Orthotics and fell shoes

[mr brightside]

Some sound replies there thanks, until my knee heels there's no way of telling if orthotics are working, the guy i'm seeing is Mark Sherwin-Ward who has worked with off road runners before i think it may have been Calder Valley but can't remember. He's advised me to get a GP to refer me for a scan on it to see what's going on inside it and in the meantime i think the physio will probably send me for a steroid injection to heal the ligament properly. I'm not going to bother tearing up my Walshes but just try this slimline orthotic i've been given and see how it goes, my ankles aren't prone to rolling so fingers crossed.

[ZootHornRollo]

Green ones have more volume/Arch support and a higher heel cup
Blue ones are for lower volumes/ more flat footed.

so where do my orange ones fit in then?

tell you what, I'll stop being lazy and go and have a look at the website, eh?

[IanDarkpeak]

so where do my orange ones fit in then?

tell you what, I'll stop being lazy and go and have a look at the website, eh?

Lazy Sod do you want me to run in them for you as well

orange and Pink!!!!! have come along since I sold them.

were yours heat molded? some have a custom fit

the only real difference in most off them is volume and stability

[ZootHornRollo]

here we go ...

and they're doing

black ones too

for 'tight-fitting athletic shoes'

[mr brightside]

I've been round the houses with this myself with marked overpronation, particularly on the left. I've eventually been successfully treated by excellent physios and podiatrists (Duncan Mason et al in Worseley) and advice from a mate who is a subspecialist knee surgeon. Getting it right took a long time despite my being a doctor with ready access to advice etc. Regardless of what some might say about the usage of orthotics on the fells (alluded to above) there is a very obvious empirically demonstrable relationship in my case: if I run on road or trail or fell without my custom orthotics I get injured; if I use the orthotics I stay just the right side of injured. Period. A quick run up and down Coniston Old Man behind my parents' house without orthotics will (and has in the past) leave me unable to train for weeks due to shin splints.

My orthotics are bulky but 1/2 to 2/3 length so they finish around the base of the metatarsal heads. They don't fit in Walshes which were always my preferred fell shoes prior to recurrent shin splints. In fact they just about fitted Walshes with the footbed torn out but had me half out of the shoe and rolling my ankles. I found Inov8s (which I could never get on with when using my previous ultimately unsuccessful orthotics from a previous source) fitted better with these orthotics, again with the footbeds removed. All well and good but your forefoot suffers badly on a hard surface with no footbed and I've come out of long races and MMs this way with really badly macerated toes. In the last year I've taken to cutting the Inov8 footbed up and superglueing the metatarsal head / toe protecting bit in place and then placing my orthotic so it fits neatly proximal to this - sorted - no shin splints and no wrecked toes. The Inov8 lacing system and tongue seems to work better than the Walsh at keeping the upwardly displaced foot in place in the shoe with a bulky orthotic in place but there's still the feeling of being a bit higher and less laterally stable than you should be. This might work for you??

Frankly AFAIAC anyone who tries to tell you that orthotics have no place on the fells does not know what they are talking about; if they are a fellow runner they are mistakenly generalising from their own experience and if they are trying to treat you they are a charlatan and should be avoided :-) Sounds like you are probably getting good advice from your podiatrist and should go with it even if you need to buy some new fell shoes

HTH P

Paulo can I just give you a background to my situation in case anything seems familiar to you, I’ve always kicked myself a bit for going up to long races too quickly but something just didn’t seem right with the way it all unfolded. I’ve suffered with cruciate aches from long distance cycling and ITB soreness when I got back into running trails, but both just seemed to fade away once my body was used to the extra workload. With the LCL ligament problem it didn’t go away, it kept creeping in at around the 12m mark and this then started to drop until 5m would set it off, finally at 3 Shires it went badly and I was left limping round. It isn’t affected by workload over short distances but seems to be proportional to the number of times my foot hits the floor which is why my training now consists solely of hill reps over 20m distances with squats at either end. I can throw everything at it including the kitchen sink, and over 20 reps not a squeak from the knee because the total distance is no more than 1/2km, but on a 4m flat trail run it’d be getting sore. The issue with my biomechanics being out seems to fit, but I’m still going to need the physio for the steroid injection and post injection therapy etc so it’s not one or the other, unfortunately it’s both as the podiatry treatment alone is not going to sort this out. I’d really like to get good at fell running as I find it soothing mentally and was the bleep test king at school but this is really starting to drain me now. Does any of my essay sound familiar to you?

[MorganW]

Brightside

I am another for whom orthos in fell shoes are a must.

I hardly ever run on the roads but a combination of spectacularly flat feet and bent fibulas (the latter probably making the former much worse) means that without a serious ortho my patellar tendons become massively inflamed with obvious results.

I used Walshes since 1984 and thay had always been my fell shoe of choice.

But the addition of my ortho into a PB Racer or Trainer lifts my foot up to such an extent that all ankle support departs with dire consequences.

Saz has mentioned the Walsh Ultra Extreme, which does have the removable footbed. I have tried these over various periods, but I find them too wide for my feet.

Strangely (because the perceived wisdom is Walsh for narrow feet and Innov8 for wider feet) I have been getting on with Mudclaw 270s and indeed Innov8s generally. I think all their range have removable footbeds. Whilst the fit isn't perfect, they are keeping me on the fells and that is the key thing.

[Twister]

I'm with Inov8 insider on this one. Orthotics are a crutch and in the short term may help with healing but using them long term will result in atrophy and will lessen any arch strength you might have left.

I know I always go on about this but by incorporating a session of barefoot running on easy trails footpaths, once or twice a week has totally radicalised my running. My arches have noticeably firmed and look stronger, my toes have greater separation and I have re-trained myself to run lighter, landing on the balls of my feet just brushing the heels down, with faster cadence. This technique can be transferred to running in light shoes like racing flats or light trail shoes. It also feels much more natural than bashing down, straight legged heel first. (Go on give it a go)

The other thing that gets me about orthotics is by supporting the arch, you are effectively pushing up on it every time you plant your foot, that's like fighting against the design principle of an arch, which is designed to support load bearing down, it doesn't make sense mechanically. Couple this with the alternating terrain changes in true fell and mountain running and I think the science is verging on the pseudo.

But if it works for you, who am I to argue. It didn't work for me and ultimately led to my ankle being buggered for 3 months (hence finding out about barefoot, POSE etc and trying a new approach).

[mr brightside]

Bit the bullet and ripped the black footbeds out of my Walshes, sod it, not too rolly polly as yet.

[Celine Dion]

I need to wear by orthotics as often as possible, but have found that when i put them in my mudroc 305's, it makes the heal way too high and so unstable. Any ideas for a solutions? May be different trail shoe?

[Inov-8 Insider]

I need to wearby orthotics as often as possible, but have found that when i put them in my mudroc 305's, it makes the heal way too high and so unstable.

I personally wouldn't recommend orthotics for fell shoes as your feet are by the nature of the terrain moving all over the place.
The Mudroc 305 ain't a shoe in our range I think your meaning the Roclite 305 this 4arrow midsole which is our highest.