Bare foot running

Barefooting – what and why? YMCA, LTR 2011

When I first started this piece on barefoot running several years ago, there was just a bit of material in the popular media about natural running style. I even had a handout from Ultrarunner magazine about adopting some barefoot running, because this was an article that was fresh and addressed the topic in the mainstream. I am happy to say that the world has changed a bit, and now the terms barefoot and natural running have achieved almost “Kleenex” status in the common vernacular and I now only need to give you the basics while pointing you to dozens of great resources on the topic, including an entire book written by Dr. Daniel Howell, about all of the health benefits of not wearing shoes.

While the book Born To Run and the recently published research of Dr. Dan Leiberman seems to have energized the term barefooting – running barefoot did not start in 2009 or even in this century. While I would encourage you to read the work of both of these guys – I’ll take a minute to point out some highlights of how we got to running shoes in the 20^th century. I hope to also spark a bit of thought about what things looked like before shoes and how that factors into where we are at today. I kept my shoes through this fervor about bare feet, but I can tell you that my thinking, as well as my shoe choices, continues to evolve over time on this subject. I think that every runner should look at the history of our sport and can take a lesson from what shoeless or minimal shoe training can do for your running.

The feet have 26 bones, 33 joints, 12 tendons, 18 muscles; each foot is an amazing piece of machinery and while it has many things it does not have others – so why it is made this way and what was it for in the first place?

Science has made a great case for a theory that the current form of humans evolved and succeeded as a species due to 26 different, running specific, adaptations. These adaptations allowed us to pursue quarry on the move, at a rate just fast enough to tire that animal out, while we have the innate endurance to finish the hunt and gain groceries. Again, Dr. Dan Leiberman offers a much more through explanation of this theory and it is solidly based in the science of biology and comparative biology. We were able to travel, pretty fast, and fast enough to win food and cross great distances. Clearly, we did this without shoes and anthropologists have not found any evidence of Nikes from this critical time period. 

Until Bill Bowerman, the famous University of Oregon track coach, created the running shoe in America in 1972, just 39 years ago, we all ran in very thin light shoes that offered little in the way of a heel cushion or padding from the ground. I have read that he designed the shoe to accommodate what he felt would be a longer and more competitive stride for his athletes. He could teach them to lead with the heel and the longer stride length would out run the competition. Bowerman was NOT a physical therapist, medical doctor or biologist who may have asked, “what might this lead to, other than winning races?”

Currently in Africa and many parts of the developing world, children are raised without transportation and also without footwear. It is estimated that the average Kenyan child has about 1,800 miles on their legs and feet by the time they graduate from primary school and all of these miles, for the majority of kids, are without shoes of any kind. It has been argued that this contributes to the number of victories for great Kenyan runners at the international level and on the Olympic podium. Early leg development and natural foot strength (at altitude, Kenya is a mountainous region with an altitude similar to Flagstaff, AZ) allow these kids to develop all the capabilities of their legs before serious training ever begins for competition.

Many cultures are able to train and run well without shoes or with minimal shoes. The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico are featured in Born To Run for their great ability and running in very simple sandals – a slab of rubber strapped to their feet for protection from sharp objects. This is a similar style of shoe to many early Nations of the American Southwest and the pre Spanish cultures in South America such as the Maya and Inca who had thousands of miles of roads and very little in the way of shoes to traverse them. In those days a severe running injury would cause you to drop lower on the food chain – a deadly prospect. So it might be safe (or humorous) to assume that if running injuries did occur in Inca runners – these runners did not pass on the genes for any fragile lower legs and knees.

According to Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run, Alan Webb’s feet where flat and three sizes larger when he started working with his high school coach to become America’s new top miler. In 2007 Alan set the world’s best 1,500 meter time and broke Jim Ryun’s American record for the mile. But his quest began with flat, weak, de-conditioned feet that were in need of rebuilding. McDougall writes about an interview with Alan Webb on page 175 of his book and Webb says “ I had injury problems early on, … so we did foot strengthening drills and special walks in bare feet” McDougall writes that Alan’s feet changed and his arches became higher as muscles strengthened – his shoe size decreased and his injuries abated.

McDougall writes of an Irish Ph.D, Gerard Hartman who is considered an expert in physical therapy and works with professional runners from around the globe to improve their running. He has been a proponent of barefoot running for many years and cites that “the deconditioned musculature of the foot is the greatest issue leading to running injury, and we’ve allowed our feet to become badly deconditioned over the past twenty-five years”. Many folks have advocated that slowly and gently strengthening our feet over time will allow us to run better and with less injury. We may even find that we can run in lighter footwear. Lighter footwear means less effort and perhaps faster or the sensation of faster as the weight on the end of your leg from a heavy shoe creates a pendulum that takes effort in order to keep moving. 

What do shoes do for me? While all seem to agree that having a sole cover your tender skin provides some protection – many experts are currently reexamining what shoes do well and do not do so well. The good news about this controversy is that in the past 38 years, very little substantive research has been done on how shoes truly affect feet and that is beginning to change now. The United States Military is greatly invested in physical conditioning of its personnel and in the past has seen very high rates of injury in basic training and its share of running related injuries. A recent study on determining the appropriate footwear has shown that the type of running shoe had no correlation on injury prevention for the military personnel in the study. This leads us to “well what can I use to control the movement of my foot, for the least chance of injury?” Your gait, how your foot hits the ground and your running technique becomes more important than the type of running shoe that you might wear according to this study. Manufacturers have succeeded in creating footwear that controls movements of the foot and offers important padding from the ground as you begin running. However, seeking to control the movement of the foot by using a shoe will not ultimately be successful in preventing injury, in the long run, according to new studies. Technique will carry the day and great technique; sensitive feet that are aware of what they hit (and strong feet) may lead to using a much lighter shoe down the road. 

So why do we not teach barefoot running in the Learn to Run class? There are three big reasons in my mind, about why we cover this content as a lesson rather than a focus. First is that the process must be very gradual, even more gradual than learning to run, so we do not really have time in class to retrain what 30 or more years of wearing shoes has done with your feet. Second is that all of us have deconditioned feet similar to what Dr. Hartman discusses above – and this means that we have to slowly build up foot strength, even before we start running in minimalist footwear. I think that if you have already come from a culture of shoes that you will want to learn running first and then learn to reduce how much shoe you use. Third is that the only examples of people being injured with natural running come from runners who, in their enthusiasm, progress too quickly in bare feet or minimal shoes. One of my stated objectives for the class is to introduce you to a new lifelong activity, injury free. Therefore I do that with what your feet are already used to, and provide resources, and hopefully a strong dose of caution to you, while encouraging those who want to move their running to the next level to try strengthening their feet.

In the current day a larger percentage of runners are now dedicated to running entirely without shoes. They have run marathons, ultra marathons and farther in bare feet, and a second subgroup simply enjoys being barefoot full time, so they carry flip-flops with them to get into Wal-Mart or a restaurant. You can read their websites and their ideas about what shoes do and do not do for the wearer and how they feel more free with naked feet. There are as many reasons to consider shoeless as there are folks not wearing shoes. I would challenge you to consider the common thinking on this matter and both accept those who forgo footwear, as well as reconsider what you may gain from simply being barefoot at home or in the yard.

