Get Out of Jail Free Card

Whenever I have a day that is mostly futile, when everything is a bit hazy and I don't think I have achieved anything worthwhile, I often find that a run sorts me out. It is not that it clears my mind so that I return with the answer to a problem that previously had me stumped - rarely do I get any magical insights. It is something far more direct: when I am out of the door I am putting in effort and because of that I feel I am doing something good.

In a way it is my 'get out of jail free' card. The simple act of exercising, outside - seeing the world pass, looking at new things and interacting (in a limited way) with other people makes me feel better. Because of that I feel the day has not been wasted, no matter how little is done during the rest of it. But the knock-on effect is usually I approach other tasks with a renewed concentration.

If there is something in the idea of redemption through personal endeavour, the obverse is also probably true in that you slump if you don't do enough.

I recently came across a phrase that tickled me because it so precisely describes one of ways we might not do enough: 'social loafing'. It describes many group situations where people don't give of their best because they think that others will pick-up the slack and anyway everyone else is probably easing-off a bit as well. It explains why work groups are often surprisingly unproductive and brainstorming sessions are mostly futile. It might also contribute a little bit to something like Brook's Law, which states that adding manpower to a late software project makes it even later.

Just discovering the phrase has made me examine my own behaviour and it gives me no great pleasure to admit that I am also prone to a bit social loafing and there have been many occasions where I have not given of my best.

This is not the case when running. When I am out of the door there is no loafing and I am fully engaged in the activity. Whatever distance I run is the distance I run, whatever time I take is the time I take, there can be no short-cuts or cheating. I do what I can to the best of my ability and my diary is a record of honest endeavour.

That is why running is my 'get out of jail free' card - it shows me that I can be honest.

More Than Just Socks

I was looking for a new pair of socks on Wiggle and clicked on the 'Nike elite run cushion socks' and read this description of their properties:

Enhanced Stability-Nike Sensory Enhancement Technology heightens awareness of foot to help pronation and promote neutral landings

"Nooooo" I cried "you are socks, you cannot do these things. You cannot heighten my awarenes of my own foot. This is gobbledegook! How can I buy something that makes such a ludicrous claim?" So I clicked through to the 'Bridgedale X-Hale Speed Demon Socks' only to see:

The hard-working feet of distance runners taught Bridgedale how to create a sock that offers the best of two worlds: the feel of an ultralight, rapid-drying synthetic sock and the cushioned comfort of a Merino wool sock.

Hard-working feet taught?!

I must stop this and get a grip. I must not worry about the way marketing people fulfil the rquirements of their job by talking nonsense. It is what they do and I am only buying socks. It really shouldn't be complicated. But it is.

This is because everything concerned with running is sold on its technical properties and the promise of superior performance yet there is not one of those claims we can test in any meaningful way. Only a textile scientist can judge the comparative virtues of the different materials used by the different manufacturers. The rest have trust that at least some of the claims are true and that products from trusted manufacturers will do their job. Then we somehow make a choice.

I have no idea how I make purchasing decisions. I am pretty random and perhaps more influenced by image and style than I would like to admit. Am I influenced by the performance claims? - Probably quite a lot. But am I put-off by inflated claims and stupidisms? - Almost certainly.


P.S. As a complete aside (but related to the use of language). I recently listened to someone talking about the disappearance of the Russian cargo ship after it had passed through the English Channel saying that it might represent a modification of the pirate business model.

"Pirate business model!!" I spluttered "They are PIRATES" I then remembered a comedy sketch from the 1990s, from the Million Pound Radio Show, about pirate training days. You can listen to it here if you want

Running Styles

'Can anybody tell me how they run?' asked Hauling My Carcass in a post about running technique but the more interesting question is 'should anybody change the way they run?'. More specifically sould they attempt to change their footstrike?

Do I know how I run?

To answer the first question: yes, or at least I have a fairly good idea. I like to monitor myself when running , checking my balance, sense of muscular movement, ease of movement, breathing etc, etc, and so I think about my footfall moderately frequently. One of the attractions of running is the feeling of physicality and the sense of a working body and to get this I like to pay it some attention to how things are going.

