A Study in Form

My wife got a great picture of me at my last 5k. I mean it was a great picture that I happened to be in, not that I am bragging about how I look in the picture. However, I am going to brag about how I look in the picture. It was just a few seconsd into the race (maybe a minute or two). It was long enough for me to get into the groove but not long enough for me to pull away from the pack of slower runners and firmly cement myself in the middle of the pack. The sun was just coming up over the trees which made a beautiful lens flare right above my head.

The best part of the picture was what it captured in my form - the fact that it existed. I knew it was very different from how I used to run and I wanted to quantify it. So I went on a search through my pictures from the Disney marathon to find the same point in my stride. There were 22 pictures that showed my feet. I figured one of them would be at the same point or at least close. None. Zilch. Nada. So I decided to go to the video tape and that's why I figured out why I couldn't find that position in my stride - because it wasn't there.

I don't mean that there were no pictures, I mean that portion of my stride did not exist. In my 5k pic, I am in mid air (or close to it). My back foot had just toed off (or was just about to). Going frame-by-frame through my marathon stride, that never happened. Not even in the first few miles. By the time my I was toeing off, my toe was up, heel thrusting out in that characteristic heel-striking position, and preparing to hit the ground. The reason I couldn't find a picture of me in mid-air was because I was never in mid-air.

Now, to be fair, I was running the fastest I had ever run for any mile since I PRed my opening mile in about 6:50. This would not be my pace if I tried to run a marathon today. However, I also can't discount the massive change in how I run in a mere 6 months.

So, that makes the picture my wife took extra-great to me!

Do I Need Fixing?

Don't ask my wife that question! [rim shot] But seriously folks. . . I should be a good runner. I'm 6'1" and about 165 pounds. I've always been pretty athletic and somewhat fast/quick. Other than a bout of adolescent foot pain (which I now think was plantar fasciitis) that knocked me out of one soccer season, I have never had any issues running. It was just part of something I did while playing sports.

When I started running, I had a (possibly somewhat flawed) theory that basically had 2 parts. Part 1: Running efficiently means your energy is going forward and not up and down or side to side. Part 2: To run as fast as possible, every muscle (at least the ones in your legs) must be "engaged" in trying to achieve maximum speed. While there is probably some truth to both of these, I have started to learn that running fast and efficiently is much different when you are talking about a mile (or even a few miles) and longer distances (for me 10k+). Running efficiently means using the right muscles and using them in a way that they will last the whole distance.

So that is the source of my latest running conundrum. My apparent flaw in Part 1 is that by getting my energy moving forward, I was running very upright (too upright by popular convention) with had a very long stride (over-reaching) which caused me to heel strike. This was all part of my "plan" to roll my feet to keep my head nice and steady (like when I was in marching band only faster). My problem with part 2 was that I was giving each stride a little extra push forward off of my toe (when I had the energy to do so). The result was almost constant calf soreness and, when I was running longer distances, "runner's knee". I just assumed the calf soreness was a sign that I was building up the strength I needed and the runners knee was unavoidable due to my age and the mileage needed to train for marathon distance. The calf soreness wasn't too bad and usually went away after the first few strides of my run.

Now I "know" a little better. I know that heel striking can place extra strain on my joints. Along with the rolling action I was thinking was making me more efficient, was most likely slowing me down due to the deceleration during the heel strike and the lack of recoil from my achilles tendons sapped more speed and caused me to use more energy. I "know" this. I have bought into these aspects of running science as sound scientific theory with good physics behind it.

So here is my question, how much do I "fix"? I have switched to a shoe with a more natural sole alignment and have been working on landing on my midfoot. This is something I can do without making drastic changes to my form. However, I still tend to run more with my hip flexors than my quads (picture someone on a NordicTrak) and when I do engage my quads I feel way too "bouncy" and even though I think I am faster and it seems to take less energy, I still don't like all of that up-and-down movement. There has to be an in-between right? There must be a way for me to run the way I am comfortable (both physically and philosophically) and still be running "right", right?

For now, I am going to just keep putting in the work, trying to stay injury free, and let the form work itself out.