A week's a long time...

Well since my shins decided to break down last week, decided to rest them for a bit and seriously reconsider my running technique, as my current one is the cause of all the pain and anguish in my shins, and my hips and my knee!! God I'm a mess! But seriously, something needs to happen to sort out the shins.

So in defiance I went out on a 20 mile bike ride on the Tuesday, just to do something, and after physio on Tuesday last week, was recommended to look at Pose running. Think of how Michael Johnson runs, and that's it basically... running in a pose. But it requires lots of strengthening exercises on the legs, and I think looks more applicable to sprinters. However it effectively involves running on the balls of your feet and not heel striking, and leaning forward slightly to let momentum carry you forward. So this I tried on Thursday last week, and so so. However my god were my calves in a mess for a few days after, and even now they hurt, so don't think I was doing it right. However after speaking to a few people, decided to adapt my running style to incorporate some of the elements of pose running, namely leaning forward and taking much shorter strides. This appears to be at the core of my problem in that I lean too far back, take long strides and heel strike, so I'm effectively running as though I'm a car with a hand brake on.

So today I ran the three short miles to work, and then did a 7 miler afterwards, incorporating this technique, and my god did it feel a whole load better. I thought I'd be going a lot slower taking shorter strides, but I was no slower than normal, and I was trail running effectively. The knee's still giving me a bit of jip, but that's just soreness (he hopes), so all good I think... although ha vent fully adopted the ball of the foot running as I don't think my calves can take it! So generally flat foot strike instead. So after a very frustrating week of doing bugger all last week (well still did 38 miles cycling!), I've knocked off 10 miles today, and should be on target (he says with the curse of death!), to do my 30 miles this week, before ramping up to around 40 miles next week for the next 3 months.