What can be done about sore feet from new running shoes?

Dear Gary,
I have purchased a new pair of Addidas running shoes. They look and feel very nice but I am getting very painful soles when I run. It is agonising. Please help!
"R"
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Gary Moller comments:
Dear "R", I know all about the distressing discomfort that you describe. I purchased a new top of the line Nike shoes a few weeks ago and suffered the same painful problem during my first run in them. The culprits were the inner soles that came in the shoes and the problem was solved in a few moments.

Picture: Rip out the stock inner soles and replace with Formthotics.

The problem you describe is very, very common and is most likely due to local ischaemia. Now, don't worry about the big word: Ischaemia means lack of blood to an area causing burning pain, cramps and sometimes much worse.

When you run, circulation of life-giving blood is enhanced by the "muscle-pump": Each time a muscle contracts, stale blood is forced out and back to the heart, thus augmenting the work of the heart. When the muscles relax fresh oxygenated blood flows into the soft belly of the muscle - and so the process goes with with each cycle of contraction and relaxation.



Where the muscle pump effect is interfered with, such as when lifting and lowering weights without a breif break in muscle tension between lifts, the muscles will quickly tire and the ischaemic "burn" is felt by the lifter.

A similar pumping effect happens in the feet while running. Each time the foot strikes the pavement the blood engorging the sole of the foot is forced out and upwards by compression of the tissues. Fresh blood flows into the foot during the recovery phase of the running phase. Now, the runner gets into big trouble if the foot is firmly encased in a shoe that does not allow the foot to fully decompress during the recovery phase. Failure to decompress the foot does not allow fresh blood to flow into the bloodless foot. The consequences can be:

• Burning painful soles and feet
• Rapid tiring and failure of the foot muscles causing
• Loss of foot posture causing
• Loss of running form and efficiency causing
  
• Injury to the feet, lower legs, knees and even the hips and low back

Prevention centres around enabling the foot to decompress during the recovery phase of the running action:

• Carefully remove the inner soles of the shoes and replace with Formthotics Active and fit carefully according to the instructions that come with them (Available from www.myotec.co.nz)
  
• If the shoes are tight or low cut, such as for cycling, then use Forththotics Low Profile instead.
• Formthotics mould to the shape of your foot while allowing the foot to decompress - something that few sports innersoles allow to happen.
  
• Toss out your thick and juicy sports socks and replace them with a pair of thin cotton socks that do not encapsulte the feet like a pair of embalmed mummies.
• Lace the shoes so that they are loose over the forefoot while being firm about the upper foot and ankle area.
  

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Simple solutions to injury and training problems

"Hi Gary, just a quick note to let you know how I have got on with the formthotics I got from you. Myself and a friend had planned a 3.5hour run for last night. I was a bit sceptical before the run about how I would go with blisters etc. However with new shoes a full size smaller than previous pairs, the formthotics from you and new thin running socks my feet were great, no problems at all which is amazing and a first - I am so relieved. Having come through that run with nothing other than tired legs I am going to commit myself to the Rotorua marathon. Thanks for you advice, I might have spent a small fortune lately but to run for over 3 hours and not even a hint of sore feet is well worth the $$ for me."

Gary Moller comments:
This keen female runner and cyclist in training for a marathon was suffering badly from a number of foot problems for which there seemed to be no easy solutions. Her prospects of making the start line for the Rotorua Marathon in good condition were diminishing by the day. As you can gather she is now a very satisfied customer.

As is often the case with most injuries of non-violent causation, the solutions can be remarkably simple and almost always of the "self-help" kind. Seldom, if ever, does a drug, injection, scalpel or expensive orthotic resolve the problem. Most often the solutions lie in a person's training structure, their coach, doing corrective exercises, small adjustments to their equipment and even just changing one's shoes, socks and inner soles!

If you have injury or training issues that bother you, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do my best to assist with finding a lasting solution.

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I am currently a sophomore in a US high school and on the brink of breaking the 5 minute mile barrier. To break the barrier and then some, my winter track coach, who is also the director of XXX Accademy in XXX, strongly reccomends weight training. My coach provided an 8 week program. My only question is, should I continue my hard track training while proceeding with the program simultaneously?

