So, here I am, getting on a yea year since I decided to change my running style.

will it have any effect on my time for the marathon?  Will it feel any different?  Surely fa must improv on last years time of 4.26.

well, the good news is, yes I did And improved quite significantly, beating 4 hours and coming in at 3.57.

very happy!

After many hours of internet research, I decided to spend my birthday money on a pair of Inov 8′s road shoes.

I should caveat this review by saying that I’ve only done 3 runs so far and only 20k in total, so its very early days and the shoes need breaking in a little first.

I needed a new pair of roadshows and wasn’t sure whether inov 8′s were the way to go but I’m also thinking of investing in a pair of Mudclaw’s, so thought that it would be a good idea to try out the roadshows and check out the fit of them.

The fit is quite tight.  It isn’t really a problem for me, as I haven’t got particularly wide feet but I can imagine that this may be a problem for some people with wider feet.

The shoe is really light and as the drop is only 6mm, you can really tell the difference from a normal running shoe.  Even after a couple of short runs, I can feel the pull on my achilles from the extra few mm they are having to stretch down.  In fact they are aching quite a bit and if you think this is after 6 months of training to run on my forefoot, I find this quite surprising.  I guess this vindicates Inov 8 using their arrow system and getting you to slowly change running style.

The one negative feeling I have of this shoe, is that rubber on the base of the shoe is very hard.  It almost feels like plastic!

I can’t say that I’ve had any problems with them but I don’t have the same confidence as I do with other shoes and I’m not convinced they afford the same grip as other running shoes.

I guess in the summer months, when the roads are dry, this won’t be a problem but in winter with the rain, ice and leaves, it does not make a little unsure about how much grip there is and whether there is any slippage.

Anyway, once I’ve done a few more runs, I will come back and update with my verdict.

UPDATE

I’ve done a number of runs in these shoes now and have to say that the jury is still out.

i did a long run on Saturday (17 miles) and have to say that they generally faired well.  The conditions were very dry, which I think helped.  I did get quit a bit o soreness in my Achilles afterwards.  No sure if this is down to the lower drop or adjusting to long run

Just signed up for the Lakeland trail in coniston on 6th October.

Really looking forward to that one, the run looks beautiful.

Will post a review od the run on here once completed.

UPDATE

This is a truly stunning run around Consiton.  I ran the 15k run, rather than the 10k and I can highly recommend it, although its not for the faint hearted.

The first 200m or so is flat through the school and the village but then the climb begins and to be honest, never seems to end!  In some parts you are scrambling up the paths and I have to say that I even stopped a couple of times to catch my breath as it was really difficult to keep running up such steep inclines.  But as with all these things, it was well worth it for the view.

I don’t think you get right to the top of the old man of Coniston but it doesn’t feel like it can be that far off and of course, once you’ve made it you, you’ve got to come down.

What an exhilarating feeling flying down the steep slopes back down towards the water.

Fabulous.

Going to sign up for Cartmel Stocky Chocolate Pudding run in December now!

The Warrington half marathon is nearly here.  This will be my first run since switching to forefoot running.  I’m a little nervous if I’m honest.

I ran 12 miles at the weekend, so I should be fine for the distance but I’m hoping to do a reasonable time as well.

The 12 mile run was really quite hard and the last 2 miles were killers.  Its strange that I still really have to concentrate on the way I run, even though its been over 3 months since I started to change my running style.

I guess you can’t expect to change a lifetime of running quickly!

UPDATE

Really enjoyed the English Half Marathon.   Took the first half very easy and ran with friends, so my time at 7 miles was 61 minutes – just a bit quicker than 9 minute mile pace.

Then I stepped it up for the last 6 miles and ran 8 minute mile pace.Finish shed in 1 hour 49 mins.   Not a bad apace and quite happy with that.  Should mean a sub 4 hour marathon!

I have to say that I’m still struggling a bit with running downhill!

I’m not entirely sure how it should be done – should you still try to strike the ground with your forefoot, or should you allow your heel to touch the floor since the impact is likely to be less.

