Making strides

Close your eyes and imagine this. A runner, passing by you. There is bounce in her step, and her long legs reach out and attack the pavement. Her thighs power her forward, and as she passes you, you turn and see a nice firm butt that barely jiggles.

Sounds nice, doesn't it? It's kind of how I imagine people reacting to me as I run by them (well, on the very rare occasion that it is warm enough to wear shorts so you can actually see my legs). Well, it turns out the reality is quite different.

Close your eyes and imagine this. A runner passing you by. Strangely, her thighs are hardly moving at all. Instead, her legs kick back from her calves, as though she is trying to kick her own ass. Although she appears to be working hard, and her arms are pumping, she isn't covering much ground - almost like she is running in place. As she passes you, you turn and see that her butt is bouncing in time to her little mincing steps, and you marvel that someone who works so hard still has such a flabby butt.

Apparently, that is the reality. After my race on Sunday, Tony (who managed to drag himself there, in spite of getting forty five minutes of sleep the night before) was telling me about my running style, compared to someone who looks like a runner. He said that some runners look like their legs are in charge, and that I wasn't one of them. He suggested that I should take advantage of my long legs, and make my strides longer. What he was saying actually resonated with me, as I have been thinking that my stride was off - as a matter of fact, Gingah and I touched on that on Saturday night at Donna's.

So, when I was running yesterday (10.5K!!), I examined my stride. It was short. Most of the movement was from the knee down. There is no bounce, all the motion is forward. So, I tried changing my stride. I lengthened it. I stretched my legs out to meet the pavement. I let my quads do the work, instead of my calf muscles. I covered more ground! I felt strong! I felt fast! This was what I have been missing! It was really freakin' hard! I couldn't maintain it! I had to go back to my short choppy stride!

And it explained a lot. First of all, I really feel that I was getting to be as fast as I was going to - obviously I could improve, but getting to that 25/26 minute mark where the bulk of the runners are really seemed out of my poor non-athletic reach. I've also been having a tough time with my calves. They seem to cramp and tighten a lot, particularly for the first three or four kilometres of a run, and in a 5K run, they don't ever get feeling fluid. As soon as I lengthened my stride, and let my legs push me forward, instead of just keeping them under me, I felt the difference in speed. And it makes sense. Why wouldn't you use those large muscles, instead of making the poor little calf muscles do it all? I could feel my quads and glutes working, and my calf muscles were relieved. I guess I have finished sculpting my calves, and am now ready to move on and tighten and build those other muscles. I think it will be hard though - it took a lot more energy per stride, and even though each stride was taking me further, I felt much more tired. I think I will start building time using my new stride - maybe 5 minutes at a time at first. And maybe, just maybe, I can be the runner I thought I was.