Photo: a young Peter Snell running at a meet in Wanganui and smashing a mile record
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Gary Moller comments:

Well, do you actually need more speed to break your 5 min barrier?
Run 200m as fast as you can and then multiply by 8. If the total time is less than 5 min then you have mostly an endurance issue and not a speed/strength one.

If you can already run 200m significantly faster than your one mile pace, then you can do all the core exercises in the gym you like, plus leg presses etc and you will go no faster over a mile as a result of all that extra effort.

Having said this, I am not averse to lifting weights and doing various gym drills - I do some myself most days because it is important to have a strong, supple and well-balanced body to run efficiently and to remain injury free. Read this here. However; the fact of the matter is the only way to get better at running is to get out and run - smartly of course.

Strength training can be effectively done by doing various running drills. These drills develop the muscles and reflexes that are specific to running.

One of the greatest losses in modern running is that athletes have forgotten how to do drills that develop strength, balance and posture that are specific to running.

Please refer to my earlier article on this topic

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Have you thought about setting up a home gym?

If you are paying up to $1,000 per year or more for a gym membership that you do not use often enough, have you ever thought about setting up a home gym?

Unless you are a groupie a home gym makes a lot of good sense. The kids, your partner, the Mother-in-law and friends can all benefit from the convenience. That's a lot of potential gym memberships you are saving!

I can now supply just about all the equipment you need for an amazing and compact home gym that you can install in that spare room or in the garage. What I can't supply, I can usually direct you to the best source. Get hold of me if you are considering setting up your own gym.

Go here to see the great range of exercycles, elliptical trainers, spin cycles and rowing machines that I am now selling.

I have an LG4 Firefox spin cycle that I won at the Gentle Annie Mountain Bike Ride last month. I loved the styling and the silent and smooth magnetic braking, so decided to sell them!

Read more!

Link

About core strength for endurance athletes

This article is going to get me off-side with the strength and conditioning experts; but here goes.... Much is heard nowadays about "core strength". It appears that just about every sporting injury has the lack of core strength as a root cause and it seems every exercise programme must include a complex series of "core exercises" that are so difficult to do that the ongoing services of a personal trainer are required to do them safely. In the context of endurance sports like running and cycling, I believe the need for core strength is over-promoted to the point where it is detrimental to athletic performance.

Photo: Light weight, wiry strength and no bulk are key determinants of who wins

While an endurance athlete needs strong abs and back muscles, there is definitely no need for a thick "core" of trunk muscles that do nothing to improve forward propulsion and serve only to add excess weight that is an added strain to the heart and the legs.

What makes a middle and long distance runner, swimmer or cyclist faster is time spent doing the actual activity - time spent in the gym lifting weights or teetering on large balls for longer than about 30 minutes three times a week probably does not contribute to athletic performance. If the athlete has the time and the energy to spend longer in the gym then he or she is probably not doing enough of their "core" activity such as running.

My previous business partner (He was a nationally ranked runner with a 4min 01s mile PB) in the gym business and I were constantly bemused by all the hours spent by aspiring athletes doing advanced Swiss Ball exercises. It was a pity there was not an Olympic event for Swiss Balls!

Sure: Strong, mobile joints and muscles about the hips are essential for running and strength is needed about the trunk to maintain posture and to balance and transfer pushing, pulling and torsional forces between the upper and lower limbs. But it comes down to how much strength and bulk is needed and how it is developed and maintained. The best way to develop core strength that is sport-specific is resistance forms of the competition one is training for - so in kayaking, that might involve drills towing a bucket or sack; a runner may do hill bounds; a cyclist might do hill climbs -stomping a big gear and a swimmer might use hand paddles.

I have put together a guide for core exercises to develop core strength and good posture - exercises you do not neeed a university Degree to do safely. These exercises should require no more than about 30 minutes in the gym 3 times a week, including warm-up time. Any longer and you might be doing too much and you should be outside doing some real training!

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Link

New Page added: Training advice for running, including walking or running a half marathon or marathon

If you are planning to run or walk a marathon or half marathon; or just wanting to get outside and get fit, this new page on my website is a good place to start. What I have done is create a feeder that searches out all of the artilces that I have written that have anything to do about running and aggregated them all onto a single page.

