March 2018 Running Challenge

Orphia wrote: »

I'm doing an online course from the University of Kent called, "The Science of Endurance Training and Performance".

In Week 3, we look at the "Psychological determinants of endurance performance" and we have an exercise where we look at critical situations we might come across. We then create a plan for each situation so we know what to do when we face that situation. Thought you might appreciate their list.




This is my list:


My goal this year is to do a 50 km run. I have been training for this since Jan. In the next month I will do my final long run/s and start to taper.

On my long run/s:

• If I start to feel tired then I will look at my form and breathing and adjust them to feel more comfortable.
• If my shoulders get sore I will rotate my arms to ease the ache.
• If I get breathless, I will run at a pace that feels like I can run forever.
• If I think negative thoughts, then I will visualise completing my goal and remember my friend Aga's comment about my determination.
• If I'm staring at the ground, then I will look up to try and find a nice photo opportunity.
• If I start wanting to stop early, then I will focus on completing a mini-goal / route section so I feel hopeful.
• If I worry about my time or pace, I will remember my year's goal is just completion of the 50 km run, so I don't need to worry.

During fast / interval sessions, I will "Embrace the suck", and remember that this is how performance is improved so I try my best.

The past week have been hell for me again due to some things in my personal life and have been MIA here. I'm trying to catch up on the posts and came upon this one. What really stood out was the "If my shoulders cramp...."

If your shoulders are cramping, this is usually because you're running too stressed and your tightening up in the wrong places. Your shoulders should be relaxed and hanging low. When stressed we tend to let your arms ride up and your shoulders rise as well and tense up. This requires you to divert energy and steals it which causes needless cramping and makes you tire faster. Shoulders should always be relaxed. You can't move any faster forward by tensing up your shoulders. When your arms swing, they should just brush pass your hips (with arms loosely bent at about 90 degrees). If you catch them rising up it's usually because your arms are swinging about at your ribs level.

Your hands should be cupped but loose. Imagine running with raw eggs (or someone else said potato chips) in your hands and you don't want them to break. Let them swing naturally in synch with your feet. You don't have to force them to swing.

Also, all of your body parts in your left hemisphere should stay in the left and the body parts in your right hemisphere. What this means is if you draw a line down the middle of your head between your 2 eyes and down the middle of your torso and between your 2 legs to the ground, nothing on the left side of the line crosses over your body to the right, and vise versa. Many people allow their arms to swing forward and across to the other side which also wastes energy. No twisting of your hips either (even if Chubby Checker is playing in your earbuds) and your feet does not cross over either.

Another thing with cramping shoulders is the hunching of your back. Back stays straight and stand tall, hips pressed forward. Not only will this rob energy and make your back sore, but you loose power because you are no longer running with butt power. You are forcing yourself to run with your thighs and hamstrings in inefficient ways which not only makes your run harder, but can cause injury. There is a youtube video about the clam exercise to help running with proper hip motion. Running with butt power means you are using your most power muscles (which are your glutes) when it comes to running. You want to engage them. Not only a straight back and hips forward, but squeeze them glutes together. This sounds weird, but imagine running and trying to keep a quarter pinned between your butt cheeks.

One more thing with your feet and I notice this a lot in myself when I get tired. Sometimes our toes start to swing out to the side and we end up just hurling our leg forward. Not only are you getting robbed of energy and using the wrong muscles, but your landing will be off and could cause injury. Trying to force your toes straight doesn't usually go well for me, but instead, I try to twist my heel out. The heel doesn't really twist out to the side all the way, but enough effort is there to make my toes forward facing through out the swing phase and on the landing.

And if you are ever too tired that it's almost impossible to continue running with good form, then that's usually a good sign that your done. Don't force your body to go further with bad technique. If anything, finish up with a walk. Or at least take a walk break until you can continue with good form.