How To Run

I ran today for the first time in 2 months. And I didn't do too badly. I thought I would be huffing and puffing after such a long layoff. I've been semi-neglecting my personal fitness lately. I have been riding a stationary bike 2-3 times a week for about 40 minutes a session, but I didn't think that it would have the same impact as running. I had been doing sub 9 and 1/2 minute miles two months ago. Today I ran 3 miles in 31:01 for a 10.20 average mile. Usually the pace is important to me, but today I was just happy to not have collapsed.

I didn't always like to run. In fact, I hated it. There was a time when I thought running was the most stupid thing a person could do. This was during the big "jogging" craze. When everybody and their trainer was running for fitness. Jim Fixx, the biggest advocate of running for fitness wrote a wildly popular book, became a celebrity, then died of a heart attack. The most vile residue of this craze is the wardrobe. When people used to run, it was always in the gray sweat pants and sweatshirt. Even the name of the outfit was ugly: sweat suit. There was no variation to this uniform either. And you would never wear your sweat suit for any activity other than running or working out. Then, as running became "trendy", the fashion world focused its eye on the runner. Now everyone wears their sweats everywhere. And it is now the uniform of the Rap Artist and the Long Island yenta housewives.

But I digress. To me, running was painful. My knees and my feet would hurt after 5 minutes of sustained running. I would start to get winded immediately. Now you need to put this in context. I played organized sports since I was 5 years old. And I was good. If I say so myself, I was a great baseball player, a pretty good basketball, and a good football player (only "good" in football, because my mom wouldn't let me play until high school and by then I was so far behind the other guys in terms of knowledge of the sport. I think if I could have played Pee-wee Football with the other guys, I would have been great in high school. Ooo look, I'm digressing again.) The point is, I was in OK shape in high school. So, I figured that if running was such a distasteful experience, it was really only a sport for 130 pound guys from Mexico or Nigeria. And that the out-of-shape yahoos who were killing themselves trudging around the block in my neighborhood were only jumping on the latest fad to be able to brag at the cocktail party later about how they ran 3 miles that day.

In college, I drank. And ate. And very little else. I may have done some sort of academic work during that period, but I can't be sure anymore. Oh, I did sing with the Glee Club, but that was really only an excuse to drink more. And as you might imagine, I gained width. I'm a big guy, so I carried it pretty well, but I did have a gut. After college, I got really into cycling. I had a road bike and a mountain bike (yes, I DID jump on the fitness fad bandwagon that time). I was reading all sorts of bicycling magazines and those things were mostly targeted at cycling competitively. That planted the idea in my head. I would look for a beginner race somewhere. I just wanted to try it once. My local bike shop at the time had a flyer up advertising an upcoming biathlon. Hmmm, what's that? Cool... a local bike race open to the public. Huh... what? What does "bi" mean? I have to run? Gluh? Uhhhhh.....OK. The race was in three parts. Run 4 miles, bike 13.5 and then run another 4 miles. the biking distance was no problem, I'd been doing rides of 30 and 40 miles every weekend. But what about the running? For some reason, my horrible memories of running were so far in the past that I figured I would give it a try. Since I was reading these cycling magazines, I decided to pick up a running magazine. I was skeptical. After all, it was running. What's to teach? Was I in for a surprise!

All these years I had hated to run because I .didn't know how to run. Duh. I found out I knew how to sprint, but I didn't know how to run. I good sprint with the best of them (I could, too. I was pretty fast in my day). But sprinting and running any type of distance are two completely different things when it comes to your feet and legs. I never knew. I was so pissed at all my former gym teachers! Come on.... I didn't know how to run properly! Is there any training required for gym teachers? I found out that you need to involve your heel and whole foot in distance running. I had always run on my toes. I was always up on my toes and sprinting. Damn, no wonder my knees and feet were killing me! I was huffing and puffing because I my style of running is incredible inefficient for running any type of distance.

I thought back to my athletic history. Hmmm, baseball. An pretty slow sport with bursts of fast sprinting required. Beat out an infield single? Sprint. Steal third? Sprint. Chase a pop foul ball? Sprint your ass off! OK. but what about basketball? Fast break? Sprint. Get back on defense after you make a lay up? Sprint. Cut into the lane before dishing to the outside? Sprint. Football? Forget it. Everything was either flat out sprint or walk back to the huddle. I never played soccer (American football), lacrosse, or track and field. Never anything that involved running for a long period of time. How could I get to be so old and know how to run correctly?

So I discovered that if you use your foot in a rocking motion - from heel to toe - you can run forever! OK, not really. But the first time I tried it, I was able to run a mile and a half (about 15 minutes) without any pain during or afterwards. I was on to something! You have to let your heel absorb the landing, curl your foot like the bottom of a rocking chair, then push off with your toes. Hey! I don't hate running! This isn't too bad. And I was able to work up to longer distances very quickly. It made the pounds drop off quickly too. My body was shocked that I had discovered this technique. It had been quite happy all this time to go along with my jogging hatred.

As for the biathlon, I entered it. I finished somewhere around 3/4 of the pack. All I wanted to do was finish, so even finishing ahead of one person was great. To be able to beat 25% of the entrants was cool. And no, it just wasn't kids and the old people I beat, there were people from my age group behind me too. Actually to point out how pitiful I was, the winner finished the race exactly at the same time that I was making the transition from the bike to the last leg of running. I still had 4 miles to run and this guy was done!

But the biathlon was only important because it taught me how to run. So for all of you inspired by my revelations, get out there and run! E-mail me and tell me how excited you are about running and fitness. Tell me about how my teaching you about running opened a door you had thought closed to you forever. Or not. After all, you probably knew how do something as simple as run.