Touring - fixed touring = sore achilles

So a buddy and I decided to try out touring and route from his house just east Little Rock to mine in eastern Mississippi. Our plan was to do it in six days immediately after relaying the Little Rock Marathon. Well the weather was great for the marathon. Came a flood the next day, Monday, so we delayed our departure and came up with a shorter path through Arkansas. Of course it was snowing the next morning, a whole 3 inches which is the second most I have ever seen. We delayed our departure until 11am and got on the road. The first day to Brinkley, AR was great. The scenery was beautiful, a contrast of flooding with a nice sprinkling of snow. On our second day we fought horrible head winds all day long and it seemed that by riding fixed my momentum helped me continue through the wind. We ended the day crossing the Mississippi at Helena on a horrible narrow bridge and staying at the Isle of Capri right in Mississippi. After hitting the welcome center in Mississippi we rerouted again to attempt to keep ahead of another approaching storm front. We pushed 80 miles through the Delta into where the hills of Mississippi start to camp. We got a couple hours of sleep, mostly before the hours long wind storm that started at 10pm. It was followed by a few hours of heavy rain and then another few hours of wind. We woke up to temps below freezing after rolling into camp with just shorts and a jerseys on. This was the day riding fixed caught up with me. My achilles in both legs were sore and kept clicking. We made it a painful 30 miles to the first decent sized town, Bruce, MS, and decided to call in for a pickup before storm #3 caught up with us. All together we managed 233 miles over 4 days, calling for help with 50 left instead of following our more leisurely 6 day plan.

I learned that staying in hotels is way easy. Also learned that fixed gear (new 38t chainring brought it down to 66 gear inches) on flat ground, even in a horrible headwind works great but next time I may tryout my freewheel side (59 gear inches) in the hills to give my achilles a rest on the downhill coasts. I also got to see snow in Little Rock and also snow on my house when we made it here. Also teaches me not to tour in March because the weather is nuts.

Anyway my trusty '77 Raleigh Supercourse is also my commuter bike and I have been having issues this week with pain in the ankles. Switched to the freewheel side today and things are much better.

Our Route (http://toporoute.com/cgi-bin/getSavedRoute.cgi?routeKey=NYTYPSDGKPTLPXB)

Touring fixed has always seemed like a bad idea to me. I ride both, but i would never think about riding 125 K fixed in a day.

I've had achilles problems in the past. What helped was to try not to pedal toes down as much. Stretching never hurts, too.

The seat is too high if there is Achilles pain on any bike. It is not FG specific.

lots of stretching and hydrating for achilles. Also worth focusing on keeping your feet at right angles to your shins, both pedalling and while just sitting idly at a table or whatever.