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Wednesday 28 September 2011

Like-minded soles

In the last week or so I spotted three separate runners wearing Vibram Fivefingers on their runs, and this was all within a 6 kilometre radius of wear I live. Based on this alone it looks as though they are getting more acceptance as a legitimate running shoe. I am in the middle of my biggest mileage month since I transitioned and look set to get to at least 120 kilometres this month with long runs reaching 14 km.


Currently, I am basing my training on slowly building up my long runs to 2 hours and fitting in what I can during the week. This will take a couple more months but I am just happy that I am doing as much as I am right now. My feet and lower legs are as strong as they’ve ever been and the only problems I have been having recently are blisters developing on longer runs. I’m interested to find out if other VFF users are experiencing this, and I wonder if it simply relates to the longer duration producing conditions conducive to blistering. Hopefully some blistershield-like product will help with my 90 minute run on Sunday.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Being There

Again, it's been a while since my last post but it has more to do with the fact that I am happily running regularly instead of having nothing to say.
Only midway through September and I am about to surpass my highest monthly mileage total in minimalist shoes.
This Sunday, I'm preparing to run for 80 minutes having completed 70 minutes for the last 2 Sundays. I have also consistently trained 4 times a week for the last few weeks and feel as though my fitness is improving.
The best thing about the last few weeks is that my running has now become more about my running rather than about my transition to minimalism. Now I just cannot imagine running in anything other than my Vibram KSO's (I've given up on the Trail Gloves. Still feels like too much shoe on my foot.). Everyday I wake up and feel like running, not like I shouldn't because my calves are to sore. I'm beginning to think about races I'd like to do next year, introducing some speed sessions and generally taking my running to the next level.
I have now convinced myself that I can be as fast as I used to be when I was shod. I'm already nearly there.

Wednesday 31 August 2011

Springtime

I have been quite slack posting on here lately, but it is because I've actually been pretty slack with my running. But I'm back with some renewed enthusiasm which has been brought on by the advent of Spring here in Melbourne and a brand new toy. The Garmin FR 610 was baptised this morning and more on that in a moment.

The reason there hasn't been more running is simply not making the time to do it. Whereas I have been doing alot of my running in my lunch break, I have simply been too busy at work so I haven't found time in the morning or after work. This has to change otherwise I will make no progress at all. August was only half the kms I'd done in July and I had actually gained 1.5 kgs, so September is going to mean some action.
The weather will start to get warmer and it will be lighter earlier in the morning so I will be setting my alarm to wake me and go from there.

Here are details of my run from Garmin Connect:

My right calf still hasn't caught up with my left in terms of recovering after a run, but other than a recurring blood blister under my middle right toe, no injuries.


Monday 15 August 2011

Back and better

I haven't posted for a while but I've kept running. August has seen quite a shift for me in terms of pace.
In July my average pace for all my running was 5:54 per km, so far this month I've been averaging something like 5:30s per km. This has been very encouraging for me that I am on the right track, as has been the fact that my legs and specifically, my calves, seem to have made adaptations to the minimalist form.
This has inspired me to some extent and the result is that I am now beginning training for a new race here in Melbourne. It will happen in November and is 14km in distance, and this also means that I can use the 10k race at the Melbourne Marathon as a warm up. I've decided to use a training program closer to the half-marathon distance than a 10k program.
Hopefully with my training ramping up, I'll start to see some weight come off as well.

Monday 1 August 2011

July

My running stats for July read like this:




69 kilometres at an average pace of 5:54 min per km



My weight is 93.5 kg



In June I ran the same number of kilometres at an average pace of 5:56 mpk and my weight was 93.8 kg.



Although both months were very similar I had 22 days of no running in July compared with 17 in June. What does it mean? It means I ran less frequently but when I ran, I ran longer. This wasn’t on purpose as at the start of the month, I had a whole week off because of a lower back complaint.



What’s ahead for August? Go beyond my longest run of 1 hour and try for at least 80 kilometres for the month. Hopefully, I can continue to bring my average pace down and also continue to lose some weight. I wasn’t very happy with the amount of weight I lost in July, but I didn’t exactly avoid some of my danger foods. I was good for brief periods but obviously not enough.

The weather in Melbourne is really nice at the moment considering its virtually mid-winter here. I’m really getting a sense of excitement about the coming warmer months and really ramping up my training and just generally enjoying all my runs.

My last run on Sunday was 35 minutes at 5:27 pace. What pleased me most about this was I wasn’t really trying to go that fast and I was just running how I felt like running. That was the result.

Happy days.

