It's Not You Mr. Shoe, It's Me!!

Well it has been two months.  Two months of shoe shopping, returning, frustration, tears, and the like.  And how did it end, like most relationships, it ended with the age old phrase "its not you its me."  That is apparently what the podiatrist told me.  To sum it up, the pain I have been having, has not been really coming from the shoes, from some shoes yes maybe, but for the most part it is me that is the problem,  of course (raise your hand if you already knew this).

Today, I saw my podiatrist and he admitted that we were probably thwarted into thinking it was the shoes, but in reality it was just plain old me, go figure.  So Steph, you say, get to the point, what's wrong?  Nothing too bad really.  I am just weak. Yup you have it, I am a weakling.  After a few simple strength tests, it was clear that my post interior tendon is lagging in the strength department.

Essentially here and downward 

This then causes the pain in the right ankle area thereby causing me to lift my foot and create pain by my big toe.  This pain may be accentuated when I lengthen my stride and thus running on the treadmill, where my stride is shorter, might be the reason why I have no or less pain on the treadmill.

My podiatrist offered a few suggestions to solve this problem...

Solution 1: strengthen (of course).  Now, it is not that I have not been doing that at PT but my podiatrist says I need to be hitting this much much harder, every day until fatigue.

Pretty hi-tech hmmm?

Solution 2:  Shorten my stride outside.  I am a little nervous about this one. It might help my foot, but what will it do to my knee and IT Band let alone how I even do this in the first place.

Solution 3: The Pose Method.  The Pose Method was created by a Russian scientist in 1970s and is a method of running whereby you are leaning forward from your ankles and your body is in an S-Like shape.  You are pulling or lifting up from the heals and the ball of your foot is landing under your body.

Ok so after looking at these options, Solution 1 is probably the best for me right now. I plan to talk to the PT about it tomorrow but for now off to do some strengthening exercises.

Has anyone every heard of the Pose Method or have thoughts about shortening your stride?