Paying Attention to Running Form

Form is crucial to longevity in any kind of sport.  It become more obvious when you consider running.

Running is often viewed as an activity that everyone just "knows" how to do.  Depending on how you define it, that statement is true.  The key to running longer distances however is to stay healthy and injury-free.  If your form isn't dialed in, you WILL run into problems.

The run yesterday was a simple attempt to get a hill-run in while working on form.  My preferred form to emulate is POSE.  After taking the CrossFit Running Cert in 2009, and practicing Evolution running since 2005, the mid-forefoot strike while actively pulling the foot upward and practicing a forward fall works best for me.

This year however I changed shoes to the Altra Olympus and got sucked into the cushy.  While I can't definitely say that the shoes have caused my recent Achilles woes, they do suspiciously coincide as the more I ran with the Olympus, the more sore my calf muscles were.

The run yesterday was with more traditional shoes, not a zero drop, and not super cushy.  While my Achilles was still mildly sore, I was able to run POSE without the calf pain.  Quick strides, lean forward, practice falling.

As a result, I set several PR's on the run, at a lower heartrate, and still with a mild calf issue.  Not bad.  Also earlier in the day I got in a strength training session with deadlifts and kettlebell clean and presses.

Today my calf was pretty sore, so it was ice time and more deadlifts and kettlebells.