Run Softly, Run Tall

(This is the 50^th anniversary of my first article in Runner’s World magazine. All year I post excerpts from my book, This Runner’s World.)

September 2003. Stand beside a road sometime and watch a race instead of running it. You will see in the passing parade what you might not have noticed from the middle of it, focusing only on yourself and the runners within sight.

If you wouldn’t have been one of the lead runners, you’ll now see how wide the gap is between their pace and where yours would have put you. You’ll notice also how different the frontrunners look than most of those in your group.

The faster folks typically run smoother, quieter, taller and prouder. The slower ones pound the ground harder, and slump forward more and stare at their feet.

The differences in pace dictate some of the differences in appearance, but this doesn’t have to be so. Slow runners may never be able to keep up with the fast, but can look more like them.

I don’t need to watch a race to see these contrasts in action. I view them daily at my favorite runner-watching spot, where I’m part of the parade but still can observe it in a leisurely way.

The Amazon Trail is a one-mile sawdust course in my hometown of Eugene, Oregon. Runners come here by the dozens at all hours of the day and night. This trail brings together some of the world’s fastest runners with many of the slowest, who run one lap in the time it takes the speedsters to go two.

As they lap me, I see the faster ones gliding over the surface, brushing it quickly and quietly with each footfall. They run proudly, with back straight and eyes forward. Faster running almost demands that they carry themselves this way.

Slower pace doesn’t make such demands, and bad habits can take root in these runs. Many of the Amazon Trail runners, with their hunched backs and downcast eyes and scraping footplants, run as if slightly embarrassed to be seen here.

Pace places me firmly in the second group, but I still try to model myself after the first. Faster runners hold up a picture of what the best running form can and should be at any pace.

Slower runners naturally take shorter and lower strides, but we still can model ourselves after those who look the best. This isn’t just advice about looking pretty, since running isn’t not a beauty contest and no style-points are awarded.

If form were purely an aesthetic concern, I wouldn’t bother write about it here. It’s worth mentioning because running lightly over the ground, in good head-to-toe alignment, is easier on the body than landing heavily and out of balance, a thousand times every mile. It’s also a little faster for the same level of effort.

I don’t claim picture-perfect form. But having started fast as a young runner (racing from the first week onward), I did learn habits that have stuck with me even while the runs have gone into slow-motion.

If you come from a similar background of speed, remember how you looked then and try to retain it. If you’ve never run fast, or if your form has deteriorated, start taking corrective action.

Add some faster running to your routine by way of short runs, steady or repeated, at a pace one to two minutes per mile faster than you typically go. This up-tempo running almost automatically forces you to run more efficiently.

The habits learned here transfer back to your normal running. In all runs, fastest to slowest, check your form with two tests:

Where do you look? The back follows the lead of the head. If you watch your feet hit the ground, you’re hunched over. But if you raise your eyes to the horizon, your back naturally straightens and you come into more efficient alignment. Good running is straight-backed, tall running.

What do you hear? The feet announce how well you absorb shock. If you hear slap-slip-scrape-shuffle, you’re hitting the ground too hard by not making full use of ankle-flex and toe-off. The less you hear at footplant, the less likely the ground is to hurt you. Good running is springy-stepped, quiet running.

Whatever your pace, run softly and run tall. Look like you’re quietly proud of what you’re doing.

2018 Update. Two of the best guides to running form reached me after this column appeared: first, Chi Running, where I received introductory lessons from certified instructor Keith McConnell. Second, Good Form Running, introduced to me by Curt Munson and Grant Robison at a running camp. Abundant info on both methods is available online.

[Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in two different formats: in print and as ebooks from Amazon.com. The titles: Going Far, Home Runs, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Next Steps, Pacesetters, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, Starting Lines, and This Runner’s World, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]

More Better Runs

(This is the 50^th anniversary of my first article in Runner’s World magazine. All year I post excerpts from my book, This Runner’s World.)

September 2002 (retitled in the magazine). Old habits die slowly. I spent the first half of my running life training to race, and in racing often and hard. Now my youngest PR dates from 1979.

There’s a big difference between running in races, which I still do, and racing them. I haven’t really and truly raced in the latter half of my running life.

Yet for most of that time I trained like a racer – scaling down the distances and speeds, yes, but sticking with the same old pattern. That was, alternating hard and easy (hard day and easy week, in my case)... long runs twice the length of normal ones, or more... fast runs two minutes a mile faster than usual, or more.

