A Passion for Running

I had a very good 30 minute run with Nick on Friday. Everything continues to feel better and I’m convinced it was my very bad pronation that was causing the problem. To back-up that statement, I analyzed a few video clips of me running over the weekend. The most telling one was a clip I had my mom take of me running barefoot. The clip was taken three or four weeks ago – so, just before I started having the foot, ankle and shin-splint problems. What was really valuable about that particular clip was that I had them taken from the front and back instead of how I usually have them taken – from the side.

The clips convincingly demonstrated what I’d theorized about bad pronation on my right side. In slow motion it was quite fascinating to watch my right foot doing an inward reach prior to making contact with the ground.

Explanation: Imagine following a passing line down the middle of a highway. To follow that line, you wouldn’t necessarily need to land on it. Your feet would mostly land on either side of it – although the insides of your feet may touch it. That was the case with my left foot – it was coming straight forward and landing on the outside of that imaginary line. But my right foot was coming inward and landing in the middle of the line, or even crossing somewhat over the line. The problem was that the inward reach was making my foot tilt and contact the ground on the outside of my foot – causing a pronounced inward roll.

So, I definitely had some bad pronation on that side. Some pronation is not a bad thing, but severe pronation is.

I’m sure many readers would be bored to tears of my ongoing self-analysis but I find it fascinating and even exciting since I’m really beginning to learn how to assess and fix my own form problems.

I hereby request all you running chicks begin wearing this little number while running:

The photo is a still from an upcoming Charlize Theron flick. More of them can be seen here.

You ever wonder about the impression you leave on people who arrive at your blog for the very first time? For example, I get a lot of hits from google. Often the searches that bring people here are relevant to my babblings, while other times, they have next to nothing to do with what I have to offer. The latter scenario makes me wonder more about what these new visitors think.

Take today’s title for example. my legs are the same length. That title would make ZERO sense to a new visitor.

Hi new visitor. Welcome. This blog is about running. Today’s title is due to the fact that I’ve had some niggling quasi-injuries and one possible cause I’ve been investigating is that my legs may be of different length.

There. I feel better. Now, back to my regular six-person audience (I love you guys). I just wanted to tell you that I had my massage therapist check my leg length. She says they are spot-on the exact same length. However, she also said I definitely favor my right leg. Funny because people like Jon noticed that in pictures of me standing like, a year ago.

So, there is a strength/muscular imbalance between my legs. Could also still be a hip alignment thing. More investigation is required.

I have NO idea what happened to the barefoot running interview. I’ll check and let you know.

Remember that barefoot running interview I did (I think) in September? Well, it airs tomorrow morning – Friday, October 28/2005 at 8:15 a.m. Mountain Standard Time.

The interview is on CKUA radio and here’s the link to the live broadcast. You need Windows Media Player to listen.

Sheesh. I hope I don’t sound like an idiot!

Yup. I’ve got that whole ankle/leg/shin-splint issue figured out. It was definitely the pronating on my right foot that was the problem. Ran again tonight with Aaron keeping the focus (again) on making proper contact with the ground. The pose felt good and the pain I had is all but gone.

The only discomfort I have is some muscle soreness in my right foot – undoubtedley because I’m working “rightey” in a different way than it is used to.

I’m thinking this latest tweak to my form is going to take a couple of weeks. I’m way happy and looking forward to a winter of fine tuning followed by a spring and summer of rockin’ racing.

Woohoo!

I hadn’t planned on it, but today I went for a 30 minute jaunt in the river valley.

Today’s focus was entirely on form. I wouldn’t allow myself to deviate at all from proper foot contact and from lifting my heel quickly and cleanly from the ground.

Guess what? My leg and ankle feel better tonight than they have for quite some time following a run.

The further along I get on this journey to re-engineer my form, the more I realize form is everything.

I blatantly ripped this page off from Matt – the main dude behind WordPress.
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There are several ways to syndicate/subscribe to the content here. One of the list below should suit you. If not, let me know and I?ll see what I can do.

First things first. Here’s my RSS feed.

I also have an Atom Feed but the RSS one is better. If you currently use the Atom feed, here’s a great reason to switch to the RSS feed: The link to my comments is embedded in the RSS feed so being subscribed to it means you are once click closer to commenting on my posts than you would be using the Atom feed.

Speaking of comments, here’s the RSS feed for the comments left on this blog.

And, for those inclined to use them, here are some subscription tools:

Blogroll Me!

Now that I’ve given you the tools to do it, how do I feel about syndication? A long time ago Jeffrey Zeldman said something to this effect:

Q: If you offered an RSS feed, I could read your stuff without visiting your site.
A: If you stored your groceries on the sidewalk, we could eat your food without sitting across the table from you.

I’m not going to force you to, but come sit at my table and we can have a jolly good time.

I thought the following comment from Debra was so helpful I’d post it. Thanks Debra. I’m going to go see my Chiro/ARTS guy as soon as I can!

You can often spot leg length discrepency by looking in a mirror and checking whether your pelvis is level. The tell-tale sign is that the curve of the waist is different on both sides. That?s what my podiatrist says.

Mind you, according to my chiropractor (as far as I can remember) leg length discrepency can be caused by a tilted pelvis.

Debra left the comment after reading yesterday’s post.

So, after about a week off, I got back to running. Aaron and I went out for a 20 minute test run – just to see how things would feel. It went well but my leg, foot and ankle still have some…discomfort.

The really valuable thing about today’s run came from having Aaron along for the ride. After I concentrated for a few minutes on correct foot placement, Aaron asked me to follow him to see if I could spot his “knee coming in” – a troublesome thing for him. While I could not see his knee doing funny stuff, I was able to clearly see the toes on his right foot turning outward as they left the ground. His left side was fine. This left Aaron wondering if this might be the reason/part of the reason for his knee hurting/having some discomfort so he worked on it for the rest of the run.

Then Aaron returned the favor and ran behind me. The first thing he mentioned was that my right heel wasn’t coming anywhere close to touching the ground. Hmmm…I concentrated on letting that heel come closer to the ground. It didn’t want to. It was work. It became obvious to me that’s part of my problem. If my heel/ankle is not sufficiently relaxed, it’s going to cause tension in my calves and achilles tendon and that’s going to cause all kinds of other problems. I wonder why my right leg is doing that? Perhaps it is shorter than the left one? Maybe, as I discussed in a previous post, I have a problem with hip alignment? I have to figure that out. Are there any experts out there that would like to chime in?

At any rate, I learned a lot today. And I’ve (still) got much to work on form-wise.

But I’m patient. I’m in this for the long haul.