Military PFTs

Before I started running, I got interested in the Physical Fitness Tests that the military uses. I first found the Navy PFT and blogged about it. It's actually what made me start running around the block--could I meet the minimum for a 1.5 run?

For some reason, I find the test standards fascinating. Today I looked up the tests for the Marine Corps. I learned that each branch of the service uses different tests for running:

• Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force use the 1.5-mile distance.
• Army uses the 2-mile distance.
• Marines use the 3-mile distance.

All branches have a simple point system with minimums that are indexed by age. The test for the Marines--true to form--is the most difficult.

When I blogged about the Navy PFT, I thought this might be an interesting fitness benchmark. Because it's indexed for age, I could always have a fitness goal that went something like: I will be able to pass the Navy PFT. Perhaps I could say Marines now that my running is a bit better. The Marines PFT is a combination of three metrics: pull ups, crunches, and 3-Mile run.

There's even a cool online calculator for the Marines PFT. They need to work on the calculator, though, because it does not disqualify you if you don't meet the minimums.

I'm not sure if I could do the pull ups and crunches required below, but I could try.

• 49 points for a time of 26:30 in the 3-Mile (30 is the minimum)
  
• 15 points fo 3 pull ups (minimum)
• 45 points for 45 crunches (minimum)
• TOTAL: 109 points

That 109 point score would place me in 3rd class for my age group. If I could pick up 16 more points, I could be 2nd class. Not bad. I really find the standards interesting--the combination of points and minimum make it a challenge. The tests are indexed for age, so you can keep the same goal for life.

Perhaps I should make an appointment with Mac in the fitness center to see how many pull ups and crunches I can do.

Magic Mile

Jeff Galloway has an interesting race time prediction formula; he calls it The Magic Mile. It's an interesting concept. Here's a more elaborate PDF explaining the concept. The formula is, basically to take your one mile time and adjust as follows:

• add 33 seconds for your pace for a 5K
• multiply by 1.15 for 10K pace
• multiply by 1.2 for half marathon pace
• multiply by 1.3 for marathon pace

And he has a Java Script calculator at the first link above.

Today I ran a mile on a track. I didn't follow his directions, and it's basically my pace for a short run. I ran today's mile in 8:24, which predicts a 5K time of 27:45. My most recent 5K time? 28:32. Interesting. It also predicts a 4:46 marathon. Ugh!

In order to get to a sub-4 hour marathon, you would need a MM (Magic Mile) time of 7:01 or lower. That might be hard to do!!!

Interesting stuff. My fastest 440 in the mile today was 1:59; to hit the 7:01, I'd need to do all 4 of them in 1:45. Perhaps I could do it...

Personal Training Session

So, I am about to leave for a one-on-one training session with Sarah, a certified ChiRunning instructor. Sarah is my parents' massage therapist. I'll post here when I am done. I'm very excited to get some clear instruction on form. For about the price of a pair of good running shoes, I am about to get some much needed guidance to keep myself from getting injured!

Soft Knees/Soft Legs

Man, was that worth it. I spent 2 hours with Sarah on the Seaholm High School track and I can't wait to get out running to put a lot of this into practice. It's going to take several days or longer to unpack all I've learned. A couple of things:

1. An important lesson is that I was doing a good hunk of the ChiRunning thing properly. I needed tweaks and corrections, but I was on the right track.
2. Even more posture! Push the crown of my head up at the clouds--Sarah actually grabbed me by the hair.
3. Even shorter strides than I have been doing, and work on the 90 cadence.
4. More that I will post here later. Good stuff.

One Mistake

This is my fault, too, because I expected to do it and didn't think it would be a problem. We did some barefoot running on the track. It felt fine for a while, and then I got a shooting pain in my right plantar fascia. That's the site of my old shovel injury--ouch! Doesn't hurt with my shoes on and doesn't hurt when I run. Whew!

Track

I liked running on the track at Seaholm so much that I did it here today in my town. While the weather is good, I think I'll hit it once per week during a run.

SUN
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI
SAT

The Place for Running Clothes

When I started running, I bought a good technical shirt and a nice pair of shorts at a sporting goods place. They were expensive (got my money's worth--they are my favorites). But I've taken a page out of my wife's playbook and head over to T.J. Maxx for a quick look at their "active tops" and "active bottoms" section. Great deals!

