Of course after whining on about how terrible things are with my running, I go out the next day and have a great run.
After I got off of work early, I had the idea to put on my Vibram Five Fingers and go for an easy run to see how my running form is. It struck me sometime this week that I hadn’t run in them at all lately. Some people use these as an every day running shoe, but I like to treat them as a tool to adjust my running form. Shoes with big heels and tons of foam padding allow you to run with a pretty sloppy stride. It’s easy to get lazy when you have big buffers to keep you from noticing that you’re landing on the outside of your foot or making a variety of mistakes.
I had some suspicions that my very worn-out Saucony Kinvaras (almost 650 miles in them) were contributing to this tendonitis (you think?) so I pulled on my VFFs and went for an easy run. I felt basically no pain, and quickly realized my form had gotten pretty sloppy. I got a little angry with myself for havingbeen so lazy with my running lately. After I’d been getting so many great longer runs in so often I took it for granted that I didn’t need to do maintenance. I stopped stretching as much as usual and gave up adjusting my stride and then, bam, Achilles tendonitis. Oops.
But, I’ve gotten lucky. It was my birthday on Tuesday (so close to 30 it hurts) and now I have a chance to run out (sorry for that terrible pun) and get some new shoes thanks to my awesome family. I actually stopped by Big Peach Running Co. and got a pair of New Balance Minimus Road shoes, but after a couple hours of walking around in them I had some heel pain and I knew they wouldn’t work. I’d wanted to like them, but it wasn’t going to happen so I returned them the next day. I did try on the Saucony Hattori running shoe and it felt great, so I should have a pair delivered on Tuesday.
And to cap off my first good run in a while, when I got back home I saw that my new copy of Relentless Forward Progress had finally been delivered. Time to start reading up and getting ready for the North Face Endurance Challenge 50k.
Hall, I was having the same problem in my right Achilles tendon, also with uber-worn Kinvaras. I returned to focusing on and feeling my form, and determined I was reaching too far with my right leg (shorter by a quarter inch and slightly twisted), and hitting too much on that foot’s outside. Realigning from those insights, and better attention to stretching, wiped away the pain.
I also finally got my RFP that week — after two months of waiting.