It's almost a month since my
It's almost a month since my last post here. The tendinitis is still there but much reduced. It always takes a long time for any tendinitis to go away so that's not a surprise. In the last month though I've been able to clarify the cause of the injury better. There were two causes - neither really due to equipment in either cycling or running - but due to inappropriate technique in both.
There is a lot of talk about "midfoot" landing in running - that is advocated in ChiRunning and often scientific reports claim that elite runners mailny land midfoot. In ChiRunning the target landing site is just in front of the heel. Well, the only way that you can get anything to make first contact with the ground somewhere between the heel and the forefoot is to roll the foot outwards onto the outside edge (supinate) and land on the outside edge of the foot. This way you certainly do land midfoot - but right over the top of the 5th Metatarsal joint - at the insertion of the peroneus brevis tendon! In my particular case I wasn't trying to land midfoot, I was trying to land on the ball of the foot, but on the outside part of the ball of the foot, following the advice of Gordon Pirie's book
Running Fast and Injury Free. Pirie advocates having the feet land one in front of the other instead of hip width apart. This also encourages landing on a supinated foot. In my case I wasn't able to stop myself from landing midfoot and so continued to strain the peroneus brevis tendon. Further analysis made it clear that the real reason for the error in my case was that that my foot was still landing slightly too far ahead of the body (old cushioned heels habit). By making sure that the foot landed directly below the body and lengthening the stride behind the body instead (with pelvis involved) I was able to completely avoid landing midfoot and accurately land on the outside portion of the ball of the foot. Yesterday, I returned to running painlessly and was able to cover 8km in 40mins without once hurting the foot. Only a week ago I was still in significant pain from the effects of cycling on this injury.
The cycling contribution to the injury is not due to shoes nor is it cured through inserts. The problem comes from the fact that the feet are glued to the pedals through cleats, but in steep climbing or hard accelerating - when out of the saddle - the bike is tilted to each side. The pedal is obvioulsy also tilted. This forces the foot pressure from edge to edge in various ways. Elite cyclists invariably - when out of the saddle - start the down stroke with the bike tilted over to the side that they will push down on - placing them on the inside edge of the foot. The bike is pulled over with the arms during the stroke, adding power, and the stroke ends with the bike tilted away from that leg and the foot on its outside edge. That works and protects the foot. My mistake was to do the opposite by lining my body up over the pedal to begin the stroke (bike tilted away from the leg) and to execute the main part of the stroke over the outside edge of the foot. Over thousands of kilometres this eventually generated the tendinitis. The running error only aggravated the problem.
Basically the cure for the problem has been to increase awareness and develop better technique in both running and cycling. In the process of doing so I can now confirm that "midfoot" landing in running is categorically WRONG.
Had I rested up and sought a standard medical solution for the problem - I'm sure that I'd never have managed to move ahead like this.