Just to throw a couple more
Just to throw a couple more sticks on the fire:
Ran te Kalamazoo marathon a few weeks ago and it gave me 4.5 hours to think about what I was doing (before I needed to put shoes on). Something I noticed was that I didn't seem to fully utilize my heel as a weight bearing device.
When I would land, I tended to keep my weight over my forefoot and my heel would very lightly touch the ground before lifting. The ultimate result (as far as I can tell) is that after 4.5 hours of this the muscles and ligaments in my foot and ankle got really fatigued from having to support my 208 pounds and I was unable to continue without some support.
Some key things I noticed were the tension in my calves and that I would tense m feet and ankles before landing.
Since then I have been working on taking some of the load off the front end by making sure I put some weight on my heel (almost feels like pushing the heel into the ground) and vendor my knees more. So far it feels like a lot more work on the knees, but it feels like less work on my feet and ankles and I find it easier to relax hose areas while running.
The jury is still out on exactly if this is an improvement or not, as I had been experiencing some mild growing pains from the change in form, but I can say for sure that since then I can actually feel more springiness in my calves and my speed has gone up quite a bit (my last 10 mile averaged 9:59/mile, very fast for me!).
Just to throw a couple more sticks on the fire:
Ran te Kalamazoo marathon a few weeks ago and it gave me 4.5 hours to think about what I was doing (before I needed to put shoes on). Something I noticed was that I didn't seem to fully utilize my heel as a weight bearing device.
When I would land, I tended to keep my weight over my forefoot and my heel would very lightly touch the ground before lifting. The ultimate result (as far as I can tell) is that after 4.5 hours of this the muscles and ligaments in my foot and ankle got really fatigued from having to support my 208 pounds and I was unable to continue without some support.
Some key things I noticed were the tension in my calves and that I would tense m feet and ankles before landing.
Since then I have been working on taking some of the load off the front end by making sure I put some weight on my heel (almost feels like pushing the heel into the ground) and vendor my knees more. So far it feels like a lot more work on the knees, but it feels like less work on my feet and ankles and I find it easier to relax hose areas while running.
The jury is still out on exactly if this is an improvement or not, as I had been experiencing some mild growing pains from the change in form, but I can say for sure that since then I can actually feel more springiness in my calves and my speed has gone up quite a bit (my last 10 mile averaged 9:59/mile, very fast for me!).