I know for example that I land on outside of my midfoot, roll over to the ball of the foot and then push off. That is what it feels like and also what it looks like on the treadmill when buying new shoes but the best evidence is the wear pattern on old trainers. They can never lie because they show the results of all your miles - the actual physical evidence. The picture above is the sole of one of my current shoes. You can see the main area of wear is (A) , where the rubber on the bottom outside-edge has worn right down to the level of the hard-plastic midfoot bridge. The outside of the front of the heel (B) also shows wear because it gets in the way as my foot comes down at a shallow angle (I do not land on my toes) and area (C) shows wear from pushing-off. The heel at the back looks almost untouched.

I did not choose to run this way, like most people when I started running my only concern was how far I could go and I certainly did not think about how my foot should land. I ran the way that came naturally and I continue in the same style. As I am not particularly injury prone (though not injury free) my attitude is that it works well enough and so there is nothing much to worry about. But if I were to worry I would not start with questions of heel strike versus forefoot strike because I think that is determined by the rest of my form (e.g. I think I land on my midfoot because I take short strides and land under my body). I would start by looking at balance.

I made this point in an earlier post about watching two people in the gym. They both had good form, were fluid in their movements, compact but relaxed they were running easily and well but one landed on the heels the other on the forefoot. Their good style had more to do with being upright (i.e. not bending from the waist), having a relaxed upper body (i.e. their arms moved easily without tension), and not landing too heavily (their leg turnover was quite high).

The thing is that all of these components of good style can be worked on independently, without having to dismantle everything and start again in a very self-conscious way. For example I think shoulders are important for your whole posture and when they are relaxed everything moves more easily. If you feel your shoulders are too tight when you run you can work on them, over time by making them your run-thought, every time you go out and gradually changes can be made. If you feel you bend at the waist, similarly you can work at keeping your hips in a straight line. You can also do strength exercises for the upper body and core to help with these two areas. In this way changes can be made to the running style - incrementally

Should runners change their style?

This brings me to the second question should you change your style? My answer is perhaps but not necessarily. If you are running injury-free and are happy with your progress then there is no reason to change. The idea that there is one perfect style is a snare and delusion. We run the way we do because of all sorts of adaptations our bodies have made over a long period of time and all of us have different relative strength in the different muscle groups. The way we run reflects that. If it is working don't mess with it.

However if there are problems with injury or lack of progress you can look at the general principles of good form and gradually work at things and if necessary switch a few running sessions to build general strength or flexibility.

But what about Pose?

But should you make a wholesale change and do something like Pose running? Of that I am less convinced. Going right back to zero and becoming a beginner once again is a hellishly difficult ask and it might not deliver what is promised. As far as I know the only systematic testing of Pose running was done at the University of Cape Town under the aegis of Tim Noakes. Conclusions from the study can be read here and here (they are part of a series of blog posts about running style (front page here), which are full of good observations). One of the more interesting findings is that Pose running does not reduce forces on the body, instead it transfers them to different parts so that whilst heel strikers typically have more knee injuries, those trained in Pose had more ankle problems.

The problem with Pose is that it promises to reduce injuries and so evidence to the contrary is significant. A common response is to suggest that it is not the technique but the implementation i.e. the poor, injured runner was not up to the task of running properly but this causes more problems than it solves because it means the demands of the style are so high you can never be sure you are doing it properly. That uncertainty must put an almighty dent in the simple pleasure of getting out the door and running.

For many people though Pose obviously works and the sincerity and zeal of its advocates cannot be doubted. For that reason I would not want to dismiss it, I just don't think the advantages are as clear-cut and inevitable as those advocates suggest (otherwise everyone would do it and looking at the runners in the World Athletics Championships this definitely not the case). Like every other intervention related to the human body there is complexity and the outcomes are not necessarily homogenous.

The trick for all runners is to find out what works for them personally. This involves learning from the experience of others, reading, and finding people whose judgement they trust but most importantly trying things out. Running is empirical and theory is only meaningful if it shows results on the road. That is one of the reasons I like it - everything is there to be tested.

