I find running to bevery cathartic. I can purge myself of the everyday stresses of life even with just a short two mile run, but there is nothing more cathartic than an hour or longer run. It wasn't always this way. Before the age of 46 I never ran as a regular routine. Up until the mid 30's I played softball and flag football so running was involved, but I never really considered myself a runner. In the early 80's I read Dr Cooper's book, "Aerobics."
I remember thinking to myself that I should start running regularly, so I went out to run a 12 minute fitness test to see what kind of shape I was in. I remember that I ran about 1.75 miles in that 12 minute test. According to the chart in Dr. Cooper's book that put me in the excellent category. I was pretty proud of myself but still not motivated enough to start a regular program of running.
As time went on my wife and I had children. Work and family life began to slow down my sports life to some extent and my junk food diet began to catch up with me. This would have been the perfect time to incorporate a regular running regimen of at least 3 miles 3 days a week to maintain fitness. However I started spending more and more time on the couch in front of the TV eating things like pizza and ice cream and less and less time doing anything to do with sports or fitness. Eventually, after going back to school full time and working full time I had ballooned up to 212 pounds.
After I graduated I decided that I had to do something, and that is when I started training to run a marathon. You can read more on that in my first post on this blog. At first running was a real effort. When you are as out of shape as I was when I started, it takes a lot of effort to push yourself out the door to run. Running never becomes effortless but going strait from the couch to running takes a lot of effort. After the first three weeks of running I began to notice that I could run farther faster than when I had started. This was very encouraging to see. That progress gave me the impetus to continue.
So as many of you know I went on to finish my first marathon and have now finished 20 marathons. I look at running as having saved my life. I think I would become very depressed if I were not able to continue running. I find that having goals is a great motivator. I may never set any new PR's for myself but I can always set a goal for particular race. Then again there is still the outside chance that I may be able to set a new PR.
Recently as I begin to think that PR's in marathons and lesser distance races are a thing of the past I have been contemplating the idea of running ultras. For those who don't know an ultra race is generally any race distance beyond 26.2 miles. However, there are those who don't really consider a race distance as ultra until 50 miles or more. I remember when contemplating 26.2 miles was hard to imagine but now I can actually visualize myself running 50 miles or more. The only real problem to that is keeping myself under control so as not to do too much too soon. You see I have the tendency to push my training to the point of injury. If I can avoid injury I can certainly set some new records for myself as far as ultra distance running is concerned.
One of the great things about ultra running is that most of the time these races are done mostly off road away from the hustle and bustle of the street. I love trail running because I can more easily lose myself in the surrounding wonder of nature. It gives me a greater sense of enjoyment from my running than just running the same old courses all the time. Running in general has become a kind of sanctuary where I can go and find myself. I can do some introspection and then when I get back to the so called, "Real World," I am much more relaxed.
I do most of my running by myself. That is, not alongside other runners. Not that I don't enjoy running with others, as I do enjoy both. It is just that I really enjoy being alone sometimes while running. When I run with others I don't have as much time for my own thoughts. Even when I do run with others I am probably not considered the most stimulating of conversationalists!
Running has simply become a part of my lifestyle and it is such a part of my life that to not be able to run is a horrible feeling. Whenever illness or injury sideline me I find that I become anxious, and sometimes downright irritable with others. Running is something I hope to continue for the rest of my life. For some people, dieing in their sleep is the perfect way to leave this planet. I'm not planning on leaving this world anytime soon, but if and when I do, a run in the hills would be the perfect way to go. Just like Caballo Blanco!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
Update on Stride Length and Running Form
Well it has been a little over seven weeks since I started working on changing over from a heal toe strike to a mid-foot fore-foot strike. I have also been working on my stride turnover rate going from about 80 up to 90 or higher.
The first week of running in this new style was humbling! I was pretty good at keeping the mid-foot strike but often drifted back into my old turnover rate. I really had to concentrate on the faster turnover rate especially since I grew tired more quickly from working my muscles in a slightly different way. After about two weeks I began to feel more comfortable running this way and did not have to concentrate nearly as hard on my form as it became more natural.
