Two Tri

I have not one, but two races coming up this weekend.  First a local tri that literally runs right past my house (as in the run course is less than 50 ft from my backyard), and then Eagleman, which I was originally supposed to do as a 70.3, but now am just doing the aquavelo due to nagging calf injuries.  I'm hoping to be able to do the 8k at the end of the race on Saturday... I was appearing to make some progress with my run, and even got up to 7 miles, but then I attempted to add in a little "race pace" work (I did at least manage to win the base 5k in the process) and appear to have set myself back.  How far back, I'm not sure.

In the past I always had knee pain when I ran (well, at least ever since I had to get those stupid anthrax shots), and when I did IM Cozumel in 2010, I had not only knee but also IT band pain.  I decided it was time to change my running style to one that would supposedly prevent injury.  As I was a heel striker, I attempted to force myself to use a more efficient mid-foot strike with a higher cadence.  Unfortunately, what I didn't know then, and have only recently found out about, is that a large number of folks who tried to change their stride are apparently suffering from similar injuries.

It's too late to go back to my old stride at this point, the new one is pretty ingrained, but to all you heel strikers, if you don't have any pain, my advice would be if it ain't broke, don't fix it... although I was having knee pain so it appears to be a trade off in my case.  My hope for future heel-strike turned mid-foot runners is that someone will come up with a specific regimen which includes exercises for your calf and Achilles to allow folks to strengthen those areas first before attempting to change up their stride...

I have a few days to rest between now and Saturday, fingers crossed that I'm healed enough to make it through the run at a decent pace!