Ankles

The (potentially) sprained left ankle was fine during a countryside walk on friday and no trouble walking to and from the pool yesterday. So I decided it was worth a 'test' today. I know that runners are often accused of testing injuries before they are healing so I was very careful and dressed prepared to walk. I went for 2.4km on the local streets with a spot of ascent and descent. The left ankle was fine.

I did notice that the right ankle was irritated by the Ultra 290 shoes that I'd put to one side a few months ago due to their annoying effect.  At home it occurred to me that perhaps the heel lock lacing that I was using to stop the shoe slipping might be making them too tight and thus rub on tendons around the heel on every step. I set the shoe back to ordinary lacing and jogged up and down the street. Although it was avery short trial I don't think the shoe rubbed as much but I did notice the heel being loose. That's no good!

Do shoes cause pain around lateral malleolus?

For some months I've been struggling with pain below my right later malleolus which might be related to peroneus longus trigger points. However I had also related it to worn shoes and then to ankle eversion but only in certain shoes.

A new pair of TNF hiking shoes bought to avoid shoes with worn heels seemed to be particularly irritating. Last night, after finding my Ultra 290 shoes annoying towards the end of the run I hit on an idea. Maybe shoes are simply rubbing on my ankle?

So now I've done some simple measurements looking at the 'height' of the lateral aspect of a range of shoes. It's rough and ready and one could argue about exactly where I measured, how compressible the footbeds are etc etc but the results surprised me anyway.

Here I've shown the 'lowest' shoes and the increasing height of my other shoes is quite apparent. The TNF shoes, presumably with the goal of being supportive are almost 15mm taller. No wonder they rub! Note how my old favourites, the RocLite 315 are the lowest of the Inov8 shoes and the Ultra290 the highest.

I've ordered some 6mm footbeds to swap into the 290s and found some leftover 315s online. A few more experiments, and avoidance of the TNF and unadjusted 290s will follow.