Running better than Paula

I received a tweet from Paula Radcliffe this morning: "Thanks guys. Pretty s**t day for me but great to see the London course looking so good and so many runners. Just need to fix myself!" She'd just placed 3rd in the Bupa London 10,000 in 33:17 — a respectable time for a 37-year-old mum, but well outside her road PB of 30:21. Paula's disastrous run reminds me that all runners have their own individual standards as to what is a 'good', 'average' or 'bad' race.

In my current state of fitness, if I were to run 12:45 for a 3000 metre race I'd call that a 'good' performance. On Saturday afternoon I raced in the YCRC 3k at Campbell Park. I placed 23rd in 13:43, which looks to be well outside my definition of good. Thinking about it though, I'm encouraged. The race was cross-country (on dirt tracks actually); there were tree roots, rocks, rutted tracks to negotiate; a horse stile on a sharp turn at the 500m mark; a dry creek crossing; a climb of some number of metres to the half-way turn. Most of the runners in the race ran a minute or so slower than what they would for a track 3000, so I'll be generous and give myself a 'good' rating for that race.

How did my stride feel? Not quite as expansive as it did in the 5k the previous week. I tried to take on board Rick's tips (from Earl Fee's book) about keeping my hips and chest forward. I couldn't quite get it happening though. Perhaps the 10k jog I did Saturday morning took the edge off my legs. Improving my stride is still a work in progress. Also on Twitter, Pete L. linked to a video from Dr. Yessis about over-striding and stride length. The doctor makes some good points that make sense to me, including "If you want to increase your speed the first thing you should do is increase your stride length, not your stride frequency."

Getting my stride back in a 5k race

With running, one thing I'm sure about is that I never possessed the wonderfully flowing stride of a Herb Elliott or a Catherine Freeman, but there was a time (last century) when I at least ran with the feeling that I was 'striding out' and not shuffling along. My 5k race on Saturday afternoon was something of an epiphany in that at last I felt like I was moving well. Now I know that running is a numbers game, and the raw numbers from the race are nothing extraordinary: 35th place in 23:06 — 1:20 slower than my best time on the course from 2008. The thing is, my excitement about the race has nothing to do with numbers. It's because of how I felt about my movement whilst I was running. And that was a good feeling.

There was a beautiful study by Pete Larson of high-speed (slow motion) videos taken at this year's Boston Marathon: Gait Variability Among Elite Runners at the 2011 Boston Marathon. It contains a table showing the variability of different stride 'components' amongst some elite female and male runners. For example, 'step rate' (stride frequency) varies between 173.9 and 188.5 strides per minute for the men and 181.8 and 194.6 for the women. What has this to do with real-world (particularly aging) runners? I'm interested to hear your thoughts. I think it's easy enough to run with the same stride frequency as we age. An 81-year-old lady can race with the same number of steps per minute she used when flying over the ground in her thirties. What changes as we age is stride-length.

Rick reminded me about Pete Magill's article in Running Times: Solving the 5K Puzzle. The first piece of the puzzle is Stride Efficiency, so that's why I'm happy my stride felt good on Saturday (even though I'm yet to commence the drills and short hills that Pete recommends in the article). The only thing I've been doing thus far is running less mileage (50 to 60 kilometres per week rather than 90 to 100) and running faster (while concentrating on form) during these runs. I'd like to build the weekly mileage to something higher and assemble the other puzzle pieces over coming months.

A sucky race, and feeling good

Last Sunday I raced in the Nail Can Hill Run for the 6th time, managing to record a PW of 63:07 on a spectacular autumn day. I was spectacularly slower than '08 when I ran with a camera, stopping to take photographs while still managing 56:53. I'm nowhere near being in the shape needed for a hilly 11.3k race. However, I'm not unhappy. I enjoyed the day out with my running mates and my legs felt good — for 3k!

On Thursday I ran my 10k MAF test course at 736 heart-beats per kilometre, which is only marginally inferior to the 732 I recorded on 3 March. On the face of it, I'm not too far away from the 710 to 720 beats per km I was recording in '07 around the time of my M50 10,000m PB and 20:54 5k at Stromlo. But, I'm not sure... my mileage since the surgery has been about 60k per week (including quite a few rest days), so is the apparent aerobic improvement just due to having (relatively) fresh and springy legs?

My quest for springy legs is in its early stages. The only change to my training thus far (besides the reduced mileage) is to do as many of my runs at close to 5:30 per kilometre pace. This is about 82% of my 10k race-pace (if I could run 45 for 10k, which I'm not sure that I can!) — for a runner capable of 36-flat for 10k it'd be like doing regular runs at 4:23 per km (7:04 per mile). Not all that fast, but a pace that requires some springiness.

