Tuesday 22 September 2015

Walking up and down stairs with a calf injury

Hey everyone, here's a quick guide for walking up steps with a calf injury that is working for me. Especially apply this for larger steps.

While going up stairs, lead with the non-injured leg. Bring up the injured leg level with the non-injured leg, without extending beyond that. Also, avoid toe lift-off - that slight shift puts instant strain on the calf.

While going down stairs, do the opposite: lead with the injured leg, bringing the non-injured leg level to it, without extending beyond that.

Hope this helps!

Sunday 24 May 2015

Barefoot excitement, my first segment

I am probably the last runner in the world to hear about Strava, but if I am not then you should definitely check it out. It is so motivating - I am particularly stoked by their segment feature, which allows you to pitch yourself against the local bests. Awesome.

I am simultaneously trying to make my feet hardier for further barefoot running - something which I am sure is only really achievable by doing exactly that - running barefoot. I probably went too fast to put down the segment time and have taken off some skin, but hey-ho.

One thing I will say if you are nutty like that - try to run on the road itself. I found there was less gravel and more comfortable that way.

Sunday 17 May 2015

Back!

14 km run today, with no hitches, and I think I am back!
I may always have a fragile left ankle, and I may have to think twice before participating in technical night trail races again, but this is very positive.
Pace, however, was kept slow, although this is partly because my cardio-vascular fitness capacity has dropped.
More soon.

Wednesday 15 April 2015

Another "twist" in the tale

For the second time in 4 months, hope has irresistably been growing.
I realised that my footwear made a real difference to how much my ankle would ache or even hurt after a run. The light shoes did not seem to create a problem. Having an explanation for the December sequence of pain-free runs was a big breakthrough.
I have been since working over the last 10 days on a gradual recovery programme.
Only this afternoon 7km into my "long" run (12 km) with everything going swimmingly, I twisted my bad ankle, again.
A passer-by was able to lend me a phone to call in help from my wife.
I do not know what this means - maybe it will be ok to resume again after a proper lay-off period on the same principles I have been working on.
What concerns me the most is that I am just not able to stay sufficiently focussed for long enough to avoid every rock and root, and I simply do not find on-road very exciting any more, especially now speed workouts and races are not really on my roadmap.


Tuesday 31 March 2015

ankle injury and weight of shoe

http://running.competitor.com/2014/05/shoes-and-gear/light-fast-free-2014-summer-trail-running-shoe-buyers-guide_103351

Excellent (though lightweight!) guide to some lightweight trail running shoes.


My next line of inquiry is do the heavier shoes hurt my ankle more? I had a lot of success taking my light-weight road shoes to Morocco in December. Things went badly when running with heavier normal running shoes later that month.