New shoes!

Here I am, again writing from 10,000 feet.  Today I am flying to Portland, OR for a Women Leading Powerfully conference being put on by Mars.  It’s being held at the Heathman Hotel (the hotel where Christian Grey always stays in the “shades of grey” trilogy)….aka highest lap of luxury in Portland and right in downtown.  Exciting!

So this past week has been wild, and I have been a sucky blogger and not posted in forever.  There is so much to catch up on; I don’t even know where to start.  So I’m going to go a little backwards and update first with running stuff- since this is supposed to be a fitness blog and all!

Monday I finally got to see Barb again at physical therapy after a couple weeks with Mark.  They are both awesome physical therapists, but Barb has more experience with running injuries and running form specifically.  After lots of chatting about new shoes and going more minimalist, she had me take off my shoes and did a bunch of stuff with my toes.  Stuff that felt weird- bending my big toe around and testing it’s strength.  Big surprise- the way I stand is also a mess in that I grip with my toes and am not balancing my center of gravity correctly.  Also my big toe curves in and is overly flexible in the wrong way.

Not so happy toes

She thinks this all stems from my huge weight loss and the fact that my body still has some old habits from 250+ lbs ago and needing to compensate for the extra weight I was carrying around.  It makes sense and all but sometimes I feel like I will forever pay for the damage I did to my body by being obese.    I know my body is thanking me for shedding all the extra weight because I desperately needed to, but sometimes I feel like I’m going upstream with a spoon as a paddle as I try to figure out the form issues that are plaguing my entire body from the top down.

So she taped me running again and we watched it and compared it to my first taping.  It was great to see some significant improvement.  I’ve developed a pretty decent forward lean, my cadence is faster and lighter, I’m not swinging my arms as oddly towards one side, I’m picking up my feet significantly better, and my heel strike is less.  Having said all that, I am still heel striking.  Also, apparently I have no upper body strength and I’m very stiff in my shoulders while pumping my arms an unnecessary amount.  BOO!  So I’ve made some progress but….I still suck. Lol. 

So having said all that and after confirming that my hips are much more flexible and mobile Barb wants me to start walking/standing/doing as much as possible in bare feet or flats.  We talked about what shoes to look at and she recommended a local Severna Park, MD running store to eventually get new shoes– Spark Running that really knows there stuff.  She said I didn’t have to start with new shoes yet but I could start working them in. SLOWLY.

So I went the next day. Lol.  You think I could wait?!?! Colleen doesn’t do waiting when it comes to things I love.

Katelyn, the owner of Spark Running was totally fantastic.  One thing I really liked is that she basically said a lot of the same things Barb had said which made me feel pretty confident in her knowledge.  I tried on 5-6 different pairs and styles of minimalist shoes.  Including Newton Gravity’s,  Merrell Pace Gloves, a zero drop shoe by avia?!?! With some cushion, and another avia pair that were more sandles than sneakers and as barefoot as you can get.  She didn’t bring out Vibram 5fingers and I don’t think she sold them (I didn’t see them anywhere and I looked) but I didn’t bring it up because I know of many good running shoes that have taken them off their shelves.   Beware here are my personal thoughts on each below.  These are simply my own personal experiences.

The Newton Gravity’s felt WEIRD.  I went in thinking this was the kind of shoe I was going to go home with but when I ran in them I couldn’t get off my toes, even after looking at the video and trying again and for a longer time frame.  Katelyn explained that this can actually be worse than heel striking and causes serious Achilles issues and plantar fasciitis.  I had read that before as well and this just made me feel better about Katelyn.  When we watched me run in them on the tape my heels basically never hit the ground.  Imagine running a half marathon like that…..my legs would be trashed completely. 

