Gatorade EndurAlliance – Part 3: Opportunities

On to part 3. In Part 1 and Part 2 I got as far as the end of day 1 at Gatorade HQ. At this point the first workday was over, we headed back to the hotel to drop off a few things and then piled on to the bus to get dinner and watch the White Soxs take on the Blue Jays at US Cellular Field. Since many of us flew in that morning it had been a long day so far and from the conversations I was overhearing we were all more interested in the food then the ball game. Once we arrived we headed into the stadium and then went up to the Gatorade corporate suite. If you’re going to attend a professional sporting event, this is the way to do it.

You can watch the game while watching the game...

Words can’t do it justice so take a look at the pics. Widescreen TV, fridge, bar, and plenty of seating. We had Vienna beef hotdogs (which were probably the best hotdogs I ever tasted), steak sandwiches, and after that a dessert truck came by (bigger than a cart but smaller than an 18 wheeler) that had everything you could think of in mammoth sized portions. We all ate like we were running an ultra the next day.

Our seats were right across from Third Base

You know what the really cool thing was, we were all making comments like “Ok, that’s about 5,000 calories for me”, or “Hey, let’s make that 5 mile run tomorrow a 12 miler” and we all just laughed about it. There wasn’t anyone making the “you could stand to gain a few pounds” type comments that we are all use to hearing at almost every family event we attend. We had all just met that morning but throughout the day you could tell there was an instant camaraderie, we were all wired in a similar way. Despite the different ages and backgrounds, we “got” each other. It was a good feeling.

As dinner/dessert was winding down I noticed Coach McMillan was sitting by himself watching the game as most of us were milling about the suite either getting seconds or participating in a group discussion. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. So I walked over and sat down, making sure to keep an empty seat between us (I didn’t want to crowd the guy). You know that feeling when you have so many questions you kind of freeze up and can’t figure out where to start? I had a terminal case of that. After a few minutes I was finally able to get a coherent thought and started talking.

What I was most curious about was what Greg’s thoughts were on form, foot strike and footwear. So I started by asking what his take was on heel vs. mid-foot/forefoot strike and his answer surprised me a bit. He said that where the foot contacts the ground is more important than which part strikes first. He explained that the heel can make contact first but the foot should land under the body, avoiding over-striding was important. He made a point of mentioning that there are healthy runners with bad technical form. “You look at them run and you wonder how they can train and not get hurt”. Some runners land heel first and some don’t, performance and staying healthy are more important than perfecting technical form. Coach McMillan explained that every runner has his/her own unique physiology and quirks so the ideal form for each runner varies. He mentioned that there were also great runners with great technical form but ironically some got injured often. It was clear that Greg felt very strongly that there was no ideal foot-strike, it’s very individualized.

Coach Greg McMillan and yours truly. You feel faster just standing next to him.

Our discussion on foot strike lead to footwear choices, I told him about my situation and how much going zero drop/minimal has reduced my injury rate. He replied “that’s great, you found what works for you but that might not work for someone else”. We started to discuss injury rates and I mentioned that I had read that the injury rates in the 60′s and 70′s were lower when all runners wore flats. He replied “That’s not true, injury rates haven’t changed even going back that far, in fact the raised heel was originally added to running shoes because runners kept tearing up their achilles”. As we talked Greg kept sharing some great insights that challenged me and really made me think.

On a footwear note, Greg is working with Adidas which will be coming out in the fall with running shoes he helped design. The heel in that shoe line starts at 11mm and goes down to 3mm. A bunch of us were drooling over the pair he was wearing (the 3mm version) and a few of the more bolder members of our group were trying to figure out how to score a pair from him. Be on the look out for these this fall and when I get more specifics I’ll pass them on. Overall on the footwear topic, as with foot-strike, I could tell that Greg felt strongly that footwear choices were individual as well, there was no ideal shoe for everyone. Performance and running injury free were key.

During the time we were talking I caught myself saying (rather frequently) “I hadn’t thought of that”. There are those moments where you realize just how little you know about a topic. It’s a good feeling though because it presents an opportunity for learning and growth. I mentioned I was running the NYC marathon in the fall and we talked a bit about training. When we were discussing my training plans his first question was “Where do you live, are there hills near you?” That got my attention and unbeknownst to Greg I felt convicted because I know I was under-utilizing hills in my training. I plan on changing that very soon.