Thursday 28 July 2011

Where art thou KSOs

After a couple of days off due to some general soreness and time constraints, I set out for a lunch time run.
The plan was for 30 minutes at a relaxed pace. I did try someting different today in that I wore my Merrell Trail Gloves instead of my Vibram KSOs. Fail. I did this partly because I was getting a bit self conscious about some of the looks i was getting walking out of my work building. After today I've decided that I don't care about that anymore. I think the problem with the Trail Gloves are the aggressive lugs on the outsole. When I run in my fivefingers I am very quiet, but in the Trail Gloves there is a distinctive slapping sound and they just feel a little stiifer to run in. Based on this I sometimes think that it's never going to be easy to surpass Vibram's designs as a minimalist shoe. Vibram, please don't mess with the KSO. Having said all that I still had a good run of 5.23 km in 30 minutes but would've been better if I wasn't so conscious of my shoes.
On a separate running related matter, I have started reading "Run - The Mind Body Method of Running by Feel" by Matt Fitzgerald. I'll post some kind of review when I'm finished, but the first few pages have got my attention.

Monday 25 July 2011

No news = good news...maybe

I've been having a good week running-wise and really have been enjoying my running more than thinking about it. A bit of this has to do with the fact that my body has finally adapted to some extent and am running up to an hour at a time comfortably. I am choosing to limit my running to a maximum of four times a week to still allow me 3 full days for recovery and so far this has worked fine.
I ran on today and on Sunday and plan on running tomorrow and Thursday before having Friday and Saturday off....hang on a minute that sounded suspiciously like a Rebecca Black song.

On Sunday it rained alot in Melbourne and found myself with saturated fivefingers at the end of the run. This resulted in some painful blisters on the knuckles of my big toes from the wet fabric rubbing on the skin. I ran again today using band-aids to cover the sores but I may have to use my Trail Gloves for tomorrow's run as they have a bit more room in them and no rubbing on the area. Hopefully this will let the blisters heal.
I have been noticing that my overall pace is beginning to come down which makes me happy.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

The Hungry Caterpillar

I’ve been reading ‘Zen and the Art of Running’ by Larry Shapiro and have been finding it quite a good read. I really like the idea of running as a form of meditation. It’s been dawning on me that this requires a lot of self focus and really listening to what you are doing. I used to run while listening to music but now I’m wondering if I wasn’t inadvertently ignoring signs of impending injury. Since I hurt my knee I run sans headphones, besides, I need all my concentration on my footstrike, posture and cadence.


Lately I’ve also been doing a lot of reading about the explosion of minimal shoes coming on to the market. I do quite like the look of some but I just can’t believe that any would be able to better the look and feel of Vibram Fivefingers. Vibram if you’re reading this, please don’t mess with existing models, especially KSOs.

I have found it surprisingly easy this week to avoid chocolate, in fact it’s been something like ten days since I had any and overall my diet’s been pretty good. It will be interesting to weigh in at the beginning of July. Speaking of July, I can’t wait for the southern hemisphere winter to be over. Now that I’m running consistently and without injury, I’m dreaming of the warmer weather and running topless in my fivefingers…

Thursday 14 July 2011

Happy Happy Bastille Day

I normally do most of my running during the week in my lunch hour, but yesterday I just had to much to do to take that time during lunch. I decided to bite the bullet and run home after work. The only problem with this was that the distance from work to my home is roughly twice the longest distance I had run as a minimalist. With the mantra of TMTS ringing in my head, I told myself that if I wasn't feeling good by the 6km mark I would simply walk or catch a train as the path I was running was along my train line.
Well, under some beautiful late-afternoon winter sunshine I got home running all the way. According to my Garmin, 10km in 62 minutes and I felt great. The most pleasing thing about the run was that for the first time in a long time I actually forgot about my knee because it felt like there was nothing wrong with it at all. Today, I am feeling surprisingly good considering the length of the run, but I think this is a result of listening to my body during the run and not worry about how far or fast but just keeping myself comfortable. The only thing that could have made my run more enjoyable was if I didn't have a sloshing in my intestines the whole way. I have also got a blood blister under my middle right toe which isn't painful. I'll take today and tomorrow as a rest and attempt a similar length run on Sunday. Happy days.

Monday 11 July 2011

Discipline

Over the last few days I have been thinking about my running, health, fitness, body, ageing etc All the things that a man approaching 40 years of age probably thinks a bit about anyways, provided they’re interested in running of course.

Slowly my mind is formulating short, medium and long term plans for all these facets and I will be talking about these a lot in future posts. Here are the types of things floating through my mind at the moment and apologies if what you are about to read resembles a stream-of-conscience spew onto a page.



Running



Hopefully this is slowly taking care of itself and as I have stated before, I need to be patient and listen to my body. Doing this has produced two great runs in the last week. I will not try to stick to any rigid training program for now but simply aim to run 4 times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes each time. I will run less than this if my body dictates I must. The hard part here is getting deceived by my conscious mind telling me I can do something and not listening to the counter-argument from my sub-conscious. This is one event I’d like to participate in long term and there has already been some interest amongst work colleagues in putting a team together. My discipline here is to let things happen when they need to.



