Chaire Herodikos Selymbriaios!

Hey Aaron, sorry about your foot! I read a couple of your other days and you said you were stretching your achilles more than your calf muscle. How can you tell a difference? Anything I should know when I go to stretch?

Also said you wished you had nipped the arch pain in the bud. What would you have done? I have a little sharp pain developing right where my arch meets the ball of my foot--just behind the knuckle of the big toe on the bottom. I'm also getting used to new shoes, though, so I have been ignoring it. Any advice?

Hi Lybi. Not super-impressed with the quality of my advice at the moment, especially with so many other experienced runners around! But for whatever little it's worth, I would never ignore foot pain, especially if you've just gotten new shoes. Instead of wall leans, try a few reps of the following stretch: extend the leg fully and grasp the end of the foot, as close to the ball as you're comfortably able (if you're not too flexible you may want to loop a belt around the arch). Gently pull the front of the foot toward the shin. Hold for twenty or thirty seconds. It turns out that arch pain (when there's not an underlying orthopedic problem) is often an outcome of tightness in the calves. This stretch helps me a lot when the foot aches. If it doesn't work, try soaking the foot, or experimenting with a different pair of shoes--even good shoes are sometimes not right for someones running style (for example, you may tend to turn your foot inward). But if you're getting a sharp pain in your foot running on it may not be the right thing to do.

I was stretching the achilles with the leg bent, which put a lot of stress on the tendon and didn't do much for the calf. If I'd done the dorsiflexion that I described above I have a feeling I'd be a lot better off. I noticed tightness or achiness in the arch back in March, but figured it was just something I'd have to get over. Instead it was early signs of fsciitis.