He put NYC in the category of challenging courses. I thought about the hill profile for NYC for a moment and asked him why he thought it was challenging because I really couldn’t see it, even having run NYC once before many years ago. He said “You have the bridges and then the you have the roads which are in horrible shape. It’s not like Chicago where you can zone out for 26 miles. You need to stay alert to avoid all the cracks, manholes and bad pavement.” My reply? “I hadn’t thought of that”. That’s why Greg is one of the top running coaches in the US, because he sees the details most of us miss. I hadn’t consider the mental challenge of the race from that perspective, but I’m considering it now.

Coach McMillan mentioned that he had just submitted a manuscript for a book to be published this fall. He explained that it goes over his approach to training and coaching in detail. Needless to say I’ll be picking this up as soon as it’s available. I’m not big on book reviews (only because I don’t think I’m good at them) but I may have to make an exception in this case.

As the game got into the 8th inning even the 20-somethings in the group were ready to head out and crash back at the hotel. We had a 5 mile group run scheduled for 6:30AM so there wasn’t any resistance in the group.

Team Gatorade takes Chicago

We all met the next morning in the hotel lobby, decked out in our matching G-Bolt black Nike t-shirts. With about eight or so in our group including Coach McMillan and Michellie Jones, we downed some G Series 01 Prime and got on the road. The hotel was maybe a mile or less from Lake Michigan so we weaved our way thorough morning rush hour traffic and were finally in the clear when we hit the lake. It was a great morning, a clear sky and not too warm. We clipped along at about a 7:45 pace which was fast enough to keep us from getting bored but slow enough to encourage conversation. I noticed some startled looks from the local runners who obviously weren’t used to seeing what appeared to be a Black Ops team breezing by them while three different conversations were going on simultaneously. The only thing identifying us was an understated G-Bolt on the front for our shirts and an orange #winfromwithin hashtag on the back.

Day 2 was filled with Retail Training Events, a deep dive on the EndurAlliance Program along with excellent presentations from Michellie and Greg. There was a lot to learn so I soaked up as much as I could and took plenty of notes. If you’re in the Philly area you can see me put all this great knowledge into action at the Gatorade booth during the Philly Insurance Triathlon expo on 6/22 and 6/23.

At the end of the day we grabbed dinner and eventually headed back to the hotel. On Saturday morning I grabbed my early flight out of O’Hare and shortly afterwards was back to reality in Philly. It’s hard to sum up what a great experience this was, there were far more learning opportunities than I could count and I’m sure there will be plenty of learning opportunities yet to come as I reach out to the endurance community and help educate them on fueling and nutrition. I’ll keep you all posted as usual, so as always, stay tuned!

Bad Software

The Art of Running: Bad Software

Leonardo da Vinci - Vitruvian Man

As an engineer the human body amazes me. We have a number of systems all over-layered with one another yet there’s this harmony of form, function and sophistication that no man-made system can duplicate. Our built-in software and organic CPU is what really blows my mind though (pun intended). Before we are born our native OS (Operating System) is hard at work controlling our involuntary systems and responding to our inputs. This software is so complex and fine-tuned that it enables us, over time, to perfect our movements. We compensate for our environments, we learn and adapt, we develop techniques and improvise ways to overcome obstacles (climbing a tree) and obstructions (crossing a river) practically on the fly. As we hit the same challenge time and time again our OS analyzes our various responses, identifies which is most successful, and then stores it in long-term memory for future use. If you’ve haven’t picked up a baseball bat in ten years or ridden a bike in fifteen, you still reflexively know:

- where to place your hands and feet.
- how much pressure to apply with your grip.
- how to balance your weight.
- how to keep your movements fluid and in rhythm.

and this all occurs subconsciously.

Fascinating...

