Sunday, November 29, 2009

basics


The new header is from Musselman..... 07 or 08. I can't remember. I am sitting at a press conference with some pretty incredible triathletes (one of these things is not like the other). In this picture I am cracking up at some joke Mr. Rhodes is making about water (I think I'd crack up at anything the man said).

Saturday meant running. Which also meant some running drills. Which meant jump roping. Which then led to my discovery that I am one excellent jump roper. Yes! It's true, watch out. If you see some girl skipping merrily along during the next 70.3 that just might be me. Finally something related to running that I am pretty damn good at.

Why jump roping? For a variety of reasons, that in a minute.

First of all..... feet. I get a lot of questions about what I wear for shoes because of what I do. Because of the amount of time I have spent barefoot since tearing my Achilles a few years ago I have very strong feet. I never wear socks. Only to work. I don't wear shoes or socks in the house, I teach yoga, and the only time I wear shoes is when I am working, or training, or just out.

Since I have instituted that rule I have saved a lot on matching socks in the laundry and I have also developed very strong feet. I also attribute that to yoga itself. The muscles in our feet become week when we leave them to depend on the support of shoes. They also become weak when we wear very bad shoes.

I wear
Dansko shoes at work, and in leisure. I wear these very cool Keene shoes the yogui model. These shoes are my shoes of choice because they allow your feet to become strong. The Keenes are better than a Croc because of better support, but not too much support. If you are a nurse Crocs are quite possibly the worst shoe that you can wear.

So I have worked to make my feet strong. I think that is incredibly important not just for running but for life in general. A strong foot is a healthy foot!

Back to jump roping. I am trying to change the way that I run. Jump roping drills are a great and fun way to do the running drills outlined by Dr. Romanov.
Check out this video. I jump roped for 15 minutes and aside from a few catches in the rope I found myself to be a darn good jump roper. If I don't' say so myself. If we could get that to count for something..... it will.


Why even do running drills? Romanov says it best:

Why do we need to do drills in running? The main point of drills in running is to develop or heighten our perception. Strength and agility are biproducts of the exercises. Our main goal is an acute perception. Like many of our runners ask, do we always need to do drills in running? The short answer is yes, the long answer is because we need to continually sharpen our perception like the edge of a knife. Think about a runner wearily flopping away to the finish. That is where most of the damage occurs, why? Loss of perception due to fatigue. Our drills help us maintain our perception despite the many outside factors which could deprivate our senses. So today, go ahead and do some drills and improve your running day in and day out!

There are some coaches who believe that drilling in any sport is a waste of time. They believe good technique naturally just happens. Well, I have been running a long time, and I haven't accidentally fallen into better technique. I should have done this a very long time ago, but better late than never. In fact, the timing feels perfect! Not only are we pulling apart this run.... we are pulling apart the bike. Powercranks..... here I come!


There are a lot of things I will be back to the basics for. I feel like we have the luxury of time right now. I have an entire 11 months before I toe the line at IMFL, so we have a lot of time to do the most proper healthy and purposeful season.


I spent 2009 getting back on my feet. 2010 will be about much more. I have one week of unstructured training. I am on the TRX, doing my running drills and working on my new run technique. I am coming back to the core and I am getting excited as we look forward.


The best seasons are still the ones before me!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Shoes have taken away alot of the foots natural ability to prevent injury and make us faster because of how much they weaken our arches. That's why I love me some Nike Frees!

I just brought my jump rope back down to VA!!!!