My Left Foot

One thing that I have been having a lot of trouble with, yet have not really written about, is my left foot. It starts giving me trouble at about 2 miles, getting worse and worse until about the 6th mile or so where it becomes unbearable. The way I describe the sensation is as if my sock is folding up under the ball of my foot causing an irritating bump. This then turns into a tingling in my toes. The only thing I can do about it is to stop, take off my shoes, rub my foot for a minute, then put my shoes back on. This only provides temporary relief - maybe a mile or so - so you can imagine this doesn't help my times much.

I've talked to several people about this issue. Unfortunately it had not yet really become an issue on the one time I saw a podiatrist - I know now that he would have diagnosed the problem right away. Anyway, I mentioned it to my chiropractor (who is a runner), guys at running stores, and I even emailed a guy known as "The Sock Geek". Nobody knew what it could be.

As I wrote about in my last post, I fractured my elbow 2 weeks ago. When I went to the physical therapist I described the issue to her, and she said it sounded like a "neuroma". I looked it up and in the description it read that it "may feel as if you are standing on a pebble in your shoe or on a fold in your sock.". I felt like Charlie Brown talking to Psychologist Lucy: "THAT'S IT!".

So, according to what I read, the cause and the solution are very simple. Well, simple for most but not so much for me. See, the issue is that your shoes are too tight in the toebox. So, get wider shoes. Easy, right? Well, not so much for me. My show size already is 9 1/2 EEEE. That's right, quadruple-E. As far as I know there is only one running show made IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that is wider - a specific model of 6E New Balance running shoes.

Still, armed with this information I went to a really good local specialist running show store where I had gone in the past. They told me that the shoes I had been running in are definitely too tight. In fact I realized that this issue, while I had it with my old shoes as well, definitely got worse with this new pair. After trying on several pair we landed on the New Balance M1540. We also upped the size to 10. Interestingly, while this is the one model that goes to 6E, the 4E seemed to be fine for me. The thing is, these things look like friggin' paddle boats. They are about the ugliest running shoes I have every seen. I admonished my wife and daughter to not make fun of them But you know what? If they solve my problem then I could not care less what they look like.

Shoes or boats?

I'll be breaking them in this week and will report back in my next entry. Next week I'm only doing 4 miles but that should be enough for me to know if they are working. Then the weekend of the 23rd I am running the Stratton Faxon Half Marathon, so that will be the real test.

More to follow...