Jason Robillard's ABC's of Barefoot Running - With Video!

So, I've been on a hiatus for two months now.  What have I been doing?  The list is actually pretty short:

1. Adjusting to having two kiddos at home instead of one. (Change is hard for me, even when I love my kids.)
2. Trying to learn how to not be flustered by change.
3. Working.
4. Running.
5. Playing Xbox (Batman: Arkham City - thanks to my wife for the b-day present!)
6. Annoying my wife by playing Xbox and a sometimes surly attitude.
7. Apologizing to my wife for the annoyance.

I realize both of my readers have been wondering when I would get back to posting again so lets do this!

In true lazy form this post is just pirated info and a link!  A few months ago I did a post on the ABC's of barefoot running as presented by Jason Robillard.  Now there's a video!

Check out the video for a visual "how-to" and get started today!

Running and Wheezing - Lungs, Asthma, and Smoking

Let me first say I wasn't smoking on my run tonight.  I'm sure that was obvious but I just wanted to clear the air, so to speak.

When I was in elementary and middle school I had some breathing troubles.  Asthma is a reactive disorder that causes constriction of the lung passages and therefore makes it difficult to breathe.  I was on different medications and a couple inhalers for a while, but pretty much grew out of it.  I had some trouble in high school, but nothing major.  I was never the kid that was hauled off to the ER at 2:00 am turning blue.  I feel bad for those little buggers.  I can't imagine how they must feel.  I still deal with seasonal allergies and have trouble with mold in the air, but I don't need medication anymore.  I do have a rescue inhaler just in case, but I'm not really sure why.

The main point to this post is that I had a lot of trouble breathing on my run tonight.  I did two miles, and had to walk twice.  I was actually feeling pretty rough and I was having reactive airway problems.  My allergies have been really flared up for the last few weeks and now harvest has begun in Minnesota so there is a lot of dust floating around.  I almost gave up on my run early, but the short walks did help.  The first walk was at about 1.5 miles.  My lungs were really wheezing and I ran past a bench across the street from St. Mary's Hospital.  This bench is where Hospital employees take their smoke breaks since they aren't allowed to smoke on the hospital property.  When I ran by, there were three of them sitting on the bench and as soon as I got a little second-hand my lungs shut off.  Cigarette smoke usually doesn't bother me but just half a whiff kicked my ass tonight.

I walked for half a block or so, then was able to get going again.  A stitch in my side stopped me again a couple blocks later, but that resolved quickly just by putting my arm up for a second.  I ran the rest of the 4 blocks home.  As I was nearing our house I pulled my phone out of the case to check my distance covered and was glad to see it was almost two miles.  I ran past our house to finish those last 5/100ths of a mile.  Probably not necessary, but I like round numbers.  As I hit the 2 mile mark I looked at the pace.  9:13/mile!  15-20 seconds faster than normal, and all while my lungs were shutting down.  Pretty nice for my slow legs and it's no wonder my lungs were burning a bit.  I'm glad my conditioning is improving well.

The moral of the story is that I'm glad I finished the run.  I know it's never best to push it when you aren't feeling well, but in this instance I'm glad I did.  I wonder what my pace would have been if I hadn't walked that little bit.

Visualization of Barefoot Running Form

So, last post I gave some tips on getting started with barefoot running.  I hope that you have tried a little barefoot walking outside and downloaded Jason Robillard's book (or at least read his ABC's post).  This time I want to dive in to the mechanics of the gait a little bit and give you the visualization clues I used to help me.

Foot Landing (Foot Strike)
The foot strike should be gentle, as light as possible.  Watch a cat walk or run, or study a ninja that lives in your neighborhood.  They hit the ground quietly, and sneak up on you.  In barefoot running, the natural way we run, we land on the ball of our foot first then the heel and toes come down as the calf stretches.  Sometimes it looks like your foot is landing completely flat.

I use this visual for the foot landing:  Picture how your feet and ankles move as you go up a flight of stairs.  You typically touch first at the ball of your foot, but as you load the leg, your heel comes down as the calf stretches.  There is a reflex that happens as your calf stretches to help turn on the quad and glute muscles to keep the knee and hip from collapsing.  When running, this same process happens but it happens a lot faster and is a little less exaggerated.

A few other visuals that might help:

• Pretend that you are running on hot coals, it will help decrease the force of your landing.  Same thing goes for liquid-hot magma.
• Concentrate on the foot that is moving up, and the force on the landing foot will decrease (not my favorite way, but its an option).
• Pretend that your running surface is loaded with springs and they push your foot up as soon as you set it down.

Knee Bend
To have the right knee bend, you should bend your knee.  How's that for you?  Not enough?  Fine.

The knee should never be completely straight in barefoot running.  As you land with your foot right below the hip, the knee is already bent to reduce force and it stays bent through the foot lift.  The knee bend is a major element of the shock absorbing system. 

What helped me:

• Pretend that as you are running your butt is getting lower to the ground like you are going to sit on an imaginary chair.
• Increasing your foot strike cadence will help with this too.  It decreases the amount of available time to straighten your leg out.  You can't straighten the knee if doing so will make you fall over.

Foot Lift
This is a simple idea, but is difficult in practice.  If you use your foot to push off and try to propel yourself forward you will get blisters and have a bad time.  This one took me a while to understand.  You have to lift your foot nearly as soon as it touches down on the ground.  Notice I didn't say you have to rock forward onto your toes and push off of the ground.  You have to literally pick your foot up off the ground in a fluid motion before you try to use those toes to push off.  Don't worry about what is moving you forward.  We will get to that.

