Random has struck again and I find myself in the awkward position of experimenting with low-tech running accompanied by a very high-tech companion.
I recently read and thoroughly enjoyed Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall. An inspiring tale of one mans quest to run injury free that led him to some very interesting discoveries and phenomenal personal success. The two primary discoveries he made were: barefoot running (or as close as you can get) and the Tarahumara Indians from the Copper Canyons in Mexico.
Apparently, running shoes are the scourge of late twentieth century runners and should be trashed immediately if you want to ever enjoy running again, especially if you are injury prone. At least this is the conclusion that a growing number of doctors, therapists and scientific researchers are coming to. Two of the winningest coaches in college track history have their runners train barefoot. One Harvard researcher claims that degenerative disease would decrease significantly if Americans did one thing: throw away their running shoes. This would lead to a rapid and widespread enjoyment of running which would be the actual cure to said disease. These are only a few of barefoot running’s advocates. Three barefoot styles independently arose around y2k. Ken Mierke with Evolution Running, Danny Dreyer with Chi Running and Dr. Nicholas Romanov with the POSE technique.
So, what is the one thing all of these methods have in common? A shorter stride with a mid-foot rather than a heel strike, which is exactly how the Tarahumara have been running for the last thousand years or more. In their brief stint of international competition, Tarahumara runners won the Leadville 100 two years in a row which established their legitimate running prowess.
In honor of the Tarahumara tradition, I created my own huarache-esque sandals.
I know, they are really cool and you really want a pair. So, that takes care of the low-tech. Now for the high-tech.
For Christmas I received a Nike+ running sensor that links to my fancy ipod touch. It tracks all of my workouts now: time, date, pace, distance and when I sync my ipod with itunes it uploads to my free nike+ online account. Then it analyzes my workouts based on goals and objectives that I have set.
Let me say right now that it is AWESOME!! It is the best robot work out buddy ever and has been a very real motivation for me to get out and run. It does have its glitches every now and then but I think I have worked out all of the bugs.
You will notice that I have linked Twitter which now tweets all of my runs! Why is this important? Because I am officially starting my legitimate running career with a goal to run a sub 3 hour marathon in May. Here is the training plan that I am loosely following which I borrowed from Coach Greg McMillan. His running calculator estimates these times for shorter distances that I need to hit in order to make my marathon pace. Along with training paces.
Event 100m 200m 400m 500m 800m 1000m 1500m Mile 2000m 3000m 2M 4000m 3M 5000m Time 15.7 31.4 1:05.7 1:25.7 2:24.2 3:08.4 4:56.9 5:19.8 6:45.4 10:35.3 11:22.4 14:28.0 17:48 18:28 Pace/Mile – – – – – – – – 5:26.2 5:40.8 5:41.2 5:49.2 5:56 5:57 Pace/K – – – – – – 3:18.0 3:18.7 3:22.7 3:31.7 3:32.0 3:37.0 3:41 3:42 Event 4M 8000m 5M 10K 15K 10M 20K 13.1M 15M 25K 30K 20M 25M Marathon Time 24:09 30:26 30:36 38:21 59:26 1:04:16 1:20:53 1:25:21 1:38:26 1:42:44 2:04:58 2:15:09 2:50:22 3:00:00 Pace/Mile 6:03 6:07 6:07 6:10 6:23 6:25 6:31 6:31 6:34 6:37 6:43 6:45 6:48 6:53 Pace/K 3:45 3:48 3:48 3:50 3:58 4:00 4:03 4:03 4:05 4:07 4:10 4:12 4:14 4:16 Endurance Workouts Pace/Mile Pace/K Recovery Jogs 8:23 to 8:53 5:12 to 5:31 Long Runs 7:23 to 8:23 4:35 to 5:12 Easy Runs 7:23 to 7:53 4:35 to 4:54 Stamina Workouts Pace/Mile Pace/K Steady-State Runs 6:31 to 6:43 4:03 to 4:10 Tempo Runs 6:15 to 6:31 3:53 to 4:03 Tempo Intervals 6:10 to 6:23 3:50 to 3:58 Time/Interval Cruise Intervals (mile) 6:07 to 6:15 (1200m) 4:34 to 4:40 (1000m) 3:48 to 3:53 (800m) 3:02 to 3:06 (600m) 2:17 to 2:20 (400m) 1:31 to 1:33 Key m = meters M = miles K = kilometers Speed Workouts Middle Distance Runners Long Distance Runners 400m 1:19.5 to 1:22.9 1:21.1 to 1:25.7 800m 2:42.2 to 2:49.6 2:49.4 to 2:57.3 1000m 3:31.7 to 3:41.6 3:37.0 to 3:45.3 1200m 4:14.4 to 4:25.9 4:20.4 to 4:33.6 1600m 5:47.2 to 6:00.5 5:54.6 to 6:07.6 2000m 7:23.2 to 7:36.0 7:30.6 to 7:39.5 Sprint Workouts Middle Distance Runners Long Distance Runners 100m 16.4 to 18.0 17.1 to 18.8 200m 34.3 to 37.7 35.2 to 38.6 300m 51.4 to 59.4 52.7 to 1:00.1 400m 1:12.1 to 1:20.1 1:15.4 to 1:21.1 600m 1:53.1 to 2:01.6 1:58.8 to 2:04.3 © 1996-2006 Greg McMillan, McMillan Running Company, Inc.
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