Citius, Altius, Footius

“The feet! What did you did to the feet?”
Ruth Cole in A Widow for One Year
John Irving

As I shift my training focus from cycling to running for my planned marathon in May, I am ever mindful that my success in the endeavour rests on the health of my two feet. Solely on them, you might say. Two years ago I had to drop out of a goal race because the Morton’s Neuroma (pinched nerve) in my right foot got so painful that I could barely walk, let alone run. About a month later - obviously charging back into training too quickly - I gave myself an epic case of plantar fasciitis in the other foot which hobbled me for nearly a year.

(Apparently it is not called plantar fasciitis any more, it is plantar fasciosis now. The former referred to an inflammation of the fascia whereas we are told that the new term describes a degeneration. Delightful. I take ibuprofen for inflammation. What do I do for degeneration, join a Fundamentalist church?)

Morton’s Neuroma – often aggravated by tight shoes - is possibly hereditary. My father had it - so badly in fact that eventually he could hardly walk home from work. So he simply had the offending nerve removed. Since he was a physician, presumably he just got one of his colleagues to yank it out during their morning coffee break. I do not really have this option, so I am trying to make do with watchful waiting plus a toe box on my shoe that is the size of a small garage.

It is a lot we ask of our feet. Whether we are lightly sprinting a 400-metre dash or lumbering down the Pacific Highway in The Biggest Loser Marathon, we are pounding the few square centimeters of flesh, sinew and bone that support us into the pavement over and over again. Maybe as many as 20,000 times per foot over a marathon distance. Is it any wonder the poor underappreciated feet sometimes break down?

And feet don’t operate in a vacuum. As the song says, the foot bone’s connected to the leg bone, and successful running biomechanics will be a synergistic function of all of our 2000 body parts. I believe this is the key: treat the whole engine with respect and the components are more likely to look after themselves.

In The Lore of Running, Dr. Tim Noakes reminds us that previous injury is a main indicator for subsequent problems. Age is another one, as is a sudden increase in training volume. Since I can’t do anything about my age or my running history, I am paying special attention to the intensity and volume of my runs this spring. I am trying – as much as is possible in marathon training – to ramp up my distance sanely and to keep my plans reasonable and attainable. If this means modifying my original time goals, then that is what I will do. My mantra will be:
He who runs a little way,
Survives to run another day.

Anyway, today I had my first outdoor run of any length, a 20k long-slow-distance. It was a great workout. I was happy that I managed to keep an even pace the whole way, and this was enough for me. My quads reacted as expected to the shock of running on concrete as opposed to the nice bouncy treadmill they've been enjoying lately. My lower half is currently squeezed into compression socks and tights in an effort to mollify these effects. I feel like a half-used tube of toothpaste.

But so far my feet show few signs of the threatened degeneration. As I move into my longer weekly runs over the next month, the challenge will be to keep all of my 2000 parts cooperative and functional and my feet happy.