I ran from my parents’ house down through this great public footpath the runs around this area of town. I found myself a little farther away from home that I anticipated, and came back on the main roads (actually not too terribly busy because no one was out driving that early on Thanksgiving.)

When I started off I felt a little bit like molasses. I think the altitude probably had something to do with it, but I just felt a little slow-moving. It was a nice temperature, and I was having a nice time remembering my days back as a little girl running around those same roads with friends, and riding bikes all the way to the mall to buy a smelly hand lotion or something.

I was really focusing on keeping a quick cadence and keeping my feet in a good line so I didn’t go and do something dumb with my heels/feet. I didn’t want any knee pain, and was trying to focus on keeping my ankle movement nice and round and sort of high. There were a few times during the run when I got a little twinge of pain in my inside foot (can’t remember which one) but I managed to make it go away by focusing on a really circular foot path and a mid-foot strike.

I got a new pair of shoes (WR790), and I am a bit obsessed with the visualization of trying to keep them with perfect tread for as long as possible. My older shoes, the MF800s, have a clear heel-wear pattern, but I can’t tell if that is from just my running or because I walk around in them, too. So my 790s will be street shoes, too, but when I run, I am going to be very careful about treading midfoot only. It’s kind of nice, and makes me very focused on getting my feet right. I think it worked pretty well.

I focused on keeping my head forward, chin down… that was easy since the air was quite cold and my eyes were watering like crazy! Between keeping my chin down and my ankles up, I think I did pretty well. I had no idea what kind of pace I was going, but figured it was about normal. Other than my little foot issue, I didn’t have any other complaints… other than the fact that I was having some serious snot issues. Sorry to be graphic, but does any of you have tips on clearing the nasal path before/during running? I took some Kleenex, but blowing my nose while running is sort of annoying. Forget about farmer’s blow, I get it all over myself!

I ran 5.22 miles in 48 minutes, which was right about normal. That was good to know, especially with the altitude change. Felt good for running, glad I went out in the morning to do it before the stresses of the day started and am so glad it was a good run. Stretched after I got back and did a little leg drain. No soreness at all!

Scale: 8

What a moment! It surprised me, I really wanted to go out and do it, and I felt confident in my abilities and had no preconditions or expectations of what I needed to do, I just was happy for getting up early and out into the cold before the traffic and stresses of the day could interfere with my run.

Needless to say, the scale of this run was a definite 10! I only ran 30 minutes in the neighborhood, but there were a few hills, and a few little slick patches of frozen water and it was beautiful and cold and I felt great. It was about 3 miles in 30 minutes: I am nothing if not consistent!

My legs felt a little heavy, probably still leftover sore from this weekend (Ivan surprised me on Saturday with a Bikram Yoga class and then a massage/soak later in the day — talk about getting the toxins out!). I was okay with how they felt and simply body sensed that they were a little tight and awkward feeling, but nothing to worry about or beat myself up about.

I keep focusing on keeping my heels high and light, my arm swing at 90 degrees (it feels so strange!!), and my head forward. Like Alice Diffely’s tips for this past newsletter, I imagined my forehead in some one’s hand and it helped my keep my chin down and head forward. Pretty neat.

I took the time to stretch out really well after running: the heaviness in my legs was mostly likely from not doing a leg drain on Sunday after the LSD (gasp!), so I made sure to stretch well today, especially cause I am going to get on a place this afternoon and nothing is worse than cramped quarters with cramped legs. Agreed?

I’ll be in Colorado for the holiday, running Thursday morning (heck yeah, then I get to eat a little bit more cranberry sauce and pie!) and Sunday LSD. If any of you reading this is planning to run anytime, write a comment and we can maybe get together.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

We both needed to run about 2 hours and for both of us that was right around 11 miles… couldn’t have been more kismet: our paces really were almost identical and it was so nice to run with someone!

We ran in Biltmore  Forest, where I’ve run before, and so it was a familiar neighborhood and kind of fun to explore and get lost.

The first part of the run is uphill and we ended the same way, so we ended on a downhill which is SO good for the soul.

