ThinkRunning

Today my wife and I have been mostly practicing Pose drills (you may have to register to view but it’s free), skipping and running up and down the garden path in my socks. I think the neighbours are getting used to me now! I feel like I haven’t really put as much into my drills and everything needed to support my running to be honest. I never realised quite how much strong feet and ankles are required to run properly. I also never realised quite how week mine were! It is through years of wearing ‘comfortable’ shoes that I find myself in this situation.

If your shoes ‘support’ your feet then the tiny muscles in them get weaker and weaker until you can’t really use tham that well. Without strong feet, try to run on ball of foot and you will run like a cripple – or end up feeling like one within a week or two if you just run and train like I did. Do bear in mind that you should relax the ankle though and not go up too high on to your toes. The body weight should be on the balls of your feet.

I am learning that you just can’t rush these things. I looked on the Web for some good foot exercises, yes they are what dancers do and my opinion is that these are a good thing to do!  I did some to curls too  using a 4kg kettlebell to hook my toes under with my legs crossed as shown in the image.

I did twenty repetitions of this exercise which is supposed to strengthen the extensor tendons and muscles and get rid of pain at the top of the foot caused by weakness. Be careful though because pain at the top of the foot can be anything such as tendonitis or even a stress fracture! Get chronic pain checked out by a podiatrist or doctor. Having had a stress fracture, I am very aware of the structures in the foot and I kow what I can and cannot do with mine. Only you know how your feet feel.

I shall continue to keep the running miles low now to give my feet chance to recover. I will have a go at my double marathons (White Peak and Windermere) next week trusting in the 1100 miles or so of training I have already done this year to get me through. I just hope my feet hold out! I am fully prepared to pull out of either race though if I have any trouble.