A running question

[Marek]

Cheers Paul, I have taken the plunge and ordered the £20 ones. I tried a pair on in a running shop today and they don't look complicated to make. I therefore reckon that even if these are fakes they will do the job. Well, at least I hope so.

Cheers

Marek.....

[Marek]

So, I am taking this a bit seriously now. Took out some of my old trainers which looked like this:

[img]http://i53.tinypic.com/wlcdhh.jpg[/img]

Then I took a kitchen knife to them and they now look like this:

[img]http://i53.tinypic.com/eqc7s0.jpg[/img]

Went and did a 1 mile run, not far but they felt great. Much faster cadence was easier to hold and also felt like I was running on the front of the foot a lot more and feet were naturally falling just under my body. Put in more arm action and was flying. Really got the heart rate going and felt pretty beat after just that short distance. Am going to chuck this into my training routine and see what happens. Will gradually build up the time on the newly designed Nikes I have just built.

Cheers

Marek...

[Dan_K]

Those flowers could do with some water.

[Sylv]

Nice job Marek. If you manage 5 miles on them without injury, I'll send you some of mine to do . Those Nikes really did have loads of padding!

Some guys on a French bike forum have been buying the 5-finger copies and say they are great. But they are using them for walking around not running.

[Antloony]

Marek, I read your post about cutting off the heels of your trainers and doing 5 miles without injury so Ive taken on board your advice and have got my saw out and cut all the heels of my misses stilettos as she cant walk more than 500 hundred bleeding yards in them without her moaning she's in agony or twisting an ankle.

Women

[Lucyap]

Interesting thread. I know the five finger shoes get a good review in triathlon magazine (might be a bugger to get on wet feet from the swim )
But what are peoples thoughts on using them and bare foot running, with foot imbalances? I pronate quite badly, and am currently running in very supportive Asics 2150's with custom made orthotics - after having problems with my knees last session. I have enough problems walking around in flip flops (let alone stilettos!), but is it possible to re-educate my plates of meat??

Lucy.

[Marek]

From what I have read, most of the problems seem to be coming from expensive trainers with orthotics etc. Read the Gordon Pirie book posted earlier in the thread. Now I am no expert yet, but looking at a lot of video footage and reading about this way of running it all seems to make a lot of sense. If you also look up Pose method on internet you will find more videos and training advice.

I get pain in one of my knees and I am hoping that I can get rid of it by altering my running style and go quicker at the same time. By doing some of the things like shortening the stride, landing on your forefoot and landing on the foot closer to the body, therefore not overextending I think you will get a better feel when you are running.

Do this, stand up and put out your leg as if you were going to land on your heel. Look at the angle of your leg and your knee, it is quite extended. Now change the angle of your foot so it is pointing down as if you were going to land on your forefoot. Now look at the angle of your knee. That is your shock absorber, so my reckoning is that by having more of a bend and taking more of the shock out by landing on the front of the foot my knees will feel better.

The downside at the moment is that my calves are killing me as am using muscles not used before. That is why I only ran one mile in the modified trainers today with new style as I don't want to overdo it too soon. Will build up a bit more each day and see if I can get up to 10km in a few weeks time.

Am expecting a couple of weeks of aches and pains.

Cheers

Marek

[Paul H]

Be careful.

You will be lucky if your knee pain goes by using lightweight shoes. Its more likely a muscle imbalance caused by cycling. Is it underneath the knee cap?

[Sylv]

I went out today and reverted to my normal style, but focusing on the other aspects of the technique, some of which I already used anyway (rapid and silent stride, landing foot under body, upper body not bobbing up and down, solid arm action) and the hardest which is slightly leaning forward.

It's real hard to tell but I reckon I don't land heavily on the heel, not nearly as bad as on those videos they show you to point out what not to do with the heavy impact feeding through the knee. I seem to land more or less with a flat foot, and even wonder if i'm not doing ball of foot first. It would be great if we could film ourselves running once, to be able to slow down the motion. I could do this with my basic Canon digital.

Unlike Marek I'm not trying to avoid a recurring injury, and not planning to ride anymore than 15km max at a time, so I think it's better not to try anything wildly different to what I've been doing up till now. Last time I over emphasised on the landing technique with the result of blisters and calf pain for several days.

[Paul H]

Lets have a video session then

[Sylv]

[quote="Paul H"]Lets have a video session then

[Dominic]

I'd be interested in doing the Banstead run this year if you can post when you are doing it.

[Marek]

You should all run it barefoot.

I can't make it this weekend as am doing a brick session around my way with a few others who are doing the Ballbuster with me.

Anyhow, today I ran 10km this morning before work and concentrated on vigorous arm movement and looking ahead a lot more rather than down. What I noticed was the looking ahead seemed to put the body in a better position as seemed to speed up as with moving the arms nice and fast. I don't think you should lean forward so much Sylv, have a read of the Gordon Pirie thing he is very adamant about not leaning forward. So on the 10km to work I wore my normal non cut down trainers and they did feel heavy and quite difficult to hold the forefoot strike. Did it for some of the way and then soft landed on the rear a bit as calves were starting to ache.

Then this evening did 2km in the cut down shoes, man it is so much easier to run without the heel, I really noticed it again that landing on the forefoot was easy and natural and that combined with the arms and faster cadence I was going nice and quick.

Calves feel absolutely cream krackered now, but no pain no gain. Might do another 10km tomorrow morning am enjoying it so much.

Cheers

Marek......

[Paul H]

Bought a Garmin yet?

[Sylv]

I have some Nike "casual" shoes with fairly thin soles that I will try using next time I go out running.

About the leaning, know what Gordon said, but it's the basis of Pose isn't it. Let the gravity pull you forward. It's hard to do, but like your looking forward, it seems to make you go a bit faster instantly.

There's so much advice it's hard to think about all of it at once, but one image that stuck and I like, is think about your legs as spinning round and round behind you, like Roadrunner.

[img]http://shoe.a-holic.com/files/2008/10/roadrunner.gif[/img]