Why not go there now and have a read?

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Link

Running - Being good racers in training and losing the plot

I don't think a lot of NZ coaches have really grasped the finer points of Lydiard’s coaching, I’m seeing young runners grinding out over the Waitakeres most weekends going flat out, I'm not hearing the message train don't strain, I'm hearing a message of mileage instead of time spent training.

A group of young adults goes out over the Waitakeres whether they are bent on competing I’m not sure, they go out together but come back down at one hang of a pace spread-eagled possibly racing each other back down. Their best is being given on the Waitakeres.
Our best results are coming from athletes trained by overseas coaches.

It’s the problem when a few coaches have all the talent under their wing, if they don't do a good job all the talent isn't developed properly.

There needs to be a message of balance, knowing when to ease off and listening to your own body rather than religiously following a coach.

Wayne

Photo: 1970's Canterbury, New Zealand Korean training camp when NZ was the Mecca for runners: the long sunday pack runs were part of a carefully managed buildup plan. There were no heroics.

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Gary Moller comments:
Wayne, These observations and comments are right on the mark and get to the heart of one of the reasons why New Zealand has lost the running plot after having been consistently at the top of the running world.

If you read my articles about Kenyan running, you will realise that Kenyans commence their running from a very early age, with brief bursts of intensity when playing games like soccer. This very much describes my own upbringing in rural New Zealand of the 1950's. It is only after a decade and a half later that the Kenyans, as young adults, are subjected to big running miles at pace and gut-heaving anaerobic work.

Lydiard alway worked on the basis that it took 8-10 years to build a champion. How right he was and how right he still is.

To take teenage boys and girls with the best of just a few years of running behind them and have them racing the lenght of the Waitakeres is really dumb. It is a recipe for disaster. End of story!

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Starting running for the first time

Before you run out the door, let’s get real about running:

• Running is a high impact activity:
  
• it has high injury rates as compared to low impact activities like swimming and bicyclingNot everyone is suited for running
• Just as there are “horses for courses” the same can be said of people.
  
• The person best suited for running is a lightly muscled, light boned person with little body weight.
  
• Most durable runners are less than 75kg body weight
• Get fit before you take up running
• That means ensuring that you have a strong heart and circulation
• That you have strong, flexible foot and leg musclesThat you are not carrying too much excess body fat
• Start injury free
• If you have any injuries affecting your lower back or lower, then deal with them before you take up running

How to get fit to run

• Do at least three months of a mix of the following:
• Walk before you run
• Brisk power walking for 30 minutes 3 times a week (this is your most important exercise)
• As fitness improves, jog a few minutes, gradually increasing the jog in relation to the walking.
• Swimming 2-3 times a week
• Aqua jogging using the combination of Kermitts and Aquafins
• Bicycling
• Gym workouts, including weights and cardio equipment – go for a hydraulics circuit workout if you can find a gym with it
• Stretch yoga style each evening

Seek professional advice about any injury or health issues (You may contact Gary Moller to discuss any injury or health issues)

Footwear and clothing

• As a general rule of thumb, if you have good feet and weigh less than 75kg, you can go for a lighter shoe that has less shock absorption
• A heavier person needs a shoe that has more shock absorption
• Ensure that the shoe has a flexible forefoot and not an inflexible board (the most common fault in running shoes), otherwise the Achilles tendon and calf will be under enormous strain
• Seek a firm heel counter that cups the heel bone securely and does not slowly collapse as the weeks and months pass
• Wear a soft fabric against the skin on very long runs to reduce chafing of sensitive part like the nipples and armpitsIf chafing of the inner thigh and crutch are a problem, try wearing a pair of bike pant style lycra underwear against the skin

Nutrition on the run
Start early with good nutrition to build up your body's reserves before the big distances and high intensity training kinck in.

• Read the pages on this website about nutrition and the various training guides and E-publications
• Consider taking a quality sports multi such as Nutra-Life Sports Multi
• Contact Gary Moller for more specific advice, if need be.
  

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Is he overdoing it? – You decide

The manager of the swimming pool told me that there was a man aqua-jogging daily for 5-6 hours a day. He was concerned that this fellow was over-doing it and could I talk to him. I said that I thought I knew the person and would have a quiet chat with him.

