I mentioned a while back that my increase in running was causing me to have some pain on the tops of my feet. It wasn’t just the increase in running though, I’ve had it before and it just seems kind of random.  One major point of running barefoot is to listen to your body tell you when you need to change something, so I cut back a little bit on my running and left it at that for a bit.

Stacey over at ArtSnark’s Artifacts mentioned that she was curious enough to Google what would cause that.  Geez.  Why didn’t I think of that?  I Google everything else! So I did too.

My results were actually pretty funny.  The number one cause of top of the foot pain is running in shoes that are too tight.  The number one suggestion to combat it is to loosen your shoes.  Um, that just isn’t going to work for me.  Another suggestion was to stop running for a while.  Seriously?  I wasn’t injured I just had a wee bit of pain.

Finally I gave up on Google (don’t usually have to do that!) and went straight to the Running Barefoot site and did a search there. I found a good article on foot pain after barefoot running in general and specifically what can cause top of the foot pain. Basically the article says top of the foot pain after barefoot running can be caused by ‘pushing off’ with your foot as you run.

Hey, I don’t do that!  So to prove it I had my son take a video of me running on the treadmill so I could see exactly how my feet did or did not push off.

Damn it, they did.

This whole taking pictures and videos of myself to check out my form is really a bit of a bummer.  But also a learning experience so I started concentrating on lifting my legs when I run instead of pushing off the ground.  It’s one of the two hardest parts of running with good form (for me) and they are, of course related. The second is cadence which will always be a work in progress.

So according to the article and many other sources of barefoot running knowledge the trick is “Instead of pushing off, begin lifting your foot BEFORE it lands.”  Not just this, but also lifting your entire foot, forefoot first, instead of rolling your foot up heel first like it seems that I very much do. This is not something that comes natural to me and it is not anything like easy for me to even completely comprehend.  I try to do it and I feel like I am prancing like a kid pretending to be a pony.  Plus I start moving my feet much, much quicker (as I think you are supposed to actually) and then I am tired 2 minutes later.

So this one is a bit more of a challenge for me than running with bent knees. I think it’s something that will take me awhile to really get, but I believe that running form is probably something that you have to check back in on along the way no matter how long you have been running so that’s alright.

But guess what. Although I don’t think about lifting my legs all the time nor do I think about lifting forefoot first too often it seems I’ve been thinking about it enough.  Because I no longer have any pain on the top of my feet at all.  It took a good week or two of practicing the forefoot bit but it worked!

Do you ever think about how you are touching the ground when you run? Do you push your legs into the ground with each stride or do you try to lift your feet with each step?  Do you think it even matters?

The more I study and try to practice good running form the more I’m becoming a believer!

I’ve read in several places that one of the keys to running is to run with a cadence of 180 a minute or faster.  The science behind it depends on the study you read, but the theory sounds sound to me.

Basically the faster your cadence the less time your foot is on the ground with each step.  The less time your foot is on the ground the more time is is not on the ground – resulting in a lighter, less injury prone step.

This is especially important when you are running barefoot over rough terrain such as gravel or, a favorite here in Florida, broken up shells. They cover a lot of the otherwise sandy roads in the parks here. The reason this is so helpful is, again, because you don’t want your feet to totally settle (or slam) into the ground.  You can test that by taking a short jog over some pebbles or gravel, and then trying to walk on them.  When you are walking your foot settles fully into the ground, and you feel EVERYTHING.

I’ve had two issues with running at 180 beats per minute.  No, I haven’t even tried for faster than that.

One, if my feet are moving that fast then I get tired too quickly no matter how slow I’m running. One of the advantages of a higher cadence is said to be a smoother, more effortless run. I believe this simply because so many professionals say  it’s true – but so far it certainly feels like a lot of effort to me! I’m hoping that with practice that won’t be true.

Two, how the heck am I supposed to know I’m running at the right cadence?  Technically speaking you should be able to count how many times one foot touches the ground for a minute and then multiply that by 2. I have an issue with that, wouldn’t I already have to be running at my normal speed when I started the stop watch? Um, I can’t really concentrate on both of those at the same time.  It’s physically impossible for me to be that graceful. BUT I did manage to do it by setting a stopwatch on my phone and then setting the phone on the treadmill so that all I had to do once I settled into my normal speed was hit the start button and count how many times my right foot touched the ground until the beeper went off.  82 times.  That’s a cadence of 164 which is actually quite a bit better than I would have guessed! I think it’s a bit high to be honest. I was trying to run at my normal pace but I DID know I was timing myself and human nature and all…

Unfortunately some suggestions I’ve read to help with improving in this area just don’t work for me.  First I tried running to music with a beat at a particular cadence.  Turns out the fact that I don’t dance isn’t a fluke. I just don’t get it.  Fortunately for you it seems that music does work for everyone else on the planet. However, when I try it I either can’t find the beat I am supposed to be running to for more than about 30 seconds at a time OR I kind of hear it, but my lame attempts at running to it makes it look like there is something very, very wrong with me.

Moving on.

How about an app to turn my phone into a metronome?  Now this works for me.  It seems like it should be boring to just listen to the tick-tick-ticking but to me it’s kind of meditative. I have the RunSafe app and I don’t use all the features but I like it for this. It not only gives you the beat to run to, it counts your steps and tells you how you are doing. I think it would be more accurate if I didn’t carry my phone in my hand, I need to invest in an arm band.

So, all of that said, what to do to improve cadence? Here’s my plan.

• Add a one mile run a week where I try to concentrate on cadence the entire run.  I’ll use the app and set it at a slightly higher cadence than I usually run at.
• Cut my Tuesday run to 2 miles and run fartleks.  I’ll simply pick up my cadence a good bit until I pass a light post or two a few times during the run. Sound kind of random and unstructured?  That’s why I chose fartleks. You can be random and still do it right.
• I’ll keep my last 2 runs of the week at 3 working on 3.5 miles and not worry about a thing while running besides what music I feel like listening to.

They say you can’t learn to run faster without running faster – and I fear this falls into the same category. I’m not convinced that 180 is the magic number for everyone, but I am convinced that barefoot running can be improved by a faster cadence- so here goes.

Do you think that a higher cadence is a key to good running form?  If you work on your cadence how do you do it?  I’d love to hear some suggestions on good apps or any drills you can recommend to help improve running cadence.

As you know if you’ve been reading along I don’t run a ton of miles, but I do want to do the miles I run right.  I randomly think about my form and I feel like it’s pretty good but of course most everyone’s form could be better.

I had a non-running form wake up call the other day though when I asked my daughter to take a picture of me doing chaturanga and then took a look. Um, I felt like I was doing it so great!  Not so much from the camera’s point of view, I was much much higher up than I thought and my elbows weren’t as pulled in as I thought.  It’s my body, I really thought I knew what it was doing. Stupid everything.

Anyways, I’m going to start concentrating on one aspect of my running form at a given time for a while and see if it makes a difference in how I run.  Well, in how I perceive I run since that’s probably a totally different thing.

First thing to concentrate on is one of the most important according to Ken Bob Saxton, and who am I to argue with him?  Especially when it’s his book, Barefoot Running Step by Step that really got me started in the first place.

Bend your knees!  It makes a lot of sense after someone says it out loud.  If you run with your legs straight you are not allowing your knees to work as they are intended to and you are jarring your whole body with every step.   Keeping your knees bent while running allows them to absorb some of the shock that running can otherwise put on your body.

How much should your knees bend when you run?  I’d guess it’s different for everyone but here’s a video of an expert – take a look.