Before you assume that the “barefoot guys” are off the deep end in their “foot yogi-mysticism”, take a good look at the number of people from the medical community that advocate the sale of moccasins to children and preach “barefoot is best” for toddlers. The reason for this, they advocate, is that kids walk sooner when they learn to interpret the ground with their feet (proprioception) and build foot strength naturally. They do not want kids to cut their feet and thus sell a light flexible protective moc- type shoe to achieve this. Many parents have subscribed to this idea with the pediatricians blessing and I’ve seen it work for my own kid. (As I was buying lots of shoes for my running, at $80/pair…)

Arthur Lydiard was a cobbler and made shoes before he was a coach. A coach who was very focused on the success of his athletes. He had his runners in the most basic of footwear and preached against anything “more” for his entire career, which extended well into the era of modern shoes. Internationally sought after coach and physician, Dr. Phil Maffetone was suggesting more than a decade ago that minimal footwear was preferable for similar reasons. Even Stanford University’s world class track and cross country coach (the program gets Nike’s for free) has had his athletes running barefoot in the grass, two afternoons a week, for decades. He said to Nike that his guys got hurt less when they subscribed to this method. (This is what drove Nike to work with Dr. Gerard Hartman to create the Nike Free.) Long before the birth of the very popular Vibram Five Fingers shoe – many companies across the country have made a living manufacturing simple moccasins and unstructured footwear that allow the foot to move and muscles to work. Inuit people, north of the Arctic Circle knew that this is what kept their feet warm in winter – that the boot would flex and allow better circulation. 

So before you ever consider running barefoot, simply walking around without shoes at home is a good place to start and walking farther progressively is another. You may choose to try the new Vibram Five Fingers Shoes as well, which offer that slight amount of protection for your tender skin and not much else for padding. I have started using theses on very short runs (by time) and adding minutes each week very slowly. I spent a year reworking my stride before I ran with these shoes so that I am not landing on my heel much at all but using the mid-foot and most of my foot to absorb the impact of each step. To acquire a lighter step you can practice this technique while walking – you need not run in order to learn how to walk more gently and with a light step. Recall what I have said in many in stride analysis sessions – that cadence, how often your feet hit the ground, has everything to do with a light step. Walking or running, your step must be smaller and faster to achieve lower impact forces. 

For two years now the Outdoor Retailer Trade show saw scores of outdoor footwear manufacturers gunning for a piece of the barefoot pie, gearing up to make “thneeds”, or feather weight running shoes for everyone who wants to run barefoot. The marketplace is now flooded with these new shoes, some of them are untested, un-researched shoes as well. You may choose to try them or go barefoot, grab some moccasins, run in cheaper “race flats” or just try your old Chuck Taylor’s like Lydiard ran in for decades. One key criterion for choosing these shoes is that they should not have an elevated heel. Your foot should be neutral from front to back, just as if you were barefoot on the floor. Most of us can adapt to this well if asked to do so slowly – because you have never seen a baby or an east African in high heels.

But think about a deliberate program of gentle foot strengthening for yourself as a possible next step in your program and add it gradually, just like you started running. A foot that “knows the ground” and is most sensitive, may be less likely to sprain an ankle, will run trails better and may run slower at first but that is OK, you’re in shape and will not “de-train” as a part of this process. Your lower legs will continue to develop in a way that may reduce your injuries over time and your stride will adapt to something that is more powerful in the long run. That is what I want for your running – long running for the long run. So run gently out there.

Read an article about the study here http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/phys-ed-do-certain-types-of-sneakers-prevent-injuries/?emc=eta1

The study here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20576837

Danny Dryers list of preferred light weight shoes
http://chirunning.com/blogs/danny/2010/02/07/chirunning-recommendations-for-minimal-shoes/comment-page-2/#comment-1330

Interesting article on shoes from a rehab perspective

http://www.chirunning.com/shop/pages.php?tab=r&pageid=18&id=575

I have also added several new links on the toolbar here to assist you in learning more about natural running style. If you ever plan to increase your training volume, or wish to develop further as an injury free runner, you owe it to yourself to look over the current research in this area.

Breathing Right

A music professor explained that one in seven people are breathing efficiently and this makes a difference – in everything…

Many take running for granted because we already know how to walk and we might assume that this running thing is nearly an unconscious action just like walking. Many of those same folks might also take breathing for granted, for the same reasons. It just happens and it must be happening just right, because I am still here – “why think about it?” they might ask.
Miles Davis was quoted as saying “Everything matters – Everything” and since most of us cannot sit for two minutes without needing another breath – Mr. Davis might have argued that this matters even more than some things despite it being an autonomic function. In fact, because it is an autonomic function for our bodies we may be running on less than full capacity. Think about what deliberate technique could do for breathing and you’re bound to consider gains in the same way that engineers think about how to turbo charge cars by giving the engine more air. Three easy ways for runners to enhance performance; develop supporting muscles, stretch and make supporting muscles more flexible, develop posture & breathing techniques that we can integrate into autonomic function. Working in these areas will allows us to relearn and strengthen the normal breathing mechanism.

Exercises for enhancing breathing ability are on video from Runner’s World

Bob Anderson’s book on stretching includes some good moves to enhance thoracic flexibility and I have his book if you would like to look at some additional stretches for thoracic flexibility. His site is full of good resources for stretching and includes some of the same kind of tools that you might find at Perform Better.com

Working to stretch and strengthen the muscles that aid and support good posture gives us a strong core and stabilizing muscles that will allow us to hold our good running form longer. Theses are the same muscles that allow us to breathe a bit better. No “beach muscles” required but basic maintenance of the abdominals, obliques, lower back and upper back and shoulders give you an upright posture that allows enhanced airflow.

Belly breathing or diaphragmatic breathing is something easy to practice while lying down and once you feel this you can practice anywhere. Seek to achieve the sensation of filling your body with air from the bottom up. First the back and belly expand, then you feel some chest expansion and lastly you “top off” the lungs. While this seems slow and cumbersome at first – so did running – and now you are more fluid. Do you think that better breath support would make you more fluid and comfortable too?

Where are your head and your spine while you’re running? Think about C7 and up in particular as this will affect the rest of the body too. [Cervical Spine 7 is the vertebrae that you can feel as a bump sticking out on your lower neck when you look down at the sidewalk.]Water flows better through a straight pipe than a kinked one.

Roll your shoulders and use arm raises along your route to loosen up and allow the chest to have a relaxed and open carriage while you run relaxed, down the road. Do not arch your back but keep your spine up right and relaxed.

At the paces we run science describes us as “obligate mouth breathers” which is to say - if your mouth is not open for gas exchange, you’ll fall over from inadequate perfusion. Your nose helps the process and some folks swear by Breathe Right Strips (applied across the bridge of the nose) to further enhance air exchange. Galen Rupp is one professional runner who helped make a name for these in distance running.

Side cramps (side stitch) can be caused by short quick breaths or made worse by it. Try holding pressure into the cramp and breathe deeply, slowing your pace and allowing your body to relax and oxygenate. Think about stretching away from the cramp site to make those muscles longer. Diaphragmatic breathing will help side cramps as well, by giving the diaphragm full range of motion.

Find your breathing rhythm or cadence that coincides with a particular pace. You’ll find that the regular weekly pace might be a breathing pattern something like this: one in – one out, with three strides in that pattern. While the tempo pace might be two in – one out, with just two strides in that pattern. Your threshold pace might be breathing one in – one out, with each stride you take. Find that breathing rhythm that works for you and seek to stay there and learn to enhance that rhythm. The pattern for your own breathing can be nice to listen to. It is also a great feedback tool about how hard you are working and what pace you are running.

