Happy Feet

I have been trying to get back into running again with the goal of running a half marathon, and maybe eventually a marathon.

I remember running track back in high school, I started off competing in the 3000 m, but gradually reduced my distance, finding myself quite happy with the 400m. Once around the track was quite enough for me.



Back then I would never have considered a marathon.

So what has changed? A desire to challenge myself? Mid-life crisis maybe?

Anyway, I started running again, but my progress has been inhibited by significant toe pain when attempting to run anything further than 4-5 miles. (Side note: the distance I was running has become quite a joke between me and my husband. I was using my phone to track my runs, and thought I was running these awesome times and distances, but come to find out my GPS is quite inaccurate, so now when we talk distance he always questions was that 5 miles or 5 "jemma-miles", but the fact was that I was having a lot of pain.)

I have always had toe pain/cramps when playing sports for any extended periods of time, but usually able to make it through the game of B-ball, Soccer, etc. I tend to run high on the ball of my foot, which puts a lot of stress on my toes. After much research my self-diagnosis is Mortons Neuroma (don't you just love the internet!).

As you can see I have really funky ugly toes. To illustrate how bad they look I remember being at the ER as a teenager for a badly sprained ankle and was messing around in the wheelchair and the ice-pack on my ankle fell onto the floor. A passing doctor picked up the ice-pack for me and looked at my foot to determine where to place the pack and placed the pack on my toes instead of my ankle, that's how bad my toes look. No wonder they always hurt.

So I have been on the hunt for new running shoes that might alleviate some of my foot pain and came across the barefoot shoes by Merrell.

Merrell Shoes

They have a wide toe-box that allows my funky toes the room they need to spread out. Also the low profile promotes a natural "barefoot" running style, landing more on the mid-foot, taking pressure off my toes. I have been gradually acclimating to these new shoes, and this running style, and so far it is going well.

Today I completed 6 pain-free miles Yeah!!! (half-way to my half-marathon)