Being injured gives you a lot of time to think.  Too much, in fact!  So much so that I've stopped myself thinking about running because I was starting to over-think it!

Over Christmas I've read 4 or 5 books about running, some of them stories, like Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall, some factual like Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald.  I've take some motivation from them.  Interestingly, they almost all refer to the benefits of paying attention to running form.  I'll write a blog page about the books I've read at some point soon, if you're interested?

So here's how I'm approaching my running in 2016.  This is where I'd like to make real life changes.  I'm not going to dilute this blog too much with stuff that's not related to the top left "Running Form", but I'll mention them in passing.

Running form is the obvious one, and goes hand in hand with foot strength.  But I've separated them, because I think that even for people who have 'perfect' form (Alex Wall-Clarke, Jacob Wiebel, Mike Twomey, Rod Finch are those that I've known personally!!!) there is still an opportunity to work on foot strength.  I base that on the Older Yet Faster approach and now my own experience.

In terms of being less sedentary, I'm not talking about burning more calories.  I'm talking the effects of my 2.5 hours sat in a car seat 4 days a week, and the 8 hours I sit at a desk.  Not much I can do about the car (at least I'm rolling my feet ... when it's safe!).  My Garmin fenix 3 has a pedometer, and it will beep at me "Move!" after an inactive hour, and I plan to pay more attention to that.  Swimming is going well too, I'm just looking for a regular spot in the week that I can stick to, and when the pool isn't too rammed.

On the fuelling, this is a bit of an experiment at the moment. We all know that we eat too many refined carbohydrates (well, most of us do!), and I was pretty guilty.  So this year I've cut out all carbs to start with.  I consume about 100g a day at the moment, so not the 25g of the Atkins diet, but certainly less than I was eating before.  I don't think 100g is sustainable, but I want to make sure that I cut out all refined sugar for ever, and with Mrs Blackman's help, all white bread rice and pasta.

Next blog entry will be about how the running is going with the recovered metatarsal, but what else would you like to hear about?

I'm back running.  2 days ago.  4 weeks to the day since the fracture occurred.  A 1 mile test, then a couple of very slow 3 milers.

The foot aches, not necessarily where the broken metatarsal was, but generally in that area.  But, it doesn't ache any more at the end of a run as it does at the beginning.  I think it probably soft tissues getting used to a new bump in the bone!

I did notice, however, that there was a little pain on pavement.  So I kept to the grass.

Anyway, feels good to be back running, even if the world got a whole lot muddier in the 4 week break...

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.

Bad news I'm afraid


I've been treading very carefully since mid August - sometimes more carefully than others.  There were a couple of races that I shouldn't have done, for example.  But I've been "listening to my body" which in reality means I've taken between 1 and 4 days off training whenever I've felt something hurting more than I thought it ought to.  For example, after the 5 mile road race, I thought I felt some plantar faciitis lurking, so that was a session with Kyle Pepperman-Hacket (highly recommended) and 4 days of rolling the foot on spiked ball.  And I've had many single day lay-offs to let tight calves recover.


So I'd say I'm pretty good at listening to my body - feeling those soft tissues straining, and reacting accordingly.


So, it was with dismay that I was hit with a stress fracture at the weekend.  Actually, it was with a fair bit of swearing, but I made sure there were no kids around first.


The second metatarsal of my left foot has gone, and on Sat and Sun I was in a lot of pain. 


Mrs. B. drove me to A&E, but as expected, nothing showed up.  A stress fracture is too small to show on an x-ray, and it's not until the bleeding starts to calcify that anything will show up, which is about 2 weeks after the initial trauma.  But the doctor, who seemed to know an awful lot about lower limb physiological matters, had a good poke, and based on my history, said that a stress fracture was most likely the problem.  Ok, so I wasn't quite brave enough to tell her the whole story of the complete switch from the Kayano (Asics' most padded stability shoe) to the Vivobarefoot (3mm of very flexible rubber, absolutely no padding) in not much longer time than it took Amazon to deliver them, but I was honest about the training volume.


And that is the problem.  It's too much pavement, on too thin a shoe, with too much gait change.  Consider where I started from, as shown in these pictures.  That's a lot to change in just 3 months.  But it was going so well that I got carried away.  I ran 29 days in November, and although that was an average of less than 5km per session, at an average pace of only 5:15/km, too much of it was on hard pavement.  So I either needed to run less, or more off-road.