Health



This relates a lot to my diet and consequently my weight I think my ideal weight for doing the type of running that I really want to do is something between 75 and 80 kg. Currently I weigh in at 93 kg and I have a real battle with refined carbs-sugar-chocolate-ice cream that I need to get on top of. The way I am thinking of approaching this is to make small changes on a weekly basis and hopefully in the long term I’ll find myself on a diet that keeps me healthy, sustains my performance and brings me to my best running weight. My discipline will be simply to make the best choices about what to put in my mouth and decide whether I really need to eat as much as I think I do.



Fitness



My discipline here is to take full advantage of the gym membership I have and train my body to be strong and supplement/compliment my running. I need to try and do this a minimum of twice a week at best 3-4. If I do this the body will take care of itself and then…



Ageing



For the last 10 years I have been trying to convince myself that I was looking forward to getting older. Maybe because I was convinced by then I would be in the best shape of my life. Now that I am 39, I simply am not and am possibly in the worse shape of my life. This is my real spur to turn things around and my recent niggles and injuries have only reinforced this. My ultimate goal is to be in the best shape of my life in my fifties and sixties. My discipline is simply to do all the right things to make this happen. Simple right?

Sunday 10 July 2011

Warnnambool

After 8 days of no running, I decided that I felt pain-free enough on Saturday for a short, easy run.
I was away for the weekend with the family and was staying in Warnnambool for the annual school holiday kids festival. We were at a place close to the beach and I decided to head out along the main coastal walking path. Here's an example of the views I had on the run:

Within a few minutes, I was feeling great and was purely and simply running. Not looking at my watch, not worrying about my speed, not feeling my calves complain and not wondering if I'll ever be able to be a runner again. Everything felt as easy as it ever was and gave me renewed optimism and a determination to continue on this minimalist path. Me and my Vibrams. By the end, I had run 5.35 km in 32 minutes, my calves weren't sore and I knew that all I had to do from now on was just listen to my body and let it run when it wants to and rest when it wants to.
Today I had a scheduled follow up visit with my physio and my back is now nearly 100 % pain free and I'm assure that running wasn't causing any issues. In the coming days, I will be assessing my lifestyle and making some changes re diet and exercise. Stay tuned.

Monday 4 July 2011

Back on the brink

I have mad an appointment to see a physiotherapist today and hopefully sort out my lower back/buttock issue. It is much better than it was on Sunday, but I still feel a painful pulling sensation on the right side when I am striding forward when walking. I'm hoping it's not being caused by any unconscious compensation on my right knee. As it stands, the state of my back will see me taking the whole of this week off and will return gently next week. Deep down I am feeling that I was struck by the TMTS syndrome because in May I had clocked just under 30 km for the month and then I followed that up with nearly 70 km in June. Hmmm what ever happened to the 10 % rule?

P.S. I have just come back from my first visit with this physio and am feeling a lot more optimistic already. I am now in a lot less pain after some massage/manipulation and he seems to think that I would only need one more visit. The upshot is that he thinks it's a slight strain that has caused the muscle to press on a nerve and that running was not the cause. It is a lot more likely that it was the way I am carrying my kids around and straining my back in the process. They are getting a little bit big for carrying around these days.

Saturday 2 July 2011

Fatso

July has not got off to a good start for me. I weighed in yesterday and discovered that I had gained 500 grams since the beginning of June, even though I managed to run 70 kilometers for the month. A big increase on the previous month. Clearly I am not out-training my atrocious diet. I should point out that I hardly tried to eat well, in fact I used my extra running as an excuse to eat a ridiculous amount of chocolate. So July will be the month of better eating and hopefully this will result in weight loss.
I think my extra weight is contributing to my latest injury. Just when my calves seemed to muffle their screams at me, I have now been afflicted with some lower back pain which is making it difficult to walk let alone run. So I canned my planned 50 minutes today and will see a physiotherapist early in the week for some treatment. Fingers crossed I won't be out of action for long and don't lose any gains I made in June.

Wednesday 29 June 2011

My favourite run

This is my favourite place to run in Melbourne. Princes Park in Parkville is situated fairly close to where I live and is a 3.2 km loop that i regularly run laps around or incorporate into long runs. It's flat and a good place for budding minimalists/barefooters as the track offers gravel, grass or bitumen surfaces most of the way around.
Yesterday I ran here and there were a few milestones in my minimal journey that occurred on this run. The run was the first time in my transition that I had run on consecutive days; it was 40 minutes after 33 minutes the previous day. Hopefully I can go 3 days in a row today with my planned 30 minute lunch run. I also ran my biggest distance in minimals, 6.82 km, and passed the 100 km milestone. June really has been my end-of-the- beginning month for me. By the end of the day I will have run over 70 km for the month and hopefully I can continue strongly in the ensuing months. My focus now is really building a base and not worry too much about how fast I am going.
Just as an afterthought, it appears that my calves are now adapting and recovering faster. But it does seem that my right calf is just slightly slower than my left in getting stronger. Curious.

