Although my achilles tendons have still been sore today, I’d say they’re no-way near as bad as they were yesterday.

It kind of feels like they’re stronger today – yet still sore. It’s a strange set of pains. On some occasions it’s like pins and needles, whilst on others it’s like a hot dagger into one of them. And then at other times they just feel hot and tight.

A couple of times I’ve had a pins and needle type feeling in the base of my heels – where the achilles tendon meets the bone under the foot I guess.

I’ve kept my orthotics in my shoes all day, as when I took them out for a minute it just felt so wrong. I could feel my feet collapsing and overpronating straight away.

I may wear a different pair of shoes tomorrow to see if that helps. I suppose it may just be different enough to affect a slightly different area of my achilles tendons.

Today has not been a good day!

Started off with real bad pain in my achilles tendons again this morning… and unfortunately the pain hasn’t subsided all day.

It may be down to several things really…

• I stretched my calves/achilles tendons too much yesterday
• I did too many eccentric exercises yesterday
• I wore my ASICS trainers yesterday – still not sure if these were the route cause of my stress fracture
• I ran (yes, ran) for about 15 yards yesterday
• My new custom fitted orthotics are finally starting to ‘argue’ with my body and my achilles tendons are starting to complain about it!

Whatever the reason, I’m not happy. I just want to get training again. Even though it’s about freezing outside I really want to get out and exercise. For some reason I’m sure I’m noticing a lot more people out running at the moment! It really does rub it in.

So, it’s been 7 days now breaking in my new custom made orthotics. Still no running though! Aaarrgghh!

It’s been quite a strange week really, and I haven’t been that active – so I haven’t really walked very far. Which I guess has been good, as my Podiatrist advised that I should only wear my new custom made orthotics for short periods each day (of about 15 minute chunks). In fact I’ve worn them pretty much all day every day (slap my wrists!).

Read the rest of this article »

Well, I expected to wake up this morning with painful knees, a painful back and painful hips… but there was no pain at all. However, this could have been due to the fact I was so tired having got up at 3.30 in the morning to watch the Ricky Hatton/Floyd Mayweather fight. Now I know this is a running blog, but this fight is surely worth a mention. So much so, I think I’ll write a specific article at some point. Anyway, back to the matter in hand… or rather, the orthotic in shoe!

Read the rest of this article »

Getting fitted for running orthotics

The process I went through when I had my running orthotics made for me was really very simple.

I first of all chatted to my podiatrist about what my problem was. In my case this was very easy… I had a stress fracture in my left fibula and my physiotherapist had told me that I was overpronating. It didn’t take my podiatrist long to reiterate this position. She said it was blatantly clear that I was overpronating and that custom made orthotics for running were really the only option.

Read the rest of this article »

I went to see the physio earlier today about my stress fracture – and as I thought they said there was pretty much nothing they could do for me to aid the healing process. As the fracture is bone, it just needs time and rest in order to heal itself.
The best thing I could do for myself in the meantime though is to see a podiatrist in order to get fitted for some custom made orthotics. These would correct my overpronation and hopefully stop me from getting any stress fractures in the future.

Read the rest of this article »