Shannon National Park - The Walk Trail Run

A short picture journey taking you through 9km of forest.  This was the first time I decided to run a forest walk trail.  All up I did two runs and one walk through it over Easter.  

Running a trail is what I will do every time I get out there from now on - such an amazing experience, traversing up hills, jumping over trees, rolling on gumnuts slipping on steep eroded declines - exhilarating and invigorating.. 

Come let's run... 

We start off near our campsite and head off to the sign that says walk trail

First "bridge" which is a fallen tree

Crossing the road made easy by going under it!

Choice of going the long route or the short route, we take the long route via the rock and then to the dam

Some pictures along the way, mushrooms, grass trees, trees growing from fallen trees...

On top (at the rock) phew that was hard going now downhill for a bit and then onto Shannon Dam

click on the image below and save it to your computer and then zoom into it - yup that is how these critters live in the forest..

Shannon Dam

Tell the world I'm coming home... Near Shannon lodge not long to go now :D

Now time to stretch and relax 

Then we go running up Mt Chudlup next and then climb the Bicentennial tree.. :)

These shoes were made for runnin'

Normally I manage 3-4 runs on weekdays of about 5km each.  This week was a meant to be different.

After my 59min/10km on Saturday, my Monday run was a personal best for me 55mins/10km. I was now confident of doing several 10km runs in May and then moving to 15km runs in June..

Or maybe they aren't meant for running?

I have been nursing a painful set of calves and a hurting left ankle since that Monday run.  This has meant i have been unable to run any long distance without discomfort.  So I did not run all week.

I went for my usual karate class on Thursday hoping that the different exercise regime will help things, it did for a while and then even my sensi (karate teacher) felt sorry for me, and he said maybe I should rest. 

Friday I ran a painful 1km and walked back after hitting the 1km mark.. 

Saturday I went for my weekly swim did the usual 1km (20 laps of a 50m pool) and thought that this might fix my legs, no such luck.  Saturday night i put my feet in an epsom salts bath with scalding hot water.. This finally seemed to help me rid of the pain..

I was determined to run another 10km this week so I went for a run this morning

I was surprised I got on the road quite well and decided to hammer my legs by running tarmac and was fairly pleased with myself as I hit the 5km mark after 28mins, then at 8km I started to get that horrible wall feeling, a little voice in your head tells you that you are tired, hurting and you should stop.. I ignored the voice, then sawa a water fountain so stopped for some water and stretched and continued on my run at 9km (51mins) I just stopped and had to shuffle/walk back home for the rest (3km)  - I was disappointed.

"Maybe I am unrealistic about what I can do,  maybe my body is not capable of running, I don't know."

I feel like giving up 

But you know what? I am not going to, whilst I still have my wits about me - I am going to keep going till I mentally or physically cannot.. Each setback I face, I will regroup and overcome.  I was born in Kenya, Kenyans are runners, I will be one too one day in the near future. 

Running with a knee support

After "near death" on the weekend from sharp pain in the knee.. I am testing out a knee support to see if it actually makes a difference..

update: I only ran on grass today - too scared to hit the tarmac..no pain in the knee but the calves have had a serious work out with those Nike Free's.. Sitting with an ice pack atm!

I can haz Nike Free

My Mission: Hit an athletes foot store in Perth & buy a Free!

My Mistake: Go on a Saturday to a shopping mall <insert mall name here> It is a jungle out there bro'

My Dilema: After an hours run around to find a park and then to find the store.  Mens sizes all sold out..

Luckily I am in touch with my feminine side and asked what the differences are between the mens and womens.. turns out it is the same shoe just a different label to denote size..

My win: FREEDOM! I can now run light and flexible where ever I want.. When I want.. Nike FREE FTW

They are so comfortable that I will get other luminous colours for running when prices drop.. and possibly use these for normal wear with jeans..

Talking price - they are USD $89 in America.. Made in Asia - how can they be AUD $159 in Australia with the exchange rate at .93????? RIP OFF - but beggars cannot be choosers.. so I begged, begged , begged and the lady in red at the counter gave me $20 off.. Imma in <3 with my free.. 

Running Barefoot

Recently I have been thinking about improving my running technique as I have been concerned that I cannot run on the road without hurting my knees.

A Discovery

When I run on sand and grass and it seeemed a lot better on my knee.  But I still felt that something was not right..

Yesterday I was talking to the guys in the office about technique and one of the guys said why don't you go barefoot, and sent me this link  I read through it and was quite surprised with the hypothesis put forward.

I am a huge proponent of Darwinism and the theory of evolution and I thought that by now we would have evolved our feet to work nicely with those fancy asics gel shoes that we all wear.  Anyway I digress. The website reminded me about this documentary I watched a few years back showing how the bushmen of the Kalahari dessert hunt.  These guys are armed with a short spear and they chase their prey for hours on foot, once the prey is tired and cannot move anymore they will kill it and then walk back with the bounty.

I thought to myself there is something in this, and decided to trial it myself, despite the threat of dog poo, weeds, glass etc.

The next post will elaborate more on the body and understanding it, so I will not get into that now. I spent 3hrs at night studying different websites to look at foot strike on the ground.  A lot of sites looked at how Kenyan school kids run, sans shoes and how they run with shoes as a consequence.

Running Barefoot

Major difference between running with shoes and barefoot is how your hit the ground, with shoes you tend to use the heel more often, and this is what causes knee pain, hamstrings to work harder and you tend to use up more energy. Barefoot on the other hand seems to let the foot strike at the front or the middle and cushions the legs from impact, making it more natural.  Only downside is it seems to make your calf muscles work harder.

