What's wrong with my leg? (runners)

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is not asking for medical advice, more like runners advice.

So I’ve been training for a marathon for a few months and the running has gone pretty well. Up until last weekend I had been training in some North Face trail shoes. I know they aren’t made for road running but they were comfortable and didn’t give me any problems. I had run 4-5 13+mile runs in them with nothing more than mildly sore feet and some small blisters at the end.

So my wife told me I needed to get out of those 6month old trail runners and get into some proper running shoes. I said OK and went to the Running Store. They fitted me for shoes (neutral, normal shoes) and I got some Brooks Glycerine 8 shoes. They felt ok so I took them home and took a quick 4 mile run to try them out. Felt ok, though they were MUCH squishier than the trail runners for obvious reasons.

So last Sunday I did a 15mile run (furthest ever) and felt great at the end. Feet felt good, though not $130 better than my old shoes. Toes were a little numb but I think that was from new socks and shoes.

I ran 4 miles a couple days later and felt fine.

Then about 5 days ago I was putting on my pants and felt SEVERE pain in my lower calf. Like someone was cutting my leg off at my lower calf. I hadn’t felt this before. It hurt like hell. If you look at a picture of the back of a leg it’s right about where my Achilles tendon hooks up to my calf muscle. I’ve felt this about 10 times since then and here are the motions that cause it every time:

Let your foot hang limply. No flex in the calf at all. Don’t engage the calf muscle in any way. Lift the leg up (like you are putting it on a coffee table). It also happens if I let my foot hang loose and pull pants on while standing up.

The strange thing is that I feel 100% fine when walking, running, climbing stairs both up and down. I can rotate my foot at the ankle all day and night and not feel the slightest twinge of pain. It’s only when I let my ankle go limp and raise the leg straight out.

The problem is that when I DO hurt it hurts f’n BAD. Burns super bad. It FEELS like my calf but on a diagram looks like the top of my Achilles. I laid off running for a week and went out for 4.5 today and it feels fine, no pain, except when I go through that motion described.

I don’t want to blow out my leg 2 months before the marathon (1st ever) but it also feels fine to run on.

What is wrong with me? I think it may have been those shoes as that was all that changed. Any ideas?

2

Advice threads go in In My Humble Opinion. Moved from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.

Gfactor
General Questions Moderator

3

Since this is not a life or death matter, I’ll leave it open.

samclem MOderator, GQ

Oh, yeah. Simulpost. I"m also an IMHO mod. So… :smiley:

4

We can ask for medical advice now if it’s not a matter of life and death. Boy am I ever going to save on doctor’s bills. :rolleyes:

5

Nope NOT in GQ. I was having a senior moment, what with taking off one hat and putting on another. Gfactor, as usual, was correct. So, it’s OK in IMHO, with the proviso that you get unvetted advice. Worth what you paid for it.

6

I would say go back to your trail runners, no reason they won’t work on pavement if you had no trouble before. Get a new pair as six months of marathon training will have used up the old pair.

I have always been wary of changing shoe models, moreso being so near a major race.

7

IANAD and not much of a runner either, but I do remember when I get fitted for running shoes that the shop emphasizes the importance of at least a week of breaking the shoes in - wearing for an hour at a time for the first couple of days, some gentle walking the next few, then slowly increasing your running miles to allow your feet and muscles to adjust. It could be that by skipping this step you’ve just strained some muscles which aren’t used to your new gait.

8

It seems counterintuitive but a squishy heel isn’t an Achilles heel’s friend. One of my tennis friends opines that you have to choose between knee pain or Achilles heel pain because what helps with the knees utlimately hurts the heel.

I’ve had sore Achilles tendons for years. Stretching on one of those inclines made specifically for heel stretching helps a lot if you are diligent about doing it first thing in the morning and before exercising. Heel lifts can also help (though, as I said before, they tend to aggravate my knee). Finally, ice and Aleve help with the pain.

As always, see your doctor if it doesn’t get any better.

9

Which North Face trail runners? I’ve had some North Face trail runners that had very little support in the sole (felt closer to running in bare feet, but with grippy treads) and I’ve seen others that are closer to hiking shoes.

Anyway, a rather sudden change in footwear without a nice gradual changeover can result in a type of tendonopathy and the discomfort is often felt a bit higher up than where you’d think an achilles injury would be. If you have a big race coming up, I’d go see a sports med doc to make sure you haven’t hurt your tendon. You wouldn’t want to seriously hurt yourself during the race if you’ve got a tendon that’s on the edge.

Achilles tendon injuries can be tricky too. Sometimes added heel padding is the right thing to do, other times added heel stuff is a bad thing to do and the injury gets aggravated. So I wouldn’t take chances with guess work.