Learning to Run Again

SO ever since I broke the ol femur I have just never felt really "on" again with my running. I have felt really clunky and just like I was moving really unnaturally. In the past 3 years I have had a few runs I would consider good. Runs where I was able to settle into a very nice pace and maintain that for 3-5 miles. This however has not been the norm. Also back in my Cross Country days I got some pretty severe stress fractures in both my shins which still bother me a little bit even today. SO proper form and good shoes have always been on my mind especially with starting to train for the Florida Ironman. I am going to be doing a LOT of running over the next year and thats where I see my biggest opportunity for injury. Its just funny how things work out though. In the past I have tried to get the cushiest shoes I could possibly get. For years I ran only in Nike Air Max's which use Nike's air bed in both the heel and the forefoot. These are not cheap shoes but they felt the best to me. In the last couple of years since starting to run again I have been using the Nike shox system. These shoes use 4 elastomer pillars in the heel to act as shock absorbers that cushion then propel your foot forward again. I ran in about three pairs of those and thought that I really liked them. Heck I ran my marathon in them! However I always had a little beef with them in that they are super duper heavy. SO last fall I was at a store and found a pair of shoes by a company that makes running shoes for woman called Ryka. I was pretty impressed and did some research. They got Cushiest shoe of the year from runners world. SO I thought I would give them a try. What I found was that I couldnt run in them at all. My calves would just lock up and I believe now it was becuase of the nike shox shoes I had been running in. The heel on those is really high and it had totally changed the way I was running. For the worse I might add. SO I really didnt like that and started to ween myself off of the nike shox and back onto the ryka's. I was running mostly with them and that was working but I had a trip the nike outlet a few months ago and they had Nike Free's for dirt cheap. I thought I would give them a try. You see what makes Nike Free's different from other shoes is that they are made to mimic running barefoot. The sole is supper flexible and very thin. I thought they were kinda gimmicky but for the price I thought I would give them a try. WOW was I wrong. A gimmick they are not. SO I have been doing all my running pretty exclusively in them and have gotten up to 5+ miles in these almost barefoot like shoes. Oh yeah and you dont wear socks with them. I'm getting zero blisters! SO this concept of running barefoot was kinda sticking with me so I did a google search for barefoot running. WOW I couldnt believe what I found. TONS of people are throwing away their running shoes and going au natural. And whats weird is it makes sense to me. SO I have started to incorporate barefoot track work into my running workouts. Im up to maybe a 1/2 a mile so far which is not very much but it feels so good. You see to run barefoot is to completely go against the way running shoe companies (RSC) want you to run. RSC's want you to take long drawn out strides and land smack on your heel with your leg extended. Why do they want you to run like this? B/c it hurts! It hurts a lot. your ankles, knees, hips, back, just about everything. However if you run barefoot your heel never really hits the ground. You use your ankle and knee and hips to absorb the shock naturally when you land on your fore foot. SO tell me. what makes more sense to let the impact of your weight in forward motion be controlled by 1/2" of high density rubber foam or for that weight to be evenly distributed over three different pivot points in your body. I just cant believe it still. when I run using the "conventional" method im pulling 40 second laps on the indoor track. at 15 laps to a mile thats a 10 minute mile. Thats pathetically slow. But running barefoot im easily in the 30 second range for the same laps. Thats a 7.5 min mile! And its more comfortable and is requiring less effort to go faster. But heres the catch. Im discovering what many other people like me have discovered. That years of running in super cushy shoes have caused the muscles in my feet to atrophy. My feet are week and fragile and I have to take this barefoot thing slowly to build back up the muscles in my feet and avoid injury. SO how far will I go with this? I dont know. I have read about several people who have become barefoot marathoners. That the asphalt really isnt that bad. I am probably not going to go that far but I am really looking at alternative shoes. Im looking for shoes now that allow freedom of my toes which im discovering can really aid in balance and control while running. Im also looking at shoes that have primarily no heel cushion at all to them. I see now that the heel cushion is evil and even in my Nike Free's the heel is so big that I cant avoid landing on it and therefore it messes up my newfound stride. SO I'm really interested to see how this goes as men in my family have often been plagued by foot problems and have had to wear orthotics of some kind. Im starting to realize those are part of the problems as well. A stong foot and is an injury free foot. But thats a whole other rant ^_^ SO if you see me running barefoot dont ask me if I forgot my shoes, just try to keep up!

cheers!