River - I tried on those five finger shoes at the Marathon exhibition last Sunday on London - I had never even heard of them before and saw this guy trying them on and running with them and thought they looked really freaky, but was interested enough to try them.

I hads a little experiemtnal jog on the treadmill they had there and was intrigued, although I didn't buy any there and then - but I was seriously considering getting some for the summer.

Can you keep us informed as to how you go on with them?

I haven't been able to run since my Marathon last Sunday as, although all my other aches and pains have happily gone, I have a pain on the outside of my left foot - it's right in the middle of the outer edge of the foot if that makes sense.

For two days after the Marathon it was very swollen and red and I thought I might have had a stress fracture, but just as I had decided to get it x-rayed, it started to go down and now, although the swelling and redness has totally gone - the pain doesn't seem to be getting any better. On a scale of one to ten, it's about a four, so not a tremendous pain, but when I walk for more than a minute or so it hurts and I don't dare risk running on it.

Not sure what to do for the best - whether to go to the hospital and be turned away after waiting for four hours, or just bide my time and rest up and hope it gets better.

My 10-year-old decided to run with me Saturday. He went two full miles without stopping or complaining. I was so proud of him. I stayed near to the park, so he could stop and play with his brothers if he got tired, but he wanted to keep going.

On Easter morning, I decided I was going to run in my own neighborhood for the first time. I am feeling like a "real runner" lately and am less worried about what people think of my jiggly self running by. Although I logically know they aren't thinking a darn thing, I just have never been comfortable with exercise in public, and I like to know my distance. It was awesome to not have to drive somewhere to run, the weather was perfect, and being Easter morning, I only saw five people and two cars the whole way. I will be running outside, in my own neighborhood from now on.

Is there something inexpensive to track distance? I know a lot of people use Garmin, but I really don't want to spend $200+. I have been sticking to the treadmill, tracks, and measured park trails, but would really like the freedom of just running anywhere, but at the same time really like to know the distance and time. For now, I am going to just use my stopwatch on my iPod. I know my usual time for a mile is just under 11 minutes, so I can estimate that way.

I saw a guy wearing a green pair at a race last month and thought "What in the heck is he wearing? Lizard feet????" I had never seen them before. Since then, they are popping up everywhere, including billboard signs on the expressway.

Maybe you could pick up a bottom-end or second hand Garmin from ebay or somewhere. Alternatively, you can plan out routes using www.mapmyrun.com - it's not exact but near enough.

But I am OCD enough to love my Garmin and love that it gives me speeds for every mile or lap and I can programme it any which way I like - think about it if you are serious about carrying on running.

Robsia - I've got a pair of Vibram Bikilas, which my physical therapist suggested to help rehab my knee, but so far I've only walked in them. That's enough of a difference from wearing shoes to make my lower legs feel it, so I'm easing very VERY slowly into running with them. My plan is to find a track and run on the softer surface, but so far I can't find a track that's open to the public - damn schools keep their gates locked! As for your foot - I know the thought of dealing with the NHS (is it still the NHS? I haven't lived in England for 17 years!) is a misery, but if it is a stress fracture, you really need to find out so you can rehab it. Hopefully it's something minimal and resting up will take care of it.

Aimee - before I splurged on my Garmin, I used the USA Track & Field site to map runs - for some reason I find it easier to use than the Map My Run site - www.usatf.org/routes/map/ - put in your zip code and map a route. I still use it when I want to go a certain distance and I need to plan a route, but then being completely Type A, I run with my Garmin for even greater accuracy. Just be warned - once you get a Garmin, you may become addicted!

As for me - I did my 5k on Saturday and it wasn't bad. Hotter than I expected and I went out far too fast, so I lagged in the last mile. Husband beat me, which he was very excited about. My mum did it under 45 minutes, and at 69, that's not too shabby. Today's run SUCKED though. My left shin and top of the foot hurt for the first mile - badly enough to make me take walk breaks. Then my right knee started complaining, then just as I found my stride, I was done. Sheesh. Some runs are just bad. Chalk it up to whatever and move on!

I'm a garmin girl too, but I also use a free app on my iphone from Adidas called "micoach".

