A Passion for Running

I don’t even know where to begin. Last night I watched my new POSE DVD and read 70 pages of the 300 page book…I’m quite honestly ASTOUNDED by what Dr. Romanov’s has created.

This is a QUALITY package. The book is extremely well written and the illustrations are fantastic. The DVD has roughly 40 drills and exercises packed into it (and the book has a lot more!), along with lots of terrific video footage of Romanov and others running POSE style. These are juxtiPOSEd (hehe) with video footage of poor running form. The DVD really brings the book to life and, if that weren’t enough, comes with a pocket-size Companion Drill Book that explains all the drills found in the DVD using simple, easy to understand illustrations. The companion is meant to be taken along as a guide during practice/drill sessions.

So, what does all this mean for me? Good question! (you’re so smart)

#1 – I am going to do what I said I was going to do in an earlier post. I’m officially declaring myself BRAND NEW to the sport/pursuit of running. In fact, I am going to follow Romanov’s advice and am going to stop focusing on speed and distance entirely. I’m a “born-again runner”! My one and only focus for the next several months is going to be on learning this new method including doing all the drills and exercises needed to do it well and let me tell ya, this will be HARD work because I suck at even the most basic POSE drills! I’m giving myself a wopping SIX months (till the end of September) to learn the POSE method. If it takes less – great. If it takes more – that’s ok too. After all, new runners typically take a year or more to work up to half marathon distances right? How long did it take you to run 5k, 10 or a half marathon distance?

#2 – Because of #1, cross-training is going to be one of my best friends this next several months. Since I will not be running for fitness and endurance, I will have to do a lot more swimming, biking and other stuff or I’m gonna pack on some weight! I’m very happy the snow is gone and the temperature is warming up because that will make re-introducing the work bike commute much easier.

#3 – I’m shifting most of my focus away from ChiRunning. Specifically, I am not going to follow the technical aspects ChiRunning proposes because I do not want to mix two styles of running. That said, I will continue paying attention to the ChiRunning dude where he speaks to subject areas POSE does not spend time on – namely on the more yoga/zen-like aspects of running. I want to be clear that I am not being critical of ChiRunning because I still think it has a lot of merit. However, what I’m after is a more methodical, comprehensive and detailed approach for redefining my running form and the POSE method far exceeds ChiRunning in this regard.

#4 – Full steam ahead on my plans to do some barefoot running. I believe the words Dr. Romanov uses are “run barefoot and you’ll run using the POSE method in no time”.

#5 – Time to buy some new shoes. I really need new shoes but have been putting the purchase off. Partly because I’m a cheap S.O.B. but mostly because I wanted to look at the POSE package before making a shoe purhase. The reason I waited is because Romanov is against shoes with a lot of structure – particularly shoes with thick heel structure. He says thick soled shoes encourage heel-striking and prevent one from doing the POSE running properly. Therefore, what I am after are some training “flats”.

So, those are my goals…I’M EXCITED!

Whaddya think?

(hmmm…I just realized I wasn’t as speechless as I thought!)

Please fire me off a note if you are have been blocked by my uber-comment spam fighting system.

Here’s my email address: mark at completerunning dot com

My POSE book and DVD have arrived! My POSE book and DVD have arrived! My POSE book and DVD have arrived! My POSE book and DVD have arrived!

Yay yay yay!

Wifey just sent me an email to let me know and now I have to wait FOUR (4) hours till I can read/see them!

I work for the government…think anybody would notice if I were to sneak out early?

Oh. One more thing. I had another 8km run today and to quote Bart Simpson, “I never knew something could both blow and suck so much at the same time”. Brutal run which of course means the next one will be better.

I had an Easter filled weekend and decided to get some webmaster type stuff done today.

I recently upgraded to WordPress 1.5 which TOTALLY rocks. It has some great new features and handles SPAM very well. However, I still found I had to install a plugin or two to make it rock-solid against the SPAM demon.

Then I realized I’d have to do the same thing (install and configure plugins) for EVERY Complete Running blog. Ugh. I shuddered and thought, “there has GOT to be a better way – a way I can deal with SPAM at the domain level and which requires NO work on the part of the bloggers”.

I wanted a magic pill.

To make a long story short, I found my answer but wasn’t comfortable with the method. Then I remembered my chocolate friend Jon had some experience in this area. A couple of emails to Jon and some more reading and I had my magic pill comfortably digested. Now I’m confident I’ve won a MAJOR battle against blog SPAM. No comment or trackback SPAM in any of the roughly 16 blogs CR hosts in the last 8 hours.

The best thing is that I can now get rid of those hard to read CODE THINGS you’re used to seeing on complete running blogs. Can we all yell a collective, “yay!”?

THANK YOU Jon!

With my newfound victory in hand, I set out to upgrade a blog. Pamalamadingdong was my first guinea pig (are you next?). The upgrade went quickly and flawlessly – for the MOST part. Pam’s style template gave me some trouble and I had run out of time due to visitors arriving in the Iocchelli household.

But guess what? Miss Zoot came to the rescue and got the rest of the job done. She did a great job rescuing and even improving Pam’s template.

THANK YOU Zoot!