Monday 27 June 2011

This morning I did something that I haven't done in over 6 years. Normally if I'm waking up at 5:30 am I'll get in the car and drive to my gym for a workout, but because I am now back running regularly I decided that I would go for a run. Because it's winter here in Melbourne, it is still dark at that time of the morning and running in the dark is the thing that I haven't done in years. I decided to stick to a busy road for my route as I would still be quite apprehensive running down quiet, poorly lit streets in the dark. It was cold enough that my breath was clearly visible and cars were covered in dew but my run was good after warming up and managed 5.33 km in just over 30 minutes. Last night I saw a you-tube video featuring the barefoot running coach Lee Saxby talking about barefoot form, in particular posture. Because of this, I focused on staying upright during my run today and it seemed to make things feel a little easier. I also didn't notice my calves so much during the run and hopefully their adaptation is continuing. I need to start doing some more core and strengthening work as I have been neglecting this of late and now I am experiencing a little flare up on my right-lower back which is fine provided I am maintaining a good posture.

Saturday 25 June 2011

Sunday Morning

It seems that during my transition to minimalism I reach certain points of frustration. I'm talking about calves being constantly sore, pace not getting quicker, distances not getting longer, and everything just taking longer to adapt. Over the last couple of months there have been several of these moments and each time I have one I always start to doubt whether I can make the full transition to minimalism. And then I have days like today. After having a couple of rest days nursing a sore calf from my last run, I woke up with no pain and I decided I would head out and see if I could just run for at least as long as 35 minutes (this being my longest in VFF), and maybe get to 40 minutes. I made a conscious decision to not look at my garmin and just concentrate on form and enjoy the beautiful weather. It turns out I had my best minimalist run yet (6.66 km in 40 minutes) and I actually felt like a runner again instead of some experimental runner. Today really made me think that I will be able to this.
My great morning continued and I even taught my daughter how to ride a bike.

Thursday 23 June 2011

Treadmills

It had been over 3 days since my sunday run and the only way I was gonna get a run in yesterday was to go to my gym and run on a treadmill.
What I learnt: 1) Five Fingers running doesn't suit treadmill running because the heat on the treadmill belt still gets through the rubber and creates hotspots on my feet. 2) The evenness of treadmills and the lack of breeze creates a more difficult environment to run. Running simply feels harder on a treadmill now. 3) Because you are in control of the speed and incline, it is actually more difficult for me to run by feel. The thoughts running through my head are "am I running as fast or as slow as i should be? Why does this feel harder/faster than outdoor? Is the treadmill actually calibrated correctly? i.e. am I actually running faster than 10.5 km per hour?".
In the end my run was cut short by 8 minutes because of a twinge in my left calf.

Monday 20 June 2011

Weighty Issues

It is with some apprehension that I enter my first official week of training for my goal 5k race. It's mainly due to the extra soreness I've experienced in my injured knee. It has been fine during runs but since my last run on Sunday (6k), it has been more tender than normal. I am just hoping that I can withstand the pain enough to keep training through to February next year when I can have arthroscopic surgery to repair it. I do need to stress that had it not been for minimalist running, my knee would not have allowed me to run at all. The couple of runs i had in my Brooks Adrenalines after i hurt my knee were extremely painful.
On another note, I have been very slack with my diet of late and need to pick up my game if I want to make any improvement in my running, I need to get lighter. At the beginning of June i weighed 93 kg and when I weigh myself at the beginning of July my hope is that I'm a little lighter due to the extra running I've been doing. If this is not the case, my diet will be a heavy focus in July. I'm guessing being lioghter might also be better for my knee as well. On a positive note my Australian Rules Football team is going great. Go Blues!!

Thursday 16 June 2011

I decided to change things up today and wear my Merrell Trail Gloves today instead of the Five Fingers.
In keeping with the spirit of mixing it up, I ran a completely different route and at a different time of day than my regular time. It was thirty minutes, 5.13 km and one of my first minimalist runs where i relaxed enough that I didn't think my calves would snap at any moment. It's definitely the strongest I've felt during my transition and also the first week where I have been able to string 3 consecutive runs together with only one day between. Despite the good run today, I still prefer the Vibrams overall due to their superior ground feel.
Feeling good.
This Sunday marks 16 weeks until the 5k race on Melbourne Marathon day. I'm using the Run Coach Pro app for i-phone to generate a program and I would highly recommend this to anyone. Anyway, what this means is that next week (my first official training week), I will have my first attempt at consecutive day runs. I am excited at my current progress. My calves seem to be recovering a lot better after runs now.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Sunday 12 June 2011

Imaginings

Today presented me with a public holiday, beautiful weather and an opportunity to run at my favorite course, Princes Park in inner north Melbourne. I have now gotten to a point where I'm managing a run every other day and the soreness in my calves seems to now be recovering quicker. I'm hopeful that at this rate I'll soon be able to run on consecutive days. For now my early training for the Melbourne Marathon 5 k is 4 days per week. So far the furthest I've been is 6.21km in 35 minutes at today's fartlek session. My long runs will eventually build to 90 minutes and that's pretty hard to imagine, but I know that a month ago I was finding hard to imagine I could run what I ran today. When I have a chance I'll be less lazy and link some of the references I make in my posts, just in case anyone is reading.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Firsts