Find an easy breathing rhythm and let that govern your pace – not the other way around. Your legs will never outrun your lungs – which is to say that if you are in control of your respiration the body will pace itself according to how much air you’re giving it. You should plan to run longer at this pace (or slower) and run 3 or more days a week in order to keep and increase your new respiratory adaptations.
To be clear, you do not seek to control your rate of breathing itself, because your brain knows a lot more about internal regulation than you do and if you go down the road trying to govern air exchange without heed to pace - the central governor (your brain) will make you fall over! Instead you use your breathing rate to help you measure effort and choose a pace that gives you that rate of respiration and rhythm that you recognize as your PE number.

How well are you doing with your respiratory capacity?
There are several techniques that Dr. Maffetone recommends in his book, The Maffetone Method which help you determine your capacity and may improve it. He asks athletes to assess their diaphragm muscle by breathing through a straw for a few seconds, working your way up to a minute or more over the ensuing weeks – then adding several sets, of one minute each, for three sessions total each week. Your initial success with this will tell you about how powerfully your diaphragm is working for you now and give you a milepost for how it improves over time. The Bob Anderson stretching website used to sell a device called the breathbuilder and this simple device is still available on websites catering to musicians, especially wind and brass players. This device is a simple tool that is not unlike the straw Dr. Maffetone is using but provides greater resistance and a visual aid in your progress.

The next exercise he recommends is a measure of vital capacity of the lungs and the use of your diaphragm. Dr. Maffetone states that any athlete should be able to hold their breath for 50-60 seconds without a problem. This could also be something to work up to as the diaphragm develops power to help you take in more air to sit for 50 seconds. Building this skill has great effect for your running as you will breathe more slowly and with greater tidal volume in each breath - just don’t run while holding your breath!

The third assessment, a Snider’s test, involves playing with fire. If your mouth is completely open – can you blow out a match that is six inches away from your mouth? Six inches is the length of a $1 bill. You should be able to do this without a problem. I though this one was tough but rather than be discouraged - we can use these tools to track respiratory progress in training as you keep track of all your other metrics for progress – without air in your system you’re going nowhere.

Rest and Why you Need It

Our bodies need rest in order to function properly. Does your car engine get stronger if you never turn it off? We get stronger, not during the workout, but when we rest and recover…

Growth hormone is produced when we sleep deeply and at no other time. So being horizontal is when you get to rebuild everything that training is working hard to stress and “tear down”

Bill Bowerman took a technique from Arthur Lydiard and coined the term “tough-easy” for every day that you work hard you need an easy workout to follow-up with. Easy is PE 3-4 and hard is a very long run or anything in the PE 5 & above category. Recall the post on pace and running form talks about PE, perceived effort and where your tachometer should be most of the time.

Masters runners & folks who are no longer acting like they are 20 years old often find they need a day off between workouts. This allows a more full recovery between workouts & thus you get quality workouts every time you go big. Once you are older than 20 you realize it is mostly about quality, isn’t it?

I’ll be referring you to a copy of a great article by Bridget Clark, titled Training Error – Overuse or Under-recovery? from the April 2010 issue of Ultrarunning. Her graphs are worth a thousand words as she explains the body’s response to training stimulus and how many of us will induce another stimulus (running) before we can rebuild, leading to overwhelming our systems and inching closer to the “injury threshold” in the process.
She goes a step further and talks about the idea that cross training, especially strength training, provides a stimulus that is different than running and is also non-load bearing so that the tissues build capacity and recovers better without undue stress.

Does it sound confusing that I would encourage you to exercise and then ask you to take it easy while doing it? Reframe the idea in terms of the law of diminishing returns you already know from the office. When you do not get a vacation from work or a weekend off, you become dull and less fun. Further, if you do not have adequate time to process the challenges at work (rebuild) then you begin to see diminishing returns as well – we push the pace and things begin to get dropped on your plate. Let me quote Bridget Clark, from her Training Error article, “we now have a wealth of research in sports science covering the past 30 years. With the rate of running injuries so prevalent, potential causes have been studied up and down.” She summarizes this body of research by saying, “training error is the only factor that consistently displays a direct cause and effect relationship with running injuries”. She has the doctorate in Physical Therapy, and her argument makes sense intuitively. Sometimes we will suffer what she refers to as a traumatic injury – one example would be me hitting my head on a low limb during a run and causing a goose-egg style welt to appear. The second and much more common injury is overuse, with two studies cited, ten years apart, each showing 70% of runners see these overuse injuries. We simply do not allow enough time for the body to recover and rebuild as stronger before we load it up again. Slow or abrupt degenerative damage results as we spiral toward what Bridget Clark calls injury threshold.

Remember how we talked about the injury cycle? There are 4 distinct phases - all easy to remember and each gets worse.
One: I sprain/tweak my ankle and so it hurts a bit after the run.
Two: I run on it for two weeks as I normally would, without slowing down or doing any “rehab” of the injury and now it hurts during and after the run.
Three: A week after that it hurts before, during and after the run.
Four: Finally it hurts too much to run, and hurts all the time – is this my ankles fault? Am I now meant to run? If you are in my class I think you can answer this question pretty well…

The good news is that you can apply this sports injury model to your overall sense of well being and thus guard against over training. The FIRST program, Dr. Maffetone, and Dr. Tim Noakes in his book all talk about a runner getting progressively more tired, feeling that performance plateaus and then drops, notices that immune system function begins to decline and may even see mood changes or swings in much the same way that extreme stress has been shown to affect people. We should be alert for trends over time and look out for a common acronym in prehospital care called DIC head syndrome. Disoriented, Irritable and Combative. A number of things can cause this and some could be acute problems such as; you could have low blood sugar, could be suffering from the heat, or maybe something more chronic could be overtraining syndrome. Everybody has different physiological set point for this (you are an experiment of one) and it varies depending upon what else is going on in your life as well. It is a fine line for some and gets easier to discern as your “aches and pains” database expands and as you learn more about your training process as journey of minor stressors and growing stronger from each stressor. Tired is natural, while tired with lingering effects and inability to refresh may need intervention. As you might guess, this is much easier to spot in others, outside yourself. Your training log will help you here as well as your running buddies.

Remember when we talked at the beginning about your running log? How you should examine your workouts and they will tell you a great deal about where you and how far you have come? This document can become an important window into how you are doing if you are without a coach or a regular running buddy who can spot your holistic well being. Author Tim Noakes gives a number of suggestions that you may wish to record in your running logbook that extend beyond the idea of mileage, route, shoes worn and time elapsed.
1) How did the run go? We all have a growing “aches and pains database” and this plays a role but on the trend side you want things to get gradually better.
2) What was your effort rating (or PE, perceived effort): If easy workouts feel hard this week, I ask the question “what has changed?”
3) Did you enjoy it – or any part of it? Nearly every run has both good a bad spots and if they do not pass easily out of the bad, I ask the same question as above, or if things clicked – what helped is good information too.
4) You waking pulse rate: I asked you to take a baseline pulse as homework because we want to see improvements and look for spikes in this rate, or a new creep upward, as a sign we must heed.
5) Early morning body weight: This is the best time to get a reading (after the gastrocolic reflex occurs) and this number will fluctuate but we hope that there is not a continued drop over time – a loss of appetite or persistent loss is considered an overtraining sign.
6) Number of hours slept: You know where this is going – get to bed!
7) Heart rate during the workout: This can also tell us about what you are feeling, are you pushing too hard or is it taking more effort to do what was easier to execute two weeks ago? Over time the same route should get a bit faster or easier without increasing heart rate above your regular workout numbers. See the previous lesson about pace to get a Dr. Maffetone recommended pulse rate for your steady state runs.

This kind of data will allow insight toward overtraining trends or on the bright side – when you can bump things up a notch. Many starting out will say “I do not want to bump anything, right now – I am stressed enough!” and that may be true, however 3-4 weeks without changes toward the positive side of the ledger, and no deleterious effects either means that you have hit your plateau at this exertion level and it is time to vary the workload or increase intensity for a new phase. This gradually makes you better at what you are pursuing.