My visual:

• I don't have one.  Just pick your foot up.
• The "running on liquid hot magma" visual may help you.  You don't want to keep your foot on liquid hot magma for very long.  
• Think about (or find a video on You Tube) of someone walking on hot coals.  If you step lightly and pick your foot up quickly you don't get burned.  If you dig in and try to propel yourself forward quickly, you get burned.  If you try to push off with your foot when running, you get blisters.  Same concept.

The Forward Lean
This is how you move forward when you can't push off.  Jason Robillard teaches a drill where your stand slightly away from a wall, keep your body straight, and lean forward at the ankles until your head touches the wall.  That teaches you a little about the forward lean.  This is another concept that I had a little trouble with until I realized that if everything else is correct, this one happens on its own.

What to do:

• Make sure you have a high cadence, your feet are landing below your hips, and you are stepping softly, and the forward lean will take care of itself.  If it doesn't, you will quickly realize you aren't moving forward.  You will either fix the problem or run in place.  Either way, have fun!

Have you tried barefoot running or do you have tips of your own?  Leave a comment below or put them on Facebook!

I am the King...

...of too much too soon!

I started on the trail of barefoot running in about April this year.  I have never enjoyed running any further than a 400 meter race.  Any more than that was literally fatiguing to the point of nausea.  As I learn more and practice more barefoot running I realize that my fatigue likely came form poor form.  I was a stomper.  My high school hurdles coach likened me to an elephant in my Junior year, but I was a skinny kid.  I just made a lot of noise.  (*heel strike, foot slap, heel strike, foot slap*)  I dealt with shin splints within a week of starting track practice in the Spring, and  they lasted the entire season.  I loved sprinting and hurdles.  But make me run mid-distance, and I was miserable.  After high school, I abandoned running for beer except for one summer when I trained for and ran the Bix 7 Mile Race in Davenport, IA at the behest of a friend.  (I barfed twice at the finish line of that one, mostly from too much water at the last water stop.)

I began Chiropractic school in 2002 and started to get back in shape, but with weightlifting rather than running.  I still struggled through the odd mile here and there, but the shin splints were too much.  Lifting was fun for me though, and I had two dedicated training partners to keep me going.  We moved a lot of weight.  The trouble with that kind of workout is the equipment.  It's hard to lift weights without weights to lift, and after I graduated and started paying back student loans there was no money for gym memberships, so I tried running again.  My running career continued to be sporadic and painful.

Fast forward to December 2010.  I saw an ad for the Warrior Dash, talked it over with my wife, and we signed up.  Soon after that she became pregnant with our second baby so she is no longer running the race in July.  I started training though, vowing to stay ahead of my shin splints with ice massage and stretching.  You can imagine how that went.

About three weeks into my latest failing attempt at a running career, I went to see my shoe guy, Jamey.  He and I have been friends since high school, and he manages the Tradehome Shoes store in Rochester.  I demanded answers.  He showed me the latest ASCIS.  Hefty price tag on those bad boys for something I may not be able to continue with.  I think he could sense my frustration with the newest must-have shoe and put the ASCIS down and instead gave me Jason Robillard's book.  It's an odd thing when a shoe salesman hands you a barefoot running book.  Jason's experience was similar to my own and the way he presented barefoot running jived with something deep down in my soul.  I am a Chiropractor and I believe in the human body's abilty to function properly.  I won't get into things like orthotics in this post, but suffice to say I have started to see the error of those things for most patients.

This post is getting longer than I wanted so lets get back to where I started.  I promise that I am really the King of too much too soon.  I sit here tonight with pain in my left heel and ankle.  The same pain that recently sidelined me for two weeks after doing a 5K on June 4th.  At that time I was still running in my trusty motion control New Balance shoes, but I had changed my form and gait to running on the balls of my feet and not heel striking.  My shin splints were improving and I vowed to make the switch to barefoot after the Warrior Dash in July.  The race went well.  Too well.  I took 40 seconds off my per-mile time, seven weeks into my training.  Oops.  The Achilles Tendonitis that developed in my left heel was like walking on hot coals every second of the day.  Through treatment and my trusty Kinesio Tape I was ready to go again in two weeks.  I put on my New Balance shoes and headed out for two miles, alternating from forefoot strike to heel strike depending on how my calves felt (I had still not learned my lesson).  The run went fine but I did end up in the middle of a rainstorm.

Thursday was my next run day and my shoes were still soaked from Tuesday's run.  I had already purchased a pair of Merrell Trail Gloves from Jamey and since I didn't think I was ready for a real barefoot run slapped those puppies on and off I went.  Two miles later and I'm riding high.  NO PAIN, ANYWHERE.  So what did I do?  Ran again Friday.  Heel pain.  Damn it!  Too much, too soon.  I took the rest of the weekend and Monday off from running.  I put my Merrells back on yesterday, and did two miles.  I even took my shoes off for the last half mile interval!  It felt great!  I couldn't believe it!  Again, NO PAIN! Until this morning.  Too much, too soon.

I think I get it now.  I need to run barefoot so I learn how to run, then I can use the shoes this Winter.  I need to run barefoot so I get the feedback from my feet that I need to prevent injury.  My calves are ready, my lungs are ready, but in this case my Achilles tendon is exactly that.  My Achilles heel.

I have a feeling that my experience mirrors or at least parallels a lot of the Type-A, high-strung, gotta-win new barefoot runners out there.  The most important thing in my story is this: I now love running.  I want to run every day, and I want to do it barefoot.  I think I'll give up my crown though.  I've learned that lesson.