As for Pose - it seems a long haul before it is perfected and you could evaluate the benefits. I am not sure I would have the patience

A Lack of Adventure

This is another picture from my holiday: two people paddling along the great, grey-green, greasy Charente River, towing behind them, in a little inflatable trailer, their camping gear.

I imagine a holiday, with no fixed objectives except to start out each morning and either see how far you could go in a day or stop off when you reached somewhere interesting. I imagine constant exercise but not flat out, not exhausting, the sort of exercise that build strength over time. I imagine the feel of fresh air on the cheeks and the contemplation of quietness of isolated places. Above all I can imagine the two men come home to tell their friends about the miles travelled, difficulties overcome, and the satisfactions of the trip.

Then I think about myself and how my routines lack adventure : no big trips, no long stretches of open road or open waterway. Mostly what I do is run, fairly regularly, around a limited number of routes, trying to be alert to what I pass and find freshness and satisfaction. In many ways this is enough and it contributes mightily to my mental balance, but gives me no bragging rights. I have not made extended trips such as cycling coast to coast from Wales to East Anglia, as have IrunbecauseIlikeFood or Red Rocket nor have I thought of any imaginative challenges like Adele, and I have certainly never had any desire to test myself to destruction by trying to run between the 4 capitals of the UK like Eddie Izzard.

Perhaps I should extend the range of what I do? Certainly I should give it some consideration.

At the moment my only plan is to give the marathon another go - to try to find out whether the satisfaction outweighs the pain or vice verse. I would like a definitive answer but my suspicion is that there will be none and, just like before, I will find myself looking at a tangled mess of emotions. Nevertheless trying to answer the question is my current quest and that will have to be enough for the time being.

The French Paradox

The French Paradox is that whilst the national diet is high on saturated fats the rate of obesity and cardiovascular death is amongst the lowest in the western world. This does not mean of course that everybody is thin. People are all shapes and sizes and I love walking around places like this brocante looking at people as well as the now redundant objects. This man's full belly somehow adds to the character of the place.

Lately I have become more interested in variations in the human body. I started by looking at the way people moved and their running styles, making connections with different builds and then noticing how every part of the body has its own unique pattern. It is well known that hands are individual but even a simple body part like the calf can vary amazingly. Yoko Ono first made her name with a film of scores of naked bottoms, just showing how they differed so what I am saying is not new. It is just part of my ongoing project of trying to look at the world with fresh eyes.

It is a weird side-effect of running that I now look at people more closely.

Weight is part of form but it is not everything. Sometimes I wonder if we all spend too much time worrying about our own weight and tut tutting about other people's. In my gym there is a board where people post their targets and resolutions and almost all of them are about losing weight. Hardly any are physical challenges such as beating a pb or learning a new skill, which be far more interesting targets. Why is weight so often seen as the most important thing?

Probably it is a surrogate based on the assumption that we would all be happier, more vigorous, better looking and enjoy life more if we were lighter (or for some people heavier). This is may or may not be true - I don't even know if weight is a symptom or cause of unhappiness.

My feelings about my own weight are rather functional: I want to lose a little because I think it will help my running. The main aim is to try to run a marathon without feeling whipped and beaten in the second half and I am sure that the less useless weight I carry the better. However it is proving difficult and I have only lost about 4 lbs since the beginning of the year but I am not too upset because my main strategy is to run more miles and so far that is going OK.

It is interesting that I don't lose weight with increased training. Part of the reason is that I become more concerned with maintaining energy levels and refuelling than with dieting; but it is very, very difficult to eat only what the body requires, and no more. Running 5k and eating for 10k is however the easiest thing in the world. On the other hand I prefer that to under eating and then passing out as happened to President Sarkoszy.
How does one find the right balance?

Which brings me back to the French paradox, which isn't really much of a paradox because traditionally they don't snack much, they have modest sized portions, and cook things from scratch using good quality, fresh ingredients. That is all one needs to know, all one needs to do: eat well but moderately and take pleasure in food. Everything else will then take care of itself.