The next image compilation shows Rupp’s foot strike on almost every lap of his wining 10K race at the 2012 US Olympic Trials. Amazingly consistent forefoot strike, and again the degree to which he supinates at contact is impressive (original high-res image by Iain Hunter here)
The next image compilation shows Rupp’s foot strike on almost every lap of his wining 10K race at the 2012 US Olympic Trials. Amazingly consistent forefoot strike, and again the degree to which he supinates at contact is impressive (original high-res image by Iain Hunter here)
A few days ago Steve Magness, assistant coach at the Nike Oregon Project, directed me to a couple of images that BYU biomechanist Iain Hunter had put together showing foot strikes of Men and Women at the US Olympic 10K trials. In case you have not seen them yet, I thought I’d share them here – quite a bit of variation even among these elites! Feel free to share any thoughts you have in the comments.
You can find the original high-resolution images produced by Hunter here:
Men’s US Olympic Trials 10K Images
Women’s US Olympic Trials 10K Images
A few days ago Steve Magness, assistant coach at the Nike Oregon Project, directed me to a couple of images that BYU biomechanist Iain Hunter had put together showing foot strikes of Men and Women at the US Olympic 10K trials. In case you have not seen them yet, I thought I’d share them here – quite a bit of variation even among these elites! Feel free to share any thoughts you have in the comments.
You can find the original high-resolution images produced by Hunter here:
Men’s US Olympic Trials 10K Images
Women’s US Olympic Trials 10K Images
The workshop will run from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM and will involve lectures by both Brett and I (our bios can be found at the bottom of this post), as well as a gait-analysis workshop. We will also offer the opportunity for you to obtain high-speed video footage of your running gait (this will be conducted for those interested who wish to stay after the workshop).
The event is co-hosted by the NHTI Cross Country Team, and cost to attend the workshop will be $40 per participant (free for current NHTI students).
Topics to be covered include:
By Pete Larson
- Why We Should Run
- Running Injuries: Why They Happen
- Choosing a Running Shoe
- Running Form: Foot Strike and StrideBy Brett Coapland
- Muscle Imbalances: How They Contribute to Injury and Performance
- Strength Training to Improve Running Economy
- Common Running Injuries: What to Do When They Occur
- Recovery Strategies for Optimal Running PerformanceGroup Activities
- Gait Analysis workshop for 2-3 volunteers via treadmill
- Optional high speed filming of running stride after workshop is over
If you are interested in participating, please fill out the form below to be added to our email list – we will send out additional information regarding registration via email to those who indicate an interest in participating.
Workshop Leader Bios:
Dr. Peter Larson is an associate professor of biology at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he teaches courses in Human Anatomy and Physiology, Exercise Physiology, and Comparative Anatomy. He is a Boston-qualifying marathon runner, having completed eight marathons an a 50k ultra in the past 5 years. Pete is the author of the Runblogger.com website, and he is co-author of a new book on running titled Tread Lightly: Form, Footwear, and the Quest for Injury-Free Running. Pete has been interviewed by or profiled in the following publications: New York Times Magazine, Runner's World, Running Times, Competitor, Triathlete, Men's Health, and SELF.
Dr. Brett Coapland is the clinic director at Performance Health Spine & Sport Therapy in Concord, New Hampshire. He is a chiropractor, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), and certified Active Release Techniques (ART) provider. Brett has completed numerous endurance events including the Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run and Ironman Lake Placid. He is a life long learner in his field and regularly attends post-graduate courses focusing on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of running related injuries.
The workshop will run from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM and will involve lectures by both Brett and I (our bios can be found at the bottom of this post), as well as a gait-analysis workshop. We will also offer the opportunity for you to obtain high-speed video footage of your running gait (this will be conducted for those interested who wish to stay after the workshop).
The event is co-hosted by the NHTI Cross Country Team, and cost to attend the workshop will be $40 per participant (free for current NHTI students).
Topics to be covered include:
By Pete Larson
- Why We Should Run
- Running Injuries: Why They Happen
- Choosing a Running Shoe
- Running Form: Foot Strike and StrideBy Brett Coapland
- Muscle Imbalances: How They Contribute to Injury and Performance
- Strength Training to Improve Running Economy
- Common Running Injuries: What to Do When They Occur
- Recovery Strategies for Optimal Running PerformanceGroup Activities
- Gait Analysis workshop for 2-3 volunteers via treadmill
- Optional high speed filming of running stride after workshop is over
If you are interested in participating, please fill out the form below to be added to our email list – we will send out additional information regarding registration via email to those who indicate an interest in participating.
