Inline Skate Frame Position: Friction and Burning Feet!

My skate frames have been in the wrong position all year!!! What an idiot. I finally felt like I had the time yesterday to tweak one of them and go for a spin. I set the right skate frame further inwards - where they had been all last year when I had no boot problems whatsoever - set off skating and got such great leverage off that right leg that I almost pushed myself over in the other direction.

That sounds uncomfortably like bragging, as in 'I'm in between movies', or 'I'm doing research for my next novel', and I'm sure this doesn't now mean I'm suddenly fast, but man it felt good to feel some of that leverage I felt last year. About ten seconds of disasterous skate memories from this 2008 training season flew through my brain, along with the explanation and ahah! moments about mysterious leg and foot problems I've been having all year. This explains my not being able to climb hills worth a flip, my burning feet sensations just one hour into a long skate, a consistently high heart rate and my nagging left knee pain. I've basically been pronating with both feet and both legs all year since Memorial Day weekend!

After the first day of the Hartwell Challenge of the Centuries bike event this past May's Memorial Day, I was rotating my wheels out in the hot sun and got hot and bothered to the point of throwing one of my skates down in the parking lot (yes, I know, very lizard-brained). This moved my frame. I picked up the skate and put the frame back where I thought it should go and realized then that the frame of the other skate was 'wrong' too. Ok it was hot out there in the midday sun. So I basically realigned both frames in the exact opposite position to what's good for me and my legs. My frames have stayed that way since the end of May this year. 

When I picture my odd-shaped legs attempting to get 'on top of my wheels', much less getting any kind of underpush, it all becomes clear and helps me understand how I've been so exhausted all summer and never seemed to get any fitter. Clairem is right about it being all about the frame placement!

In addition to my knees needing all the help they can get to achieve as near a straight line over my set-down (front view) as they can manage, the flat, outside edge of the soles of my feet don't need to have juddering frames right under them, either! With the frame situated under the arch of my foot, most of the vibrations are absorbed elsewhere in my boot.

In my euphoric, one-frame-correct skate yesterday (I went back to my car to excitedly change the left frame too and lost my best skate tool in the process! Aargh!), I rediscovered a somewhat natural recovery portion of my skate stroke. I was aware that my incorrect left leg was still exhibiting jittery convulsions instead of a smooth, effortless D shape. No wonder my legs have been aching all year. 

This is such happy news right before A2A. Last year's event didn't give me any foot pain at all and I have been utterly daunted this year knowing that from mile 15 to 87 I would have been in agony the whole time.