Floppy!

last night i finally dusted off my Chi Running book. it has been sitting on a table of mine for weeks and weeks. Cassie a.k.a Tiggs, a.k.a "I Did It!! I'm A Marathoner!!!! Woot!" hehe, she told me to check the book for tips on shin splints. she was right! i hadn't gotten that far along in the book before i set it down to collect dust.

in so many words, the author says that if you have shin splints you are a moron. except if you are a running rookie. interesting.

he says you are not supposed to push off with your toes/ball of your foot, because that is the main cause of the splints. i'm paraphrasing but he says to land on your mid-foot, keep the lower legs floppy (his words are: Keep your legs limp from the knees down but i interpreted this as keep your lower legs floppy), and do not push off with your toes. DO NOT!

so for the first 6.4 miles of the run i concentrated real hard on form. i kept telling myself, "you are so floppy down there. floppy FLOPPY! mid foot strike, yep just like that, now floppy feet, floppy. things are so floppy, keep it floppy. floppy, yup, floppy, no push off". sounds goofy but i had to keep thinking like that to keep focused.

part 2 of the run my mind was a little mushy. you know how it is, math is not possible (one reason i could not figure out my pace), and all i could do was listen to tunes. i still tried to be floppy though. i think it worked! chi running might be the miracle i have been looking for.

the first half of the run seemed to go pretty well. i kept the HR fairly low. at 6.4 miles i made it back to my car for a clif shot, some water, and some gatorade. a little stretch or two and then off i went again.

i felt ok for a little bit but basically for the second half of the run i felt a little bonky. i wish i would have taken my second clif shot with me, to gulp down around mile 10. but i didn't have it with me. sucky.

after the first mile i NEVER checked my pace. for 2 hours and 20 minutes, i had no idea about my splits. that was fine though, i didn't want to know. i checked out the stats when i got home. i find it interesting that for the 1st half of the run, my splits were all pretty close. then for part 2 they were pretty close again, but much slower.

i'm not really pleased with the times but i'm not too concerned. i remember for the survey i said 10:30 to 10:45 was my pace. oops! this run makes me out to be a liar. my polar read-out says the temp during mile 1 was 84 degrees, mile 12 was 96 degrees.

hey i burned about 1,200 calories! i think i have made up for that though, dang i got hungry. i treated myself to some chipotle chicken tacos after the run and then i went a little haywire with the sharkies. later dudes, hope you all had some good runs this weekend.