Running. Not just for cowards.

Here's my stance: Being just moderately good at running means you'd make a great coward.. Just enough juice to run away..

Mastering your running and striving to improve the way you move implies that maybe you'd try to get to the action with urgency, which is definitely not what a coward would do.

What is a good runner? A good runner is a fast runner. Simple as that. So now the question becomes "how do I get faster?" As many of you have heard me shpeel before, speed of movement relies on efficiency (as does safety, conveniently). To become efficient at moving, one must reduce any and all extraneous impediments. Meaning, one must reduce the forces that are acting upon him or her in the opposite direction of the movement.

One of those forces is friction. That one is easy. What we do is just get our foot off of the ground as fast as humanly possible during "change of support" phase, thus turning friction into minimal traction (the necessary part to stay in line).

The hard part is to reduce the impeding impact of an incorrect foot strike. If your heels strike the ground before your forefoot, you're putting the brakes on any forward movement and will thus have to re accelerate every time you step forward. That's hard, inefficient, and injurious. No surprise that when a person tells me about all sorts of their running injuries (ITB syndrome, planter faciitis, shin splints, patellar tendinitis, stress fractures, knee and hip issues, the list is long) that their running is generally wrong. Yet they keep doing more and more of it incorrectly. It takes 10 seconds to spot, a few weeks to fix, but few are willing to do the work.

read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/running-christopher-mcdougall.html?_r=4&hp=&pagewanted=all


Then here's my advice. Instead of going for jogs (coward practice), perhaps you could spend a few (like 10-15) weeks working or stride form and consistency.

Figure out how long you can hold proper form for until it breaks down. Most people are looking at less than 100m. I'm talking about a full pull through a full range of motion. Once anything falters, you're done... It's a downward spiral. So even if your chin pops up, you're done. Your goal will be to do several (6-8) well-executed intervals at about half that distance, and slowly build onto that. It wouldn't hurt to break it down even further to shorter intervals.

So start doing very short intervals. At like 65-85%. If you have a metronome, life gets easier. I like this one http://www.amazon.com/Seiko-DM50S-Digital-Metronome-Silver/dp/B00074B62A/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1320874201&sr=8-5  . Work up to a 90bpm pull-pace per foot (set to 180bpm total).

*Hint: First learn to run in place. That's the hard part of running. Once that's dialed in, start moving forward ever so slowly while still holding the pulling pace for maybe 30 seconds at  time. If your form breaks, end that set. You want to work up to at least 90 beats-per-minute (180bpm total) pace per foot. This takes time. Weeks. You must be patient. And you must be OK with breaking your running addictions if you have them. You're used to running 30 miles a week? Tough shit, you're now running 300 feet a week. Until you learn to do it right, don't do it.

If your running form is perfect and you see no need for improving it or you have no desire to become a better runner or don't believe me then simply disregard this post as it does not apply to you.

Thanks

** Side note: We talk about proper shoes a lot. We like minimal footwear without much squishy stuff below the foot to hinder the movement. It's not that shoes are bad, it's just that they make proper movement more challenging and thus create unnecessary limiting factors that may increase the chances of injury to some.