Learning to Walk Again.

Hi, my super intense continuum mechanics final is over, so I can actually get this blog and my healthier life started. My roommate has been making comments about my feet and walking style a lot in the past few weeks. I feel like I never notice the way people walk…so I’ll just blame the med student in him. Nonetheless, I probably have the flattest feet I’ve ever seen. My feet are long (size 11!!!), narrow, and flat, and as a result, I majorly ‘pronate,’ ie. walk on the inside part of my feet. He’d been bugging me to get them checked out for a while, but I always felt like the problems I had (sore ankles, shin splints if I ever decided to run), weren’t bad enough to get looked at. But, finally in the middle of this past week I let him take me to a local running shop to see what they had to say.

They put me in 3 different levels of motion control shoes and after walking/jogging in all of them I was told I would need the highest level of motion control they carried. The highest level, however, felt like too much of a change too fast, so I opted for level 2 with an extra insert. The people there were really great, even though it was kind of awkward to be analyzed walking and jogging around the store.

I honestly never thought I walked any differently than anyone else. I knew flat feel could cause issues for people, but I didn’t know exactly why. The sales girl showed me where I was wearing out my current shoes and I couldn’t believe how badly I deformed my shoe from walking on the insides of my feet. And honestly, I’d been lying to myself that it didn’t cause me pain. And not being able to run – one of the most popular forms of exercise – also kind of blows.

So, I ended up dropping some major bank on inserts and new shoes. Hopefully it’ll be worth it. Right now I feel like I’m learning to walk again. I can’t believe this is how you normal people walk. It feels so foreign to me, yet I can tell my posture is better. I feel taller. And I can tell the weight distribution in my knees is no longer skewed to the insides. Also, my hips open up more when I walk. I think all these things are probably better for my body. My only issue right now is some foot pain in the arches.

Here are my new snazzy 'handicapped' shoes. They are asics GT-2140's. So far I've been impressed by them. I didn't have much choice in style since I have huge feet for a girl, but the silver, blue, and yellow and been spiffy.

To get used to walking the new way and ease into a fitness program, I’ve decided to start a 6 week couch to 5K problem. I exercised a bit last week and accidentally overdid it. Somehow I passed the max heart rate level while kickboxing, and felt so ill. I can’t believe how easy it is to overdo it and not even realize it. So, I’m going to do the smarter thing this time and ease into a running program using a plan recommended by fitness experts for non runners like me. Hopefully this is the start of a new, normal walking, sometimes running, me!