Only recently did I realize that training this way did me few favors. They trained me for races that no longer mattered much. The one big run a week caused the many smaller ones to suffer, cutting some short and canceling others.

My quest lately has been to simplify all running. To weed out needless complications. To make the runs more alike – the long runs shorter, the short longer, the fast slower, the slow faster.

The first step in that campaign was to stop training for one great day that might never come. The second was to start making each running day a little better.

This hobby of mine is also my job, and it takes me to races almost weekly. There I’m asked repeatedly, “Are you running here?”

The simple answers: “No, not this time,” or, “I’m running along with the pack but not racing.” The unspoken answer: I like to run too much to race anymore.

To do that now would be a poor investment. The risks of training or racing myself into injury or illness wouldn’t be worth the scant payoffs that might result. Even if I dodged serious side-effects, the harder work would demand more easy days and rest days than I’d care to take.

The more days I run, the happier I am. If I feel more energy and less pain on those days, and can run a little extra, I’m happier yet.

So am I advising you never to race? Not at all. I have no regrets over any of my races run hard, even the ones that ended badly. I highly recommend racing to anyone who hasn’t tried it and to hasn’t yet stopped improving times and distances.

What I’m saying here is that racing isn’t for everyone. Yet much of the written advice on the sport (my past work included) is framed for runners who race.

Here I’m writing for the rest of us. Those who moved beyond racing. Those who run in races without racing them. Those who are between racing seasons. Those who don’t race and don’t plan to start?

I’m speaking for those of us who want to run nearly every day. And those who don’t mind running the same way most days, since it frees us from wondering: Do I run today or not, and if so, what?

This is not a scaled-down version of race-training programs, which aim to make some runs longer and faster, and compensate with some easier days and days off. The non-racer’s plan aims to make more days the same and more runs better.

If this approach appeals to you, put each element of your current running routine to these two tests:

Is this what I would want to run if I didn’t have to do it to prepare for a race? If it isn’t, then choose the runs that you look forward to, and discard those you dread.

Could I take these runs nearly every day of the week? If 23 hours’ rest isn’t enough, then tone down their length and pace until you could repeat them daily and indefinitely.

The ex-racer or non-racer has no more distant, or greater, goal than to run well each time. Running is “training” only for the run of the moment and the next one to come.

2018 Update. Few of my old writings are even more true now than when first written. This is one of them. Substitute the word “walk” for “run,” and it remains my plan this very week.

[Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in two different formats: in print and as ebooks from Amazon.com. The titles: Going Far, Home Runs, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Next Steps, Pacesetters, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, Starting Lines, and This Runner’s World, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]

Balancing Acts

(This is the 50^th anniversary of my first article in Runner’s World magazine. All year I post excerpts from my book, This Runner’s World.)

September 2001. Running is my job. On its best days it’s a dream job, working at what otherwise would be a hobby. On its worst days it still beats any other career path I might have taken.

My workdays aren’t filled with running, but instead with pressures and temptations not to run. The writing requires sitting for long stretches, the same as if the subject were coin collecting. When I go to races, it’s usually to talk about running and not to run myself.

I have a wife who doesn’t care to spend all of her spare time traveling to races. I have children who haven’t yet left home for good and don’t deserve a dad who’s always out running. I have friends who don’t run and don’t want to talk about it incessantly.

Running has always been, and remains, a big part of my life. But each run occupies a small part of my day. I am decidedly a part-time runner.

Reg Harris wrote a book by that title, The Part-Time Runner. Published in the mid-1980s, it disappeared too soon to tap into today’s huge running market. But his title and message apply more than ever, as high-mileage training programs ask us to spend more time running – while we have less of it to squeeze from our busy days.

Most of us are part-timers. We have families, jobs and other interests pushing our running into small corners of our day.

We aren’t given the time to run; we must make it and protect it. We must also stay flexible and conservative with that time in order to keep the peace between running and our competing obligations.

Adopting several rules-of-one has helped me manage this delicate balancing act. These include:

Schedule only one big day a week. “Big” means a long run that might train you for a marathon or a fast session that might prepare you for a short race. These days require so much extra focus and effort, if not extra time, that they’re best taken infrequently and on days off from your job.

Run no more than one race a month. Races are available much more often than that, but you risk tipping your life out of balance by entering too many of them. Factoring in travel and recovery time, a race is an all-day, or even all-weekend, commitment that can be less fun for the family than it is for you.

Rest at least one day per week. If nothing else, the planned day off frees you from thinking you must find time to run every day. Make this a free-floating day of rest, available for days when your running must yield its time to other duties that can’t wait until tomorrow.

