Level 3 Runner: Less is More

"We are young, we are strong, we're not looking for where we belong.
We're not cool, we are free and we're running with blood on our knees."

Apologies for a rather shit blog, I'm sleepy and distracted, this is a bit of a random disorganized ramble.

In a week and a half I am competing in an Olympic distance (standard distance if you're not cool) triathlon. 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10k run. Tonight I set out on a run.

Music in ears the first 15 minutes of my run was pure uphill. I have discovered the art of economical running. How amazing it felt to own that hill, to get to the top without my heart rate going crazy.

Not too long ago running on the flat caused my heart rate to hit 160 as a minimum. I was perfectly fit, the problem was not in my fitness, but my economy of effort. In this recent pass I earned what I like to think of as "level 2 running". This is my version of running goal setting, instead of distance or times I'm basing it on the feeling of my performance. Level 2 dictated that I could run a reasonable distance in my Vibrams and actually enjoy it from start to finish, subsequently not feeling pain or crippling soreness the following day.

Level 3, earlier tonight, signifies a different change. I now feel that I can regulate my effort. You good runners out there will scoff, but there used to be no such thing as a recovery run for me. Running was always effort. Now I just ran up Mickelham without breaking sweat. Hello level three!

A couple of observations:

My right knee hurt at about 25 minutes in, it felt like the knee was being subjected to unbalanced force or is not being loaded properly. It basically felt like the muscles surrounding my knee were doing all the work but the muscles surrounding the hip were asleep. The solution? Actively think of squeezing the ground with big toe (which my left leg was doing naturally), this IMMEDIATELY solved the problem. I always think if there is pain, there is an immediate solution to be found before injury. Pain is a symptom, quickly treat the cause and it goes away.

It is possible to get an extreme adrenaline rush and workout from running downhill. To the tune of Pussy - Rammestein, I charged down a trail and had to leap and dodge the undergrowth, suddenly all this speed just arrived. My legs were turning over at an impossible speed, and my running form felt perfect. This was accompanied by a heart rate of 180-ish. Good times.