Shifting Gears

This column is a dovetail to earlier post about “change is good”. It has been on my mind a lot lately. I am now trying to be more aware of keeping my pace, my stride length and landing pattern while running. Of course, I do not and will not wear an iPod as I need to focus rather than be distracted.

Last month when I started training for the Mesquite Canyon Ultra marathon, I noticed that I would still be in “trudge pattern” after coming up a hill and now running on flat surface.  At that moment, the light bulb went off. DING!  I started thinking about how long I had been running in trudge pattern and what would be difference in time if I could shift gears back into flat surface running as soon as I got over the hill.  As the saying goes, better late than never.

So now I have come up with a course that mixes hills and a flat stretch for deliberate shift into sprint gear. What a difference it makes in running style.  Even today, while doing hill repeats, that it is a constant focus to shift from the uphill short power strides to opening up on the downhills and then change to long stride with a push on the flat sections at top of hills. As a coach, I find this very interesting stuff.  Today’s run made me remember the importance of shifting gears with every nuance when cycling in order to get peak performance.  As a cyclist, I could easily watch my computer for RPMs and MPH and react accordingly. But as a technphobe runner, I have to rely on feeling the difference and being aware of what’s happening.  Now I see a whole new aspect of training, which is the mental focus and clarity.  We spend so much time getting the physical aspect accomplished and then think we are finished with the learning process.

This reminds me of the Martial Arts world, where to an outsider getting a black belt seems to be the apex, but to the real practitioner it means that you are now physically ready to learn the fine points. So for all you runners, cyclists, swimmers, etc. instead of looking to conquer the next big race (like I used to do), how to a smaller event and fine tune some aspect of your performance.