I’ve taken up a new sport.  Well it’s more accurate to say I’ve taken up a sport, “new sport” implies I have an old one and I think the only previous sport I’m willingly participated in was stage fencing in my community college.

Anyway, I’m training to run (well run/walk) a half-marathon in April. It’s a lot more fun than I thought it would be.  I’ve tried running on my own before but would start too fast, or got too bored running the 6 “safer” blocks around my old apartment.

This time around I’m training with an actual running group for the long runs.  The group is really encouraging and it’s fun to run with these folks.  I have a feeling I would have given up or procrastinated until I panicked if I hadn’t joined this group.  They’re also good about giving instructions on what to do for runs during the week to keep up training.   I will admit that I have skipped a couple of the during the week runs but I have noticed a performance decrease during my long runs when I do.  While training is more fun than I thought and I feel pretty good physically even after the long runs my feet have decided that this is not something they want to do.

When we first started training in January I was in pain after the first couple long (long at the time) runs.  My legs and feet were all crampy and I felt exhausted but after a couple of weeks of getting used to this everything started to relax and I would recover quickly…except from the ankles down.  From the ankles down, this sucks. I thought I had managed to stop having plantar fasciitis a year ago but I have been having constant flair-ups since February. I’ve also had really odd pains on my left foot around my cuboid bone when I first started.  My foot would hurt to the touch above the bone on the top of my foot and would hurt like crazy when I’m walking and running on the bottom of my foot.  The pain in my left foot has gone away and migrated to my right foot. I’ve also been having huge problems with blisters.  My short runs don’t cause any problems but anytime I run over 5 miles I start getting major blisters all over my feet, under callouses, on my heel, on the side of my feet, on my arches.  Bleh.  And since my blisters don’t heal entirely in a week I’ve started getting blisters on top of blisters.

I tried taping my feet but I ended up getting blisters around where I put the tape. My running coach is advising me to get body glide and double layer socks.  I’ll see how that goes for the next long run.  The only upside to this is that I have an excuse to sit and soak my feet in water and epsom salts daily.  I’m foreseeing a lot of at home pedicures in my future.

So does anyone have any advice about preventing blisters? Or just how to deal with them if they come along when you still have several miles left to run?