Land of the Kiwis A runner in New Zealand

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(Ah nuts, I thought I posted this a while ago... guess I just saved a draft)

Well its been a grizzly 6 weeks since I last raced, and I have a grizzled beard to show for it. The time since Jan 1st has been full of pain and stiffness from the work I'm doing fixing my stride (still no sickness though, woohoo!). It's not up to Coe/Bekele standards but so much better already. On the injury front, good news is my Achilles are officially back to 100% and my cardio is solid. It turns out that what I believed to be a nagging achilles has actually been a posterior impingement that I suffered sprinting down the backside of Pine Cobble 5-6 months ago. The injury happened because I was acting all gazelle-like, leaping and bounding over rocks. My legs couldn't keep up with my fantasy and I ended up clipping one of the boulders with my heel, causing massive shock to the ankle. Anyways, long story short, it's been cramping my style for 6 months. The only pain is a slight dull ache when I plantar-flex my foot, but that slight pain has lead to my body compensating by not flexing as hard (not pushing off). Slowly, it's also tried to maintain balance by not pushing off with the other foot either. The result is a stride that literally doesn't use the calf muscles. No speed. No power. I might as well have prosthetics (insensitive? meh). So since learning about my state of being 3 weeks ago, I've been on a nice little rehab plan for my calves, as well as correcting several other peripheral issues with my stride in general. The problems and the correction strategy:

• Mean crossover. To fix this is just a mental focus process. I can look at my legs and force the feet out a bit as I run. This will also cause less movement in my ankle leading to less... (next item)
• Over-pronation. Caused by crossover and... (next item)
• Over striding. I've been heel striking waaay out in front of my body. I also maintain contact with my heel for waaay too long. And don't push off.
• Glamor Hips (copyright). As I run, my hips sag a lot (especially when running slow) much like a model at the end of a runway, hand on the hip. Hence my coining -- glamor hips.

If I fix these issues I should have significantly more power. I'm certain I used my calves more before but the other issues still existed and I'm hopeful this will give me more efficiency as well as... dare I hope: a withering kick. Mwahaha!

Post Race Trimming to Goatee

Back to present reality, and the beard. I promised when I couldn't race Willis in the NZ 3000m champs (and started all this rehab stuff) that I wouldn't shave until I raced again. Well, a Chaffee's words are stone (not matter how depressed and loopy he is when he says it... except maybe when it comes to moderation on Friday nights...) and I persevered through to this saturday, intending to run a little 4x1500 relay at 6PM. On the day of the race, i woke up at 8:30AM and was immediately told, "Plans changed, 800 at 9:45..." Needless to say, there's a downside to the chilled Kiwi lifestyle. Anyways, the reason I mention the beard is because it played a pivotal role in my decision to actually race. You see, beards suck. They are fun to talk about and compare, but when it comes down to it, I don't think I could ever live with a beard. One reason: scratchy. Ugh, so annoying to sleep on. No wonder bearded men snore, they have to lie on their back just to fall asleep... Anyways, so yes, having not run a sub-60 quarter since July, I jumped into an 800m (oh, and while I try sometimes, when I fall back into my fundamental personality, I'm NOT a morning person). The race was pretty standard, here's the video.

Moral of the story: 28s are FAST! I basically was just recovering speed throughout the race. Haha, we started and I was dropped pretty much immediately. Also, video footage shows .06s between most ppl starting, and me starting. Gotta improve that a little... Final time: 1:55.99. Not the way most guys start a season, but at least I broke 1:56. All things weighed and considered -- I'm happy. Looking forward to a 1500 this next weekend.