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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.