Wk1 RD2

[Lottie74]

So after doing a little better in my second run yesterday I’ve woken up with a very painful foot. Any pressure on the side near my little toe and along the front hurts, feels like bruising. Any advice?

[nowster Graduate]

When you're running, how is your foot hitting the ground? Are you landing on your toes? Is your foot twisted at all? Are your shoes too tight?

Bear in mind that your toes splay out naturally when you run. If the toe box of your shoes is too narrow you may be squishing them.

[chunkypie Graduate]

When I first started I used to get a bit of aching in my right ankle and got to about W4 when I realised when my foot landed I was landing on the outside of my foot. So I focused on trying to keep my foot flatter and run heel to toe and its helped a lot.

[nowster Graduate]

This is a description of an "ideal" running gait. It's what I try to follow.

You should be landing on your whole foot (or lightly on the heel a fraction earlier than your toes). The foot should land directly underneath you with your knee slightly bent. (A bent knee means the shock of landing is taken by the springiness in your muscles and tendons, not the knee joint.)

Don't kick or push off with the trailing foot. You should be leaning very slightly forward and lifting the trailing foot up cleanly without dragging or scuffing.

It's a sort of repeated "falling forwards with grace" motion. It takes a while to master.

The hard work isn't in pushing yourself forward - gravity will do that - but in lifting and replacing your feet.

***

I'm doing this in "barefoot" shoes. No padding at all other than 3mm of rubber and the thickness of my socks. I've been wearing toe shoes for eight years so I'm used to them. (I've never run in them before C25K though.) They're not for everyone. They're extremely unforgiving of bad technique. Experienced runners have been known to injure themselves when switching to them. However, the same techniques can be applied when wearing normal running shoes. If nothing else, your shoe's soles will last longer.