We had a great group at the workshop, and spent the day teaching the basics of the Chi Running technique. The Pool Running Drill is so fun to teach, and I think it brings people out of their heads and into their bodies. If you have the new version of the Chi Running book, check out this drill on page 100.  Also, the group found the Core Strengthening Exercise helpful, too, on page 74. Thanks to all our Workshop participants. It was great fun!

I have been going out for brief jogs with Oliver and trying to talk him as often as possible. Every time I go out with him, I prepare by getting really clear in my head that I am centered and in control of him and myself. I get my bones aligned and always do the Body Looseners. They’re so helpful and relaxing at the same time. I have felt very strong when I go out walking, and although I can tell my cardio-aerobic capacity is a bit less than it used to be, I am in my body and that feels great.

Recently, I have really been working on my chin down and pelvic rotation. I feel like my core is pretty well engaged most of the time when I am moving, and want to work a bit more on pelvic rotation. With all the hills around Asheville, the downhills are a great place to practice “sticky feet” while walking or running and letting my pelvis rotate and be relaxed.

The misting rain felt great, and although 100% humidity is always interesting for running, listening to the air is a nice meditation.

I haven’t been running a whole lot, but have been walking with the dog and around the neighborhood a lot, so I could certainly tell my heart was working. We ran just over two miles, and let me tell you that if there is ever a running companion that will motivate you, it’s a dog.

I have noticed lately when I’ve been running that my shoulders are swinging a bit. I feel a lack of energy in my hips, and I probably need to get a good stretching session in before I go run again (not directly before, but a day or two ahead). Trying to get my shoulders to stabilize, I was working hard on leading with my forehead and directing my elbows to the rear. It’s certainly true that when my shoulders stop rotating, even a little bit, my lower body will compensate.

So, I’ve been constantly working on getting my chin down and the crown of my head high, all the time. When I drive, when I sit here and write, and especially when I am walking or running. Because I’ve been practicing every day, it’s way easier to make sure I do that when I exercise.

My body feels pretty good now and I am so grateful I resisted the urge to stay in bed and decided instead of get up and go for an energizing running session.

Planning on a run this weekend. Of course it’s going to rain, so we’ll see. Have a great weekend everybody.

My strategy during my training runs and during the race was to use my legs as little as possible on all the uphill sections, while at the same time exaggerating the use of my upper body (forward armswing and increased lean). On the downhill sections my objective was to lean into the downhills and allow my stride to lengthen as much as possible. I was basically trying to run as fast as I could safely manage on all the downhills by cooperating with the pull of gravity.

On the uphills and flats I was also toying with a new concept I’m working on with my stride where I’m using my obliques to drive my pelvis (the active use of pelvic rotation) which in turn drives my legs. Running this way allows me to hold a good pace on the uphills without using any leg muscle per se because my legs become simply an extension of my pelvis. It is proving to work incredibly well, and tonight as I’m writing this blog I don’t sense even a smidgeon of fatigue or soreness in my legs. For those of you just learning the ChiRunning technique, I don’t advise attempting this technique until you are at the point with your running where you are adept at neutralizing your legs, using them strictly for momentary support between strides and never for propulsion. I’ll talk more about this technique in future blogs and I hope to incorporate it into future “advanced” ChiRunning courses. Let me know if you’d be interested in hearing more.

The physical details: I finished first in my age group with a chip time of 1:37:38, an average pace of 7:27/mile. I’m guessing the course had a total elevation gain of over 1000′. I ran the race in a pair of the new Newton shoe called the Isaac. We had absolutely perfect race weather with heavy cloud cover and temperatures in the 60′s-low 70′s. The race was extremely well organized and supported with aid stations about every mile and a half! The volunteers were fabulous.

If you’d ever like to run a challenging but beautiful 13-mile tour of Asheville I highly suggest training for this one. It’s right up there in my list of the most beautiful race courses.

•      Your legs should be aligned so that both your feet point forward
•      Your shoulders should be level, rather than one higher than the other
•     Your shoulders should not be rounded forward or pinned back
•      Your head should not be tilting to one side or the other and it should not be too far forward or too far back

When you run, create balance in your movement by Body Sensing the following:

•      Both arms should have the same amount of bend at the elbows
•      Both knees should bend the same amount so that your heels swing up evenly at the end of your stride
•      Both hands should be relaxed, with fingers curled gently
•      As you increase your forward lean, your legs should swing further behind you
•      Whenever your arm swing increases, your leg swing should increase as well
•      As you engage your core more, you need to relax your arms, legs, shoulders and hips more

Heck, your shoelaces should even be tied with the same tension in both feet. If one is too tight, you might run in circles.

Any imbalance in your movement makes one side have to compensate and work harder. When there is balance and symmetry, there is no impediment to your forward motion. You become like a straight arrow moving through space without the wobbles and distortions that pull you off target.
 
The idea of balance in motion is one of the main principles that makes T'ai Chi such a powerful martial art. As you apply this principle to your running or walking, you begin to move in a balanced way, with no part of your body doing more than its proportionate share of the total workload.

The best way to see if you are in balance is get videotaped from your front and your back on a track. Or, ask a friend to watch you and tell you if you are symmetrical in your movement. Does one of your knees swing to the outside a little? Do your elbows look the same. Do you feel like your upper body is moving as freely as your lower body? Use the list from above as a check list and then work toward brining your body and your movement into alignment and balance.