Here are my memories/focuses:

• Took water about 1.5 miles into the route and then left it to pick up later, which was nice and I was glad to have it.
• I didn’t over-dress, and was glad for that.
• I ate a goo about 1 hour in so I wouldn’t bonk or crash. That little packet is a real life-saver.
• My heart rate didn’t get very high at all. I was very glad for that: Biltmore Forest is hilly, and I was really trying to just use NO legs on the uphills and exaggerate my arm swing. I think it really worked. Honestly, at the top of the hills, I really had no problem whatsoever and wasn’t out of breath at the top of the hills!
• My knees started to ache about 1.10 hrs into the run: I adjusted and focused on a smaller stride and really exaggerated my heel lift so that I felt like a silly fool with mini little steps, but it worked. Took the pressure off my knees. It was also because of my strange little foot flair that Danny diagnosed from last week… must have contributed some to the knee pain so I focused on a really straight leg all the way to my big toe.
• I was able to carry on a decent conversation with Brynn for most of the run, which indicated to me that we had a good pace, not too fast, but I wasn’t like speaking-easy either.
• Our total mileage was about 11.13 miles, and we did it in 1.58, which worked out to about a 10.30 pace. Not bad at all! I was thrilled with that.

We hope to run again together, and at this point, like I said in my other previous post, at this point I am just keeping a good base and will keep running about 2 hours every Sunday and doing maintenance the rest of the week.

Scale: 9

I ran yesterday and today, both during the day. yesterday I ran near the office for about 45 minutes (fairly flat, false flats, some downhills) and today ran with Danny in the Experimental Forest near the UNCA campus for 30 minutes (small rolling hills on trails).

It was really nice the last two days, not miserably cold like it was on Tuesday. But as I have been told, I can just bundle up and keep moving. The cold shouldn’t be that much of a deterrent!

My brain is fried today, so this entry is going to be short and sweet:

• Knee ache: I discovered that it’s because I do something relatively large number of people do: my foot tends to angle out from the time it’s behind to the time it comes forward (but hopefully always behind my body, right?!) and as my foot comes down, it hits on the outer heel, no matter how much I have tried for a mid foot strike… My knees were a little achy today, and Danny informed me very politely that it’s because of my foot placement. If my foot were really relaxed, it wouldn’t be torquing outward and putting pressure on my knee and then putting pressure on my knee again because of where my foot landed: simple story is to keep relaxed, try to imagine hitting my inside opposite calf with the raised foot, and keep the y’chi forward.
• I felt good yesterday and today aerobically. The runs today weren’t really super long or fast at all, but I felt like I had a good heart rate and I liked the way I felt when I was done. Nothing to long, nothing too short.
• Arm Swing: been really focusing on keeping my arms down at a true 90 degrees instead of hiked up around my shoulders when I am on the flats. today on the hills, it really helped to run behind Danny so I could mimic what he did. There’s great power in mimicry. How else do we learn anything as children?
• I want to make sure that in the next 7 weeks of my training that I don’t get injured, keep enjoying myself, make sure I can run 13 generally comfortably, and keep smiling.

I figure that at this point, I’ve got to try to stick with my training regimen, but I really just want to go have fun with the runs as much as possible. I remember when I first started, I wanted to follow the training regimen so closely, and I am glad I did, but somehow now I feel like I have the skills to know what I need to do, to let my body tell me what it wants to do.

That’s an exciting thing.

Yesterdays run: 7

Today’s run: 9

i’m supposed to run today, and weather.com says it’s supposed to ‘feel like’ 27 degrees today at the warmest.

that’s crazy and i’m not into it. I’ll try again tomorrow when it says the warmest feeling temp will be something around 37 instead.

