Top of Foot Pain

[Litening]

Very interesting concept. I'm going to try these new shoes of mine for a little while, and then look at the negative heel if necessary. I've spent so much on equipment already, I can't afford to spend more at the moment. I need to develop more strength in a neutral position first, then i'll check these out.

Thanks for the tip, and the study you posted.

[Syngen]

I also run in KomodoSports and experience this type of irritation. (I say irritation because it's like a recurring ache for me. Barely bad enough to mention.) I think I have solved this issue for myself, though. The problem first started for me when I cut one of my toes and it got a little infected. When this happened I started running a little funny (lifting the toes on that foot a little more). This must have become habit, because the ache started recurring. The ache also migrates across my foot, but most frequently settles around the toes I dislocated in childhood (no surprise there). However, I discovered that if I spend a little extra time stretching my feet after a run, the ache gets more of a muscle soreness flavor and lasts less than 24 hours. I can avoid it completely if I strategically use some icy hot on my arch and instep. What I think is happening is that as I get more and more used to running in VFF (I'm on month 4 now, having previously run in FeiYue Tigerclaws), I'm engaging my toes more and the stiffness of the KomodoSport sole causes the muscles in my instep to work harder. I have also noticed that my other foot, which has never had TOFP, has similar muscle fatigue patterns.

[brianmull]

I've been running in my Bikilas for about 6 months now and have run several 5Ks in them and my furthest run has been one 10K. I am currently having a bout of TOFP. It started in my right foot about three weeks ago. I stopped running for two weeks, and then I started again. After my second run coming back, now the right foot is fine, but I have it in my left foot now. Back to time off again.

I keep the straps on my Bikilas very loose, so that's not the issue. It could be that I'm raising my toes a bit when I land, but would it make sense that this is a problem after 6 moths of being in these shoes with no issue? I do run on concrete most the time, fyi.

Searching the Web, I most often see reference to TOFP when VFF shoes are being discussed. Is this problem mostly limited to those shoes? I was not a runner prior to my VFFs, so I'm not up on all my running injuries. If I switched to something like the Pure Connect shoes, would that help my issue. I hate that I have to keep stopping my training, and don't want this to continue being a nagging problem.

Thanks for any thought/advice.