My Journey With Weight Loss – Keeping An Eye On My Gait

This week is a gruelling training week. I’ve upped my training intervals to 10 of 9:00 minutes running and 1:00 minute walking which I will do 2 days. I then will have a day of running 5 km and another running 8 km. Now for those of you who are concerned I am pushing it, not too worry my coach gave me guidance on what to do if it feels like too much. Quite frankly I am really looking forward to safely trying the 8 km on Saturday.

One of the things I really keep track of is my gait. As I have mentioned before, I worked hard to teach myself how to walk without a limp which was pretty hard to do since my knee does not bend anywhere near what it should nor can I straighten my leg fully. I particularly worried as my running increased that I would be having a bit of a limp as I run. Turns out I don’t. I monitor my walking asymmetry (which measures your walking pattern) and it is excellent. I also watch my double support time (measuring the percentage of time that both feet are on the ground) and it is always bang on normal. Yes, I do have to concentrate on making those things happened but it seems to be working.

I should note, I have been working hard on the exercises my physio gave me last week. While some of these exercises are quite difficult I can sure feel them working. Yesterday when I did the dreaded Oxford hill climb I realized my knee wasn’t bothering me later in the day as it often does. That tells me my hip muscles are getting stronger which ultimately will help me have a strong, balanced gait and help keep me injury free.