How Do I Prevent Blisters During Long Runs?

Audio Transcript

Haughey: Hey Runners Connect fans. We have a great question from Matt today.

Matt: “I have a tendency to always get blisters when running longer distances and I cannot seem to figure out what to do to avoid them.

To complicate things, I run long distances in shoes with a wider toe box, as I suspect I have Morton’s Neuroma, so tight shoes and tight socks make for a very painful experience after 20 K.

I need the extra space to avoid the pain. What can you do to avoid this?”

Haughey: That’s a great question Matt. Wow! I know just how bad blisters can be. I’ve had some pretty nightmare blisters myself and can totally sympathize with you.

They can be as painful and debilitating as any injury. Thankfully, there’s a lot you can do to prevent them.

The first thing is to consider what’s causing the blister and that’s almost always a case of excessive friction.

In most cases this can be tied to ill-fitting shoes and excess moisture. When the water gets trapped between your skin and footwear, it can dramatically increase the friction.

Personally, I’m absolutely fine in the shoes I wear here.

When I run abroad in the same shoes in warmer conditions, I suffer. I’ve tested this a couple of times and it’s just moving to that warmer climate where I guess my feet sweat more, and suddenly, I get blisters everywhere and it’s so painful.

I’m not sure what you’ve tried, but to give my experience for blisters, I’d imagine you’ve tried quite a lot of things, but I’ve run through what is worth giving a go.

Lastly, check that your shoes fit well and are in good condition.

I appreciate that you have to wear a shoe with a wide toe box for your foot condition, but you can still ensure that these fit well to reduce slipping and a wider shoe.

You can try different lacing techniques, a technique known as lock lacing [which you can Google] which is what I use.

It’s great for reducing slippage around the heel, whilst preventing unnecessary pressure on other parts of the feet.

Aside from that, make sure the shoes are a good fit for you.

It’s hard to say exactly what shape, without knowing the location of your blisters, but be sure they’re not too small.

You need a good fingers width at the end of your longest toe, and I would say that the back of the shoe doesn’t slip around once laced up.

Bear in mind that your feet can expand as you run longer distances, so it’s worth getting a size larger than what you wear; an everyday shoe.

Any good running shoe shop will be able to help you check this.

You can also use the insole of your shoe to see how much room you have on your toes, just take out the shoe and stand on it.

I’m assuming that you’ve tried wearing a different make or type of shoe and still have the blister issues.

If you haven’t, it might be worth doing so.

You should check your shoes inside with your hand to ensure there’s no little bits of stick out or little bits that are more worn than others.

If you’ve worn those shoes for more than 400 to 500 miles, it might be worth replacing them.

You should definitely make sure, just as a general tip, that the shoes you wear on race day are the ones that you’ve tested out on longer runs.

If you try others and you think that your shoes are 100% fine, it’s worth looking at your socks.

They should be snug fitting, although you do say that you can’t wear socks that are too tight, so obviously not too snug fitting, but ensure they’re made of a synthetic fabric.

Certain socks are marked as blister prevention and it’s definitely worth getting these a go.

Personally, I find that double skin socks are quite helpful and I’ve tried a lot of different types of socks.

I came back from one of my warmer [inaudible 00:04:44] training trips, my boyfriend had bought me a bag of 20 different pairs of socks to try, because I’ve been complaining so much while I was away.

Some people swear by wearing two pairs of very thin socks, again, that’s something you might need to play around with.

In the warmer weather, I make sure I go with socks that are pretty thin to reduce the amount that my feet sweat and to help keep that moisture away.

If your shoes and your socks are fine, you need to look at other ways of reducing the friction.

There are some things you can do, although, I’d still recommend getting to the bottom of the cause, but in the meantime, zinc oxide tape can be very useful.

You can put this tape on healthy skin, in the places that the blisters normally appear, to prevent them.

Same with Compeed blister plasters which are slightly more expensive, but you can put them where the blisters usually occur.

Although one I’ve tried this month I did then end up getting blisters around the plaster, but still worth trying.

Other options include smothering the foot in Vaseline, paying particular attention to those problem areas.

My personal favourite is to use blister patches, something I get from Amazon that could ankle blister patches.

They actually stick on your shoe rather than on your foot, and I found them to be really helpful.

Tips like these are really helpful for occasional races or long runs, but as I say, it’s really important to address the cause of these blisters so they just don’t keep reoccurring, and you don’t spend thousands of pounds in blister plasters.

If you’ve tried all the tips above and nothing seems to help, I’d strongly recommend visiting a podiatrist.

They can look at both your shoes and your technique in determining whether either of these are causing you blisters.

It’s impossible for me to say without seeing you run or seeing the location of your blisters, but certain biomechanical abnormalities in your running form, can lead to excess friction ad blisters.

A good podiatrist or physiotherapist can help you to determine whether this is the case and advise you on how to remedy it.

I really hope you can get this sorted; I know just how nasty these blisters can be.

Thanks for asking that question. I’m sure a lot of our listeners will find it really helpful. For those of you listening that want your questions answered by one of the RunnersConnect coaches, head over to runnersconnect.net/daily and click the record button to send your questions over.

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Have a great day and be sure to tune in next time.