Running, among other things, is an escape from my hectic day of dealing with people, working through problems, and interacting with technology. Even when I have run as part of a training regimen, not simply for pleasure, the act has still offered an escape from routine. I have some gadgets that help me track my runs - distance, time, heart rate, and total mileage - but I rarely use them. Frankly, I don't usually care much or want to know. And after many years of running, I can usually tell how quickly I'm covering a mile within about 15 seconds of actual time. I know my routes and distances, and I find that whenever I use technology it has a tendency to make even training runs tense, as I try to keep a target pace or heart rate over a certain distance - not to mention that battery life on most satellite GPS watches I've used doesn't last through long training runs or ultra marathons.
Here is a piece of (let's just say) 'gear' that I think I would rather quit running than buy http://running.competitor.com/2015/01/news/altra-introduces-halo-shoe-built-midsole-sensor_120794. I realize that Altra, like every other shoe brand, has to keep up with (or get ahead of ) the competition. But a shoe that does gait analysis for every single foot strike is, for 99.999% of the running world, overkill. I may certainly be in the minority of runners in absolutely hating this concept. If I were an elite runner working on the minutia of every aspect of my form, then I might use these. But we already have perfectly good natural sensors built into our feet, ankles, knees, and hips. Gait analysis is also available free at many running stores. Why anyone would want to add this technology to the overload of information that we already have (and likely don't really need in most instances), escapes me. Sole tracking seems so soul-sucking. And, while I'm no fan of minimalist running, the release of this product makes me want to throw my shoes in the trash and run barefoot.
It's not even that this would be too much information... though it would be... it's that this information isn't really that useful. At all. So far as we know, footstrike is something your body pretty much figures out, and actively trying to change it doesn't help. There are anecdotes saying otherwise, of course, but no data that I know of. Similarly, measuring ground reaction forces hasn't given us much to work with. It seems the forces themselves are the same, it's just a question of distribution. You can't really have a "lighter" footstrike.
ReplyDeleteVery good points, Alex. I agree that the information is likely not really useful at all. In my running as a masters runner (read older), I experience different pains/twinges throughout almost every run I do. I find that I can eliminate or mitigate pain by changing from a center to a forefoot strike (and even sometimes a heel strike) without a machine telling me I need to do it.
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