Saturday 21 November 2009

One Step Forward




After a great session on run technique with Dave Parry at HPU (Essex University-Human Performance Unit) I have been really keen to get out and work on my running.

As I have only been in Triathlon for a season and a half, last year was really experimental for me with changes in technique and adjustment to equipment almost a weekly occurrence. I had read in a number of places about the fore-foot strike method of running (coming from a basketball background I have a history of turning ankles and lower leg impact injuries which I wanted to protect and therefore move away from heal striking). I also managed to find a few videos on line showing what words alone couldn't describe. I managed to drop my 10k time that year from over 39:00 to the low 36:00's of the bike. The issue I had was for every training session completed I had to then miss three more because of calf pain, I persevered assuming that this was just my legs adjusting to the fore-foot strike. However after a year I was still having this problem.

It took the session with Dave to show that I was trying to run to much on my toes and that the actual 'toe' strike was not as pronounced as I had come to believe. The next day I ran the Stowmarket 7Mile and went through the 10k marker in a P:B time (although my race fitness really showed on the last mile) and finished on 42:00. I was still really pleased.

A combination of the usual end of season cold and work on a couple of injuries (picked up during last season) has meant that since then I haven't been able to get going in training so I have adjusted training to focus more on conditioning (Yoga and core sessions) while I recover fully.

No comments:

About Me

My photo
As an ex-National League Basketball player I took up triathlon as a development from cross training. I won my first Sprint distance race and placed second in my first Olympic distance. Since then I have raced the UK Elite Superseries coming 24th in the National Elite Champs, raced Vegas 70.3 WChamps and helped Paratriathlete Iain Dawson to World, European and National Titles. In 2011 I obtained Pro authorisation from the BTF and am pushing my development by stepping up to top level competition in 2012. Aside from this I am a L1 Swim and Tri coach and Professional Lloyds Broker.