If something hurts for two or more days then take 2 or more days off – simple. During that time stretch, RICE and examine what has changed that would cause the injury – but don’t assume running through it as normal, will be the cure. You will have to use active rest and modify your expectations while learning about the root cause of injury. Here is a great thought, “healing, is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature." - W.H. Auden

If you are sick from the neck up – go ahead and run (it may even help) If you are sick from the neck down – consider sitting this one out.

Expect that you’ll need to take better care of yourself and wash your hands more frequently when your mileage drops. Your immune system is cranking at peak capacity when you are running & when mileage drops sometimes the immune system takes a vacation too.

When you are getting strong running performances each week, you can gain 90% of all possible fitness developments with 4 days/week of running. You may get that extra 10% with 5 or more days each week but what you’ll find is that the number of injuries you see in the runner is appreciably higher.

Trouble signs of overtraining
Injury – muscles not allowed to recover well between workouts suffer from stress injury. Failing running form in the tired athlete leads to excessive pounding, favoring something compounds imbalances. Do not become a sport limper or it will get worse somewhere else on your machine!
Sickness – While running stimulates the immune system, too much too soon - or inadequate rest – allows the body to be susceptible to illness or infection – once you are ground down to nothing, illness sets up shop.
Slump – remember that loss or impairment of higher brain function is one way that the body shows early sign of problems. Irritability, restlessness, trouble sleeping, depression and malaise indicate that you need a rest week (decrease in training volume, additional rest days, 8+ hours of sleep nightly)

How much rest? For starters we stay within the 10% rule, so that we rarely increase training load by more than 10% in any week. We also seek to vary the training cycle and get you some rest every four weeks as a means for you to absorb your training. Within that parameter you’ll also need at least one extra minute per night for each mile you train that week. EG: If you run 15 miles in a week, you’ll need 15 extra minutes each night that week. Closer to race time - seek to allow an extra hour of sleep each evening. Olympic Marathoner Ryan Hall is in bed at 9:30pm every night. You do not spend 12 hours a day there, but you get what you need to charge up for your event.

One last resting tip is feet up - allowing time for fluid exchange (assisted by gravity) not only feels great but really speeds recovery. Racers are now using pressure stockings to gain the same benefit while sitting at their desks. Blood return and elevation are great things for tired feet and lower legs.

What makes us faster?

Running adaptations
Let's talk some more about how the body changes and what you can expect and be aware of as your new physicality in this sport begins to develop. Bear in mind that this is what you will be observing over 20 weeks – not next week.
A quick review of running anatomy; Cardiac muscle will adapt first, respiratory systems next, and then body musculature, your foot strength, and then connective tissue. This order of business cannot be put into fast forward nor can the order be changed for most folks. Patience is very important. If the body feels ready in one department it may not be ready in all departments without the requisite mileage. Remember our mantra of “train, don’t strain” that comes from Arthur Lydiard.

Cardiac capability – You heart is quite possibly the hardest working muscle in the body and will adapt very quickly if you gradually increase the training loads. One of the best ways to measure this adaptation is to know your resting pulse and then check your pulse right after finishing a run. Continue to check it every 30 seconds or so following the run to see how quickly it returns to normal resting rate. While you may not always run faster each day – if you see your pulse drop to normal more quickly – you have a great reassurance that your body is working more efficiently. This means you can run more easily and farther without duress. Endurance of this type allows you to have muscles contracting consistently for longer periods of time and this is a benefit for any activity you choose to participate in; Arthur Lydiard trained all types of Olympic athletes for their respective sports by increasing their stamina.
Dr. Philip Maffetone discusses the idea of being able to run the same distance, over each successive month, at a slightly faster or more efficient pace as your cardiac capacity improves. Even if your speed never significantly increases – you ease into performing at this effort will improve gradually improve. How well you cover ground at a given heart rate, as well as how fast you return to your baseline heart rate – are good indicators of adaptation.

Proprioception - You ability to “body sense” and kinetically know where you feet are; where they are in relationship to your legs or ankles, what you arms are doing while you run are some basic examples of proprioception. How many of us can stand on one leg with our eyes closed? If you practice this skill over time your body becomes more tuned into where you are in time and space. This skill is developed daily in running as we are falling down & catching ourselves with the next stride. Two attributes to refine in our body awareness while running are; making sure we are projecting most of our energy into moving forward, making sure we are landing on the ground with quiet feet. We have discussed running form in other classes and this kind of gradual awareness of how you are running will greatly enhance how well you run and keep you running farther over successive weeks. Don’t tune out your body – listen to it and focus on what you are experiencing.

Pacing – Can you start slow? Can you run a 13:00 mile, a 12:00 mile and an 11:00 mile? These are skills that take time to develop and are essential to the runner for best tactics while racing and training. After you develop the ability to hold yourself back, and adjust your expectation of running pace - then after eight week or more we’ll begin to develop the ability to slowly speed up over the course of a run. You should manage the tendency to start much faster than you can sustain as a running pace. You can experiment with running different paces and different perceived effort rates to better understand your own body and stride. Later in our program we’ll introduce the ideas of having you train with speed work and hills. For hills we generally run more slowly and for speed work we seek to sustain a sharper pace over a given range/distance to boost cardiac and respiratory function. Tuning into your PE (perceived effort) and comparing that to a stopwatch and or a heart monitor is the fastest way to develop this skill. How many of us can tell how fast the car is moving without looking at the speedometer? You will develop this as a runner over time, the ability to sense how fast you are moving by how much effort you are putting out.

Lung capacity – The body will develop the ability to process more oxygen to your muscles and feed them faster. This happens in both the short and long term. While many folks say that they breathe easier and more effectively in just 4 weeks it has been proven that there is not a known limit to how much aerobic fitness you may develop. Stretching your torso and practicing diaphragmatic breathing may further enhance this ability to move air and process oxygen. The muscles of the diaphragm and the intercostals that expand and contract the ribcage must be exercised and stretched for optimum results.
What is VO2 max? How many liters of oxygen you can process in a minute is a measure of how much work your muscles can perform before oxygen deficit. You can and will see gradual and continual increases in this capacity. To increase VO2 max capacity takes a long time and is best accomplished with some of the advance concepts of speed and hill work mentioned earlier (that we save for further on in your program). This has lasting repercussions for your everyday health and levels of concentration.

Lower leg muscles – Gastrocnemius (calf), Anterior Tibialis (front of tibia/shinbone), and Soleus (deep calf) are muscles that we are working a great deal with strength training and preparing them for distance running. You’ll see differences in muscle composition in these areas.

Stride enhancing muscles - muscles such as the hip flexors, lower abdominals, glutes are used to raise the leg for the next step and to stabilize the hips during the stride and keep us upright and aligned while headed down the road. Strength training and running are changing these muscles too and adapting them to running.

Foot strength – Feet grow throughout our life and then get tougher and stronger (and larger) as we use them. Think of the farmer who is 85 and now his body is smaller than his work wear but he has the large muscular hands of a much bigger man. Your feet will become conditioned to running and all of the smaller muscles associated with balance, ankle strength and supporting the foot grow stronger over many months of running. As long as you spend a great deal of time in the shoes and socks you will use, running and walking the conditions you will see, and traveling the distances you will race – your feet will condition themselves for your chosen event all by themselves. You’ll just need to treat them gently and stretch them occasionally – we’ll talk more about feet in a few weeks.

Fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscle fibers – fast twitch fibers run mostly off of sugars and are designed for speed. We are born with a certain number of them and while you can wake up what you have been given, to be employed in speed work – you cannot make any more fast-twitch fibers. Those without an abundance of fast twitch fibers will never be Olympic sprinters. Slow twitch fibers burn fat and fire slowly and steadily to easily resist fatigue – they are largely a predetermined quantity too but fast runners can train their fast twitch cells to burn fat and condition them for endurance.

Dr. Maffetone states that the slow twitch or aerobic fibers are the ones that are most resistant to injury, and associated with supporting the joints and that these fibers “contain a significant proportion of the body’s antioxidant activity,” so developing our capacities here is a great investment.

Capillary bed development – Both Jeff Galloway and Arthur Lydiard talk about the body’s ability to increase circulation to the capillary beds as a result of sustained exercise – having great ramification for both muscle endurance and recovery. When you exercise for long periods your body increases blood production and blood volume increases subtly. The cellular need for perfusion during these long runs forces capillary growth into new and developing muscle tissues. This allows greater transport of Oxygen and CO2 throughout the body and has beneficial lasting effects.
In Arthur Lydiard’s book he discusses a study by Swedish researcher Bengt Saltin which compared seven Swedish runners with students from Kenya’s St. Patrick’s High School – a school which has produced six, world cross country champions, many Olympic athletes and four sub 2:10 marathon runners. The research showed that there was a slight advantage among the Kenyans (over the Swedish athletes) for anaerobic capacity of about 3% and each group had equal ratios of slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers. The primary difference that Saltin found was that the Kenyans had more mitochondria per muscle cell and more capillary development in their muscle fibers – nearly twice as many capillaries. Lydiard points to this study and teases out what many coaches, anthropologists and physiologists have said since. That these kids run to school every day, and everywhere they care to go, not at a fast pace but in an aerobic way – often for 100’s of miles a year. Without creating an oxygen deficit and without stressful training programs they simply ambulate naturally so many more miles than other folks that when it does come time to train for competition - their bodies have developed great vascular depth and energy generating capacity due to adaptations any runner might produce.

Mental stamina - while the endorphins come from the brain and are often associated with the “runner’s high” sensation this is only one component of mental process in the runner. Many folks may claim to never see the runner’s high phenomena and yet they reference the seasoned knowledge that all runs have high and low points. They have a large “aches and pains database” that they can reference to understand what will pass and what is something that will cancel their run. They use mental tricks, disassociate from low intensity pain, and compare their current toil to previous challenges. The longer a person runs the more tools that have to motivate themselves further and the higher their tolerance becomes to high intensity exercise. Please do not misunderstand here that - I continue to stress that when it hurts, smile, and if it hurts too much to smile, slow down or stop. Yet over time you do get to know that “hurts so good” feeling and that type of achievement translates well to the rest of your life also. We’ll have an entire class in mental process in later weeks.

Changes in metabolism – While running should never be used as a diet program - over the long term you will see body mass changes and BMI will be smaller. You burn a large number of calories over the course a week’s running and often this will cause your base metabolic rate to rise. Muscle mass consumes more calories at rest than fat cells do and thus as you develop lower leg and stride enhancing muscle mass you also shift that resting metabolic rate. Running requires 1.7ml of oxygen per meter for every kilogram of body weight. So for example; a man weighing 160lbs (72.5kg) would use 123cc of oxygen for every 3.28 feet he travels. A 120lb woman will only use 92.5cc of oxygen over the same distance – almost a 25% increase in efficiency. When running you start the run on simple sugars (glucose & then glycogen) but as soon as you have begun a regular aerobic rate for running the body begins to synthesize fats and carbohydrates together for muscle fuel. Galloway’s book cites that after 30 minutes of running the body is using fuel that is comprised of more than 50% free fats (free fatty acids and triglycerides). Along with your light strength training routine this aerobic training will leave you with greater definition and changes that most folks see as a positive benefit of an activity they really enjoy.

How long can I expect to develop these adaptations and how long can I keep these adaptations?

Lydiard commented that he continued to see cardiac and respiratory function increase in athletes for years and felt that the greatest gains were often seen in the third year of consistent training. I mention this to emphasize that while you will experience great gains early in your program – you are just getting started on you potential as a runner. Other coaches have taken this gradual progress even further – Joe Vigil coaches Dena Kastor, one of America’s fastest women in history. Vigil worked with Dena over the course of nearly six years and they increased her lung capacity from 72 mls to a VO2 MAX of 81.3 mls, one of the highest ever recorded in an American athlete.

In the book Born to Run, author Christopher McDougall cites analysis done by Dr. Dennis Bramble, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Utah. Dr. Bramble examined finishing times by age division for 2004 New York marathon participants. He found that runners begin to peak after 19 years of age and reach full physical potential at 27 years of age but take heart – yes, they do begin to decline in capacity after age 27 but how long does it take for them to reach the same level of ability that they had at age 19? Sixty-four years of age. Go ahead and read that again slowly because the spell checker is on, I said you would have to be age sixty-four, before a nineteen year old could beat you – provided you were both still training. The statistics on master’s athletes and ultra running confirms this idea and dispels the previous notion that runners only improve for seven years. They may enjoy great capacity and be able to run well for much longer than we previously thought possible. The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico and the Kenyans and Kalahari people run their entire lives, existing without grocery stores ( you have to run for food) and without other means of transport.

Galloway states that muscles can perform the amount of work that they have been accustomed to during the previous 14 days. There is very little loss of adaptations over the short term. If your running is a regular habit you should be able to handle intervals of rest and inactivity without detriment. Loss of some of these running specific attributes occurs slowing over a curve of time. When you are getting back to your program after a long lapse expect to have a short dip in running comfort followed by you feeling more yourself. Folks that have a regular mileage program find that they can sharpen their speed and endurance for a particular race in just 5-8 weeks depending on their physical state. Most runners plan to take a break from running one or two times a year to stay fresh and let the body rest & see no adverse affects from doing so.

What can I do to add depth to these running specific attributes?
We'll continue to talk about this in coming weeks but for now here is some food for thought.

Vary your route by distance, by elevation gain and loss, by surface, by purpose. These all can test and challenge your adaptations and thus enhance your adaptations. Design a four week session for any one attribute and develop it in this mini training period. This tactic called periodization, is a regular technique for elite athletes. They pick apart the challenges of their particular race and design a 4 week interval where they develop the needed skills for that challenge. These periods of specific training can follow each other consecutively without substantial loss of ability and allows them to have a manageable training load while sharpening for a particular event.

Add drills that support balance, movement in a different plane, and activate different muscle fibers.

Sports or activities that translate well to running and enhancing your current adaptations: Tai Chi, Yoga, dance, weight training, rowing, Pilates, plyometric exercise and drills, wobble or rocker boards.

Run year round – these skills develop over time and cannot be rushed without facing injury. So apply patience and mileage while keeping in mind that runners see the biggest gains in the third year or more and that many improve over the course of the their lives.

Run with someone. A little competitiveness, watching someone else’s strengths, having external inspiration to push, can all aid in getting to new and higher places with your running.

Barefooting or de-structuring your shoe program is another way to mix it up and we’ll talk about this in greater detail in another class. In the meantime I’ll just tell you that we start not by running but by walking around the house barefoot. This is advanced territory and merits further investigation and discussion before giving it a try.

Pace and Running Form

Pace and running form is a big conversation that we'll approach in parts - so sit down with tea and a biscuit and take this in - but realize that there will not be a test after wards. We'll revisit this as we go and emphasize various parts along the way. If you can take two of thee concepts out of each run and seek to instill them into your running - you will run longer and more easily.

