Run For Joy–Longer & Injury Free

RUN FOR JOY—LONGER & INJURY FREE

If you’re a runner, you should enjoy this article. If you’re not presently a runner and determined not to be (perhaps from bad experiences in your youth or past injuries) you’ll probably skip reading it. Perhaps, you’re considering adding running to your physical training schedule?  You should find tips here to help you run injury free.

I took up running again back in 2000. I found it enjoyable and over the years slowly increased my distance from 3 miles up to 13 miles and then up to 26 miles. Still, at least once a year, I had an injury of one sort or another. My latest was a shin splint back in May

Last year I participated in three half marathons. At each, I ran (for me it’s more like jogged) for 20 minutes and then walked for two or three minutes. That worked fine for the first 6 or 7 miles and then fell off for the second half when I’d have to take walk breaks more and more often and for longer periods.

Jeff Galloway Running Method

Last December I ran the Santa to the Sea half marathon in Oxnard, California and went through the same routine. Afterwards, I was talking with another runner and told him my frustration. He told me that he walked periodically throughout the race and didn’t tire. He advised me to check out the Jeff Galloway running method.

Since I‘d decided I wanted to try running a marathon, I bought Galloway’s “Marathon You Can Do It!” book. The heart of the Galloway program is run-walk-run. Walk breaks allow running muscles to recover before they are injured and conserve energy so you can exercise for longer distances. “Walk breaks on long runs must be taken early and often,” Galloway says. “The most important walk breaks are the ones taken during the first mile and the second most important, those taken in the second mile, and so on.”

Even though most runners finish with better times on longer runs using the walk-run-walk method—because they don’t slow down at the end—many will naturally still have time goals. But Jeff Galloway answers that a time goal puts stress on you before and during the race, which can reduce your enjoyment. By backing off a bit you’ll be able to enjoy the course, talk to other runners and share the experience.

Here’s Galloway’s reasoning of why walk breaks work: “By varying the use of your muscles, your legs keep their bounce as they conserve resources. Walk breaks keep you from using up your resources early. By alternating the exertion level and the way you’re using your running muscles, these prime movers have a chance to recover before they accumulate fatigue. On each successive walk, most or all of the fatigue is erased, giving you strength at the end. This dramatically reduces damage to the muscles, enabling you to run injury free.”

In his book, Galloway has Run-Walk-Run Strategy tables according to one’s training pace. For instance, a training pace of 8 minutes-per-mile is 4 minutes run and 30 seconds walk; for a 10 minutes-per-mile training pace, 3 minutes run and 1 minute walk; for a 13 minutes-per-mile training pace, 1 minute run and 1 minute walk. I personally have been running for 9 minutes and then walking for 3, which seems to work but perhaps 3 minutes running and 1 minute walking (the same ratio) might work even better.

Since this book is titled “Marathon, You Can Do It,” most of the advice in it slants towards obtaining that goal.  This includes some super tables of 26 week—all 7 days of the week—programs for: Beginners, “To Finish,” Fat-Burning, and different Time Goals. As a senior, you’ll have to determine which program would be best for you to follow. Plus there’s loads of additional information in the book. Galloway has written a number of other books including his very popular “Galloway’s Book on Running 2^nd Edition.”

And be sure to check out Jeff Galloway’s website: www.JeffGalloway.com

For the first five months this year I trained for my first marathon. I used the Galloway method of run-walk-run and week after week I rather easily added on miles. By the first week in May I actually ran 26.2 miles. It took me 5-1/2 hours but a least I knew I could do it. But I also started a strength training class in the first weeks of May. Somehow, between the running and the new movements in the class I wasn’t treating my body right and I developed a shin splint just five days from the marathon. And I had to withdraw. Now I’ve signed up for the Ventura Marathon on October 22.

Chi Running

In early June I went to the local library to get books to read during a two-day relaxing train trip from Oxnard, California north to Seattle. Looking at fitness books, I came across “Chi Running, A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running,” by Danny Dreyer. I thumbed through it and saw it had some great tips, so checked it out. The book had so much to offer, that once on the train, I read it straight through to the end. I’ve since bought a copy so I could mark especially useful advice.

ChiRunning® is based on movement principles of T’ai Chi. Chi (pronounced “chee”) is the energy that unites body, mind and spirit.

One of the first things I read was that there are more than 24 million runners in the United States. But it’s estimated that 65% of these runners incur at least one injury a year that interrupts their training—that means that 15.6 million people get injured in a year from running. Danny Dreyer comments that most runners will tell you that running can keep you in good shape but it’s hard on the body. He developed ChiRunning because he didn’t believe that pounding and injury should be a part of running. He believes the primary cause of injury is poor running form and poor biomechanics.

Dreyer calls the component parts of the ChiRunning technique the Form Focuses. These are:

Posture. This involves creating a straight line from the crown of your head to the bottoms of your feet. Dreyer calls this your Column. When your Column is aligned properly, your body weight is supported primarily by your stronger skeleton rather than the leg muscles.  Softening your knees and relaxing your lower legs and ankles are important elements of running posture.

Lean. By adding a slight forward lean when you run your body falls forward and you use gravity for your propulsion instead of your legs. To do this, lean from your ankles, not your waist and keep your spine straight. For runners trying this out for the first time, a lean of just an inch is adequate.

Mid-Foot Strike. To keep your posture in alignment—which helps reduce injuries—while you lean forward, land with a mid-foot strike instead of a heel strike. You want your foot to land underneath or slightly behind you, in line with your hips and shoulders.

Lower Body. As you fall forward, you gently peel your feet off the ground to keep up with your fall. You don’t use your legs for propulsion.

Run From Your Core. To run injury free,  you need to keep your pelvis level and you do this by engaging your core muscles. The movement of your legs creates a counter rotation between your upper and lower body and, once you learn to do it. your pelvis rotates around its central axis along the spine. If your pelvis does not rotate, you’ll absorb the force of the road with you knees, quads, hips or lower back.

Cadence & Stride Length. In Chi Running your cadence never changes. (Cadence = the rate at which your feet strike the ground, measured in strides per minute.) However, your stride length changes constantly: As your speed increases, so does the length of your stride and as you slow down, your stride shortens.

All of the above is taken from “Chi Running, A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running, 2^nd Edition.” If you want to try Chi Running, you’ll want to buy the book because it includes a wealth of information—SO much more than the few short paragraphs I’ve included in this article. You can also purchase the physical or digital Chi Running DVD. Danny Dreyer has also written several other books including “Chi Marathon” and “Chi Walking.” Visit www.chirunning.com to purchase these items and/or obtain more information on this awesome new way to run.

Let me know what you think of these methods and if you’ve begun integrating them into your runs.