Changing The Way I Run

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that if I’m to prolong my ability to run, I will have to change the way I do it, even if it makes me slower than I already am. This means changing my stride from what my body is used to doing all these years. It’s obvious to me that my normal stride isn’t working anymore because my ankle tendons are hurting because of it. I have been trying out two kinds of strides in which I try to lessen my impact against the ground. One is a pulling stride where my leg pulls from front to back, and the other is more like a falling forward stride where I try to get my foot just under the knee and push backwards. Both involve a lower knee lift in an effort to land more lightly and decrease the pounding, and both are more of a shuffle than a full stride. Will any of them work? I will have to be the subject of an experiment of one.

***Side notes about last Saturdays’ run: The aftermath of the 21 miler was that I got a hole in each sock. The strange thing was that I wasn’t particularly sore, so no Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Even though my ankles didn’t hurt as much as I anticipated, they are not healed. It just means that I’m running more slowly. I feel that my ankles are day to day and one misstep can mean several days of recovery. Linda was right, she said my ankles will thank her later when I asked her to set the pace. Because our pace was very reasonable I didn’t have to dig deep for energy other than consuming two gel packets. Now I have to decide whether to switch my registration from the half marathon to the full marathon at the expo. It would be a challenge to find out if I can still finish a marathon no matter how slow, by trying the Galloway method.