"you're such a heel..."

I've had two visits with the new physical therapist so far.

I'm not horribly impressed, but I'm not dissapointed either.

She does seem to know what she's doing, but for someone who advertises as a 'sports therapist', she seem woefully uninformed about endurance sports. Now, I don't expect her to know the esoteric minutia regarding bicycle biomechanics, but I would have thought she would have been aware of the concept of clipless pedals. Still, she seems very confident about the nature, cause, and cure regarding my injury. So off we go....

One of the first things she picked up on was a drastic difference in pronation between my left and right foot. The right is far more severe. more on this later.

She noted that, the tear on the achilles probably came bout as a result of the short-term increase in calf strength since I significantly upped my running milage, and that if it weren't for that, my calf muscles would have cramped and seized way before I stressed the tendons. Apparently, my two decades of cycling left my legs pretty well matched in so far as my body letting me know what was going on.

Now for the feet. Since my feet have started to pronate so badly, it's putting an extra strain on the achilles, sort of twisting them out at the bottom. Now, I've never needed any corrective inserts, she's telling me I should have started with them a few years ago. The added twist at the tendon is not only preventing proper healing, but exacerbating the problem.

So, onto Superfeet. I'm probably going to need all new cycling shoes (road and mtn) since all my shoes are quite comfortable with a thin sock, and the new inserts are going to take up some space. But, let me get these, and I'll see if they fit.