Fat Kid’s Ironman Fitness Blog

Back & Abs

Workout:

• Type: Strength Training
• Date: 03/10/2008
• Time: 20:30:00
• Total Time: 1:00:00.00

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Fixie Commuting

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 03/10/2008
• Total Time: 00:30:00.00
• Distance: 5 miles
• Average Speed: 10 mph

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Want to be a Bare Foot Runner?

Today I did my first real run in a long time (not since the first week of January). My goal was to keep it slow, and focus on form. In particular I wanted to keep my cadence at 180 steps per minute, and really focus on short strides and landing on my mid foot.

For the most part, I felt like I did pretty well. I had a metronome playing at exactly 180 beats per minute repeating over and over again in my iPod. I could feel that when I got fatigued my steps would slow, and my feet would get heavy, and my stride would sort of loop along. Plod. Plod! PLOD! Whenever this happened, I’d stop, start jogging in place making sure to match my cadence, and then slowly lean forward at my waist to begin moving forward again.

My physical therapist had warned me that running “properly” means landing on your mid foot, and using your calves to slow you heel as is moves toward the ground. The idea is that by the time your heel reaches the ground, you’ve slowed it enough that it just barely grazes the ground, as you push off to your next stride. The implication is that you need strong calf muscles to run properly… ok, I’ve got big calves… so that shouldn’t be a problem. Right?

Well, I could feel it. Clearly this is an action that I’m not used to. Although my calves are strong, I am activating them in a new way… so they need to be conditioned to handle this.

The other area of fatigue is clearly neuro-muscular. The ability for my brain, and nerves to activate the right muscles at the right time, over and over again consistently. Right now, as I’m so early in this learning process, I am really concentrating on trying to do all these new things correctly. I chose to run 7 miles today… that’s “not very far” for me, in my normal active running program. But since I’ve had a couple months off… it might have been a little much to ask. Oh well, that’s how I roll.

As the miles wore on, it became more and more effort for me to concentrate on keeping the foot step cadence at the right level. I had to stop and restart the cadence more often. Eventually about a mile from my house, I decided I would go ahead and give some barefoot running a try.

It turns out that I found the barefoot running to be pretty easy. There was an immediate and obvious difference in the ability for my body to feel what it was doing. The good news is, that I could feel where I was landing on my feet, and I am pretty sure I was landing where I was supposed to. I could feel my feet landing on the pad of my feet and then my heel just briefly touching the ground before pushing off. Looking at my socks once I got home reaffirmed what I was feeling as there is an obvious discoloration on the pads of my feet and only a little bit of dirt on my heels. Also good news that my toes were not dirty at all, which means I’m not landing on my toes (which may be worse than landing on my heels).

After running around three quarters of a mile, I put my shoes back on. Again I was amazed by what a difference I felt. My feet felt like I was running on pillows… which might sound nice and comfy, but the problem was that I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. Where was I landing? It was so much harder to tell.

So, where does this leave me? Well, so far, I guess I kinda like this barefoot thing. Obviously I have a long ways to go before I’m ready to run a barefoot marathon. But I am seriously considering getting some “flats” to run in, which I assume would give me a much more direct sensory input.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 03/09/2008
• Time: 16:00:00
• Total Time: 1:06:00.00
• Distance: 7 miles
• Average Pace: 9:26.04/mile

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How to Ruin a Massage: Crash Your Bike!

Today’s plan:

• Ride bike to tri-shop, ask about how to better fit my aero bars.
• Ride bike to track, run my barefoot drills.
• Ride bike to massage, get great massage.
• Ride bike home.

Notice that no where in this plan does it say: have bike slip out from underneath you while trying to stop on a rain slick road in rush hour traffic, scraping up your arm and hip and bike handle bars.

Why did I want to add that to the list? Why on earth would I want to do that AFTER the massage only a mile from my house?

I guess I wanted to ruin my perfectly good massage.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 03/07/2008
• Time: 23:52:54
• Total Time: 1:30:00.00
• Distance: 20 miles
• Average Speed: 13.33 mph

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Relearning to Run: Barefoot Running & Other Drills

Am I a runner? I run… but apparently I don’t know how to run. And so today, I started the first step in relearning to run. Learning to run properly for an injury free running lifetime.

Apparently, I’m not alone in not knowing how to run. According to my physical therapist, most of us don’t know how to run properly. We think we know how to run, isn’t it just walking really fast? After all, haven’t we been running since childhood? In reality, a difference of only an inch can have significant ramifications on not only your running economy, but the safety of your running style.

My problem– over striding. The result — hard heel strike, calcaneus stress fracture, patello-femoral cartilage “bunged-up-ed-ness” (to repeat the technical term my PT used), hip bursitis, and potentially back pain, and more…

So how do I relearn to run? The key will be to reprogram my muscle memory to not over stride, to condition the new muscles which will be activated by the new running style, and to ultimately (hopefully) become comfortable and natural with the new gait.

