Picture this.


You've made it through Older Yet Faster
Your drills are pretty good
You're practicing your foot exercises
You've improved your style
You're landing under your hips
You're wearing "less shoe"
You're feeling balanced
Life is good


Congratulations!


For me, this point took about 5 months to achieve, but (a) I had 35 years of ingrained awfulness to get over, and (b) I overdid it a bit with the minimal shoes and had to take a month out, as you know.


And of course, we know that we'll continue to improve over the coming months and years, as the style gets deeper and deeper embedded into the subconscious.


Now what?  Do we start upping the miles, working hard to maintain good form as we get tired at 5 miles, 10 miles? 


Or do we keep it short, working hard to get the style working at higher and higher speeds - at least at our target race pace if not higher?

It's tempting to think that the right answer must be a bit of both, in equal measures, evenly distributed across the training plan.  But I'm not so sure.


There are probably two groups who have more of a simple decision to make.  The Ultra runners for whom 8 to 12 minute miles for hours on end is the norm, there's not so much call for the speed.  And for the 100m and 200m sprinters, as far as I can work out, their "long runs" seem to max-out at, erm, 200m!


For me, as an 800m runner, I naturally enjoy running fast, so the temptation was to start upping the pace, whilst keeping the weekly mileage to around 20 miles/30km so as not to get too tired and therefore to maintain good form.  By "upping the speed" I am talking about slipping into my regular training group as they knock out 20x200m reps (in 32-35s, off 30s recovery). 


But what I was forgetting was that my base fitness was lacking - I haven't done any decent miles since the winter 2014/15 base phase.  So as I layered on the speed in my new style, the niggles started appearing.


This leads me to conclude that it is probably better to start adding some miles at a pace that you know you can hold Good Form, before starting to crank up the speed.


To that end, I've just finished a 50+ mile week - all run at about 5:30/km 8min/mile.  This was on a variety of terrains from pavement to deep mud.  But I worked extremely hard to maintain Good Form as I got tired.  In particular, I was making sure that my unloaded hip wasn't dropping, and that my ground contact time wasn't getting longer.


And I have to say, that I feel the new style is becoming more and more automatic with every step.  I feel great (a little tired!) and my plans are now to layer on a little speed (perhaps a 3k tempo this week).  Then in 3 weeks, I'll squeeze in a 70 mile week, which is something I normally do twice in the winter base phase.


Happy running!

Along with those that Keith has explained, I've been trying this cue.  This picture appeared on SPIKES' twitter feed today (https://twitter.com/BritAthletics/status/697675957847638016).  The picture shows twins who train together, but one clearly has her pelvis tipped further forwards.  They appear to be at the same point in the stride cycle (albeit opposite legs).



Coincidentally, I've been dabbling with the pelvis tilted further forward than my legacy running style, and it feels very balanced.  It can be achieved at all paces, and I'm convinced it helps me land under the hips more successfully.

I am also aware that over tilting the pelvis forwards can cause injury, but I don't think there's any danger of that for me.  I'll film again soon just to be sure.

This is a quick blog about the nutrition side of things...

I'm still on about 100g carbs a day.  Some days it probably creeps up to a couple of hundred - I had two tablespoons of rice with a curry last Wednesday (and there was probably a fair bit of sugar in the sauce!), and I had two small roast potatoes with the Sunday Roast yesterday.  But on average I'm down around the 100g/day mark.

Over the past three weeks I've noticed:

• My head is clearer and I can remember things more easily (this could be "dry January" though!!!)
• The recovery from hard sessions is different.  I wouldn't say faster, but the pain goes quicker.
• the longer slower runs are much easier (sample size is only 3 so far, but all of them have been on just a cup of coffee, and there's been no bonking)
• two or 3 times, when putting in a harder 7km or 8km race, the legs have felt heavy to start with, but then there's been a startling 'release' of energy at about 4 or 5km?!?!?!  I'd love to know what's going on!

However

• Although it's only been 3 weeks, I think the hard track sessions still need a bit of carbs.  For both Tue night sessions I've been to, the legs have felt heavy the whole time.
• I'm not losing any weight!!  I'm not in a hurry, but 0.2kg a week is going to take a whole year to lose my injury weight gain! This could be because I'm putting on a little shoulder bulk from the swimming

I plan to carry on low carb, but may look at a little sugary fuel before the track sessions.  Perhaps some pasta on the Tue lunch time?

Here's the latest video capture, thanks to Steve Marcer for, erm, capturing it!

The handlebar mount on the bike didn't work as even with soft-ish tyres, there was too much vibration coming up through the forks.  But holding the iPhone was easier in a number of ways.  This is a 240 frames per second device, which I'm very lucky to have.