My last couple of runs have seen me reach and pass the psychological barrier of 5km. This is a big deal for me because a few months ago I would never have dreamt I could do this as a minimalist lwt alone with an injury thrown in.
This blog will make for some interesting reading in a few months time. Hopefully over the coming weeks i'll be passing lots of barriers.
I'm a little nervous about my scheduled run of 40 minutes on Sunday and about my first back to back runs as a minimalist scheduled tomorrow. This whole process is about firsts for me.


I have just completed my 50th barefoot/minimalist kilometer.

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Barefoot Angie Bee: Skillz, a challenge, and perspective in the news

Barefoot Angie Bee: Skillz, a challenge, and perspective in the news: " If I were to ask you if you have running skill would you answer yes or no? Or are you the kind of person who would call bullshit and say ..."

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Beautiful Day

I ran for 20 minutes yesterday in the most glorious weather Melbourne can produce at this time of year. Incidentally, this was my longest continuous run in minimalist shoes (VFF) so far and I have also noticed that my calves are recovering a bit faster and are also less painful. I am still amazed at how little, if any, pain my knee is in during and after the run. In fact I think it is actually improving overall. Hopefully it continues (knocks on wood). My next run will be 30 minutes on Saturday and I am really looking forward to it.

Thursday 26 May 2011

New Goal

I have decided to give myself a goal. Seeing that the last week has been very positive for me. I will aim to do the 5 k race on Melbourne Marathon day. In a week I will start a training program geared towards this and it should be enough time to make the transition. And so it begins.

Sunday 22 May 2011

Fuck yeah!!

Back in February I woke up with a sore knee. I had run in a 4km handicap race the day before but did not feel any pain during the run and nor did I pull up sore.


I hoped that it was just something very minor and that I’d be able to resume training after a day or two off. It didn’t go away and I could not run without debilitating pain so I was off to the physio. He suspected a torn meniscus and this was later confirmed by a specialist. My options were made clear: no surgery, but pretty much give up running, or have arthroscopy and hope that knee comes good. I was keen for surgery as I’d read here and elsewhere that there is a good success rate for returning to running after meniscal repair. Unfortunately, I soon found out that my health insurance would not cover me and I was staring at a minimum of 10 months waiting for surgery.

Because I couldn’t run, I spent more time reading running forums like this one and trying to vicariously experience everyone’s running stories. I became particularly fascinated with the ‘Transitioning to Barefoot’ thread and read every post on it.

I was really envious of some of the people doing it but still had the feeling in the back of my mind, that good bio-mechanics were playing a part in the success of some of the transitions.

When I started running, I couldn’t run more than 15 minutes without being unable to walk the next day. I had painful knees and back and it seemed that I wasn’t built for running, even though I enjoyed doing it (not the next day’s pain). Eventually, I saw a podiatrist and got orthotics prescribed with the appropriate stability shoes. This allowed me to run pain free and pretty much injury free for the next 6 years. I completed a marathon and several fun runs. I accepted that I needed some mechanical intervention to allow me to run without pain. So although I liked the idea of running barefoot/minimalist, I thought that it would be impossible for me.

A couple of months ago I downloaded the Merrell Barefoot app and decided to just follow the exercises in there as I figured that even though I wouldn’t be able to run, it wouldn’t hurt to do some foot and lower leg strengthening for when I could run again.

In the meantime, my stubbornness and impatience got the better of me on occasion and I would lace up the Adrenalines and try a tentative run, trying to convince myself that that little niggle in my knee was much better with all the rest. Within seconds the pain would be worse than it has ever been.

So I persisted with all the barefoot exercises and pretty much abandoned all shoes when not necessary and started to feel stronger in the feet.

I decided that I didn’t have much to lose and tried to do some of the short runs in the program, and to my complete surprise, I could run. Not far, but pain free. I persisted and it was definitely a slow process, sometimes I had to wait a week between runs for my calves to settle down. They got stronger and my runs have increased slowly.

The point of this whole post is because yesterday I had a watershed moment in my transition. I ran just over 3km (yes, only 3km, but this is the furthest I’ve gone since the injury). It wasn’t the distance that thrilled me, it was how effortless it felt, it was how painless it felt.

Today I have sore calves, but that nice sore you have after a run. I know I’ll be right in a day or two to do that again and providing everything continues to progress, I can’t see my self in anything but minimalist/barefoot again.

I will never say that this is the way everyone should go. I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been hurt, just the timing I guess. I will say this though, we should all keep an open mind to this. I’ve had podiatrist and physios actually tell me that I should minimise any barefoot activity because my feet were so flat and over pronating. After a couple of months, my feet actually look different and I have arches.

