Running Mindfully

The idea of meditation has always been something I have tended to reject for several reasons. First and foremost, I don't think stress is necessarily a bad thing, so why try to eliminate it? I have this mental image of a Buddha shaped guy lying on the sofa watching TV, completely unstressed by life. I don't even believe that the pursuit of "happiness" is something that we should be subscribing to - is not my Buddha figure happy, at least in this moment? To be satisfied, maybe I could except that as a reasonable goal. I can appreciate the importance of here and now, but is it really so important to stop and smell the flowers? Shouldn't we have more pressing concerns? The fact that meditation is often part of a mystical or religious package has also made it much harder for me to embrace. But my main misconception of meditation was that it was a question of emptying the mind. As the term mindfulness indicates, it is quite the opposite: it is about focusing the mind, not emptying it.

I can accept meditation as a form of mental training, however, but a mental training for what? My understanding of Mindfulness is that it is the art of focusing on the space between the various stimuli that we receive, and our reaction to those stimuli, allowing us to consciously choose how to react. After all, we can only take decisions here and now as it is the only point in space-time in which we are actually living. This idea is not new: Zen Buddhists have practiced meditation for thousands of years. In the field of psychotherapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy shares a lot of the same ideas with Mindfulness. And in sports, the holy grail of being "in the zone" or in a state of "flow" is

"the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does."

Compare this to the definition of Mindfulness according to the creator of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme, Jon Kabat-Zinn:

“Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally"

So it is not about avoiding stress, but by being conscious we can decide whether stress is the right response or not. The alternative to being conscious is being on automatic pilot, where we are under the illusion that we are taking decisions but really we are just going with the flow, as opposed to being in a state of flow. A metaphor which I find quite helpful is to think of our consciousness as the sky across which clouds (our thoughts) are drifting. As thoughts occur to us, we make note without engaging with them and return to concentrating on what we have decided to focus on.

Caligraphy by Nonin Chawaney

In my case, the key is the word "non-judgementally". I understand that the point of not attaching any judgement - be it positive or negative - is to avoid the typical vicious circle of a thought leading to an emotion, which then leads to another thought and, before you realize it, you have forgotten what you were trying to focus on. In fact, the judgement often arises in the form of a self-criticism of how bad you are at concentrating. I can still remember a maths exam I did when I was about 13 years old, in which I started to worry about how much time I had left to finish the questions: "the time is ticking and I am sitting here just thinking about how the time is ticking and meanwhile...". One interesting and perhaps slightly counter-intuitive consequence is that, if we are too goal orientated when practicing Mindfulness, we will inevitably fall into the judgement trap.

A certain amount of sales pitch is necessary to convince anyone to make the effort of incorporating a new routine into their lives, especially if this involves paying for a book or a course along the way. But the most prominent webpage I have found on the subject of running with Mindfulness promises all kinds of benefits and, unfortunately, speaks to that goal orientated part of our brain.

I'm certainly no expert on Mindfulness having just done a two day course at work last week. We went through the concepts and practiced some of the classic Mindfulness meditations in a group. I have started to (formally) meditate just 5 minutes every morning, with the intention of extending this to 15-20 minutes over time. The act of running without tripping over is now sufficiently automatic that it shouldn't be too difficult to combine with meditation. So far I have only tried this on the treadmill but the kinds of (informal) meditation that seem natural while running are

- Breathing. Without modifying or forcing the rhythm, try to breathe with the abdomen as opposed to the chest and, if possible, through the nose (I find that I have to breathe through my mouth above a certain pace). Think about how the abdomen rises and falls, the air going in and out of the nose / mouth and the number of steps take during each inhalation / exhalation.

- Sounds. Tune into all the sounds you hear without thinking about any one of them or what is causing them in particular. Try to distinguish as many different sounds as possible.

- Being. Similar to the above, but concentrating on all the senses: hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling and - why not - tasting. 

- Body scan. As you run slowly work your way through every part of your body, paying attention to the sensations of movement, tension, discomfort or even pain. Try not to classify these sensations as good or bad, just make note of them without avoiding unpleasant ones or, equally, clinging to pleasant ones.

- Thoughts. This time thoughts are invited but, as usual, it is important not to engage with any of them. Instead, the idea is to classify them as thoughts about the future (worries, plans, etc.), thoughts about the past (memories) and thoughts about the present.

When I think back to the two Marathons I have run in New York, unsurprisingly, I can remember a lot more about the one that went "well" and very little about the one that went "badly". I don't believe that this is because I have wanted to wipe the less good experience from my memory: I actually think that it was less good because I wasn't as present during it. I remember trying to be present but somehow failing. Perhaps I just need to practice more by not just training the body, but the mind as well.

Functional Movement System

I'm very lucky to live near a place called "Slings" which I have mentioned on my blog several times before. There are lots of new fangled places that offer the latest gimmicks to get you off the couch and into shape, but this just makes it harder still to separate the wheat from the chaff: Slings is definitely not chaff. Lately a lot of things have lead me to the same place: it's where I buy my Vibram Five Fingers (including the ones I have on order for my 9 year old son); it's where I have been treated for my back pain by an excellent osteopath and it's the only place I have found (other than Amazon) which stocks those foam rollers which I find excellent for said back pain. They even stock Vivobarefoot shoes!

I was just chatting to a work colleague the other day (one of the very few people I know who runs in minimalist footwear) and he happened to mention the Functional Movement System. With a name like that I was naturally sceptical, but coming from him and bearing in mind that that Timothy Ferriss dedicated a whole chapter to it in his life-hack book "The 4-Hour Body", I was curious to say the least. When it turned out that his search for a qualified FMS professional had also lead him to Slings, I decided to make an appointment to find out more.

