Marathon Madness Monday: Week 4

Wow - it's week 4 of marathon training already. Training is a-flying by!

Last Thursday, I attended a running seminar at my favorite local running store - Marathon Sports. I love supporting locally owned/ran stores! I actually met a guy here back when I was training for the '06 marathon and we dated for about a month or so. But that's a story for an Adventures in Awkwardness post on another day...

The seminar was about running form and was put on by Grant Robison - he ran at Stanford and then went on to run the 1500m in the 2004 Olympics. It was pretty cool to be in the presence of an Olympian - and an attractive one at that! ;) He is behind the movement known as "Good Form Running." He suffered from a litany of running injuries in college and while he was a professional runner and really believe it all ties back to the fact that he had poor running form. For those familiar with Chi Running, Good Form Running is similar, but according to Robison, it's a bit easier to apply.

Everyone, from a novice runner to a professional athlete, can benefit from improving their form. Here are the 4 principles of Good Running Form that he went over:

1. Posture - Now, this is important in life in general. I must say my posture is pretty darn terrible. I try to work on it, but it definitely doesn't come 'natural' to me just yet. Robison basically said that we need a strong core to support good posture - otherwise, when the body gets tired during long runs, your hips will sort of turn forward, putting pressure on your lower back which is not good for you. His tip was to work on 're-setting' your posture. To do this, stand up (come on, get out of your chair for a bit and give this a shot) - now reach your fingertips towards the ceiling, hold them there for a couple of seconds, and let your arms drop. Your bodily is now properly aligned. We should all strive to have proper body alignment at all times. He said to do this 're-set' exercise throughout the day, day after day, until it becomes natural for your body to be in alignment.

2. Midfoot - When you stride during your run, try to land on the middle of your foot - not your heel as is very common. I am not going to go into a long explanation on this, but basically landing on your heel is uber hard on your body. It also means your leg is probably extending out which locks your knee and puts pressure on your knee - likely causing an injury over time. Want a simple experiment that shows you this? Try jumping and landing with your knees slightly bent. Now try jumping and landing with your knee locked. See the difference? So how do you land on your midfoot? You need to shorten your stride, which ties into principle #3.

3. Cadence - What is cadence, you might ask? It's the number of times your right and left foot strike the ground in a minute. The easiest way to count your cadence is to count the number of times your right or left foot strikes the ground in 30 seconds and multiply that number by 4. According to the folks at Good Running Form, the ideal cadence is 180. At the workshop, Robison had us march in place to the beat of a metronome set to 180. Then he slowed it down to 150. It demonstrated that running at a faster cadence forces you to take smaller strides and be a little bit more light on your feet. All along, I have been thinking I needed to lengthen my stride, but according to their research, it's all about lighter, faster, more frequent strides.

4. Lean - The last principle is the lean. This is probably the toughest of the 4 principles - at least for me - and something I am not quite ready to try to incorporate into my form. By lean, they mean leaning from the ankles. Leaning from the waist is not going to help you as it throws your alignment out of whack (see principle #1).

So there you have it. I know this is probably a little bit more technical and I have probably bored some of your to tears (or lost you after the first paragraph)!! But if you run - whether it's 1 mile or 26.2, these are important things to work on so you stay injury free! Robison suggested focusing on 1 of the 4 principles to start and to not 'over think' it. A slight adjustment could make a world of difference for you/your body.

I'll be attending another workshop on July 8th where they will actually video me while I am running to help make me more aware of my form and how it can be improved. These workshops are all free, which is pretty cool!

I'll be away at the cabin next Monday, so will be taking week 5 off from Marathon Madness Monday. I promise my next post will be less technical! I hope this was helpful for the runners out there, though!

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Training Tally:
Miles ran last week: 22
Training-to-date mileage: 71