Sunday, June 19, 2011

Checkin' out the shoes

Digital cameras are wonderful things..they are everywhere now...in every cellphone..recording revolutions, civil war as well as father's day celebrations.




Toni and I take lots of pictures on our trips (as I do during my races 8) and we find that we often refer back to them. (Our first digicam was in 1999) This reminds us of what the *bleep* we were doing back then!


Another example: when we remodeled our house, I took photos of every square inch of the  walls just before they got covered up. Now we know where all the pipes and wires are before we drill a hole...very handy.


 We also had a 'plywood party' beforehand and gave everybody markers to write notes to future generations.


Where am I going with this?


what is that heel going to do?


Jill sent me a comment that asked if my previous posting photo was showing the dreaded heel strike. Good question. When I saw that photo I wondered myself and thought  "I'll bet Jill will be looking at that foot there". And she was ;)


So, am I heel striking? Her question reminded me to do something that I see other people doing...and that's recording shoe wear by taking pictures of them. It's a great idea so that years down the road (literally and figuratively in this case) you can see if things have changed.


The Nike Frees have about 350 miles on them and the Kinvaras about 250 






Some forefoot wear..worst is 4 ranks down from toe.
which is just under the ball of my foot

the heel plugs show very little wear

the sides of the soles show some
wrinkling from the stress

Kinvaras use fairly light and not very wear resistant
stuff under the forefoot. You can see that the outer set of knobbles
for the forefoot are completely gone..the inner set is worn too.
Both don't have the black hard rubber insets that the inner knobbles have
which means they wear much faster.

again, no heel wear at all here..why include all the weight of the
hard black rubber back here when you aren't supposed to be landing here?
Maybe I should get out the belt sander?


Based on these shots, I think I've convinced myself that I don't heel strike. And considering my ducky right leg/foot I see very little asymmetry in the wear patterns which is kind of a shock. (In the old days my right outer heel *would* have been very worn down from heel striking)


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Today I ran an easy 2.75 miles @ 10:30m/m. I'm noticing a tweaky muscle on my lower right calf after yesterday's run and I'm tracking it ..it didn't stop me from running but it was there so I took it slow and easy... no rushing back into high miles...


Tomorrow I'll be back at the gym for the first time in a while, doing some hard riding first and a some strength training....been away from this too long and I feel it.


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So....how do your shoes look?









6 comments:

  1. Gonna go look at my shoes STAT.

    Thanks for the reminder

    And nice photos...

    ReplyDelete
  2. At the Vancouver Marathon Expo, I hopped on the treadmill there and had my running form filmed and put on a big screen to 'analyze.' Turns out, I have horrible form. I knew that already, but I was pretty upset the way the guy was like "oh wow you are going to have crazy foot, leg, and hip problems." How do you change the way you run? How do I change the way I roll my foot? I have no idea. I'm looking into the best stability shoes since that's what he recommended.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @miles: Hmm have you actually *had* any problems? I'm very skeptical.

    I think form drills and core strengthening is good, as is doing some runs on lumpy trails that make your work your legs in new directions.

    You can change your form and a midfoot strike with a shorter stride and faster turnover can help.

    Try this link...he's wearing nike frees:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaYQwq6TnXY&feature=player_embedded

    ReplyDelete
  4. I guess I better go look at my shoes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My most used pair of shoes is very worn down on the forefoot, only on the right shoe. I used to heel strike, got some leg and hip injuries, and changed my running style (read Chi running, etc). However I use Galloway, which is a run/walk method, and obviously when walking one must use the heel. But the none of the heels on only of my running shoes show any wear and I also wonder why there is so much material and padding there. I think it adds unnecessary weight.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your shoes seem to have pretty much even wear.

    Me, OTOH, seem to be right footed, and the wear on my right shoe seem to have followed.

    I have a pic on my blog of my uneven heel area:

    http://woggingtortoise.blogspot.com/2011/05/uneven-running-shoe-wear-may-23-2011.html

    ReplyDelete

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