I am not yet fully recovered from the weekend so my fast sessions were more like 6:20 and 6:30 pace than the 6:10 I was looking for. I felt reasonably comfortable in my walk especially as I warmed up. It was good to be able to finish with a bit of energy.
I went to see a podiatrist this morning and I wish I had seen this man (John Sloane) a couple of years ago. He has knowledge of race walking and very quickly identified a number of issues for me to work on. I have very inflexible toes - they don't really want to bend from the lower joint at all. My big toes have no strength and my glutes have almost no strength. Whilst it is daunting to have a large number of things to work on it is also encouraging. If I can get reasonable results with all these issues just imagine what might be possible if I can improve on these things!
We are meeting this Saturday so he can see me walking (and video me I think) and then he will decide what orthotic he will give me and most likely there will be more exercises to. Currently he has me working on bending my toes, strengthening my Achilles tendon before it causes a major issue and strengthening my glute. He reinforced to me the importance of stretching and suggested I would benefit from shortening my training sessions by 10 mins and using the time to stretch. I know this is an area I never give much attention and I will try to follow this advice.
I have the same issues with my feet too, but mine is due to operations as a child and scar tissue etc. I also had weak glutes and have to say that since I have worked on my glutes my speeds and style have changed dramatically.
ReplyDeleteStretching is a prob for most of us I think, as we are all busy we hastily finish our walk jump in the car and drive home....so of course the hammy's shrink and we wonder why we end up with glute, hammy and calf problems.
What an awesome man you have found there. Wonderful that he knows racewalking and is paying so much attention to your needs. Awesome stuff!!! Keep it up.
See you soon.