30 minutes on the bike with some climbs 3x lunge matrix 15 pushups abs planks Here is my PT visit from Tuesday ( for my own record). When I met with my sports medicine doctor after my followup x-ray back in October, he suggested that I meet with a PT. I guess I wasn't very excited (time and money) and he is 25-30 minutes from my house. But this past week (or two), my ankle has been very achy, so I decided to just go and see him. When he came in, I told him my long list of injuries and that I was getting close to hanging up my racing shoes. He laughed and told me I still was a long ways from throwing in the towel. He videoed taped me running on the treadmill and asked me to count how many times my right foot hit the ground in 60 seconds. I hit the ground 45 times. I should be hitting the ground 90 times in 60 seconds....I am TOTALLY overstriding. As we watched the video, we determined I was a very strong heel striker. He said to reduce the heel striking and get rid of the lower leg aches, I needed to shorten my stride (significantly) which would help the heel striking. He called it the gerbil run. I tried it a few times. It was hard to keep count and move my feet that fast. We talked a lot about training (I was there almost 2 hours!!!!). He suggested that I only run 3 days a week (a tempo run, a speed workout and a long run....and if I felt like I REALLY need to get out another day, I could do a run/walk recovery run). I asked him about the FRB common theme: run 10 miles/day and you will run Boston approach. He laughed and said I would probably never get to that point because my body would break down because of my running form. I think he knew I was completely baffled by everything that came out of his mouth. He told me I needed to change my whole paradigm about running: less is more. I kept firing off question after question. He has run 18 marathons (a few sub-3 hours) and Ironmans. So I felt like he was qualified and knew his stuff. SO....even though all of this has been SUPER helpful (I've spent several hours doing research on running form the past few days), my ankle still has been very achy. I'm not sure if I've refractured it or if it is achy because it is weak. For the time being, all running goals are on hold. I need to process what he said about less is more. I need a little device to attach to my body and will print out what is wrong !!! Running makes me mental!
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