So Far, So Good; Better Form
Things are going well this week. With two days remaining, I’ve run 46 miles, and my legs feel strong. Hitting my goal of 60 miles shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve taken advantage of our exercise policy at work and have run at lunch twice this week. I've also run ten miles twice this week. I am a bit concerned about increasing the mileage beyond 60. I'd like to build up to 80 in a couple of weeks, but I hate running at night, so it will be a challenge to drag myself out each evening. Daylight Savings Time cannot come soon enough for me.
I ran a double today. In the morning I ran five easy miles. The harder workout came this afternoon when I ran 10 miles, including four miles at goal marathon pace (6:50/mile). Like last week, I ran a bit faster than I was shooting for, but this was partly caused by the wind. I ran the first mile into a steady, but not particularly hard wind in 6:53. Just before the first mile I turned so that the wind was coming from the side and somewhat at my back. I picked up the pace a little bit and used the wind to log a 6:42 second mile. The third mile was run along the bay, and the wind was a bit stronger here. To my advantage it was at my back at this point. I reached the turnaround with a quarter mile to go in mile three. The last mile and a quarter were run into the wind, so I increased the effort to maintain pace. I finished mile three at 6:40 and ran mile four in 6:45.
The best thing about this run is that I think I figured out where I was having trouble with my form. I had been concentrating on running tall, keeping my hips forward, and thrusting forward as I pushed off with each step. The problem was that I was running too tall. It made it difficult to keep my hips forward, and when I pushed off, I was pushing up instead of forward. During the run today, I found myself concentrating on running tall only from the waist up. I let my legs run more natural. Keeping this posture made it much easier to keep my hips in the right position and to push forward. It felt natural when running the faster miles, and I was happy to see that I was able to comfortably maintain this form after the harder miles when I was running easy towards the end of my run. Now I just need to stick with it until this form becomes natural so that I don’t have to remind myself every ten seconds to maintain the proper form.
I ran a double today. In the morning I ran five easy miles. The harder workout came this afternoon when I ran 10 miles, including four miles at goal marathon pace (6:50/mile). Like last week, I ran a bit faster than I was shooting for, but this was partly caused by the wind. I ran the first mile into a steady, but not particularly hard wind in 6:53. Just before the first mile I turned so that the wind was coming from the side and somewhat at my back. I picked up the pace a little bit and used the wind to log a 6:42 second mile. The third mile was run along the bay, and the wind was a bit stronger here. To my advantage it was at my back at this point. I reached the turnaround with a quarter mile to go in mile three. The last mile and a quarter were run into the wind, so I increased the effort to maintain pace. I finished mile three at 6:40 and ran mile four in 6:45.
The best thing about this run is that I think I figured out where I was having trouble with my form. I had been concentrating on running tall, keeping my hips forward, and thrusting forward as I pushed off with each step. The problem was that I was running too tall. It made it difficult to keep my hips forward, and when I pushed off, I was pushing up instead of forward. During the run today, I found myself concentrating on running tall only from the waist up. I let my legs run more natural. Keeping this posture made it much easier to keep my hips in the right position and to push forward. It felt natural when running the faster miles, and I was happy to see that I was able to comfortably maintain this form after the harder miles when I was running easy towards the end of my run. Now I just need to stick with it until this form becomes natural so that I don’t have to remind myself every ten seconds to maintain the proper form.
posted by Bart at 8:31 PM
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