On this blog, I present myself as a runner with good form. However, very few people have actually seen me run, so anyone believing that is just taking me at my word. That’s no good! You should be demanding proof. On the other hand, maybe you’re just being polite, which is good. We hurt for lack of civility in this world. Oh, what a conundrum.
A conundrum easily resolved with a little initiative of my own. The wife was ever so kind to take these videos of what I look like when I run at a 5K race pace:
I think I look alright, although maybe I’m landing in front of myself a bit. Might be a result of the lack of flexibility in my ankles/calves/oh who am I kidding my whole person. I think after The Scream I’m going to take a running hiatus and focus on trying to be more stretchy bendy.
UPDATE:
One more, this time at a 5:00/mi pace:
Anyway, opinions/advice/snarky comments are welcome as always.
You look like a machine, man! Those legs of yours appear to roll like bicycle pedals.
If I were to take a cue from your flexy-bendy remark and nitpick your mechanics, I would guess that you want to focus on increasing flexibility in your hip flexor area. That might afford you a longer stride without risking the fatal overstride.
I think my tight hips are contributing to the overstride, but another issue is that as my calves have gotten stronger, they’ve gotten tighter. I can’t flex my feet back more than a 90 degree angle.
Don’t look at the legs, look at the hat. Stays perfect in line with the fence railing. The rest of it doesn’t matter.
My calfachilankle disagrees.
I’m late on this (been on vacation!) but really, why do you care about what your form looks like? You are running great times recently without any real problems. If it feels right (light/easy/smooth/fast) and you are getting results, it probably *is* right.
On the other hand, I’ll just grab my sports science biomechanics and physiology diploma (the finest degree money could buy from a low quality Central American university) and lay out all your flaws for you.
You are definitely over striding and seem to be pushing off a bit with your toes. I would guess that where’s the calfachilankle “issue” is coming from (especially the toe off). Increasing your lean slightly along with bumping your cadence by a handfull of SPM will solve the over striding and the toe off issue. Of course, explicitly attempting to manipulate your form in this way will utterly destroy you for the next year. The injury blowback will be epic.
That will be $200 please.
I feel a list coming on…
I posted the videos
1. to show off
2. to remind myself and others that even after three years of running barefoot and increasingly fast race times, running is always a work in progress
3. to help figure out what that work is
4. for posterity.
There’s what I look like in my head and there’s what I actually look like. Or more to the point, there’s how I think I’m running and how I’m actually running. My goal is for there to be as little difference between the two as possible.
I think the over striding is slowing me down, but it’s not causing the issues with the calfachillankle. It’s a symptom/remedy. The range of motion in my ankles are so limited, I can’t let my heel down when landing underneath my center of gravity because that requires more flex than I’m capable of. The faster I go, the more downward force, the farther in front of me I need to land so I don’t stress the calfachillankle.
This might help explain why it hurts more to go slow – less downward force, the easier it is for me to land under my COG, the more strain on the calfachillankle.
So in order for me to land under my COG, I need more ROM in my ankles. Since I haven’t been stretching, the ROM in my ankles have decreased as my calves have gotten stronger, exponentially (sort of) increasing the workload of my achilles.
To make things more complicated, it’s hard for me to stretch my calves because my hamstrings are so tight. And it’s hard for me to stretch my hamstrings because my hips are so tight. I’ve abandoned the “A Lion Doesn’t Stretch So Why Should I (roar!)” theory and started gently stretching the pins.
Anyway, I had a good six miler yesterday. First pleasant ten minute mile in a long time.
You are going fast enough to be in between running gait and sprinting gait. I would imagine it is hard to keep the heels touching the ground.
Looking at the video frames, it appears you have normal ankle dorsiflexion during your stride (when your foot passes under your body). I’m wondering if your sense of inflexibility, at least when running, has something to do with your landing. You (like me) have a very flat/whole foot sort of landing. That’s actually difficult to do close to your center of gravity while running, or at least it is for me. I noticed my landing moved further out when I switched from forefoot to whole/mid foot landing a couple of years ago. Is it slowing you down? That depends entirely on where in the stride you are actively weighting/loading your foot. Given your mile and 5K times, I’m doubting the landing is having any real impact on your performance.
Apologies for the long comments. Running form and mechanics is endlessly fascinating to me, even though I suck mightily at running in general.
Yeah, because you know, my writing is so concise and to the point.
When I try to land under my COG and do the slight “ankle lean” forward, my heels come off the ground. That’s what started this whole calfachillankle mess in the first place (well, that and a bajilion other contending factors).
I do think the bulk of my weight is carried under me, though. So yay for that, I suppose.
I don’t think trying to do the ankle lean on purpose works well. The stress of trying to do it may be slowing you down. The movement brain is so much faster than the conscious mind. Over thinking screws stuff up.
The coaching mumbojumbo I teach is to land on the first metatarsal and big toe first ans a split second later the rest of the ball lands and then the heel comes down to kiss the ground and lift off again.
Use a metronome and squat often keeping your weight over your first meta and big toe and work towards getting your heel to touch the ground. It’s not a weight lifting squat but a waiting for a bus in a third world country or little kid limber squat. The squat mimics where you want to land in running and also stretches and lengthens the calfachillesPF area.
I’d love to be able to squat, but I’m so not flexible that I can only barely bend my knees before my heels come up or butt sticks out. I’m trying anyway.
Interesting re 1st metatarsal. I tend to land on the 5th first. What would the metronome before? 180 squats/minute?
stick your butt out! Thats not a problem.
the first meta is huge and the others are small. It makes sense that the bigger one would be able to take the forces better than the smaller ones.
Haha! The metronome is just for your cadence and not to be used while squatting
Although you can use it to practice jumping.
Get the Vivobarefoot app and play with that. I would love to see what you think of it!
Touching the ground is not the landing but when your weight is on the posting foot and the arch just starts to collapse. Check out the free open software Kinovea. You can slow down frame by frams too. Fun stuff!
you people really know how to suck the fun out of running. All this talk about form makes it sound like a golf swing.
After all this “scream” business I am going back to single track trails. the only running form I need to worry about is not bashing my knee on a rock or my head on a branch.
Are we sucking the fun out of running, or run-commenting? I expect running faster than you at The Scream will be very fun.
Running isn’t like golf?! Seems like I’m in the hazards a lot either way. Ba dum dum!
Hi Josh,
You make running 5 min pace look deceptively slow!
I think that is a good thing :0]
Nice 5k race you ran by the way.
That’s what I forgot! I was going to post the garmin data as evidence. And thanks! Who knows, I might catch up to you someday.