Anyway I hope this might inspire people to be patient with the transition and hopefully you’ll be rewarded.

Monday 16 May 2011

This morning was the third consecutive 22 minute run in barefoot/minimalist shoes. The program I'm working from is the Merrell Barefoot i-phone app and I now have only 10 more sessions to complete in the program.
This morning I went a little further than the last run (an extra couple of hundred metres), to run 3.4 km for 22 minutes.
The most pleasing thing about this morning's run was the fact that I had no pain in the knee with the meniscal injury. The last two times it would flare up for a few minutes befor calming down as the run progressed.
Maybe it's the improvement in my form, maybe it's me getting back on the glucosamine, but something is definitely working for me.
So it looks a s though my run durations may not be increasing in the next couple of weeks, but if my calves start recovering quicker, I may be increasing the frequency of the runs.
Since Friday I have been able to run a total of ten kilometres and I can't tell you how this has lifted my mood and energy levels. I can see the end result a bit more clearly now.

Sunday 15 May 2011

Rinse and repeat

Had another run on the treadmill today, with same time and this time 3.22 km in 20 minutes.
Happy days and I've also discovered Twitter, but not so sure if it's a good thing.

Friday 13 May 2011

Darkest before the dawn

I took a bit of a risk yesterday. I decided that I would try a 20 minute slow run on a treadmill. Partly because of the shitty weather, I decided to try this run on the treadmill. The other part of my reasoning was that i was tending to get sharp pain in my calf when I was going up a hill. Maybe the consistent flat of the treadmill would allow my muscles to adapt and get stronger. So the good news is I managed 20 minutes and 3 km of running. I haven't been able to do that since February and needless to say, I've had a smile on my face since. I am really hoping this is just the beginning.

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Pop and stop

Today I set out after a week recovering from last week's calf strain. It was all going so well and at the 4 minute mark everything was going great. Then without any warning I there was what felt like a light tap to the back of my leg, low in the calf and high in the Achilles. I stopped immediately and pulled the plug on the run. The last thing I wanted was a ruptured Achilles tendon. The rest of the day has been pain free so it's another wait and recovery before next run.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Only calf the problem

On Monday my calf felt fine and so I decided to test it out with what would hopefully turn out to be a 20 minute amble interspersed with a 1 minute walk. In the end it turned out to be only 14 minutes and my calf being sore again. So this time, I will give it more time and do some stretching and strengthening before I go again.
Strangely, despite the setback I a feeling more optimistic and feel like I am on the right track. I am learning to be extremely patient, but I do get so envious when I see people out running and I want to be them.

Friday 29 April 2011

The Test

It was much relief this morning when I realized that I couldn't feel any pain in my calf. With this in the front of my mind, I was tossing up whether I would give it one more day of rest or test it out. I opted to test. As a warm up for my regular weights session, I hopped on the treadmill in my Vibrams and jogged very gently for 5 minutes. It started off fine but towards the end I eased off because I began to feel a twinge. I have committed to listening to my body and cut the run off. I don't think I did any further damage, but I'm going to be very conservative about treating this. Rest tomorrow.

Tuesday 26 April 2011

One step forward, two steps back part 2

Since my last post there has been some good news and some bad. Firstly, it appears that the old running shoes may have been the cause of my knee pain. The reason I think this is that on Saturday I went for an 8 minute run in my Merrell Trail gloves and it felt great. No pain. Anywhere.
Today started so promisingly. Set off in the VFFs and felt great, but at the 6 minute mark there was a very sharp pain in my outer right calf. It felt like the top of the soleus, so I cut the run short and literally limped all the way home. The fact that I was actually limping and in pain when I walked worried me. I was thinking torn muscle and weeks of rest, but after R.I.C.E.ing, voltaren and some rest it feels the best it has since the run. So as I write this my mood is lifting and i'm feeling more positive. I'll see what happens on Thursday.

Thursday 21 April 2011

Setback

Today was a 1.3 kilometre run with my old Brooks adrenalines. The good news is that I didn't feel my top-of-foot pain......but. My knee got reasonably painful and I was relieved when I stopped running. Today was a setback. I'll see what happens over the next day or so and hopefully I won't become depressed about this.

Tuesday 19 April 2011

One step forward, two steps back

This morning I had a scheduled 6 minute run at the gym, on the treadmill. I wore my VFFs and set of knowing that the tenderness on the top of my left foot hadn’t completely gone. By the end of the run the pain was more noticeable so I needed to make a decision about what to do next. I don’t want this to turn into a stress fracture and I am going to be even more conservative than I have been during my transition.


Tomorrow I have a day off and the next day I am planning an 8 minute run, but going back to my regular running shoes with orthotics. I mainly want to see if this alleviates the pain. If it does, then I’ll wait until the pain is gone and try a barefoot run again. I’m hoping it is just the muscles and tendons needing time to recover and adapt. One step forward, two steps back.

