bringing you up to date...

I'm going to be covering my switch to the Pose method of running on this blog. Info on it is available at http://www.posetech.com. Like a lot of people, I was motivated to learn this method because of chronic injuries. I even gave up running for several years, but, like a lot of runners, other activities just don't measure up in some intangible way.

I've been running since I was a little kid, first accompanying my father on road races. I joined a youth track club and mostly ran the 800 and 1500. In high school I had an okay couple of seasons before having a freak injury my sophmore track season that required major surgery. In my junior year, I was super motivated, and was training well. Not long into track season, I stress fractured my tibia and had to sit out the bulk of the season. This was to be only the first of a lot of stress fractures.

After high school, I went to Berkeley for a couple of semesters, then dropped out and landed at a local junior college, where I started running again. I saw some improvement despite not being able to get through a season without shin splints, and probably, stress fractures. The sports doctors were calling it medial tibial stress syndrome and recommending rest, strengthening, and possibly, surgery. I kind of limped my way through two years of track and cross country, and managed to PR in the 1500, 3000, and 5k on relatively low mileage, probably never more than 45/wk.

After the JC experience, I returned to finish my degree at Berkeley, and didn't bother much with running for a few years. I made attempts now and then to get into it, but I usually got some pain in the shins fairly quickly. I got into some other activities like cross country skiing and cycling. I always missed running though.

When I started back running again, I got myself some stability shoes, and got my old orthotics checked out by a sports doctor, who said my gait looked pretty neutral with them. I started back very slowly, with 12-15 minute jogs for a week or two before trying to increase the volume. I started to think that maybe things would be ok this time, but the shin splints were back.

Since then, I've moved to minimal shoes, gotten a lot of ART and other painful therapies from a chiropractor, and started new stretching and strengthening regimes. I seemed to be able keep a full blown stress fracture at bay with all the therapy, but I was still dealing with pain. Finally, after a mellow few weeks of base training, my shins were incredibly painful and I was incredibly dejected. I googled, as I am wont to do, medial tibial stress syndrome, and ran into a post on letsrun by a guy who was touting the Pose method as the thing that finally cured his shin splints. Now I own the book and the DVD, and I've got myself on a program of mostly drills as I learn the Pose.