'Born to Run' , natural steps to training

    In my past life I was a pretty talented distant runner. Enough so, that I could enter a race from a 1600 to a 10k and have all the wind I needed to not really have to think about it and just strategize my way thru it. Then the injuries began . Eventually, I found it excruciating to even take a shower as the mere water hitting my feet was agonizing . The years of 150 miles a week had taken their toll. Time to pay the Piper, and good-bye college sholarship offers.


    Here in Afghanistan, I decided I was going to take advantage of the altitude and time on my hands to regain some of my former glory, but I've had to completely re-think how to do it. I've had to go minimalist on the footwear. Sometimes even barefoot all together, but I have to do that really late at night as running barefoot around one's combat outpost/FOB is frowned upon.


    Below is some more detail that I sent a buddy in an email...I think Dan'll find a lot of this interestingas I know he studies more natural approaches to athleticism.:)


    Hey, wanted to tell you about this book I'm reading called 'Born to Run'. I've gotten back into distance running as a way to keep my head clear and basically beat the cabin fever I get living on a square kilometer city block area. A friend of mine back home saw where I often times have issues with injuries , but am working to beat them by adopting a minimalist footwear approach ...more on that later.


    The premise of the book is the author likes to run, even though he had never really planned to be competitive with it . He's a big guy, 6'4 and 230, so he doesn't really fit the mold anyway. But still ,he'd get out and jog 2 or 3 miles a day. And then bam, he started having problems . Foot,shin and knee issues. He went to Dr after Dr who told him that running was his problem . They did all kinds of scans, put him on a treadmill and analyzed his gait...you name it. All said the same thing. In his mind that just didn't make sense.


    In the meantime, he started looking at people across the world who run as a way of life . From Kenyans to the Tarahumara tribe down in Mexico. So he headed down there to meet an American that lived with Tarahumara to find out what the deal was. What he found were people into their 80's who still ran hundreds of miles ,sometimes in a day. In fact, 4 Tarahumara's won the Leadville 100 ultra-marathon in the 90's . That is a 100 mile race held at 10,000 feet ele. in Leadville, Co.. One thing he found in common is nobody wore shoes. Simply sandals. And all ran with very short strides as opposed to the long strides that we're taught to run with. Even modern shoes encourage long strides by having raised heel soles. Long strides equate out to pronounced heel strikes and the injuries and pain that come with it . Running with short strides encourages you to run more on the balls of your feet and keeps your back straight with a relaxed upper body. And all groups that run as a way of life do the same thing. The Kenyans, Incas, rural Egyptians, the Southwest American Indians. And I've started doing it,too. So far so good at least 5k's a day, sometimes up to 10.


    This'll be good for me.

    Incidentally, the American he met down there in Copper Canyon ,Mexico was a man named Micah True. I remember reading about Micah True back in March when he passed away during a run in some very rough country. Took 3 days to recover his body by horseback . Turns out he had an undiagnosed heart condition. But, ya know ? He lived and died his way and doing what he loved. I'm envious.

    Good to have you back Aaron.


    Here's my take on this, I figured it out myself so please no one take it as science.


    I consider some kinds of running to be good exercise, a workout that can tire out the body quickly, build strength and endurance, and can be done almost no matter where you are for free.


    That said I can't run the way our culture is accustomed to see people running. I immediately get knee pain, even when I wasn't overweight, and it doesn't go away as I get more into the training, it gets worse. When I was younger I was no great runner, but at least I could keep it up for a while, no more. Many times I pondered how other people can run for so long, so I observed them. I realized that the majority of people don't run well. You can see it in their movement, the same like observing a good moving dog run vs. a dog that's not built for the task. Runners range in what it is about them physically that makes them move poorly, there are too many details to get into. One common thing to many runners that I noticed is they achieve too much height with every step. I look at the bad postures and can imagine the damage they're doing to their bodies in the long run.. The very few and far between runners who have good form really stand out. Their movement is fluid, there's a nice balance between upward and forward distance traveled with every step. This led me to the conclusion that runners who can maintain such a pace, are genetically predisposed to run comfortably at a specific speed which coincides with what is considered the norm for running/exercising. This speed is slower than sprinting and faster than jogging. Myself and most other people who want to exercise are not capable of maintaining this pace without causing damage to the body. Running the way we are culturally programmed to perceive is right is unnatural for the majority of people.


    I believe many people force themselves through the inconvenience of unnatural running, many give up too. This unnatural running is not really running, it's jogging. What happens is that the runner tries to maintain a pace where they can be as relaxed as possible within the strides. Imagine what happens inside the joints as you're in the air relaxed and suddenly all your weight is slammed on the loose joints. This happens every time you hit the ground with every step. Combine that with jogging on paved streets and it's simply stupid.


    Still one can't deny that running is in the nature of man. After all sometimes we need to get away from something, or catch something. But in those circumstances the motivation and pace are completely different. When you're running and focused on catching something your posture and movement is different than when jogging and thinking about what happened at work the other day. When really running all your muscles are contracted lessening the effect of impact on the ground, you're also landing on the front of the foot as opposed to the back which further cushions the impact. Probably running within a game like soccer doesn't cause nearly the same problems as just running. Kind of like freediving vs freediving and spearfishing ;) When we're young and agile, and the body fixes itself better, the problems of running may not be so apparent, but it is a cumulative affect which will express itself later in life. My philosophy is that I'd like to reach my later years fit, without having damaged myself in the process. It is somewhat too late, I wish I knew then what I know now, I would have omitted weight lifting and done more grappling and diving instead.