Newton Gravity

I ran in the Merrell Dash Gloves next.  I immediately felt like the same weird (and awesome) feeling that I had when I ran on the treadmill during Rick’s running clinic barefoot.  This time I kept it in my mind to hit with my fore- to mid-foot, not my toes.  It felt great.  After a couple minutes, I could feel myself heel striking a little but my foot immediately told me NO and really wouldn’t let me so to speak.  In this shoe it has not only zero heel drop but also zero padding- just a simple rubber sole to protect you from the elements.   When we played back my running I couldn’t believe it was my feet we were watching.  Showing it side by side with the Newtons (she had some rocking recording equipment!!) and frame-by-frame it looked like a different foot running.  Incredible!



Merrell Dash Glove



Next I ran in a zero drop shoe that had some cushion, I think it was the Altra Intuition, but I'm not sure.  They were very comfortable, but I found myself naturally heel striking more and then running on my toe to compensate.  Upon comparing recordings, my form was somewhere in between the Newton’s and Merrell’s in quality.

Altra Intuition



Next Katelyn said that perhaps I needed the zero cushion to truly not give my feet a choice but to run correctly.  So, I put on these crazy sandal type shoes that had Velcro straps to close then and you pulled them on like a water shoe.  I looked them up and found them- Altra Eve.  When I walked in them all I could feel was the darn Velcro strap pressing against the top of my foot, and even more when I ran.  I ran for the least amount of time in those because the Velcro just felt so weird and I was basically switching between toe running and mid foot running but it never really felt good.



Altra Eve



 Not like the Merrell’s! They felt awesome and I am wearing them right now.  I also brought my Asics with me for this trip if I want to switch off a bit because she said to do my first run in them for only a half a mile, and then use the 10% rule for adding mileage week by week in the shoes.  But since Barb said it would be good to walk in these as well to get my foot out of the heel striking mentality that is VERY strong when I walk I’m wearing them all week in Portland.  I never thought marching band could influence the way I walk so much but I was taught to walk with toes up to the sky.  This apparently is just plain bad for your feet and Achilles.  We can get away with it because shoes today are so bloody padded- like walking on marshmallows.  Well, today I walked around the Minneapolis airport for an hour waiting for my flight. Win.



MY Merrell Dash Gloves!



Today I continue the long journey towards better running form and I think these Merrell’s are going to help me.

WHAT SHOES ARE YOU WALKING OR RUNNING IN?

Wowsers

So I drove 200 miles today....



Yeah it kinda felt like I was on the road the whole day, endless.  I drove all over the place, and managed to take a wrong turn....in the way of at least 15 miles out of my way before realizing it.  MAJOR face palm.   Guess why I messed up?  I was on the phone with my mom talking about Indy.  Silly Colleen, driving distracted. BAD.


On another note- I feel like I'm continuing to make progress with my leg (and back!) pain!  After all the driving today I was feeling MEGA stiff and achy, which was totally understandable.  So instead of throwing in the towel and heading home, I ran some errands including grocery shopping.  By the time I was done all the walking around my legs were feeling good.  YES!  So I figured my groceries could keep an hour in the cold- because I didn't want to go home and take the risk of not leaving again.

I did a nice warm up walk around the indoor track for 10 minutes then did my lower body strength training exercises from physical therapy- aka some reverse lunges, squats, reactive hip flexors, etc.  I received some funny looks during my hip flexors exercise- they can hate all they want but it helps my hip mobility.  Then I did my current "allowed" running stint on the treadmill:  a few minutes walking, then 10 minutes running at a comfortable but not easy pace at 1.0% incline, then a few minutes cool down.  My pace was about 5.5 mph and I ran with the metronome going steady at 175 bpm.  And I kept checking my forward lean in the mirror.

See I can be a good physical therapy patient!  I must admit though- I didn't enjoy this run.  I was so focused on my form and my cadence and remembering everything I've learned, that it was hard to enjoy the run itself.  I found myself checking my time a lot and unlike most of my other little runs lately, I was glad to be done after 10 minutes.  O well, not every run can be great, let's face it.


When you are feeling blah and not wanting to work out, what do you do to overcome it and get your butt in gear?