Danny ran this morning apparently. I’m just no superstar stud like that.

today i did two loops out at Bent Creek. it was just under 11 miles, and I did the whole thing in 1 hr 50 minutes. Not a really fast time, but not exactly slow either… that was about 10 minute miles: the first loop was slower than the second.

because it was so cold this am, i really bundled up, but expected to loop by the car at the halfway mark so that I could discard some layers… wore full spandex pants, warm socks, thermal long sleeve, fleece gloves & earwarmer and a light windbreaker (that breaks into a vest, it’s great, you should get one… had it sitting around from my crazy cycling days)…

anyway, in the pockets i stuffed kleenex, chapstick and a coffee flavored hammer gel. i figured that for the longest run of my life i’d probably want some energy.

before i left the house, i had two spoonfuls of honey and a couple sips of water. did my body looseners at the house: the thought of doing looseners in the windy shade didn’t exactly appeal to me.

while mentally preparing for the run this morning, i wasn’t sure how far/how long i was going to go. i knew two loops around bent creek were around 10 miles and i knew that i could walk back to the car if i got done in my time-limit and wasn’t finished with the distance. i also knew it was familiar territory and pretty, so it would be a nice running environment.

i did two full loops of the run, but the last 1/2 mile I walked. That would make it just over 10 mile run… in 110 minutes, i am okay with that!

i focused mostly on the 90 degree armswing and keeping my chin down. I was able to work with breathing a little bit too, even through my nose, because i brought kleenex! …

my knees started to ache at about hour 1 (which is right when i got to my car) and i ditched my windbreaker arms and gloves… i sucked down the hammer gel sort of slowly and sipped a bunch of water (while jogging, i tried to not stop at the car longer than 30 seconds…) and ditched the bottle for my return trip.

i didn’t get cramps after eating the gel, which was a good sign, and something to consider as a regular thing during my longer training runs and on race day, if i need it.

so, like i said, my focuses were: arm swing and chin down.

the arm swing thing is really nutty. my shadow was helpful in keeping me in check, but i realized that when i took the water bottle a couple weeks ago in biltmore forest for my LSD run, i think that’s when i picked up the bad habit of running with hyper-bent elbows… habits are quickly learned, eh?

and with my head: i started thinking of using my head to lead my body, leaning from my for head and letting my forehead lead me. i got away from focusing on my chin because it was just messing me up. obviously, after all this time, if i don’t have my chin right, i need to look at things from a different perspective. I think ‘leading with my forehead’ was a good antidote.

so with my knees being achy at hour 1, i was trying to focus on leaning more and taking smaller strides. i was thinking of gathering chi instead of issuing it (see this article danny wrote about issuing and gathering), especially on the second half of the run.. my hip never hurt, i never got a sideache, i didn’t take music so i basically had a meditation for almost 2 hours. my heart rate was remarkably low: i don’t think it got about 174, and for the 2nd loop of the run, it was at 167-169 for a few miles…

i get a little leery about heart rate drops: when i was on the triathlon team in college, i got overtrained and for the longest time, couldn’t get my heart rate up where it needed to be for effective cardio training. granted, today being an LSD, the high heart rate wasn’t the focus (really does it ever need to be?!) but i wondered briefly if i was having a drop because of overtraining…

Nah, i got around the lake and for the next several miles back to the car, i just picked up the pace. it was crazy, i couldn’t imagine stopping or slowing down, and i didn’t want to! i got into a groove, and while i know i wasn’t going very fast, i was going fast than i had gone previously in the run… i kept going… and going… and going.

like the energizer bunny. even though my knees still ached, i didn’t have any other issues to stop me… i kept thinking of these places along the route where i could imagine stopping and then walking to the car. But then I’d get to that ‘stopping’ place and just keep going. So I had planned to run for 1.40 or 1.45 and instead ran 1.55! An hour and 55 minutes? WHAT?!

Well, I just didn’t want to stop, I guess. It just felt so good to keep running… i mean, ChiRunning really is the stuff that runners ought to be made of… injury-free and effortless running?

