Saturday, February 03, 2007

Completely confused

Fred (my husband) has been telling me that one is supposed to run on ones' toes - he learned it from a jogging clinic and it works well for him. I'd read conflicting things about it, so asked my chiropractor. He emphatically disagreed - he said the natural, heel-t0-toe running motion provided much more shock-absorption and was better for the body. So last night at a party, a friend of mine who is older than me and recently took up running said SHE took a class in something called "Chi Running" which preaches, among other things, mid-foot striking. (also leaning forward, kicking up behind, hands driving backward, and core stability.) She said after one weekend learning it, she took off 2 minutes per mile. That's pretty amazing. I looked it up - the website (chirunning.com) doesn't really explain it - of course you have to buy the book! So I did - we'll see! The whole sales pitch seems to be injury prevention - all the testimonials on Amazon.com were from people who said they'd stopped running due to knee, or leg, or hip, or back pain, but chi running got them back on the road pain free, doing marathons at age 50-whatever. I hope it helps me, now that I'm supposed to be running 3 times a week! (That's three times the misery!) This week I almost kept to my pledge: Monday ran, Tuesday spun, Wednesday swam, Thursday took off, Friday ran, Saturda (today) did some schlepping of heavy items and walking up hills, but mostly took a nap, and tomorrow, well, hopefully I'll do something! Maybe an early morning yoga class. I did do my PT exercises most days, and was on a good track with eating and weight til yesterday. Sigh. I'm still getting lots of mileage out of "I"m going to do a triathlon" as in, "Wow, good for you, I'm really impressed!"

2 comments:

RUTH said...

Never thought about the RIGHT way to run.....mind you I don't actually do much running....none in fact!

TriathlonSisters said...

Thanks for the blog. Very cool. I particularly appreciate this post. I'm getting more mileage out of the idea of doing a tri then actually doing it! How did you come up with a plan of how/when to do swim, run, and cycle? Thanks! TriathlonSisters
www.triathlonsisters.wordpress.com