I met with Juan Nieto, who spent an hour and a half subjecting me to unintentionally humiliating and surprisingly demanding tests of balance and agility. In spite of the Under Armour Spiderman t-shirt I was wearing, agile I was not. At least I did OK on the treadmill: Juan said that, had it not been for my good running technique, I had scored so low on his test that he would normally not have recommended that I should run! One of the principal conclusions was that a lack of pelvic stability was causing my lumbar muscles to compensate, thus leading to the lower back pain I had been experiencing lately. It might have been a slightly guided diagnosis, but it made sense. He also noted a lack of flexibility in my ankles, meaning that I ran much more on my toes, "like a sprinter". On this point I wasn't 100% convinced that I should let my heel land with anything more than the fleeting "kiss" it currently plants on the ground, but he was certainly right about my landing slightly ahead of my center of gravity and my relative slowness in extracting my foot from the ground which are probably all related. He even noticed the slight assymetry with which I lift my left leg (well) and my right leg (not so well). In spite of this, he also spotted that my toes are quite rigid (partly due to a bunion) - something perhaps unusual for a "barefoot runner". He prescribed me a very detailed set of exercises that I should do which were, again, surprisingly demanding. For example, one thing is to do a "plank" just any old how; another is to do it with a pole on your back to which you must keep perfect alignment. It made me realise that even when I was doing exercises such as the plank to supposedly improve my stability, the small deviations from the ideal position were due to other muscles compensating and this is bad: you end up reinforcing the compensation itself rather than training the weakness you are trying to address in the first place.

I have since been on the FMS website and tried to find the exercises Juan prescribed me. It's clear that they were so tailor made to my particular ability (or inability, as the case may be) because I was unable to find the exact versions, that it only served to increase my faith in the benefit of doing those exercises. The good thing is that they can be done more or less with things you find around the house.

From what I managed to glean reading the first few chapters of the founder Gray Cook's book, the system aims to be as holistic as possible, refraining from dissecting "movement" into component "motions" where possible but, instead, establishing a set of 7 standard tests to guide the practitioner towards a set of corrective exercises for the most important short falls. Having an objective metric is essential to be able to monitor progress (and maintain faith in the method, necessary if you are going to make the requisite investment in time as well as financially). However, Gray emphasises the point that the metric should not be the focus in itself, rather that it should indicate where the focus should be applied. The tests have been designed in such a way that failure to complete them adequately correlates with increased injury rates in sports according to research. So the system purports to be a way for active people to pre-empt injuries. We will see! I have - touch wood - been injury free for several years but, as Juan said, I am still young and I cannot expect to be able to maintain the intensity at which I am currently training into my old age, unless I make sure that I am not "compensating". It is clear that my back pain is an early warning system.

Immediately after the session, I went off to the gym at work where I knocked off 5 sets of 3 minutes at 3:10 (19 kph). I have never managed to do this before and it was "easy". It's true that it was off peak, so the gym was much cooler than normal - also I think my Spiderman t-shirt may have some cooling effect after all - but I also think that the exercises I had done with Juan had directly helped by reminding my body of the role of my hips in running. I have written before about a similar experience I had when I did the Pose Clinic in Odense (Denmark) a few years ago. We were filmed running before and after a drill which was essentially a "plank" with a partner pressing down on our glutes (read: bum) to add resistance. I noticed nothing while running but the difference was clear to see on the video frame by frame: all of us without exception spent less time on the ground and more in the air in the second video. Dr Romanov, the inventor of the Pose Method, is big on exercises to increase hip strength.

I was a little reluctant to add another method / system / technique to my existing pile, with all the possible conflicts and confusions that this could cause, but FMS made a lot of sense to me and slotted in quite nicely alongside the others. I was half expecting to be told that I should stretch in order to increase my flexibility, but this could not have ben further from the FMS philosophy!

GoPro slow motion treadmill run

The first 100 shoes to cross the finish line of NYC Marathon

Somebody has actually gone to the trouble of photographing and identifying the first 100 runners to cross the finish line of the New York City Marathon and their shoes. (Bear in mind that the elite women had a head start of 30 minutes.)

Someone else has gone to the trouble of putting all the results in a spreadsheet opening up the possibilities for hours of geeky analysis. (Meb was wearing Sketchers!)

While it is not surprising to see the top male and female finishers shod in either Nike or Addidas due to sponsorship requirements, what did surprise me was that none of the other runners chose to run in what I would categorize as a "minimalist running shoe". It certainly appears to be the case that the shoes have less cushioning on average than those worn by the 50,000 runners in the chasing pack but we are still talking about more than a couple of centimetres of squishy-squashy soles.

The other striking observation (if you'll forgive the pun) is the number of heel strikers amongst the elite. But, if you look closely, there is a world of difference between the typical heel-striker below

and the one seen above. The key difference is in the angle of the shin which, in the second photo, is such that the knee joint is locked out (ouch!!) and the point of contact is well ahead of the centre of gravity leading to a braking force. In order to run like the person above, you need to have tremendous flexibility and strength in your ankles - you almost have to fight against the tendency of the shoes to encourage you to overstride. Conversely, from personal experience I can testify to it being even more injurious to overstride and land on your forefoot. Perhaps we should stop obsessing so much over heel strikers versus forefoot (or midfoot?) strikers and look first at shin angles. From the excellent new book Running Science:

It's a shame that the article didn't go as far as the first 221 shoes to cross the finish line of the NYC Marathon... :-)

Treadmill versus outdoors running

The usual debate on treadmill versus outdoor running centres on bio-mechanical aspects. There are several popular misconceptions. One is that the treadmill "pulls you along" and so must therefore be easier than running outside. The force required to stop you from falling over is the same in both cases; the only difference is that the fixed point about which you rotate is your foot when you are running outside, while the belt of a treadmill rotates you about your centre of mass. You must still work against gravity and reposition your limbs both on the treadmill and outdoors. The second misconception is that you must lean from your ankles when you run on the treadmill, just as you would when running on the road. I specifically discussed this point in my post on "Treadmill running: to lean or not to lean?". As I discussed in that post, this is partly another way of saying the above: leaning is the same as rotating about a point - in one case you actively lean against the road and in the other, the belt "leans you". The other factor, of course, is that when you run outside you must overcome air resistance. There must be a compensatory horizontal force as the resultant of the ground resistance force and gravity, which is only possible if your centre of gravity is further forward than your point of contact. This is just a fancy definition of leaning.

There are some important bio-mechanical differences to running on the treadmill, however. The most important is the fact that the surface on which you run is perfectly flat and consistent. This means that every footstep will be exactly the same and will use exactly the same muscles the same way. The upshot is that an over-reliance on treadmill training lays you open to injury from weak stabilising muscles when trail running as well as to overuse injuries on the treadmill from stressing the same muscles in excess.

