Middle Pack

This is the 2nd part of my series into changing running style. It will focus on the research around footwear, barefoot and minimal shoes vs motion control and cushioned fancy shoes. I will go into actual running technique in another post.

On delving round the internet I was quite amazed at the amount of peer reviewed articles out there in the public domain discussing this area. Most of it was not on the side of the big shoe companies.Much of this current interest can be traced to the book, Born to run by Christopher Mcdougall and recent research by Dr Craig Richards however this research has been in the public domain for many years and it is only with the publishing of a book with a good story i.e. Born to run that we the running public are catching up.

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I have been reading loads about running barefoot recently. Every way I turn someone seems to be saying that we are all running wrong. Heel strike is out and midfoot/forefoot is the new black. This is the magic cure to chronic foot and ankle injuries. So on that basis I thought I would try it to see what it is all about.

To make it a bit more interesting I thought I would do a series of posts about changing my running style. This was a huge long rambling post till I cut it down.  Hopefully I will make it an interesting resource for others who may be thinking about changing styles.

So what to do the day after a hard AL fell race? Well in our wisdom Andy and I sat in a pub in Sedbergh planning the next couple of days. We decided to have a go at a traverse of all 31 hills in the Howgills that are above 1500ft. This was first done by Alan Evans of Kendal and Hugh Symonds holds the record for this at 4 hours 49 minutes. We knew we would be no-where near that time and would just be happy to finish.

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This weekend I went up to the Howgill Fells to recce the Sedbergh Hills Race. More as an excuse to get some big hills in my legs than a need to recce the race. I went up with a club mate and also met up with a friend up there. The race route is advertised at 14 miles and 6000ft. This seems a bit short to me? it definately felt a lot longer than 14 miles although it did feel like 6000ft!

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Is this the beginning of the end for my foot injury? I really do hope so? As the blog shows, I have been doing a bit more running recently. No real training just going along for the odd race and I have been pleasantly suprised at where I was in the races. Not troubling the front runners but not troubling the sweepers either.Problem was that my foot was no better. It was no worse but still things just hadn’t progressed regardless of what I did in 10 months.

So I did what everyone should do. I listened to my mother. She recommended some guy to go see. He fixed her whiplash neck injury and also fixed her boyfriends various cricket injuries (injury from cricket? Big girls blouse) Although she wasn’t sure what his actual title was or in fact if he was a doctor?!

So, intrigued, I went along to meet this person. I walked in and met this guy with tattos all up his arm, long hair, beard, jeans and steel toe capped boots. I looked around for the guy to help me but apparently this was him? Just goes to show that pre-conceptions are a bad thing.

After briefly telling him the problem and symptoms he said right I can fix that. just jump up on the table and we will pop that bone back in. Errr pop bone in? Scuze me? you said pop and bone in the same sentence? But apparently it wasn’t going to hurt so I went with it.

A quick check of my foot followed by some heavy tugging and all of a suddon I have a load of extra movement in my foot. It felt better? Still the tendons are sore, but not in the same way. More movement, no pain when standing on balls of feet and a lot more stablility? Confused but happy I left. I was in there a total of 15 minutes.

So what was wrong? Well I had managed to partially disocate my cuboid bone in my foot.  As the bone was out of place it was putting strain on my peroneal tendons and causing instability and making my gait even more awkward (I am a supinator). It is called cuboid syndrome or cuboid subluxation.

This misalignment of the bone was putting additional pressure on the tendons. So what was thought to be the problem was actually the symptom.

I am still not 100% and it may all go wrong yet but there is some definate improvement and it is good to see some light at the end of this. I am however VERY peeved at spending a fortune on physio, also going to the NHS alongside and not running for the majority of the last 10 months only to be fixed in 15 minutes.