Workshop Leader Bios:
Dr. Peter Larson is an associate professor of biology at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he teaches courses in Human Anatomy and Physiology, Exercise Physiology, and Comparative Anatomy. He is a Boston-qualifying marathon runner, having completed eight marathons an a 50k ultra in the past 5 years. Pete is the author of the Runblogger.com website, and he is co-author of a new book on running titled Tread Lightly: Form, Footwear, and the Quest for Injury-Free Running. Pete has been interviewed by or profiled in the following publications: New York Times Magazine, Runner's World, Running Times, Competitor, Triathlete, Men's Health, and SELF.
Dr. Brett Coapland is the clinic director at Performance Health Spine & Sport Therapy in Concord, New Hampshire. He is a chiropractor, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), and certified Active Release Techniques (ART) provider. Brett has completed numerous endurance events including the Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run and Ironman Lake Placid. He is a life long learner in his field and regularly attends post-graduate courses focusing on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of running related injuries.
However, having just written a chapter for my book on the topic of foot strike in running, I had read through much of the existing academic literature on the relationship between foot strike and running injury risk. Thus, I figured I’d go ahead and give it a shot. I took off my blogger/author hat and put on my academic hat and produced an article titled “Foot strike in runners: Influence on injury risk.”
It’s amazing how challenging it can be to switch writing gears between blogging, book writing, and academic writing, so hopefully the turned out to be somewhat coherent!
You can read my foot strike article on the Lower Extremity Review website here: http://www.lowerextremityreview.com/article/foot-strike-in-runners-influence-on-injury-risk
However, having just written a chapter for my book on the topic of foot strike in running, I had read through much of the existing academic literature on the relationship between foot strike and running injury risk. Thus, I figured I’d go ahead and give it a shot. I took off my blogger/author hat and put on my academic hat and produced an article titled “Foot strike in runners: Influence on injury risk.”
It’s amazing how challenging it can be to switch writing gears between blogging, book writing, and academic writing, so hopefully the turned out to be somewhat coherent!
You can read my foot strike article on the Lower Extremity Review website here: http://www.lowerextremityreview.com/article/foot-strike-in-runners-influence-on-injury-risk
![Tread Lightly Front Cover[9]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX9atuCBW66Nu7Q5Y0Ecel9cKwUMVSwx1qWh6jgMY472qH_dMBuO3Hz6A5J7HKN4Z14gpjTYAuARD1FTgabC-J9sOVp4WaMia1gh-4LE2hLVnY7ml5N9Z_yGYqzg-6mxIqDkTf4OKNjuo/?imgmax=800 "Tread Lightly Front Cover[9]")
Ah, the good old days of running. Runners hear that line a lot, usually from those who started running in the 1960s and 1970s. Was there really a golden age of running when runners seldom came up lame from an injury? Or is this a mere fiction, an invention or reordering of memory? By the same token, there’s that uncomfortable feeling that running injuries are a modern problem, a byproduct of cushioned shoes with lifted heels, and that runners in the stripped-down shoes of the earlier era were somehow immune to the injury bug. Unfortunately, the truth is not quite that simple.
In his 1935 book “Running,” Arthur Newton includes an entire chapter titled “Troubles.” In the opening paragraph of the chapter, Newton writes the following about running injuries:
“…real intensive training can produce an amazing crop, at any rate during the early stages. If you have nothing else to brag about you can admire the heterogeneous assortment of brand new and unexpected “aggranoyances” it showers promiscuously around. To hint at only a few… blisters, cramp, stitch, colds, uneasy joints, and sinews together with their accompanying holocaust of invigorated language...”
Clearly Newton was more than familiar with what it’s like to be an injured runner! It must be remembered, however, that Newton was also known to occasionally log well over 200 miles of running per week while in his 40s on rough South African roads – this type of mileage is likely to cause problems for anyone. Furthermore, despite his own masochistic mileage totals, he believed that running was less likely to cause injury compared to other athletic pursuits if “you indulge in moderation only.” A perceptive student of human behavior, Newton also addressed how to manage injuries, humorously reporting that there are “remedies which sportsmen have employed all along and which certainly work wonders… (a) grouse, and (b) persistence in regarding them as a joke.”
Running injuries are nothing new, which means that the shoe company giants can hardly be ascribed sole blame for the current plague of running woes. However, detailed accounts of injuries are difficult to come by prior to the 1970’s. It wasn’t until the early 1970s that more systematic documentation of running injuries became commonplace, and much of this early work came in the form of injury surveys conducted by a relatively new magazine (at the time) called Runner’s World.