• Today I got 2 wicking long sleeve running shirts for $10/ea.
• Bought an Asics winter running jacket for $15.
• Last week, I bought 2 New Balance technical short sleeve running shirts for $10/ea.
• I also found another great technical short sleeve for $7.50.

Gonna check there all the time now!

Relaxed Wheels Behind Me

This is a phrase/focus I started using a couple of days ago on my run. Gonna try it again tomorrow.

• It reminds me to relax the muscles in my lower legs before they hit the ground. It occurred to me that landing on tensed muscles was like jumping off the roof with your knees locked.
• Wheels help me think of my legs in a different way--not just a ChiRunning thing, but a way to force myself to use my legs differently.
• Wheels also help me remember to pick up my feet and rotate them above my ankles in a circular motion.
• Behind me helps with my midfoot strike and landing on a foot that is under/behind my center of gravity and already traveling to the rear. As Danny says in a video, "why would you put your brakes on by sticking that foot out into the road as it's coming at you?"
• The phrase is also in the right order: 1) relax muscles in lower legs, 2) rotate them as wheels, 3) make sure they are traveling behind you.
  

Relaxed wheels behind me. It's kind of an NLP thing in my head.

Sleep Working

This post really is about running.

When I was writing my Ph.D. dissertation, there were a few times when I caught myself "sleep working." This has only happened to me a handful of times in my life. Basically, I wake up with the recollection of a dream. During those dissertation months, the dreams were conceptual frameworks or strategies for stitching together my chapters. There were times when several sentences strung together would be waiting for me when I woke up. I didn't need to work to recall them; I didn't dash off and grab a pen or turn on the computer. They were just there. My theory has been that it was some kind of long-term processing that finished during the night. Kind of like the familiar "epiphany" or "breakthrough" thoughts that are more familiar during waking, but captured with your brain's TiVo during sleep and played back.

So, what's this got to do with running? Well, I've had a couple of running concept "dreams," though they are not narratives with plots, settings, and characters. They are really sensations--things I've tried to "feel" while running but have struggled. They happened a few nights apart, and when I say nights I really mean mornings, as I think they happened immediately before waking.

I've heard it said that you really learn a language once you start to dream in it. Well, perhaps I am getting this new running form down given these two dreams below. Now, I need to caution you: reading about dreams is like reading stuff that was written by people on drugs. I am seriously not on drugs. Seriously.

1. My Straight Spine. The first sensation was feeling my straight spine. From my tailbone up to my head, I felt a keen awareness of my spine as a straight line, lying right there in bed with me but suspended in space. The outside "felt" like a gauzy dark gray (a sensation of feeling a color, or synethesia--something I've never felt waking). My actual spine was a yellow dotted line--this yellow I saw, not felt. I was so aware of my spine, its straightness, and the space it occupied. I knew as I dremt that this was about my running, that it came from my reading and from the DVD and the whole "column" thing in ChiRunning. While walking and running, I can recall this feeling but not quite re-capture it or re-create it. I don't think that kind of awareness is possible for me, but in my dream it was. It's still been helpful.
2. Gravity Pulling Me. This morning (or last night, depending on how you look at it) I dreamed the sensation of leaning forward and letting gravity do all the work. Again, this comes straight from my reading and thinking and focusing on the idea of a lean and the Pose/ChiRunning idea. When I am actually running, I feel like I can approximate a lean and get some help from gravity, but I can't feel gravity pulling me. In my dream, my straight spine leaned forward and I could feel gravity pulling me down toward the ground. I could also feel my clumsy attempts to catch myself and run on my legs. I tripped and only got it a few times. I don't think I'll ever feel that in real life, not as strong.

So what is really odd is that, while I cannot conjure the feelings described above, I can keenly remember feeling them in the same way you can remember a smell that is not present in your nose or a taste that is not present in your mouth. Do it right now: lilac bushes; barbecue sauce. They are there but they're not. Unlike lilacs and barbecue, however, I'm not sure that the two things above ever were sensations I had. Still, the memory of having them has already helped me. Strange, indeed.

To race, or not to race...