My mate John finished so far ahead he had time to grab his camera and take this photo. Thanks John!

Something interesting: The value of springy muscles

I'll need some help with the conclusion to this blog-post. I have the plot, but it's without resolution. The interesting thing I discovered after going 11 days without running (or cross-training) was that my legs had regained a springiness that I haven't felt in a very long time. A springiness reminiscent of what I remember from my (somewhat) serious 800 and 1500 metre racing days twenty years ago. It's not a measurable feeling — purely subjective, but very alluring.

The thing is, I know I also lost aerobic fitness over those 11 days. My first run back was 10k in 56:34 at an average HR of 139. Prior to surgery, I would have run about 53:15 for that heart-rate. So, on the face of it, 3 minutes slower. But, my legs felt amazingly good! I was expecting to run 60 minutes for that amount of effort after 11 days off, so were springy legs worth 4 minutes of speed?

Not long ago I read a blog post by Steve Magness about muscle tension — specifically, the value of retaining muscle tension during the taper for a race. What has me intrigued after my little unexpected experiment is the idea that there could be value in holding onto some muscle tension during training (or at least not straying too far away from that happy state). I'm addressing the following questions to readers on the experienced side of the age of 35, for I don't think spring-less muscles are a problem for younger folk. Do you think it's worthwhile trying to train in a way that promotes the retention of springy muscles? If so, how could this be done? If it means sacrificing weekly or monthly 'mileage', how much could I sacrifice and still retain a high level of aerobic fitness?

Prelude to something interesting

I'm back running after eleven days off under doctor's orders. Ran Friday, Saturday and Sunday for a total of 30 kilometres and 206 for the last four weeks. I haven't forgotten how to run. I want to write at a little more length about a discovery that my usually cumbersome legs gained some springiness after all that idle time. I'll do this in my next blog post over the Easter/Anzac Day weekend. While I'm here I'll raise a glass of Samuel Adams to my marathon friends running in Vienna, London, Enschede and Boston.

I'll leave you with a photograph of the stitching on my right calf (just below the knee), and another of three amazing women. Pam, Liz and Ruth completed their 10th Canberra Marathons last weekend, thus earning 'Griffin' status. There are only five women in the Griffin Club. Pam ran the marathon in 3:43 and continued on to complete the 50k Ultra in 4:31. Pam has entered this year's Badwater Ultramarathon. Liz (despite some anaemia and other issues) ran 3:19, and Ruth broke the 6-minute km barrier with a 4:12. Well done ladies!

Stitches on my right calf and an Aussie Dollar

Three Griffins - 30 Canberra Marathons!

A bump on the track

I'd planned to race the 5k this Saturday at the Canberra Running Festival weekend (there's a supporting marathon race on the Sunday). This afternoon I had a skin cancer cut from my right calf and the doc said "I don't want you to run for ten days." There are only eight stitches in the wound but I should heed his advice. Bugger! There are plenty of 5k races on the calendar so I'm not fretting. I could be a marathoner who's almost torn her hamstring off the bone or a runner who's missed a lil' ol' cross country race due to a stress fracture.

The hazards of living at a high-ish altitude in the country's sunniest capital city. That's one of the reasons I prefer running at dusk — no need to lather litres of sunscreen all over my ranga-esque body. On Sunday morning I watched almost a thousand females race through the parks down by the lake. The Youtube video is here. The frame below shows how much "air" the two leaders are getting. But not as much as me! I reckon the other photo is proof of a new air-time PB. What do you reckon?

Andrea and Sarah leading the Women and Girls' 5k

I beat them for air-time on the green grass of Stromlo

Lauren Fleshman: Too cool for school

I imagine most fast young runners ask themselves the question: "Am I talented enough to make a career out of running?" For myself, the answer would have been a resounding "No!" (if I'd been a competitive runner in school). I started running at 23 and it took me seven years of training before I could break 18 minutes for 5k. I was born slow.

In spite of being born slow, I still love running and racing. I'm actually happy that my talent for running wasn't even borderline good enough to contemplate running professionally. The runners that do run full-time need to find that delicate balance between injury/illness and running spectacularly well. Two runners who now find themselves on the wrong side of that balance are Benita Willis and Lauren Fleshman. Benita is well known to Australians, but Lauren is not. I found out about her a few years ago when I was looking online for examples of running drills. Here's the video I found.

Lauren writes well and a recent blog post talks about her rehabilitation from persistent foot pain. She went on a road trip from Oregon to Phoenix to seek help with her injury. On the way she invited Twitter followers to comment on photos she took of the scenery. I left a comment wishing her good luck with the foot (not expecting a reply), so imagine my surprise when she did so saying "Thanks Ewen." What a thoughtful person! I hope she overcomes her injury and makes it onto the US team for the London Olympics. I'll be cheering her on.