In 1980, highly respected running biomechanist Peter Cavanagh (currently the Endowed Chair of Women’s Sports Medicine at the University of Washington) wrote a book titled The Running Shoe Book. In it, Cavanagh, who set up and directed the first shoe test lab for Runner’s World, cited the 1971 results of the magazine’s first reader survey of injuries. A total of 800 runners responded to the survey, and each reported the types of “major” foot and leg injuries they had sustained – “major” was defined as “requiring a complete layoff from running.” The five most common injuries reported were:
1. Knee injury (17.9%)
2. Achilles Tendon injury (14%)
3. Shin Splints (10.6%)
4. Arch injury (6.9%)
5. Ankle injury (6.4%)
Runner’s World’s survey was conducted again in 1973; 1,680 runners reported a total of 1,600 injuries (some runners reported more than one). The top five injuries were:
1. Knee injury (22.5%)
2. Achilles Tendon injury (20.3%)
3. Shin Splints (9.9%)
4. Forefoot injury (7.2%)
5. Heel injury (7.2%)
Cavanagh pointed out that “the shoes used by runners in the 1971-1973 period were lacking in what we now believe to be important protective characteristics,” and that shoes from this period “were heavy, thin under the forepart, lacking in shock absorption, and provided a relatively small differential in height between the heel and forefoot.” As an example of such a shoe, Cavanagh reports that the second most popular shoe in 1971 was the adidas Olympia, which weighed over 12 ounces and had a gum-rubber sole with no midsole or heel wedge.
Cavanagh went on to cite 1979 injury statistics for 974 runners provided by the Runners Clinic of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Massachusetts. The top five common injury types were:
1. Knee injury (30.5%),
2. Heel Spur Syndrome (includes plantar fasciitis; 13.5%)
3. Shin Splints (10.9%)
4. Muscle pulls (8%)
5. Achilles tendonitis (6%)
Cavanagh acknowledged the inherent limitations of the available data (for example, surveys vs. clinical data as well as injury terminology differences), but it was the best available data from that time period, and he made several interesting observations about how injury patterns changed from the early to late 1970s (a time when both running shoe design and runner demographics experienced dramatic changes). Cavanagh noted that within the span of ten years, Achilles tendon injuries, metatarsal stress fractures, ankle injuries, and heel bone injuries became less common, whereas knee injuries, shin splints (he combined shin splints and posterior tibial tendonitis percentages for 1979 since he felt that earlier surveys probably included both of these under the category “shin splints”), heel spur syndrome, and leg fractures (mostly tibial and fibular stress fractures) became considerably more common.
Even though knee injuries were the most common injury in each of these studies, Cavanagh was particularly concerned about the rising incidence of knee injuries in 1979. What caused this spike? He speculated that “the combination of poor skeletal alignment and high mileage is going to play its part in knee injuries,” but also indicated that “we also have to examine the proposition, however unpalatable, that shoes, far from preventing injuries, have been partly responsible for them.” How might this happen? Cavanagh felt that lifting and adding cushioning material under the heel might have helped alleviate Achilles tendon and heel injuries, but that a potential side effect of adding a heel wedge was “inferior rearfoot control.” In other words, excessive pronation, the inward roll of the foot that occurs after ground contact, might have been the culprit that was increasingly damaging runner’s knees as the decade progressed, and it might have been caused by the added elements in shoes that were put there in part to protect runners from Achilles tendon and foot problems
In addition to alterations in shoe construction and the shift in frequencies of injury types, the profile of the average runner changed significantly during this period. By the end of the 1970s, running had become far more of a mainstream pastime. Amby Burfoot, editor-at large for Runner’s World and winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon, says that the “1970 runner was leaner, meaner and faster than the 1980 runner… virtually all (1970) runners were those who continued (running) from high school, college, military service. They were more talented and more closely connected to recent high-level fitness.” In contrast, Burfoot points out that the average runner in 1980 was an individual “still in relative youth who picked up running after reading Jim Fixx’s book, and began training hard. They might have put in a lot of miles, but many were inherently not that talented as runners when compared to the average runner of 1970.” So the population of runners changed from mostly lifelong athletes to individuals who might have been joining the sport for the first time or who were returning to running later in life. Injury studies have shown that new runners are more likely to succumb to injury, so it’s quite possible that this demographic shift contributed to the changing nature of running injuries over the course of the decade; but to what extent is difficult to estimate with any degree of certainty.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the development of running shoes went from being mostly an ad hoc, improvisational, affair to one that was heavily influenced by emerging footwear science and research. “Running shoes came out of the dark age,” wrote Cavanagh, and shoe design as it relates to injury prevention became a topic of intense study by biomechanical researchers. One of the main concerns during this period was how to control excessive movement of the rearfoot, or what we now commonly refer to as “pronation control.” The logic went like this: if the raised, cushioned heel of running shoes compromised rearfoot control, and this in turn contributed to the rising incidence of knee injuries, then something needed to be done to stabilize shoes and correct for this.
