style

Flat-out in the last 50m of a 100m repeat on the indoor track last night, there was no doubt about it: yes, I was driving with my arms (and everything else I could muster).

No, I'm not proud.

This morning I was waiting in the clinic of Mark Plaatjes, world marathon champion turned world-class physical therapist, for treatment to the lumpy Achilles on my left foot and sprained ankle (again) on my right foot, when I picked up this old copy of Running Times.

Part of the problem with the latest crop of aches and pains (see my previous blog about 100 mile weeks) is that I need new shoes.

Not only are most of mine (I rotate them like crazy) getting worn, but my strength and flexibility has been steadily improving over the last six months and as a result my body is dealing with ground contact in new ways.

I'm a forefoot striker, which has always made foot choice difficult. An inflexible, high-arch type to boot. And I supinate, rather than pronate. Lately I've started noticing I am landing even MORE on the edge of my right foot than ever, while the new strength in my feet and ankles seems to be making the left foot land "differently" -- to the extent that I'm getting Achilles soreness.

One good run is all it takes...then the world is suddenly a better place.

And today was the day. A five-mile time trial I had been dreading. Another key piece in coach Bobby McGee's assessment of us sub-5 milers, the instructions for this one were to go out and get steady state heart rate data. Not an average heart rate; Bobby wants to know where our heart rate settles when we are committed to good pace cruise mode.

Lately I've been feeling tired and grungy. I'm flying one day, wiped out another -- and there's no pattern to it. I gave a pint of blood on Thursday (or that's what it felt like) to fuel some tests to see if we can find out what's going on. Meanwhile, I have cut back training to just every other day, in a bid to help my recovery from whatever it is that is bugging me.

The high mileage/low mileage, quantity/quality argument goes on for ever if given the chance and at the end of it neither side is convinced.

Dr. Nicholas Romanov, developer of the Pose Method, just made me laugh with his view of the Long Slow Distance philosophy:

"Imagine you want to be able to high-jump 2m, and to achieve that you practice high-jumping 1m 50cm"...

to which I would add....

very slowly and for 2-3 hours at a time.

Whenever I am tempted to get involved in one of these discussions, I remind myself of a couple of things.

First, the elites constitute, what?, maybe 1 percent of all runners. They are genetically gifted. The elite of the elite, the world record setters and Olympic champions, are genetic freaks. The reason that some of them run 150 miles a week is because they can. The reason that some of them run sub-4 miles in training off 40 miles a week -- is because they can. They have the genetics, the physical ablity and the mental capacity to take extreme and/or intense workloads. (Thank you Richard Gibbens of the amazing www.powerrunning.com site for pointing this out to me.)