Hi folks!
About a year ago, I gave myself patellofemoral syndrome. At first I thought I'd overtrained, but turns out it was mostly wrong posture, resulting from unwittingly correcting a foot deformity I didn't know about. I also gave myself osteoarthritis in both knees and one hip from it.
Anyway, I got orthotics now, and can run pain free with them+taped knees. So I'd like to start again.
Thing is, most training plans I can find are aimed at either people who are in training, running wise, or starting from 'couch', ie, being mostly or completely sedentary. I'm neither, as I've replaced with walking 5k+ per day most days and swimming 1.5k (breaststroke, keeping my head over water, and in just under 40 min if it matters) once or twice a week.
I also hike, but not all that regularly. Did 20k with 300m altitude (I know, more of a long brisk walk than a hike) last week and it didn't cause any pain during or after. Just in case that's a relevant clue.
Since my pool membership is running out and running is virtually free, id like to get back into it now that I'm mostly pain free and have my orthotics. Does anyone have a link or advice for how to pick it back up without doing more harm than good?
tia!
Thank you so much for the insights! I'll be trying barefoot shoes for sure. Are they comfy on course gravel? My park runs have a bunch of that.
That sounds right up my alley, nice!
For sure, I'm glad to help!
tldr: yes! haha,
Longerrr: Thin-soles are comfy on coarse travel, it can actually feel like a bit of a massage after the soles of your feet toughen up. Like I always thought that was just something barefoot runners said to sound badass, but then I experienced it and it is pretty cool, haha.
Gravel might feel tricky in the beginning if you're used to thick soles and thick ankle support, where we're kind of tricking our feet into believing they're on a flat stable platform each step regardless of the actual stability or safety of that step, but your ankle muscles and the bottoms of your feet will get tough very quickly running in thinner soles.
I prefer thin soles on gravel, and I've run on a lot of gravel, actually on every surface. I even climb mountains in thin-soled shoes because the feedback from the bottom of my feet is so much quicker and very accurate, so I'm able to adjust to loose gravel or use the muscles of my foot to stabilize myself in a way that I just can't with thicker soles because a thick sole won't conform to the muscles of my foot and padded ankle support won't let me adjust the angle and position of my foot on the fly with full mobility when I'm running or hiking like I need to in order to avoid injury if I step on a loose rock or overstep or something.
With thick soles it's difficult to tell if the ground underneath you is unstable or dangerously slanted until the ankle support has already twisted your ankle too far in the wrong direction.
Thin soles, I feel the direction and stability of the ground instantly, and at this point my foot adjusts correctly by itself, and that definitely started by jogging slowly and safely first, and letting my feet get used to actually feeling the ground underneath my feet. Your feet and ankles will get noticeably tougher over probably 2 weeks, and once those muscles are stronger, you'll feel more stable and naturally start moving faster, although as fast as you run, that foundation of running comfortably should always be there.
Comfortably as in running at a speed that you can maintain while only breathing through your nose. It's going to feel super slow in the beginning, but many people can walk breathing through their nose fine, so can probably go a little faster still breathing through your nose, and it'll get easier as your feet get tougher, ankles get stronger and your breathing control improves.
Man you know I've been walking a lot but actually haven't run now in maybe 6 months and talking about it is making me want to get out there.
By running comfortably and building up the muscles you use to run, you'll find your minimum pace that you can maintain for hours at a time. I also just made friends with a runner here, so maybe it's time.
In the beginning you might only be able to maintain that breathing-through-your-nose pace for 10 minutes, but your endurance should go up by at least a few minutes every time you're running at your comfortable pace.
And none of this is strict die by the nose-breathing code, haha. Every time you run in thin-soled shoes, your feet will get a little stronger and tougher, and every time you practice breathing through your nose, your breathing control will get a little better, so it's fine if you have to stop and pant occasionally, just means you have to dial back your pace a bit.
I didn't run fast marathons(usually ~6 hours), I just set up routes for myself so I could explore the towns near where I was living over the course of 26 and a half miles, but I also wasn't panting or dying by the end of the marathons.
I was enjoying the feeling of running(or jogging slowly) and then I had gone through a marathon and I got some food and beer and then taught English the next day at school.
I have been running for a very long time and have helped other people start running comfortably this exact same way. Another teacher in my school absolutely hated running his whole life, and he was like 38 when I met him, I think.
But he asked me how I was running marathons but was fine the next day, and I explained the above, so he started running comfortably and in thin-soled shoes and started doing half marathons within a couple of months.
In my experience this comfortable running method works really well and is safe and makes our feet and ankles stronger, so I hope it helps.
Ha, fellow teacher here, though for my country's equivalent to GED maths.
I've never liked ankle support much. Never had running shoes that went up that high. My hiking shoes do, because on actual alpine trails I'd slice my ankles to bits on the rocks otherwise, but I never lace them up all the way to the top.
I love going genuinely barefoot, like no shoes at all, when I just go on a little walk through the forest. Always have, to the point that it was a rule in my house that we had to hose ourselves down before coming inside when I was a kid. But that's soft ground. Never gotten used to gravel, but even just a super thin sole may do the trick!
In case you live somewhere that gets cold some of the year, do you wear minimal shoes then, too? I feel like there wouldn't be much insulation
Hey, teach!
I'm with you on ankle support. I started with Nikes, moved to Chucks, never went back to ankle support. Also a big agree with you on barefoot, I love walking or running barefoot, it's so comfortable.
I use minimal soles almost exclusively, usually my DIY huaraches
on every surface, hiking mountains whatever, so thin soles on gravel should be no problem for you.
I walked from late December to mid-march from Tokyo to Osaka, as well as NZ, China, Alaska, a bunhc of places in sub-zero temps with socks and mesh shoes like this:
and soles like this:
Any conventional shoe or thicker material feels too warm or stifling on my feet. I used thrift store boots in damp wintery New Zealand for a month or so, but as soon as I wasn't walking through basically marshes every day I immediately went back to thin materials.
I remember the one time my feet got cold in Alaska, but then I realized I had been walking on straight-up ice in sub-zero for about 3 hours and things started adding up, haha.
Thanks for the recommendations! Some of those look pretty appealing to me, so I'll have to look into it!
One thing I can't abide though are wet socks. There's currently 20-30cm of snow on many of the sidewalks around me because it's snowing so fast it's impossible for the city to keep up, even with plows going every hour or so. Let alone out in nature. But then again, in snow and ice, I think I do prefer to have traction on my soles, and also with a high enough shaft that the snow won't fall into my shoes. So Ill stick to my blundstones for this weather, and hiking boots for hiking! But I'll see how it goes with thin soles when it's cold but relatively dry.
Yea, wet socks are rough. Wearing appropriate shoes for the conditions makes perfect sense, and constant rain and slush is no fun in mesh.
I brought extra socks with me and had a little box fan lying flat facing up in the corner of my apartment as a drying station, but usually it was dry where I was and snow didn't stick around too long, even after crazy storms.
Going thin-soled doesn't have to be 100% of the time, each time you wear thin soles your ankles and soles of your feet will strengthen and get a little more used to tactile feedback. Going to the gym twice a week is better than going none times a week kind of thing.
Those blundstones look comfortable and great for slush, do you have a lot of lateral mobility in them?