Next Sunday is the Playmaker's Autumn Classic 8K. Not sure if I should drive to Lansing and run it. The last two times I have hurt myself, it's been in organized races. So part of me thinks I should lay out for a while and build strength and experience before I do one again. Both times I've run too hard and too fast.

Perhaps I should just get up that morning and do 5 miles myself.

My 3 Mile Route

For no good reason, I strapped a video camera to my bike today and filmed my 3 mile training route. My brother-in-law sometimes does this route in the middle of longer runs. I sped up the film super fast so you can see it in about 90 seconds. I got the idea from a cool video that Joshua did of his commute to Lansing. His was cooler.





Okay, it's kind of stupid. But maybe I'll use it as an excuse to play with the "Annotations" feature on YouTube.

New Run/Walk/Run Intervals

Jeff Galloway recently posted these r/w/r ratio recommendations for triathletes. Pretty interesting:

• 7 min/mi: run 6 min/walk 30 sec
• 7:30/mi: run 5 min/walk 30 sec
• 8 min/mi: run 4 min/walk 30 seconds
• 9 min/mi: run 4 min/walk 1 min
• 10 min/mi: run 3 min/walk 1 min
• 11 min/mi: run 2:30/walk 1 min
• 12 min/mi: run 2 min/walk 1 min
• 13 min/mi: run 1 min/walk 1 min

I used the exact recommended ratio for the 8K Crim!

I guess part of me wonders how walk breaks and ChiRunning mix. In theory, you are using much less muscle energy with a lean and midfoot strike. Still, I have a gut feeling that the two approaches might fit well together.

The Carriage Metaphor

Danny Dreyer uses the metaphor of a horse-drawn carriage to explain how his conception of the ChiRunning method all fits together. This is an extended metaphor, or what Renaissance writers would call a conceit. While it seems kind of hokey, it's a great way to conceptualize the concepts in the book and how they relate to one another. Dreyer outlines the metaphor on page 60 in Chapter 4. While I am sure the author would disagree, Chatper 4 ("The Basic Components of Technique") is almost a stand-alone work that could benefit any runner. It's basically the entire content of the DVD. I'm sure that Dreyer would object to the idea of the other concepts being "extra" (in fact, this metaphor makes me certain that he would), but the key bio mechanical concepts are in Chapter 4.

Below is a breakdown of how Dreyer explains the carriage metaphor. I think this will be a cool way to reflect on the ideas in this book as I work on improving my form.

The Carriage. In Dreyer's metaphor, the carriage is your body. Simple enough. It's a physical frame that gets propelled forward. One visualization in ChiRunning is to imagine that your feet are wheels--the picture of the carriage helps with this. It's significant, I think, that forces other than your body propel you forward in this metaphor.

The Horses. The horses in Dreyer's metaphor are the form focuses in Chapter 4. The form focuses allow you to let gravity do most of the work and rely much less on leg muscle strength than on core strength and flexibility. The form focuses, which are re-printed in another blog post here, comprise the main elements of the ChiRunning technique:

1. posture
2. lean
3. legs& arms: upper body
4. legs & arms: lower body

The Driver. The driver is what Dreyer calls Chi-Skills, which he explains in Chapter 3. The Chi-Skills come directly from his exploration of t'ai chi and are applicable to far more than running. I was reminded of the movement in music pedagogy toward body mapping (specifically the Alexander technique) to prevent injury when I read the sections on Body Sensing. The Chi-Skills are interesting. They are:

1. focusing
2. Body Sensing
3. breathing
4. relaxing.

The Owner. Dryer selects the role of Owner for what he calls ChiRunning principles. More so than any other part of the book, the principles come from Eastern philosophy. It's my guess that this is the part of the book that will turn off most I-just-want-to-improve-my-running readers. The t'ai chi principles he expalins in Chapter 2 are:

1. cotton and steel
2. gradual progress
3. the pyramid
4. balance in motion
5. non-identification.

As I read Deyer's book, I reflect on how anti-guru and anti-program I tend to be in life. But at the same time, I also reflect on different theoretical frameworks and how they provide structure to activity and thought. In fact, I make a living doing organizational planning and quality improvement within such a structure. It's not the be-all and end-all, but it is a coherent model that is interesting to examine as a whole. In my estimation, the ChiRunning philosophy is worth examining as a whole unit, not just as Chapter 4 which tells you what do physically do while you're running.