Air resistance is obviously an important factor as anyone who has ever been running on a windy day will atest to. Popular wisdom has it that a gradient of 1-2% on the treadmill will compensate for any extra work that would be done against air resistance. According to studies by Dr Mervyn Davies, however, at speeds greater than 18 kph the air resistance impacts the mechanics of running significantly. This means that there is really no substitute for track running at these kind of speeds although it has to be noted that, in race conditions, most of the athletes are somewhat shielded from the wind most of the time.

The aspect that people only seem to mention in passing is the aspect that is most important as far as I am concerned and that is heat. I am very sensitive to heat because I am on the large side (189cm, 85 kilos) and a lot of my energy is spent on evacuating heat. When you run outside even on a hot day with no breeze, you at least have a headwind equal to the speed at which you are running. If you work out how big a fan you would need to simulate this cooling effect on a treadmill then, according to my back of the envelope calculations you would need a 700W fan for a running speed of 16 kph!

I do a lot of my training these days on the treadmill and I started to wonder whether it really has the same training effect from a cardiovascular point of view. First of all, I compared a run I did on the treadmill at work of 20 minutes at 16 kph (followed by 4 lots of 200m at 19 kph) with a run I did on my home treadmill of 40 minutes at the same speed of 16 kph (actually 16.5 kph because my belt runs a little slow). As usual, I found it very uncomfortable running on the treadmill at work because it was so much hotter than in my cool basement with my huge 170W fan. What I expected to see was that the two graphs would start off at the same heart rate but that the one corresponding to my work treadmill would increase more rapidly. Instead, I noticed that they both increased at about the same rate but that my heart rate started off much lower at home. It may be that the work treadmill runs faster than it should or perhaps a 1% gradient is not the same on both treadmills but the difference is quite striking: it is as "easy" for me to maintain that pace for twice as long at home.

Then I thought I would compare my 40 minute run at home with the Half Marathon I ran (outside, obviously) at an almost exactly evenly paced 16 kph. There is really no doubt that these are two very different cardiovascular exercises.

This would appear to back up apparently contradictory findings that treadmill running is easier but outdoor running is faster. In other words, at a given pace the heart rate is lower on the treadmill but runners perceive treadmill running to be harder than running at the equivalent pace outside. This is sometimes put down to the "boredom" of running on a treadmill but I think that there is something more fundamental behind this. I am anything but bored when I am watching a good movie on the treadmill... Corporal temperature is undoubtedly one of the inputs to the Central Governor in the brain responsible for pacing us via sensations of exertion and exhaustion. What I don't know is to what extent this is a real reason to slow down corresponding to a real energetic cost. This was the eternal debate I had with my coach who prescribes training to heart rate: should I have started off my 40 minute run on the treadmill at 17 kph, say, and finished it at 15 kph or should I have run it at a constant 16 kph? Is the part of my heart rate that corresponds to the evacuation of heat reflecting the same work?

Especially as many VO2 Max tests are performed on a treadmill, I think this is something that warrants study - at least, I haven't managed to find anything definitive on the subject as yet. In terms of heart rate, is running on the treadmill similar to running in humid conditions due to the relative difficulty in evacuating heat? Does the gradient of the heart rate drift have any correlation with the size of the runner or with the ambient temperature? What are the differences in training effect between running to a constant heart rate on a treadmill and running at a constant pace? Will anyone be around to care after the World ends on the 21st of December?

Range of Motion

Uh oh

What has this picture got to do with the title of this post? For that matter, what does "range of motion" refer to?

The picture is of my Mac charger after my father-in-law's dog chewed through it at the weekend. Incredibly, I was able to find a replacement charger the next day in a shop on the way home from work. Incredible, because I both work and live "in the sticks". However, yesterday, as I was getting ready to do my series of 20 minutes hard running on the treadmill, the new charger started acting up. Rob needs the charger to charge my Mac, to play the film that Rob needs, to be able to suffer the run. The days when I leave my workout until the evening I tend to get a little nervous; for me, the best time is at lunch time when I am neither straight out of bed nor am I spending time when I could otherwise be with my family. I got especially nervous that I wouldn't be able to do my workout unless I could watch some kind of slasher-flick to distract me as I have been doing lately. In the end, not only did I manage to solve the problem but I had the best workout I have perhaps ever had.

I need to qualify that. The thing is, either I was running much faster for less effort than usual, or the treadmill was broken. I'm really not sure which. It felt as though I was running fast but the difference was (and here the title of the post will become clear) that I was kicking my legs up much higher under my butt. The back of my hamstrings started to get warm from the contact with my lower leg and it felt like the leg was rebounding of my bum. I ran the first set of twenty minutes at 16 kph and didn't even go over 160 bpm (for comparison, my recommended heart rate for running a Marathon is 163 bpm). The next set I did at 16.5 kph and the last 20 I did half at the same speed before dropping down to 16 kph for the end (my heart rate was now where it should be, just below the anaerobic threshold at 178 bpm).

By kicking my leg up higher (larger range of motion) my cadence was lower than it would usually be running at that speed. I may try to measure it to see whether it was lower than my cadence at my cruising speed of 13.5 kph. All the schools of efficient running advocate a high cadence of around 180 footsteps per minute - some even suggest you run with a metronome, others simply say that the high cadence is the result of doing everything else right. The Pose Method, which I followed in order to run more efficiently, talks a lot about the range of motion and essentially says that the drills help us find an optimal range of motion. Too high a range of motion and you are wastefully moving your legs; too low and the cadence becomes too high and the extra steps taken are similarly wasteful. This is also related to the stride length and how much we bounce up and down in each stride. Much has been made of the importance of not bouncing up and down too much - this is needless work done against gravity - but it is also clear that this up and down movement muust be optimized not necessarily minimized. A study that was cited in the "Iron War" book that I read over the weekend came to the conclusion that the "bounce" wasn't a determining factor in the efficiency of the runners it tested but, what was critical, was the acceleration / deceleration of each footstep. In other words, the braking effect which is especially exacerbated by heel striking but is also determined by your skill and elasticity as a runner. So maybe I was bounding more by lifting my leg higher, maybe I was bouncing up and down a little more as a result, but perhaps I was running more efficiently. After all, I have long, powerful (and heavy) legs.

If I get a chance I may try a little scientific experiment of one on myself in order to determine my optimal cadence (the measurable consequence of running with one range of motion or another). The problem, of course, is that many other factors influence the heart rate, in particular, how tired you are. Anyway, something to think about...

