My damned feet

I promised this post a while back, so what is it with me and my feet (and my moaning about my feet)?

In short, neither has been diagnosed by a doctor, but I'd swear to god I suffer from both Raynaud's phenomenon and Morton's neuroma. I've had 15-20 years of symptoms of both of these things, which feels like plenty of time to figure it out.

The former, Raynaud's, is fairly unmistakeable. It's not just a foot thing, but my extremities get painfully cold very easily, especially in winter. All it takes is for me to carry a bag of frozen peas from a shopping bag and put it into the freezer for it to kick in. Or I can expose my face to the cold in winter and suddenly my fingers and toes are white, cold and painful. Gloves — even special Raynaud's gloves — and thick socks don't help either; instead I just find they restrict the blood flow further.

As for how this affects my running, I really need to be warmed up before... well, before I start to warm up (if doing that outside). Even just leaving the house for work in winter sees incredible shooting pains down my toes in the first few steps. Trying to curl my toes helps a bit, but it's not great for walking (let alone running) and I'm one of those people who simply can't curl their toes much anyway. Attempts to do so often result in cramp in the arch of my foot instead.

Over summer this year (2022), I've been warm enough that Raynaud's has been forgotten. And I'm hoping that the exercise I'm now doing will lessen its effects over winter, but... well, time will tell.

The second condition, Morton's neuroma, I'm less sure of. It's something I first wondered about in 2006 when I managed to ruin my right foot just walking over a hard-baked field in summer. A sudden pain in my right foot felt like I'd broken it or something. I even got sent for X-rays, but they found nothing. All I had to show for the pain was bruising across my entire foot and a shrug from the doctor & radiologist.

One thing the doctor did say, however, was to avoid thin-soled shoes. I instantly ditched my fashion trainers, but it didn't stop the symptoms coming back periodically. Most recently, it's come back with a vengeance in my left foot since I started running. (Yes, running is a really bad thing to do if you've got this, but I'm hoping the exercise will at least help the Raynaud's.) It started after maybe a couple of weeks of Couch to 5K and I found myself unable to walk around the house without trainers on. This is me today; I'm still in the trainer zone. 😢

When I'm like this, the fleshy pad under the ball of your foot feels hot and swollen just behind your toes. Every step feels like standing on marbles with your full weight in that area i.e. on the joint where toes meet the ball of your foot. And it just takes weeks or months to improve. 😞

Over summer, it actually did improve to the point where I didn't need the trainers indoors any more, but since my parkrun at Whitley Bay (September 3rd), it's come back. Over the last couple of weeks, it's got slightly better and I've been weaning myself off the comfy trainers, but yesterday's run at Carlisle Park has brought back the pain; and that was just from the odd shooting pain as I stepped on cracks in the pavement. My feet really are crap.

There are a couple of things I need to look into that might help me, though. For one, I'm starting to suspect that my running shoes (Nike RunAllDay) need replacing. They're generally in good condition, but don't feel as cushioned as they once did. I looked on the Brooks website recently to see what they recommend, but nearly had a heart attack at the £150-ish price. Secondly, I need to consider how tight my socks are. I had an epiphany a year or two back when I realised that lacing my shoes too tightly (I have very narrow feet, which means shoes can easily feel loose) was making matters worse. Maybe my socks are also too tight, which is very possible. I know I feel relief when I take them off.

Anyway, while my feet's discomfort miraculously disappears the second I put trainers on, their sensitivity even then to uneven surfaces is why I'm so reluctant to run on anything other than tarmac or fine gravel. I can easily set myself back weeks with a single run. The Town Moor (stones), Prudhoe Riverside (tree roots), and South Shields (stones) are all on the list of parkruns that I can be sure will hurt. Even at Newbiggin, I need to be careful with my footing on some of the broken tarmac and at Morpeth with the paved sections.

Finally, given I started running in spring, this winter will be my first winter of running. In part, I'm dreading it (and expecting my pace to get worse due to discomfort), but in part I'm also excited to see whether the exercise helps my Raynaud's. But whatever happens, I'm determined to stick at it.