ThinkRunning

Long time no blog…

My running continues to improve and my recovery from the Summer long injury continues. I still only manage about a third of the miles I was used to running only six months ago. I now run about 30 miles per week but I enjoy it all. I have also started doing shorter races on a regular basis and have become quite keen on cross country races in particular. This kind of racing allows me to race all out yet for some reason I don’t hurt myself at all and my legs recover within 12 hours so I can train the following day with no trouble.

I continue to be pleasantly surprised at how I can run hard and simply not feel like I have run at all the next day. I know this is in no small part down to my technique. On Sunday I was experimenting with technique as I raced. The temptation of course is to try traditionally harder which means pushing yourself out of the mud and struggling forwards. Unfortunately this destroys your form and slows you down further whilst increasing the horrible fatigue feelings you get in your legs and pit of stomach on a tough race. Every time I felt myself bending forwards at the waist I made myself regain my upright posture and project my hips forward. This helped me a lot and allowed me to surge up the short hills although I was tiring.

I concluded that Pose Method or more like a proper running stance and technique works well whatever the terrain or type of race you are doing. The simple fact is that your biomechanics do not change from tarmac to grass, sludge or whatever. If you hit the ground like a brick you will hurt yourself even on soft ground – it may just take a bit longer…

During the race, every time I felt like I was slowing I checked my form and made adjustments to become more upright, project hips forwards and relax to allow myself to fall forwards. The sensation is one of riding on your legs, being dragged along by your navel/belt line and all you have to do is keep picking up your feet to catch up with the body and put them back down again to support yourself momentarily while you fall forwards again. The effort is felt in keeping the positioning right so you can keep the nice, light springy feel and maintain the falling forwards. Once you lose it you know because it all starts to feel horribly sluggish. Of course the race was very hard anyway but that is cross country racing. I like it simply because there is no let up,  just hard,  hard work from start to finish.

Helping a Friend

Today we visited a friend of ours in her new home. This woman is a keen runner frustrated with recurring injury. After chatting to her for a while I managed to convince her that since nothing else has worked maybe she should try to find out if she was doing anything wrong in her running technique. I knew there would be errors in her technique because I understood the nature of her injuries. The main recurring one is tendonitis at the back of the knee – sometimes the hamstring insertion, other times it’s the top of the calf/soleus insertion and typical runners knee – or patellar tendonitis. I took my camera along and made a short video of her running, then showed it back to her in slow motion. Sure enough she and I could very clearly see every error that I had earlier described to her that I said would be causing the injuries.I have summarised the errors below…

• Landing in front of GCM with straight knee on heel
• Pushing off hard and pointing toe
• Staying on ground too long as a result of the push off (this will make the other leg land in front of body)
• Swinging leg through rather than simply picking the foot up toward the bum thus using hip flexors to bring leg forward rather than hamstrings to simply pick foot up

Some time soon we will go on a very short run where I can show her what she needs to do to put things right. I did show her the basic principles but I was careful not to give her too much to think about all in one go. For now she will be practising falling towards the wall with both knees nicely bent in a relaxed manner. I never once mentioned Pose, Chi or any of the efficient running doctrines.