“Fred” (not his real name), I asked when I next caught up with him about his worn out knees; “I hear there is some guy aqua-jogging 5-6 hours a day. Is that you?” “Oh no, that can’t be me”, he replied trying look innocent; “I’m only doing four hours a day. If I do more than that I end up rubbing all the skin off my back”.



Over-training – The Signs

• If you are overdoing things, you may have one or a combination of the following:
• Consistently elevated morning pulse.
• Irregular pulse
• Unusually slow pulse associated with light-headedness and unusually low blood pressure
• Tired, draggy feeling.
• Grumpy, hyper-emotional and overreacting to stress.
• Poor quality sleep.
• Craving for chocolate, caffeine and stimulants, indicating that your adrenal glands are stressed.
• Lowered immunity resulting in infections such as a sore throat, cold, or breakout of cold-sores.
• Sore, hard muscles; cramps and aches.
• Loss of form. Overworked muscles are “turned off” and your body awkwardly tries to recruit others that are inefficient for the job at hand.
• You find yourself stumbling over your own feet and your nose seems to be closer to the pavement than usual.
• Loss of motivation such as feeling like quitting workouts or procrastinating to do your training.
• Slow, disappointing times in workouts and competition.

Read more!

Aquafins for effective cross training

“Aquafins are addictive! Besides providing an excellent strengthening workout they feel so naturally good in the water that pool running takes on a whole new dimension.
I have always been an advocate of pool running for athletes as a low impact, full-body resistance cross-training exercise. Aquafins enhance every aspect of deepwater workouts and shallow water exercising. They are a valuable aid not only as cross-training for serious athletes but also to those looking to increase their fitness, strengthen, tone, lose weight or who are recovering from injury or surgery. I recommend Aquafin water workouts as an essential inclusion into any fitness programme.”

Lorraine Moller, Running Coach, Boulder, Colorado (Four-time Olympic Marathoner representing New Zealand; Bronze Medallist, Women’s Marathon, Olympic Games, Barcelona 1992; Three Time Avon Women’s World Marathon Champion; Boston Marathon Winner)

For more information:
Gill Gray and Don Christe, Aquafins New Zealand, 50 Glen Road
Wellington aquafinsnz@xtra.co.nz
04 479 7474 or 04 970 1188
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Gary Moller comments:
Lorraine and I don't have any financial ties with the people who sell these training aids, nor are we being paid to say this: We simply think these are great for cross-training for sports like running and for general fitness, including weight loss and muscle toning without the usual wear and tear.

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Training for a marathon has been updated!

This free e-book is now up to 88 pages with more to come shortly. The latest version has a new-look table of contents that is easier on the eye. There is more information about designing training schedules and we have added a whole lot of content about the "walk-run" option for completing a marathon or 1/2 marathon. There is more advice about injury and health issues and a few more pictures and illustrations.

Would you like to advertise your products and services in this publication which gets distributed world-wide? If so, please contact me.

These updates are guided in part by reader feedback, including inquiries about training and injury issues, so keep it coming!

Read more!

Link

Low vitamin D levels linked to increased risk of falling in elderly populations

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Older men and women with vitamin D deficiency are more likely to fall multiple times in the course of a year than their peers with adequate vitamin D levels, researchers in The Netherlands have found. Vitamin D may be best known for its role, along with calcium, in maintaining bone health. However, vitamin D is also important for muscle mass and strength, and compromised muscle function may explain the fall risk seen in this study, according to the researchers. The findings suggest that older adults should be sure to get adequate vitamin D from food and multivitamins, lead study author Dr. Marieke B. Snijder, of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, told Reuters Health. However, she added, clinical trials are needed to prove that this actually prevents falls. Snijder and her colleagues report their findings in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. For their study, the researchers measured blood levels of vitamin D in 1,231 adults age 65 and older, then followed them for one year to track any falls they suffered. During that time, 33 percent fell at least once, according to "fall calendars" that each participant kept. Just over 11 percent fell two or more times. Overall, men and women who were deficient in vitamin D at the outset were 78 percent more likely than those with adequate levels to fall at least twice. Their risk of falling three or more times was more than doubled.
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Gary Moller comments:
Notice that the good researcher conveniently omitted to recommend sunlight as a source of vitamin D! Is it because it is not PC to make such recommendations?