With the continued advancements over the past several decades in artificial intelligence and robotics, we are still no where close to duplicating our natural capabilities in a computer program. If we were a machine, any scientist would find us ‘fascinating’ yet we find ourselves in our later years lumbering along on our runs when we used to glide effortlessly. We started with the best software ever written but at some point during our lives we got hacked. Let me explain…

The day before the Boston Marathon I did my best to just relax in my hotel room and save my energy. I had a dinner reservation at 7:30PM but by about 5 I started getting antsy. My hotel was right next to Boston Common so I decided to take a short walk and sit in the park for a while. In my ‘retirement dry run’ I couldn’t help but notice folks running through the park and then I started noting their strides. I saw the typical range of form from smooth to awkward and then a family with a few kids came walking by. Correction, the adults were walking, the kids were running. Back and forth and around in circles, little balls of limitless energy bouncing off each other. Then I paid attention to how they were running, it was practically flawless. I was jealous of their technique for a moment, I realized I’d spent the past two years working on mine but had yet to reach the level of a four year-old. A real ego boost the day before Boston.

Instinctive running

At one point we were all kids and had this instinctive ability. Then we lost it, why? First think about what kids spend most of their time doing. Any parent will tell you how hard it is to get preschoolers to sit still. They are constantly moving and providing input and feedback to their software as they run, jump and climb. It’s also tough to get them to keep their shoes on (and their clothes in some cases). The reason kids hate wearing shoes is the same reason they hate wearing gloves or being blindfolded. It’s sensory deprivation.

Preschoolers eventually become teenagers who eventually become adults and the further along that timeline we go, the more sedentary we become. We also spend the majority of that time encasing our feet in thick protective enclosures. During this process our adaptive systems are continually at work. Inactivity and lack of sensory input is seen as an obstacle so our brains immediate start compensating and begin overwriting our efficient movements. What was once easy and fluid becomes hard and awkward. Years of bad footwear choices and spending most of our waking hours relatively motionless resulted in us hacking our own code. The learned movements that were refined during our youth weren’t forgotten, it’s worse than that, they were overwritten. Imagine how difficult it would be to swing a baseball bat if you spent the last ten years wearing thick oven mitts. All the compensation your systems made for the mitts has replaced the natural sensation of gripping the bat. You’d be a complete klutz.

If you were raised in a modern society this was inevitable, like some bad Sci-Fi movie plot your memory’s been wiped and replaced. We’ve got bad software, flawed code, so now what? If you spend a lot of your time in front of a keyboard like I do, it’s an ongoing battle to relearn those fluid movements and retain them. To fight your way back to efficiency, you need to take some proactive steps:

Education: Seek out experts.
- Dr. Pete Larson over at Runblogger has several excellent articles that discuss both form and footwear.
- The Natural Running Center is another excellent resource to learn about proper form. The director of the center, Dr. Mark Cucuzzella, knows his stuff and finished 4th in the 45-49 male age group at this year’s Boston Marathon with a 2:37.
- Runner’s World, Running Times and Competitor can also help in pointing you to good articles and subject matter experts.
Practice: Do the work.
– You need to reprogram your form. During your runs shorten your stride, keep proper cadence and posture and integrate form drills into your workouts and warm ups
Patience
- Change is hard and takes time. The longer you’ve been running with flawed form, the longer it’s going to take to correct. Go slow, make small changes and reinforce those changes with consistent technique.

Now that you understand the problem, it’s time to start working on the solution. Free your feet, embrace change, run with joy.

Gait Analysis

Gait Analysis: Self Diagnosis

Although I’ve been working on improving my form for over a year, I’m still noticing some unusual wear on the soles of my running shoes which would indicate I’m still heel striking to a certain degree or there is some other abnormality in my gait. In an effort to identify the issue I broke out the family video camera and shot some footage of myself on the treadmill. It’s pretty rough and the lighting is very dark on the side shot (which my wife no doubt is thankful for since the treadmill is in our bedroom) but it was very enlightening for me and should help in making further adjustments. Since this is a video based gait analysis, I’ll talk you through the issues that lead me to this and point out the wear patterns on my footwear.

