So what has been going on in the
past two years as far as running is concerned? Since I reached 10 miles last
Saturday, what had I done differently? This is a brief accounting of what has
happened. It was just two years ago when I gave up running and I actually
bought a road bike to try to make cycling my main aerobic workout. Now and then
I would make a foray into running but inconsistently. I even joined a walking
club but they walked too slowly and I couldn’t find someone with the same pace
as mine. After a summer of cycling in 2010, I didn’t take the bike out again
because I found spinning indoors or using the recumbent bike, and even just
walking uphill on the treadmill made for a more efficient aerobic workout and
didn’t take a lot of time like riding on the roads did. During the times I
tried running again, I always felt that my fitness level for the activity was
close to what it was before and I tended to push the pace to reach that level. The
result of course is making the condition of my ankle tendons worse. It was a
vicious cycle.
So what changed this year? Let me
think… pace, that’s it! Letting go of the pressure of trying to run as hard as
I can. Accepting that being slow is ok, that running slowly is better than
none. That and decreasing the number of times I run per week to two so the
ankle tendons can recovery over 3 or 4 days. An evolution in stride change also
helps. After making a conscious effort to alter it, I can now sometimes
subconsciously run with a new but slower stride. Whenever I find myself going
back to my natural stride, I pull back because that is the one that causes my
ankle tendons to overstretch. It’s the push off of the foot that does it. My
new stride is shorter and pulls from the front. Those explanations may be
simplistic but it took a long time realizing them and those are what work at
the present time.
I can’t assume that everything is
now hunky dory because I was able to complete 10 miles. There are no hard and
fast answers. With stage II and III PTTD (posterior tibialis tendon
dysfunction), disaster can strike at any time with a tendon rupture just by
taking an unfortunate misstep. I’m only taking it one run at a time – a midweek
short run and the AREC training run on the weekend. Not an ideal training
schedule and not something you will find in any training program. Well, that’s
okay because I’m not training for anything anyway. It’s just exercise.
Other notes on the past 6 or 7 weeks of being able to run: A
happy consequence of this twice a week activity? I noticed in the shower that I
was getting my running tan lines again. Since
I’ve had these injuries, I no longer have balance if I try to stand on one leg.
Whenever I put pants on, I have to hold on to something or lean on a wall. My
stride, if you can call it that, feels more like a quarter lunge.
So everything was going well from mid-May to the first week
of July when this happened: Oops, Something Happened On The Way to 12 Miles
I’m off the roads again trying to make my left thigh muscle
recover. So far I can only do light gears on the stationary bikes without pain. Well, it was a good 7 weeks while it lasted.
Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
No comments:
Post a Comment