Thus began the “pronation-control paradigm” that would guide shoe design for decades to follow. Shoes now required structural elements whose intended purpose was to limit the amount of pronation that occurred after the foot made contact with the ground, most often on the outer portion of the heel. The hope was that by keeping excessive pronation in check, the number of knee injuries experienced by runners would be reduced. Over the next 30 years, devices like medial posts, dual density midsoles, flared heels, and rigid heel counters were introduced in a continuing attempt to control potentially harmful movements of the foot that may have been caused by the construction of the shoe itself (mainly their soft, compressible midsoles). These are the very same elements that are found in many modern running shoes; in fact, level of pronation control continues to be the primary factor by which shoes are classified by manufacturers and in most stores today.
There is a lot more to say about the pronation-control paradigm, and we will cover it further in Chapter 6, but for now the most important question to address is this: what has been the effect of this added shoe technology on injuries?
You can read our attempt to answer this last question in Tread Lightly: Form, Footwear, and the Quest for Injury Free Running.
Ah, the good old days of running. Runners hear that line a lot, usually from those who started running in the 1960s and 1970s. Was there really a golden age of running when runners seldom came up lame from an injury? Or is this a mere fiction, an invention or reordering of memory? By the same token, there’s that uncomfortable feeling that running injuries are a modern problem, a byproduct of cushioned shoes with lifted heels, and that runners in the stripped-down shoes of the earlier era were somehow immune to the injury bug. Unfortunately, the truth is not quite that simple.
In his 1935 book “Running,” Arthur Newton includes an entire chapter titled “Troubles.” In the opening paragraph of the chapter, Newton writes the following about running injuries:
“…real intensive training can produce an amazing crop, at any rate during the early stages. If you have nothing else to brag about you can admire the heterogeneous assortment of brand new and unexpected “aggranoyances” it showers promiscuously around. To hint at only a few… blisters, cramp, stitch, colds, uneasy joints, and sinews together with their accompanying holocaust of invigorated language...”
Clearly Newton was more than familiar with what it’s like to be an injured runner! It must be remembered, however, that Newton was also known to occasionally log well over 200 miles of running per week while in his 40s on rough South African roads – this type of mileage is likely to cause problems for anyone. Furthermore, despite his own masochistic mileage totals, he believed that running was less likely to cause injury compared to other athletic pursuits if “you indulge in moderation only.” A perceptive student of human behavior, Newton also addressed how to manage injuries, humorously reporting that there are “remedies which sportsmen have employed all along and which certainly work wonders… (a) grouse, and (b) persistence in regarding them as a joke.”
Running injuries are nothing new, which means that the shoe company giants can hardly be ascribed sole blame for the current plague of running woes. However, detailed accounts of injuries are difficult to come by prior to the 1970’s. It wasn’t until the early 1970s that more systematic documentation of running injuries became commonplace, and much of this early work came in the form of injury surveys conducted by a relatively new magazine (at the time) called Runner’s World.
In 1980, highly respected running biomechanist Peter Cavanagh (currently the Endowed Chair of Women’s Sports Medicine at the University of Washington) wrote a book titled The Running Shoe Book. In it, Cavanagh, who set up and directed the first shoe test lab for Runner’s World, cited the 1971 results of the magazine’s first reader survey of injuries. A total of 800 runners responded to the survey, and each reported the types of “major” foot and leg injuries they had sustained – “major” was defined as “requiring a complete layoff from running.” The five most common injuries reported were:
1. Knee injury (17.9%)
2. Achilles Tendon injury (14%)
3. Shin Splints (10.6%)
4. Arch injury (6.9%)
5. Ankle injury (6.4%)
Runner’s World’s survey was conducted again in 1973; 1,680 runners reported a total of 1,600 injuries (some runners reported more than one). The top five injuries were:
1. Knee injury (22.5%)
2. Achilles Tendon injury (20.3%)
3. Shin Splints (9.9%)
4. Forefoot injury (7.2%)
5. Heel injury (7.2%)
Cavanagh pointed out that “the shoes used by runners in the 1971-1973 period were lacking in what we now believe to be important protective characteristics,” and that shoes from this period “were heavy, thin under the forepart, lacking in shock absorption, and provided a relatively small differential in height between the heel and forefoot.” As an example of such a shoe, Cavanagh reports that the second most popular shoe in 1971 was the adidas Olympia, which weighed over 12 ounces and had a gum-rubber sole with no midsole or heel wedge.