You can find balance issues going on in every aspect of your life. Do you work too much? Do you eat too many sweets? Drink too much coffee? Notice the subtle and not so subtle affects when you are out of balance. As you strive to become more balanced in your everyday life, you'll notice that all of the different areas of your life are simply pieces of the whole, each of which have an effect on the rest. By being more conscious of creating balance, you’ll learn to move through life with less effort.

 
"And in the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take."

                                                                                                  - John Lennon

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

Then she continued, “I was in a leadership class last week and they were telling us all of the same principles… like, ‘maximize your strengths’ and ‘treat your weaknesses with respect.’ It’s all the same stuff that I’ve been practicing in my hill running and I find it working well in the rest of my life.”

It was so nice to hear her story and how she’s been using her ChiRunning practice to teach herself great principles to live by. For myself, the longer I practice ChiRunning, the more I find out that it’s not about the running. It always comes down to what I come away with, that I can then apply somewhere else in my life.

Let us know what transferable knowledge you’ve come across in your running practice. I’m sure everyone following this blog would love to hear your story.

All the best,
Danny

The race was extremely enjoyable as well as being an extremely challenging experience. In the 6.2 miles of the course there were 1310′ of vertical gain (climbing) and the same amount of vertical loss (plummeting).

The race started literally on top of a mountain and was shaped like a cloverleaf where you had to descend the four sides of the mountain in separate loops, returning to the top of the mountain at the end of each loop. The best word I could come up with in describing the course was “treacherous.” It looked like it had been built by a work crew using only weed-eaters and pickaxes the week before and I had to rely on my wits (as well as my hands) to keep myself vertical a few times. The views were off the charts but, as you could guess, I didn’t have much time to take them in. I was busy using every Chi Running focus in the book.

I don’t mean to sound like I didn’t like the course. On the contrary, I thrive in these conditions. I get to put everything in know to the test and this event felt like a final exam in a graduate course. I finished the race in 1:02:46, a mere 16 seconds behind my training partner, Billy Jonas. The winner of the race ran it in a totally unbelievable time of 39 minutes and some change. Do the math. That’s a 6:20/mile average for the course I just described! I figure the guy who won had one of three things going on: a.) he’s bionic… b.) he’s carrying a major death-wish… or c.) he forgot to do one of the required loops. 

Hats off to Jason and his outstanding race crew for putting on such a “well-run” event. Y’all did a great job!

I’ll be running the Asheville Citizen-Times Half Marathon on September 12th and I’ll be using the same race strategy…pass every gray-haired guy I can find.

Keep on Truckin’
Danny

The big debate is whether or not building more cushioning and structure into running shoes has the advertised effect or if it’s just another case of corporate marketing looking for an effective way to sell shoes to an uneducated populace. Well, in answer to the first part of the debate, as we’ve seen by the percentage of runners who get injured every year, nothing has changed since running shoes for the general public began being produced in the 1970′s. If anything, the injury rate has gone up. And, in answer to the second part of the big debate, yes, it seems to have been a very good marketing ploy that sold gazillions of shoes to people thinking that they’d be safe in their running by buying the right shoe.

I’m so thankful that articles like this are starting to surface in the national media. More attention needs to be paid by the shoe industry to make shoes that fit the needs of an ever-growing population of runners who are working on changing their running form, to prevent injuries, instead of thinking that the right shoe will do the job. For ten years now ChiRunning and ChiWalking classes have been teaching runners and walkers how to run and walk pain-free, injury-free and faster. Check out our schedule of classes if you’re interested. And, while you’re there, check out the results of a West Virginia University poll done with 2500 ChiRunners which reports remarkable findings on the effectiveness of running technique improvement on injury rates.

There are a number of forward thinking shoe companies out there that are working on producing less of a shoe and that’s good news for those of us who are no longer willing to suffer through the over-built “corrective” shoes that have been the norm since the running boom started in the ’70′s. actually almost all of the running shoe companies sell shoes that are perfectly good for the midfoot striker…but many runners are scared away by the model name “racing flat.” Most racing flats have all the great attributes a midfoot runner craves: lots of flexibility in the sole, great ventilation, very minimal lift in the heel and (until the secret gets discovered by the shoe companies) a cheap price. I wear NB-790′s which cost $45 online (while the supply lasts) and which, in the past few years, have been one of the best selling running shoes NB has ever produced.  But, as with all great running shoes…they’ve decided to quit producing what I’ve considered the perfect shoe. Go figure. I’m now looking at FiveFingers, Adizeros, La Sportiva, and yes, even the Nike Free for the next “ideal” shoe.

Viva la revolution!
Danny

p.s. Since the article in the NY Times came out it is the 8th most emailed article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/business/30shoe.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

I know we’ll be walking plenty, so I am planning for comfortable clothes, broken-in shoes and thinking about keeping my core engaged. Walking around all day can be either tiring or invigorating. I plan for it to be the latter!

We’re going to go to market, see the galleries, and soak up the high-altitude crispness of 7,000 feet above sea level.

If I can wrestle myself out of bed in the mornings, I’ll try to go run. And I’ll try to blog about it.

I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend. If you are able to take time for yourself to go running or walking, perhaps we can support each other in the universe by thinking strong core and a light step… strong core and a light step, strong core and a light step…

And so goes my mantra for the weekend. Bon weekend!