Starting on a new path....

In my last post I mentioned a running clinic I was attending on May 18th, that clinic was the Good Form Running clinic. It was all about "proper" running form, foot/hip positioning, and gait. It was definitely well worth the drive into Portland, and I was very excited to apply several of their suggested techniques on this morning's long run. The clinic started off with all of the participants being video taped as we ran a short distances in our current running shoes, after which we repeated the process in our bare-feet. Needless to say there is a lot of debate as to the health and safety of running barefoot, this clinic was not about running barefoot, but about proper foot alignment. Several participants, such as myself, are heavy heal strikers when we run. This means that when moving forward I land on my heal first, and roll through my foot to push off. This tends to cause a lot of pain in my heals, and creates a tendency to lean backwards when running. Good Form has you shortening your stride, landing mid-foot, and leaning forward from the ankle. (I suggest taking a look at the link to the side, and visiting their web-site for more information) I implemented several of these changes today, and had a FANTASTIC run!! My tendonitis didn't flare until a long uphill, and I was able to run a full 5-miles, the first time ever for me. This new form should also allow me to increase my pace, something that has eluded me since I started running in 2002. I saw it start today, but I wasn't wearing my heart rate monitor, so I'm not 100% sure what time I started at. I do know that I passed the 11-minute mile pace leader on my run today, and stayed ahead of her until I had to walk due to the pain in my foot. I'm excited to see how far I can continue this, and if I can make it up to a 10:30 pace, by mid-June.

June also starts me on several new adventures. One adventure is that I'll be participating in the June challenge at my Barre3 studio. I will attempt to take 20-classes within 30 days to meet this challenge. I'm also going to be stepping up my weights, and cross training, as I am going to be working toward getting my personal training certification. So I want to take as many workout classes as possible to increase my knowledge base as I move forward on this new career path. My plan is still to move into Real Estate Development someday, flipping houses, but I would also like to have my own personal training studio too. Plus there is nothing wrong with having a back-up career path. So while I'm applying for jobs, and getting my workouts in, I'll spend my free time enjoying a little "light" reading, like this as I await the arrival of my CPT text books.