Day 1

• I have never run this effortlessly, I could have kept going around in circles infintum
• There is NO knee pain (should I pinch myself?)
• I ran back home barefoot on the pavement and road
• Grass had stained my foot soles an eecky green
• At night I went to see a movie and started to feel pain in my calves

Day 2 

• Woke up ready for my run and ooh my calves hurt, ummed and ah'd and decided to do it
• It was a lot cooler this morning temp would have been about 13degrees C, and the grass must have been watered overnight as it was very wet - this did numb my feet and I doubt I will be able to do this over winter, could get frost bite?
• Run was again easy but after 3kms the calves started really hurting, problem with reading too much is it introduces worry, I had read that I could get tears on the calf muscle or risk an achilles tendon injury.  Ignorance is truly bliss sometimes
• I walked back to the pavement and then ran home

Day 3 

• Woke up ready for my run and my calves were so bad I could not even walk down the stairs
• I still did 3kms but like the previous day did not press on
• Tomorrow will definately be back to shoes

I now plan to run barefoot 3 times a week this month, what is the point? I am trying to teach my body to change how I run, so when I next don my running shoes I hope to strike the ground as if I am barefoot, I am hoping this will make me run not only faster and longer but more important it will help me run on the road without that niggling knee pain.

I have looked at fivefingers, a kind of sock/shoe I can wear to stop making my foot look like Shrek but I cannot justify buying them from hte local Aussie website as they are $185 AUD, whereas in the US they are $85 USD - more a question of princple than the money, so I plan to order them in from the US next week.

 

 

update 16 November 2010

I ended up not getting the vibrams and also have stopped running barefoot. I will link a post here as to why and what went wrong. In the meantime if you want to get fivefingers for sand running or any other sport and you are based in Perth a friend of mine - Jane who is the editor of Flourish Magazine is selling them for $150 AUD - more details on her website  http://www.flourishmagazine.com.au/news/2010/11/18/vibram-five-fingers.html

The journey of 2kms begins with 250 meters

Well the saying as they say goes more like: "the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first" 

We are not getting younger.

I had hit a wall, nearing 37, I felt my body was starting to let me down, I found that I was putting on weight very easily and to compound it all I could not shake a rheumatic condition that seems to have dogged me since my late teens.  This condition was causing swelling in the knees and getting worse, the only remedy seemed to be a visit to the local GP once every 6 months to get the fluid build up out by inserting a syringe in the knees.

At this time I had just started Karate with my daughters and after two terms the rheumatism got the better of me.  I had to miss out a term and took to swimming instead, during that period, I could barely do 2-3 lengths of a 50m pool and would feel exhausted.  My GP said that things were bad and I would need to see a specialist, the specialist after 2 months of visits and tests said I would need to start taking a particular drug everyday to reduce the build up of fluid in my joints, this drug works by lowering my immunity and the list of side effects was long..

Self healing, taking on the rheumatism head-on

I asked him if I could hold off on the drugs and try and find alternate methods to heal myself.  This was the turning point.  I think the scare of popping a pill everyday was enough to get my mind in action, I was not going to grow old, I was going to remain young.  I started taking fish oil (omega 3) tablets, vitamin B supplements and forced myself to walk every morning, in 3 months the knee pain had gone and I could walk longer faster.  I got back into karate and decided to take up running again.

After my first run of 1km, my knee started hurting and I was exhausted.  I had to walk back.  There had to be another way of doing this.  I went back into the pool, I could manage 5 lengths without stopping but would be quite tired and breathless.  I mixed up short swims, with walking and karate.  I tried to run again this time I managed 3kms and my knees hurt again but there was no swelling, I was still breathless.

Then I started to see a difference, I could easily swim 10 lengths, one day I decided to pace myself and try 20 - laughing to myself that, which was a silly notion I still gave it a go.  I did the twenty (1km) and a whole barrier came tumbling down, now I can do 30 without stopping easily.

I kept running but could not do more than 3-4kms without my knee hurting and getting tired, so I stuck to shorter runs.

Glory days :)

Fast forward to August last year, I came back from a month’s holiday in the USA and decided that I am going to sign up for Activ foundation City to Surf in Perth, I had roughly 3 weeks to train and prepare for a 12km run.  I entered and did 6kms quite easily, my right knee locked up after this and I hobbled for the next 2kms and ran short bursts for the remainder (in a lot of pain), till the last km, I put on the theme from chariots of fire in my head sprinted the last km shutting out all the pain.  I finished my first ever long distance run since I was 17 in 1hr17mins - I hurt for 2 weeks after the run with aches all over, but boy did it feel good! - http://www.supersportimages.com/products/showbib.php?xs=595&s1=23411

I have discovered through trial and error why my knee seems to be hurting, it is probably weak and the impact of how I land my right leg is probably causing it grief.  This Christmas I took to running on sand whenever I went to the beach and doing a cool down by swimming in the ocean.  I have now started doing distance running on grass purely to strengthen my muscles.

Whilst I do this a couple of people I have been following on twitter have provided me with useful insights and inspiration.  I have also started reading up on how to exercise my calf muscles, strengthen my knees and also improve my technique.

My next post will be on the results of my experiments.

Going back to the title of this post, it was a tweet from a friend after I had done my first 250m in the pool, congratulating me and telling me that 2kms is not too far! Now this is what I keep telling everyone. 

After reading this I hope it helps others who are on the verge of giving up, to instead persevere, the rewards will come and when they do they will be sweet.  I look forward to my morning runs now as much as I look forward to a glass of wine at the end of the day.

Another person that I follow on twitter says in her blog, "If I can do it anyone can".  Well I guess it is the same for me!