I'm just reading Kelly Holmes' autobiography, and this morning my eyes popped out when I got to the chapter about her stress fracture that she noticed on the flight over to the Atlanta Olympics.  She writes:

... How I got the fracture I still can’t ‘be sure but it is possible that it was down to my footwear. I had changed sponsors halfway through the season after I had been offered my amazing four-year deal from Nike. I was so chuffed that the biggest sporting brand wanted to support me that I went for it. Instead of gradually changing over my running shoes so that my body had time to adjust to the new footwear, I just swapped my previous trainers for my new ones. Now I understand more about the intricacies of footwear and how careful one has to be...

So here I am, 5 days after the bone gave way, and the pain is subsiding quite quickly.  I shan't be running for a few weeks, but I'm not that down about it - I will get into some cross training (I'm going to the pool later today), and I've got another 15 months before my target race.


Onwards! 

Here I am, just over 3 months into the gait-change exercise, and a bit of a milestone reached.


A bit of background: the group I train with here at Southampton AC is an 800m through to 10k group.  We follow a periodised schedule (base training in the winter, speed in the summer) and in general, the same sessions come up on the same days each year.  For example, the session for the first Tue evening in December is 16x300m with 100m jog recovery.


And, I log all my sessions and times.  Of course I do. I'm the kind of person who keeps a blog!


So the milestone?  I ran 16x300m faster this Tuesday, than I did a year ago.  Ta da!


Okay, so there are some mitigating factors:

• last year I claimed that I was still tired from the Saturday "sand dunes" session 3 days previous
• I also complained about a mere 10 minute warm up (and in fact the times reflect that)

However, this year I am a lot less fit generally (due to the drastically reduced volume I've been describing in this blog), and, as coach Tilt would be able to tell you, my head was elsewhere for the first 4 reps. But it all came together nicely last Tuesday, and I felt good enough to run the last 3 reps with no shoes at all.


I won't be cracking open the champagne just yet - Keith talks about interim peaks.  Also I do ache quite a bit 2 days later, so not quite there yet on the base strength side.  But certainly a massive boost to the morale, and a great reassurance that the process is coming on quite nicely, thank you!

Will it work?!


I'm not gonna lie .... there have been a few occasions in the past three months when I've thought "I wonder if this gait change really will make me faster." 


Actually, that is a lie.  What I actually thought, was: "...will this gait change actually make me SLOWER?"!!


My goal, as I explained in the first entry (second sentence!) of this blog, was that "I hope this will lead to an improvement in performance."  That improvement in performance, as I progress from late 40s to early 50s, is probably not so much about getting faster, as not slowing down.  Aside from the incredibly talented (and dedicated) David Heath, my 800m times over the last couple of years would give me a comfortable national medal and possibly European. 


But there is a risk that my old gait worked for me, and I'd spent 7 years perfecting it, and strengthening the muscles that drove it.  Now I'm starting again - will there be another 7 years before I've fully honed this new gait?  It's possible.


Nothing, however, will weaken my resolve.  I'm hooked on this new gait, it feels much smoother, I love running in shoes that weigh 1/3 of what my old shoes weighed, and being completely vain, I know that I look more like Mr Farrah than Mr Bean!


There's a bit of me that wants to fast forward to the end of this film to see how it ends.  I won't truly know until the summer of 2017.  Next summer (2016) will not be a true test, because I'm not hitting enough mileage this winter.  This time next year, winter 2016/17, I will be back up to the 80km/50miles per week, so summer 2017 is judgement day.

"Treat it as if you are starting a new sport."  One of the most important lines in the whole book, in my opinion. Page 40

So, put yourself in the shoes of someone who really is running for the first time. You started running just 3 months ago.  You've got up to 20 mins at a steady pace, you ache a bit sometimes, you feel it the next morning! But you're pretty chuffed with how you're getting on, if truth be told. 

So when I got carried away, distracted by club mates (!) last week, and ran for 45 minutes, I pressed stop on my watch with a bit of a grimace.  And sure enough, I ached for two or three days afterwards. 

Just like a beginner would if she or he were to do the same.

This really is like starting a new sport.  But, like learning any new sport, it's fascinating and exciting!