Talking about the mechanics of running is a curiously hard thing to do. There’s our actual, objective behavior, and then there’s what we tell ourselves and what we think we’re doing. Maybe that’s old hat to long-time runners, but as a relative newbie I find it fascinating. So, here’s what I think I’m trying to do along with what I think about when I’m trying to do it:
I’m trying to minimize the work my calves do by minimizing the amount of time they spend carrying my weight. That means carrying my weight on my heels as much as possible. (I should add that I’m overweight, so I might be more sensitive to this than you are.) So, when I’m landing, I’m not trying to absorb the impact with my feet and calves but rather trying to guide my feet to the right position at the right time, then using my feet and calves to make fine adjustments before letting my heels take all the burden. Ken Bob Saxton likens this to an airplane landing: when the ground coming up and the tires going down are paced just right, you can barely feel it when they make contact, but a little too much here or there and the result is a big bump. With feet, that’s true both vertically and horizontally, as I want my feet to get up to speed before they touch the ground so they aren’t braking me as they come up to speed. Then, on the back side, I try to pick my feet up off the ground as quickly as possible. There was an article on the front page recently about this by
@trevize1138, and in the discussion I questioned it a bit but I’ve come around to agreement. I do not want to push off at all; you only need propulsion if you’re either accelerating or compensating for braking. So the stride as I want it comes down gently just barely in front of me, immediately starts pushing me up to get me in the air again, then lifts my feet off the ground (once I have enough upward momentum to carry me to the next step) which should happen just behind me.
As far as knees go: as much of this as possible should be in the hips and glutes. They have a lot of strength but not as much mobility. So, I bend my knees to help fold my feet under me, but my quads are more there as shock absorbers than as jumping muscles. At least, that’s how I think about it.
The cue I use to help me reduce calf strain is to try to run like my legs are straight, dumb springs. Pogo sticks, if you will. They compress in front of me during the landing, support my weight as I swing forward, then release their energy behind me to send me back into the air. The thing is, the further in front of me that they begin compressing, the more they’re acting as brakes rather than cushions; the more they’re extending behind me, the more they’re trying to accelerate or topple me and the more braking I’ll need to stay balanced. So, they transform from a pair of dumb springs into a wheel of spokes. (Let’s ignore that spokes support the wheel from above.) Down, quick deflection, quick release, then the next spoke gets its turn.
I feel like I’m doing it right when my abs are more sore from lifting my legs than my quads are sore from pushing them down. I know I’m doing it right when the steps feel absurdly short. Only when my support muscles, like my abs, start getting sore do I back off trying to turn my legs over more quickly.
Also, when I’m going up hills, I’m highly aware of when I pull my heel off the ground. I want me heel to be solidly placed until I’m ready to take all pressure off that foot. I don’t feel like I have a lot of range of motion in my ankles, and they definitely stretch a bit on hills, but keeping my heels down has helped there. (For steeper hills, I’m not fit enough to run anyway, so I walk. With my weight carried on both feet, I can lift my heels a little early.)
Ultimately, it comes down to mindfulness for me. Being ready to listen to my calf if it starts with the barest of twinges, and being willing to slow down and try different things until it reports that it is comfortable again. The times I’ve hurt it have been when I wasn’t paying attention at all to what I was doing, instead focusing on what I wanted to be doing a few steps (or a few hours) from now.
That seems lot a lot of meandering thoughts. Sorry.
Happy to explain more, though, about anything in particular if that’d help. And thanks for allowing me an opportunity to try to think this through and explain things — that’s an exercise I always enjoy.