Trails!

Hope the quadballer is helping. For minimalism, I like the Saucony Kinvara...but there are a lot of new shoes out there too. As it gets warmer, you can try barefoot in grass too.

I use the quadballer 1-2 times a day. It is brutal, but I think it is helping. Hard to tell. I will keep at it.

I think after a week or so of blasting your quad muscles you will start to notice a difference there...keep it up.

Glad to hear it felt fine on your 2nd mile jaunt on your 'toes'. One thought regarding that is that more important than your heals barely touching the ground, is that your cadence is fast even at a slow running pace. At first when I changed my stride I focused on landing on my forefoot, and it benefited my IT immediately but detrimented my calves. Then I learned of the importance of taking at a minimum 180 steps per minute, and I found that piece of advice among the most helpful that I ever learned. The quicker your steps, the less impact each one puts on your body. And also, if you focus on increasing your cadence to 180-200 steps per minute, it will almost force you to land in an optimal, minimal impact way.

You may already be running with that quick of a cadence. But you should count it out for 10 or 15 seconds and see where you are naturally. If you find that you're not taking at least 180 steps per minute all the time, I believe it would be very helpful to focus on increasing that. For me, it felt pretty weird at first, because I used to run with about 150 steps per minute, which meant I always landed with my heal way out in front of my body. Now, whether I'm going 10 min/15 min/ or 5 min pace, My cadence is never less than about 185 steps per minute. I tried running at 150 once recently and now that feels completely unnatural and weird.

I counted last night and was between 190 and 200. So my cadence was pretty high naturally.

Well that's good. I guess that partially would explain how you ran so much last year without getting hurt. Seems pretty likely that your current injury is probably just due to racing hard and long on not enough training due to the last injury. Possibly a negative side effect of cramming?

And now, unfortunately I'm out of magic tricks! But I hope this thing eases off for you soon with the quad balling and rest.

Bummer, I was hoping for a miracle! Isn't there a magic pill that will make it all better?

You might try the local palm reader...I hear she really knows her stuff. She might be able to connect you with the magic pill people.