When you do something repeatedly, frequently over a long period of time you start to gain efficiency in the activity. It is inevitable. This is the natural consequence of experience. Yes, experience is the best teacher. That is absolutely true.
So I have been running most everyday for well over 1000 days in a row. I am not an awesome runner by any stretch. I am not a high performing athlete either. I am not all that fast, but one thing I am becoming is efficient. Really efficient. I have become good at spending the least amount of energy possible to cover the distance that I am running at the speed that I want. Call it my internal laziness. I have a lot of incentive to reduce the strain of the running conditions that I put myself in.
From a physical, objective sense I have evidence for this. My average heart rate has reduced and my ability to process more oxygen has increased. Those are numbers that I actually can see. I am spending less energy for the same amount of distance and speed that I did 2 years ago. So I have gained efficiency, and that has happened as a natural consequence of repetition.
I have started to identify the ways in which this efficiency has been accomplished. This is serving, in my mind, as a model for other areas in my life. As I work on improving something, and come up with a repetitive task to accomplish that improvement, I start to formulate what I call efficiency patterns. Here is a rundown of the ones that I have come up with. They are all designed for one real purpose, which I will explain as I go.
Pattern #1 – Pitfall
Do you remember the Activision game called “Pitfall?” it was a console game in which you had to jump over, under and swing through obstacles. The game was pretty fun, and lots of people grew up playing it in my generation. Anyway, I was always frustrated by the rolling logs that would come at you. You had to time your leap over them just right or you would die. My first area of efficiency is when I am running, I think of this game pitfall. I imagine that as I am running, the rolling logs are coming my way. As a result, I have to lift my legs higher so that I can clear the logs as they roll past. This causes my feet to leave the ground for a greater duration of time. The less time your feet are in contact with the ground, the faster you will go. It is pure physics. When your foot is striking the ground you are increasing friction and therefore slowing down. So, if you lift your legs like you are playing pitfall, you increase your time in the air and reduce your friction. Simple science. The earth flies underneath you, while both feet are in the air. The more that happens, the easier and more efficient your run will be.
Pattern #2 – Iron Man
Imagine you were running in an iron man suit? Sure, you would have the advantage of mechanically assisted joints, heads up display and all of that. However, if you really had this suit then you would want to take advantage of the thrusters imbedded in the soles of your metal boots. Now if you have ever watched someone run from behind, you will notice that their feet lift up pretty high behind them, especially if they are running fast. While you are running, try to think of where your soles of your shoes are pointing when your foot lifts off the ground to take another step. Does the sole of your shoe point downward, at an angle toward the earth, straight behind you, or up in the sky? Now if you were in an iron man suit and you wanted to time a thruster to go off at the right moment, when would you want it to fire off? If you hit the thruster when your foot was aimed downward then you would shoot into the air, but not necessarily forward. If you hit the thruster when the sole of your foot was aimed upward, then you would push into the earth, that is not good. So you would want to time the thruster to hit right when your foot was aimed straight back. Meaning the sole of your shoe was pointing directly backward. Now, as you run, think that you are iron man and you have that thruster in the bottom of your shoe. If that is the case, you would want to make sure that your foot was pointed straight back each time you lifted your foot. Doing this, will do the same thing that you achieve with pitfall, more time in the air.
Pattern #3 – Frog Feet
Now imagine you have frog feet. Feet the come down to the ground like a spatula. Now if you really had frog feet, what would you do? Your flappy feet, soft paddle like with wide spread out toes. You would do the same thing that a frog does when it runs! You would barely scrape those feet on the ground, you would actually reduce the contact with the ground as much as possible. You would literally scrape the ground as you skimmed across the surface. This reduces your friction in ground contact. Light. Smooth. Fast. I have discovered that as soon as I think about frog feet, I tend to run lighter with my feet scrapping instead of planting. Planting the foot it bad. Why? Think of it this way. If you were to run into a wall and you put your hands out, then your hands would slow down or stop your momentum, right? Of course. The SAME thing happens when you plunk down your big foot hard and straight into the ground with a thunderous impact. It sends a shock wave back up into your body. You are literally slowing down, and disrupting your momentum with every foot strike! Instead, think frog feet!
Pattern #4 – Reach for the Moon
Now imagine while you are running that the moon is just off the horizon at about a 45 degree angle. While you are running, lift your hands in the air and pretend that you are trying to grab that moon and bring it to your chest. Several things happen when do this. You are more upright, but more important your entire body leans forward. Why is that important? Think on this. When your foot hits the ground and you push off slightly, what direction is your body in? If it is straight up and down then most of your energy goes straight up and down. When you are leaning forward, reaching for the moon, your energy is pointed in a forward direction. In fact when you do this while running, you will instantly increase speed in a dramatic fashion.
Pattern #4 – Robinhood
Finally, and this is more advanced. It is the idea of building a taut, high release energy in your leg muscles. When running, as you scrape your frog feet along the ground, think Robinhood. Imagine that your back foot is really the hand of Robinhood as he draws back a large, very powerful bow. He is ready to launch an arrow, so you delay just for a moment and then as you lift your leg up and extend forward you release the bow and arrow, the pent up energy from the taut bow string. This causes you to become more explosive, lengthens your stride and gives you greater ability to power through hills and other tough times while running. If your foot is going to hit the ground, then use its leverage while it is there for the maximum capability. Make sure that is launching of that back position with speed, and as you do this and learn to think like this you will increase your leg turn over speed. That causes maximum efficiency.
You will never be able to think about these all at once. Do not even try. You do not even need to do anything. All you need to do is run. Everyday. Then on an occasion, think about these concepts. Your brain will automatically start adapting your runs to fit these, because your mind and body really likes efficiency.
Guy Reams