Nice article from NY Times on running

From the same guy who wrote "Born to Run".

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/running-christopher-mcdougall.html

Thanks for following!

No, this is not the profile of one of the stages of the Tour de France. It is a graph of the number of hits my blog has been getting a month since its inception almost exactly one year ago. (By the way, the sharp drop off in November just reflects the fact that we have only just started the month.) Another milestone is that the blog has received more than 20,000 hits. So, thank you to everyone who has been following this blog, either publicly or from the sidelines. I get a big kick out of knowing that people are interested to read what I have to say because my wife and most of my friends are not. This blog has been an outlet for my obsessions much like deejaying was (will be again?) for my passion for music.

I thought this might be a good moment to link to some of my best and most popular posts over the last year, especially for those of you who are new around these parts.

Race reports
Maratón de San Sebastián 2010 - 3:07
San Silvestre Vallecana 2010
Media Maratón de Getafe 2011 - 1:23
Lisbon International Triathlon (Half Ironman) 2011 - 4:44
Ironman Brazil (Florianópilis) 2011 - 10:45
Lake Merced (San Francisco) 2011
Media Maratón de Valladolid 2011 - 1:22

Usung heroes
Graeme Obree
Chrissie Wellington
Kilian Journet
Pertti Karpinnen
Andy Holmes
Marc Herremans

Shoes
Soft Star Original Run Amoc LITE Review
The quest for the ultimate all-round minimalist running shoe
Kids and running
The Imelda Marcos of Triathlon

Running technique
Running Technique #1
Running Technique #2
Running up and down hills
Treadmill versus road: To lean or not to lean? 
Keep those knees up boy!
You gotta have rhythm
Compact arm swing

Trips
Budapest
Morocco

Miscellaneous
Epilogue (post Ironman Brazil)
I'm back with a vengeance
Tempting fate
Time management
A week during my Ironman preparation
Top triathlon iPhone apps
Home gym
Nutrition plan for Lisbon Half Ironman
Master class

Keep those knees up boy

I've been thinking about what Jonathan told me about my running technique during the training camp in Morocco. The best thing to think while running is about running. Jonathan pointed out that there is a small pause in which my foot shoots out as if to kick a football just before I land slightly ahead of my center of gravity. He said that I should try to lift my leg up and forwards to get the foot in a better position for landing. I've been playing around with this while I've been running this week and the perception I have is very similar to one I had when I first started running POSE. I can only describe it as a feeling that I am preparing myself to sit down. I also notice that my foot tends to land flatter and the heel touches the ground very lightly. I feel that I am picking up the ground more quickly but the proof will be to film myself in slow motion while running. I now have several "cues" to think about while running:

- to extend the hips (or "punching it forwards" as I call it)
- to get my legs up under me ("sitting down on the job")
- to lean from my ankles ("run tall")
- to pick up the ground quickly ("sharp catch")

As you get tired you unconsciously cut these corners because you obtain an immediate energy reduction; however you end up going more slowly and you have less time to recover before the next step so it is a very short sighted strategy.

There is a big debate over which muscles we use while running. The POSE Method makes much of a study in which it was demonstrated with electrodes that the quadriceps cease to be activated once the mid-stance has been achieved (body in balance over point of contact of the foot) implying that there is no active push off in running. This is very counter-intuitive and, as Jonathan says, would suggest that runners are wasting their time doing so many squats in weight training. The POSE Method maintains that there is no active push off and that your foot should be lifted using your hamstrings and not your hip flexors. It's a pretty bold claim and it is what really separates the POSE Method from the other running schools that have popped up more recently. Does this mean that you should not extend your hips while running? What about the convention wisdom of lifting your knees? Should your foot fall "dead" or should you actively grab the ground as your run?

To my mind, this is all to do with the interplay between energy and momentum (I should really say between potential energy and kinetic energy, we think of energy in running as our cost and momentum as the consequence of expending it) and the difference between active muscle use and passive muscle use.

As Dr Romanov himself says, in order to measure how well someone runs, you must have an ideal to hold them to, even if it itself is unattainable. The POSE Method aspires to an infinitesimal contact time in which case it is clear that to position your foot to land under your center of gravity all you need to do is lift it up directly under your butt with the hamstrings. However, when we take our foot off the ground in the real world, we must overcome the angular momentum that we generated by leaning forward to gain forward propulsion in the first place. I have no scientific evidence to back this up but I believe that this means that we must use our hip flexors to stabilize the leg and that this accounts for our perception that we are lifting our leg up vertically when, in fact, it is lagging behind our body. Similarly, I think this accounts for my perception that I am "sitting down" while running when, in fact, my legs are not in front of my center of gravity (as they would be if I really was sitting down). This is similar to if you try leaning against a wall and then suddenly standing up straight: you feel like you are leaning in the opposite direction when you are actually perfectly upright. So, hamstrings or hip flexors? I believe that we should focus on actively using our hamstrings and on the perception we have when we are correctly landing under our center of gravity (passively using our hip flexors).

When we extend our hips (and stand up on tip toes, for that matter), I don't think of it as pushing off but rather translating potential energy from our elastic muscles back into momentum, like a spring extending as it bounces off the ground. In any case, what is the difference between pushing off and leaning forward? If you are standing still, the difference is that you may let gravity pull you forwards as soon as you are out of balance. When you are running, the forward momentum throws you out of balance as soon as you hit the ground. Again, it is another question of active versus passive muscle use.

If you let your foot fall dead then it will be moving forward with respect to the ground when it lands, causing a braking effect. In the POSE ideal of "zero contact time" we would be able to instantly accelerate the foot to ground speed on touchdown but, as this would require an infinite amount of energy, it wouldn't be terribly efficient even if we had the physiology to do so. The analogy in rowing is the "catch" when you put the oar in the water. Ideally it should be not moving with respect to the water at the instant it is placed in the water (you can tell if this is the case by checking that there is a symmetrical splash on either side of the blade). Matthew Pinsent once described this to me as it being like trying to catch and accelerate a spinning fly-wheel without braking or jarring it. One of the things I most like about the POSE Method - again, a concept that sets it apart from the others - is that the focus is on "take off" and not on "landing". I believe that you cannot effectively control how you land because it is something that must be exquisitely orchestrated by the proprioceptive system. In other words, I believe that the landing should be passive but that we should focus on the perception of picking up the ground quickly ("sharp catch").