It’s easy to keep your forefoot hitting the ground on the flat and even easier to do it when running up hill, as this feels quite natural to run up on your toes.  But downhill, it feels like you have to really exaggerate the movement of the foot to make the toes point down to hit the floor.

Again, if the slope is only slight, then it doesn’t feel too bad but with a steeper hill, it feels very odd and also feels like you are falling forwards.

I think that you should probably still try to run on the front of your foot but maybe be a bit more relaxed about your heel touching the ground, since the force will only be minimal.

Has anyone got any advice?

Thanks to Barefoot Chris for this suggestion.

I already knew about the idea of trying to run with a cadence of 180 and have tried in the past to increase my footfall rate. The trouble is in the past it’s been case of taking a stopwatch. Counting the number of steps for say 30 seconds and then fouling it to find out what your rate is. Then if it’s not fast enough, speeding up and doing the process again.

I alsomgotmthe feeling that as I got tired, my rate would slow down and I’d have to time myself again to see if I needed to get faster again.

So after reading Chris’ blog I decided to buy a metronome and give it a go running with one. It’s only quite small and so quite handy.

At first I decided to run and run in my normal style and see if I could get the metronome I time with me, to find my current cadence. It turns out I was already running at about 170 steps per minute. I guess this is from the workmi’ve done it he past.

So I just set the tempo of the metronome a bit faster and tried to increase my pace,

Well it’s been 2 months now and I have finally managed to get up to 10k.

It’s been slow work and involved many short quick runs.

Hopefully now m up to 10kmi can really start to push on.

I ran with a friend tonight for a change and it really helped. Mae were talking all the way round and so I found that I wasn’t concentrating on my running as much. It meant that it actually felt a bit kore normal and natural to run un my fore foot.

It’s been a great week of running, as I did 8k on Saturday; then I did a 20 min run on the treadmill on Monday; a run by the river in dedham on Tiesday (Constable Country) and then 10k tonight. Ting to do another 20 minute run on the treadmill tomorrow and the have a day off.

Things are looking up!

No real problems to report.

My calves are getting stronger and stronger. I do,find that I get a burning sensation in my forefoot from time to time but imdont seem to get any adverse reaction from it.

The first few weeks of changing style are incredibly frustrating.

Unfortunately, there is no getting away from it.  It really is almost like learning to run again and using muscles slightly differently.  There is no choice but to take it slowly and if you’ve been used to going out and doing long runs, then its a bit of a knock back to have to start with such short runs.

I started out with 3km runs but even that was probably a bit too far to start with.   I found it difficult to keep concentrating and keep my form for the whole of the 3k.

I would recommend starting out with runs as short as 1 mile or perhaps 2k and work upwards from there.

One option could be to do a normal run and then at some point, probably towards the end of your run, run a mile on your forefoot rather than your normal running style.  This could be a great way to still maintain your distance but also change style.

My only worry with this would be that it might take a bit more time to change and might be a bit confusing to your body.  The best bet might be to really throw yourself into it and go for it from the start.  Frustrating but worth it.

To give you some idea of how long it took me to get to 5km – it took me 3 weeks:

Week 1 – 3 x 3km

Week 2 – 1 x 3km  &  2 x 4km

Week 3 – 3 x 4km

Week 4 – 2 x 4km  &  1 x 5km

My main piece of advice:  Stick with it!  It will all be worth it in the end.  Don’t despair.  It is difficult, more difficult than you realise but all the hard work will pay dividends afterwards.

Did 20 minutes on the treadmill today.  Managed 4.2 km.  not bad going.  Managed to stay up on my toes.  Getting some small pain in the bones on the outside of my foot though.  Might need to start running on the balls of my feet rather than flat across the whole of the front of my foot?

So, as I’ve already mentioned, my calf muscles were really sore after running. Even after just 3 or 4 km.  I found it difficult tostay up on the forefoot.  If I grot tired, then I would find myself droppingback into my old style.

Also, I wasn’t sure how far on the front of my foot I should be.  Do you need to be al the way up, almost on yourmotes toes or can you get away with yourNheel ,still touching the floor.

Certainly if I tried to run a bit faster, the it felt better to get right up on my toes.