The Hobbit Hole

I’ve been recuperating from another broken metatarsal (#2) after running the Ragnar Relay this year. Both times I’ve had these fractures (the first was just a stress fracture, the second was an actual break) I was running in my Vibram Five Finger KSO’s.

I find this worrisome since, otherwise, I’ve loved the shoes and wear them for casual wear, not just running. I can tell they’ve strengthened my feet and made other differences. And as I’ve mentioned before, due to the barefoot running techniques I’ve adopted, I’ve all but eliminated the severe tendonitis I had in my shins. (It was so bad that I would ice my shins for a half hour after running just a few miles).

Let me state it’s not the shoes themselves that fixed the tendonitis. The Vibrams are like training wheels for learning the barefoot running technique. You don’t need the Vibrams to learn the technique, but to have them makes it more natural to adopt them, especially for those of us who don’t have large swaths of natural running surface nearby to run on. (There are some that advise against using the Vibrams to learn barefoot running.)

My podiatrist, unlike many others I’ve read about, has kept an open mind and hasn’t told me to stop using them. However, he has, as I have, made the connection that it must be something the shoes encourage, or at least don’t discourage, that is causing these breaks. He has heard about other cases from other doctors, so I’ve been doing more research on the problems with barefoot running and using Vibrams in particular.

As I’ve been doing more research, I went to a running clinic while I was on vacation. Runner’s Corner is a great little store. My wife was actually the one who found out about the clinic and signed us up. (She been a little skeptical of barefoot running, but recent changes to her stride from heel to forefoot have helped eliminate knee pain she’s had for the last several years.)

Honestly, I didn’t know this would be a barefoot running clinic. I did know they sold Vibram and thought they might have some advice on how to use them. Well, it was a real barefoot running clinic. They had us out on the lawn of a nearby park running barefoot and using a high-speed camera film us. They taught about posture, arm motion (or lack thereof), foot strike, and cadence (180+ steps per minute). Using the film, they gave each runner personal recommendations about how to adopt and/or improve their running technique. However, as someone who has researched this, I didn’t find anything new in the presentation. Still, I would heartily recommend the clinic if you want to learn the general barefoot technique and get some personal advice.

I did however stick around after the class. The two instructors, Brian and Golden, were willing to sit down with me and talk me through the problems. It turns out they had heard my story from a few other people and read about it several times in the forums of various barefoot running sites. They called it “Top of Foot Pain” or “TOFP”. What a difference having a simple phrase can make!

Armed with the new phrase, I was able to locate some interesting advice. I haven’t been able to try it yet since I’m still waiting for my foot to heal completely, but it looks promising:
1) I think the fit of my KSO’s is too tight. It seemed to me that the shoe should fit tightly since it was a ‘barefoot’ shoe. However, the shoe should have 1/4-1/2″ toe space and otherwise give room for your foot to swell since that naturally happens when you run.
2) The strap might be too tight. I do cinch the strap fairly tightly. Some have just cut the strap off.
3) I might be using my toes. As mentioned above, some prominent barefoot runners have advised against using Vibrams until the proper technique is used because using toes can cause overstressing of the foot.

So, there it is. I once again have hope for my barefoot running, especially in the Vibrams. Until then, I’m waiting for my foot to heal and my doctor to give me the all clear. He has said as soon as I’m healed that he will give me full measurements to see if there is a mechanical deficiency to explain why my left foot apparently has more stress on it than my right. Between these two things, I hope to be able to complete my first marathon early next year.

If you use a Mac and are a fan of Microsoft OneNote, you’ll like Notebook by Circus Ponies. For today only, it is 50% off, available for $25 through mupromo.com.

I don’t really think ATS is a replacement for C, but I really liked this post about using ATS to write safer programs using C libraries.

It seems that ATS is basically as fast as C/C++. l’ve been using different functional languages off and on for the last decade, and performance of some functional languages (or at least their implementations) has prohibited me from using them more broadly. Being able to add ATS to my arsenal (Clean being my preferred functional language for performance) is something I look forward to. I enjoy learning new languages.

Microsoft has released the most recent fruits of my team’s labor. The SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0 is now out.

This version contains a PDO driver. The PDO SqlSrv driver provides a full implementation of the PDO specification, though there are some things that we did different than other drivers. Which is not surprising, because not every driver does things the same way. However, we are actively soliciting feedback, so if you use PHP and PDO, please try our driver out and let us know what you think, and what you would like to see.

One of the key areas we’re interested in are SQL Server specific features. PDO has extensibility through driver specific methods. If there is some cool SQL Server feature that you want to use through PDO, let us know.

An important milestone for myself is that this is the first version I was the technical lead for. While I’ve written most of the code within previous versions, I was not actually responsible for the ‘code quality’. That always was the technical lead, who until now was mostly responsible for reviewing the code I wrote. With this release, I not only wrote alot the code, but was responsible ultimately for its quality. (Don’t worry, it was still reviewed by qualified people. )

The other important facet is that until this release, I wrote all the code. We now have an additional developer, so we can split the responsibilities and deliver more goodness for PHP! Just one more thing to show that Microsoft takes PHP seriously.

Many thanks to those who contributed to this release.