Friday, September 23, 2011

The shoes

My new shoes came today! I've been wearing them around the house a little to break them in. I'm so glad I ordered them. I compared them to my old shoes and discovered a couple interesting (to me anyway) things. First, I didn't think my old shoes were particularly worn. But when I compared them to the new (identical) pair, I realized the tread was worn nearly off in places. Secondly, the places where the tread was worn down so much were in the mid-foot. I've always been a really heavy heel striker. Since reading Born to Run I have been somewhat consciously trying to shorten my stride and land mid-foot. Apparently, it's working.

The bad news is my ankle has really been bothering me. I tried to run yesterday and only made it a mile before I had to stop, mostly out of fear that I was going to injure it further. I am weighing the pros and cons of resting completely until next Sunday. I'll evaluate this Sunday (my last chance for a longer (>30 minutes) run) and again in the middle of next week. At this point I feel like the risk of severely injuring it outweighs the loss of fitness I may experience. I know I can finish the race even if I don't run again until race day. I've been training for 6 months. If I do decide to stay off it for the next week or 10 days, I'll have to try to get to the gym and either ride an exercise bike or swim a few times to maintain my fitness level.

2 comments:

Katie said...

I'm sorry to hear about your ankle not feeling better--I hope it starts to feel better soon!

Anonymous said...

I know exactly what you mean... after reading Born To Run, my stride has changed, too. If you look at my current shoes and compare them to the previous ones, you wouldn't know they were worn by the same person!

Sorry to hear your ankle is bothering you. Hopefully you are able to rest it a bit this week before the big race!