Notes
This morning I participated in the second part of a study on the impact of foot strike biomechanics on cartilage in the knee.
On Friday, I had my running assessed with just a little bit of actual running on the treadmill. They basically were looking at the force of impact of my running stride and how my foot was landing. The had me run at normal running turnover to start and then had me increase and decrease my turner by 5% and 10% each way to see how my form, strike, and force of impact changed. I found out that my normal turnover is 175 strides per minute (~87-88 per leg). At normal turnover, they said that I favored my left leg because it had slightly lower force on impact than my right leg, which could explain why literally all my "injuries" or "tweaks" have always been on my right leg (Osgood Slaughter's, IT band, hamstring, achilles, and plantar fascitis). As my turnover increased, the force evened out a bit, so maybe that's something I can work on for the future. Decreasing my turnover was super awkward and I didn't like it!
Today, I went to the Wisconsin institution for medical research to do the cartilage part of the study. They had me recline in a comfy chair for half hour before doing an MRI on my right knee to look at the cartilage before running. Then they had me run on the treadmill for 30minutes before doing a second MRI on my knee. Supposedly, someday I will get so see the results, but who know? It was interesting either way, and fun to help out.
My calf was a tiny bit sore on the tread mill (not enough to affect my form), but I decided to just call it an easy day instead of running again in the afternoon. Hopefully that will be enough to call it fully recovered from the 10 mile so I can aim for 90-100 miles this week.