I was running in the Brooks Glycerin 3’s and then the 4’s. I noticed that after about 150-200 miles, the balls of my feet would hurt so I would change shoes. After the last few long runs (Buffalo Springs and then a 12.5 miler this past Sunday), once again the ball of my left foot was pretty sore, especially after this past Sunday. I ran 7 miles on Tuesday, which probably wasn’t the best idea because it was my old shoes, and then I did another 5 yesterday. The thing about yesterday was that I was in my new shoes, New Balance 1060, that I had bought on Tuesday. They felt a little worse after that, but after my bike ride last night, they are pretty sore again. I found it odd that even though I wasn’t hitting the ground, that the ball of my left foot got worse just from mashing on the pedals of the bike.
I’m guessing that I should just probably not run for a few days and try to stay off of my feet as much as possible to let this tender spot heal. Any other suggestions? I’m thinking about going to my PT because this might be related to the orthodics that I use all the time.
I’m just expanding my question to the knowledge base that is ST to see if there are any other options to me.
I have a problem. The balls of my feet hurt.
I was running in the Brooks Glycerin 3’s and then the 4’s. I noticed that after about 150-200 miles, the balls of my feet would hurt so I would change shoes.
Man, my feet really start hurting after about 25-30 miles…I don’t know how you survive 150!!!
Seriously though, this happens to me every once in a while with my left foot in particular. What I discovered the problem was is twofold:
Pressing down too hard with that leg on the bike. I wasn’t “lifting” enough on the upstroke and was essentially bruising the soles of my feet. The bike shoes just have a fairly thin Sorbothane cushion and I have to replace the insoles every ~1000 miles.
My toes were bound up and needed to be “popped.” I.e. the tendons and all were really really tight and I had very little toe mobility. This was putting a lot of pressure on the joints and the nerves. A bit of self-massage on the whole toe/insole area and then place the palm of your hand on top of your foot, an inch or so behind the toes. Roll your toes downward with your fingers and you’ll probably get a few “pops” from the joints. In my feet this immediately relieved almost all the pain.
Same problem here. This has been discussed on this forum a few times.
I run Brooks Adrenaline and have to change shoes every 150-200 miles. Shoes shop owner tells me that cushioning in the front of my shoes is gone by then. Why? because I run “on my toes” versus “on my heels” like most of the people for which these shoes are made for. Running shoes have reinforced cushioning under the heel and have relatively weak cushioning under the ball of the foot. Hence if you run with short stride and land on the front of the sole, the shoe mileage life goes down from 400 miles to 200 miles!
I had this issue from Super feet inserts that were too long. I got custom orthotics and do not have the problem anymore. You did not mention inserts so it may not be relevant to you, but that was the cause of my metatarsal problem
I’m definitely a mid foot to fore foot striker and I’m betting that that’s contributing to the problem as well. The New Balance 1060s that I just got have more forefoot cushioning so that should help out.
I talked to my PT about this. I told her I isolated the pain to the 3rd metatarsal on my left foot and it runs from behind the ball of my left foot all the way up to where the toe bone meets the metatarsals. My PT thinks it’s a stress fracture, well she wants to rule that out first, so I got squeezed into a doctor’s appointment today to get this X-rayed.
I have IMFL in 3.5 months and I need to get this taken care of quickly. Luckily, my coach has no running for me this week so that should help out as well.
Keep us posted, fingers crossed no sfx. How long has this been going on?
The symptoms you are describing sound more like what my doc says I’ve got (Metatarsalgia?) which is a junk term, apparently, for an inflammation around the met when everything else is normal.
Dull pain or sharp? How does it respond to 24-48 hours rest?
It’s been going on since Buffalo Springs, so maybe 3+ weeks now. At BSLT, I hadn’t really ran in about 2 weeks before the race and then doing 13.1 miles might have been a lot. I did some aquajogging but not much hard surface running.
I read up on metatarsalgia as well and it does sound like it as well. I’ll find out more today though.
The pain is fairly dull. Nothing is sharp or stabbing. I can’t walk barefoot on bare floors though. Carpeted floor are OK and it actually feels better if I have shoes on. It takes some stress of the joint. Rest does help but not that much.
I’m a lot more in tune with my body than I used to be so when something like this happens, I catch it pretty early to keep it from getting worse. I’m not stupid in the fact that I’ll cut back my training, but I’m pretty stupid in the fact that I won’t cut out my training 100%. Running is a problem for me and I try to not stop running whenever possible. I ran 14.5 miles yesterday and I felt it the entire time, but not that badly.
I’ll keep everyone posted about how the X-rays turn out.
Just got back from the doc. No sfx. No Morton’s neuroma either. He thinks it’s some PF and some other soft tissue issues. I spoke with my PT and I’m seeing her on Monday and then I’m getting reevaluated for orthodics on Tuesday. Normally, orthodics last about 2 years, but they don’t last that long with Ironman training on them.
I went to one PT yesterday and I’m going to another today. PT #1 thinks it’s a majorly bruised 3rd metatarsal head with some soft tissue problems, but the bruised bone is the major concern right now. I have a boot on my left foot because no matter whan I put on my foot, the ball of the foot hurts when I walk. The boot doesn’t take away 100% of the pain, either. When I see PT #2 today, I’m going to get reevaluated for orthodics and then try to put on a metatarsal pad on my current ones to get me back to normal soon.
Man, being injury prone is not fun. The good thing is that my knees haven’t bothered me in months.
That’s basically what I went through minus the boot. I think I would have gotten mine turned around quicker if I had stayed off it some initially.
The met pad was added to the orthotics to prevent the problem from recurring. Thing is once the bone is bruised it just hurts for a while. Like weeks instead of days. Very slowly it changes from a sharp pain to a dull pain.
I kept running sporadically through mine and it seems to have drug it out. You could probably still miss a couple of weeks and be OK for IMFL but the days are numbered.
My running base is OK. Even after 2 weeks off of running after Buffalo Springs and actually 2 weeks off of running before Buffalo Springs, I can go out and get out a 8:30-8:45/mile pace for 13.1 miles pretty easily. Not fast by any means, but I’m just going for distance. However, of the 3 disciplines, I’m most concerned about my running for IMFL so this is a very inopportune circumstance.
I got my orthodics reevaluated today and I’m having met pads put in both of my new orthodics (BTW, that’s about $450 I hadn’t budgeted, damnit!). My PT said that my feet have changed for the better over the last year and that’s obviously a good thing. I still need orthodics because I have really bad tibial varum and my feet compensate in a way that would make having orthodics a very good idea.
I’m in the boot and I’ll be in it for at least a week, probably closer to 2 weeks. A lot of aquajogging and elliptical machine work for me. Oh, I hate that crap. I wish I started this about 2 weeks ago, but I tried my normal method (changing shoes) of getting rid of this pain, but I’m just too far injured down. Also, the bottom of my foot is really swollen and I didn’t notice that until today. Nasty.
Just to give an update, I ran today for the first time in at least 5 weeks. I ran about 2.5 miles around my neighborhood in 22 minutes. Everything felt fine. Well, it hurt at first but once I got warmed up, everything felt fine. I’ve been aquajogging and it has paid off. The pace that I was running at was great and I felt like I could easily put in 6-8 miles at that pace and that’s just off of a single run. Once I run more on the ground over the next few weeks, I’m sure my fitness levels will bounce back pretty quickly.
