Pose Running

Here's another problem with swimming at the high school... there was a little kid sucking on the mirror in the locker room. Very strange.

I ran for the first time in 7 weeks today at lunch. I took it slow and easy and tried to stick to the Pose method since I got the video and book for my birthday. It was a decent first run, I suppose. Nothing to get excited about.

Running in the pose method (pictured) is all about landing on the balls of your feet and not pushing off with your feet. When most people run, they push off with the back foot and extend their front foot and land on their heel, which puts a lot of stress on that leg. Landing on the heel slows you down, and pushing off speeds you up. It's a series of accelerating and decelerating. Not the most efficient way to run.

Pose running is all about switching weight from one foot to the other and using gravity to your advantage. You don't push off with your leg; you just pick it up. When your right leg is up, you pick up your left leg and your right leg will naturally drop. You want that landing to be soft, under your center of gravity and on the balls of your feet. You use gravity by leaning forward so you're almost falling forward the whole time. You're just switching support from one foot to the other. No pushing off. No landing on your heel.

I think it's going to be good for me because the pushing off is what bothers my tendon. Lifting my leg straight up underneath me doesn't hurt.

I can't really say if I like the Pose Method yet (even though I think it will be good for me) since this was my first run and it was a little weird. Plus I haven't been running so my conditioning is down. Also, I intentionally took it easy and the trail was covered in snow. Lots of things making this run less than stellar...actually it was one of my slowest runs ever. 3 miles in 30 minutes.

I'm going to keep working on the Pose Method for a while until I decide if I like it. Even though I think it will be good for my knee, I don't want to change my running style if it's going to slow me down a lot. I don't think it will, but we'll see. If it works the way they claim, it will eventually make me faster. I hope so.

My Ironman training program officially begins Monday. I'm not too fired up for it so I need to find some motivation. Winter is so depressing it's hard to get motivated to swim, bike and run.