Ok, here's the story

A lot has happened since June.

A lot.

Not the least of which I bought a house and moved.  That put a kink in everything.  I also lost my means of measuring progress, which means I lost interest in making progress.  Which means I not only quit making progress, but I actually gave up hard fought ground.

But now almost all of the dust has settled.  We've settled into the house.  Much of the "happenings" have stopped happening.  I've gotten a new scale.  I've even seen a podiatrist about this nagging foot injury...
About that injury.

Last July I twisted my ankle.  That led to a change in my gait which caused a retro calcaneal spur and inflammation of my Achilles tendon.  Consequently I scaled back my marathon training and "only" ran a half marathon.  I hung up the shoes until March when I took a short run, which turned out to be a big mistake.  It revealed that my Achilles still was a bit tender, but I had also developed an ache on the bottom of my foot.  I decided to rest through the summer and let it get right.  The Achilles feels fine, but that pain in the bottom of my foot nagged and nagged and nagged.  It was a kind of slow, dull, aching pain, like a bruise.  I accommodated the pain and ignored it, but it didn't go away.  Finally I decided to do something about it.  I looked into various foot ailments, and sure enough, even though I've heard plantar fascaitis described as sharp, hot, needle-like pain in the bottom of the foot, this, too, fit the bill.  I take it to the primary doc who suggests the typical physical stuff that we all know to do--stretch, ice, rest, massage--and it wasn't getting better.  In fact, on some days it was worse.  A month goes by and I take it back, and she sends me to a podiatrist.

The same podiatrist that wanted to put me in orthotics when the Achilles thing was acting up.  The same podiatrist that I had told that I didn't want orthotics then and I still don't want orthotics now.  But it was a different ailment, I figured it'd be a different treatment.

Nope.

Dude asks me to describe the pain on a scale of 1 to 10.  I tell him that it's not unbearable, but there are mornings when I can't put any weight on the foot for a couple of steps.  Then it stretches out and relaxes and I can go about my business until after about 5 or so steps and it pretty much goes away.

"Well, we don't give shots until the pain is a 7 or more."

What??!!!???  You base you decision to give shots to take away the pain on a subjective description of pain?  

"Take this night splint, and come back if it doesn't go away, and we'll fit you with some orthotics."

"Doc, I don't want orthotics.  I want my feet to WORK PROPERLY!  I don't need orthotics for the right foot, it's fine.  I want the left foot to be fine, too.  Just make the pain go away so I can walk normally again.  Is that too much to ask?"

Apparently it is too much to ask.  But I shouldn't be surprised.  You go to a hammer store, they try to sell you hammers.

So, I'm going to promptly, and naturally, ignore him.  I tried using the splint and it was SUCH a pain in the ass.  I could barely sleep and it came off after about an hour.  We'll see if it gets much more use.

Meanwhile, I'm going to work on the old mechanics, strengthening and stretching the muscles and tendons of the lower leg and foot to try and get this thing working right.  Worst case scenario the pain doesn't go away and I tell the doc "it's a 8" on the magical subjective pain scale.  Best case scenario is that my feet and legs get back to working like feet and legs have evolved to work and I can call the doc and tell him to stuff his magic shoes up his ass.