Intro

Elite Running Form and Gait

Pete Larson has some great posts over at Runblogger showing foot-strike patterns of elites and barefoot runners along with some analysis. This is where I first saw this video of Geoffrey Mutai (green singlet) and Moses Mosop (black/red singlet) in last year’s Boston Marathon. In one of his posts, Pete describes their form this way: “Both have absolutely beautiful form. Lower leg is near vertical on ground contact for both, and both have a slight forward lean. Mutai is a midfoot striker, whereas Mosop is a true forefoot striker. Mosop has a slightly higher arm carry, whereas Mutai drops his below his waistline a few times.”

But not all elites have what would be considered ‘perfect’ form. Here is another video I first saw at Runblogger that shows the elite male field from the 2010 Boston marathon. Note the different foot strikes in this field and please read Pete’s thoughts on the footage here. It just demonstrates that even the elites vary in their form so while there are good guidelines all runners should follow, there is enough variation to suggest that you can perform at a high level if your form deviates from what’s considered ideal:

Elite Male Runners in Slow Motion – 2010 Boston Marathon from Runblogger on Vimeo.

My Running Form and Gait

My first video is taking from the back. It begins at normal speed and then eventually goes to slow motion and then frame-by frame before speeding back up again. At normal speed it doesn’t look bad, I can tell my heel is contacting the ground first but it’s not crashing into the belt as it would have if we shot this 2 years ago. When the slow motion starts at about 26 secs you can see that the angle of my foot stays fixed until my heel touches and then my forefoot slaps down on the belt. When the frame-by-frame starts at a minute in this becomes even clearer:

In the frame-by-frame I also noticed that my foot rotates inward slightly at toe off. This looks like what is causing the wear near my big toe on my running shoes and is probably due to my pigeon-toe condition that I’ve had since birth. I doubt there is any way I can correct that.

From this side shot you might not be able to see much (you might have to go full screen to see enough detail) but what I was looking for was having a proper bend in the knee and seeing where I was making contact with the belt. From the looks of it I seem to be reaching out with my heel as a heel striker would, which I want to avoid. This video goes to slow motion 38 seconds in and to frame-by-frame at 1:33:

My knee is bent (good) but I’m still contacting the ground a little further out in front of me than I’d like, especially considering the mild pace (8:30 mi/min). I’ve noticed when I walk I do this as well, leading with my heel even in my minimal casual shoes. I’ll need to make a more conscious effort when walking and running to try to lead more with my forefoot.

Conclusion

I’ve come a long way but I still have some work to do. I’m reaching out with my heel when contacting the ground and I’d like to correct that. While I wasn’t able to get my torso in the shot I suspect that I need a little forward lean in addition to raising my knee more to contact the ground with my forefoot and keep my lower leg vertical. Striving to contact the ground further back might help as well. My next gait analysis will be in the spring when the weather improves and I’ll shoot the footage outside to get a better gait analysis by avoiding any artificial effects of the treadmill belt. Feel free to note any observations in the comment section.

Run like Forrest Gump

I don’t know if any of you still have a VCR but we have an ancient one attached to a TV in our living room. A couple of weeks ago one of my boys asked if he could watch one of the old VHS movies we still had in the cabinet. We’ve been getting rid of our old tapes over the years but there are some favorites we haven’t gotten around to throwing out yet. The movie was Forrest Gump which I hadn’t seen in ages. After watching it with the family I was reminded why I liked it so much. It has great acting, a great story and a great message. It might not be up there with Chariots of Fire or Without Limits as one of the best running movies of all time, but I think its got a couple of hidden lessons in there every runner should learn.

Blinded me with Science!

Forrest 's leg braces

Now I can relate to young Forrest just a little because I had a slight aliment with my feet when I was a kid. I was born pigeon-toed which meant my feet naturally pointed inwards. Since this was the late 60′s the doctors looked at this as an abnormality and thought I needed to be fixed. The treatment for this condition was worse than the ailment as is often the case when you’re trying to fix something that isn’t broken. When I went to bed each night, I had to wear this medieval shoe contraption that had a metal brace between the shoes that forced my feet to point outward. It was horrible.

