Pride Goeth Before the Fall

I used to think running was a dumb, boring sport. Seriously - how hard is it to put on a pair of shoes and run? Some people trained harder and had better running genes and therefore were faster than others. It seemed so simple in my mind. Running form? What was that? Lots of runners use different forms and it doesn't matter, right?

Well, today we focussed on running form during 200m sprints. I had thought my running form was "near perfect", but I quickly learned how wrong I was! We were given a goal pace (mine was 54sec) and told not to run it much faster than what we were told.

As the focus was on form rather than speed, I did the sprints at...okay, at too fast a pace (around 45-50sec rather than 54sec). But I did focus on my form! I kept my head up and my shoulders back and my feet in perfect rhythm. At least, in my mind I did. For all I know I looked like Igor running after the Monster. But I admit I rather thought my coach would take one look at me and use me as "the example" for all the other runners. (Not that I thought they were worse, I just thought myself to be need nothing that needed readjusting). I know, I know, arrogance is unbecoming and pride goeth before the fall and all that.

But back to the story.

So, my coach ran along beside me as I pushed hard during a 200m sprint. After gently rebuking me for going too fast (oops!), he showed me how when I push myself really hard or when I fatigue, my shoulders do a lot of lateral movement as I move my arms across my body, rather than straight out and back. Huh. I had never really thought about it, but now I know why my shoulders & upper back are often stiff after a long run or race!

Deflated, I asked him if that was my only problem, to which he responded, "I want you to focus only on one thing at a time." Not the most encouraging answer for my ego (maybe I look more like Igor than I thought...). But fortunately I am never too proud to take on good advice - especially when I know it will benefit my running.

So for the next few weeks, I am going to focus on my arm & shoulder movement until it is near perfect at every speed! ... And then I might hustle back to my coach to get some more readjustments and helpful tips.

We finished the session off with a 1k time trial. After 10x 200m sprints, I was beat. I had nothing left! So I focused on keeping my arms as perfect as I could manage, and finished in 4.57min. Not too shabby.