been massaging that knot of inflammation to try and stimulate blood flow. It is not directly under the heel, but rather off to the side. The location is another reason for me to believe this isn't precisely a case of PF. This morning I stepped out of bed and felt very little, if no, soreness on the heel. That is an indication to me that the massaging, heat, and taping have been effective.

Yesterday I also snuck in a short (like, 10 minutes) run while walking the dogs in the woods, on the taped up foot. I just wanted to see if my heel would be more sore today than it was yesterday. Since I woke up with no soreness, I dont think I did much, if any, new damage. So tomorrow I may try a short 10-15 minutes around the neighborhood and see what happens.