Train your self, not by yourself. You deserve company and the shared effort makes the time pass, as well as enriching your run. But your training has no competitors, it’s your training. Besides, you’ll quickly discover that we all respond differently to this type of training and each person needs their own pace/space to do that. While we are striving to run a race at the end of this training cycle, you should remember that it is a training cycle. What do I mean by that? I mean that you should set up your training so that you love training for training’s sake or running for running sake (I know you do not love racing yet, and maybe you will or will not love racing). We are going to make running a practice for you and to define this I quote Danny Dryer, “If you see running as only as sport, you’re limiting yourself to getting only the physical benefits. Making an activity a practice is a process of self mastery. You are no longer simply practicing that activity; you use it to learn about, understand, and master yourself as well as the activity.” That idea will make you better at nearly anything and it is the way people benefit from meditation, learn a new vocation, or tackle the largest of personal goals. While learning to run will be far from the largest accomplishment you ever achieve – I’d argue along with Mr. Dryer that you stand to lean more than how to keep yourself fit and get ready for a race - if you make your running a practice.

So if we are going to tackle some understanding of pacing and running technique we need to begin with what adapts first in our bodies to running.

Cardio system – in charge of keeping you going it is very versatile and will keep rising to the challenge if you apply changes at an appropriate pace so that it can keep up.

What next? Muscle systems: all of those supporting and accessory muscles will be adapting and with your strengthening and stretching program this happens even faster - just lift two days a week and stretch at least as many days as you run.

What next? Tendons, ligaments and connective tissue adapt the slowest. Keep in mind that this tissue does not get the same blood supply as other parts of your body and while tendons and ligaments are very strong, some of us have firsthand knowledge of how long they take to heal. These tissues need the longest to adapt to any sport, including running, so take your time.

Pace is relative from one runner to the next but pace can tell us a lot about your individual achievements and adaptations as time goes by. It can also tell us a lot about over training, fatigue, or where and when that injury began. Hey, sometimes we learn via hindsight but I hope that you and I can use your training notes to put together a picture of how you are progressing rather than looking back to identify your injury. We want to be proactive.
For all the work you are doing you deserve good notes.
· Writing down a few things about what went well and what didn’t allows you to learn over time what works best for you.
· This same record is a confidence building tool that verifies you are in fact improving and putting in the work.
· Keeping your times and distances as you progress in your training allows you to evaluate progress quantitatively and keeps you from going too fast or over training.
· If you can justify the cost (they are now in the range of $70-$200) a heart monitor is also a great gift/tool for self evaluation that will keep you from running yourself too hard.

If you vary your routes from a list of good ones you can avoid boredom and see new places. Varying routes makes you a stronger runner by varying terrain also. Over time this will make you faster too. You may always ask runners for new routes and good ones to add to your list. Some of our class has already started using a map program online to chart and share routes; allowing you to find new places to run. I am adding additional routes to a website called walkjogrun which is listed on the site as a smartphone compatible product but it also works on your desktop or other device and you can make routes without using your car (the old school method is to drive or bike the route, just to get the distance.) New routes can be motivating and will help you vary your training and pace over time.

Warm up – even if it is only a minute you need to allow the joints and muscles to get moving slowly. Walk 3-5 minutes before your workout or if you cannot do this at least run very slowly for the first 3-5 minutes of you workout and get the groove going. I like my route to start a few blocks from the house and this makes me walk a few minutes before I start running. You also can begin thinking about the pace, goal, technique you’ll use to get it all accomplished.

Your pace should be at a rate which allows you to relax. If you are not relaxed it will be difficult to run with clean, efficient form. Exercise is tough enough, right? So make sure that you travel slowly enough that you can think about technique and begin to relax into that technique. People often think that they need to travel at a particular speed in order to call it running and you will see that we are more concerned about your heart rate and level of perceived effort than your actual ground speed. Of course, heart rate and level of perceived effort are very personalized and that is where you come into the training plan process to really make it work. I can help you plan workouts but you are the speedometer for them and the final say (refer to – “you are an experiment of one”.)
Here are a few things to think about that save energy for each run.

You are headed in a particular direction and we want as many of your body parts as possible headed in that same direction you are traveling. Sounds simple but many of us have varying alignments. So from the top:
Your head should be upright and you can easily see out to the horizon. Think about a long spine and the back of your neck being long as well so that when you take a breath, it goes straight into your lungs. Relax your neck and shoulders by breathing rhymic-ly & deeply.
Please take not of this rhythm and tune into it because over time you will notice that it changes and this breathing rhythm will alter as soon as your pace does. Every engine needs air. Keep your eyes on the horizon and imagine the back of your neck being long and straight. This relaxes shoulders and opens the airway giving all the air a straight route to where it is needed.

Arms should swing naturally and swing straight ahead and back. Do not cross your body with your arms. Smile occasionally to relax neck and shoulders (folks will wonder what you’re up to.) Hands are loose and relaxed, form “O’s” if you need to.
When we get to your hips, think about your pelvis being level and parallel with the ground. What I mean by this is that your standing posture may show a tendency to tilt your hips either forward or back but if you stand up straight and tall you can align the pelvis so that the top of its “bowl” is not tipped fore or aft. In order for this to happen your knees will be very slightly bent and your ankles will be very slightly flexed. You want to ease any strain on your back and allow for easy breathing, again – relax.
Stand up for a minute and while standing straight and tall, close your eyes, now jump up in the air with a little hop and as you land on the ground – freeze. This frozen posture that you land in, is a balanced position (if you fell over just now, you were not balanced and will need to repeat the experiment, sorry) this is a very good basic stance for running.
Another thought on posture. If you are standing still in a balance way as we have discussed above, can you see the tops of your feet? If not you may have your hips too far forward, or ankles flexed too much. Try to have that body all centered over your feet and yet a little flexed. We will demonstrate some of this posture in seminar.
Seek to not land on a straightened leg when you travel down to road, have this flexed knee that you experienced a minute ago. Flex the ankles as well so that you are flowing a bit.

Are you using all of your energy to move forward? Look at the horizon and see if it bounces – it should not. Keep feet low and smoothly moving forward to stop upward travel or change it to forward travel. Arms, feet, knees and other body parts should all be moving forward as best as you are able, so practice this and have a friend look at your running form. Moving economically is all about technique, moving slowly enough to practice and to stay relaxed and it gets easier the more you try it.

We use our lower legs to catch us from falling forward. DO NOT push off the ground with calves and toes while running as this will cause injuries to shins, calves, Achilles tendons and possibly elsewhere. No running on your tip-toes – even when going uphill keep feet are landing smoothly and flat. Think about picking up your heels, peeling them up from off the road starting at the back and finishing towards the toe.

Most of us land on our heels and knees should be bent. Do not take a large or unnaturally big step but think about your feet landing right underneath you or just slightly in front of you. Stand up straight or with a very slight forward lean. Your feet should land on the ground quietly and as you listen for your breathing see if you can hear you feet as well. The elite runners run faster because their “turn-over” is 2-3x what ours is. They do not have a longer stride necessarily but their feet strike the ground 3x more often in a minute than ours. When you hear them go by at that pace it sounds like typing, pitter pat, pitter pat, very quiet.

Now for the effort part – we want to get you a workout and start the cardio system on adapting but we balance that with moving slowly enough to practice technique and to stay relaxed.

Heart rate: You can take your pulse in the morning before getting out of bed to determine your resting heart rate in beats per minute. Use the artery in your wrist or neck (just beside your windpipe) and quietly count for 30 seconds and multiply by 2.