Cavanagh went on to cite 1979 injury statistics for 974 runners provided by the Runners Clinic of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Massachusetts. The top five common injury types were:
1. Knee injury (30.5%),
2. Heel Spur Syndrome (includes plantar fasciitis; 13.5%)
3. Shin Splints (10.9%)
4. Muscle pulls (8%)
5. Achilles tendonitis (6%)
Cavanagh acknowledged the inherent limitations of the available data (for example, surveys vs. clinical data as well as injury terminology differences), but it was the best available data from that time period, and he made several interesting observations about how injury patterns changed from the early to late 1970s (a time when both running shoe design and runner demographics experienced dramatic changes). Cavanagh noted that within the span of ten years, Achilles tendon injuries, metatarsal stress fractures, ankle injuries, and heel bone injuries became less common, whereas knee injuries, shin splints (he combined shin splints and posterior tibial tendonitis percentages for 1979 since he felt that earlier surveys probably included both of these under the category “shin splints”), heel spur syndrome, and leg fractures (mostly tibial and fibular stress fractures) became considerably more common.
Even though knee injuries were the most common injury in each of these studies, Cavanagh was particularly concerned about the rising incidence of knee injuries in 1979. What caused this spike? He speculated that “the combination of poor skeletal alignment and high mileage is going to play its part in knee injuries,” but also indicated that “we also have to examine the proposition, however unpalatable, that shoes, far from preventing injuries, have been partly responsible for them.” How might this happen? Cavanagh felt that lifting and adding cushioning material under the heel might have helped alleviate Achilles tendon and heel injuries, but that a potential side effect of adding a heel wedge was “inferior rearfoot control.” In other words, excessive pronation, the inward roll of the foot that occurs after ground contact, might have been the culprit that was increasingly damaging runner’s knees as the decade progressed, and it might have been caused by the added elements in shoes that were put there in part to protect runners from Achilles tendon and foot problems
In addition to alterations in shoe construction and the shift in frequencies of injury types, the profile of the average runner changed significantly during this period. By the end of the 1970s, running had become far more of a mainstream pastime. Amby Burfoot, editor-at large for Runner’s World and winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon, says that the “1970 runner was leaner, meaner and faster than the 1980 runner… virtually all (1970) runners were those who continued (running) from high school, college, military service. They were more talented and more closely connected to recent high-level fitness.” In contrast, Burfoot points out that the average runner in 1980 was an individual “still in relative youth who picked up running after reading Jim Fixx’s book, and began training hard. They might have put in a lot of miles, but many were inherently not that talented as runners when compared to the average runner of 1970.” So the population of runners changed from mostly lifelong athletes to individuals who might have been joining the sport for the first time or who were returning to running later in life. Injury studies have shown that new runners are more likely to succumb to injury, so it’s quite possible that this demographic shift contributed to the changing nature of running injuries over the course of the decade; but to what extent is difficult to estimate with any degree of certainty.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the development of running shoes went from being mostly an ad hoc, improvisational, affair to one that was heavily influenced by emerging footwear science and research. “Running shoes came out of the dark age,” wrote Cavanagh, and shoe design as it relates to injury prevention became a topic of intense study by biomechanical researchers. One of the main concerns during this period was how to control excessive movement of the rearfoot, or what we now commonly refer to as “pronation control.” The logic went like this: if the raised, cushioned heel of running shoes compromised rearfoot control, and this in turn contributed to the rising incidence of knee injuries, then something needed to be done to stabilize shoes and correct for this.
Thus began the “pronation-control paradigm” that would guide shoe design for decades to follow. Shoes now required structural elements whose intended purpose was to limit the amount of pronation that occurred after the foot made contact with the ground, most often on the outer portion of the heel. The hope was that by keeping excessive pronation in check, the number of knee injuries experienced by runners would be reduced. Over the next 30 years, devices like medial posts, dual density midsoles, flared heels, and rigid heel counters were introduced in a continuing attempt to control potentially harmful movements of the foot that may have been caused by the construction of the shoe itself (mainly their soft, compressible midsoles). These are the very same elements that are found in many modern running shoes; in fact, level of pronation control continues to be the primary factor by which shoes are classified by manufacturers and in most stores today.
There is a lot more to say about the pronation-control paradigm, and we will cover it further in Chapter 6, but for now the most important question to address is this: what has been the effect of this added shoe technology on injuries?
You can read our attempt to answer this last question in Tread Lightly: Form, Footwear, and the Quest for Injury Free Running.
A major impediment to being able to do this for most people is that it’s simply cost-prohibitive to buy multiple pairs of shoes just to try them out in the hope that one will meet your needs. The two best ways to get around this are to either go to a good running specialty store that will let you take shoes on a short test run around the block (as my local store, Runner’s Alley in Manchester, NH does), or buy from an on-line store that allows you to return shoes that don’t work out even if you have run in them. A few stores have had such a policy, and I was pleased when I opened an email today from my advertising partner Running Warehouse that announced that they are starting a 90-day “No Sweat” return policy. Basically, the new policy allows you to buy a pair of shoes, run in it, and if it doesn’t work out you can return it for store credit or an exchange for another model. Sounds like they will place a limit on how often this can be done, so don’t plan on trying every shoe that they sell (which seems completely reasonable to me).
