Swam 1 hour with Kerri the swim coach today. It's a great feeling to be refining my stroke now instead of learning it from scratch. The lessons I've taken in the past month and a half have propelled me to where I can honestly say I'm a powerful and fast swimmer. The proof still needs to be in my race performances, but as far as times in the pool for all the major distances, (100, 500, 1000, etc.), my times are much, MUCH, faster than they've ever been. Not to mention that long workouts no longer make me as super tired as they once did. Very good stuff happening in the water.
I also made an interesting discovery a couple of days ago in regards to my injured foot. I noticed that I never have pain in the foot when I'm walking barefoot. I can even run barefoot with out pain. I think that it has to do with where my foot is landing when it lands in a big, cushioned shoe. I'm a forefoot striker, but my left foot is slightly pigeon-toed. I think that in wearing the Newtons I opened myself up to a vulnerable area. The space between the lugs and the rest of the shoe (on the outside-where my foot was landing), allowed my foot to be put in a bad position, opening it up to an overuse injury(if any of that makes any sense). Basically, because I was wearing VERY UNNATURAL shoes and running lots, I hurt the soft tissue on the outside of my foot. Now, even in regular trainers, it's tender because it hasn't healed all the way.
The solution: wear more minimalistic shoes! I think because there isn't as much room for error in the landing surface of the minimal shoes, I'm forced to land correctly on that injured foot, hence the reason why it doesn't hurt when I run barefoot. By wearing big, cushy trainers, I'm landing wrong on my foot, and hurting the area more.
So...Today I went out and bought a pair of the New Balance MT100's. These shoes are ridiculously awesome. Immediately I'm able to run with nearly no pain (except for when I puposely land wrong). I'm going to continue to rest the foot for the rest of this week and into next week, but it's satisfying to finally be getting somewhere with all this. I always trained in very minimal shoes before without injury. Why the hell did I ever change???
This is our new blog detailing our daily adventures, mountain bike racing, endurance sports, and maybe even some cooking (that's Anne's domain!). We will share our experiences with life, training, and most importantly, being a team-both in marriage and in our sport.
I just ordered those shoes too! can't wait to take them out on the trails. did you know Anton Kurpicka, the god of Leadville, developed those for NB?
ReplyDeleteYeah man I know that he wore them but I didn't realize he developed them. I love them. I did a couple little jogs in them back and forth in the parking lot and the felt great. I've been wearing them since I got them and honestly my foot is getting better and better. I'm not saying they will be my regular training shoes, but they definately will be in the rotation.
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