Pool Running to Relax the Calfs?

On Tuesday, I did some pool running. I warmed up for 5 minutes and then did 1/2 lap fast and hard and the other 1/2 easy. I continued this for about 20 minutes. I felt somewhat tired or wore out so I just did some steady running for the remainder of the 45 minutes. When I was getting dressed I remembered to stretch. As I started to stretch my calfs, wow, were they ever relaxed. This is very unusual, these things are normally very tight.

Today was my last physio appointment. There are no signs of sore shins. One of the tests my therapist performs every time I see her is to lift my toes up, this time they went up far and easily. She looked quite surprised. I think that the pool running helped. Now I will continue to try and go it on my own, as she suggested, I did not request it. I will continue the strengthening, stretching, massaging and x-training, while I SLOWLY increase my mileage.

One of the things that I am puzzled about is the orthotics issue. A podiatrist that I see in London and a Sport Medicine doctor that I have been seeing in Toronto both indicate that orthotics are generally more necessary for people with flat feet. What they do not agree on is the type my foot is. The one says it is a medium to high arch and the other says it is low. I have heard from so many sources that orthotics are really necessary for people with flat feet. My foot is by no means flat when there is no weight bearing on it. When I stand on it, the arch does flatten, but does it flatten enough to call it flat footed? I think I need to do some research on this issue over the next 2 weeks and determine for myself if this will help reduce the chance of injury as well as the overstriding. I do not want to fork out $450 for something that is not going to help or maybe worse, cause more problems, because it modifies something that is incorrectly diagnosed.

Today I ran with some people from the local running store. My Garmin says we ran 6.4km and 2 others said 7.3 to 7.4km. Strange. The time was about 47:19. Very slow, but good, because again, there is no inflammation in the shins. It's funny how the tape was suppose to help prevent the shins from flaring up, and now without it, they really don't. Even though I feel like I am not going too fast at or just below 5:00/km pace before, it's becoming very obvious that it was, right now at this stage. Tomorrow I will stick to the plan and do some pool running.