Form Comes Eventually

When I first started running, I was really worried about my form. I read many books, listened to podcasts, read blogs, watched videos all on a quest to figure out the proper running form. I learned all these mental visualization techniques. Grabbing the moon, jumping over logs, firing the bow and many more. After a while I felt like a twisted pretzel loping down the road. Well actually a very pretty pretzel with all the fancy new running gear that I was wearing. Fancy compression sleeves, moisture resistant materials, state of the art shoes, awesome music armband thingy, water vests, etc.

I might have improved my form a bit. There were some things that I learned along the way. Ideas that I had not thought of that helped. For example, keeping my head up and chest forward was helpful, perhaps how my arms should move, and a little on the way my feet struck the pavement. I even tried running meditation, which was fun until I lost focus one time and ran straight into a ditch.

Here is the truth. The only thing that really helped me with my running form was time spent running. The more time that I have spent running, the better my form has got. That is just the natural way of things. Your body, mind has this insane ability to adapt to optimum efficiency when under pressure. That is just how it works.

This last couple of weeks, I was suffering from a lung infection. Consequently, I had to seriously layoff the long runs. Keep them short and not spend as much time running in the cold air. This gave my body a significant amount of time to recover. Starting Monday, I poured myself back into some serious running effort. The first few days were an adjustment for sure, but this morning something different happened. I thought I was running slow. That was my intent. A nice long slow run. However, about half way through the run, I realized that my pace was much faster then usual and it was taking less effort to do so.

Then it dawned on me, my form was awesome! I was doing everything right! Of course as soon as I noticed it, I started screwing it up. However, for about 5 miles I was really flowing smoothly. I learned a very powerful lesson about form.

In anything that you are trying to get good at, you do need to spend sometime learning how to do it. However, not too much time. The most important thing you need is practice. Time performing the activity. The form will come….eventually.

Guy Reams