My big question is what happens to the returned, lightly used shoes? Seems like there could be a market for such shoes to be sold at a discount should they still be in decent shape (I’ve given away a bunch of lightly used shoes myself, and it really can help people for whom extra cash to spend on running shoes is not abundant). Hopefully the used shoes will get put to good use.
Here are the rules posted on the Running Warehouse returns page:
90 Day No Sweat Returns
Running Warehouse wants you to be completely satisfied with your purchase. Items can be returned at any point, new or used, within 90 days from the original invoice date.
- To receive a refund or exchange for the full value of your purchase, products must be returned in new, store-bought condition within 90 days from the original invoice date.
- Products returned in used or worn condition within 90 days from the original invoice date can be exchanged for another item, or are eligible to receive a store credit for the full value of the purchase. Please note that while we want you to be happy with your purchases, an excessive number of used returns within a twelve-month period may limit your eligibility for exchanges or store credit.
- Products returned beyond 90 days from the original invoice date may be eligible to receive a store credit at the sole discretion of Running Warehouse.
- Please note: PayPal refunds made more than 60 days after the original payment are considered new payments and regular PayPal fees for receiving money will incur. Running Warehouse will refund the value of the product returned; the total amount of money received will reflect the refund less any PayPal fees.
- Shipping charges are non-refundable.
A major impediment to being able to do this for most people is that it’s simply cost-prohibitive to buy multiple pairs of shoes just to try them out in the hope that one will meet your needs. The two best ways to get around this are to either go to a good running specialty store that will let you take shoes on a short test run around the block (as my local store, Runner’s Alley in Manchester, NH does), or buy from an on-line store that allows you to return shoes that don’t work out even if you have run in them. A few stores have had such a policy, and I was pleased when I opened an email today from my advertising partner Running Warehouse that announced that they are starting a 90-day “No Sweat” return policy. Basically, the new policy allows you to buy a pair of shoes, run in it, and if it doesn’t work out you can return it for store credit or an exchange for another model. Sounds like they will place a limit on how often this can be done, so don’t plan on trying every shoe that they sell (which seems completely reasonable to me).
My big question is what happens to the returned, lightly used shoes? Seems like there could be a market for such shoes to be sold at a discount should they still be in decent shape (I’ve given away a bunch of lightly used shoes myself, and it really can help people for whom extra cash to spend on running shoes is not abundant). Hopefully the used shoes will get put to good use.
Here are the rules posted on the Running Warehouse returns page:
90 Day No Sweat Returns
Running Warehouse wants you to be completely satisfied with your purchase. Items can be returned at any point, new or used, within 90 days from the original invoice date.
- To receive a refund or exchange for the full value of your purchase, products must be returned in new, store-bought condition within 90 days from the original invoice date.
- Products returned in used or worn condition within 90 days from the original invoice date can be exchanged for another item, or are eligible to receive a store credit for the full value of the purchase. Please note that while we want you to be happy with your purchases, an excessive number of used returns within a twelve-month period may limit your eligibility for exchanges or store credit.
- Products returned beyond 90 days from the original invoice date may be eligible to receive a store credit at the sole discretion of Running Warehouse.
- Please note: PayPal refunds made more than 60 days after the original payment are considered new payments and regular PayPal fees for receiving money will incur. Running Warehouse will refund the value of the product returned; the total amount of money received will reflect the refund less any PayPal fees.
- Shipping charges are non-refundable.
Running With the Kenyans is a book that I had been looking forward to reading for quite some time. I was familiar with Finn’s work through a series of articles he wrote for The Guardian on running in Kenya, some of which I excerpted in my own book. His description of kid’s racing barefoot in Kenya was of particular personal interest.
The book is essentially the story of how Finn, a guy about my own age, decides to move with his family to the town of Iten, Kenya for six months to train and live among the best distance runners in the world. His motivations are many: to experience an adventure with his family, to take another crack at improving his running performance by training with the best, and to see if he could uncover some of the “secrets” that make the Kenyan runners so darned good at what they do.
There’s a lot to like about this book. Being a fairly self-competitive runner and a father of young kids, I could identify with Finn on an individual level, and the personal story struck a chord with me. Part travelogue, part running book, Running with the Kenyans is well written and a fast read – it’s a book that I had a hard time putting down. One of the things I enjoyed most about the book is that it gives a glimpse into the lives and personalities of the athletes that win most of the major distance races around the world. Included among the cast of characters are several runners who will be competing in the London Olympics in just over a month – it’s hard to read this book and not want to take a trip to Kenya to see these amazing individuals run the Thursday fartlek in Iten!