I am currently investigating falls prevention programmes in NZ, of which there are a couple. The Otago exercise programme to prevent falls in older adults is a well researched example that reduces falls injuries by about 35% in over 65's.

While I am impressed with the programme's format and content, I am dismayed that none of the programmes I have looked at so far, this one included, seem to pay any attention at all to assessing participants' nutritional status (including vitamin D) and then correcting any identified deficiencies. When up to 90% of some elderly populations are nutritionally deficient in some way, assessing the nutritional status of elderly populations who are at high risk of falling would seem an obvious thing to do. But it isn't. With regards to vitamin D, it is hardly ever tested. When was the last time you had it done?

If an elderly person is, say, vitamin D deficient, low in dietary protein, anaemic or washed out of essential minerals and vitamins, then no amount of exercise therapy is going to work all that well. While there may be initial gains, this is hardly likely to be sustained and the individual will quickly back-slide. Strong bodies are not created out of thin air - they need good food to be built and to then be maintained over the long term.

I have demonstrated many times with elderly people under my care that it is possible to double their physical work capacity in as little as 12 weeks by taking a comprehensive approach to their care, including tidying their nutrition.

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Some barriers to effective injury prevention in sports and recreation

Are we losing the battle for effective injury prevention in sports and recreation? Is this because of changes that are happening in society that are beyond our control? Are there things that we can do to wrestle back control?

I do not set out to offer any answers in this article. While I have opinions as to what can be done, my intention is to add fuel to the fires of discussion.

New Zealand Society

The erosion of the traditional weekend and the 9-5 working day

With more and more parents working longer hours and not having the traditional time off over the Saturday and Sunday, organised sport suffers terribly. This means children do less after school sport and less sport in the weekends. Fewer parents are available to help out, including coaching, refereeing and officiating.

This means we are producing unfit, poorly skilled kids who are at much serious risk of injury doing disorganised activity, like jumping off rooftops and riding bikes at breakneck speed down mountain-sides

The Break up of the family

This causes huge financial stresses on the family which means the children caught up in the mess are less involved in organised sport and recreation. The single parent charged with the bulk of care is pressed for time. Even if sport was an option, this may not happen because the weekends are the usual time for being shipped off to the non-custodial parent. A treat at MacDonald’s is more likely to happen than participating in obesity fighting organised weekend sport.

Absent fathers

Each day when I run alongside my little boy as he rides his bike to and from school, I ask, “Where have all the men gone?” Are they invisible? There is only one male teacher at his school and he is the Principal. Boys and girls need male role models, starting with fathers who are active, daily participants in their lives.

Fathers tend to do more rough and tumble activities with their children than their mothers. Like little bear cubs, little kids need this kind of boisterous activity to develop essential motor skills, as well as learning when to back off to avoid hurting themselves and others. It is all too common to see both young men and women who have not learned these essential behavioural limits. Fathers are very good at teaching this. But they have to be around.

Fathers are more inclined to throw a ball and to be involved in sports teams, clubs and coaching. Fathers are essential sports and recreation safety management role models for their boys and girls. Too many children miss out on this exposure. If Dad is not around to teach their child how to safely ride a bike down a steep slope, who will they learn from? What happens when the little boy grows up and buys his first motorbike? Mother was there but she was too busy driving them to and from school, doing the laundry and attending the second job to pay for the babysitting.

Coaching

The demise of the club

I was once told by a senior sports and recreation official that one club or society closes every day in NZ. This is disastrous. For example, the majority of tennis courts in New Zealand now sprout weeds or are now dotted with cheap apartments. Where have the children gone who used to populate the tennis courts after school and weekends?

As clubs disappear, so does organised sport and coaching structures. It is replaced by disorganised sporting and recreation activities that are without proper coaching programmes and safety management.

Busy parents and expensive programmes

Stressed, busy, financially pressured parents are not available to help organise sporting and recreation activities. This is causing an ongoing erosion of the volunteer base that is the backbone of NZ sport and recreation. It is being replaced only where those parents can afford it, by professionals, including commercial programmes. Many parents cannot afford to have their children participate in these programmes.

