I’d noticed at Bamburgh that the balls of my feet were starting to rub – and blamed the running through the streams across the beaches giving me wet socks (I’d like to think I was skipping lightly across the water, hair flowing behind me in the breeze but I know it was more of a panting plod), then when I did a long run along the Derwent Walk last weekend I decided it was the distance – and how wonderfully sweaty my feet were getting – and blamed my socks being too thick. I normally wear moderately thick gym socks, I have no idea what they are made of but thought I’d try some different ones – so I bought some of these. They’re not here yet, hopefully some time this week 🙂
Then, J and I did a 5km on Sunday – and they still rubbed slightly on the inside of the ball of my feet – so it wasn’t the water, and it wasn’t the distance, and it probably wasn’t the socks as I’ve been wearing the same type (not the same pair I hasten to add) almost since I started running. So, it must be the shoes! I’ve seen the recommendations plastered across the internet about distance covered before changing shoes etc., and I’ve seen it poo-poo’ed by people training for marathons and ultras who would need new shoes every 6 weeks if they obeyed that (so much for running being a cheap hobby huh?!). I also knew my shoes were nowhere near this limit. I hadn’t bothered changing the default shoe life on mapmyrun’s gear tracker, and I’m not even halfway through it on my road running shoes.
644km is about 400 miles, and condition-wise my shoes themselves look fine. Not their original colour as you’ll see in a minute, but fine. I thought I’d let my inner science nerd out to experiment as to what the difference was. I had cunning concepts about it being the insoles. Maybe I could just change the insoles instead of the whole shoe? How much of my shoe’s cushioning comes from the shoe design and how much from fancy insoles? I love my Brooks Glycerin 11’s – so much so that when I saw them in my size in the end of season sale at Sweatshop I actually bought another pair to hide away in a cupboard for when these ones finally died. I thought I’d look at the difference between the new insoles and the old ones, maybe I’d worn a hole through the lining or something. I got as far as taking the old insoles out – the root of all my problems? A small collection of fluff – probably from those lovely padded fluffy socks I wear – that had collected into a roll on the edge of the insole right where the ball of my foot was, in both shoes.
I didn’t bother going any further in my hunting for insole differences between old and new…I’ll find out tomorrow when I’m out with the Run England group again if this has fixed it, but it seems stupid and straight-forward enough that I think that’s probably it. Talk about anti-climatic!
I had to get my new trainers out the box, just out of curiosity to see what the difference was compared with my trusty dusties. I think my current ones can be described as slightly green-tinged! They’re also, for me, a more attractive trainer shape, having curved upwards at the ball of the foot and out at the tongue where I’ve been pounding the pavement in them.
Having done a fair amount of running this weekend, and expecting a fast, moderately long and possibly horribly hilly run tomorrow, I did a workout at home tonight – in the ‘used’ pair of trainers above! The new ones have been relegated back to their box for some time I suspect 🙂
I tried the same two workouts as last week, but for a much longer duration – I completed my old faithful routine three times, with the new one twice – interspersed between. I changed the order of the new workout quite a bit to do all the slower exercises at the start (and I changed the order of these too otherwise I ended up with several arm exercises in one go and my poor triceps would have turned to jelly!), and then went onto the faster ones before going back to my original routine again.
The first routine also got stepped up in intensity – 15 reps of the big muscle group exercises, and one of the arm exercises – the dumbell shoulder press got cranked up to 15 reps too. The new workout I tried with the 1.5kg weights this time instead of the 1kg ones, and one or two exercises in set 4 were done with the 2kg’s where I picked up the wrong set…subconsciously keen perhaps?!
Time: 45 mins + warm-up/stretches
Equipment: 2kg hand weights
- Sets 1, 3 & 5
- 10x Dumbbell Bent Over Row
- 10x Dumbbell Lunges – each side
- 10x Dumbbell Triceps Kickback – each side
- 15x Crunches – straight and each side obliques
- 15x Dumbbell Shoulder Press
- 15x Dumbbell Squats
- 15x Kneeling Side Leg Lift – each side
- 15x Toe Taps
Equipment: 1.5kg hand weights
- Set 2 & 4
- 50x weighted running arms
- 10x V-sits
- 10x overhead triceps extension
- 10x weighted ABC calf raises – straight, pigeon-toed and plié
- 10x single-arm bent-over row – each side
- 10x squat jumps
- 10x and 20x jogging bum kicks
- 20x and 20x jogging high knees
I managed this time to do 10x V-sits each set, and there was a short hold though I’m not sure it would show up as much of one on a stop-watch!
For now, I’m feeling pretty good – I’ll find out how much I’m paying for it tomorrow morning I’m sure.
Blue Runnings 
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