Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by moorereason
Four days and counting! My legs were pretty tired today after my “form work” yesterday, so I tried to find a form between “good” form and my “normal” form. I basically focused less on kicking my feet closer to my butt and focused more on getting my knees forward and feet down a little quicker so I’m not reaching out with my feet as far as I normally tend to do. I think it helped my pace and helped me land on my foot properly. Like I said last time, the form changes seem to make things feel better, but my stamina can’t keep up with the extra work at this point.
PS – Sorry about the title for this post. Counting to four always reminds me of Count von Count from Sesame Street. That’s about all the creative juices I’ve got today. 🙂
Today marks 3 days in a row that I’ve run — all 2-milers. Today, however, was a little different.
I’m all too aware of the fact that my distance-running form is terrible. I was more of a sprinter growing up and never really learned to run long distances. Usually when I try to run at a good pace, I tend to want to run on my toes, which doesn’t last very long, and my legs tire quickly. So, last night I decided to do some googling on running form and ran across this video:
The product they’re advertising is interesting, but I found the side-by-side comparison for running forms instructive. So, I went out tonight to play around with my form a little. I tried to focus on bringing my feet up closer to my butt during the back-kick and not reaching out in front of my center of gravity too far. You know what? I think it actually helped! The first quarter-mile felt very smooth and surprisingly natural. My legs were fine for the first mile, but my lungs couldn’t keep up. I had to take an air-break every quarter-mile or so. The second mile I could definitely tell I was working some musles in my lower leg that I don’t normally use as hard. My main problem right now is that when I try to use what feels like a good form, my leg speed increases dramatically because of the mechanics of the running form. It’s almost impossible to run slow with that form, and slow is where my lungs and stamina are right now. I’ll keep trying to make some improvements and hopefully my overall fitness level will improve where I can run like that for more than a quarter-mile without having to stop to catch my breath.
By the way, did I mention that I’ve run 3 days in a row?!
Today is a bit of a milestone for this year: running two days in a row! I decided to change (start) my running plan this week. I’m changing from running 3 days week with no back-to-back running days to running 20 minutes per day for at least 5 days a week. I’m off to a good start, but anyone can start something. I’m focused on finishing well.
I also noticed the past week that hearing of all the 5k’s in Abilene this month and seeing everyone’s time activated my competition gene. I’m reminded once again how much work I need to do get to a respectable time in even a 5k, much less a half-marathon. Grrrr…
I put in about a 20-minute run today which ended up being a 2-miler. I haven’t really had a set work-out plan since I ran a half-marathon in October, so I’m going to try something simple: run 20-minutes a day for at least 5 days a week. I’m doing this partly because I need to set the bar somewhere and partly because I’ve been too busy and tired to run much more than that anyway.
Every once in a while, I get a migraine headache. Luckily, I can tell it’s coming because my vision gets messed up before I have one (apparently, it’s called an Ophthalmic Migraine). Anyway, while getting ready for church this morning, I could tell one was coming. So, I had to stay home while the family went to church. My normal fix for the migraine is to just sleep for an hour or so, and I wake up almost back to normal. Well, I ended up sleeping 3 hours.
I don’t know about you, but if I take any kind of nap during the day, I’m up until at least midnight unable to go to sleep. Having slept for 3 extra hours, I’m worried about being up until 2AM. So, I decided to run a while in order to, as my son says, “use up my energies.” I think I only ended up running about 2.5 miles, but it was over a thirty-minute period. I decided to take a detour from my usual 1-mile circuit to run in a newly developed area in our neighborhood. I checked out a few houses at different stages of completion. If I had kept going along my circuit, I think I would have had about a 10-minute pace. Not that great of a pace, but this is the first time in a while I’ve had two runs during the same month.
I’m still contemplating whether I should run again this evening to use up more “energies.”
I don’t normally take morning runs, but I’ve been so tired at the end of the day recently that I’m having a hard to convincing myself to go run. So, I figured I’d give dawn a shot.
It’s evening now when I’m writing this, and I don’t feel any more tired than I normally do. Perhaps this morning run thing can work. The only downside is that it’s still pretty cool in the mornings right now. I’m not sure what the temperature was this morning at 6AM, but it was cold. I managed to put in 2 miles at an acceptable pace (9:37), but about 1.5 miles into it, my thighs started going numb from the cold. I should have had on one more layer of clothing, and I would have been alright.
I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to run one of the several 5k’s that are being held this month in Abilene, but I forgot about my 6-year-old son starting Upward soccer. So, the next 5 Saturday mornings will be spent watching my son play soccer. He did really good in his first game. We’re not supposed to keep score, but he was. He knew his team won 6 to 4 and that he scored 4 goals. He even made sure to update all his teammates on what the score was each time one team scored. He may be a little competitive. Anyway, I’m real proud of him, so I thought I’d put up a few pictures. The first one is of him headed for a goal, and the second one is him in mid-strut after scoring. 😉
Moore Pressure 