The dismantling of generic coaching certification

As of December 2006, SPARC shuts down the Coaching New Zealand Level One and Two coaching education and certification programmes. (It scrapped the impressive level Three course in 2002 and the rest is in a state of disrepair).

The responsibility for coaching education is being shifted from a centrally administered generic coaching course to individual sports codes to organise themselves. I do not agree with this. In SPARC’s defence, they did inherit a programme that had been steadily run into the dirt over many years and efforts to resuscitate it were going to require considerable time and effort. Effective coaching, including sports injury prevention, requires an army of volunteer coaches who have demonstrated competency in the basics of coaching. Shutting down this generic coaching programme is a mistake.

90% of coaching is generic. So, a good swimming coach could be a good rugby coach so long as he or she completes a couple of modules on the specifics of rugby. Clive Woodward, coach of the victorious English World Cup Rugby team, is switching to professional football. There is no need to repeat the educational modules on child development, nutrition, physiology, and psychology and safety management – other than the 10% that is specific to the sport in question.

Parents follow their children as they move from one sport to another and it is these parents who become the volunteer coaches. If parents are going to have to attend and pass (and pay) a coaching course that takes several days of their time each time their children swap sports, they simply won’t do it. They may be prepared to do it once and then give up a few hours once or twice a year to learn the 10% that is specific to the sport they are switching to.

The big sports like soccer and rugby have the size and the resources and international supporting structures to be able to look after their own coaching programmes. The same cannot be said of the majority of NZ’s sports codes which struggle just to survive. Coaching programmes that are developed today will mostly fall into states of disrepair as time passes. This is the nature of NZ sport, unless the programmes are maintained and driven by a central authority that also exercises responsibility for quality control.

I have had a lot of contact over the years with coaches and athletes in the USA. From what I can gather, the USA is a coaching disaster because there is no centralised structure. Everybody does their own thing and this applies to most sports. There is no consistency in practice, or in the way that knowledge and experience is passed on. They have serious problems and these show in their performances on the international stage. Outside of a handful of sports, the USA punches way below it weight for its population and rich resources. And where it does excel, this success is often reliant on talented imports.

For the sake of injury prevention, let alone anything else, let’s not go down the same treacherous path that has been taken by the USA.

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Runner's Knee

"Hi Gary
I was hoping you could help me. I did the XYZ Half Marathon last year and I finished it feeling great however I thought I would then go on and help a friend of mine finish the marathon (just the last km) however I suddenly got a bad pain in my left knee – since then I have had physio, acupuncture, pediatrician, I even had my leg measured and found my left leg was 4mm longer than my right leg so I had orthodics put in. I did rest for awhile (about a month) however it seems that when Im running I can get to the 10k mark then the pain starts and gets worse as I go along – going up hill seems to help it but its going down hill or on the straight that it is really bad. The physio said that it was runners knee however not sure what that problem is. The pain seems to start on the outside of my knee then goes further under my kneecap and sometimes above my knee. Im usually sore for the rest of the day and depending how far Ive run it may even be a bit sore the next day. I am trying to strengthen it up at the gym by using weights and sometimes even swimming or cycling to help.

I am at my wits end and I love my running and Im sick of this problem, do you have any other idea as to what my problem could be or what I should try next.
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Gary Moller comments:
You can now see why marathons and 1/2 marathons are a huge windfall for therapists of all persuasions - even pediatricians! The aftermath can be both financially and emotionally expensive.

If the injury is what you have described and what your physiotherapist says, then you have damaged the very delicate under surface of the knee cap. This is not good; but the good news is you will recover – eventually.