While I have the utmost respect for doctors and scientists, they often project their own biases into their diagnosis and research while making conclusions without all the facts. At one time cigarettes were prescribed as a remedy for nervousness. In my grandparents generation left-handed kids were forced to learn to write with their right hand because writing left-handed was looked at as a developmental disability. A few years ago I spent a good chunk of money on glucosamine and chondroitin supplements for my knees and never saw any improvements. Even today while many educated and intelligent individuals are abandoning their belief systems to follow the teachings of the men in white lab coats, all too often the guys with the graduate degrees get it wrong. Eggs were good for you, then they were bad, now they are good again. Makes your head spin.

Brings me back to the argument about natural running and minimalist shoes. For the better part of 30 years the major running shoe companies, their researchers, and independent podiatrists were promoting heavy padded and overly supported footwear. Had it not been for the fact that runners are still experiencing the same number of injuries with this approach, I’m pretty sure in a few years some shoe company would have sold a running shoe resembling Herman Munster’s boots.

5 inches of molded EVA for shock absorption and injury prevention!!!!!!

So what can young Forrest teach us?

Run, Forrest, Run!
Forrest Gump at MOVIECLIPS.com

The majority are always going to single you out if your personality or behavior is outside the norm. You will be relentlessly pressured to conform. Be prepared for a backlash when you don’t.
While the voices of nay-sayers and critics are ringing in your ears listen for that small voice calling you to act and follow your instincts.
Educated men are at times more interested in defending their own positions then searching for the truth. If what they’re telling you isn’t solving your problem find your own answer.
Simplicity beats complicated and over-designed. Run naturally. Free your feet.
Less is more.
Run with joy.

Photo Credit

My Road to Minimalist Running

I know many folks out there on the fence about whether to get on the road to minimalist/barefoot running or stick with traditional running shoes. What I’ll do here is give you a timeline of how I transitioned and the factors that lead me in this direction. It’s a bit long but I didn’t want to leave out any details as all of them affected my decisions along the way. If you have any questions or need clarification please leave a comment and I’ll be happy to reply.

In the beginning…

“Set the WABAC machine Sherman to 2009...”

My road starts back in May 2009 when I clocked a 1:35 at the Delaware Half Marathon and I knew I had a real shot at qualifying for Boston in the fall. That was a great race, but I knew I didn’t have the stamina yet for a marathon. Since I was turning 45 that year and needed a 3:30 to qualify, I looked on my calendar for a good fall marathon to qualify. The Philly marathon was 30 minutes away from home but it was in late November and I wasn’t really keen on running my first masters marathon in cold conditions. The Baltimore marathon though was on October 10th, it was within driving distance and seemed like a good fit (except for the hill profile, yikes!). So I got my training plan together and got started training about 18 weeks out for Baltimore.

From my marathon experiences in my 20’s I remembered that I really needed to get my weekly mileage in the high 40’s consistently. For my first marathon in 1985 I was running around 30 to 35 miles per week but I wound up hitting the wall during like Wile E. Coyote around mile 17. I didn’t want a repeat of that so I planned accordingly.

Nine miles to go...

The more mileage, the better. Right?

My monthly mileage totals went from about 140 in the spring to over 200 in July and August. Looking back that was a pretty big jump, I was bound to have some issues and in September I started to get some bizarre cramps in the back of my knee. About three or four times in September it would hit me right as I started running, as if I had a ligament or tendon that was saying “Nope, not today Rob”. It happened 5 days before Baltimore which scared the pants off me. I was able to run and barely squeak out a BQ. About six weeks later in November, after my recovery, I started doing some lunges and stair-steppers to strengthen my knees. I found out later that this just fed into the problem and now I had Patella Tendinitis. In March of 2010, the day after a hard 10 miler, I felt my left knee buckle a bit. With Boston coming in about a month I got really concerned. I always realized I was a bit of a heel striker but with all the additional mileage I was heel striking even more so during my easy runs and long runs (which were about 70% of my mileage). This was due to over-striding with a slow cadence.

Heel Striking...HEEL STRIKING!!!!

I decided to make some major changes to my running and training routine. During the next year I focused on getting my form right and landing on my mid-foot/forefoot area. I went from static stretching prior to my runs to doing dynamic warm-ups. I performed moderate flexibility stretches but only after my workouts. My chiropractor recommended a great supplement Runovia and starting with the first week of using it, my patella tendonitis was practically non-existent. Runovia contains hyaluronan which is present in our joint fluid and is necessary for healthy joint function. I highly recommend it to anyone having issues with their joints.