    Anyways my solution to running is the following.
    1. I do it in the park on grass if possible.
    2. Initially I don't run, I speed walk.
    3. Then I sprint a short distance. I choose a marker such as a tree, at a distance I think I can maintain a sprint, and run fast until I reach it.
    4. At that point I change to speed walking again until I catch my breath.
    I will alternate like this until the workout is done. Because of the sprinting it doesn't take so long to finish as if it were a long jog. My knees don't hurt and I can feel my leg muscles tired.


    This is what I want to do now to get myself in shape before getting back into grappling. Unfortunately the first day I did it this week I rubbed the skin off my heel. Now I have to wait for it to heal to put on running shoes. I don't want to wait and considered running barefoot, but I'm afraid to step on something really nasty in that park.

    Quote from 75th

    Short strides. This is the first I've heard of this. I'll try it out. Faster than jogging, right?


    Ivan , it's one of those things you'll know by feel . At first it felt incredibly awkward as I've got pretty long legs and the standard SOP was for me to stride out and use the length to my advantage. So ? What'd it get me ? Prominent heel strikes.


    But just try it to get a feel for it,bro. You'll know at what pace you can use.

    Quote from LunkerBuster

    Very cool. Def looking into this. I love running but my body doesn't. This might be perfect


    Unfortunately barefoot shoes are really douschey


    I have some that are similar to the Vibram Five Fingers ... but not quite as douchey .:D


    Actually, you can get something similar with a very similar effect without going that route. Look at road racing shoes... I bought two pairs of Saucony Shay's from Eastbay for $70 . That was with shipping .Two pairs shipped here to Afghanistan, $70. They are simply a thin sole and nylon foot cover. That's it. Road racers . Since I can't wear toed shoes during organized PT, I opted for the Shay's and love 'em.


    Compare these types of shoes to what distance runners wore in the 20's and 30's ( speaking of the 30's there have been 3 times when an interest in running spiked. The 30's during the Great Depression, the 70's immediately following the Vietnam War and directly after 9/11. Co-relation to stress and our desire to run ? Perhaps.) . They wore a shoe similar to leather ballet slippers. Look at pics yourself. Just leather slippers.


    Anyway, my Shay's are what I typically wear .

    Good article on choosing the right shoes:


    [url=http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-240-319-327-7727-0,00.html]Pronation, Explained: Info from Runner's World Magazine[/url]


    I switched to a stability shoe a few years ago to correct an overpronation. Makes a huge difference.

    Obviously, there's something to this, as Saucony (on their website) has a "Running" shoe section and a "Natural Running" shoe section, like there's a difference. That'd be something I'd have had to google if it weren't for this thread. As I'm always looking for lighter running shoes, this is probably the way to go for me, too. They even call it minimalist running. The Mirage 2 is what came up for me from their "Shoe Advisor". Thanks Aaron. I've been in the dark on this.


    Dan, that's fartlek training, right? It'll smoke you fast, which is a good thing. I've got a long, steep driveway that's a smoker and I should use it more. I didn't know you're a grappler. I went to J-Sect in Vegas full time for about six months and they (John, Dave Howard, Herut, Marvin and the rest of the guys -all great guys--and insanely good) got me from nada to "comfortable on the ground". I didn't work on my stand-up so much (with Skip) because I felt I needed BJJ so much more. I found that distance running didn't give me the wind I needed for grappling (but it helped keep the fat% down). Grappling/rolling's even more intense than sprinting. Just like freediving/spearfishing practice is to grappling and competitive style freediving practice is to running, the best conditioning exercise for grappling is rolling (a lot of it). We used to notice Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture roll in the cage for 30 minutes at a time with no breaks in between submissions while we're (us students) able to do it for a few minutes at a time. It's a smoker! The reason the instructors/teachers could do it longer is because they did it more than most of us (like Dave Howard: a professor of fighting--bad ass--nicest guy, too). The Gracie's (invited by SFC Matt Larsen, who was in NCOIC of Ranger Regiment's combatives & CQB training) helped teach BJJ/MMA to Rangers as I was getting out (1995) and that's what got me into it (as I was going back into Ranger Bn anyway). I miss it. I should go to Alliance here in Tally whenever I'm back home.


    Aaron, I see BJJ/MMA is military-wide, especially after SFC Larsen re-wrote FM 21-150 (Army Comatives Field Manual), a real basic BJJ lesson/foundation -so the army could actually teach it. (Because, to the army, if it's not in an FM or TM, it simply doesn't exist, right?) :rolleyes1: Keep your head on a swivel, bro! Stay safe.

    Nice, glad you were able to find some good info .


    10 to 1 says they are teaching BJJ around here if I check into it a bit. Come to think of it, I heard Matt Larsen's name mentioned during a PSD school I went thru at Ft. Leonard Wood. Not sure the context ,though.

    There's no workout like grappling. When I was training regularly I used to roll for 15 - 20 minutes straight, with lulls in the action of course. Also depends who you're working with, a bigger guy lying on top of you will make you lose wind fast. I want to be able to do that again. At this point after 5 minutes I feel like passing out. Too late to seriously get into the striking game for me. But I can live without the welts and broken teeth. Grappling is just a really comfortable place to be, I'm in control of my pace and whether I get injured. The only problem is that I have to do it according to someone else's schedule.

    I have through the years gone through the transition from normal running shoes to track flats now to those "douchey" five fingers (I only wear them at gym or running). The change is amazing. Don't think of it a shortening your stride as much a changing your impact piont and then pulling your feet under you with your hamstrings, which in turn propels you forward. However, thinking to much about any of this will just mess you up. Gradually try light, less cushioned shoes. If you like it keep going, if not go back to what you were doing. I will never go back. If you want to know where all of this really started (at least in the somewhat modern running world) google "free book running gordon pirie" . Its free, old and the straight dope from a man who lived the life long before any of this was trendy.

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