Is it possible to forget how to run properly? When we were children we could run all day. We could do that because our body naturally fell into the proper alignment. It seems that most of my knee/ITB problems are that somehow along the way I stopped running like a child. Now I am learning how to run properly. I've been looking into Chi Running since I first heard about proper running technique from a seminar I went to at Fleet Feet Midtown that was put on by Dr. Justin Lau. He didn't call it that but I had an idea that was what he was talking about.
It turns out that proper alignment is as easy as falling down. Imagine standing tall with your shoulders, hips, knees and ankles in a straight line. Now imagine falling forward and letting gravity propel you. This is just the start of Chi Running. The more you look into it, the more it feels like learning to swing a golf club which I found incredibly hard to do. These are the things that are now running around in my head when I attempt to run properly: straight line from head to ankle, lean forward, shoulders relaxed, elbows at 90 degrees, hands firm but relaxed, landing on the midfoot, feet taking small quick light steps as they sweep the ground away and behind you. If you want to go faster, then lean further forward but with the same cadence in your feet.
I didn't want to invest in a book that I might not get anything out of so I checked out the book "Chi Running" by Danny Dreyer from the library. I haven't read too much, most of what I have learned has been through watching a couple of videos on youtube and listening to a couple of podcasts of people that have tried it and detail what they have learned in their podcast. By the way, if you haven't checked into podcasts, you really should. I listen to a lot of them while running and walking and they are a lot more interesting then listening to music all the time. You can go to ITunes and select podcast and then search for what ever interests you. I like one called ITunes Celebrity Podcast. Usually it is musicians that talk about music and other musicians that inspire them both today and in the past. I've listened to ones from Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, Cindy Lauper, and many others. I also listen to running podcasts. One I particularly like is called Running with the Pack. The two people that do this one are from Penn State so you get to hear about things that go on on the East Coast plus they talk about new products they have tried, races they have done, all sorts of stuff. I diverge, sorry. Anyway check them out and maybe I will do a post on podcasts soon.
I hope that I can get my running technique corrected in the near future so I can start training for some longer runs. Right now I have the Bay to Breakers in May to do and am hoping to be ok by then even if I have to run/walk it. It's only 7 miles and it should be absolutely wild. I'm doing it with my friend Rubi who has never ran in a race before and trains only on a treadmill. She is a fun lady so we will have a blast.
Tonight I am practicing my chi running as chi walking because I can't run until I get the technique mastered. My ITB was really inflamed from the last run I did over a month ago, which was an 11 miler so I am being cautious.
Here is a link to a fun Chi Running Video. I hope you like it.
Mini Distance Widget
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Perspective
I admit that complaining feels good or whining like in my last post. Sometimes though, things happen that put your life back into perspective. That happened to me last week. I hadn't talked to my brother Brett in a couple of weeks. My Mom called me to talk to me about a couple of things. One of them being that my brother Brett was really sick. He had been running a fever and had what they thought was a bad cough at least that is what he and his attendent thought. He had been sick for over 10 days already. He went to the Doctor and had a chest XRay. The news came back that he had pneumonia. This news absolutely floored me. Pneumonia is dangerous in a healthy person yet alone a person whose health is compromised by their disability. When my brother broke his neck, he lost about 50% of his lung capacity. He sleeps in a hospital type bed which was in an upright position because he felt like he was drowning in the fluid in his lungs. Thank God the antibiotics kicked in and did their job.
My knee problems don't mean a lot when put into the perspective of losing your life. This is why I have really been so upset with my knee troubles. I really want to run a marathon for him. Everyday is a challenge to my brother and others with disabilities. He has moments when he feels bad for himself. He also has perspective. There is always someone in worse condition then you. Brett has limited use of his arms, but he can feed himself and do other things with them to make his life more independent. He had a friend that could move nothing below his chin and moved around in a wheelchair that he blew air into a tube to make it move. Perspective.
My knee problems don't mean a lot when put into the perspective of losing your life. This is why I have really been so upset with my knee troubles. I really want to run a marathon for him. Everyday is a challenge to my brother and others with disabilities. He has moments when he feels bad for himself. He also has perspective. There is always someone in worse condition then you. Brett has limited use of his arms, but he can feed himself and do other things with them to make his life more independent. He had a friend that could move nothing below his chin and moved around in a wheelchair that he blew air into a tube to make it move. Perspective.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Can I have some wine with that whine?
I haven't ran since Sunday February 20th and I've been whining about it and I've been drinking wine. I'm trying to drink away my sorrows and take the edge off my incessant thigh pain. The details are that I ran 11 miles that day with an already achy IT Band. I thought I had stretched and foam rolled enough the day before and I would be fine. NOT!! I was supposed to run around Lake Natoma that day and got half way around when I realized that I had some tightening in my quads specifically my old nemesis the IT Band. I decided I could make it back but took it easy and ran/walked the rest of the way back to my meeting place with my club. I foam rolled it when I got home but it wasn't enough. The next day I was miserable. I could barely walk faster then my 93 year old Grandma.
My thigh was so tight any kneeling or squatting was out of the question. The crackling noises as I went up and down the stairs in my house were almost loud enough to wake the undead. What really hurt was the rubbing of my pants against my thigh. If I closed my eyes it felt like my pants were made of sandpaper and not a fine grit either. As you can see, I whine with the best of them.
