Every Run is a Great Run!

Hang in there baby! The workday/week is almost over! Championship church ballgame waiting for us tonight! Great run as always! BTW: I love your form no matter which mile you are on, (or even if you're not running at all!) :0)

Great run, Tom! I kind of miss that old Kuhni road although I don't imagine it still has the same familiar fragrance. I've noticed the exact same thing about form. Right now it doesn't kick in until I'm about done for the day, but when I'm in shape it just seems to kick in after about two miles...as you say, it's like your body suddenly remembers how it's supposed to move.

Sometimes I feel like my legs are going in two different directions!

Is that what were talking about here? Sometimes I feel very smooth but for the most part I feel like on ostrich out there, legs and wings going all over the place:)

P.S. I'm sick of work too!

My form is absolutely awful and I notice it more on tempo runs than any other type of run. I really have to focus on keeping the pace smooth and not allow my feet to slap too much when I am running at tempo pace.

You had a great run today. I was hoping to run with you at the half marathon next week but don't think that I will be able to keep up.

Andy and Clay - you're descriptions of form problems is exactly what I'm talking about. I guess it's just normal to have to work hard and get warmed up properly to get the brain and legs in sync for running efficiently.

Andy I think it might be me having trouble keeping up as looking at your PRs it seems I'm typically a step or to behind you. Of course you never know come race day what kind of surprises might happen. Maybe we can start out together and depending on how we are each feeling make the call after a bit on what pace to run. If we're in sync great but if not then we can both run our best and see what kind of race the heavens have planned for us.

Form -- I'm big on this one. Its the easiest way to improve time. Starting with arms, slow runs are the best time to practice this. Especially for you Tom, given the opportunities you have with Kim to practice.

Arms: coming through between the hip and the chin. They don't have to come all the way from point to point, but they can't go past the points. You should also work very hard at keeping them from swinging into your body. Think of it as a pendulum from the shoulder that barely skims outside of touching your hips and keep that line up through the swing. Really work on paying attention to this during the slow runs and it will begin, over time, to occur naturally.

Legs: Slow runs are a place to work on this as well, but you can also set aside a hill to do them on. So many possibilities here. High skips (bounds), accentuating the driving motion of the arm and opposing knee, quick stepping high knees (great one with a slower partner) two legged hops, knee high leg extensions, the list goes on and on, just check out stuff on the net about running economy and form. Most of the stuff listed you can actually do during a slow run. If you use the slow run to really focus on it it will begin to occur naturally at other paces. The key is to accentuate the action occurring during slow runs, but during other runs, keep your movement minimalized. I think on one of the message boards there is a link to an Arthur Lydiard lecture in Japan that has a lot of this info on it. Hmm. http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/pdfs/OSAKALECTURE.pdf check that out.