Non-Training Update

I'm calling it "non" training because I've hardly done anything this week. I'm kind of in a post race funk liberally mixed with year end stress. On top of that, two hard races in 8 days has caused a little shin discomfort although it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause.

My shins haven't hurt for months, and they were fine at the Half Iron and on my 5k race. My legs/quads were dead for two days after the 5k though and I didn't feel much like doing my planned 1 hour trail run on Tuesday. I decided to stick to a flat trail and go easy and for a change, I wore my Salomon Wings trail shoes with the orthotics in them. I had a tough time getting my legs to move and it was a slow run, covering only 6 1/2 km in 55 minutes.

The next day, Wednesday, my shins were a little achey, and then on Thursday, I was supposed to do a cruise interval run and part way into it ended up with quite a bit of shin pain. I don't know if it's from the race, from the trail shoes, from the orthotics, from the trail itself, from running on tired legs, or a combination of these things. Suffice to say, after my warm up and the first interval, I decided to pack it in and I walked back to the car, running a total of 4.2km in 30 minutes.

Yesterday they felt a bit better and today they feel ok. I'm supposed to do a 90 minute trail run in the hills tomorrow but I think I'll stick to Mission Creek Greenway instead, to be on the safe side.

I'm not going to wear the trail shoes again for awhile but tomorrow, I'll put the orthotics in my Newtons and see how that goes. The ball of my right foot is still sore off and on and I need to find a way to deal with that. Newtons encourages you to wear your orthotics so I think going back to them may help.

Also, coach has taken another look at my running video and thinks that I am still striking a little too far forward. As long I am doing that, it is putting the "brakes" on my stride, causing me to toe off. That can put unnecessary pressure and weight on my forefoot causing pain.

Check out the video that Coach took at his two day workshop at the Newton Running Labs. It gives you a better idea of how to run forefoot.

Also, Coach made a video for some running drills to help with forefoot running as well.

OK got to go. I'm in the midst of writing report cards and blogging is just another way of procrastinating. :)

PS Check out Simon Whitfield's blog. Apart from being a great read, he has a blogroll on the lower left side. He recently added my blog to his blogroll!! OMG, I was so excited and appreciative when I saw that! :D Plus, when I tweeted to him yesterday, he answered! :) I'm still waiting for Lance to reply to me on Twitter. Maybe some day...