So I did what any self respecting college graduate would do...I drank some more whine. LOL. I know now I am being (and I am using my husband's favorite word) ridiculous. What I did do was really think of what my options were with my IT Band. What was the root cause of all of this pain? As luck would have it, Fleet Feet Mid Town was having a 1 hour seminar about running injury free (serendipity coming into play) so I went. I then made an appointment with a Podiatrist who is a runner. I don't have foot pain but thought maybe he could check me out and rule out whether I had one leg longer then the other which is one symptom of IT Band syndrome and any other physical problems. I then made an appointment with an Exercise Physiologist who is also a certified massage therapist who is also a local ace bicycle racer who also trains tri-athletes. I then went to a 1 hour demo on Trigger Point Therapy products. I got a lot accomplished in a week.
Today I went to the Exercise Physiologist, who I am just going to call Mike from now on. We had a long talk about my troubles and he basically told me a bunch of things I already knew. My VMO muscle is weak and underdeveloped. I thought I was doing exercises to strengthen them but he seemed unimpressed by them. He did ultrasound along the whole length of my IT Band and then followed that up with massage. Very painful massage. Turns out besides the very tight ITB, there is something way up high on my thigh that is equally tight. I forget the terminology because he threw some very long scientific type names at me over the hour I was with him. Depending on how sore I am tomorrow, as he wants me to be pain free, he is going to do a gait analysis to see if I am running properly which we may do Friday. I am guessing that I am not running properly and that is why I am having so much trouble.
Who knew running could be so hard? Obviously it can be hard on your body, but hard in that there is a lot to remember. The running seminar I went to demonstrated that to me. Feet under knees, knees under hips, hips under shoulders, head/neck in line with those points all the way down. Like a marionette. Arms at 90 degrees. Tuck your pelvis up and back without tightening your glutes. Always run with a cadence of 170-180. Lean 1/4" from hips not waist when you take off, from there if you increase your speed it's in the degree of lean and how your legs flow behind you. Let gravity propel you forward. He said your arms and legs work in unison so if you want to run faster pump your arms faster your legs will follow. He said to only work on one thing at a time for 30 seconds or so. I don't know how I could possibly remember to do all of this stuff. Handouts would have been great.
My final thoughts are that I have hope. I really have to get this corrected or my running days are over. It might not be today but someday the tracking problems I am having with the patella will wear down and give out. If I can rule out all the what ifs and work on what can be corrected then I should be able to continue on this journey to run a marathon. I didn't even tell Mike about that. He doesn't know me yet so he doesn't know how fixated I can be with things. When I get fixated I rarely let up until I have followed something to an extraordinary end or the bitter end. Which one will this be? BTW, I'm drinking Petite Sirah from Six Hands Winery in Walnut Grove as I write this. They are a small family run winery out in the Delta.
My thigh was so tight any kneeling or squatting was out of the question. The crackling noises as I went up and down the stairs in my house were almost loud enough to wake the undead. What really hurt was the rubbing of my pants against my thigh. If I closed my eyes it felt like my pants were made of sandpaper and not a fine grit either. As you can see, I whine with the best of them.
So I did what any self respecting college graduate would do...I drank some more whine. LOL. I know now I am being (and I am using my husband's favorite word) ridiculous. What I did do was really think of what my options were with my IT Band. What was the root cause of all of this pain? As luck would have it, Fleet Feet Mid Town was having a 1 hour seminar about running injury free (serendipity coming into play) so I went. I then made an appointment with a Podiatrist who is a runner. I don't have foot pain but thought maybe he could check me out and rule out whether I had one leg longer then the other which is one symptom of IT Band syndrome and any other physical problems. I then made an appointment with an Exercise Physiologist who is also a certified massage therapist who is also a local ace bicycle racer who also trains tri-athletes. I then went to a 1 hour demo on Trigger Point Therapy products. I got a lot accomplished in a week.
Today I went to the Exercise Physiologist, who I am just going to call Mike from now on. We had a long talk about my troubles and he basically told me a bunch of things I already knew. My VMO muscle is weak and underdeveloped. I thought I was doing exercises to strengthen them but he seemed unimpressed by them. He did ultrasound along the whole length of my IT Band and then followed that up with massage. Very painful massage. Turns out besides the very tight ITB, there is something way up high on my thigh that is equally tight. I forget the terminology because he threw some very long scientific type names at me over the hour I was with him. Depending on how sore I am tomorrow, as he wants me to be pain free, he is going to do a gait analysis to see if I am running properly which we may do Friday. I am guessing that I am not running properly and that is why I am having so much trouble.
Who knew running could be so hard? Obviously it can be hard on your body, but hard in that there is a lot to remember. The running seminar I went to demonstrated that to me. Feet under knees, knees under hips, hips under shoulders, head/neck in line with those points all the way down. Like a marionette. Arms at 90 degrees. Tuck your pelvis up and back without tightening your glutes. Always run with a cadence of 170-180. Lean 1/4" from hips not waist when you take off, from there if you increase your speed it's in the degree of lean and how your legs flow behind you. Let gravity propel you forward. He said your arms and legs work in unison so if you want to run faster pump your arms faster your legs will follow. He said to only work on one thing at a time for 30 seconds or so. I don't know how I could possibly remember to do all of this stuff. Handouts would have been great.
My final thoughts are that I have hope. I really have to get this corrected or my running days are over. It might not be today but someday the tracking problems I am having with the patella will wear down and give out. If I can rule out all the what ifs and work on what can be corrected then I should be able to continue on this journey to run a marathon. I didn't even tell Mike about that. He doesn't know me yet so he doesn't know how fixated I can be with things. When I get fixated I rarely let up until I have followed something to an extraordinary end or the bitter end. Which one will this be? BTW, I'm drinking Petite Sirah from Six Hands Winery in Walnut Grove as I write this. They are a small family run winery out in the Delta.
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