I started this new running form in my old stability shoes and orthotics. After about 4 weeks I bought a new pair of shoes designed specifically for a mid-foot strike. They are Brooks Pure Flow shoes and they are really light weight and feel great. I knew from the start that I wanted try and learn to run in them without my present orthotics. In order to avoid injury I would have to start running in them for short distances first and should probably avoid hills as much as possible. My first run in them was only four miles. They felt a little strange to me on the first mile but by the second mile I was in love with them. After my run I felt great and had no problems. I had not been doing any leg strengthening work and decided to do a short workout after the run. The next day I knew better but decided since I felt good that I would try and do a twelve mile run in my new shoes and it would include about 700 feet of both uphill and downhill. I started with a slight uphill for about a half mile and then a pretty good downhill for the next half mile. Still felt great. I then had some relatively flat but slightly undulating ground to run over through mile 2.5 from there I had mostly downhill again for the next 1.8 miles and then a gradual uphill for about a mile then a pretty tough uphill for another few miles. By the time I had reached 7 miles I knew that I was in trouble with some lower leg and foot pain. I finally ended up walking 6.3 miles back home and did that at too fast a pace also. I spent the next two days not running at all as I was too sore. Lesson learned, I hope! The stability shoes had really babied me as far as having to use foot strength in my running form. I now found that I felt the road much more and that my lower leg muscles became fatigued much sooner in my run with the new shoes.
Since that second run I have run three more times in my new shoes and the rest of my running has been in my old shoes with orthotics. I can tell that it is going to take a while to build the strength to run longer distances in my new shoes without the orthotics, but I am confident that it will pay off in the long run. Pun intended!
Since starting this new form of running my average pace per mile on my normal daily run, at the same heart rate, has gotten faster by about 20 seconds per mile. I am not sure this is all do to the new running form, but I am sure that most of it certainly is. 20 seconds per mile in just 6 weeks is a pretty significant achievement. I will continue to gradually add mileage in my new running shoes and running form. I don't quite expect the same dramatic results over the next 6-8 weeks but I do expect to improve.
Happy trails,
Russ
The first week of running in this new style was humbling! I was pretty good at keeping the mid-foot strike but often drifted back into my old turnover rate. I really had to concentrate on the faster turnover rate especially since I grew tired more quickly from working my muscles in a slightly different way. After about two weeks I began to feel more comfortable running this way and did not have to concentrate nearly as hard on my form as it became more natural.
I started this new running form in my old stability shoes and orthotics. After about 4 weeks I bought a new pair of shoes designed specifically for a mid-foot strike. They are Brooks Pure Flow shoes and they are really light weight and feel great. I knew from the start that I wanted try and learn to run in them without my present orthotics. In order to avoid injury I would have to start running in them for short distances first and should probably avoid hills as much as possible. My first run in them was only four miles. They felt a little strange to me on the first mile but by the second mile I was in love with them. After my run I felt great and had no problems. I had not been doing any leg strengthening work and decided to do a short workout after the run. The next day I knew better but decided since I felt good that I would try and do a twelve mile run in my new shoes and it would include about 700 feet of both uphill and downhill. I started with a slight uphill for about a half mile and then a pretty good downhill for the next half mile. Still felt great. I then had some relatively flat but slightly undulating ground to run over through mile 2.5 from there I had mostly downhill again for the next 1.8 miles and then a gradual uphill for about a mile then a pretty tough uphill for another few miles. By the time I had reached 7 miles I knew that I was in trouble with some lower leg and foot pain. I finally ended up walking 6.3 miles back home and did that at too fast a pace also. I spent the next two days not running at all as I was too sore. Lesson learned, I hope! The stability shoes had really babied me as far as having to use foot strength in my running form. I now found that I felt the road much more and that my lower leg muscles became fatigued much sooner in my run with the new shoes.
Since that second run I have run three more times in my new shoes and the rest of my running has been in my old shoes with orthotics. I can tell that it is going to take a while to build the strength to run longer distances in my new shoes without the orthotics, but I am confident that it will pay off in the long run. Pun intended!
Since starting this new form of running my average pace per mile on my normal daily run, at the same heart rate, has gotten faster by about 20 seconds per mile. I am not sure this is all do to the new running form, but I am sure that most of it certainly is. 20 seconds per mile in just 6 weeks is a pretty significant achievement. I will continue to gradually add mileage in my new running shoes and running form. I don't quite expect the same dramatic results over the next 6-8 weeks but I do expect to improve.
Happy trails,
Russ
How to Increase Stride Length and Running Efficiency
Why would one want to increase their stride length? Running speed depends upon two main variables – stride length and
stride rate. To run faster you need to improve one or both. A lot of
attention has been placed on increasing stride rate in recent years –
and for good reason – raising your stride rate or turnover to around 90
full strides per minute is one of the most efficient ways to improve
your running economy. Don’t forget about your stride length. Over
striding is the most common form flaw among distance runners, but don’t
confuse a long stride length with over striding. Over striding describes
a form flaw in which you land on the heel of your lead foot, in front
of your center of gravity. You should always try to maximize your stride
length – you just need to do that without over striding.
