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[at-l] re: stress fractures

emily - 

people on this list know i am an advocate of lightweight footwear to save
the pounding on the knees, but that obviously goes hand in hand with a
light pack!  also, that's after i did a thru-hike and knew that my legs
were strong and healthy enough to use lightweight boots/shoes with no
adverse effects.  (note also that Ray Jardine took one thru-hike to figure
it out too!)

the two cases of stress fracture i knew of in 92 were:
        1)      chad leonard north started with a lightweight pair of boots
and a heavy pack and lots of miles, and by hot springs had small stress
fractures under most of his toes.  they were quite minor, he took a week
off, got a midweight pair of boots, and finished august 12 (with a bit of
yellow blazing!).
        2)      analog kid had average boots and average pack load but was
in the habit of doing easy days (5-10 miles) followed by a monster day or
two (25-30) to catch up with friends.  he developed a severe stress
fracture by bastian, and had to go home.

moral (?) or at least my two cents - if you think you may be prone to
stress fractures, and it sounds like you are, get a good sturdy pair of
boots, keep your pack weight down and stay away from big-mile days.  and
whatever you do, if something hurts, STOP and rest it for a few days.  this
is much harder to do than it sounds, (i know because i couldn't, and in
retrospect i was very lucky) but if you listen to your body and catch
things early on, it can be the difference in making it to katahdin or
catching an early bus home.

i see a lot of 98ers hangin' around.  anyone else tempted to take the
plunge after listening to all these 97ers get psyched up?

mike
ke kaahawe

 .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
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Michael Henderson		mikeh@royalrobbins.com

There is more to life than increasing it's speed - Ghandi
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