It's awesome because it's free, you can use it with your library or playlists you build, you can turn on voice coaching that tells you your distance, speed, time, right over your playlist or you can turn off that feature. It tells you to speed up or slow down according to the goals that you build online. It uses the gps built into your iphone to track your time, speed, distance and gives you graphs online of your performance showing altitude, routes, etc. It's not as accurate as my garmin, but did I mention that it's free?

Did 10 miles yesterday, and have an easy 30 min recovery run planned for today. 4 weeks to my half.

I won't be running more than a few miles at a time in my vibrams until after the race, and I will post my experience here. But so far, I've run a 5k in them with no problems.

Thanks guys! I have only been running for three months, so the Garmin is out, maybe for my one-year running anniversary. I had tried map my runs and google earth, but both are time consuming and I couldn't get map my runs to work at all. After a little research this morning, I was thinking maybe the Nike shoe sensor because I run with my iTouch. A little more digging came up with a $1.99 iTouch app that is reviewed as being as accurate as the Nike + shoe sensor, so I am going to try that. I am sure it isn't near as accurate as a Garmin, but for $1.99, I will take it up to the high school track and see what it does.

Well, I took myself and my foot up to the hospital this evening and insisted on an x-ray and it is not a stress fracture. The doctor says it is tendon damage and I need to rest it and no running for at least 3-4 weeks

I know it sound silly but I was almost disappointed. To be in pain and not be able to run for the same length of time, a fracture is a more 'high-status' injury than mere 'tendon damage'. I know it's silly, but it would have been cool to say that I had a broken foot and still finished the Marathon.

Ah well, at least I know.

Robsia-- a stress fracture will NOT show up on an xray until it is healed..... you can only see them on MRI's untill the bone has healed, and will look "thicker" on the xray where whe racture was

I read that too - I found a website dedicated to stress fractures of the foot, but I thought after 8 days there might be enough new bone to show up. But the doctor said there are certain pressure points where, if I had a break, it would hurt when he pressed, which it didn't - it just hurt where it hurt, if you see what I mean.

Although he was young and didn't seem all that bothered, I felt very much like I was wasting his time. He told me he didn't think it was broken, said shortly, "Look do you want an x-ray?" and, when I said, "Yes," put me through the motions, so at least I should be grateful that I got one.

Well, I'll rest it as much as I can, given that we have a week of decorating to do - the healing time is roughly the same as it would be for a break, so it won't get better any faster.

Hi, Everybody! I'm relatively new to 3FC and have been posting to the "Atkins" threads since starting the program 30 days ago.

I've been running since 1/7/11. I started out with a walking/running program and got up to running 30 minutes straight. After that, I started training for a September 1/2 marathon until I started the Atkins program. I was simply amazed at how hard it was to run on only 20 grams of carbs/day. It was horrible in the beginning - I could only run five minutes without needing a walking break. I'm slowly making progress, but had to practically restart my running program due to the lack of carbs in my system. Running is so much harder now.

Has anyone else experienced running while on a low-carb diet?

Hi, welcome!

I would not run on a low carb diet or even eat a low carb diet. I find that the hunger pangs, grumpiness, lack of energy, and general unhappiness that I experience on low carbs is not worth it to me.

Hopefully someone else can help out with this question.

I personally would die on low carb and running, but that's just me. There are TONS on opinions on this and all it boils down to is what works for you.

Just plugging along here. Been taking it a little easy cause of the ankle, but plugging along non the less. Ankle actually is much less swollen this week. I've been stretching and massaging it and that seems to help a lot.

Getting impatient for May to get here so I can start training for my next half.

zetaphine I did Atkins too and trained for a half marathon partly on low carb. I couldn't run properly while on the Atkins induction, my heart rate was really high and I could manage about 1/5 of what I was capable of before. I got around it by changing to South Beach and eating fruit / portion of grains with the meal before my run. That worked great! I did this until my pre-1/2 runs got to 16km and I needed more carbs. I added another portion in, so oatmeal for breakfast, slice of rye bread with lunch. Four days before the race, I ate as many carbs as I wanted (which turned out to be not a lot).

So basically, it is possible but I wouldn't do it while on any form of very low carb diet (i.e. induction!)