The traditional formula from your book: Your maximum heart rate (MHR) will be 220 minus your age = MHR seeks to never exceed this number.
Your MHR X .60 gives you your training level for 60% effort.
Your MHR x .95 gives you the 95% effort number; the highest heart rate you would reach in race conditions.
Most of our training builds endurance to get us to race distance and so we train at 65-85% of our MHR. This is aerobic training and is the type that offers infinite improvement physiologically.
Your text refers to another way to calculate your heart rate that is slightly different than the old standard which will give you a little higher overall allowable rate see page 112 for the Karvonen formula – there are many ways to calculate but what if you do not have a monitor to track your heart rate? Believe it or not – most pro athletes start the season with a monitor and once the tune into where they are at for the season they leave it at home because they are so good at sensing “perceived effort”.
Perceived effort (PE) is the feeling of “how much of my total energy is being spent running right now?” or how close is this to the fastest I can go (100% effort)

Easy pace= 65-70% PE you can have a complete conversation, feels like a 3-4 on a 10 scale of effort, you may run 3 strides per inhale, 3 strides per exhale

Aerobic pace=75-85% PE you can still speak in sentences, feels like a 5-6 effort on a 10 scale, 2 inhale or 2 inhale-1 exhale per 3 strides. Some call this tempo pace.

Threshold pace= 88-92% PE you - speak a –few-words-at a- time, feels like a 7-8 hard effort, breathing in & out on every stride. Some call this interval pace – you cannot hold this one for very long.

If you feel the need to run faster during a workout save it for the second half of your run. Running the second 50% slightly faster is know as a negative split or a progression run and trains the body for race day by building endurance. If you start out faster in the first half of your run and then tire…you teach the body to slow down instead. Better still, for 90% of your workouts (we’ll talk about speed workouts in a few months) start at the pace you plan to finish at, which means keep a slow steady rhythm that reflects that PE 3-4 or 65-70% or your target heart rate. You’ll not only enjoy the run more but you’ll feel more like you could run the next day.

Most programs wait 8 weeks before adding any hill repeats or speed work on the track – it is better and OK to seek to run negative splits during runs as an easy endurance builder. First you develop a running form that feels natural to you – speed work will later cause your body to subtly improve upon that form.

Aerobic training – the athlete can infinitely develop their potential in this area – it is not yet known what a human’s maximum oxygen handling capacity is… and a number of coaching experts agree that this is the zone where you should spend the majority of your time. The only trouble is that is can be easy to creep out of this zone and into the anaerobic zone without knowing it. Pay attention to your pace, your breathing rhythm and what it “feels like” in terms of perceived effort so that you do not wear yourself down prematurely.

Anaerobic training – the ability to perform work under oxygen deficit - this ability is finite and can only be developed to a point. Training at your near maximum heart rate, at or above threshold pace is anaerobic training. “running—so fast—that—you can—hardly—speak—might—vomit…” is an anaerobic pace and will leave you feeling wasted for your next run.

Here is another great tool that you should consider as a conservative means to keep yourself in the aerobic zone & you’ll need to be A) serious enough to really want to improve – as it requires restraint B) you’ll need a heart monitor and the ability to use grade school math.
from philmaffetone.com
The 180 Formula

To find your maximum aerobic heart rate:

1. Subtract your age from 180 (180 - age).
2. Modify this number by selecting one of the following categories:
1. If you have or are recovering from a major illness (heart disease, any operation, any hospital stay) or on any regular medication, subtract 10.
2. If you have not exercised before, you have exercised but have been injured or are regressing in your running, subtract 5.
3. If you have been exercising for up to two years with no real problems and have not had colds or flu more than once or twice a year, subtract 0.
4. If you have been exercising for more than two years without any problems, making progress in competition without injury, add 5.

For example, if you are 30 years old and reasonably fit you would fall into category 2c: 180 - 30 = 150.This is your maximum aerobic heart rate for base training. For efficient base building, you should train at or below this level throughout your base period. [In this example 150 would be the runners 3-4 pace and the bulk of all their running.]

Why does Dr. Maffetone say this, and why is his number so low - even lower than the traditional method? Less is more. You need to feel motivated to run on the day that you do and over training by going too far, too fast, running somebody else’s pace, running too many days can really leave you unprepared for a good effort on your training day. Dr. Maffetone argues that many of us inadvertently train some in the anaerobic zone, feel stronger or faster than we really are and then fade due to aerobic deficiency syndrome. Dr. Maffetone gives a great analogy for steady progress in your cardio development in his book The Maffetone Method. [If you are] “jogging one mile at a heart rate of 140 bpm, initially in 12 minutes…a month later the same one mile jog at the same rate takes 11.5 minutes; two months later, 10.5 minutes; and three months later, 10 minutes. This would indicate good progress and also implies increased fat burning.” This allows development of your aerobic system and avoids the tendency to go out and try to overdevelop the anaerobic system. Many great coaches have suggested similar strategies but Dr. Maffetone has a great formula to keep you honest and measure the results. I like that for a lot of reasons, our culture thinks that if you’re not out dusting the competition you’re not running fast enough. This is slow, steady, phenomenal progress in cardiac capability and efficiency and will make your daily running seem effortless in the long run.

From another great coach – sometime called the father of jogging, and guide to more Olympic athletes than any other in history, “A distance runner employing a moderate work rate, can get enough oxygen to economically burn fat & glycogen. This enables ATP (adenosine triphosphate) to be rebuilt as fast as it is being used and the trained runner, working aerobically, can continue for several hours – in the case of the elite ultra runner, for day after day of steady aerobic output.
What happens when the runner sprints or shifts his work-rate into the anaerobic phase is that oxygen is no longer absorbed fast enough for the fat & glycogen breakdown. The body will then cheat & break down glycogen without oxygen.” Arthur Lydiard

By using a reasonable pace to develop aerobic capacity and refine good running form you will see gains faster. It is not a fast process, but it is faster in the sense that you will remain uninjured and have the capacity to maintain steady progress. Your running economy is as important as good fitness toward making you a faster more effortless runner. That said, we try to go farther before faster and the father of running states “why” best.

“Most people never realize what their potential is or understand the simple truth that it is based upon their ability to assimilate, transport and use oxygen. If we can appreciate that and then improve that ability, we lay a better foundation on which to build the technical skills and reach a tireless physical & mental state in which we can employ those skills & techniques much better and much longer” Arthur Lydiard

"Try to run each day in such a way that you would want to run again the next day…"

Barefooting – what and why?

This installment comes with a handout you can pick up at the YMCA desk until Oct 1st...

While the book Born To Run and the recently published research of Dr. Dan Leiberman seems to have energized the term barefooting and made it into almost a household word – running barefoot did not start in 2009 or even in this century. While I would encourage you to read the work of both of these guys – I’ll take a minute to point out some highlights of how we got to running shoes in the 20th century. I hope to also spark a bit of thought about what things looked like before shoes and how that factors into where we are at today. I will refer you to a great article in Ultrarunning magazine as well, which is a great summary of why you should or should not dump the nice running shoes I asked you to buy in the first place. I kept my shoes but I think that every runner should look at the history of our sport and can take a lesson from what shoeless or minimal shoes can do for your running.

26 bones, 33 joints, 12 tendons, 18 muscles; each foot is an amazing piece of machinery and while it has many things it does not have others – so why it is made this way and what was it for in the first place?