Thursday 14 April 2011

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Almost 2 months ago to the day, I had my last serious run. It was a 4km handicap race and at the time I was running on a sore knee and wearing Brooks Adrenalines with custom orthotics that were made for me about 5 years ago.


I do want to make the point now that when I first started running, I suffered from all sorts of pain in the knees and lower back. I was basically guessing at what kind of running shoes I should be wearing and essentially purchasing shoes more for aesthetic appeal. At this point in time I was probably running 3 times a week, no more than 20 minutes at a time and all on a treadmill. This was just part of my overall gym program at the time.

When I quit smoking in 2002, I felt like I needed to replace the bad habit with something good, so I chose running. The frustrating thing was that I couldn’t increase the amount of running due to my aches and pains. At this point I decided to see a podiatrist and was immediately diagnosed with very flat arches, and severe over-pronation at the heel. As explained to me, it was pulling all the other joints further up my body out of whack and consequently causing pain. Now that I look back knowing a bit more about foot strike with barefoot form, I realise that orthotics in highly cushioned shoes are simply forcing the foot into a position that is aligned and lessening stresses in other parts of the body. But this is also making muscles in the legs more dormant and weaker. The orthotics did stop my pain and I was able to go on and train for a few half marathons and the Melbourne marathon in 2005. I had a very good run with injury during this time.

This is probably now a cliché, but after reading Born To Run, I did start to question things about the running shoe industry and why people could run barefoot and in minimalist shoes. Then I really got into reading barefoot threads in forums like Coolrunning. Here I would read about people in situations like mine, flat footed, orthotics wearers transitioning to barefoot and not regretting it for a second. At this point in time I had no intention of doing this myself; the book had simply sparked an interest. Then I got injured.

I’ve already posted about my experience with my meniscal injury. If my health insurance had decided that they would cover the cost of this surgery, I would have had it 3 days ago and I would currently be recuperating. As it happens, I am waiting for a referral to go on a public hospital waiting list for this surgery. In the meantime I decided to suck it up and be pro active. I began taking a glucosamine supplement and even though it is supposed to have no effect on meniscal cartilage, I have had considerable improvement with my knee. Placebo? Maybe, but it doesn’t matter.

I’ve continued to do glute, core and quad strengthening as initiated by my physiotherapist and everything is going well to the point that if I was booked in to have surgery tomorrow, I would be having serious doubts about whether to go through with it.

It is very important to note that right now, my running schedule is 3 five-minute runs this week and I will increase my total weekly time run by 10%. In reality, this means a lot of patience required from me because I am effectively learning to run again. Even though I am at this very early stage, I already find it difficult to even just wear my old Brooks with orthotics, let alone run in them. So if I follow my program of pure base building, by November this year my weekly schedule would look something like this: Mon 35 minutes, Tuesday 35 minutes, Wednesday 60 minutes, Thursday 35 minutes, Friday 35 minutes and Saturday 120 minutes. This motivates me because I know that this will be achieved with no more than a 10% increment and will all be aerobic running. In the past, I’ve been too quick to include speed session and I have never really given myself an opportunity to build a genuine base. If I can get to this point, injury free, I will then begin training for a specific goal race.

The best thing will be that I will be doing this in a combination of barefoot, Vibram Fivefingers and Merrell Trailgloves, and I will have re-trained my body to run.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

The plan...maybe

I have been experiencing a little tenderness in my left foot, specifically on the Extensor digitorum brevis muscle so I’ve taken it a little easier and used some anti-inflammatories and appears to have calmed down. The research I’ve done seems to indicate that it can be treated with rest and making sure that I am not striking to far forward with my foot. I need to really emphasise that mid-foot landing.


I’m really feeling stifled at work today, physically stifled I mean. Maybe I need to take my jacket off, but then if I do I get cold again.

So tonight is my usual gym routine and a five minute jog. I have just mapped out my base training until the end of October this year. I think I have decided that I am not entering any races this year. The plan is that at the end of October, I’ll choose a goal race and start a dedicated program for it. Between now and October, my focus is simply increasing time run by 10 % each week. If all goes to plan, by October I’ll be running 6 days a week with a 2 hour long run. No speed work until I’ve reached this stage as I am literally taking a complete beginner’s starting point. Of course this is all dependent on my knee continuing its self-healing and I have no idea what I will do if the opportunity for surgery presents itself in the meantime.

Monday 11 April 2011

Rants of a mad man

This morning I was up at 5am and headed to the gym. I've just started a routine doing a circuit of various resistance exercises sandwiched by 5 minute bursts of cardio. The great thing about this morning was that my two 5 minute jogs in the Vibrams were completely pain free. This would have been the day I had my knee arthroscopy had not HBA intervened. So that was the good bit. The bad bit was that I had a full-on anxiety attack on the train to work this morning. Been to doc and am now relaxing. What the fuck.