I have long wanted to work on perfecting my stride and stride length. This is a hard thing to do when in the middle of training for a specific race as it takes lots of practice. Since I am cutting my mileage back because of sciatica in my left leg, all the way down to my foot, I have decided to give it a go.
So what exactly is the perfect stride? A stride in running is one step and generally 180 to 200 strides per minute are considered the perfect number. This is way to hard to count so one generally counts only one foot for a minute. Lets say you decide to count your left foot so each time your left foot strikes the ground you would count up one. In longer distance running closer to 90 is considered the best stride rate and in shorter sprinting etc closer to 100 is considered to be better. We will call this lower number turnover rate!
Try running your normal pace sometime counting for one minute, just your right or left foot, and see where you fall naturally. I did this the other day and found my natural turnover rate was at 82 per minute falling below the 90 that is ideal.
Another aspect of the perfect stride is length and a mid or forefoot foot strike. In other words a heal strike is generally not considered to be ideal. Anytime your foot lands heal first you are actually breaking somewhat in your forward motion as well as putting more strain on your knees and hips.
While counting my strides I paid attention to my foot strike finding, not surprisingly, that I was running with a heal strike except when running uphill. I have actually known this for a long time but never had the patience to work on changing it till now.
Generally the reason for a heal strike is because one is over striding. That’s right I have been taking too long a stride. What’s that you say. “I thought you were working on increasing your stride length?” Well here is the problem. Increasing ones stride length does not mean stretching the legs out father in front of your body! It actually means to take more air. I’m not talking about bouncing up and down while running but I am talking about the distance covered while in the air with both feet off the ground should be greater the longer ones stride is.
So the question is, “How do I accomplish this?” First lets analyze the concept of loading! That is, in order for the muscles to generate power they first have to be loaded. Think of a spring or better yet a rubber band. When you pull back on a rubber band, stretching it, your are loading it. When you release it that is when the power is generated.
If your foot lands on the heal, it has to rotate forward to the mid-foot in order for the loading effect to take place and power to be generated for forward momentum. If the foot lands, with the toes and forefoot flexed upward (dorsi-flexing), on the mid foot or ball of the foot it takes much less time for the loading effect to take place and more power is generated for forward motion. The foot is on the ground for a shorter period of time sending you forward with more push-off and efficiency.
Think of running with more bend in your knees on the forward motion, keeping your feet directly under your center of gravity not out in front. This may seem counter intuitive but, your step as far as the distance your are swinging your leg forward, will probably be shorter than what you are doing right now. However, if you find that your turnover rate is slower, as I did, it is probably because you are over striding. Remember to try not to have more than a 95 degree angle at your knees on the forward stride.
OK, so if I shorten my leg swing how do I increase my stride length? The answer to this is that you have to generate more power. By working on the proper forefoot or mid-foot strike you will start to generate more power. In the beginning this will take a lot of concentration. I found that by the end of a four mile run I was having trouble concentrating on keeping proper form. I also found that I was working my muscles in a different way than they were used to and they felt a little more tired than normal. I expect as I continue to work on this it will get easier. It is not something that will come to be habit overnight!
There are exercise routines that can also help develop a longer stride. Running specific strength exercises like, Bench Step-ups, Stride Step-ups and One leg squats will help a great deal. In addition, building your explosive strength with plyometric drill or exercises such as, Bounding, Hops, Jumps and Sprints.
I think it is more important to first work on turnover rate and landing on the forefoot than to concentrate on increasing stride length!
Some things to Remember:
Dorsi-flexing your ankle puts your foot into a position that is most efficient at producing a powerful and long stride. Your foot is dorsi-flexed when you raise your toes or pull the front of your foot up towards your shin. The opposite action is plantar-flexion when you point your toes towards the ground. Raising your toes pre-stretches your calf muscles and gets them ready to fire quickly as soon as your foot touches the ground. That results in a long, powerful and smooth stride.
Take shorter steps: What? – take shorter steps to increase your stride length! That sounds crazy! It’s not really. If you try to take long steps to increase your stride length you will end up reaching out in front of your center of gravity and landing on your heel. You will be putting the brakes on with every step you take. You will also be increasing the stress on your ankles, knees, hip and back, increasing your risk of injury. Remember, your steps should be shorter and more compact. You want to increase your air time and distance – not your reach.
Hills: Remember as always your stride length will shorten or elongate depending on whether you are on a flat, uphill or downhill portion. I found that increasing my turnover rate made me have to shorten my stride more than I was used to on the uphill or my heart rate would start climbing rapidly. It is best when starting to practice this style of running that you find as flat a surface as possible and then, as you get more comfortable, take to running a more undulating course.