An Englishman in Midelt

Youness and Jonathan

Youness' neighbours

The kind of stones found on the trails

Youness' dad

Teatime

Is that an aero wheel I see there?

Jacobo, Diego, David, Jonathan, Youness, Rafa, Alfredo and myself

Just like my Vivobarefoot Ultras!

The map for the treasure hunt

Hunting for treasure

Ifrane - looks like anywhere but Morocco

The training ground for the elite

Youness bumps into a fellow runner, also based in Spain

My Run Amocs stood up to the trails beautifully

I thought that I was suntanned until I had a shower...

Fez

Fez

Friday

We met up in the airport a good couple of hours before the flight was due to leave (of course, the flight was delayed a further hour, but that's another story). I hadn't seen Jonathan, my trainer, since before the Ironman so I took the opportunity to give him the book I had made of this blog - it was also a good moment because at least then I didn't have to worry about my bag being overweight! He seemed pretty chuffed by the gesture. On the flight I was sitting next to a man nearing retirement age who started at one point to rave about the current Spanish government, the crisis and 11-M (the terrorist attacks that took place in Madrid just before the last general election). I managed to steer him onto a more upbeat topic before civil war broke out on the plane - that of food. He asked me if I knew any good Spanish restaurants in Morocco. I can't help wondering what he made of his trip.

We arrived after much ado in Casablanca, tired, and somewhat dreading the long journey by car that lay ahead. We were traveling with Youness, an elite Moroccan athlete (1:03 in Half Marathon), to his home town, Midelt, at an altitude of 1,500 meters. Just as well that we changed our plans and stayed in a "colourful" auberge in the old part of Casablanca, giving us some time to recover.

Saturday

We set off for Midelt in the morning and arrived in time to go for a short run. I'd been worried that I'd get left behind as I was the slowest of the group by quite some margin but, in everything but the quality work, we ran at more or less the same speed for the aerobic runs. I literally put my foot in it within the first few minutes: I stepped in a hole covered with grass and my leg went in up to my waist! Miraculously I was completely unhurt. The trails were quite a bit more unstable and stoney than the ones I am used to running in and around Madrid. I'd taken three pairs of running shoes with me - the Vivobarefoot Ultras, the Vivobarefoot Evos and the Soft Star Run Amoks (which arrived last week in the post) - but I ended up only using the Run Amoks as they had the toughest sole. They handled the terrain admirably. Of course they attracted a fair amount of attention from the other runners in the group (Youness was particularly worried that I might hurt myself) and even from Moroccans who seemed to appreciate the simple design and the fact that they were made from leather. I ended up wearing them the entire trip as they were so comfortable and, amazingly, they still smell of leather. What was also remarkable about them is that I didn't get a single blister from them and I was even able to run without socks, something I have never been able to get away with.

After the run we went to the local public baths - a Haman - and washed ourselves in the traditional Arabic way. No-one said anything to us at the time but we must have made quite a racket.

We had the first of many incredible meals at Youness' family house that evening. The hospitality of Youness and his family was second to none. We were really made to feel at home and we ate like kings. Youness insisted on us giving our sweaty kit to his mum for washing so that, in the end, I actually only used a small amount of the clothes I packed. But it was meeting his family, seeing his wedding photos and playing with his nephew that made it unique. I always jump at the opportunity to go to another country where I have some sort of connection: Midelt isn't a particularly special place but Youness and his family made it special. Midelt is just large enough to have a hotel but small enough that the tourist industry is not booming there and so we were able to carry on as if we were the same as any other local.

Youness talked about his growing up in Morocco and his progression as an athlete. Hearing all this in context really made it all the more impressive. Youness makes a living from winning races but this puts a tremendous amount of pressure on him. As Jonathan put it, were Youness a football player of equal ranking, he would possibly be in either Real Madrid or Barça, and would be enjoying quite a different lifestyle. In athletics, once you go below the very top of the pyramid, the possibilities to make a living from it drop off dramatically.

Sunday

Sunday was the day of the series - in my case I was tasked with running 5 bouts of 8 minutes at my anaerobic threshold. I was paired up with Rafa and Youness joined us although, for him, it was an easy trot. I really started to feel the altitude - it felt like I was sucking in the air through a straw. I couldn't get my pulse rate up quite as high as it was supposed to be because it felt like I was drowning and I certainly couldn't run as fast as I would have done in Madrid (at "only" 600 meters above sea level). I found that going up hills was what really separated me from the other, lighter runners. Rafa and Youness soon disappeared off into the distance and, after completing the job, I ran back to the car with Jacobo, who was suffering from a prior injury. I was a little disappointed with myself because I felt that I had neither hit my heart rate nor my pace target but I was definitely very tired and my lungs felt like they had had a good workout.

That evening Jonathan and Youness organized a treasure hunt. We were grouped into pairs (I was again paired with Rafa) and our task was to find 7 pieces of coloured card hidden around Midelt and to bring them back to the hotel. On the back of the cards were written some questions related to athletics and any wrong answers would incur a time penalty. I don't know if I have ever done anything quite so absurd as running in a pair of skimpy shorts through the middle of a small Moroccan town in pitch black, looking for bits of coloured paper with another runner who happened to be deaf. There were times when I was worried that Rafa might get hit by a car as he was running down the middle of an unlit street but shouting a warning was of no use: I had to sprint ahead to catch him up. Between the two of us we managed to get well and truly lost. We had a lot of trouble finding one card in particular - it was supposedly hidden in an olive tree outside the Haman. There we bumped into Diego and David who were also in the same predicament. I was able to explain to some locals in my limited French what we were trying to do and, finally, between all of us we managed to find it. We realized that the third pair - Alfredo and Claudia - had gone off without managing to find the card! However, we still had to find the card at the local sports center. We asked directions from several people and this is where I think our ability to speak French put us at a disadvantage: later we found that we had been only meters away from the sports center before someone sent us in completely the wrong direction! One guy very sincerely offered his bike for me to use but I refused - after all, this was a running camp, not a triathlon camp. People were shouting "courage!" to us as we ran by. What moved me most, though, was finding the first card in the Jaima (or tent). At first I ran into the tent without thinking and then realized that I should have taken off my shoes first. There were dozens of children who helped us find the piece of card and then started to run with us - what an adrenaline rush! I told them to tell the others that it was elsewhere... For the last two questions Rafa and I split up: I went to the market where I saw Jonathan, Youness and a rather smug looking Alfredo. Alfredo's expression changed when I mentioned that I had seen the card that he and Claudia had missed. When I got back to the hotel, Rafa was still looking for the card that was hidden in a hole in the wall. Rafa went off in search of it but I couldn't believe that Jonathan would have hidden it so far away. Doubling back I finally found the little piece of card - it was almost impossible to see in the dark - and now all that was left was to catch up with Rafa again! In the meantime, Alfredo had run back for the missing card and now it was down to who answered all the questions correctly - which was us!