My move away from traditional running shoes came in the fall of 2010 when Mizuno made some major changes to my go-to training shoe the Wave Rider. The shoe went from a neutral design to more of a stability/support shoe and I hated the feel. It felt heavy and stiff. By coincidence in the early spring of 2011 I started working with a Physical Therapist on some strengthening exercises while I was researching minimal running shoes. He was really a big help and being a runner and Boston finisher himself he was able to confirm a lot about what I read about the benefits of barefoot training and running in minimalist shoes.

Since I seem to be in continual training mode, I needed my transition to be gradual to avoid injury. I had to get in the hard workouts but not compromise my time goals in doing so. In my research I read about possible achilles issues if you move too quickly to shoes with a zero heel drop (i.e. no raised heel). I also read about some runners getting metatarsal fractures from doing too much too soon in Vibrams. In June 2011 I decided to start with the Saucony Kinvara for my first minimal shoe. Its pretty light weight (which I loved) and only has a 4mm heel raise compared to the traditional 12mm. I mixed those in my training with my old Wave Riders and I only did a few runs in the Kinvaras for the first week or two. I eventually went to about a 50/50 split between the Wave Riders and Kinvaras.

One small step for man…

Altra Instinct: Batman's got nothin' on this shoe, POW!

During those first weeks in the Kinvaras I did feel a little soreness in my achilles but it was manageable and nothing alarming. I kept the mileage mix at 50/50 until September of 2011 when I got my first pair of Altra Instincts. I can’t say enough about this shoe, it’s amazing. It’s a ZeroDrop shoe so your foot is parallel with the ground (as God intended). The toe box is huge, plenty of room for your toes to spread out. I feel primal when I’m wearing them. When I went for my first run in them I was struck by how much my feet were gripping the road, like my feet were clawing at the ground. I’ll caution you that they feel firmer that those squishy/cushioned shoes but you’ll have a better feel for the road, and that’s the point. A great review was done by Zak Branigan over at AverageGuyHitsTheRoad so check it out for more info.

I went 50/50 between the Kinvaras and the Instincts leading up to the Philly Marathon in 2011. I still had a some Achilles soreness but not much. I also bought a pair of Bikila LS Vibram Five Fingers for my Birthday in October but I only wore them around the house and out on a few errands. I wanted to start getting use to them before taking them out on the road and risk an injury before Philly.

I don’t want to work against my training by wearing heavy heeled shoes to work so once the marathon was over I went completely minimal in both my running and casual shoes. I bought a pair of Kigo Drives for the office which are really light. They have a very thin sole so you can get that surface feedback in your foot. I’m looking at also getting a pair of Vivo Barefoot Aquas or Merrill Barefoot Life Tough Gloves but right now they are a bit out of my price range. For running, the Instincts are my high mileage shoe so I wear those almost exclusively for training runs. I’m past my recovery phase from Philly so I’ve also been wearing the Vibrams for a mile or two during the cool down for each training run as well.

Since I’ve been adding miles in the Vibrams, I’m starting to feel a positive change to my gait and foot strike. This is even after working a good 18 months on my form. As a side note I’ve been practically injury free for well over a year. Your mileage may vary but going minimal has been one of my better training decisions.

Big Picture Timeline Summary:

July/Aug 2009: Increased mileage over 40% in 4 month time-span.
Sept 2009: First signs of knee problems.
Nov 2009: Self diagnosis and conditioning exacerbates the problem.
Spring 2010: Begin to focus on form and reducing heel striking. Started using Runovia.
Spring 2011: Physical Therapy accurately identifies the problem, confirms benefits of minimalist shoes and natural running form.
June 2011: Added Saucony Kinvara to training routine.
Sept 2011: Added Altra Instinct to training routine.
Nov 2011: Now wearing only minimalist shoes for training and casual wear. Integrating Vibrams into training program.

My form has improved but I’m still easily distracted...

Designed to Run

Endurance produces character, and character produces hope

Tag Archives: minimalist running