These are all things I am working on right now. I just started so I’m sure it will take weeks or longer to get fully accustomed to running in this manner, but I am committed. I’ll report back in a later post to let you know how it has worked.
Keep on running!
I have long wanted to work on perfecting my stride and stride length. This is a hard thing to do when in the middle of training for a specific race as it takes lots of practice. Since I am cutting my mileage back because of sciatica in my left leg, all the way down to my foot, I have decided to give it a go.
So what exactly is the perfect stride? A stride in running is one step and generally 180 to 200 strides per minute are considered the perfect number. This is way to hard to count so one generally counts only one foot for a minute. Lets say you decide to count your left foot so each time your left foot strikes the ground you would count up one. In longer distance running closer to 90 is considered the best stride rate and in shorter sprinting etc closer to 100 is considered to be better. We will call this lower number turnover rate!
Try running your normal pace sometime counting for one minute, just your right or left foot, and see where you fall naturally. I did this the other day and found my natural turnover rate was at 82 per minute falling below the 90 that is ideal.
Another aspect of the perfect stride is length and a mid or forefoot foot strike. In other words a heal strike is generally not considered to be ideal. Anytime your foot lands heal first you are actually breaking somewhat in your forward motion as well as putting more strain on your knees and hips.
While counting my strides I paid attention to my foot strike finding, not surprisingly, that I was running with a heal strike except when running uphill. I have actually known this for a long time but never had the patience to work on changing it till now.
Generally the reason for a heal strike is because one is over striding. That’s right I have been taking too long a stride. What’s that you say. “I thought you were working on increasing your stride length?” Well here is the problem. Increasing ones stride length does not mean stretching the legs out father in front of your body! It actually means to take more air. I’m not talking about bouncing up and down while running but I am talking about the distance covered while in the air with both feet off the ground should be greater the longer ones stride is.
So the question is, “How do I accomplish this?” First lets analyze the concept of loading! That is, in order for the muscles to generate power they first have to be loaded. Think of a spring or better yet a rubber band. When you pull back on a rubber band, stretching it, your are loading it. When you release it that is when the power is generated.
If your foot lands on the heal, it has to rotate forward to the mid-foot in order for the loading effect to take place and power to be generated for forward momentum. If the foot lands, with the toes and forefoot flexed upward (dorsi-flexing), on the mid foot or ball of the foot it takes much less time for the loading effect to take place and more power is generated for forward motion. The foot is on the ground for a shorter period of time sending you forward with more push-off and efficiency.
Think of running with more bend in your knees on the forward motion, keeping your feet directly under your center of gravity not out in front. This may seem counter intuitive but, your step as far as the distance your are swinging your leg forward, will probably be shorter than what you are doing right now. However, if you find that your turnover rate is slower, as I did, it is probably because you are over striding. Remember to try not to have more than a 95 degree angle at your knees on the forward stride.
OK, so if I shorten my leg swing how do I increase my stride length? The answer to this is that you have to generate more power. By working on the proper forefoot or mid-foot strike you will start to generate more power. In the beginning this will take a lot of concentration. I found that by the end of a four mile run I was having trouble concentrating on keeping proper form. I also found that I was working my muscles in a different way than they were used to and they felt a little more tired than normal. I expect as I continue to work on this it will get easier. It is not something that will come to be habit overnight!
There are exercise routines that can also help develop a longer stride. Running specific strength exercises like, Bench Step-ups, Stride Step-ups and One leg squats will help a great deal. In addition, building your explosive strength with plyometric drill or exercises such as, Bounding, Hops, Jumps and Sprints.
I think it is more important to first work on turnover rate and landing on the forefoot than to concentrate on increasing stride length!
Some things to Remember:
Dorsi-flexing your ankle puts your foot into a position that is most efficient at producing a powerful and long stride. Your foot is dorsi-flexed when you raise your toes or pull the front of your foot up towards your shin. The opposite action is plantar-flexion when you point your toes towards the ground. Raising your toes pre-stretches your calf muscles and gets them ready to fire quickly as soon as your foot touches the ground. That results in a long, powerful and smooth stride.
Take shorter steps: What? – take shorter steps to increase your stride length! That sounds crazy! It’s not really. If you try to take long steps to increase your stride length you will end up reaching out in front of your center of gravity and landing on your heel. You will be putting the brakes on with every step you take. You will also be increasing the stress on your ankles, knees, hip and back, increasing your risk of injury. Remember, your steps should be shorter and more compact. You want to increase your air time and distance – not your reach.
Hills: Remember as always your stride length will shorten or elongate depending on whether you are on a flat, uphill or downhill portion. I found that increasing my turnover rate made me have to shorten my stride more than I was used to on the uphill or my heart rate would start climbing rapidly. It is best when starting to practice this style of running that you find as flat a surface as possible and then, as you get more comfortable, take to running a more undulating course.
