I have been doing a little research on my injury and the causes.

This led me to investigate the different heel toes drops of my various running shoes. I was of the belief that they were all pretty much the same. I knew that my ASICS, Salomon and Brooks all had a 10mm heel to toe drop.

Today’s research confirmed this except for the new Sauconys, they have a 4mm drop. I’m pretty sure the guy in the shop said they had a 10mm drop, which is why I was happy to go for a 30km in them straight up. If I’d known they were 6mm different I would have started off with a few much shorter runs.

When I was in the shop looking for new trail shoes I first tried on a pair of Invo-8 shoes which felt very heel down and weird, the guy said they were a low drop, 0 or 4mm. I said I didn’t want to go through the hassle of changing drop at this stage, with a marathon coming up change is bad. He grabbed out the Peregrines because they were apparently a higher drop. They felt better but in hindsight probably because overall they have a thicker sole, and I had after all just been walking around in another low drop  shoe so they wouldn’t have felt so weird. But as it turns out they have a 4mm drop which is the same drop as the Invo-8 shoes.

So now I’m wondering if they have contributed to the injury. There is a fair gap between the 30km trail run in the Peregrines and the injury showing up. But I guess it could have aggravated things.

These are the longer runs leading up to the injury, there are a number of shorter runs including track sessions and road running in between them.

20 Aug – 30km in 4mm drop Sauconys

27 Aug – 21km in 10mm – Race

30 Aug – 13km in 10mm

31 Aug – Bicycle ride – Ouch

I assume that the bike shoes have a 0mm drop as (I assume) it’s not important once clipped in. In fact bike shoes without a sole at the heel would have a negative drop when walking due to the clip mechanism at the front.

With the 30km of trails to aggravate it, then with the higher km of marathon training to not let it heal, followed by walking a little bit in bike shoes and maybe even starting the ride on a hill, might have tipped it over the edge.

Currently it’s taped to relieve some of the stress on it and I have some ankle strengthening exercises to do, as well as icing, foam rolling and massage. No running for 48 hours after seeing the therapist. Then I’ll start with a slow flat 5km run to see how it feels.

26 days until Chicago marathon. Not panicking at all…