I had a few times during the run where various parts of my ankles/feet were getting talkative. i think part of it is that the terrain wasn’t concrete. I was running on gravel or wood chips for the whole run today, which is substantially different than running on asphalt, as you know. probably, my ankles and feet took some more twists and turns than they have all week. I kept my feet loose for the whole run, so the pain wasn’t actually pain like i had hurt myself, but more like twingey pain of something that’s been a minutely strained… i was able to body sense and recognize that i had some discomfort in my feet/ankles, but didn’t dwell on it and tried to imagine gathering chi from the ground to help heal those sore spots: facilitated by small stride and high ankles, i got the mid foot back in order and the pain went away.

when i got to the car, i stretched a bit, and had some water with supplements in it… got home and did a leg drain and some more stretching and soaked in Epsom salts in the tub. no sore muscles yet!

tonight, my knees are achey. we took a walk to a neighborhood pub earlier, and they were a little twingy starting off, and after sitting for awhile my knees are stiff… plan to massage some arnica into them later, but part of it might be the weather. do you think it’s possible for a 26 year old to have weather-congizant joints? I thought that was only for the advanced-aged folks.

overall: 10. thank you all for reading this and for being part of my journey to a ’10′ run. i did it! and i’m sure i’ll do it again!

But you know… He’s Danny Dreyer and I’m Liz Frost and there is a distinct difference between us…

Namely: about 25 minutes into the run, we checked our heart rates. I was hovering around 180. Danny doesn’t wear a heart rate monitor, but he felt his pulse, and lo and behold! The man’s heart rate was barely 120 bpm. WHAT? I mean, talk about crazy. He barely broke a sweat! It had rained earlier in the day and was quite humid: I of course was the slobbering dog version of me, but a bit more red-faced and wet with sweat. Awesome.

We ran 48 minute in a loopy-loop around the neighborhood hills near the office. I’ve tried to recreate what we did, but it was random, so it’s approximate.

I didn’t really think of any focuses, but Danny sure guided me during the run… Here’s the latest on my form:

• My chin is way too high up… still. I need to work on it, ‘Like ridiculously low, more than you think is normal’ says Danny. Dang!
• chin down chin down chin down. annoying. After all these weeks and here I am still with my chin up in the air. Nicole had a really great idea the other day: what if I stand in posture and get my chin where in needs to be and then put of tape under my chin down to the top of my throat. Then, when I go out running, any time my chin starts jutting out, I’ll know because the tape will pull on my skin. That’s a great idea. I need to try it sometime.
• Downhills:I have decent form on the downhills, as long as I keep my chin down and keep my y’chi focused. My heel lift/rotation was good, i just needed to have the focus of this: the moment my foot touches the ground, imagine that it’s already moving to the rear, and that is being facilitated in part by the pelvis rotating backwards. I got a cramp at the bottom of one of the first hills: to much bounce. Danny said to keep my y’chi really focused by keeping my chin down and that will take care of bounce because it will focus my energy forward instead of up and down. It worked.
• Arm Swing: I guess my arm swing was more like 45 degrees instead of 90. When Danny pointed it out, I realized that I’d been running that way for a long time. Blargh. So crazy, it feels so different and I really had to focus on 90 when we were on the flats. Dang2!
• Breathing: When we got about 1/2 of the way through the run we were on a long uphill and I was feeling pretty labored and my HR was about 181. Danny listened a minute to me and then said, ‘You’re breathing too slowly. I know you’re trying to breathe out as much as possible, but you’re taking too long to do it. If your heart rate is that high, you need to double-time your breath. It’ll really oxygenate your body and you won’t get so fatigued.’ So on the uphill we started with ‘Out-two, in one/out-two, in one/out-two in one/out-two in one’. That really did help, and I couldn’t really do the out-breaths with my mouth and in-breaths with my nose because I was stuffy in my nose, so I just opened my mouth and breathed in and out with my mouth. Then on the downhills and flats, I breathed on this count as much as possible: ‘out-two-three, in-two/out-two-three, in-two/out-two-three, in-two/out-two-three, in-two”. Try it, it’s great.
• Uphills: the hardest for me. I hate going creepy slow. My big fat ego gets in the way. Plus, I have a hard time body-sensing what it means to virtually not use my legs, but still keep the heels ‘up’ and making circles. Then there’s the issue of arm swing. Danny said that he’s been really focusing on his arm swing when running up hills: to really get them back as far as possible with the 45 degrees, and then when swinging up the hill, to really SWING up with good force, and make sure that his elbow doesn’t go beyond the side of his body and then do it over again. His visualization is that there is a punching bag in front of you and you want to hit it, but your elbows can come forward of your body’s midline, so all the force of the arm swing has to be from the rear-most point of the arm’s swing to center and do it over and over again. The idea is that there’s already an upward for because your arm is at 45 but the force is coming from your elbow going from point to point with as much directed chi as possible.  And of course, there’s always the issue of a smaller stride. I’m somewhere around 5’9″ and I have a lot of leg to deal with… SO, smaller stride is difficult but essential.

