Nike Free's

on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 11:21 PM

Tuesday: Went to the gym to do a 6 mile recovery run. I was also supposed to do 6 strides, but those are kinda hard to do on a treadmill. I ended up doing 5 miles recovery and 1 mile at an LT pace of 6:49min/mile. Decided to try running today with a pair of Nike Free's. I've been looking lately at information on improving running form and the subject of running barefoot came up. I bought a pair of nike free's about two years ago and I wore them for one weekend and ended up with sore ankles so they've been sitting in my closet ever since. I thought I would try them on a recovery run at a nice slow pace. First couple of miles my feet hurt in the strangest places, but it seemed to get better and was even able to handle the 1 mile at LT even though I wasn't planning on doing it. The shoes really force you to forefoot/midfoot strike and increase your leg turnover. Even running at recovery pace, I was turning over at 170 when I would normally just barely get over 160 using regular shoes. I think I'll start doing my recovery runs in these things.

Today: Went back to the gym to do 12 miles with 7@LT pace. Started out with 2 really slow miles at about 10min/mile pace and then started in at 8.6mi/hr (6:58min/mile). Maintained that for 5 miles and then bumped it up to 8.7 for one mile and then 8.8 for the final mile. HR rate seemed to be in a good zone for this and is actually a bit lower than when I did 6 miles at 8.6mi/hr about 1.5 months ago. Finished up with 3 miles at various paces. It's weird cause my leg turnover seemed very low for this, only at about 170 which is what I was doing the day before for my recovery run in the Nike Free's.

3 comments:

Triseverance said...

Cool, I have been working, and I use that trem loosely, since the fall to become more of a neutral strike runner. I definetly feel the differnece when I lean forward at the ankle, I have never counted cadence however, interesting.
Love the charts, two very solid workouts.

Anonymous said...

That's interesting that you would notice a difference in your stride rate when you're wearing different shoes. I'm curious if that increase will carry over to your normal training shoes if you start doing your recovery runs regularly in the Nike Free's. If they really do make your feet stronger as advertised, maybe they will!

jen said...

Very interesting! Can't wait to see how your stride changes with more use of the Frees.

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