Tony Knowles Coastal Trail – Anchorage, Ak
I decided to run some errands before my run hoping that it would stop snowing and clear up a bit and walah!
I have transitioned from the return to running program to Hal Higdon’s spring training schedule. This week’s training was as follows:
Monday 1.5 mile run
Tuesday Off
Wednesday 3 mile run
Thursday 1.5 mile run
Friday Off
Saturday 30 min walk
Sunday 3 mile run
I changed some of the days around due to my work schedule, but I tried to follow the schedule as closely as possible. During the week day runs, I averaged about a 9:30 pace. I forced myself to slow down to an 11:30 pace for the week-end “long run” just to start revving up for the marathon training which will begin in about 11 weeks (hope I will be ready!). The wednesday run was the longest I have run since my injury layoff. I was really worried about my heel ( Insertional Achilles injury) and thought for sure that it would tighten up and feel a little tender after this run. I was so happy when it didn’t! All evening I was able to continue with my normal activities without any tenderness or pain.
This morning, though, my heel felt a little tight and only mildly tender, but once I was up and walking around it was fine. Today is a rest day so I will give it time to recover.
To continue to run without making my injury worse and to prevent future injury, I need to work on my running form. I tend to look down at the ground in front of me when I run, so I have been focusing on the horizon and keeping my head, neck, and shoulders more balanced and relaxed. The next couple of things I want to really focus on is how I strike the ground and to work on not over striding.
On the 3 mile run yesterday, I tried keeping my feet close to the ground and land underneath my hips, but I was hitting the ground so hard that I felt like I was jarring my whole body. Not a good feeling! I am not sure what I was doing wrong so after a while I just tried to relax, tried keeping head, neck, shoulders, and hips aligned, and then tried to just land naturally. At least the jarring of my body stopped but I do need some work in this area.
Everything is coming together, slowly but surely! I am still feeling good about being able to run although I am a bit nervous about increasing my mileage and what kind of impact that will have on my Insertional Achilles Tendinopathy. It is going good right now though so I am cautiously optimistic! 🙂
Have you had a running injury that forced you to change your style of running? What did you do to improve your running form?
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