This week’s travelling is playing havoc with my training.
I have just spent a week in Asia, and never really got over the jet lag. I did all the usual tricks, drinking lots of water and moving my watch straight onto the new time zone, but I think the killer was doing the East China Half Marathon last weekend, only 6 hours after landing in Hong Kong. It took more out of me than I was expecting. Since then I have not managed to find the time to get in a pool all week, and apart from one spinning session I managed to squeeze in at a hotel in Hong Kong, I have not been near the bike. Running has been out of the question as, running on very stiff and sore legs is a short cut to injury. However, although this is a setback on route to the Windsor triathlon, I am keeping a positive mind, and treating it as a recovery week!
This past weekend, I have had to give two running workshops in Tokyo. They were both sponsored by Newton Running, (http://www.newtonrunning.co.uk) which is hugely popular running shoe in Asia, and learning how to run correctly is also in vogue.
In my opinion, I consider correct running form to be landing on the forefoot or mid foot. Flat foot landing is also OK, so long as your centre of gravity of is over the landing foot. “No heal striking, please”. I am passionate about this natural way of running and so always keen to give workshops and conduct training sessions to help teach the concepts.
As a side, I was forced to start forefoot running over 25 years ago, when I developed knee pains, from too much high mileage running on the roads, and most of it was heel striking, back then running guru, Arthur Lydiard was promoting heel striking. Even he changed to forefoot running before his death. The trouble is that when you land on the heels of your feet your knee is locked and all the shock is transferred to the knee joint, which for me wore out after running over 100 miles a week for about a year!
It took me two years to get over this injury. But with time, a good weight training programme and after many running drills, I was able to run pain free again. To this day, 25 years on, my knees are still pain free, thanks to forefoot running.
The reason for this is because landing on the forefoot, with my centre of gravity over the front of my shoes, my knees are always bent when my foot lands. The shock is not transferred to the knees anymore, but absorbed in the muscles. As a muscle is living tissue and continually repairing and rebuilding itself, I remain pretty much injury free to this day.
One other big point that will help you stay injury free is by not running every day. As a runner I ran every day, now I swim and bike regularly. The body cannot recover from the stress it is put under on a daily basis and so over time it will slowly breakdown, however it seems that the legs can recover from a running session if they are given at least 36 hours between sessions. This translates to about 3 or 4 runs a week. Which is plenty if you are a triathlete also wanting to improve your swimming and cycling. If not, I would still recommend putting some swimming and cycling into your programme to allow your legs a chance to recover from the pounding they get while you are running.
With the snow turning to slush, and the possibility of muddy fields and waterlogged run routes on the horizon, is the treadmill a viable option to turn to over the next few weeks?
That would be a “snowy blog”
In fact Alex Drummond has just begun a 
I am in Tokyo at present and while here I make a point of running on the Oda field. This is piece of land that Mr Oda donated to the city to build a track on, upon his death. The condition was that it was to be free and available to anyone in the city for one day a week.
While I was on target for my goal time I was willing to struggle on. At the half way mark I went through in 1:14:05 and although still on target the pain was now severe. What a happened next was that my hip locked up and I was forced to limp. Without full use of my right leg I dropped immediately down to 10 minute miling, the writing was on the wall. I struggled on to the 15 mile mark, in the vain hope that the hip would loosen up again, but after 30mins and only covering 3miles, I knew I was in serious danger of being over taken by a Santa Clause or an incredible hulk, as the fancy dress runners closed in on me.
But for me, it was not about finishing. I know I can finish a marathon. If my goal was to finish and raise money for charity I would have done so. In fact, I take my hat off to Katie Price who completed the marathon in 7 hours 11 minutes, but as she said, she was going to finish. It was just a pity that she had to cut up the £70 pair of elite 2XU compression tights I gave her, so that she could get her injured knee strapped.