I’ve held the most important rule-of-one for last: Average less than one hour of running a day. This doesn’t mean never going beyond an hour, but if you do go longer one day then restore the balance by doing less in the days that follow.

Averaging an hour a day keeps running in the realm of a hobby. Beyond that it seems like a second job.

Give yourself an hour on weekday workdays. Into that hour fit not only the run itself but also its surrounding activities. These might leave little more than a half-hour for running.

Not enough, you say? I agree that a half-hour run can be absurdly easy for an experienced runner. But it also can be brutally hard for the best of runners. A world 10K record can be set in less than a half-hour, with time left over for a victory lap or two.

Half-hour runs can be any degree of difficulty you want to make them. In the time it takes not to watch a sitcom or not to eat a fast-food meal, you can gain and maintain basic aerobic fitness.

This is enough time but not too much to run on recovery days. It’s long enough to train for speed and to race well for at least a 5K.

Whatever you do in the allotted period, you always finish at the same time. You’re back home or back on the job before anyone had time to miss you.

2018 Update. An irony of retirement years is that free time grows wide open, at the same time of life when available energy shrinks how far and fast we can go, how often. I still get out daily, for less than an hour most days – but now walking more of that time than running.

[Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in two different formats: in print and as ebooks from Amazon.com. The titles: Going Far, Home Runs, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Next Steps, Pacesetters, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, Starting Lines, and This Runner’s World, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]

Full Marathons

(This is the 50^th anniversary of my first article in Runner’s World magazine. All year I post excerpts from my book, This Runner’s World.)

September 1999. America no longer produces many of the world’s best marathoners, but we bring out the most. Some critics here would connect these two facts. They would say that our country now places too much emphasis on participating in marathons and not enough on excelling in them.

Americans certainly turn out in great numbers. Some 419,000 people, a record high, entered our marathons last year. A handful of these events are big enough to earn the title “mega-races.”

The New York City Marathon regularly tops 30,000 entrants. Honolulu has risen above that figure on occasion. Three other marathons in this country – Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago – stand at or near 20,000.

Many of them could be bigger yet, and others could grow just as large, if they allowed unlimited entries. More than 50,000 would run New York if the streets and bridges could accommodate that many. Instead, this race cuts off entries when they reach a specified number that changes from year to year. It fills within days – months before race day.

The Boston Marathon is the only annual race in this country to restrict entries through qualifying times. Even while requiring performances as fast as 3:10, the race draws more than 12,000 runners. Boston showed its immense popularity by easing requirements in 1996. The field exploded to almost 40,000.

Restricting race fields is the most talked-about trend of the moment in this country. “Full marathon” has taken on a new meaning. It no longer distinguishes the 42-kilometer event from the half-marathon, but designates events that have filled to capacity and are accepting no more runners.

This happens in events as large as the New York City Marathon and as small as Napa Valley (which topped out at 1800 runners this year). Perhaps the hottest ticket is for St. George in Utah. Runner’s World once designated its course as fastest in the U.S., and marathoners have lined up to enter ever since.

People who apply too late for the full races are now voicing some frustration. Many of the complaints come from self-proclaimed “serious runners,” who blame less-serious participants for shutting them out. The purists claim that marathons are running contests – not the walk-when-you-feel-like it, take-as-long-as-you-wish events they now appear to be in this country.

The purists’ wrath is directed especially at the fastest-growing group of marathoners. They participate as organized groups to raise money for charity. Biggest and best-known is Team in Training, which collects funds for leukemia research.

The Washington Post carried a story this spring that quoted runners who couldn’t get into the 16,000-person Marine Corps Marathon. They complained that 25 percent of spots were reserved for the charities, which in turn kept that many “real runners” from entering this October event that filled up in March.

This conflict strains the traditionally friendly relations between marathoners of all abilities and sours the welcoming atmosphere of our races. It’s unfortunate, and also unnecessary in a country where dozens of other marathons would be thrilled to take in runners displaced by the few races that put up the “sold out” sign.

2018 Update. The numbers have changed since the last year of last century. But the facts remain: the big marathons (notably New York City at 50,000) would get bigger yet if they didn’t restrict entries. And the small stay that way, shrink or disappear while begging the rejects from the biggest to give the smallest a try.

[Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in two different formats: in print and as ebooks from Amazon.com. The titles: Going Far, Home Runs, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Next Steps, Pacesetters, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, Starting Lines, and This Runner’s World, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]