180 Times Per Minute....

Wow, this morning I woke up and my calves still felt like crap. They were feeling so much better last night, but I guess my 6-hour sleep let them tighten back up. I did a ton of stretching today before I hit pavement. The run warmed them up a little bit, but they are still tight.

I dedicated today to working on my form, landing on my mid-foot and then letting my toes and heels touch the ground ever so slightly. I am working on learning not to heal strike by leaning forward and developing a more cyclic motion and having my feet land under my center of gravity- hold the butt jokes haha! It is more challenging than I thought and I really had to concentrate and keep a rhythm. If I stopped concentrating for even a minute, I noticed I was only doing it properly on my right foot for some reason. I also counted how many times my feet were hitting the ground per minute. The articles I’ve read say you’re feet should be hitting 180 times per minute. Mine are hitting 148-150 times per minute when I am hitting midfoot. I noticed when I was hitting 180 times per minute, I was hitting the ground flat foot and not lightly. Getting used to running like this is really weird.

“When running, it may be useful to consciously think about lifting your foot off the ground as quick as possible as if you were running over hot coals.”

-                                    -Jason Robillard, Baring your soles

Not pushing off is a challenge for me. At 5 feet and 1 inch tall, and as a Marine running around with all those tall kids at PT every day for so many years, I always strived to elongate my stride and push off. My superiors would even advise me “elongate your stride!” I was always more worried about being fast and keeping up with the long striders, that I never paid much attention to my form or posture. Surprise surprise, my knees now suffer. I am lucky enough to have never had shin splints, or at least not chronic ones that became a hindrance to my running, but these knees sure took a beating. Here’s to turning over a new leaf and re-training my body!

 I incorporated a lot of walking into my workout today. For one it is gorgeous outside and I wanted to be able to spend at least an hour out there, and two, I want my feet to get used to being in my vibrams. It was tough getting them on today because for some reason my pinky toe hates going into its home. I guess cause pinky toes are so little.

For the past few years I have had intense knee pain (usually when I’m sitting, or triggered by prolonged sitting) Movie theaters and airplanes have become my enemy. I had my knees x-rayed and examined and the doc tells me I MOST LIKELY have what’s called Patello-Femoral Syndrome. PFS is one of the most common causes of knee pain in runners. The pain is located on my kneecaps and is usually on the inside. Sometimes it hurts on the outside of my right knee and sometimes I can’t really put my finger on where it is hurting, as odd as that may sound. They also click constantly! 

My knees NEVER hurt when I run, in fact they feel so great during my runs and the easiest way for me to get rid of the pain is to go for a run. My pain comes from sitting. It is at its worst a few hours to a few days after a very long run, and after doing lunges or squats. If I run every single day doing my normal 3-4 mile loop they hurt pretty bad even just sitting in class for an hour. So, I have found that doing 2-3 runs a week at no more than 5 miles is my “comfort zone”.  I still have some discomfort, but it is mild. I would ideally like to run 4-5 times a week at around 3-6 miles, and work up to 13 by the end of the summer. I am hoping this new method of running will help my knees and enable me to meet that goal.