Today is sprint day. I do sprints once a week, and add one per month, this month I am currently at 8 and will go to 9 in July. The low hill near my house is perfect. I warm up with a walk/run of about a mile, stopping to do air squats at each street lamp. This warms me up enough to engage in hill sprints without injury. Knock on wood.
I learned some things about running technique when I competed in a couple Olympic triathlons about 10 years ago. The run portion of 10k was my least favorite. Running sucks. But, I knew that good technique could help get through it, and that I could become much more efficient if I learned a few things. I read about “the pose” running method, landing on the balls of my feet not my heels, letting my leg lengthen out behind me a bit and allowing my footfalls to land under me instead of out in front of me. I noticed that using my core muscles via hip rotation seemed to incorporate more muscle, utilize my whole body and not just legs.
I discovered that running faster efficiently required a falling forward feeling – with my feet catching up and driving; that running is a kind of controlled forward fall. Wish I had known this consciously when I was a kid. I remember the exhilaration of running fast on the beach where the water and sand meet, I’m sure I ran this way instinctively, naturally when I was 7,8 9 year old. However, it’s kind of funny to remember this; I got to school one day in 7th grade and we were having timed 50 yard dash races that day. I was fired up and wanted to beat the competition. I remembered how fast I felt running all out on the beach and thought I could really show em’.
At the beginning of the race I just poured on the effort reaching out in front of me with my feet and pulling myself forward with all my might t get my speed up. My legs were clawing the blacktop before me and my body was not out front. Well, it wasn’t more than 5 or 6 clawing strides forward and my quadriceps muscle in my right leg suffered and awful “pull,” it felt like a tear really, I was in extreme pain and that injury stayed with me for many months. Years actually. I never really sprinted again until high-school football my junior year. I was healed but never forgot the agony of my former injury. My 40 time (common football speed metric) was not impressive. So, I paid a price for my ignorance, ego, and bad technique that day in seventh grade.
Now I fall forward consciously when I run, and have also incorporated the “jumping over logs” and pulling my rear leg foreword “like a bowstring releasing” as mental images. These mental techniques seem to help my sprints, I feel faster and smoother when I do this.
So, I don’t know much about running. I know it’s good for me, I know I don’t like it much, and I know the few techniques I have learned (like those mentioned above) have made me better and more efficient than I was. The main thing is to just do it, but do it without injury. Being able to physically run toward something or away from something seem like abilities I want to have for as long as possible, and practicing often is the only way.
Ben Wagner (169)
Member The 365 Commitment