Monday

After all the excitement from the previous night, we left Midelt for Ifrane which is where the elite Moroccan athletes train at an altitude of 1,700m. Ifrane looks like no other Moroccan town I have seen. As it is a ski resort and an imperial city, it is very well kept and in a mock-European style. We headed for the running track where we bumped into several top athletes in training. We warmed up on the track while Jonathan filmed us in slow motion and then we hit the trails for the rest of the 1 hour 40 minute run that was programmed that day. In parts the trail was extremely rocky and my Run Amocs were not quite up to the job - to be honest, I'm not sure if any of my shoes would have been - even the others, in their "normal" running shoes were complaining of sore feet. In these patches I ended up lagging behind a little but at least it was nice and shady in the forest. This time I was sure to take my Camel Bak hydration pack because, at altitude, you lose water through perspiration more quickly than at sea level. In fact, I drank my liter deposit dry some time before finishing the run. The others were able to run without water but I'm either not trained to do that or not able, I'm not sure which. By the end of the run I was actually quite tired. The day before had been hard, what with the series and the treasure hunt (during which we were running quite fast at times).

That afternoon we left for Fez where we could relax and enjoy being tourists for a while. I love the Medina in Fez, it is like traveling back in time. I find it hard to think of a place I have been which has quite this same transporting effect. The Medina, or old city, has a circumference of 14 kilometers. It is packed so tight and the streets are so higgeldy-piggeldy that there is almost no more light during daytime than at night. Sometimes you glimpse through a window or a doorway an artisan cramped over some elaborate carving or beating out a piece of metal. And the smells... At least no-one could tell that I hadn't yet had a shower since my run.

Tuesday

In the car back to Casablanca, Jonathan showed me the videos of me running, as well as those of some of elite runners that he also trains. Although my technique has improved dramatically since I took up the POSE Method, there are still some vestiges from my heel-striking days. I tend to kick out my foot just before landing, as if there were a football there. Apart from there being a slight pause before I pick up the ground, I also land a little in front of my center of gravity. This much I know from the wear patterns on the soles of my shoes. He suggested that I try to lift my leg upwards and forwards with the hip flexors so that it is better positioned for landing. He also said that I should try to "grab" the ground with an active landing so that my foot meets the ground at 0 kilometers per hour relative to the ground. He knows that these two points go against the holy book of the POSE Method but I now feel I have consolidated the basic technique to a point where I can make some little tweaks. As I have said before, I believe that the real value of the POSE Method is in helping you develop a good running technique by yourself, something that requires a certain dogmatism if it is going to work.

At one point we got stopped by the police for going at 131kph in a 120kph zone and a combination of Alfredo's excuse (we were late for our plane) and my translation helped us to avoid a 10 euro fine (my GCSE French has paid off at last!); Youness, who was driving the other car, was not so lucky. He used the same excuse but also added that we were athletes... "So you like to go fast?" is what I imagine the policeman who fined him was thinking.

After a long journey we started to disperse and go our separate ways in Madrid. As we were waiting for the train we saw an advert on a TV for a race in Madrid in which Youness appeared (he looked like he was winning). The trip was a great success and an experience I will never forget, along with my other memories of that wonderful land, Morocco. Thank you Youness and Jonathan!

Running up and down hills

Running down hills is much more preferable to running up hills. Or is it?

Until I attended a POSE Method running clinic with Dr Romanov in Odense (Denmark), I subscribed to the common misconception that one should take bigger strides when running down hill and shorter strides when running up hill. As we will see, this is in fact the opposite of what you should do.

The confusion centers around how we think of stride length. Our idea of stride length derives from our perception of how displaced our legs are from each other as this is the aspect we can sense and control. I'm going to call this relative stride length. However, what we are interested in is how this translates into running speed - in other words what is our absolute stride length as measured between footprints. It is clear that, as we tend to run much faster downhill than uphill, our absolute stride length is indeed longer when running down hills. Nevertheless, we tend to also increase our relative stride length and this, coupled with the increased speed and extra distance that we fall in each step, means that we land with incredible force. This is bad. All too many of us know how easy it is to injure yourself running downhill but I have yet to hear of someone who has injured themselves running uphill.

The theory behind the POSE Method can be just as easily applied to running up or down hills. As I have discussed in previous posts, the POSE Method hinges on the idea of running being a sequence of "poses" (being in balance on the ball of one foot), in between which you "fall" forward by leaning forward from your ankles and you "pull" your foot from the ground. Relative to your body you always pull your foot directly along the line directly between your foot and your butt (actively using your hamstrings as opposed to quadriceps or hip flexors). The idea is that this positions it optimally to fall back to the ground directly under your center of mass (in other words, you avoid over-striding). The only degree of freedom you have to control your absolute stride length is how much you lean and what Dr Romanov refers to as the Range of Movement (ROM), or how far you along the foot-butt line you pull your foot. If we are relaxed, then we tend to find an optimum ROM for a given speed automatically: too much ROM and we waste energy moving our legs excessively; too little ROM and we take too many little steps. I discussed this in a fair amount of detail in my post on rhythm in running. In practice, I never actively adjust my ROM but I sometimes make a mental note of how high I am pulling my feet as an indication of how fast I am running: the faster your run, the higher you pull your feet.

