Newton Trainers - First Test...

I finally made the plunge into buying these trainers and as I did, it came with a warning from the assistant.

•      Make sure my first run is short
•      Strengthen your calf muscles
•      Stretch your calf muscles to ensure they are soft and flexible

Hmm good advice? Well for the last six months, one gym machine I have been using is doing weighted calf raises anyway. I have suffered from Achilles tendonitis so a foam roller and daily stretching I do, do quite often (ok maybe should even do more). Keeping my first run short... Hmm how short are we talking?

As it happened, I chose a morning run to my nearest tube station at the O2. My early morning runs before work consist of an easy one mile jog as a warm up, stretch a bit more while I adjust my ruck sack before I then start my Garmin and phone app to run varying routes but roughly the distance is 7.5 miles.

Now was the time to compare my morning jog with other runs in my Asics 1160's. Within the first 100 metres if anyone who was, watching me must have wondered why I was grinning like a Cheshire cat! My god the forward push really does launch you forward as I found on the flat roads I needed to raise my knees higher so my leg rotates downwards and I landed on my mid/front part of my foot to gain the forward push. Although I was concentrating in doing this, I'm sure I could grasp this naturally in my future runs. My first mile marker so some 20 seconds quicker before soon I turned and headed up my first hill. The front foot motion I powered up this hill with such little effort. I got to the top and still managed to run off the top of the hill and glancing at my heart rate is was the lowest I've ever seen running up this hill. I then must have raised my heart rate as I started to get excited about these trainers now. That was until the downward section as running down it on my front foot I had no confidence in doing so just yet. Therefore, I ended up running down leaning backwards on my heels (as usual). So something to practice another day

After four miles, I did start to feel a dull ache in my calf muscles and as I ran on the ache got worse and worse. As I approached seven miles, I resorted to walking as it felt like I had a golf ball wedged into my muscles. Even as I entered the tube and stopped my watches the time was noticeably quicker than my previous runs and I didn't feel like I had put in the extra effort to justify the time.

I was absolutely beaming as I got on the tube and continued my journey into work. When I got off the other end and tried to run the final hundred metres into work... Hmm I just couldn't. I showered changed and slapped on my Bio-freeze and compression tights. As the day went on my walk blatantly turned into a hobble, by the following day I seriously could not walk properly as my calf muscles had gone on strike. Trying to stand on tip toes, No chance! Which proves using 8.5 miles as a "short"

first run in my Newton's appears to be way too far. Five days later and I'm still suffering with pains in my calf muscles. These 8.5 miles is still well short of my usual half/full marathons and if this were a race, I could have been looking at a DNF (No Joke!) This now means alternating my trainers and working on my calf muscles until I can run a full distance in my Newton's pain free. I have a 10K race in October so hopefully by then I can use my Newton's in race trim and see how I get on. Now I must strengthen my calf muscles but keep them supple at the same time so you may hear me swearing in the gym whilst I use their foam roller. You may be reading this and think is this pain or change in running style necessary? Not to mention the expense in paying for these dearer trainers. My opinion is that this pain won't last forever......(hoping)