A foothugger and ladder lacing.
I took my lumpy foot to the doctor today for a second opinion, not being quite convinced about the qualifications of Dr Google. My doctor, who has been my GP for nine or so years now, quickly diagnosed it as an 'exostosis' which had me wondering if he'd perhaps been influenced by an early viewing of the new Alien movie, especially when he looked at it somewhat dubiously and asked if it 'moved'. Assuring him that it didn't, he prodded it an appropriately meaningful and seemingly professional manner before confirming his diagnosis and writing me a referral for an X-ray, should I 'think it necessary' ... which I took to mean if I'm still alive in the morning, and haven't had my foot exploded by some baby exo-thing.
Well, maybe I will. I'll see what eventuates. I've made a significant and quite momentous change to my running as a result of this alien incursion of my right foot, and that's with the lacing of my shoes. Shoelace tying is quite a complex and underestimated part of our sport, and over the years I've changed lace-tying methods several times in search of the perfect technique. For a while I was an 'overlace underlace' fan; then a change of shoe brand seemed to favour the use of the 'zipper lace' method. In more recent years I've been a staunch supporter of the simple but elegant 'criss-cross poodle-lace' variation, but it's this one that may have caused my exostosis problem, so I've moved on to the Arthur Lydiard 'ladder lacing' system which removes pressure from the problem area. Whilst it's brilliantly comfortable for everyday walking, today's run with the new lacing left me a little uncertain, and it may yet require some minor adjustments.
The run itself, however, went brilliantly, with another tough hill-climb tempo run in the log, consisting of 13.5km and well over 400 metres of ascent at an increasing pace during the climb. The combination of distance, incline and increasing pace make these runs fantastic alternatives to intervals and general speed work, and with (for me, at least) far less likelihood of injury - other than the risk of alien infection of the feet, that is. I'll do four of these this week with a gradual progression of difficulty before taking a tapering stepback next week ahead of race day on the 21st.
Assuming my foot doesn't explode in the meantime, of course.
May as well go for broke.
