I have discussed success once or twice before in my previous blog posts  but this time am going to be more specific. It is about how to maintain success and to see if there is anything helpful towards that from the notions advocated at Progressive Running.

I follow variety of experts on the net: personal trainers, physios, dietitians, and running coaches. I was reading blog post of a running coach a long time ago where he raised a point about “not touching something that is working” and it sounded very right to me at the time however found it debatable later on.

Back in March this year I wrote a post on Heel Striking in which I described an invisible roof resembling our limits, hitting it means injury. It is a roof because we might hit it when we jump high for a greater goal. I still believe in what I said because we do not know at what exact stage our tissues fail at sustaining the pressure. Even by state of the art technology the medical science cannot accurately predict injuries.

Staying with the notion of the invisible roof, the more athletes progress in setting higher goals and picking harder challenges the closer they get to this invisible roof. It sounds reasonable to assume everyone picks a higher challenge once they tick off one. That is mankind’s nature to look for more; however as we pick harder challenges the scale of the necessities to achieve the set goals grows too. Training for a full marathon takes longer distances to run than for half marathon. That means a full distance marathoner is closer to his or her invisible roof than others aiming for shorter distances.

My interpretation of sustainable success is to find a way to push this invisible roof higher. Someone like me choose proper technique that would not overtax any particular body part more than the others. I aim for efficiency at the core techniques to spread the pressure between working parts the best way possible so my running economy would not stop half way through because of a failing part. Others might take different approaches. The debate stays forever on which one is universal, meaning definitely works for everyone.

Some coaches like Jason Fitzgerald mostly recommend strength training as a means to run efficiently and in a less prone to injury way. In other words they use strength training for sustaining success at running. Surely it is a working solution, I do not deny the benefit of strength training, and this method has worked for them too perhaps but my argument on it is that the followers of the notion might be fighting their own body without knowing it. Trading a bit of health to gain speed is what many runners do at running whereas they do not have to. For instance, as long as a runner’s cadence is below 180 strides per minute, he or she is over-straining knees and/or lower leg. What they gain is an extra propulsive force that results in speed. With the emphasis on strength training the runners build up strong enduring tissues that would tolerate the [extra] damage from the technique. This may work for some but am not sure it does for all. There is an excessive expenditure in such runner’s technique that is not addressed properly; instead a patch is used as fix. It is like someone who drink too much alcohol work extra hours to cover the cost of alcohol. Drinking alcohol is a trade of health for joy, and many are Ok with that but I wonder who would work extra hours to sustain this life-style.

City2Surf 2016 was just last Sunday, the 14th. Another world’s largest fun run event finished with me going back into the red group (!) and Harry Summers winning it after coming 2nd and 4th in the previous ones.

Due to various reasons I was not able to run at this great event in the past two years and lost my spot in the red group. This year I unbelievably caught Pneumonia exactly four weeks out to the race and am lucky I could recover in one week to finish it with a good margin better than 70 minutes or whatever cut off the organisers are going to set for qualification to be in the red group next year (they make it harder every year). Made it in 64:39.

In a free training group sponsored by Adidas this year I met Harry Summers who led our running group. He used to run in Vibram Five Fingers but the one I ran with this year was not. Very fast and strong; however to my criticizing mind his cadence was lower than mine and I know mine is well tuned to be 180+ which means he pushes off the ground. I even noticed he is not meticulous on how he lands, and I caught some proprioceptive heel striking at the three sessions we did together. Such things happen at top professional levels, and that is fine. They do anything to be fast, and as long as their super genes can recover the wears and tears in time they should be fine. What I always look up to these successful runners is how often they train, what they do at training, what they eat at every meal, and how they recover fast, but one thing I do not copy is the way they run because IT IS NOT UNIVERSAL. It only works for them and those who can handle it. Others are better to stick to safer techniques that work for everyone.

Back to me, first three times I ran City2Surf, which was from 2009, I made it in 64, 66, and 60 minutes and they were all in thick Adidas shoes with motion control made for rolling-out feet. Besides, I was not running in pose. Back in time I just trained regularly and pushed my hardest on the race day. I got myself up to 60 minutes but could not break it.

2009: https://secure.tiktok.biz/results/view/city2surf/2009/03594

2010: https://secure.tiktok.biz/results/view/city2surf/2010/03140

2011: https://secure.tiktok.biz/results/view/city2surf/2011/06708

It was August 2011 that I found out about Vibram Five Fingers and the idea of minimalism in running footwear’s. This finding gave my running career a good boost. The first one I noticed was although I went through some painful muscle soreness (mainly calf muscles), none of those shinsplints and runner knees turned up any time I ran since then. It was amazing. My feet and ankle started getting stronger and by having a stronger hold to the ground I could push better and for longer time too. I ran from home to the office once a week in the morning for cumulatively 10 months and each run was between 25-33km (I made detours a few times). During this period of glory I ran two marathon races (42.2km) at Canberra in 03:27, and in Sydney in 03:11. I ran my personal best at City2Surf in 56:58 . I was all over the moon. It felt like being an invincible robot.

