Foot updates and new shoes

I saw a new physical therapist who specializes in working with runners and he gave me some good feedback. By the time I saw him my foot wasn't hurting that much and he said I was probably at the tail end of recovering from tendinitis. He showed me how to tape my foot to give it some better support. I think it helped, but I haven't had a chance to buy my own Kinesio tape yet. Maybe this weekend. I took a lot of photos of my leg and foot as a reminder of how to do it myself, although I'm still a little worried about getting it right.

As I ease back into regular running I'm supposed to follow a progression of first increasing my mileage, then adding in hills, and finally speed work. I've been sticking to the high school track for all of my runs over the last week since it's a soft, flat surface. Some people probably equate running laps around a track to be about as boring as running on a treadmill, but personally I've never minded the track. Tonight I ran 7 miles with the last 4 or so in the rain. There were puddles starting to build up by the time I finished.

One other thing I talked to the physical therapist about was shoes. I told him that I've been running in stability shoes for about the last four years before switching over to neutral shoes in February. I'd been worried that maybe the change in shoes had an effect on my injury. But he said that the Brooks Defyance are good shoes for me and that I don't need stability or motion control shoes. I was glad to hear that because I didn't really want to retire the Defyance shoes after only 100 miles. He also mentioned that he wouldn't recommend minimalist shoes for me right now, but that I could probably make the switch over sometime down the road.

I asked about using minimalist shoes for just walking and he said that should be fine and a good way to ease into them. That was good to hear because I just bought a new pair of Brooks PureFlow shoes!

With my upcoming trip to Walt Disney World, I thought it would be a good idea to try touring the parks in something other than flip flops. Although it's never really seemed to affect my race performance, I have noticed in the past that my legs feel more fatigued from walking around the parks in non-supportive shoes than they do from running 13.1 miles. So the new shoes are going to serve as cute walking shoes for awhile and then I'll eventually transition them into running shoes.

I had been planning to get the PureFlow in white and purple, but REI doesn't sell that color combination and I wanted to use my 20% member coupon. I've never owned any shoes this bright before, but they're definitely starting to grow on me.