What am I really doing wrong, and what are the macro-systems available to fix it? Mind you, I’m not striding giant strides like a gazelle or something. My over striding is not obvious when you watch me run in real time. But with slow motion video playback, you can clearly see my heel in front of my body as I land. Where I should be, is to land with my foot under my body, landing on my mid-foot, and pushing off from there.

To fix this I am working on the following drills:

• Faster cadence - 180 foot plants per minute - the faster my cadence, the less time my foot has to travel forward in front of my body. Hopefully this means it won’t be in front of my body, and it will be under me, where I want it.
• Visualize landing on mid foot - Actually this feels like it’s landing on my toes… So I’ve got a lot of relearning to do here. But in theory, I will land on the back edge of the pads of my feet with my heel above the ground, and use my calf muscles to decelerate my heel as it just barely comes down to touch the ground ever so gently and ever so briefly.
• Quiet Steps - Uh… your heel makes a loud thunk as it hits the ground. You shouldn’t hear this. You should be able to sneak up on that other runner as you pass them in the final 100 yards. Really? Ok, I gotta work on this one for sure.
• Barefoot running - It turns out, that it REALLY HURTS to run barefoot if you’re running incorrectly. But if you’re running correctly , then it (supposedly) doesn’t hurt at all.
• One-legged drills - What? One legged drills for running? How do you run on one leg? Well, sort of… but really, its more like just focus on running with one leg, and ignore the other one. This drill is a little like using your “focused” leg as if you were riding on a skateboard… pushing off with one leg. This one is hard for me.
• Rubber band running - Running with a”exercise” band tied around my ankles. The band prevents my feet from going too far forward. The idea is to help reprogram the muscle memory of all my leg stabilizer muscles to not allow the leg to go so far forward.

So, today I rode my bike (that’s a whole other story) to the Shoreline College Stadium, with a nice rubberized track, where I practiced these drills. The headline is that barefoot running (with socks on) isn’t all that bad. And, you know what, you can really feel it when you land on your heel. I feel like I’m running on my tip toes, but the dirt on my socks clearly indicate that I wasn’t completely on my tip toes.

Rubber band running was the hardest… mostly because the rubber band was pulling the hair on my legs… I guess I need to wear taller socks for that drill.

After a workout at the track, I headed to my massage appointment feeling like I’d done some good work.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 03/07/2008
• Time: 14:50:00
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Distance: 3 miles
• Average Pace: 13:20/mile

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My Darker Side

Bill found a link to the Super-Villain quiz… so I had to take that too…

Apparently my darker side is pretty similar to my lighter side, only more vain!

Go figure…

Look, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

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Proof Positive… I am who I claim to be. ;)

I am Iron Man

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

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Relearning to Run

So, I need to relearn to run. And I went to me PT today to start the reeducation process.

My problem is a hard heel strike. The causes of this problem are several:

• Allowing my foot to go too far forward
• Heavy foot steps
• High off the ground swing of my foot

Relearning to run will start slowly and include these drills:

• Barefoot running - it hurts to run wrong if you’re barefoot… but if you can run barefoot, it means you’re landing on the right part of your foot.
• One legged drills - What? There’ not just for bikes?
• Running with a giant rubber band around my ankles.

The plan is to start running again, and get in at least 4 practice sessions before my next PT Appointment.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 03/05/2008
• Time: 15:00:00
• Total Time: 00:30:00.00

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Running Drills

Went to the track and focused on running drills to help fix my stride. Rubberized track… 3 miles.

• 180 cadence on the iPod the whole workout
• 1 “warm up lap”
• 3 laps barefoot — blisters made me stop that.
• 1 mile shoes - focused 180 cadence - focused mid foot landing - 8:00/mile pace
• 2 laps on the “one legged pony” - this is a drill where you focus on one leg and you make a point of landing mid foot under your body and pushing off with the one leg (kind of like you are riding a skateboard) then you switch legs.
• 2 cool down laps - focused 180 cadence - focused mid foot landing - much slower pace.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 03/04/2008
• Time: 20:00:00
• Total Time: 00:30:00.00
• Distance: 3 miles
• Average Pace: 10:00/mile

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Fit or Fitness?

I went for a ride on my triathlon bike to really try to focus on fit. I lowered my handle bars to get a more aero position. But the big problem I’m having is that I need to get the elbow pads of my aero’s further back toward my body, but they seem to be as far back as the aerobars allow.

All the fit guidance I’ve been given says that you want your upper arms pointing down, elbows at a 90% angle resting right on the pads, fore arms straight. This allows your shoulders and upper back to relax and rest on your elbows and forearms.

My problem is that my elbows are too far forward, and so my upper arms are angled, and I have to support my back with… my back! Too much work… and almost defeats the purpose of the aero bars completely. If I move my elbows back, there’s no pads to rest on, and my forearms are taking the weight… NOT at all comfortable.

So, I need to find a better aero bar solution.

The ride, was flat, and not fast, and was all about focusing on form.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 03/04/2008
• Total Time: 1:20:00.00
• Distance: 20 miles
• Average Speed: 15 mph

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