It was a beautiful day. But I stayed indoors to assess the new orthotic set up. I thought about bringing myPod along to distract me from the monontony of running on the treadmill. He hasn’t had much activity lately – only playing the YaYa Hall interview for me on my drive to work earlier this week.
But today, distraction was the last thing that I needed. I would only have this one run to evaluate whether I should wear my orthotics with the new metatarsal pad setup was working. I at least needed to figure out if they were working enough use them in the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon this Sunday.
I wasn’t even through the first mile before I began feeling a familiar discomfort. It wasn’t my either of my feet. Instead the lateral and posterior aspect of my left shin (or perhaps my calf) felt tenderness with every step. The last time that I wore these shoes was the last time that I experienced of this feeling. That was last Friday. I referred to it as calf pain but it is the same. I suspect that it is the result of the shoes being done as this is what I usually feel as I approach 250-300 miles. The only problem is that my shoe mileage is nowhere near that point.
The tenderness seemed to disappear at times, but perhaps that was my imagination. I actually felt it more when I was running at a slower pace. After I finished out my 4 mile run, I stretched and rolled my calves and shins on the foam roller.
The good part of this story is that my feel seemed to tolerate the hard orthotics fine. I feel good to go with them for the half marathon but my shoe situation is another story. The timing for new shoes really sucks.
Now, I am in a bit of dilemma. I have a new pair of these shoes in my van. They are the same shoes that I have been wearing only a 1/2 size larger. With the new plan, I don’t need the extra room. Additionally, I wasn’t all that impressed with them so I was thinking that I would take them back. The question is: What do I try out next?
21stCenturyMom says
I would wear whatever you had on your feet the last 2 times you ran 13 miles in the open space. That seemed to go okay so go with that.
darrell says
I really feel for you with all these issues with your feet, but I’m really wondering if one run on the treadmill with the latest setup is really enough to tell if it’s going to work out or not. If you didn’t have the half coming up, I’d suggest giving it a little longer before making another change. I’m sure you’ll figure this out eventually. Good luck.
waddler26.2 says
I have no answer but wish you the best of luck. I’ll be thinking about your run on SUnday!