Results
I'm not too impressed!  There's still a way to go!  I'm still landing in front too much

This clip is 55s long, and about half way it slows down, then pauses.  I paused the clip as my big toe meets the track (so the foot is load bearing), then draw a line to show the remaining over extension.  

https://youtu.be/14-WhMnRaW0

It's no where near as bad as it used to be, but I need to get back to the drills!  I've neglected the drills over the past 6 or 7 weeks, since my metatarsal stress fractured.

This clip was taken at 5km pace (about 3:30 to 3:45/km).

I'm very happy that I have a new iPhone 6 with the 250fps slllllloooooowwwww motion!!  Courtesy of my employer.

This means that, finally, I can get some good quality footage.

Remembering that my first attempt was of a spec, running past in the distance (well, not quite, but you get the picture) https://youtu.be/hGMycTCefYU

I've bought one of these (Although at seven of our English pounds, I remain skeptical about it's capabilities).  I'm going to affix to the bike, oriented sideways, and get someone (Jon, probably) to cycle next to me down the home straight.

This wonderful event will occur next Saturday (30 Jan 2016), unless it's cold, raining, icy, snowing, hail-storming, or otherwise detrimental to the health of my new toy.  I mean phone.

I ran a long run today!  My first long run since last April/May, 2015.

My neighbour is fast turning into a competent ultra runner - he ran the 104km IoW Ultra last May, and has plans for races much, much longer.  But I've still got him on speed, and we're quite evenly matched on a Sunday 10 mile training run.

Anyway, the key points from this run were that:

1. despite the 5 weeks out due to the stress fractured toe, I have maintained my style.  at least I think I have: it will take some filming to confirm.  But interestingly, I feel that coming back after a break means that my muscle memory is left with the good style that I'd achieved before the break
2. I'm straight back on the minimal shoes.  Well, there is the one pair of 3mm thick Vivobarefoots which I haven't dared put back on yet.  But almost all other runs have been NB Minimus, Merrell Trail Glove (both about 5mm sole, no drop), or XC spikes.  BUT, I have been careful that almost all my running in the past 2 weeks since returning, has been off road.
3. I'm not sold yet, and it could be just psychosomatic (is that a word?) but I've been low carb for 2 weeks now, and at the end of today's 11 mile, 1hr48 run, I still had plenty of energy left, despite not consuming anything other than a cup of coffee before we set out.  This is unheard of!!  I would normally be passing out after 3 miles without a ton of carbs!!  I'll keep you posted on this one, though!

So there's now one week left to January.  I've been running the Bateman style for 5 months, but with a 4 week break.  I feel that I've got the right queues at a 5:00/km pace.  So there are two aspects to work on now.

The first is to make sure that the style is ingrained at speed.  This should be relatively easy
The second is to make sure that the style is ingrained at distance, ie tired.  This may not be so easy.

We'll see!

The pic below is stolen, and now I can't find where from to attribute it, but thanks anyway, kind outdoor-type person...  It's a view very similar to the mist of this morning, from one of the paths.  This is Farley Mount in Hampshire.

Being injured gives you a lot of time to think.  Too much, in fact!  So much so that I've stopped myself thinking about running because I was starting to over-think it!

Over Christmas I've read 4 or 5 books about running, some of them stories, like Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall, some factual like Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald.  I've take some motivation from them.  Interestingly, they almost all refer to the benefits of paying attention to running form.  I'll write a blog page about the books I've read at some point soon, if you're interested?

So here's how I'm approaching my running in 2016.  This is where I'd like to make real life changes.  I'm not going to dilute this blog too much with stuff that's not related to the top left "Running Form", but I'll mention them in passing.

Running form is the obvious one, and goes hand in hand with foot strength.  But I've separated them, because I think that even for people who have 'perfect' form (Alex Wall-Clarke, Jacob Wiebel, Mike Twomey, Rod Finch are those that I've known personally!!!) there is still an opportunity to work on foot strength.  I base that on the Older Yet Faster approach and now my own experience.

In terms of being less sedentary, I'm not talking about burning more calories.  I'm talking the effects of my 2.5 hours sat in a car seat 4 days a week, and the 8 hours I sit at a desk.  Not much I can do about the car (at least I'm rolling my feet ... when it's safe!).  My Garmin fenix 3 has a pedometer, and it will beep at me "Move!" after an inactive hour, and I plan to pay more attention to that.  Swimming is going well too, I'm just looking for a regular spot in the week that I can stick to, and when the pool isn't too rammed.

On the fuelling, this is a bit of an experiment at the moment. We all know that we eat too many refined carbohydrates (well, most of us do!), and I was pretty guilty.  So this year I've cut out all carbs to start with.  I consume about 100g a day at the moment, so not the 25g of the Atkins diet, but certainly less than I was eating before.  I don't think 100g is sustainable, but I want to make sure that I cut out all refined sugar for ever, and with Mrs Blackman's help, all white bread rice and pasta.

Next blog entry will be about how the running is going with the recovered metatarsal, but what else would you like to hear about?