What in a shoe?

I have been running for almost 3 years at some level now ... And i am still frustated with the shoe selection process ! And so it goes again. I ran Tuesday with my asics gel-pulse 2 and got quite a beating on my legs ... I think because i am back to my 100% potential and the cushioning on that pair is just shot so I felt the full power of my strides hitting the pavement with I hadn't in a while ...

I set out to get another pair of pulse but the common stores haven't restock them so i couldnt find my size. 8 or 8.5 ... I think the reason these are good to my foot is the way the sole in the toe is cushioned ...  I was at Run26, a local running store where i tried a different Asics model and Brooks Ghost ... Both neutral shoes ... Padding in the Asics was inadequate. The Brooks felt much better better with a wider toe box. Both felt fine support wise ... Although this morning i read a review that mentioned that the Ghost allows for the toes to "curl back" which in my case is something i want to avoid ...

So i was doing some more shoe research this morning .. This time looking for neutral shoes with padding rather than pronation support.  I was also considering adding padding in the shoe too.  Then a light bulb went off in my head.  I though who out there works their feet harder than dancers?  Dancers must have good tips to managing pressure on their toe and feet.  So here I was checking out padding tricks for pointe shoes ah ah ... One comment read said more padding isn't always better.  Then I noticed many the tips I was reading were more about padding the feet, rather than the shoe.  I found one link in particular that described manners of taping feet and toes for added support and padding.

After a few click I ended up at this site that describes how to tape the ball of the foot with athletic tape to help with the diffuse pain associated with metatarsalgia.  I wrapped up my feet tonight ...They looked like I ductaped them lol ...

I went for a 6 mile run around Arlington municipal airport.  Although walking bare foot felt awkward my Asics Enduro felt so much softer.  During the whole I noticed how my toes were more relaxed and how cushioned the my heels felt.  My left foot felt tight, my right foot tighter.  I think because I wrapped them too tight, definitely too tight on the right.  It did prevent them to widen over the course of the 6 miles.  So I need to more wrap them more gently.  The left wrap was coming off so I added a small piece to the cover the ends.  This may have provide a little more flexibility on that side.

The tape helped.  Rocks on the trail did not create pressure points on my foot.  My shoes really felt like a different pair of shoes.  The greatest sign was probably at mile 4 when the trail transitions to pavement.  The transition was very smooth, which is very different how that transition felt before.

I run the Lake Sammamish half on Saturday.  I will warp my feet looser, try a second layer and see how it feels.  I seem to be on the right track.  The only thing that worries me a little is my now my right IT band feels irritated, so that's not so good news if that the case.  Will definitely feel it at Lake Sammamish if indeed it is irritated.  Note to self spend time stretching that IT band.  The good news is with this solution to my foot pain toe box cushioning in my shoes isn't as critical based on my experience today with the Enduro. The Enduro are trail shoes thus have much less cushion yet felt as good as the road shoes ... So that will simplify my road shoe search.