Quite pleased with achieving all the goals I had, I started feeling weak after the last race. Perhaps two marathons and a PB at a hilly race track in period of 6 months for a person with a full-time sedentary job was a bit too much. I fell into ITB syndrome followed by a benign Achilles tendinitis.

Having these injuries made me think that being [almost] barefoot would not make the mother nature take care of me! There were other things I needed to learn. In the hindsight I can tell the reason I had ITB syndrome was weakness in leg stabilisers perhaps due to some improper techniques plus muscular imbalance would contribute negatively to that, making me lean to one side more than the other when was fatigued during running workouts. My right leg was two or three times stronger than the left one back in time. The Achilles tendinitis was somehow related to this aforementioned imbalance and more importantly to over-training. The other thing I relate to this tendinitis was my running technique: I used my calf muscles mainly to push off the ground on top of absorbing the landing shock. I actively landed on the balls or even between the balls and toes thinking it would absorb the landing shock even better. Wrong intuition.

That was when I realised I seriously need to boost my knowledge about running and it was by the time I finished my degree to become a personal trainer. I came across Pose Running and attended a personal training session to learn it. The actual training did not strike me as a proper technique but the theory sounded right. So I kept practicing and studied the material by myself. Two books and a whole website to browse and a paid youtube channel to watch. In a year or so I got it right and changed my form to run in pose and have never looked back.

This year I ran the race in 64min and it was completely in pose. I had pneumonia before the race and I am 4 years older (am 39 now) than the time I ran my PB at City2Surf but I still made it around the time I was much younger and more active. All credit to pose running. It is easier, less prone to injury and highly efficient which means it takes less effort to run the same distance.

During the race I observed the muscles I used for going up hills and surprisingly I did not feel much pressure in my quads or calf muscles. I clearly remember I used to have pain (tolerable) at going up hills, even in my glory year of 2012. Why? because I pushed off the ground and I did not know of any alternative way of running.

Last thing before I finish this long post, and thanks if you have read it all the way to here, am no longer running my races in Vibram Five Fingers. I train a lot in them but racing is a different category to fitness. There are times during the race that we get puffed out and it would be hard to maintain a good form. A little cushioning in the shoes would give a bit of comfort. If I could train more hours I would run my races in VFF but having a busy life is a big obstacle. These days I run my races in NB Minimus which is still at the extreme of minimalism but is a little more comforting than VFF and can be forgiving if I carelessly land on my heels just because am knackered. Ignore what am saying if you are not a competition freak! Anyway, some might go for more supportive shoes but as far as they have to train in those shoes before the race it may cause trouble before being fruitful. I personally keep it minimal and that works for me. I still believe the strength developed in feet is gold compared to the support in shoes bought off the shelf that I rank as bronze ;)

Hope it was helpful. Good luck.

Was passing by Ford dealership at Brookvale the other day and saw their Ad: Get on the road sooner, Ford Finance. What does it have to do with running? Surprisingly it does a lot.

The benefit of financing a car is you can drive away your dream car without having the money in your bank account. As long as you can afford repaying the principal and the interest you should be fine. The downside of financing is the interest of course. The reason some people finance cars is its affordability, so they choose the immediate comfort over the hardship of saving, budgeting and the initial delay to have a car.

How does it relate to running? Remember I said before (like here: successful-runners vs good runners) that Shoes do not make you a good runner, they just help you get into running more quickly ? Car financing does the same thing. You need a car right now, like you just have decided to get into running because you are getting married in 6 months time, or you just picked up a goal to run in a race which is usually not too far in future. You do not have time to learn how to run properly. The only thing you want to think of is to achieve your goal. The damage you cause is you run inefficiently, you may overtax your lower legs, you may put too much pressure on your knees, Achilles tendon, or plantar fascia, etc, at your training. That is the resemblance of the interest paid at financing.

What I have to offer is how to run with less amount of effort. First of all, you have to slow down and be patient. You have to stop what you are doing for a full-check up to see if you need to revise the way you run or not.

There are many micro and macro movements in feet that are affected by shoes. As I explained in The Most Natural Sport , one should learn how to run with minimal amount of effort and the best framework to practice it is to have minimal support from shoes, or even in bare feet. Once you master that, your eyes will open to what is going on in the shoe market. You can choose the right shoes that can extend your bio-mechanical abilities and do not manipulate the way you naturally run. Am not being cynical here but shoe industry like car industry want you to buy their products as frequently as possible. Easy car finance prevents your attempt to learn how to budget and save. In the same way comfortable cushioned shoes would make you not bother how to run efficiently because it feels comfortable to run in supportive shoes and you can start getting fit forthwith. If you learn to run in pose, which takes a little patience, you will be independent on shoes thereafter. You will develop strength in your feet/legs (gold) as opposed to buying incomplete strength off the shelf (bronze at max!).

Do you get the picture now?