Cheffy's very first Race, the GOOD and the BAD..... (Read 958 times)

Nice job on your race, sorry to hear of your injury. Your heel pain sounds very similar to what I experienced........I'm not an expert by any means, but I too injured my left heel to the point where I could not bear weight on it after only 4-5 wks of running. I probably went out too fast and too hard, plus I definately just ran and I know I was heel striking, especially on steeper downhills. I had to take 2 1/2 weeks off at the end of Dec due to the rear heel pain/lower ankle achilles pain. I substituted spinning to try to maintain aerobic fitness. It was during this time that I decided to seriously look into running technique as a way to prevent injury, and as others have mentioned read about pose running and researched how the elite runners run. On advice from this forum, I also read the book "Programmed to Run" by Tom Miller, and noticed that the same recommendations for technique kept coming up....shorter strides, higher cadence, land on frontfoot/midfoot under COG, lean/fall forward. I have been focusing on using these techniques and it definately reduces stresses on the feet and knees for me. IMO From my experience, take at least 2 wks off from running or more until you can bear weight on your foot. When you come back, try to concentrate on landing lightly on the balls of your feet or midfoot and quickly picking up your feet so your cadence is at 180/min.(this is 15 right foot plants/10sec, check it often). It will seem way too fast at your 10mm pace, but you need to keep with it so you don't heel strike. Your calves and thighs/hamstrings will be sore for a week or two until they get used the new form. After that, the higher cadence/shorter stride will start to feel very natural. Once you get used to the high cadence, you will cruise along at 9mm with minimal effort. Just my opinion,hope it helps somehow. Tom

Congrats on your race: I am very impressed with your time! I started the C25K in the beginning of Nov 2007 and ran my first 5K in Jan and did a time of 39:44. Great JOB! Sorry to hear about your heal pain! Hope everything works out with it, keep us posted.

Congrats on the race and good luck in the healing and getting back at it. Hang in there!