Plenty left to take away

'Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away' - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I have been working over the last weeks to change how I run, and am realising that it is going to take months to gain any proficiency. I am realising that running is difficult. Playing sports such as football, rugby and tennis may require skills such as hand eye coordination and pace, but running seems just as difficult to master. That doesn't make much sense. You would think how hard can running be, all you do is put one foot in front of the other, the faster you do it the faster you will be. Simple?

If you think about it - running 26.2 miles is much about conserving energy as it is about running. If you have a running style where you bounce along the road thrashing from right to left, all the while hunched over looking at your feet its likely that you are wasting energy. You are likely to be burning as much energy moving vertically (gravity will win) or sideways (the marathon finish line is ahead of you not to the right or left) as you are moving in the direction of travel. Great, so logically the perfect running style will minimise any unnecessary movement. As someone who has limited time, rather than has years to experiment with a technique that will minimise unnecessary movement, are there any shortcuts that can be found?

With this purpose in mind, I have recently read chirunning by Danny Dreyer. Chirunning is a guide for how to run long distances with a technique that is designed to minimise injury. Dreyer's technique strips running back to basics - that's good, the easier to follow the better - but the reader is warned that to run properly can take a lifetime. Dreyer advises that the aspiring runner ought to view a running session as a learning experience. When the runner reaches home he encourages thinking about what went well that can be taken into the next session, and what can be stripped out for the next one. He advises that the runner ought to constantly think about gait or style. As he puts it, an old dog may not be able to learn new tricks, but he can learn anything through repetition. For me, in my early stages of learning this stuff, my repetition is:

• Bring your foot down on the midsole rather than on the heel on on your toes
• Try to bring your foot down directly under your hip - this is meant to reduce pressure on your knees
• Relax your lower legs when running
• Look ahead when running, the other aspects of my technique seem to follow from this point, when I look at my toes the other steps drift off target

I try to check that I am doing these things every few minutes. More often than not I drift back into my hunched heel striking alter ego, but I am aiming for my alter ego to steadily fall away.

In the chirunning technique, running comes from the core muscles. Rather than propelling yourself along  with your small lower leg muscles, chirunning encourages the runner to run from the larger core muscles and use the hips and knees as levers.

I am sure there is much more to it that than this, this is early days, I am looking forward to seeing how my technique changes over the coming months.

You can find the chirunning book at the link below:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chirunning-Revolutionary-Approach-Effortless-Injury-Free/dp/1847392784/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324407787&sr=8-1

On my ipod this week has been Bon Iver, Bon Iver. I am trying all that I can to avoid Slade, Shakin Stevens, Mr. Blobby or any other Christmas pop song disaster:

http://www.7digital.com/artists/bon-iver/bon-iver/

Mark Hughes Hill

Any article or book on marathon training that I have read recommends that hill training should form a key part of your marathon training. All that hill training is supposed to pay off as you move past the 20th mile and begin to pass the poor unlucky buggers who neglected to build hill running into their training schedule.

Hill running is not fun, and anyway can't I just avoid it? On the last occasion that I found myself in wonderful and glorious Milton Keynes I don't remember seeing any hills? So why build running up them into my training programme? Well, at the moment I know very little about running a marathon, I have never run a marathon before so I will just follow what the gnarled and grizzled runners say and build hill running into my training program.

I am fortunate to live in an area of England where there are plenty of bloody hills. Quite nasty ones actually. Frankly the thought of completing 10 to 20 reps up and down one of these buggers fills me with fear. So how will I do it?

Let's go off at a relevant tangent here to my school days and mention QPR's Alan MacDonald and his legendary battles with Manchester United's Mark Hughes in the late 80s. 'Macca' as he was (and still is) affectionately known to QPR fans was a hard tackling centre back, a tough Ulsterman and a legend. He represented his country at the world cup in 86, he was no mug, but perhaps up against the leading lights of English football such as Mark Hughes you may have thought that Macca would have come up short. By the late 80s Mark Hughes had not only been schooled at Manchester United, but had also mastered his craft at those two citadels of European football - Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Mark Hughes was a great player, of that there was no doubt. So how would Macca cope with Hughes' craft and guile? The battles between Mark Hughes and Alan MacDonald were stuff of legend at QPR. Neither of them would want to give an inch, but at least in my biased QPR view of the world Macca bested him. I loved watching those battles, Macca would lunge in and bully Mark Hughes into submission - the legendary Mark Hughes physically would shrink by the end of the game, it really was a beautiful thing to watch. Perfection in fact.  If you are a fan of boxing you may recognise this in when you watch a heavyweight giant make his way to the ring and appear so imposing and threatening, and then on seeing the giant defeated at the end of the fight, the once giant boxer looks a sad, lonely and dejected character as he leaves the ring alone. It is a sad sight. Mark Hughes became a sad sight as he left the pitch against Macca. I have uploaded a picture of Macca performing a 'fair' challenge on Sparky below:

When approaching my hill training, I will approach it as Macca faced his great rival:

• Play to your strengths
• Don't give up when the plan is going against you, your opponent has skill but can be bested
• Be relentless

I am working to build strengths now, these are what I am focussing on:

• Build core strength (kettlebell 2 and 1 armed swing + plank + incline bench with weighted sit ups)
• Build lower leg strength for stability (calf and achilles)
• Use skipping training to build cadence and rhythm into my runs
• Improve my running form - look ahead not down at my feet or road when I run, point my feet forward when running, don't slouch or hunch whilst out there, build my running style to be as efficient as it can be; land midfoot, don't heel strike!

When I build these characteristics into my training I will be able to tackle this hill and complete those 26.2 miles with confidence for sure (I hope). I have pasted a few pictures of my 'Mark Hughes Hill' below. Its a beast. It twists first to the right and then the left as it raises through 55 metres. Ouch.

On my ipod this week has been Memory Tapes and Toro Y Moi - two electronic artists. Generally the music is relaxed which suits me for now. I am doing easy runs now, not pounding for PBs just yet. When that time comes, perhaps I will step up the the Battles or perhaps 'The Music' - my favourite artists for running hard with! Anyway, you can listen to them here:

Toro Y Moi: http://www.last.fm/music/Toro+Y+Moi
Memory Tapes: http://www.last.fm/music/Memory+Tapes

That's all for this week. See you here next week!