Near the end of the run, my feet were starting to scuff a bit. I really needed to take smaller steps. Once I did that for a little while, I felt better and like I was efforting less. At the end of the run, we had a mini downhill, and Danny likes to always end a run as much as possible on a downhill really opening up as much as possible. It was probably less than 400 m, but you know when you end a run in good form. I think I did. It felt so nice to just stretch out and leg gravity take over. I kept my y’chi focused, my chin down, my arms at 90, my heels up nice and high, a quick turnover and a good pelvic rotation.

Scale: 7/8. I have a lot to work on, especially if I am going to be teaching people!

To anyone who is met with the challenges of keeping their running program consistent while also having to push a toddler around in a baby jogger, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Stroll-Smart attachment. This is one of the most helpful running accessories to come along in years.

Arm swing plays an important role in helping any runner maintain balance and efficiency in their gait. Holding onto the handle of a stroller while running can severely limit the movement of your upper body, which in turn limits the motion of your legs. This creates a lot of fatigue in your arms, shoulders and legs.

As a running coach and a parent, I spent many years trying to figure out how to push my daughter around in her jog-stroller with the least effect on my running form. With the Stroll-Smart, all those problems are solved. Your hands and arms are freed up to swing naturally, and it teaches you to propel and guide the stroller by pushing from your center instead of your arm s… which is exactly how we teach runners in the Chi Running technique.  Although I do not recommend this device on trails, it is the perfect accessory for pushing a jog-stroller on streets or bike paths. It's easy to set up and use and has virtually no learning curve.

Resources to help you master the Chi Running basics:

• Chi Running Book: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless Injury-Free Running
• Chi Running DVD: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless Injury-Free Running

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before I begin, i must say: I haven’t ever really thought of myself as a ritualistic person, someone who has major set patterns or habits or rituals. (those of you who know me may say otherwise, but I’m talking from my perspective here.)

… that is, until now… I like to make sure I am well fed, hydrated, and clean before I write on this blog. There’s something about sitting down with a clear head and full belly getting ready to just brain dump everything here. Got a little music playing, sitting at the kitchen table, the house is warm enough, I’m comfortable enough, not hungry and ready to write. Amazing!

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Today’s run was a ‘speed play’ workout. Last week I did 15 minutes warm up with the 4 sets of intervals, followed by 10 mins in gear 3. Today was:

12 minutes warm up (I got bored), 5.5 sets of intervals and 9 minutes in gear 3. Not bad.

The weather was lovely again and so I just wore shorts and a tshirt and a hat. Didn’t overdo clothing and wasn’t hot, thank goodness, at the end of the run. Whew.

[note: went to a yoga class last night at the Y, and all I can say is that it kicked some soreness into my body: hamstrings, butt, quads, shins, shoulders, traps, back, core… not a bad soreness, but I definitely feel sore.]

I went up to WT Weaver, which is a road on the south side of the UNCA campus, and ran back and forth along the stretch of road there. It’s paved, scenic and easy to get to. Plus, it’s pretty darn flat. It’s only about a 3/4 mile stretch of road, so I was like a hamster. I think the guys waiting for the bus thought I was nuts.

Warm up: Like I said, I was sort of bored. I was trying to take it easy and just body sense, listen to my body, go slow, nice n easy… I didn’t feel so good. I can’t remember exactly, but I started with REALLY small stride, and was just trying to keep my chin down/neck long. I felt heavy. I think I ate too close to the time I went running, so I had a bit of a heavy stomach. No cramps (woohoo!) but just heavy. My calves felt tight and tensed, so I really tried to let them loose. Danny and I looked at some pictures yesterday, and I STILL do this funny jut-my-chin out thing. Annoying to say the least. I look at my pictures and I cringe, even though I know I am still in much better form than the beginning… but still!

