Running Shoes + 1 layer gel heel-to-toe insole + 1 layer 'toe bed' + 'toe tubes' = lighter-weight solution for no pain?

Thursday during the day I did not get a chance to scout around town over the phone, finding out which stores had a big selection of foot padding type stuff.

Thursday evening I visited the local CVS and Walgreens stores looking for foot padding type stuff that would provide an improvement over the two layers of heel to toe gel padding solution used Wednesday night, which was a heavy solution. Seemed as if both stores carried more items of this type of stuff than they used to previously.

Possible buys I found at Walgreens:


Ball of foot:

Gel padding $2.60 on sale
Covers ball of foot area only. Hard to believe that it would not slip out of place during use. One suspects that the reason the prices for this thing have been repeatedly slashed, is that it slips out of place.

Fore-foot

'Toe Beds', gel padding for ball of foot and toes area, 1 pair, $5.50

Toes

Gel corn-protectors pair for $6.50

Gel toe protector 1 for $6.50

Toe bandages, 3 4" tubes $4.50

Heel-to-toe insoles

Dr. Scholls gel, $15

Aero 3 gel, $12.50

Walgreens gel, $10

Lightweight foam padding, $3


Possible buys I found at CVS:

Ball of foot

LifeFitness gel pad, pair, $8

Toes

Gel corn-protectors pair for $6.00

Gel toe protector 1 for $6.00

Foam toe bandages three approx 3" bandages (diameters 1 small tube, 1 medium tube, 1 large tube), $5
Seems like great deal given you get a narrow tube, a mid width tube, and a wide width tube and you can then cut these tubes up and fit them over your toes.

Heel-to-toe insoles

CVS Lightweight foam, $2.5-4

Lifefitness Gel insoles, $11-13

CVS gel insole, $11

Dr. Scholl's gel, $ 15

Aero $14

SoleX, on sale, $23

Time was running out and I had to make a decision fast before Walgreens closed, so that I would be able to mount a worthy experiment in foot padding during the night's run. What would be the wise decision in terms of what to buy tonight?

I decided in the end to make just one relatively inexpensive purchase: the 'Profoot' brand 'toe beds' sold at Walgreens ( http://profootcare.com/p-toe-beds.html ). These 'toe beds' pad the ball of the foot and the toe areas, which are my problem areas pain-wise.

The instructions on the package were to remove the protective wrapper and glue the gel 'toe bed' to the shoe. I did not want to glue it to the shoes as I fantasize about the possibility of returning the shoes to the store to obtain something better instead. I glued the toe beds to these heel-to-foot, gray and blue gel insoles; I did not want to glue them to the blue and orange gel insoles that I use in my indoor soccer shoes, because I am not sure I need such ball-of-foot and toes gel padding in the indoor soccer shoes.

I felt as if it was a stroke of genius on my part that for for the Thursday night Feb 12 run, in the shoes I put the detachable insole that came with the Adidas Adistar Control 5' shoes ON TOP of the blue and gray gel insole to which I had glued the 'Profoot' brand 'toe beds'. This produced a smooth surface and decreased the possibility of the gel 'toe beds' being forced out of place due to the running.

Night of Thursday February 12 I jog-walked the outdoors 5 mile Main and Moody course in 98 minutes; I was able to jog in my natural style featuring heel and ball of foot striking the ground almost simultaneously, without pain for the three miles run during the five mile course--except that during the third mile there was some pain in the left big toe and in the index and middle toes of the right foot. For most of the five miles the feet in the balls of the foot area felt numb and tingly. The run was done in what I call an 'under-the-weather' physical state, Thursday was the third day in a row on which I had run this five mile course.

Although during the run it felt like an annoying prominent ridge of padding was under the big toe of each foot, and it felt as if the padding and/or the socks had gotten irritatingly crinkled up under the ball of the left foot--apparently such perceptions were merely sensory illusions.

When I got home and sat down I was suprised to find that it no longer felt as if there was an elevated prominent ridge of padding under the left and right big toes; and I no longer felt as if the padding and/or sock under the ball of the left foot had gotten irritatingly crumpled up (I noticed this sensory illusion phenom on a previous run).

After the run I found that the 'Profoot' brand 'toe beds' that I had glued to the gray foam side of the gray and blue gel insoles, had maintained their affixed position on the gray and blue insoles, they had not been moved out of place.

I conclude that a possible solution to the pain problem would be to combine the padding used Thursday night Feb 12, with toe tubes or toe caps over the left big toe and the middle and index right toes. This would be lighter than the first solution that eliminated pain, the two layers of heel-to-toe gel.

Thursday I could not help but notice, that Adidas seems to be foolish, in that in the 'Adistar Control 5' they combined very thick 1 and 3/4 inch thick padding in the heel area, with only 0.5" thick padding in the toe area, creating a HIGH-HEELED shoe featuring inadequate padding in the ball of the foot area; this despite the fact that even a novice upon beginning to investigate the foot-padding mysteries, immediately notices that ball-of-foot padding is especially made for, targetted at, and needed by, women who wear HIGH HEELED shoes, due to the pressure placed on the balls of the feet by the high heels. All this despite the obvious fact that in the state of nature, the heel and the ball of the foot are level in altitude.

Hey Adidas genius MBAs and engineering Phds, here's an idea that you somehow apparently missed: create a shoe that is the Adistar Control 5, except with half an inch of padding added to the toes area and a half an inch of padding removed from the heel area, creating a shoe with 1.25" thick padding in the heel area and 1" thick padding in the toes area. Name it the 'Adidas Wehumblyreturntocommonsense 1 running shoe'.

Stroke of genius: what shoes that are not so-called 'running shoes', have this kind of distribution of padding, 1.25" in the heel area and 1.0" in the toe area?...those could be the best so-called 'running shoes' for me.

Could be I should not allow feelings of irritation to arise within me with regards to such matters, but I feel irritated that it should take me so much time energy and money to solve the problem of footwear that allows me to run a few miles in my natural style of running on a sidewalk, without feeling pain. Seems like the shoe producing corporations and other corporations are churning out too much low quality in terms of goods, services, customer-service, and user-manuals.

Related Links:

http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/02/running-shoes-2-layers-of-padding-no.html

http://davidvirgil.blogspot.com/2009/02/running-shoes-and-gel-cushioning.html