Science has made a great case for a theory that the current form of humans evolved and succeeded as a species due to 26 different, running specific, adaptations. These adaptations allowed us to pursue quarry on the move, at a rate just fast enough to tire that animal out, while we have the innate endurance to finish the hunt and gain groceries. Again, Dr. Dan Leiberman offers a much more through explanation of this theory and it is solidly based in the science of biology and comparative biology. We were able to travel, pretty fast, and fast enough to win food and cross great distances. Clearly, we did this without shoes and anthropologists have not found any evidence of Nikes from this critical time period.

Until Bill Bowerman, the famous University of Oregon track coach, created the running shoe in America in 1972, just 38 years ago, we all ran in very thin light shoes that offered little in the way of a heel cushion or padding from the ground. I have read that he designed the shoe to accommodate what he felt would be a longer and more competitive stride for his athletes. He could teach them to lead with the heel and the longer stride length would out run the competition.

Currently in Africa and many parts of the developing world, children are raised without transportation and also without footwear. It is estimated that the average Kenyan child has about 1,800 miles on their legs and feet by the time they graduate from primary school and all of these miles, for the majority of kids, are without shoes of any kind. It has been argued that this contributes to the number of victories for great Kenyan runners at the international level and on the Olympic podium. Early leg development and natural foot strength (at altitude, Kenya is a mountainous region with an altitude similar to Flagstaff, AZ) allow these kids to develop all the capabilities of their legs before serious training ever begins for competition.

Many cultures are able to train and run well without shoes or with minimal shoes. The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico are featured in Born To Run for their great ability and running in very simple sandals – a slab of rubber strapped to their feet for protection from sharp objects. This is a similar style of shoe to many early Nations of the American Southwest and the pre Spanish cultures in South America such as the Maya and Inca who had thousands of miles of roads and very little in the way of shoes to traverse them. In those days a severe running injury would cause you to drop lower on the food chain – a deadly prospect. So it might be safe (or humorous) to assume that if running injuries did occur in Inca runners – these runners did not pass on the genes for any fragile lower legs and knees.

According to Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run, Alan Webb’s feet where flat and three sizes larger when he started working with his high school coach to become America’s new top miler. In 2007 Alan set the world’s best 1,500 meter time and broke Jim Ryun’s American record for the mile. But his quest began with flat, weak, de-conditioned feet that were in need of rebuilding. McDougall writes about an interview with Alan Webb on page 175 of his book and Webb says “ I had injury problems early on, … so we did foot strengthening drills and special walks in bare feet” McDougall writes that Alan’s feet changed and his arches became higher as muscles strengthened – his shoe size decreased and his injuries abated.

McDougall writes of an Irish Ph.D, Gerard Hartman who is considered an expert in physical therapy and works with professional runners from around the globe to improve their running. He has been a proponent of barefoot running for many years and cites that “the deconditioned musculature of the foot is the greatest issue leading to running injury, and we’ve allowed our feet to become badly deconditioned over the past twenty-five years”. Many folks have advocated that slowly and gently strengthening our feet over time will allow us to run better and with less injury. We may even find that we can run in lighter footwear. Lighter footwear means less effort and perhaps faster or the sensation of faster as the weight on the end of your leg from a heavy shoe creates a pendulum that takes effort to keep moving.

What do shoes do for me? While all seem to agree that having a sole cover your tender skin provides some protection – many experts are currently reexamining what shoes do well and do not do so well. The good news about this controversy is that in the past 38 years, very little substantive research has been done on how shoes truly affect feet and that is beginning to change now. The United States Military is greatly invested in physical conditioning of its personnel and in the past has seen very high rates of injury in basic training and its share of running related injuries. A recent study on determining the appropriate footwear has shown that the type of running shoe had no correlation on injury prevention for the military personnel in the study. This leads us to “well what can I use to control the movement of my foot, for the least chance of injury?” Your gait, how your foot hits the ground and your running technique becomes more important than the type of running shoe that you might wear according to this study. Manufacturers have succeeded in creating footwear that controls movements of the foot and offers important padding from the ground as you begin running. However, seeking to control the movement of the foot by using a shoe will not be successful in the long run according to new studies. Technique will carry the day and great technique; sensitive feet that are aware of what they hit (and strong feet) may lead to using a much lighter shoe down the road.

In the current day there is an entire tribe of folks dedicated to running entirely without shoes. They have run marathons, ultra marathons and farther in bare feet, and carry flip-flops with them to get into Wal-Mart or a restaurant. You can read their websites and their ideas about what shoes do and do not do for the wearer and how they feel more free with naked feet.
These “barefoot guys” read a bit like they are off the deep end – “foot yogi-mysticism” or something. However, take a good look at the number of people from the medical community that advocate the sale of moccasins to children and preach “barefoot is best” for toddlers. The reason for this, they advocate, is that kids walk sooner when they learn to interpret the ground with their feet (proprioception) and build foot strength naturally. They do not want kids to cut their feet and thus sell a light flexible protective moc- type shoe to achieve this. Many parents have subscribed to this idea with the pediatricians blessing and I’ve seen it work for my own kids. (As I was buying lots of shoes for my running, at $80/pair…)

Arthur Lydiard was a cobbler and made shoes before he was a coach. A coach who was very focused on the success of his athletes. He had his runners in the most basic of footwear and preached against anything “more” for his entire career, which extended well into the era of modern shoes. Internationally sought after coach and physician, Dr. Phil Maffetone was suggesting more than a decade ago that minimal footwear was preferable for similar reasons.

Even Stanford University’s world class track and cross country coach (the program gets Nike’s for free) has had his athletes running barefoot in the grass, two afternoons a week, for decades. He said to Nike that his guys got hurt less when they subscribed to this method. (This is what drove Nike to work with Dr. Gerard Hartman to create the Nike Free.) Long before the birth of the very popular Vibram Five Fingers shoe – many companies across the country have made a living manufacturing simple moccasins and unstructured footwear that allow the foot to move and muscles to work. Inuit people, north of the Arctic Circle knew that this is what kept their feet warm in winter – that the boot would flex and allow better circulation.

While this is all good for some; I am most concerned with my runners being injury free, using the best technique and enjoying their running forever. Many will need something on their feet, at least in winter, to do this and barefooting may be something to try and work into their training program along with foot strengthening and conditioning.

Simply walking around without shoes at home is a good place to start and walking farther progressively is another. You may choose to try the new Vibram Five Fingers Shoes as well, which offer that slight amount of protection for your tender skin and not much else for padding. I have started using theses on very short runs (by time) and adding minutes each week very slowly. I spent a year reworking my stride before I ran with these shoes so that I am not landing on my heel much at all but using the mid-foot and most of my foot to absorb the impact of each step. Further you can practice this technique while walking – you need not run in order to learn how to walk more gently and with a light step.

So this year’s Outdoor Retailer Trade show saw scores of outdoor footwear manufacturers gunning for a piece of the barefoot pie, gearing up to make “thneeds”, or feather weight running shoes for everyone who wants to run barefoot. Get ready to see dozens of these models in the marketplace next year – like Crocs a few years ago, but sillier looking. You may choose to try them or go barefoot, grab some moccasins, run in cheaper “race flats” or just try your old Chuck Taylor’s like Lydiard ran in for decades. But think about a deliberate program of gentle foot strengthening for yourself as a possible next step in your program and add it gradually, just like you started running. Feet that “know the ground” and are sensitive, are less likely to sprain an ankle, will run trails better and may run slower at first but that is OK, you’re in shape and will not “detrain” as a part of this process. Your lower legs will continue to develop in a way that may reduce your injuries over time and your stride will adapt to something that is more powerful in the long run. That is what I want for your running – long running for the long run. So run gently out there.

Read an article about shoeless study here
The NIH article on the Army study here
Danny Dryers list of preferred light weight shoes

Interesting article on shoes from a rehab perspective