Spirit of Survival Race Report

[Barefootpuffin]

Just letting you all know that I posted my race report from this weekends Spirit of Survival race up on my blog. Another cool fact is that I was not the only barefooter there. Woohoo. There was a father and daughter barefoot team running the half marathon relay. They were pretty cool people.



Also, does anyone have any advice for increasing pace? My pace was 1 min faster per mile than my first race, but I'd like to know what I can do to further increase my pace without throwing off my form. I know it's a tinkering process, but any advice is greatly appreciated.





Thanks,

Aaron

 

[NickW]

Puffin, I'm not 100% about

Puffin, I'm not 100% about how to increase your pace. I have theories, but not much actual proof. I see lots of people say that you must keep your stride exactly the same length and you just speed up your legs. I disagree with this statement because if your already at a 180 cadence, your not going to be able to get it much faster plus be able to hold that new cadence. It is really difficult to maintain anything much faster than this for long periods of time.

What seems to work for me, without pushing off with my feet, is to imagine I am running like a picture I've seen.

http://www.barefootjosh.com/?attachment_id=882

As you can see in this picture, none of them are extending their legs in front of them, but their strides are deffinately longer. You have to lengthen your stride in order to go faster. You lengthen the stride more behind the body instead of in front of it though like you see many shod runners do. When you do this you roll off the front of the foot without pushing and you keep the same cadence. This for me seems to work very well. Now I am still in my infancy so to speak with barefoot running, but for me this works without hurting my feet. I have no proof other than for me it works.

If you look at BFKB's form in this pic,

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://barefootkenbob.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/Brightroom-23174-277-034.jpg&imgrefurl=http://barefootkenbob.com/huntington-beach-ca-2007-jul-4-surf-city-run/brightroom-23174-277-034/&h=381&w=253&sz=29&tbnid=C7SMiRPCGRaM6M:&tbnh=91&tbnw=60&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbarefoot%2Bken%2Bbob%2Bpics%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=barefoot+ken+bob+pics&docid=S3XLTwSegwMGpM&sa=X&ei=9kicTquGGYKGiQLlx5S-CQ&ved=0CCsQ9QEwAA&dur=1943

he definately has a longer stride when running fast. His front leg is also just like that picture of the Kenyans, underneath his body and not in front. I know I will probably have lots of people disagree with me, but you cannot deny there may be some truth to this based on the pics. Hope this helps!

 

[Jonny00GT]

A couple tricks that can help

A couple tricks that can help you hold a higher pace now:

1) Relax. Any wasted movement, tension, etc means using muscles, ie oxygenating muscles not necisary for running. If you can be fluid, efficient and relaxed, you can run faster with the same oxygen/energy consumption.

2) Loose hips. Tight hips mean you will be fighting tension to complete your strides. Practice opening up your stride without reaching forward. If you are using the same energy on each stride, but going another 1-6inches, you're going faster.

3) Control your breathing, to control your pace. If you try to control your pace, you will run out of breath eventually. I was told by a fast guy to take one breath, in and out for 3 strides and that is as fast as you should go. I do in-in-out: stride-stride-stride. That seems to keep me on pace and in control of my cardio instead of gassing out.

I read this in a few books now, stored it in my brain and quickly forgot it. Then, running a 5K 3 races ago, I tried to just relax, warm up and open up my stride to get loose from the start. Instead of a 10min first mile, I ran close to the 8s, totally relaxed and in "easy warm up" mode! It was crazy! Those 2 tricks helped my "clydesdale" self break into the 20s in the 5K just be focusing on staying loose, relaxed and openning my hips the whole race.

The only other thing that I've heard that can make you faster is speed work. Fartlek is more fun than traditional speed work, especially if you're doing it with a friend that is close to your speed and you make a game of it, but running around a track with a group is fun too! Running with faster people will speed you up as well. Fun = easy...ish!

Hope that helps.

-Jonny