What will make this book of particular interest to many runners is Finn’s dissection of the factors that make Kenyans such phenomenal runners. What you come away with after reading Running With the Kenyans is that there are a lot of things that contribute to Kenyan running prowess, and that it’s the mix of factors coming together in a single location that is more important than any individual factor on it’s own.
Among the factors that Finn thinks are critical are an active, physical upbringing (involving a lot of running to and from school), a drive and motivation to succeed because running is a way out of poverty and a life of farming, immersion in a culture where elite runners are worshipped and are figures of immense respect in communities, and many others which I won’t give away here.
I did want to share a brief excerpt that will be of interest to readers of this blog. At one point Finn asks Brother Colm, who coaches many of the young elites, including Olympian David Rudisha, about barefoot running and form – here’s is part of Colm’s response:
“In the West we put children in shoes before they can walk. What are we teaching them? We’re teaching them the ground is dangerous, that they need to be protected from it. But Kenyan children can feel the ground, so they have a better relationship with it. They learn to place their foot carefully when they run, so they don’t hurt themselves. They learn to land gently, lightly, gliding over the earth rather than pounding it.”
Colm goes on to describe how he works with the Kenyans on form, but I don’t want to give away all of the good stuff here, you’ll have to read the book. I will note, though, that Finn observed that all adult Kenyan runners wear shoes, it’s just the kids who tend to go barefoot.
One other excerpt that I found interesting is the following:
“It’s interesting to note that the runners here still get injured despite their barefoot upbringing, but the types of injuries they get are different. ‘I don’t see many impact injuries,’ the physiotherapist at Lornah’s camp tells me one day. These are common injuries in the West and are usually the most serious and debilitating; things like runner’s knee, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, and stress fractures. In my time in Kenya I haven’t met a single athlete suffering from any of these problems. If someone is injured, it is always something less serious, such as a tight hamstring or a pulled calf. Or a cut leg.”
Running With the Kenyan’s is full of interesting passages like this one, and if you find these topics interesting you will really enjoy this book. It’s near the top among running books that I have read, and I highly recommend that you pick up a copy.
Running With the Kenyans is available for sale at Amazon.com.
Running With the Kenyans is a book that I had been looking forward to reading for quite some time. I was familiar with Finn’s work through a series of articles he wrote for The Guardian on running in Kenya, some of which I excerpted in my own book. His description of kid’s racing barefoot in Kenya was of particular personal interest.
The book is essentially the story of how Finn, a guy about my own age, decides to move with his family to the town of Iten, Kenya for six months to train and live among the best distance runners in the world. His motivations are many: to experience an adventure with his family, to take another crack at improving his running performance by training with the best, and to see if he could uncover some of the “secrets” that make the Kenyan runners so darned good at what they do.
There’s a lot to like about this book. Being a fairly self-competitive runner and a father of young kids, I could identify with Finn on an individual level, and the personal story struck a chord with me. Part travelogue, part running book, Running with the Kenyans is well written and a fast read – it’s a book that I had a hard time putting down. One of the things I enjoyed most about the book is that it gives a glimpse into the lives and personalities of the athletes that win most of the major distance races around the world. Included among the cast of characters are several runners who will be competing in the London Olympics in just over a month – it’s hard to read this book and not want to take a trip to Kenya to see these amazing individuals run the Thursday fartlek in Iten!
What will make this book of particular interest to many runners is Finn’s dissection of the factors that make Kenyans such phenomenal runners. What you come away with after reading Running With the Kenyans is that there are a lot of things that contribute to Kenyan running prowess, and that it’s the mix of factors coming together in a single location that is more important than any individual factor on it’s own.
Among the factors that Finn thinks are critical are an active, physical upbringing (involving a lot of running to and from school), a drive and motivation to succeed because running is a way out of poverty and a life of farming, immersion in a culture where elite runners are worshipped and are figures of immense respect in communities, and many others which I won’t give away here.
I did want to share a brief excerpt that will be of interest to readers of this blog. At one point Finn asks Brother Colm, who coaches many of the young elites, including Olympian David Rudisha, about barefoot running and form – here’s is part of Colm’s response:
“In the West we put children in shoes before they can walk. What are we teaching them? We’re teaching them the ground is dangerous, that they need to be protected from it. But Kenyan children can feel the ground, so they have a better relationship with it. They learn to place their foot carefully when they run, so they don’t hurt themselves. They learn to land gently, lightly, gliding over the earth rather than pounding it.”