Bad running form= pain

Ugggh.  Today has been both good and bad.  Mainly good with a bad end.

I'll start with the bad first because that's how I'm feeling after another night of needless eating.  Not the same as last night- mainly my choices were good and they were because I was actually hungry.  Then I wasted 10 points on 3 little desserts. STUPID! But....delicious.  So as Joan suggested to me earlier (thanks Joan) you need to forgive yourself.  It happened, now I need to move on.  And not do it again tomorrow!!

The big deal that happened today was I had another physical therapy appointment.  On Monday I met with Mark and had my initial evaluation.  He was nice and gave me lots of hip rotator stretches, hamstring, and even some lower leg stretches.  He suggested trying some more elliptical to gauge how I felt and asked me to bring in my running shoes to my next appointment.  Mark's a triathlete (cool!) and was excited about all the activities I was doing and that I was a swimmer- which he said is the best workout I can get right now.  Given my goal of being able to run with no pain- he suggested I spend some time with Barb as well, who is a long distance runner and works a lot with runners and improving form.

Which was today, with Barb.  She was AWESOME.  Plain and simple, she was simply fantastic.  After a quick review with me and my chart- she immediately wanted to see my running shoes and already was telling me what my form was like and how my food landed before she even saw me stand.  She eventually had me run on the treadmill since I was having no pain.  She recorded me from behind and from the side on her iPad while I ran (slowly) on the treadmill.  Initially running wasn't painful but it quickly became more and more uncomfortable so I was glad when she asked me to stop after only a couple minutes.  Then we sat down and she explained what she saw.


Bad heel striker!

 All in all....I am a complete running disaster.  I do pretty much everything wrong.  I heel strike, I have very hard and loud foot falls, slow cadence, I don't pick up my feet enough....and that's the initial impression.  My posture is too rigid and I have such side dominance that I turn my torso more on one side than the other. My right shoulder rotates more than my left- looking like I'm trying to pull my left side along behind me.  And my left hip is too tight which isn't allowing me to get a fast enough turnover on that side, making my right side work twice as hard.  In fact, my whole left side of my body is just plain stiff and not as flexible as my right.  Also I overpronate- which looks even worse in slow motion.  Heck, I overpronate when I walk so this is nothing new.  O yeah, and I have zero forward lean.

As I sat next to her listening to her massacre my form (in a nice way, explaining along the way what it should look and feel like) I felt this odd combination of relief and embarrassment.  Relief because this is something concrete we could work on.  Embarrassment because here I thought my form was good- or so I've been told by others (until Rick Meyers' clinic that is.  Apparently he knows what he's talking about lol) and apparently this whole time I've been a complete running disaster.

She said we have two paths we could go down:
1. Work towards a goal race and get me pain free- basically fix the immediate problem and send me on my way.  She said if we do this it is very likely the problem will reoccur if I continue to run long distances- but I could keep at running less that 6 miles or so with this form long term with minimal repeats of the same type of injury.  But add in building up to half and full marathons and the injury WILL return.
2.  Take significantly more time NOW to rewire my entire running form from top to bottom.  It will take longer, but once my form is good, I shouldn't have issues running much longer distances giving my overall fitness level if I train properly.

DUH, option 2!!  There really is no option 1 is what I told her.  She replied with a "that's exactly what I was hoping to hear."

So, I have a very long and tedious road ahead of me that she said will be very challenging and frustrating, but Mark and her will be there every uncomfortable step along the way.  It WILL be worth it, for sure!  The immediate plan is lots of stretching and strengthening of my hips- especially my left hip.  After much manipulating and prodding of my hamstrings, glutes, and hips- the left hip really leaped out as the main problem.  Interesting how these things happen!  She seems concerned about possible bursitis- so she is confirming with my doctor that the hip x-rays showed the left hip clearly enough to rule it out in my left hip.  My doctor was initially focusing on the right hip, so I'm really not sure...

We will see.....but I feel more optimistic