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From the Family Album
We get a lot of questions about children wearing running shoes. Generally the advice is to get a good fitting pair of sports shoes for young children. However, many of the popular running shoe companies do offer running shoes for children. We also get questions about children running with various aches and pains. Since none of us have gone to medical school, we always refer these visitors to a sports medicine doctor. We hope that you will do the same if your child is running with pain. Here is Thomas's story. |
KNEE PAINI am emailing you now about running shoes. Thomas started school in the middle of August. Right before school started I bought him some New Balance (524 suede type). Anyway, when I bought them it was just to do everyday things in. I wasn't thinking about purposeful running - since he had not discovered his love of "running" yet. It is has been 3 months now and it is time to get some new athletic shoes. Thomas has been telling me that he needs to get some running shoes. I thought that maybe his PE coach was telling him that, but he said that he just thinks he needs running shoes. Thomas sometimes complains of knee pain (his left knee). I just looked at the bottom of his shoes. The heels are both pretty worn (a little more on the inside of the tread). The tread is also worn around the inside ball of foot area (much more so on his left shoe than right).
Usually his knee pain is at night after he has run 1-2 miles at school. He doesn't do that often (probably once a week). He usually only runs between 1/4 to 1 mile a day. From the looks of his shoes he appears to need more support around the worn areas. What do you suggest?
KID RUNNER
By the way, Thomas is enjoying running so much that he has decided that next year he wants to dress up as a runner in a race for Halloween. And, he always dresses up as something scary! Boy, will that be an easy costume to do! And, until this year Thomas has always worn jeans and other "regular" pants to school. Now he refuses to wear jeans or any other kind of stiff pants to school. He said that he "can't run good" in them. I just buy him the Starter athletic pants to wear to school. I am glad they are not strict on the dress code at his school. Anyway, please let me know what you suggest for new shoes.
CROSS TRAINING
Thomas does participate in a lot of different sports. He plays on a travel baseball team in the spring and summer. He gets the same wear pattern on his baseball cleats. He plays basketball in the winter (1 practice and 1 game a week for basketball). He also rides his bike a lot. Thomas hasn't had any knee pain for a couple of weeks. Since then he has paced himself. I think he knew that he was doing too much. I also think once he proved to himself that he could run 2, 3, or 5 miles the challenge to prove that he could do it was no longer driving him to run long distances. He only ran 5 miles 1 time. He doesn't run on the weekends anymore either.
As much as I enjoy my own walking when I watch him run at our park, he gets enough exercise at school, and riding his bike and playing pick-up football games in our front yard almost every day after school. My husband and I noticed that along with some knee pain some days Thomas is very tired (goes to sleep the minute his head hits the pillow). We thought he might be going through a growth spurt.
We were going to put the brakes on him running so much, and then we didn't have to because he just stopped running as far. He comes in from school and he talks about his day, and he will say that he ran a mile, or that he didn't run, or that he ran 1 lap. They run at recess. He won't usually run farther than his friends because he wants to spend time with them. I do know that Thomas has a lot of energy and is very active throughout the day. He doesn't want to slow down to eat much. He has always been like that. He usually eats a big breakfast, a couple of snacks during the day, a light lunch, light dinner, and a bowl of cereal before bed. Anyway, thank you for your advice. .
DOCTOR VISIT
The doctor examined Thomas this afternoon. He examined his shoes, gait, etc. We told him that his shoes are slightly less than 3 months old. He told us that he doesn't think that his feet are hyperpronating. He said his left foot might be. But, he said not to worry about that yet. Our doctor is a runner himself. He said that we (the doc and us) need to monitor him. He also said that Thomas may need to have an ortho fit him when he is a teenager.
For right now, he said he needs to have 2 new pairs of athletic shoes and insole inserts. He said that he would prefer that we buy New Balance (but they don't have to be running shoes). He is going to email some options.
He said that he needs to altenate wearing the shoes every other day (for some reason because of sweat - need to dry out for 24 hours before wearing again). He said to get 2 different colored pairs so we can keep track of when he wears the shoes. He said before he starts playing baseball again we will need to get him more insole inserts and then have him try on new cleats with the insole inserts. I am glad he said we don't have to buy 2 pairs of expensive running shoes! It will be expensive enough just to buy 2 pairs of New Balance and inserts. I told Thomas just to walk until I can take him to get new shoes this weekend. Thank you for advising me to take him to a doctor! Your advice probably prevented some injuries. Thomas can't believe he gets to have 2 new pairs of shoes instead of one!
NEW SHOES
I got Thomas some new shoes. The salesperson told me that Thomas's old shoes are too big. When Thomas tried on a size that the salesperson said was the right size, Thomas thought they were too small (probably because he just wasn't used to how they hug his foot). We got a size smaller than I bought last time (both New Balance - so no difference there). Also, when we got home I cut his new insole inserts to put them in his shoes. When I did that I was also looking at his old shoes and decided to take his old insoles out of his shoes to look at them. When I started to do that I couldn't pull the insole out. I discovered that he had NO insoles! I asked Thomas about this and he said he lost one, and so he decided to take the other one out of the other shoe - "to match", he said. It looked like there were insoles in there, but there weren't. And, the doctor didn't even notice either. With his new shoes and new inserts he probably feels like he is floating on air! He couldn't wait to wear them. He wants to go running at the park tomorrow. I feel good about it now. I felt like an idiot after I found out he was wearing the wrong size shoe (and with no insoles!). I told him to let me know if he ever loses an insole again, and we will get him somemore. I will take a picture of him running in them tomorrow and send to you.
FROM THE FAMILY ALBUM
I took my camera to the park when we ran today, but when I tried to take a picture I found out my batteries were dead. So, I took pics when we got home. I say "we" ran, I mean I ran 1/4 mile, my husband ran 1/4 mile and finished 2 miles walking. Thomas ran 2 miles, then walked 1/2 mile, and then played on the playground while we finished walking. Notice the clothes Thomas is wearing in these pictures - it was in the upper 70's today here in Alabama.
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