Wow! That's great to hear. Thanks for the review of the supplements because I have been debating or thinking hard for the last 3-4 months whether it is worthwhile to take those supplements. I will certainly give 'em a try.

glucosamine sulfate supplements work, i had knee pain after jogging every day and within a few weeks, my knee joint was much better

Good point. You have voiced a precious concern. Joint health is certainly of paramount importance to runners, primarily due to high impact forces sustained in knee and ankle joints.

It appears that as long as running is kept under a load that does not result in joint injury (i.e., as long as joints are not over-used), the joints ought to be fine, at least according to these medical reports xnet.kp.org www.umm.edu). It is reported that ?long-distance running does not increase the risk of osteoarthritis of the knees and hips for healthy people who have no other counterindications for this kind of physical activity? and that ?running might even have a protective effect against joint degeneration? www.jaoa.org).

Still, I would opt to follow the age-old advice: treat the body with care. I have gone so far as to consider taking glucosamine sulfate supplements to enhance joint mobility and flexibility.

runners, take care of your joints, don't stress them out, i had read that overdoing running can have disastrous affects on ones joints in later years

NYC marathon is awesome. Go for it! Wish you all the best.

Just recently getting serious about running. Aiming to run at the NYC Marathon in 2008, since it's too late for this November's.

I am sorry to hear about your muscle tear. I myself often get lazy and forgo thorough stretching, so I have felt tight calves and quads. Your injury smacks sense into me to take stretching more seriously.

Running seems to be a sport that requires consciously controlled power and discipline. Adrenaline rush tends to push me too over the edge (too much, too soon). I have felt that the power of the conscious self plays a huge role in overcoming the hormonal rush to outsmart one's present fitness. One of the reasons that I like running is that the discipline from following an endurance training program to prepare for a race strengthens my discipline and sharpens my strategic planning in persevering to attain certain goals in other spheres of life as well. Abiding by the principles of a sound training program with disciplined restraint and consciously saving the real energetic juices for race day seems to be the name of the game, especially in marathon training. It is hard for me to restrain myself in training when I am not racing. But I should condition myself to save the energy and the adrenaline rush for racing.

I hope you recover and heel well soon.

I wish the MBT was available as a running shoe because it seems like a good concept. Boy, that PTT sounds a lot more serious than mine. I had no problem walking with PTT, other than minor ache. I can understand how annoying and painful it can be. I used to do rehabilitation exercises for my PTT www.sportsinjurybulletin.com). It's good to know that you recovered within 3 weeks. My injury was not so serious but it very annoying in that it kept recurring. It would start out as a minor ache right around 20-30 minutes of running. So much so that I did not even need to use my watch. I would simply wait till the PTT sounded the "ache alarm" ;-) At that point, I would know that I had been running for at least 20 minutes.

Pleased to meet you, Aamir. Your race time goals are competitive and respectful. The numbers that I posted for 5K and 10K are the personal bests from my more youthful heydey. Since I have not run half-marathon or marathon, the numbers for the longer distances are race time equivalents based off the middle distance race times.

Last year, I switched from heel strike to mid foot strike running using the Pose Method posetech.com). PM is more energy efficient and faster running technique. It transfers the impact force from the shins, lower leg, and knees to the more powerful core muscles of the hips. As there is no free lunch in other aspects of life, there is no free lunch with PM either since too much, too soon of PM causes calf soreness and ankle injury. Excessive PM without first perfecting proper technique cost me 5 months of posterior tibialis tendonitis in the right ankle www.comfortshoe.com). I learnt that the cause of the injury was lifting and holding the heel too high with midfoot running, but ever since I corrected the error the pain has dissipated.

Because of the injury, I had to quit running for a while or decrease mileage. I hope to slowly build back upto 35-40 miles a week in the next 3 months before returning to racing injury-free.