The Day of the Iguana and Gorilla Feet

While walking around the resort, we came upon a large family of iguanas. Later, we found a few of them at the end of the beach.  They are funny critters.  One came right up to me and looked at me expectantly.  I suspect he had been fed by people.  They eat leaves and are nice lizards unless scared, then they use their long tail as a whip.  On the beach, an obnoxious non-English speaker got a long stick and started hassling the poor lizard.  I don't know why some people are mean to peaceful animals.  I objected but it made no difference to him.  Don't know why the movie said night of the iguana - they only seem to be out during the day.

Guard Iguanas

I've been suffering from plantar fasciatis for a long time now.  Several years ago, I had it and consistent stretching resolved it over many months but that seems to do nothing for it now.  There are some people who think that the pain comes from inflamation and that you shouldn't stretch the inflamed fascia as that would aggravate it.  There are also a bunch of annecdotal claims of people getting it to go away with barefoot walking and running.  The theory is that our feet are far too coddled in modern shoes and have gotten very weak.  Since nothing seems to be working, I decided to try it out.

I found some Fila water shoes with 4 toe pockets for $20 at one of the discount shoe stores so I thought that was plenty cheap enuf to test it out.  Unfortunately, it got very cold at home so I haven't been wearing them much.  I was trying to change my walking gait with shorter steps and strike on the mid foot instead of the heel as I've been doing my whole life and wearing soft slippers around the house for the last month and toe exercises to strengthen the feet.

The reviews on the Fila are not terrific.  People like the Vibrams five fingers much better but they are very expensive.  They say the Filas are not flexible enuf in the sole and the combining the pinkie and 4th toe is weird.  But this is an experiment for me and it is close enuf to test out the theory.  You have to give it a few months to build up the strength in the foot and get your body used to it.

This week in St Thomas, I've been beach walking fully barefoot and using the Fila shoes the rest of the time.   They have been working well and my feet are less sore and are a bit more flexible than at the beginning of the week.  So I'm hopeful that this might help.

My sister started calling me Gorilla Feet.  They would be a bit less weird looking if they didn't put contrasting material around the toes. Every now and then someone looks at them but says nothing.  Probably on the principle that if you have nothing nice to say, best to say nothing. :-)