I’d noticed some pain after yesterday’s workout that didn’t get much better over the course of a crazy shift where I was running around work and putting out little emotional fires here and there. I did 28K steps yesterday and didn’t get as much sleep as I’d hoped when I woke up this morning. Now in addition to a recurring pain on the outside of that foot, I have a matching pain in my right temple. That told me I’d better take it a bit easy today and just save my walking around for my work shift tonight.

I’m restless, though, and wish I could do some miles on the elliptical, but I know I shouldn’t. Instead, I got to thinking about how many miles I’m going to have to do per week in the next few weeks, how to safely increase them, and how to keep healthy and safe while doing my first “road runs” next week.

That got me thinking: are there strength training exercises or stretches I can do that would strengthen my feet?

It felt like a silly question at first, because when you actually take time to rub and feel your feet, you mostly feel skin and bones on top with lumpy skin covering the bottom. I mean, what are the muscles in your foot even called?

But it makes sense that if you have foot pain, it’s not your bones feeling it, but the muscles and tendons that have been stretched, bruised, etc. But we tend to take them for granted that they work and don’t think about how to strengthen them beyond just walking like normal… unless we get hurt.

So, I went looking and found some feet (and ankle, definitely need to help my ankles, too) strengthening exercises and (even better) a YouTube video that’s got some anatomy mixed in so I know what the heck they’re talking about when it comes to certain muscles. Yeah, leg day is gonna take more of a priority the next few months, that’s for sure:

Then there’s this article which has given me some more to work on and think about because I have fallen arches and the foot pain I have now it likely because of that and the amount of miles I’ve been doing lately.

The need to strengthen my feet (and how the calf muscles interact with said feet) are probably why I’ve had so many little pains that felt like I was going to get a charley horse at any moment. My feet weren’t up to spec and that little tremor indicating a seizing muscle (even when I’ve had plenty of potassium and other minerals meant to prevent such things) makes more sense now.

I will definitely be paying more attention this weekend as I bring my anatomy book to work for the slower periods. I won’t be able to walk as much because of the headache that’s going to drive me into a short nap before shift. It’s nice to know there are SOME things I can take care of myself, if I get educated enough, and it’ll stave off questions because I’m clearly in “study mode.”

Well, I’ll be working on these exercises tomorrow morning when I hope to resume some miles on the machines.