So, running down hill you are running faster and should have a greater ROM? NO! The ROM is the height you should pull your foot so that it falls back to the ground exactly in time to make ground contact. Why do we pull our foot at all? The reason is clear if you try to run with straight legs - apart from them getting in the way, it is also extremely tiring. By folding your leg up, you reduce its angular momentum, or the energetic cost of it rotating, rather like a shorter pendulum. (By the way, the POSE Method stresses the point that this rotation is performed by gravity and should not be achieved via an active use of the hip flexors.) The long and the short of it (excuse the pun) is that it rotates more quickly allowing you to lean further forward which, in turn, means that you get more benefit from gravity pulling you forward so you go faster! Now, if you are running downhill, the distance your foot falls to the ground is a bit greater than it would have been on the flat, therefore you don't need to pull your foot so high. This means that your ROM should be less running downhill. This idea doesn't exactly correspond to the relative stride length I described earlier, but it certainly feels like we are "shortening up" as we run down hill. Running uphill is just the opposite: we have to increase our ROM because our foot makes ground contact sooner than it would otherwise and we have to pull it higher as a result. It is actually much easier to run uphill than it is downhill from a technical point of view. Dr Romanov said that "Everyone runs POSE uphill, the trick is to be able to run POSE on the flat and downhill".

Another difference is that, relative to the ground, you lean less when running downhill and more when you run uphill; relative to the vertical, the amount of lean is more or less constant. This makes sense: uphill you need more "help" from gravity and downhill you are limited by your ability to turn over your legs quickly enough.

At the end of the POSE clinic, Dr Romanov had us run downhill blindfolded (guided by a non-blindfolded partner!). Interestingly enough, we all ran downhill naturally shortening our ROM. We then ran uphill, also blindfolded, and it didn't feel as though we were making any more effort than running on the flat.

Treadmill versus road: to lean or not to lean?

One thing that all the new schools of running technique agree on is that you should lean forward while running. A definition of "leaning" could simply be that your center of gravity is out of line with your point of contact with the ground. If you take this as your definition then it is impossible to run without leaning because you need some horizontal force to overcome air resistance. We tend to think of pushing off when we run and that it is friction that drives us forward, but friction is just a reaction force that is always less than or equal to the force opposing it. Think about it: you can't push off without moving your center of gravity out of line with your point of contact. Instead, the horizontal force comes from the residual horizontal component of force that results when you cancel the force of gravity with the ground reaction force, the force that prevents you from falling through the floor. These two forces act through different points and cause a rotational torque, rather like gripping a pencil at each end with both hands and then moving your hands vertically closer together. Seen another way, your center of gravity moves forward as you "fall" by leaning forward, while you move your legs forward to regain balance momentarily (i.e., point of contact with the ground under your center of gravity). So not only should you lean forwards in order to run, but it is actually impossible to run unless you are leaning forwards. When the running schools talk of leaning, they mean leaning properly, that is to say, leaning from the ankles. The reason for this is that this ensures that all the relevant muscles in the body from the feet to the core are all engaged. The antithesis of this is the classic K-bend where the runner bends from the waist; in this case the core is not engaged and the other muscles are forced to make up for this causing overuse injuries in the hip flexors as well as potential back problems.

Very bad running posture

What about when you run on a treadmill? One would think that relativistic principles would mean that there is no difference between running on the road or running on the treadmill: in one case you are moving past the road; in the other the "road" is moving past you. The key difference is that there is air resistance when you are running on the road so you must produce a horizontal force to counter this in order to advance; in a vacuum, after an initial push, you could "run" on ice by hopping up and down vertically. The difference (as I understand it and think of it) is that, on the road you must lean forward to produce this force while on the treadmill the moving belt pulls you out of balance and you must try to keep upright. So you see, there is a very subtle difference based on cause and effect but the upshot is that you must actively lean while running on the road and must try to stay upright while running on the treadmill.

This post arose after I saw a video on youtube on so-called "Good Form Running". I agree with the principles but, unfortunately, even though it is most practical to demonstrate them on a treadmill, it is also not the place to be leaning forward.

You gotta have rhythm

I was thinking about parallels between running and rowing on my short training outing today. In a rowing boat (a racing shell with a sliding seat) the strokeman or person who sets the rhythm is probably the most important member of the crew. In rowing we talk of stroke rate in much the same way as we talk about cadence in running, but what is far more important, at least in rowing technique, is rhythm. The key is to maximize the ratio of the time spent gliding up the slide (the recovery) to the time spent pulling the oars through the water (the work). I should say optimize instead of maximize because, taken to an extreme, the boat slows down too much in between strokes, indicating that the stroke rate should be higher. Having a good feel for the optimum rhythm is something that one gains with experience but it certainly requires a "sharp catch" (placing the oar in the water and taking the weight of the boat rapidly) and a quick acceleration of the oars through the water, followed by a relaxed recovery. A rowing boat has the advantage of being able to tweak certain aspects like the length of the oars, size of the blades (paddles) and the ratio of the inboard length of the oar to the outboard (gearing).

In running, a good rhythm is one which optimizes the ratio of the flight (recovery) to the ground contact time (work). The best runners seem to be paradoxically both stiff and fluid. We can also feel it ourselves when we are running at our best.

I recently read an interesting article on Steve Magness' blog saying that one should aim to have a certain stiffness in the muscles prior to a race, the shorter (and faster) the race, the stiffer. With this goal in mind, running series of sprints the days before the race can increase stiffness while having a massage can reduce it. It's an interesting idea. I also read in the Science of Sports blog, in an article discussing Oscar Pistorius' advantage, that runners tend to take the same time to swing their legs forward into the landing position independently of the speed they run at and that this time rather determines their maximum running speed. Cadence also tends to be relatively independent of running speed. This implies that, the faster you run, the shorter and more explosive the ground contact must be. This would seem to support Steve Magness' claim.

What does "stiffness" mean? I understand it as the time it takes for the muscle action to ripple through the kinetic chain, like a whip cracking or a spring uncoiling. This stiffness can be lost either through fatigue or, equally important, through lack of mental concentration. Just as in rowing, as soon as you lose your rhythm you enter into a vicious circle: you get softer, the ratio of recovery to work goes down, you increase your cadence to maintain the same speed and get more tired, etc. Put another way, every millisecond you shave off the work phase becomes an extra millisecond in which to recover from this increase in power. For this reason I believe you have to be feeling the rhythm the whole time while you are running: if it slips you make an effort to stiffen up during the work phase and to relax during the recovery rather than increasing the cadence (or overstriding).