A COMPLETE LIST OF FOCUSES AND REMINDERS

From ChiRunning, pages 92-93.

Below is a checklist of all the focuses. Whenever you’re practicing a focus, Body Sense it. As you get increasingly proficient with the focuses, you’ll be able to sense when some part of your running form doesn’t feel quite right, then engage the appropriate focus to correct it.

POSTURE

• Straighten your upper body with your hands. Look for your shoelaces.
• Keep your legs vertical, not sloped.
• Do the “vertical crunch.” Lift your pelvis up in front; flatten your lower back slightly.
• Tuck your chin and keep your neck in line with your spine. Use the three-finger tripod.
• Use the image of a Column—always straight. Connect the dots: shoulders, hips, ankles.
• Feel your feet at the bottom of your Column.

LEAN

• Keep your column straight at all times.
• Lean from your ankles, with your whole body as one unit.
• Feel yourself falling forward.
• Be sure your upper body is in front of your foot strike.
• Your lean is your gas pedal. To go faster, lean more.
• Your upper body is extended out front while your legs swing out to the back.

LEGS AND ARMS: LOWER BODY

• Pick up your feet.
• Keep your lower legs limp.
• Swing your legs to the rear.
• Bend your knees and let your heels float up behind you.
• Remember, soft foot strike, loose ankles. Don’t push off with your toes. Run quietly and lightly, as if you’re trying to sneak up on someone.
• Don’t pronate. Run along a tightrope, leading with your knees.
• Loosen your hips.
• Keep your cadence between 85 and 90 strides per minute.

LEGS AND ARMS: UPPER BODY

• Swing your elbows to the rear, keeping them bent at a constant right angle.
• Don’t pump your arms.
• Don’t cross your centerline with your hands.
• Relax your hands, as if you’re holding a butterfly.
• Keep your shoulders low and relaxed.
• Use your arm swing to set your cadence.

GENERAL RUNNING TIPS

This is a quick reference list of focuses to remember when you’re starting your runs. The best way to get familiar with the focuses is to pick one or two and work with them until you can clearly Body Sense each one. Then, on a subsequent run, pick two different ones. Work your way through the list, and when you finish, start at the top of the list… ad infinitium.

• Keep your stride length short as you take off. Let it lengthen gradually as you lean more.
• Keep your lower legs limp.
• Pick your foot up over your opposite ankle, and don’t push off with your toes.
• Remember the wheel. Pretend you’re pedaling a small bicycle.
• Lean from your ankles by tilting your Column forward.
• Let your feet hit at the bottom of your Column. Your upper body should always be ahead of your foot strike.
• Land midfoot, just behind the balls of your feet, not on your heels.
• Swing your arms and legs to the rear.
• Let gravity pull you. Use the bungee-cord image.
• Keep your shoulders relaxed and low.
• Keep your knees down and your heels up.
• Look for that gentle twist along your spine. Let your hip be pulled to the rear as your leg extends behind you.
• Keep your cadence between 85 and 90 strides per minute.
• When you get tired, shorten your stride length and come back up on your lean slightly.
• Smile!

Grated, it’s a lot to think about… but so is a car when you first learn to drive. You don’t have to learn this by next week. In fact, you have the rest of your life to master these focuses, so don’t pressure yourself to learn it all at once. Just take it in small increments one day at a time and you’ll be a happy runner.

Stop! Look! Listen!

Hey, look! It's another midfoot strike running guru named Danny. This guy will sell you his shoes:





Something to think about.

30 Years Later

Photos don't lie. On the left is a photo of me taken last month during the 8K Crim. It's later in the race, and my form has reverted back to sloppy. On the right is f photo of me running at age 11--amazing! How did I get this? Well, it was taken at a race that my Dad entered in Detroit when I was a kid. I ran with him at the end.

So, what do I take away from this little lesson?

• My heelstrike and foot inversion isn't a recent thing
• 
  

Walk the Walk

Okay, I've been sidelined for longer than I can stand it. I want to run tomorrow, but I am going to force myself to walk and go short. 2 miles. Walking only. I am going to see if ramping up gradually will help. I am in no kind of hurry. I need to get back to regular running, and it's just going to be longer if I push it and have to stop again.

ChiRunning Again