Running commentary

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Barefoot and zero drop

This is neither a shoe review, nor expert advice. Just an observation.

There are so many theories out there about barefoot running and zero drop shoes, that it gets tangled up and one can easily just lump it all together as one concept. However, this is not the case, as I was sorely reminded of this week.

But first let me backtrack a bit. For the past five or so years, I’ve run in Altra. Since I always walk around barefoot in the house, going zero-drop was a no-brainer. No fuss, not frills, no getting used to it or gradually phasing it in. To be honest, I don’t think interchanging between zero-drop and six to eight or even ten millimetre is something that will really affect the average runner (if a blind test was done). But according to the experts, this is not the case and one shouldn’t just jump into zero-drop shoes.

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Blue Range Hut blues

Date: 25 January 2021
Distance: 8km out-and-back
Time: 1:45 going up | 1:30 going down

An invitation came along for a walk up to a hut, which was the perfect opportunity to get my bum off of the chair and do something physical for a change. To be fair, we have started jogging 4km most days of the week for the past month or so to try and get back into some form of fitness and routine. It has been a hard slog, and sometimes a real challenge just to cover those 4km, but we have been going reasonably steady for the past month.

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Just like that – hip hip (not) hoorah

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For almost two years now (since I’ve been diagnosed with FAI) I’ve been working on my mobility by spending a fair amount of time on a foam roller, a ball, or anything else that helps break up the fascia adhesions and tightness that hinders mobility. I’ve discovered that releasing the “knots” in the quad of the FAI hip brings instant relief for any discomfort or pain, and therefore started to focus 99% of my energy on that area. During this time I’ve also taken up some body-weight strength training in the form of lunges, squats, hip thrusts, deadlifts etc. I was unfortunately not very religious about it and my routine was rather haphazard. Things were going okay until last summer, but as with most things in life, when things get tough or life gets busy, looking after oneself goes out the door. Admittedly, I’ve been rather lax the past few months about my hip. I didn’t have much pain, and when I did experience some discomfort, breaking up the adhesions in my quad did the trick. This happened a few times a week, and apart from that I didn’t bother to keep up my maintenance and conditioning in any of the other areas of my body, let alone balancing out left and right. This has turned out to be a big mistake. Continue reading →

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5 things no one tells you, bla-bla-bla …

Is it just me, or is everything your read these days on running forums and in running magazines, a number crunching game? For instance: “6 things you need to do right now”, “I did squats for 14 days and here’s what happened”, “do these 3 exercises right now”, “4 stretches that will fix all your problems”, “these 7 health foods aren’t so healthy”, “31 runner friendly recipes”, etc. You can almost not find an article that doesn’t contain a headline similar to these. But, I’m getting off topic.

getting_older_s.jpg

This post really is just a message I wish someone had banged into my head 20 years ago. And despite knowing what I know now, I still find it difficult to practice what I preach, but here goes nonetheless. Even if I fail miserably and have to say to myself 20 years from now, “I told you so!”. Continue reading →

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Catch-22

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Once, on day four of a five-day event, I was just knackered. Luckily I could pull myself together and still made the cut-off for the day. This pretty much resembles my current state of mind.

Any person doing any form of physical activity is bound to have some form of injury at some point. That’s just the laws of nature. Some people are lucky and hardly ever get injuries or niggles, while others are plagued by problems. It is what it is, and what will be, will be, to quote Allan Karlsson from the Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson.

So it came about that I developed a hip niggle. I didn’t give it much thought and it was presumably just another result of my misalignment (curvy spine, fused vertebrae with sacrum, rotating pelvis, leg length discrepancy, etc). It would not be the first time I battle with a niggle and will certainly not be the last. Continue reading →