Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Part II

So we learned from my last post that you need to get new shoes………your shins hurt, your hips hurt or you finally figured out that you are running in shoes that you have used for the past 3 years.  Now what?  What shoes do I get?  How do I know if this lady at the local running store is selling me the right shoes?

Well, I am not going to make you an expert by the end of this series, but I will give you enough information to at least ask the right questions when buying shoes.  In order to be able to ask the right questions, you must first know if you have a flat, normal or high arch and if you pronate, supinate or run neutrally.

What does it mean to have a high, normal or flat arch, and how do you determine what you have?  The easiest way to determine your arch type is to do an experiment when you are getting out of the shower or maybe even out of the pool (my favorite time to check it out).  With your foot still wet from the shower or the pool, step onto a patch of dry flooring (can’t really be carpet). 

1. If your foot imprint closely resembles a shoe insole (full imprint from the heel to the toes), then you have a flat foot. 
2. Consequently, if your imprint shoes a little curvature on the inside of your foot, then you have a normal arch. 
3. Lastly, if your imprint shoes just a small imprint of the foot between the heel and the toes, then you have a high arch.

The significance of the three of these lies in the flat and the high arch.  With these two types of arches, your foot is progressing through the normal “shock absorption” sequence set forth by your body.  Because of this, if you fall into one of these two categories, you will need to take special precautions when choosing your footwear.

Once you have determined your foot type, you must take a look at your previous running shoes to determine if you pronate, supinate (sometimes referred to under-pronation) or run neutrally.  For this experiment, you must take out an old pair of shoes and flip them over to look at the sole of your shoe to observe the “wear pattern” of the shoe.  There are two distinctions that you must look for at this point, the point of initial contact and conversely, the point of final contact.  You should be able to find a portion on the heel (or this point could be more in the middle of your shoe) of your shoe that is more worn than the rest.

• If this point of initial contact is in the middle of your shoe, then you are considered a Midfoot striker
• If the point of contact is on the heel, then you are a Rearfoot striker and must determine if that point of initial contact is on the inside, outside or middle of heel of your shoe.

Now follow that line of wear on the bottom of your shoe to the point of final contact, where you are pushing off the pavement.  Make note of whether that wear spot is on the inside (under the ball of your foot), outside (under your smallest toe) or middle of the foot.  Tracing this line will determine what type of runner you are.

1. Severe Pronator-This line will be connecting an initial contact spot on the outside of your heel to the ball of your foot.  You roll your foot very quickly and violently to the inside
2. Pronator-This line will go from inside of your heel to the ball of your foot
3. Neutral-The line will connect from the middle of your heel to either the middle of your foot or the ball of your foot.  It would be more preferable to have final contact on the ball of your foot, but the middle would not be horrible.
4. Supinator-This line will connect any of the three heel contact points to the point beneath your smallest toe

Each of these four types of runners require different shoe characteristics (which we will discuss next week) due to the stresses or strains that it puts on your body’s “shock absorption” characteristics.  Stay tuned next week so that we can look more closely at the shoe that might be best suited for you.

Jeff

A look at Focused Training Periods.

There were several posts written around the new year about setting up your training plan. The one thing that I wanted to stress to athletes at that time was that it is important to not only have outcome-based-goals, but to include some process-based-goals.

Recently, Nikki and I were in a meeting with some of the other personal trainers at Fitness Plus discussing goal setting. We were all brainstorming and discussing the idea of setting “SMART” goals for our personal training businesses, but it got me thinking again about goal setting for triathletes. If you are a goal oriented person and regularly review your annual training plan, then you may find an article titled “Reaching your Goals” on Inc.com informative.

How does this apply to triathletes?

If you are like some, then you may have spent a lot of time setting up your 2007 season – only to have it posted on your fridge as a decoration. The training plan should not be a nice piece of paper, it should be a guide or road map to your season.

The one thing that I believe is very helpful is to include “focused training periods” into your annual road map. (I have written about this previously – here.) There are several things that I like about focused training periods:

1. They help create smaller periods of time that allow an athlete to remember what is important NOW.

2. An athlete will have less of the “ahh, I still got 8 months before the race” mentality. The smaller periods can help improve your motivation.

3. It gives an athlete an excellent way to boost their ability in a specific sport or improve their weaknesses.

How about an example:

If you go over to my personal blog and read my post on the value of a basic week, you can view my (older version) annual training plan for 2007. What you’ll see is that I had a focused training period starting in November and ending on January 28th. That training period included three 4 week cycles primarily structured to get me swimming more (and more and more). That period ended and lead into an 8 week period focused on cycling.

One benefit that a coach or mentor can play is helping you define what those training periods should be focused on. For instance, I initially had a 4 week run and then a 4 week cycling focus. But after getting some guidance from Dean Hewson (who did Runovia and MedEx Mountaineer last year) I decided to put in an 8 week cycling focus and keep running frequency as a secondary goal.

Find ways to keep your focused periods focused!

I hate to swim a lot. A little here and there is manageable, but I have never been an athlete that likes to swim 20,000 yards a week. Knowing this about myself, I decided to find a way to keep myself accountable in January. So I signed up for the January Swim Challenge on slowtwich.com. Did it work? It did this month as I swam 147% of my stated goal by the end of the month. I know for a fact that had I not put in a swimming focused training period I would not have swam as much I did. I also know that if I didn’t set a few specific goals for that period I may not have been as motivated.

Staying Consistent.

The other thing that I like about focused training periods and breaking up the year into smaller pieces, is that it helps keep athletes consistent. The various characteristics that surround your focused period, such as: more motivation, smaller and specific goals, near term accomplishments – keep people consistent in their training. I personally feel that consistency is the “golden ticket” when it comes to improving as a triathlete. This is true especially for the time challenged person.

So what should your focused training period be focused on right now? Well I can’t give a blanket recommendation as we all need to improve on different things. I’m going to work on my cycling, I joined a “Run 28 times in Feb Challenge at slowtwitch” and I plan on getting my stroke analyzed by a coach. If you need some help or motivation, maybe you can get some ideas by reading my analysis titled “How to pass the suck threshold in triathlon” that I wrote the other day. (It’s amazing to see what it takes to pass the kicking ass threshold!)
Otherwise, we’re always here to help. (I think I need to get in another run……)

Gary Ditsch