Saw a podiatrist

Hmm... ok so I saw the podiatrist and here's what he says. My feet are fine, bones fine, legs fine, biomechanics fine, everything is fine. My shoes, however, are the worst pair he's seen in his career. I run in New Balance 1010s, the ultra motion control shoes. He says first off, the heel is all wrong. It's a varus heel. Basically, the heel is slopped upward towards the outside of the shoe. He says this causes your foot to supinate on impact, and then harshly snap pronate when your full weight hits. He says this was a design used in walking shoes, and for New Balance to think you can just use walking biomechanics in a running shoe is insane because it's a completely different motion. Second, the roll bar in the 1010s is absolutely insane. He says huge roll bars like that were designed for recovery shoes for people who had surgery and could barely walk through rehabilitation. The roll bar completely arrests my pronation.

So add them together and my foot motion is like this: I impact and supinate due to the angled heel. Then when my weight hits full, I snap pronate back in, but when I hit the roll bar I immediately stop pronating and send a shockwave up my leg. He says that shoe should be outlawed. It is making people predisposed to all sorts of foot and leg problems. Putting healthy people in shoes that are designed to fix severe foot problems is not only bad business, but can and will actually CAUSE foot problems for the healthy person. He equated it to a disease. If you don't have a disease, but take the medication for it anyway, you could actually cause a lot of harm to yourself. He says shoes like the 1010 were designed for a very specific rehabilitation purpose, and to put a healthy runner in them is crazy.

Interesting...I like that he was wearing a pair of New Balance shoes while he was telling me this. At least I know he doesn't just hate the brand. I'll try some new shoes and see how that goes. Races are still out because I don't enough time to train now, but at least I should be able to run injury free.

Nah... no racing this year.

The last thing I want to do is seriously injure myself or completly piss myself off on the whole running thing. I like running. I'm not going to ruin it by pushing too hard.

You know me, I'm always back and forth on decisions

I may do these races after all. The focus, however, will be shifted. I'm going to let the next month or so determine if I can do them, but now, I just want to finish. Before I wanted to "finish", but I really wanted to run them decently. Now, I don't care if I'm crawling across the finish line, I want to finish. I see a podiatrist today. Hopefully he'll tell me "Jeez Rob you have the wrong shoe and that's what is causing your shin pain. Put these shoes on and you'll be fine." That would be freaking wonderful. What I told the forum folks I chat with is this.

"I want to at least hobble my way through the race. I'm so frustrated with this whole thing... I could really use a win."

We'll see.

Oh, also I think I was running too fast in training. I was running tempo for all my training runs. This is too fast. I should be running a good 30 seconds under race pace in training. My thoughts were "I'm running pretty slow, and I plan to run this slow at the race, so it's all good." They should be "I plan to run this slow at the race, so I better slow THAT pace down by 30 seconds for training." I just worry at some point I'll be going so slow that I'll come to a stop :)

The Marathon has been postponed....

Here's a math equation for all you smarties out there in blog-world.

No running base + Aggressive training program = Injuries, Pain, Depression, Stalled Progress, Frustration, etc...

Here's another one.

Spend the next year getting in great shape and building a running base, then doing the marathon next year = COMMON FREAKING SENSE HUH?

So ya... no marathon this year. I not only have caused untold amounts of pain to myself, I also haven't lost a pound in almost a month because I've spent much time recovering from injury. The primary goal was lose weight and get in shape. My secondary goal of running the marathon was causing the primary to fall apart. That's bad business. I will now refocus my efforts on my primary goal, and defer the secondary for now. I think this makes a lot more sense. I only wish I hadn't shelled out the $160 bucks for the races already. Oh well. My doctors bills to repair the damage I've done to my legs was approaching that amount already, and I'm only 1 week into my 18 week training plan. Forget that!

So bye bye marathon for now; hello weight loss and pain-free exercising!

Still stay tuned to this site for useless updates on my progress.

Later,
Rob

First 6 miler

I did my first 6 miler on Saturday. Wow... it's hard to run 6 miles. I had no idea. The good news is although I'm sore as all get out, I don't think I'm injured. New week, and MORE RUNNING! WOOHOO!

2 days in the books

Two 3-mile runs in the books and the shins are feeling great still.