35 mins/37:50 (3½ miles)

I don't know why I was feeling quite as angry as I was this morning. I was late getting going, so my usual plan for a 10:00 run flew out the window (more on why I was so tired in another post), and things had not been going terribly well in my Quest for Code That Works, but neither of these things were particularly unusual. And yet I felt a seething rage bubbling away in my subconscious which was making me very irritable and threatened to entirely ruin what was otherwise a perfectly reasonable if unexciting day. I therefore brought forward my substitute run by and hour and a half, and trundled off down the path. The nature park and its loamy smell beckoned, ready to quell the roiling within.

It's hard to move your legs when you barely got out of bed that morning, though.

I've got quite a long legged running gait (not that I have long legs...), which causes me some problems. In fact, some of the knee difficulties have to be laid at the door of my reaching stride, and the last two or three sprained ankles have been because of my trying to walk too quickly by throwing my foot out too far forward when I was already tired (whether walking to the pub or trying to get to the bottom of a hill).

So. shambling along with sore ankles and thighs going "twang", trying ever so hard to relax into the run and just throw my legs out ahead, I remembered something I had read about how the best way to run quickly over long distances was not to lengthen your stride but to make more short strides. Since the run was going badly I figured it was worth a try. I was really surprised at the result.

There were two obvious impacts - I could keep going, and I could go up hills faster. The bonus effect was that there was less actual impact: my legs felt much less beaten about when I'd stopped running, and I am vastly less creaky this afternoon than I often am after a morning run.

It's pretty clear that this is not the fastest way to run in an absolute sense, but if it means I can maintain pace over a longer distance then it's a good thing.

Now all I've got to do is stick with it.

Posted by Dunx at April 12, 2004 04:19 PM