Friday 8 April 2011

Two short runs, no pain

I don't know if this is purely placebo, but I have been on a glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM mixture for about a week. Although my runs have only been 5 minutes in duration for the last couple of days, I have been pain free. I will continue to take it and see how I go.

Monday 4 April 2011

My first 'real' barefoot run

I was due to do my second 5 minute run today. My first run the other day was with my Vibram Fivefingers KSO, but today I wanted to go pure barefoot.
I had spent a bit of time reading about Michael Sandler on his website last night and I have to say that I found his personal story pretty inspirational. One of the things he and others advocate is that you should learn to run with no shoes on first to ensure that you learn and use the correct form in minimalist shoes.
So today after doing a set of 15 elevated-heel squats, I took my trail gloves off and started running. I shouldn't be surprised by how good it felt, but I was. I was concentrating on keeping my cadence high and landing on the right areas of my feet. The bonus was that my knee didn't really hurt, but this could be because my calf pain was overshadowing everything else. By the way, this was 'good' calf pain, the type that everyone tells you you'll have when you first transition. Nothing some stretching and massage wont take care of.

Sunday 3 April 2011

Mmm....interesting

I've been using the Merrell Barefoot app that I downloaded from I-tunes. Basically it's a program designed to prepare you to become a barefoot runner. Today's schedule called for a 5 minute run and I was worried about how it would go. Expecting pain right from the get go, i started tentatively and soon found that their was none. Without the pain, I could focus on my footstrike and everything felt good. By the end of the 5 minutes a little pain set in, but this was still promising for me as I haven't run continuously for 5 minutes since February. Now as I write this, i'm not in debilitating pain or limping around. I will definitely stick to daily doses of glucosamine and listening to my body. Who knows what might happen but I am going to risk it.

Friday 1 April 2011

The Decision

So today I have decided to cancel my knee surgery and go on the public hospital waiting list. What this means is that unless I'm really lucky with waiting lists, I'll be waiting at least 10 months to fix my knee. So my plan is to get fit with another form of aerobic exercise, continue to get strong and develop my barefoot base. I will just have to be very zen about all of this and make sure that I am in the best possible shape for my return to running. I will leave no stone unturned in terms of other 'therapy'. The best thing about this whole experience is that I've been able to turn my negative energy into a positive attitude.

Thursday 31 March 2011

Thanks for nothing HBA

So I found out today that my health insurance have deemed that my injury is a pre-existing one, and therefore will not cover the cost of my surgery. They have made the decision based on the fact that my injury occurred very close to my joining date. Too close it seems.
So now I'll pay for it myself and cancel my insurance, so fuck you HBA.
It is my birthday today so I took the day off from any barefoot exercising and will start fresh tomorrow.

Monday 28 March 2011

Autumn Love

What a magnificent Melbourne autumn day.
I took a 45 minute walk in my Trail Gloves and then finished off with a 30 second jog.
The thing that struck me today was just how easy i did jog up that slight hill, albeit only for 30 seconds. It was just about the most effortless running i've experienced since I can't remember when.
I'm planning on wearing my Vibram KSOs tomorrow for my gym session and more walking, more 30 second jogging and also incorporating some one-legged hopping and squatting.
I must admit at feeling envious of all the other runners running around today, but I know that patience needs to be my greatest virtue on this endeavour. Hopefully I'll be rewarded by being able to run as naturally as possible and free from injury.

Saturday 26 March 2011

Pep runs - The Prequel

Just a little history.
I used to be a runner. I ran consistently between 2002 and 2007 and in this time I completed the 2005 Melbourne Marathon, ran 4 half - marathons and a variety of fun runs. I also did a year with the Coburg Harriers in Athletics Victoria which I enjoyed a lot.
Then I just kind of stopped.
I haven't analysed it too much other than I'm sure that I had lost motivation because I really didn't miss running in the subsequent 3 years of inactivity.
Anyway, in October 2010 I was listening to the radio and a story about the upcoming Melbourne Marathon came on and I suddenly got inspired. The fact that I was 16 kilograms heavier at this time than when I had completed the marathon 5 years earlier, was definitely beginning to weigh on my mind as well.
So I started running again. Slowly (not by choice) and steadily (at least this was under my control).
Then in February, after possibly going a bit early with extra speed work, I injured my knee and has since been diagnosed as a medial meniscus tear.
This brings us to now, and it's now been 6 weeks since I have last run in anger. This blog is going to document my running world leading up to my arthroscopic surgery and beyond. What I have been doing in the mean time is trying to transition to barefoot/minimalist running. For now I'm simply spending as much time barefoot as possible and lots of walking and associated exercises. I also have some Vibram Fivefingers and Merrell trail Gloves which I'll rotate when I start running again.
This whole barefoot thing did admittedly start with reading "Born to Run". In combination with my injury imposed inactivity, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity for me to see if I can do something about my bio-mechanics, since I basically have to learn to run again.
I'm just itching to actually try a run when I'm pain free.
Ok time for bed I think.