Tuesday 18 January 2011

A week of mixed fortunes.

 Back online now after some admin. changes.  So a bit of a catch up and a review of a week of very mixed fortunes.......
  A week last Sunday I described how a zero effort, leisurely midday stroll along the shore of Lake Windermere  turned into a painful trial,  punctuated with periods spent stretching my left leg to relieve pain.
  7 days later I set out  to run 5 miles on the road and hopefully manage to register 2 of them at sub 9 minute pace.   I managed 4.  Not exactly smooth and comfortable but reasonablby satisfying.  What a difference a week makes.
  The week had included 2 chiropractor visits and I have to think that the treatments contributed to the progress.  However, after the 25 minute session on Friday,  I decided that it would be the last.
  When we sell shoes in the shop we do our very best to describe the shoes being offered and how they meet the needs of the runner buying them.  In comparison, what disappointed me in these chiropractor visits was that I was not really being told what he was trying to be achieve by each phase of the treatment.  In fact,  I only realised, being face down on the bench, that  I was having ultrasound on Friday when I noticed the timer ring.   I had to ask the benefit of the acupuncture.   The final manipulation was extremely traumatic for my frail aged upper body.   He achieved the "click" he seemed to be striving for but I gave thanks that it was not a rib breaking.  
  Despite there being 4 days last week between visits I was given no guidance as to how I might help the problem myself and I left without any guidance about strengthening exercises which might prevent a reoccurrence of the problem in the future.  A bit disappointing I thought for a fee of £31. 
Or was I expecting too much ?   Any comments welcome.   
  To  add to the mix my own GP disagreed with his diagnosis and said he would arrange for me to see someone else. 
  Working backwards, Saturday, Friday and Thursday went OK but the Wednesday run was again a struggle.  It was an evening run, after a full day sat at the desk  in a meeting.   Lesson learnt! 

  The meeting was with our Saucony rep. showing delights on offer for next autumn /winter.  Mainly colour updates and tweaks to existing models; but one notable new shoe will have minimalist afficianados salivating.
  The SAUCONY HATTORI   coming in at 125gs (most of their range being in excess of 300gs) is unbelievably light.  The designers have  take the buyer as close as they can to running barefoot with its sock construction.  Its basically a thin compression molded eva midsole with "ultralite mesh" sock on top secured to the foot with a velcro
strip. 
Saucony add the Hattori to their minimalist offering of Mirage, Kinvara and the trail shoe Peregrine. 
  The minimalist movement advocate shoes which  encourage midfoot/ forefoot running.  All very fine. But
having had forefoot surgery following years of forefoot  running I have to admit to some reservations about this minimalist trend IF they are used for ALL training. 
  Of course we've had very light shoes for years but they were strictly reserved for racing not training.   So light that we didn't even warm up for races in  our racing shoes.  But at that time no runner would weigh more than 11 stone and pronation was not in our vocabulary.

 

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