EomR Entry 3
3283
Member
1264 days
RV posted 37 weeks ago.
Sounds like you are making good progress.
Downhills took the longest to adjust to - and I notice that I will still sometimes lose form on downhills late in a long run - if tired or not focused.
RV
It takes a long time to get good. - Scott Molina
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast. - Rich Strauss
183
Member
1154 days
KenMierke posted 37 weeks ago.
My first suggestion is that, for the good of your running technique, you should move away from that hill. On a downhill that steep, you have to brake ... unless you can run 2-minute-per-mile pace! If a change of residence isn't possible, learn to brake as little as possible, but it won't be zero on that hill.
Remember too that you've probably had that "I'm going to fall on my face" feeling lots of times without actually doiung a face-plant, so there's a gap between your fear threshold and your safety threshold. Spend a lot of time between the twoand it will become more natrual. With time and your fear threshold will get a lot faster.
Ken
Ken Mierke Ken@Fitness-Concepts.com
Fitness Concepts Fitness-Concepts.com
Author, The Triathlete's Guide to Run Training
www.EvolutionRunning.com
So last night I did a short recovery run.
Still working on dialing in the form, concentrating on getting the lean correct and the footfalls in the right place.
I had a done Zone 1 a ride earlier in the day on my MntBike. (Oh yeah - worthy of a separate post - I did the ride with my 4 year old behind me on a "trail-a-bike." Was 1.) a great fun thing to do with him, 2.) a great workout in general, and 3.) very informative - having the weight behind me made it very easy to determine when I was going up over AeT.)
Avg HR: 124
Max HR: 180 (I'll explain that in a sec)
Time: 47m
Goal:
Work on getting my footfalls under me
Work on keeping my leg at a constant knee angle
Results:
I did a better job getting it right, as there was significantly less effort in my stride.
My stride seemed to extend behind me a little farther - it seemed that my glutes were able to contribute more powerfully.
Uphills were significantly easier to "get" the form.
A trick seemed to be to really concentrate on leaning with my hips and the lower part of my rib cage, not my shoulders - as RV said - there's an angle in the ankles.
I feel like I got it right for about 1/8 of a mile at one point because everything smoothed out, my HR dropped, but I maintained speed.
Downhills are really spooky because apparently there's:
!! no way to stop or slow down!!
using this method; and, I have to add, from my house to the main road where I run is about a 15 degree grade down for about a 1/2 mile. So the first thing that happens on my runs is I end up flying down the hill. About that spooky feeling - any snowboarder knows the feeling - its the downhill toeside lean, where you lean down the hill, and support your weight lightly with your edge. Same here I think - you're basically leaning down the hill so that gravity takes you, controlling direction with high turnover rate, light steps.
Quite doable, but in order to stop or slow down, I had to check up considerably.
I noted an incredible difference last night between the impact of the ER motion and my natural stride, which I switched up to a few times to feel the difference.
My shadow makes me look much more fluid, even though it still feels very strange. I noted that I looked like a soccer player warming up - they always seem to warm up running on their toes.
On the way back, I felt really good and over ran on the way up the same 15 degree grade back up to my house. Hence the 180 Max HR. Oddly, I wasn't heaving like I'd expect.
On the HR issue - One thing I noticed about all three ER runs I've logged here - I did them all relatively close to when I had eaten, and may have not given sufficient time to digest. Would that cause a slightly higher HR than usual? I had noticed on my ride earlier in the day that I was able to keep my HR very low for pretty high perceived efforts, but on the run, had the opposite.
More soon.