Colm goes on to describe how he works with the Kenyans on form, but I don’t want to give away all of the good stuff here, you’ll have to read the book. I will note, though, that Finn observed that all adult Kenyan runners wear shoes, it’s just the kids who tend to go barefoot.
One other excerpt that I found interesting is the following:
“It’s interesting to note that the runners here still get injured despite their barefoot upbringing, but the types of injuries they get are different. ‘I don’t see many impact injuries,’ the physiotherapist at Lornah’s camp tells me one day. These are common injuries in the West and are usually the most serious and debilitating; things like runner’s knee, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, and stress fractures. In my time in Kenya I haven’t met a single athlete suffering from any of these problems. If someone is injured, it is always something less serious, such as a tight hamstring or a pulled calf. Or a cut leg.”
Running With the Kenyan’s is full of interesting passages like this one, and if you find these topics interesting you will really enjoy this book. It’s near the top among running books that I have read, and I highly recommend that you pick up a copy.
Running With the Kenyans is available for sale at Amazon.com.
I generally don’t run with my iPhone (unless I forget my Garmin), but lately I’ve been trying out a few running apps for reviews I’m working on, and I’ve come to realize that not only do I hate carrying my iPhone on my arm, it’s also really difficult to see and manipulate an iPhone that is not held in-hand. I’ve long been a fan of hand-held water bottles, so the idea of holding my phone in hand when I run seemed like a no-brainer, but doing so without something to secure it in place was always an issue.
The plastic faceplate of the case is flexible and allows you to manipulate the touch screen on the phone, though it’s not terribly form-fitting so this takes a bit of getting used to. That being said, it’s not generally the case that I’m trying to play Angry Birds while I’m running, so it does the job just fine.
All-in-all, the HB Tune handheld case is a handy little tool that I highly recommend. No frills, just does the job it was designed to do, and it does it well.
The iPhone version sells for $24.99 on the HB Tune website (also available at Amazon.com), and pouches are made for other smartphones as well. Visit the HB Tune website for more information.
I generally don’t run with my iPhone (unless I forget my Garmin), but lately I’ve been trying out a few running apps for reviews I’m working on, and I’ve come to realize that not only do I hate carrying my iPhone on my arm, it’s also really difficult to see and manipulate an iPhone that is not held in-hand. I’ve long been a fan of hand-held water bottles, so the idea of holding my phone in hand when I run seemed like a no-brainer, but doing so without something to secure it in place was always an issue.
The plastic faceplate of the case is flexible and allows you to manipulate the touch screen on the phone, though it’s not terribly form-fitting so this takes a bit of getting used to. That being said, it’s not generally the case that I’m trying to play Angry Birds while I’m running, so it does the job just fine.
All-in-all, the HB Tune handheld case is a handy little tool that I highly recommend. No frills, just does the job it was designed to do, and it does it well.
The iPhone version sells for $24.99 on the HB Tune website (also available at Amazon.com), and pouches are made for other smartphones as well. Visit the HB Tune website for more information.
My advertising partner, Running Warehouse, has just put a bunch of popular shoes/flats shoes on liquidation at really good prices – of interest to readers of this blog might be.
Men’s Shoes:
Women’s Shoes:
My advertising partner, Running Warehouse, has just put a bunch of popular shoes/flats shoes on liquidation at really good prices – of interest to readers of this blog might be.
Men’s Shoes:
Women’s Shoes:
“Available in both Men’s and Women’s models, the Vapor Glove is Merrell’s most minimal running shoe, with just a 6mm stack height front and back. It doesn’t get more minimal than this, folks. You still get a Vibram rubber outsole, durable mesh upper and external TPU heel support. Launches February 2013 at $80.00 MSRP.”
I asked for a bit more detail from my contact at Merrell, and was told that weight will come in a 5oz, and the sole has 2mm of EVA cushion plus a 4mm outsole. For comparative purposes, the Road Glove has 4mm of EVA, and the Bare Access has 8mm. Thus, this shoe will be the most minimal in the Merrell Barefoot collection.
Here are a few photos showing additional colorways (first two are men’s, second two are women’s):
“Available in both Men’s and Women’s models, the Vapor Glove is Merrell’s most minimal running shoe, with just a 6mm stack height front and back. It doesn’t get more minimal than this, folks. You still get a Vibram rubber outsole, durable mesh upper and external TPU heel support. Launches February 2013 at $80.00 MSRP.”
I asked for a bit more detail from my contact at Merrell, and was told that weight will come in a 5oz, and the sole has 2mm of EVA cushion plus a 4mm outsole. For comparative purposes, the Road Glove has 4mm of EVA, and the Bare Access has 8mm. Thus, this shoe will be the most minimal in the Merrell Barefoot collection.
Here are a few photos showing additional colorways (first two are men’s, second two are women’s):
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