–

I got into the warm up and at about 12 minutes I just figured I’d start on the intervals: (2 mins gear 2, 1 min gear 3, 1 min gear 1, start over do 6). While I was warming up I was back to the “we-wax” mantra and preparing to do the intervals totally relaxed.

I am SO thrilled to report that even in gear 3 at the end of the run, I had maintained a heart rate of around 179. Normally, when I am gear 3, I get up to 185.  The AHA says my heart rate at my age at 100% usage should be 195, so I am pushing it a little bit, to maintain at 90% /185 …

Anyway, I know it’s not a huge jump, but it’s pretty darn substantial for a one-week adjustment. Guess what I did to accomplish that?! (relaxed)

The intervals were good, but because I was just going like a CrazyPerson back and forth, I forgot how many intervals I did. I know the timing was a little off, and I went long on a couple of the intervals sections, hence the 5.5 for the # of intervals. Did the math when I got done, and I am pretty sure I did 5 intervals. The first 2 were harder than the rest of the three. I really just let go…

And I discovered something about feeling that fallfallfallfallfall over and over again: I moved my arms with a little more vigor today to keep my energy consistent, and I think it helped a little bit! I tried to body sense what 50% upper body and 50% lower body usage and determine what that felt like. I think my arms have been lazy lately. So I focused on keeping them moving, quickquickquick, and let my body fallfallfall from my forehead (keeping core engaged) and it felt so darn good.

Honestly, a few times when I went into gear 1, I felt like I had to work more to keep myself upright than just letting myself fall.

I was thinking of my gear 3 like this: imagine a sprint race at a track at the Olympics. Fast forward to the last moments of the race after the winner crosses the finish line: not only TOTALLY leaning forward (“I won I won I won!”) but think about the relief that comes over their body and face when they’re done ‘efforting’. You can see their arms start to swing with gravity and not muscle and even sometimes their legs kick up higher and their shoulders drop and their faces relax…

So that’s what I tried to envision today when I was in gear 3: I just won the race! I just one the race! and now I can just fall! I can be so grateful and excited and happy and I just finished.

Really, it makes sense: even though I was in the middle of my run, every moment I was in the run, I was still present: immediately finishing one fall and beginning another. I was just focused on every time I fell, I was successful at it. I was the winner of that fall, and thank god my leg caught me and the other leg is so smart and is coming to catch me again!

I also imagined what it feels like to run down a hill, when you can feel the road almost coming up the back side of your body as you go along. So when there were minor uphills or even flats today, I imagined that I was running downhill just to help convince my body that I was running with ease. This assisted in that whole fallfallfall thing, and really it was a great run.

I took a long time to walk at the end, just to get that lactic acid pumping through and not turning to concrete in my body. I felt great by the time I got to the car and stretched a little there and a little more when I got back to the office.

Scale: 9. (didn’t start that way, but it sure ended that way!)

Your body loves rhythms; it thrives on them. Your heartbeat, your breathing, your need for rest are all based on certain rhythms that either occur naturally in your body or that you've established in your life. The more rhythm you establish in your daily routine, the better your body likes it. Rhythm is a nature's way of providing structure, of keeping order in the house.

When your body has a rhythm to follow it knows what to do and when to do it. If you go to bed regularly at 10pm and get up at 6am, your body knows... "now I get to rest, now it's time to get up." And it does so more easily and readily than when it doesn't have a regular schedule. That's why parents are often encouraged to keep their children's bedtime schedule as consistent as possible, even on weekends and during school breaks; because kids function better when they remain within their expected rhythm and structure.

The same holds true for your exercise routine. If you walk regularly every day, your body gets used to that rhythm. If you routinely do a specific kind of walk once a week, say an hour-long trail hike every Saturday (in place of your usual 30 minute neighborhood weekday walk) your body will learn to anticipate this pattern and condition itself to make that extra effort on the weekend.

