I have been talking with a friend about him coaching me. His name is Jon Farber – he’s an elite master’s triathlete who won the 2006 USAT Long Course championship race for his age group. Basically, he’s an amazing athlete.
I sent him my youtube running video, and here’s his input…
Things done right: Strong legs (obviously a biker) make for good take off, smooth and resilient landing. Good forward lean overall, though more lean should be from hips and none should be from drooping shoulders forward. You should have more upper back strength to hold them back, but that will happen naturally if hips go forward.
Sure many good runners all do goofy things with their hands, but your left hand goes WAY back and your right hardly back at all. I think that may be connected with landing too far out front with your left foot, and/or waiting too long before picking up your right, but I’m not sure. (We could see this better with frame-byframe on the video).
Lots of up and down, and that’s where I’d guess you could get the most free speed/endurance. Watch your hips against the background. That’s a lot of wasted energy. I think you should be able to eliminate 90% of that.
You’re weight seems to me to land too far back on your foot. You strike so far out that the weight strike really must be a little back of the midfoot. The first thing your foot has to do on the treadmill, after landing, then,, is come straight back till it’s under you again, instead of going right back up under the hip to prepare for the next drop. It’s like you are biking, in a way: I think Romanov [author of the Pose Running book]would want you to do more of an up-down and less of a circle with your foot. This will take body core strength to hold your hips farther forward, and more lower leg strength to land and take off from what will feel like the ball of your foot. And higher cadence, which will feel annoying, and slower: you seem to enjoy the powerful feeling of launching yourself forward, and you’ll miss that at first.
Intro: Long before Tough Mudder or Rugged Maniac came onto the racing scene, the Godiva Track…
Sometimes my running shoes get stinky and gross. This can happen either because I…
I did the Godiva Track Club Run for the Donuts race on October 14, 2014.…
Click here to read part 1 So if you've read part one, you know I…
I did the Pinehurst Olympic race in October. I had actually vowed to never…
I did the White Lake International Triathlon on September 06, 2014. White lake is the…
View Comments
Carol, I agree with one of Jon's comments about the bouncing up and down that you have. You can really see that against the background. I've just posted something in my blog about that - I was trying to increase my cadence to see if I could see any effect in HR. Well, turns out that by increasing the cadence, and consequently having a shorter stride, I was "jumping" less. I only noticed that because I was running in the treadmill of the gym, in front a mirror. WIth a faster cadence (not exactly 180, but closer to it), I was jumping up and down less than an inch.
As for the position of your foot when you strike the treadmill, I actually thought it was pretty good, so maybe that means I know very little about that stuff. One word of caution, only: don't try to charge your form to such point that you don't feel comfortable anymore.
That looks helpful.