2008 Year in Review

2008 was definitely my best year in regards to improvement. 2007 was a good year as well culiminating with the Imogene Pass Run, but in 2008 I think I made even more progress. I had a bit more fun in 2007 running trails, but in 2008 I mostly laid some good foundation for years to come. The biggest issue I had through 2008 and which is partially continuing is my IT-problems. I started stuggling with this in late 2006 during my Imogene training; it seemed to appear after running longer than 2 hours and was most apparant during the race. I even went to a local PT for a few weeks with minimal improvements. In 2008 I purchased a gait analysis from Dr. Jeremy Rodgers. This came with free fitting for a pair of Brooks sneaks. As I suspected the gait analysis stretched into 4 visits from the original 1, but I gained some great insight into my form. 

The biggest ah ha was that I had a fairly severe tendency to over-stride. This of course led to being a major heal-striker while also landing with my knee locked rather than bent. All of this adds up to the fact that the impact of running is passed directly to my knees and then to my hips. Whereas when landing with a bent knee, the force is absorbed from the arch to the ankle to the knee and to the hip. This matches with the chi reading I did early in the year. It may seem easy to correct such a simple problem, but for me it has been really difficult...lots of starts and stops. During the sessions I was able to improve a bit, but I was never really able to sustain the gains through the summer. I discovered that the IT problems came back again on a 2 hour run in the rain this past summer. I think the following pictures tell the story. This definitely shows some improvement, but as I recall the form did not feel comfortable because I was really focusing on foot strike rather than leg position.

Check out my original session as taped by Dr. Rodgers.

Here is a picture from session #2.

Some improvements here, but still a little over-striding. However, the knee is a little more bent and I am not landing on my heal as much. The problem is that this gait did not feel comfortable or natural while I was running. I remember Jeremy commented that I kind of over-strided and then I pulled my foot back. This seems to make sense as I was focusing on my foot landing. I have done enough reading to know that focusing on just being a fore-foot striker is not the way to go about adapting form. It is much safer to focus on keeping the landing under the center of gravity and letting the foot land the way it is most natural.

Above is a picture later in my summer marathon training (around 8/30). This picture was taken after a long-ish run of about 13 miles. Still over-striding a bit, with a heal-first landing, but it seems that my leg swing out is not as far, i.e. my landing is a little closer to being under my center of gravity. 

Regardless, I am feeling that my current gait is getting closer which seems to be aided by the less supportive shoes. I did the marathon in a fairly-dead pair of Adrenelines with the super feet. They worked well when they were new, especially when I was still early in the gait analysis. But, now they just feel too contrictive. I can not feel the trail in them and as a result my feet do not seem to move the way they want. This was confirmed in an analysis at Road Runner...which showed again that I am a neutral runner rather than a stability runner. 

I think I will wrap up the 2008 summer with a mileage graph. The total mileage for the year was 1142 in about 168 hours for an average pace of 8:50.

Most of the year was focused on training for my first marathon. I really did not do much other racing, kind of got lazy I think. This is definitely a lesson for 2009, do more racing , especially the shorter distances. I would love to start 2009 off right with a good 5K, presumably the Oatmeal Festival. I have been wanted to break the 20 minute barrier, and starting with this race will be a good place to start. Regardless, I made great progress in 2008 with the Bolder Boulder byu staking almost a full minute off of my time. I did this by basically following Katie's FastForward training program on my own. It definitely worked I think...and, then there was the weather. The BB was just perfect this year with regards to the temperature, etc. Let's see what 2009 brings. 

stance	Time	Pace	Event	Date
6.1 Mi	43:43	7:10	Bolder Boulder	5/28/2007
6.2 Mi	42:33.37	6:52	Bolder Boulder	5/26/2008
Marathon	3:49:00	8:45	Random Route	10/19/2008

Some tentative goals for 2009 are as follows:

1. Probably limiting races to under half-marathons

2. Want to get the mileage consistently above 30 miles a week; would like to get over 40 miles on a regular basis

3. Want to get 5K time under 20 minutes

4. Want to get my BB09 down under 41 minutes

5. May consider Denver again if I can get my IT problem under control. This may be easier if I can get my mileage over 35 regularly without too much of a strain on my family.

Additionally, I have not ruled out a follow-up visit to Jeremy Rodgers. I would be very curious on how successful he would be in eliminating this frustrating problem.

We will see! Run on!