Thursday 10 December 2015

I knew that when I started out on this gait changing journey that I had the opportunity to make a Big Change to my style, and therefore the most effective (legal!) way that I could take my 2:03.75 800m time down to a 2:02 ish.


There are runners who, like me, have the opportunity to make big improvements.  There are others who wouldn't.  Some of them I train with on a Tuesday night - they [mostly unwittingly] have a beautiful upright, springy style, although most of them don't seem to be that aware of it.  I feel sorry for them - what is there left to improve? (#jokes!)


So, a factor that must feature strongly in your thought process, assuming you are thinking about making a change, is "how big will this change be?"


I like the way that James Dunne approaches all running aspects from the "one size does not fit all" point of view, always making his audience think about what they're doing, and not just following the latest trend.  Also, his philosophy on making running style improvements is "little changes" and I think for the athlete who is training consistently each week, all year round, this is good advice.


However, my window of opportunity to make some drastic improvements is a relatively small 18 months (post t&f season 2015 to indoor t&f March 2017).  So I am aiming to do it all in one go.  I bit the bullet.  I threw the baby out with the bath water.  I went for it.


Instead, I could have made one change at a time.  I could have tried to bring my landing back, but in my old padded shoes.  Or I could have switched to the minimal shoes but not tackled the over extended problem.  I'm sure there are other combinations. 


But I still believe that I'm making the right approach.  I'm "ripping off that band aid".  Ok, it smarted a bit, but I've learned a lot.


PS here's the best page on stress fractures for runners that I've found in the past few evenings of Googling! by Terry Smith.

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