Greetings all. I've been barefooting for about 3 months now and I really love it. Prior to this, I was running 3 to 5 miles 3 to 5 times a week in sneakers. In the spring I trained for a 5K and did pretty well, but my back and knees were getting pretty achy and a buddy who runs barfoot/or in vibrams got me interested. In retrospect, i started out wrong: in vibrams, ramping up to 2 miles in a couple of weeks...and my calves were killing me. Anyway, for the past month I've been trying to do it right...barefoot, much shorter distances, taking days off.
But here's the thing: about 3 years ago, when i was running in sneakers and in pretty good shape, the combination of a sprint and a pothole led to a pretty bad rupture of the medial head of my left gastrocnemius. Ever since, I've had a divot, and a retracted ball of muscle, whihc I'd estimate, is about a quarter of the mass of the medial head. After it healed, I got back to running and it never gave me a problem. When I started barefooting though, whenever I try to start increasing the distance or speed, I get a pain in the soleus muscle (which I guess is trying to compensate) right below the old injury. I'm assuming I just have to build up realllllly slowly, but I wonder if anybody has dealt with this and has some insight/suggestions/reassurance ?
Thanks
But here's the thing: about 3 years ago, when i was running in sneakers and in pretty good shape, the combination of a sprint and a pothole led to a pretty bad rupture of the medial head of my left gastrocnemius. Ever since, I've had a divot, and a retracted ball of muscle, whihc I'd estimate, is about a quarter of the mass of the medial head. After it healed, I got back to running and it never gave me a problem. When I started barefooting though, whenever I try to start increasing the distance or speed, I get a pain in the soleus muscle (which I guess is trying to compensate) right below the old injury. I'm assuming I just have to build up realllllly slowly, but I wonder if anybody has dealt with this and has some insight/suggestions/reassurance ?
Thanks
