Runner, Heal Thyself

People sometimes ask me about common running injuries.  I've had a few.  I own rolls of KT tape.  I use the term Achilles more than I should.  I'm pretty smart about these things, I suppose.

Often the exchange looks like this:

Random Running Friend:  "Hey Runs4Cake Girl!  The bottom of my foot hurts when I wake up/there is a twinge of pain in my left knee when I run/right behind my right ankle hurts when I start a run, but then the pain subsides."

Runs4Cake Girl:  "Hang on!  The first thing I need to know is:  Are you in the right shoe? And how many miles do you have on your shoes?"

That is my standard go-to response to injury inquiries.  I usually pin the shoes as the culprit.  Occam's Razor, right? 


HOWEVER, when the bottom of my foot hurts, or when there is a twinge of pain in my left knee, or when my right IT band has caused me nothing but physical discomfort and mental anguish like it has for the last four weeks or so, I do not seem to think about my own shoes AT ALL.  


Even though I meticulously note my mileage for each pair. 
Even though I know that all of my shoes are past their prime. 

I somehow never connected my heavy mileage shoes to the problems with my left Achilles and my right IT band.

I think my little aches and pains have made my runs seems like chores.  I've skipped so many runs during this running cycles blaming the heat or the stress of going through my job interview.

Why didn't I realize that my shoes were too blame?

I ran in my new pair of Lunarglide 3 Breathes yesterday.  Not a twinge of pain.

God bless new running shoes!