First of all, I think you can throw away the orthotics and replace them with a good quality innersole like Formthotics. I have never in 28 years seen an athlete benefit, other than briefly, from these and you are unlikely to be the exception. Your feet are shock absorbers; if they are not allowed to do their job properly, the energy gets transferred further up the legs to structures like the knees. They can actually cause worse problems down the track by accentuating weaknesses and imbalances. You need strong feet - not weak ones. Read the relevant sections about shoes and foot care in here. And do the exercises that you see in the last few pages of the Guide – the ones that stretch and open up the runner’s hips. Do these every time before and after a run. Tight hips throw huge strain on the knees, especially when running downhill. If you have a short leg (most of us do), (or is it a long leg??) the cause is most often in the pelvis and not the leg itself. The attention of a chiropractor might be beneficial along with regular practicing of the hip stretches recommended here. Consider purchasing a new pair of running shoes if the ones you have are worn, or are in any way uncomfortable.

When you go for a run
When you go running, keep the knees warm before, during and after. A long hot bath and a self massage about the knee caps is wonderful and will help healing.

• Stay off hard pavement, especially during winter. Run on trails, that twist and undulate, thus eliminating the relentless pounding monotony of running on pavement.
• Keep close to home by running in circles rather than out and back. Murphy's Law dictates that you will seize at the most remote point far away from Home!
• STOP running before your knee hurts and gradually build minute by minute, run by run no matter how long it takes to fully recover.
• Do not run every day. Have a rest day between runs (rest days can be active - go and swim or lift weights).
• Do fartlek and intervals that stretch, strengthen and get the run over and done with quickly; rather than your runs being a sucession of bland drawn out plods.
• Before you do your next marathon, or anything over 15 km, do a proper buildup of at least 12 weeks, as outlined in our marathon training guide along with plenty of races over short distances no longer than 10km. Join a running club, so you can do their race programme, even if you consider yourself a completly social runner (You will not be alone).

Doing strength work in the gym might help; but you must be very careful with the weights exercises not to stir the injury up. Make sure that you get instruction from an experienced instructor who has the appropriate qualifications. The key is to eliminate ongoing harm and to assist your body’s healing processes - not to stir it up.

You need to do the exercises in here whether you have weak feet or not and take a good, long look at your posture – how you place your feet, how you stand and how you walk and run and sit. If necessary, go do a few sessions with a posture expert like a person qualified in the Alexander Technique.

Go and see a sprint running coach who you can find via your local running club and get some lessons at the running track on doing running drills including bounding. Learn how to run tall, lightly and strong. Even if you consider yourself a social runner, this is one of the best actions any runner can take to have a long, enjoyable and injury-free time running life.

Nutrition to assist the body with healing itself

• Purchase some joint food here and take 6 teaspoons per day until finished.
• Also take 3 teaspoons of this daily until finished.
• And take 2 per day of these until finished.

These will help your body get its healing processes ahead of the ongoing damage that is happening. Take all of these with food and spread throughout the day, rather than all at once.

• Take a course of magnesium – one daily until finished.

Low magnesium may cause the muscles to be slow in relaxing, causing the thighs to pull on the knee cap when they should be relaxed. This is one reason for the painful seizing up towards the end of long, hard runs. Read this latest article on the subject.

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The Iraq war from a rehabilitationist's view

We hear that this war is nudging towards costing one trillion US dollars and has already cost over 2,500 young American lives. But this is not even half of the story. At least 50,000 innocent Iraqi citizens have also lost their lives. Some might excuse the lack of concern about this carnage of innocents because these people wear funny clothes. But I'm not buying that.

Let’s talk injury prevention
Back in the good old days when I was a safety consultant with ACC, we had a simple rule of thumb for calculating injuries and deaths by accidents. For each accidental death, it was calculated there would be 10 serious disabling injuries and about 30 less severe ones.

So let’s apply this formula to Iraq:

2,500 dead US soldiers means

• 25,000 young Americans have been physically maimed for life
• 75,000 physically injured; but likely to fully recover

50,000 dead Iraq civilians means

• 5000,000 maimed for life
• 1,500,000 physically injured but likely to recover

These are just the physical injuries. More difficult to calculate is the lasting psychological trauma of war. I will not even attempt to go there.

People with serious physical injuries cost several million dollars each over their lifetimes. Add this to the cost of the war. While we see emotional news footage of the maimed lying in hospitals, what we fail to see is the lifelong impact these terrible injuries have on these people, their families and their communities.

Why not take a quiet moment now and spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of people who have so far lost a leg, half a brain, an arm, an eye, their face, their family …..

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