Potential injury update.

No run today, as I said I'm taking every day up to the 19th off. That being said, I'm trying to wear my Vibrams out and around more to strengthen my feet. I think part of the problem was that I was going from close to barefoot to high support Brooks shoes depending on the day. Today I wore my bikilas on some shopping errands (grocery store, walmart, dick's sporting goods) and my feet didn't hurt at all. That being said, when I woke up this morning I could feel a very faint pain in the top of my foot, but it soon went away as I began to walk downstairs. Still, I'm not sure if this is an injury (which would be bad, but unlikely, seeing as track starts in 5 days) or just an instance of my feet trying and failing to get stronger. Still, I felt no pain during my errands and we were out for about 3.5 hours. I take this as a good sign. I'm driving back up to school on sunday and when I get there I *might* take a ten minute  slow jog in my vibrams just to stretch my legs out...and to see how bad this pain really is. I honestly hope that its just a twinge that will pass in time, I enjoy running in my bikilas much more then I do in my brooks, but more importantly, I don't want to miss my track season. I'll keep you guys posted.

Pain in the foot-possible solution

I have been doing reading and this guy claims this can help-if not fix the pain in the top of the foot. I'll let you guys know if it works or not, but here is the link: http://therunningbarefoot.com/?p=1186#exercising-while-walking-or-running-barefoot

Top of the Foot Pain-only problem so far

Today I went out for a run in my traditional brooks, thinking it would be good to rest the extra muscles that you use when you run barefoot. However, around mile 1 I noticed a pain on the top of my foot. It was not a sharp pain, but it was enough to make me stop  and turn around and run back home. I've been doing research for the past 20 minutes or so and it seems that this pain is a common problem for people switching to barefoot (or vibram)  running. As mentioned numerous times in previous posts, when you run in vibrams  (as well as barefoot) you tend to put more stress on your calves. This in turn causes your calves to strengthen. However, in the in between phase when you calves are not yet fully strengthened, they can end up tightening. This in itself is not bad. However, it can lead to other problems. When the calf tightens, it pulls on 3 different tendons in the foot. Again, this is not a bad thing. However, when doing too much too soon, it can cause an inflammation on one or more of these tendons. Now for why this happened to me: In my opinion, Vibram 5 fingers allow to make more use of your leg muscles, and therefore allow you to run faster, easier. However, when running too fast for too long in the beginning can cause these tendons to inflame. Honestly I believe it to be the work of the run I did yesterday, 3.6 miles at a 6:40 pace, on asphalt. The week before this run was my workout week, I did not run in vibrams at all for the very reason of not getting injured. So yesterday I was anxious to get back into my distance work, and ended up overdoing it a little bit. I didn't even think that getting injured would be a problem. I figured that my calves would already be strong enough from my sprinting work. I guess I was wrong. Fortunately, this inflammation is very easy to get rid of, if treated early on. The general treatment seems to be rest, ice, and anti-inflammatory pills. I think I'm going to take the next week off at least, anything I do now won't help me for track anyway. I also plan on icing and taking some ibuprofen.

1/12/11 Follow Up

Not much to report on this follow up. Don't run in Vibrams if you're planning on getting your feet wet when its cold out or when its snowy. My toes were numb by the end of my run. I would like to say, a few people asked me if my muscles "hurt" after running in my bikilas. The answer to that would be no, I simply just use more muscles and muscle groups, which in turn makes my muscles more tired....which in turn strengthens my muscles in the long run.  Just a comment, some people are very skeptical about these shoes because they lack "traditional" support. Once again I would like to clear this up. In "normal" running shoes, you run heel to toe, which allows most of the force to be distributed along the shin/quad area. However, in vibrams you run with a midfoot strike first, which allows the force to be directed into the calf, this allows the force to be distributed relatively harmlessly, while strengthening the calf. (Just as a side note I have noticed slightly more definition in this area). "Traditional" support is not needed because of the midfoot strike. However, Vibrams are not for everyone. Extreme cases of pronation, as well as serious running injuries would require an athlete to work into vibrams much more gradually. It just depends on the person.
This Video explains the midfoot strike....and for the record  I didn't actually listen to what the guy talking is saying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9itkEkcQ8WM&feature=related

Fastest run...ever.

Today I didn't have a lot of time to devote to running, so I decided to take this run fast. I wore my vibrams for the entire run, and besides some numb toes, I am very happy with my performance. My route was a mixture of rolling hills and one big half mile long hill that I ran up and down. All in all, the route was only about 3.65 miles, however, I ran it in 24:30. That means that I was running at a 6:42 pace, making this my fastest distance run.....ever. The awesome thing is that I feel like I could have kept this pace up for at least another mile or two. Physically, the run was great, my lungs didn't hurt at all, even though it was around 30 degrees with a wind chill. My muscles didn't hurt any worse then they usually do on my runs. However, I did notice once again a slight pain on the top of my left foot. I think that I can attribute this to not running in the vibrams at all last week and since it doesn't hurt after the run, I don't think it will be a problem. Hopefully I will have another run tomorrow....and (hopefully) my body will allow me to run it slower!

Komodo Sport

The new Vibram 5 fingers Komodo sport model is available at http://www.rei.com/product/811202

Ladder Workout-1/10/11

This was my last workout of the winter training season. I did a mile warm up, plyos, and hurdle stretches. However, the second I started my first 100, my quad tightened up painfully. This workout was not run at my full strength, I used each of the heats as more "strides" rather then sprints. After the first 150 and 200 my quad loosened up much more and I was able to run my 200 at a 29 pace. However, the cold got the best of me during this workout, it made it hard to breathe and in turn, made it harder to recover. For the rest of the week I'm going to be running distance in vibrams, hopefully this will allow that quad to recover and strengthen.

Friday's Workout-20 minutes of stairs

This was a rough workout, I did them in the stairwell of my high school. The stairwell has 4 flights of stairs  & 24 steps per flight = 96 stairs. I ran all 96 steps 18 times. In between each set of stairs I did a specific core exercise, which I will post at the end of this entry. For the first 14 sets of stairs, I stopped my watch whenever I did abs. However, it started to get late and I felt like I needed to get home, so for the last 4 sets I had to let it run so I could finish the workout. The entire workout is as follows:

stairs-every step
25 pushups
Stairs-every step
50 crunches (straight)
Stairs-every other step
25 squats
stairss-every other step
30 seconds of flutter kicks
stairs-every 2 steps
25 push ups
stairs-every step
50 crunches (side)
Stairs-every step
50 crunches (side)
stairs-every other step
25 squats
stairs-every step

I did this routine through twice in 21 minutes.

Thursday's Workout 10x200s

Originally, this workout was supposed to be 8x200, with each set being under 32 seconds. My goal was to get them all done in 30 seconds or under. However, during this workout I was not very consistent. My times ranged from 27 seconds(my fastest) to 31 seconds (this one was after I ran the  first 27). The average time of the entire workout was 29 seconds, which is fine with me. I think I am going to set my goal workout pace for this track season at 26-27 seconds consistently. This would put my 200 splits at 2 seconds slower then the pace of my high school pr in the 400. I feel like I can accomplish this goal by mid season, which would benefit my 400 time considerably. All in all, it was a great workout, I felt really good about it, so I threw in 2 extra runs.