[sistergoldenhair]

Yesterday I ran on the treadmill, easy pace, and by the first mile my lower legs (especially shins) and feet felt stiff, swollen, and dull-achy. I kept pausing to loosen shoelaces, but again would feel the same puffiness-stiffness after about a mile. Finally I untied my shoes, tucked in the laces, and just ran with untied shoes. It felt a little strange but seemed to help.<br><br>
The only other time I've had the exact feelings happen was during the marathon in March where I ended up spraining my foot. Luckily that did not happen yesterday but the injured area was extra achy last night.<br><br>
Has anyone ever experienced this, or have an idea of possible causes?<br><br>
I'm thinking it could be being back on the treadmill after almost 2 weeks of road running, or that my sodium balance is screwy due to hot weather and eating differently than normal over the weekend (travel/vacation).<br><br>
Or maybe because I usually don't wear heels and had worn shoes with wedge heels for the past two days?

 

[fox-runr]

I don't know if the extra humidity, but I stopped and got off the treadmill at least 10x in a 6 mile jog yesterday to unloosen my shoes. I played tennis last night with my son and absolutely my feet hurt, so I took my shoes off...my feet were visibly swollen. My pain was more across the fat part of feet. I asked DH about it and he just said I was retaining water.<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/forum/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Sad"> Yeah, well I do that alot and this never happened before. I had drank alot of soda the days before???????????

 

[sistergoldenhair]

Maybe it's a combination of having more sodium than normal in previous days, plus the humidity?

 

[augie09]

so extra sodium can cause swelling?

 

[Durt]

Could be fluid retention, but could your legs also just be tired?

 

[wyrillco]

Yes, they say that sodium can make you retain water.

 

[sistergoldenhair]

Luckily it isn't bothering me any more. My coach thought it was residual effects of flying, but I had flown Sat. night and ran Tuesday. I do get very swollen legs when I fly. This might make me think twice about flying to a race!

 

[CrazyEye]

Did you happen to notice if you had trouble flexing your feet while this problem was going on? If you can't flex as far as normal, it may be exertional compartment syndrome.

 

[sistergoldenhair]

CrazyEye --<br><br>
plantar-flexing or dorsi-flexing?<br><br>
I didn't notice, but if it happens again, I'll pay attention to that. Since I've only felt like this on 2 runs out of hundreds in the past several years, I'm not likely to think it's compartment syndrome, but that's definitely something good to be aware of!