One way we use rhythm in Chi Walking is with our stride rate, or cadence … which is the number of strides you take each minute. I have found that most people do best when they maintain a consistent cadence depending on the speed they're walking.

Cadence varies slightly from person to person based on their height, weight and level of conditioning. Cadence usually falls within a 10 strides per minute (spm) range depending on the type of walk you're doing. For example, for a Loosening, Chi-gathering, Calming or Meditation walk, your cadence should fall between 55-65 spm. For an Aerobic, Hilly, Energizing, or Focusing walk, your cadence should be 60-70 spm. An Upper-Body walk is best done within a slightly narrower range of 55-60 spm, while a Cardio or Race walk moves along briskly at 70-80 steps per minute. All of these walks can be found in the Chi Walking book.

In order to help your body maintain a steady cadence (relative to the type of walk you're doing), I suggest using a metronome. The response of most people who walk with a metronome is pretty consistent. They feel a huge difference in their walking almost immediately. Using the metronome has an effect on many aspects of your form, because when your cadence is correct a lot of other things fall into line. Also, when the metronome's beep keeps your cadence for you, you have fewer things to think about. Several clients have said that the metronome gives them a greater ability to focus on other Chi Walking Form Focuses. I use a metronome almost every time I walk. It sharpens up my entire form. It is without question the best gizmo that I know of to enable the rhythm of your walking. We have a small clip-on electronic metronome available for sale on the Chi Walking web site.

How to use your metronome

Most walks you'll do will fall into one of three categories: slow paced (relaxing) 50-60 spm, medium paced (aerobic conditioning) 60-70spm, or fast paced (cardiovascular conditioning)70-80 spm.

First, find out what your current slow pace cadence is. To do this, take your metronome with you on your next walk. After a few minutes, when you are nicely warmed up and walking at what you would consider a comfortable conversational walking pace, turn on the metronome and match the beep of the instrument with the step of your right foot. This means that the metronome should beep every two steps. It may take a minute or two for you to perfectly align the beep with your foot strike, but just listen, and adjust the metronome faster or slower until it's a perfect match. When you've done this you've determined your current slow pace cadence. Is it at least 50 steps per minute? If it's slower than 50 spm your walking won't give you as much health benefit as it could. In order to burn calories you have to increase your body heat, and if you don't walk fast enough to raise your body temperature you won't burn as many calories per stride. Some of our slower walks start about there so if your cadence is quite a bit slower than that, don't worry. In fact for the next week, don't change anything other than using your metronome every time you walk. Set the instrument to whatever your current cadence is, and spend the next week just practicing to walk matching the beat of your metronome.

Then, each week thereafter, adjust the metronome one beat faster and walk at that cadence. Your body will adjust to the small weekly increase fairly easily, and gradually you will have adjusted to a slightly faster, regular cadence.

You might find that it is easier and more natural to walk with a beat that is similar to a waltz rhythm, where your metronome beeps every three steps. If you always keep cadence by focusing on only one leg, you may end up inadvertently developing an asymmetrical stride where you emphasize the use of one leg over the other. To avoid this you can set your metronome to beep on every third foot strike. So your footsteps with the beat would go: right 2, 3…left 2, 3…right 2, 3…left 2, 3…beep 2, 3…beep 2, 3…just like a waltz.

I suggest using the waltz rhythm as soon as you have gotten through your first week of using a metronome. You can use it right after you've determined your beginning cadence. A nice added feature of this is that you don't have to listen to as many beats every minute.

Here's how to switch from one beep of the metronome for every two strides, to a waltz rhythm (one beep every three strides). It's a simple calculation. Take your current cadence, divide by 3 and multiply by 2 and set your metronome for whatever number you come up with.

Maintaining a consistent rhythm while walking will make your walking more effortless and relaxed than ever. Just the way it should be.

Resources to help you master the Chi Running basics:

• Chi Running Book: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless Injury-Free Running
• Chi Running DVD: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless Injury-Free Running