Normally I don't run with music because I like to hear the sounds around me, my breathing and the tapping of my shoes. If you can't hear your footfalls they have a tendency to become louder and heavier. But sometimes I like to listen to music, especially when I need an extra motivational boost, like today after a few days of feeling ill. Being a bit of a nerd, I have a playlist on my iPod of music which has 180 beats per minute, which is around the "optimal" cadence. (I put this in quotation marks because I think we are better at finding our own optimum cadence than running to a metronome as some running schools would have us do (for example, Chi Running) but many people do overstride and consequently run with too low a cadence.) As long as I don't abuse it, I think it is a good way of keeping my rhythm in check: by running in time with the music, if I slow down, I must improve my rhythm and avoid getting sloppy. Now I think of it, we did almost all our rowing training at a prescribed cadence that was not necessarily that at which we would compete for precisely this reason.

Compact arm swing

I was thinking about my arms while I was running yesterday. After having watched, "Indulgence", a film about ultrarunning featuring Anton Kupricka, I couldn't help noticing that he runs with very relaxed arms, almost hanging down by his sides.

I tried running like this for a while but it felt so unnatural. In fact it reminded me of how I hold my glass when I am in a disco, something that my wife relentlessly takes the piss out of me for. I hold my glass up against my chest, I suppose because (a) it is less likely to get knocked (although if it does spill, I'm going to get soaked) and (b) there is less distance to travel to my mouth. My wife thinks it is due to my Englishness; Spanish people, on the other hand, hold their glasses at full arm extension, down by their hips.

A compact arm swing should be more efficient because, like a pendulum, it requires less force to swing the shorter the radius. On the other hand, when standing still it is definitely more relaxing to hold your arms as the Spanish hold their drinks. I wonder whether it is better to run like Krupicka does for the sort of ulltralong distances that he covers, or whether this is just his idiosyncratic style.

A few months ago, after putting up this photo of me running in Asturias

a friend of mine compared my running style to that of the President of Spain, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, here seen jogging with the British Prime Minister, David Cameron

I have to admit, it does look weird but once you realize that the arms have to pass each other at the same height at some point however you run, you see that it is just a question of timing...

Running technique #2

I recently came across a very interesting blog by Steve Magness, a competitive runner who is doing a Masters in Exercise Science. What particularly caught my attention were his fairly scathing criticisms of the Pose Method. As you may have read in a previous post of mine, I am quite a fan of the Pose Method, having attended a clinic in Denmark hosted by the charismatic founder, Dr Romanov. These criticisms seem to be aimed at the typical guru style of confidently claiming that they have the panacea, the magic solution, but it can only be acquired by paying lots of money to a certified expert. The Pose Method does of course have its certified coaches and clinics but Romanov goes out of his way to provide people with the tools to teach themselves. He has written a number of books and produced a number of videos but with a bit of persistence you can find almost everything contained in them, for free, on his website. This is how it should be: the Pose Method, like the Alexander Technique or Pilates etc, should be part of the public domain and the added value should come from the convenience of finding everything you need in a book or benefiting from the years of experience of a certified coach. My point is that it should be possible to acquire a good running technique without buying any books or paying any coaches.

As I have said before, the Pose Method is a method more than a technique and I found it a very effective way to run more lightly and more efficiently on my mid-foot with the very real consequence that my knee (with the torn meniscus) immediately stopped hurting while running. As with any method, it is a good idea to define an objective and measurable "ideal" which you are trying to attain - this may require an over simplification of reality or, said another way, the ideal may not actually be itself achievable (for example, zero ground contact time). Romanov developed his ideas based on the way Russian ballet dancers were taught, in terms of "poses". In just the same way as any dance has a basic form which you must first learn and internalize and then build your own style upon, the Pose Method gives you a solid base on which you can make some subtle adjustments, like those suggested by Steve in his excellent article.

Having read his article in detail, I've come to the conclusion that it is to the Pose Method, what Einstein's Relativity is to Newtonian Mechanics. That is to say, Newtonian Mechanics is still what is taught in schools today and is perfectly good enough for most practical purposes but it is an approximation to Einstein's model.
I took away the following ideas, which tally with my personal experience of running with what I think is a reasonably good running technique over the last two years.

1) You should NOT try to get off your feet as quickly as possible. This appears to directly contradict the Pose Method, which advocates "pulling" the foot from the floor as quickly as possible. The pronation (rotation) of the foot acts as a spring which is loaded as your foot rolls from the outer edge to the big toe and is released when you "toe off". In order to benefit from this natural spring, you must allow it to fully load and...

2) ...in particular, your heel should be allowed to momentarily "kiss" the floor for the spring to be fully activated. (Note that sprinting is an exception as you run up on the forefoot, although I am not able to say why at this point.)

3) You should extend your hips in such a way that you optimize not minimize the vertical displacement. I very much liked Steve's analogy with firing a cannonball - too steep an angle of attack and you have more vertical displacement than horizontal; too shallow an angle and you lose flight time and the cannonball ploughs into the ground. I think the cue of "running tall" ensures that you don't take off with too shallow an angle, collapsing on to an overly bent leg.

The irony is that the hardcore advocates of the Pose Method have a tendency to live by its doctrines with what I would be tempted to call religious fervour. Having skulked around for some time in the forums where people post videos of them running for (free) analysis by others - many of whom are certified coaches - I've noticed that the response is usually that they could be puling their foot off the floor quicker. Of course they could - if the ideal is "zero contact time" then there is always room for improvement. Having said that, it is a very valuable tool to have people constructively criticize your technique. What I think is a shame, is that there is such a resistance to ideas like the above that I can begin to imagine what it was like for Copernicus when he exclaimed that the Earth actually revolved around the Sun, rather than the other way round.

In scientific research it is a very difficult balance to obtain, in between rigidly adhering to a particular theory and being swayed from one theory to another depending on how convincingly they are expounded. I think the key here is the difference between what you believe and what other people believe. In order to advance a theory, you need support, consensus, and so it is important to be able to convince others. In doing so, you may need to simplify things or even compromise on certain points but it is vital to be consistent otherwise you will confuse and ultimately lose your audience. But this rigidity does not necessarily have to carry over to your own beliefs; you should be open to other people's suggestions which you may file away for subsequent digestion. I think this distinction marks the difference between followers and leaders and between dictators and true pioneers. In this sense, I am very lucky with the coach I have, Jonathan, because he has a very clear idea of how he believes things should be but he is very open to study any new ideas, whether they come from an experienced elite Marathon runner or someone like me, who runs for a hobby and occasionally turns up interesting things on the internet.