Footloose

After my mammoth 12.5 mile run Friday my feet hurt... lots! So I waddled off to the local running shop to get my "gait" analysed. For the uninitiated, this means filming you running on a treadmill and then analysing the footage to see how your feet land and take off, helping identify where you need support and thus the right shoes!

So feeling like a real pro in my Nike 15s on I hopped, proudly proclaiming "my pain got worse at mile 8 of my 12.5 mile run this morning", and "Yes! I am in training for The London" (I am learning the running lingo!). As the treadmill came to a halt, I smugly sauntered over to the screen to watch the footage (in my mind I looked like Jessica Ennis, in reality I was more Jessica Fletcher (AKA Mrs Murder she Wrote)). Oh how reality bit in that moment and I wanted to cry. Why?

• Firstly (and most humiliatingly), the camera is angle was arse to ankle... from behind! Now I don't know about you but I have never seen myself from behind, apart from those strange angled changing room mirrors, and it’s a traumatising experience I never want to repeat!
• My beautiful fluro Christmas present shoes (can't get used to calling them trainers) were so obviously not supporting my right hand ankle. This was leading to the inside of my arch taking the full brunt of every step causing the pain.

The long and short of it is that I am now £100 lighter and I have another pair of shiny shoes. The silver lining is that the fluro Christmas pair is not wasted and can still be worn on shorter runs and for cross training!

So tonight whilst whiling away another hour on the treadmill I was trying to analyse whether the new shoes felt any better (there is still residual pain so probably too soon to really tell). Anyway it got me wondering what a battering my poor plates of meat are being subjected to. My tootsies are normally lovingly housed in fluffy slippers and buffed and loved and painted on a regular basis in various shades of hot pink, cherry red and black cherry purple. But since the training began they have become horrors; I have already lost big toenail and have a blackened second toe and that is just for starters. The only upside is thank goodness it is not flip flop season... yet!

Anyway I decided to do some mental arithmetic so counted the number of steps I took in a minute and then used this to calculate the total steps I am likely to take during my 100 hours of marathon training.

160 steps per minute x 60 minutes per hour x 100 hours = a MASSIVE 96,000 steps! No wonder they are not happy!

Naturally my podiatrist has been way ahead of me as usual and procured a myriad of foot loving items to help my tootsies recover and keep pounding the streets and here are my 3 foot loving criminals (see what I did there... and yep Scooby Snacks is on the running pod – click here to remind yourself)

3rd criminal

2 pairs of super special, anti blister socks. Hardly Jack Wills in the fashion stakes but they lovely and soft and cushion my ball and heel and so far NO BLISTERS! If only they came in a colour way which was a little more on trend and coordinated with my running outfit!

2nd criminal

£200 of trainer wear - who knew I could spend this footwear and it not have heels and sparkly bits?

1st criminal

Like us you have probably seen the advert, chuckled at the naffness, and wondered who bought these items? Well now you know! The only moan is you only get one; what you really need are two so you can tickle your tootsies together!

So with that chav admission shocker I have one final bit of cheese to add.... yes Footloose is one of the cheesy songs on my running pod – click here to enjoy a bit of Kenny.