Twitter timeline on the day Lauren said "Thanks Ewen."

A day off and Japan

I took a day off from running on Friday — hadn't missed a day in the previous 41 and could feel I was in need of a rest. My heart-rates on runs have been a little on the high side for a week or two. After the day off I enjoyed a particularly good long run on Saturday morning with my mates: Geoff (and a couple of his Metro runners for a while), Ruth, Emma and Andy.

We ran beside the lake and then through the bush around Mount Ainslie for a distance of 20k in 2 hours and 9 minutes. In my book that's a long run for a 5k racer. Afterwards we met up with a couple of other friends for coffee (and lunch) at the War Memorial café. The perfect morning! Today's run makes 91k for this week and 380 for the past four.

I have running friends living in Japan, and thankfully they and their families are all okay. Bob is actually racing the LA marathon in California today. Go Bob! I found a website via Twitter last week where runners around the world are coming together to raise money for British Red Cross which is helping people affected by events in Japan. It's called Run For Japan. The first runner was Paula Radcliffe (I was the 42nd) and now there are 242 runners who've run 3,481 miles. The website's goal is to run around the world (24,901 miles) in 28 days.

28 miles is the longest 'run' I do. 2009, 1 mile in

Will POWERbreathing make me faster?

I still have my Maffetone 'patience phase' of training rolling along. Just making slight adjustments week to week — I'm finding that 90 to 100 kilometres weekly is a manageable amount of running to fit in around my sometimes long hours at work. Last Thursday I ran on the immaculate grass of the Calwell 400m track — eight 200s to remind my legs of the speed needed for a 20-minute 5k. A neuromuscular workout of sorts. I had a rough goal of 48 seconds for these and averaged 47.8. Walked back across the infield for a full recovery. They felt OK — like I could have run faster. I held back as I didn't want to get into any sort of high heart-rate or lactate accumulation territory.

I also purchased a POWERbreathe 'Sports Performance Plus' inspiratory muscle training device after reading some interesting research evaluation blog posts from Canute. Does anyone use one of these? My experience thus far is positive. On the first day I found it very hard to do ten breaths on the easiest of ten levels. Thought I'd purchased the wrong model! Now I'm up to 30 breaths twice daily and can foresee increasing the difficulty level and number of breaths to 2 x 30 twice daily. The POWERbreathe people recommend having the level set so that one 'fails' at 30 breaths.

I think this type of training might be suitable for people racing distances of 10k or less. For marathoners, breathing doesn't seem to be a 'roadblock', but it can be for distances where lactate accumulation is higher and for hilly races. Speaking of hilly races, the Six Foot marathon was held on Saturday (the first time I've missed it since 2003). Thought I'd leave a link to a video showing the amazing sure-footedness of female race winner Anna Frost. She recorded the third fastest female time in race history — 3:52:48 for 45k of mountainous trails on a hot day. Amazing.

Being a Ferrari (cap) owner, I can afford a POWERbreathe

Inspiration and Improvement

Scott Brown told me of the great story from last Sunday's Tokyo Marathon — the one about Japanese runner Yuki Kawauchi who placed 3rd in 2:08:37. This was a 4-minute PB from last year's race and 9 minutes faster than his PB from 2009 (2:17:33). The amazing thing about Kawauchi is that he fits his training around a regular 9-hour work day! One doesn't have to live the life of a professional runner to come up with inspiring performances.

If Kawauchi's improved running doesn't do it for you, then how about Ben St Lawrence's on Thursday night? Young (29-year-old) Ben raced the big guns of 5000 metre racing at Olympic Park and came away with a 15-second PB, running 13:10.08. A storming last lap dealt with Chris Solinsky and Matt Tegenkamp, with Bernard Lagat having to drop down another gear in the home straight to hold off St Lawrence and take the win. Four years ago Ben St Lawrence was an overweight (90 kg) door-to-door salesman and party animal. Now that's some improvement!

I'm inspired! And this week, slightly improved. I ran my 10k MAF test on Thursday at 5:38 per km with an average heart-rate of 130 (my fastest speed thus far in this patience phase of training, and the best I've run since February last year). One change I've made this week (after reading a blog post from Canute), is to practise deep diaphragmatic breathing during all my runs. I wonder if I can match the 6% lowering of heart-rate (at a particular speed) that Canute found when using this type of breathing? Even if my improvement is more modest, better ventilatory capacity is sure to help my 5k racing times. I intend to run some trial races on the track in the coming weeks, so I'll find out soon enough.

My 'excited' new running style