These are all things I am working on right now. I just started so I’m sure it will take weeks or longer to get fully accustomed to running in this manner, but I am committed. I’ll report back in a later post to let you know how it has worked.
Keep on running!
Musings on the Rising Cost of Marathons
I must admit that I am a bit ambivalent about the rising cost of
entering marathons especially the larger events such as Rock n Roll and
big City events like Los Angeles and Chicago.
When I entered my first marathon, 12 years ago, the early-bird entry fee was $65.00. That was for the 2000 LA Marathon. This year the early-bird entry price was $145.00. That is an increase of 123% over the last 12 years.
I used a website to calculate the inflation rate from October of 1999 to October of 2011 and it gave me a cumulative rate of 377%. So that means it’s decimal equivalent would be 3.77%. I plugged in the $65 dollar amount of my entry in 2000, and the calculator said that in today’s money that would be $67.70.
See this URL: http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Calculators/Cumulative_Inflation_Calculator.aspx
From this we can see that the rising cost of marathons has almost nothing to do with inflation and everything to do with greed! OK, that may be a little harsh. We all know that total inflation is not reflective of smaller micro sections of the overall economy. Still, how did we get from $65 to $145 entry fee?
Without going into a dissertation exploring the intricacies of what may have led to this increase I will explore what seems, to me at least, to be a reasonable increase in this fee.
During most of this 12 years I received generally close to a 2.0% increase in wages each year that I worked. We won’t use what my actual wages were but let’s use $20.00 an hour as a starting wage. That would bring wages to $25.36 after 12 years. That is about a 25% increase over 12 years.
Let’s follow that with our $65 entry fee. That would give us a new entry fee price of $81.25. This seems to me to be a much more reasonable increase over that last 12 years. In fact I would say that I could accept $90 as a reasonable entry fee.
This brings me to the question, “What if anything can be done about these unreasonable price increases?” In reality not much. Not unless there is a big revolt and boycott of these larger events. Realistically I don’t see this happening as it seems there are plenty of people willing to pay this price to run in a marathon. So for myself I will try to stay clear of the larger events as much as possible and try to stick with smaller more reasonably priced events.
I find no problem with the the aspect of Laissez-faire doctrine that sets pricing at whatever the market will bear. However, I have reached my limit and plan to rebel at the present prices of large marathons. I will try and stay with the small ones except for maybe, Boston and a very few other selective races!
Do you have any thoughts on this? Feel free to express yourself!
When I entered my first marathon, 12 years ago, the early-bird entry fee was $65.00. That was for the 2000 LA Marathon. This year the early-bird entry price was $145.00. That is an increase of 123% over the last 12 years.
I used a website to calculate the inflation rate from October of 1999 to October of 2011 and it gave me a cumulative rate of 377%. So that means it’s decimal equivalent would be 3.77%. I plugged in the $65 dollar amount of my entry in 2000, and the calculator said that in today’s money that would be $67.70.
See this URL: http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Calculators/Cumulative_Inflation_Calculator.aspx
From this we can see that the rising cost of marathons has almost nothing to do with inflation and everything to do with greed! OK, that may be a little harsh. We all know that total inflation is not reflective of smaller micro sections of the overall economy. Still, how did we get from $65 to $145 entry fee?
Without going into a dissertation exploring the intricacies of what may have led to this increase I will explore what seems, to me at least, to be a reasonable increase in this fee.
During most of this 12 years I received generally close to a 2.0% increase in wages each year that I worked. We won’t use what my actual wages were but let’s use $20.00 an hour as a starting wage. That would bring wages to $25.36 after 12 years. That is about a 25% increase over 12 years.
Let’s follow that with our $65 entry fee. That would give us a new entry fee price of $81.25. This seems to me to be a much more reasonable increase over that last 12 years. In fact I would say that I could accept $90 as a reasonable entry fee.
This brings me to the question, “What if anything can be done about these unreasonable price increases?” In reality not much. Not unless there is a big revolt and boycott of these larger events. Realistically I don’t see this happening as it seems there are plenty of people willing to pay this price to run in a marathon. So for myself I will try to stay clear of the larger events as much as possible and try to stick with smaller more reasonably priced events.
I find no problem with the the aspect of Laissez-faire doctrine that sets pricing at whatever the market will bear. However, I have reached my limit and plan to rebel at the present prices of large marathons. I will try and stay with the small ones except for maybe, Boston and a very few other selective races!
Do you have any thoughts on this? Feel free to express yourself!
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