A real pain in the plantaris

I went out for a recovery run this morning. I've pulled up a bit sore after yesterday's run - especially in the my new pet area to worry about, my plantaris muscle. My hip is behaving itself, it gets a bit sore sometimes but it's definitely improving. My achilles, too, is behaving well.

Today is Christmas present shopping day. Guess what I'm getting? Running shoes of course. One pair for training and a pair for racing, which I'll start using in mid-January so they're just nicely worn in for the marathon in February. I still want to buy some spikes, but I don't think the budget will stretch to three pairs of shoes.

I watched a great video on Abebe Bikila last night, it shows in slow motion how he ran a marathon in barefeet - with good closeups of his action. The link is here: www.juanjosemartinez.com.mx/Bikila.html