Running Tip of the Day

A few weeks ago I found a cure for a rare, but nonetheless annoying occurence when I run. For inexplicable reasons, sometimes I will slowly lose feeling in one of my feet. Not sure what causes this lack of circulation, but I find myself moving my toes around with almost every stride in an attempt to get the blood flowing again - all to no avail. It doesn't hurt, and it doesn't really effect my running, but it is annoying and it just plain feels weird. Last time this happened, I was on mile four of a six mile run and my left foot had long been numb. I thought I'd just have to suck it up for the last few miles. Then I reached a hill. Now, I've found that running shorter, quicker steps up on the balls of my feet is an easier way to get up hills. So I went up on the balls of my feet, and what do you know, I immediately felt the blood flow back into my numb foot. By the time the hill was over, it was back to normal. After a few minutes of running "normal" again, the numbness would threaten to come back, but to sustain until the end of the run, I would just go up on the balls of my feet again for a moment (even if I wasn't on a hill). I might have looked slightly weird, but at this point, I didn't care. I hope that someone else out there might find this information helpful. If it's well-received, I'll have t-shirts made, "Stop Numbness. It's Just Plain Weird."