A Passion for Running

Note: If you haven’t already read it, part one of this report is right below this post. You should read it first or none of this will make any sense.

Shoe Shopping
I bet that heading got your attention huh ladies?

Aaron and I spent the first day of the clinic in what we would soon come to think of as our old, heavy, structure laden, thick soled and thick-heeled running shoes. We’d read that all that structure, weight and heel height would make doing the POSE much more difficult so, immediately after Saturday’s clinic, we drove to The Puma Store on nearby 3rd Street Promenade where we each purchased a pair of Puma H-Street racing flats (This is the pair I bought. If you click on the multi-view link you will get a clear idea of what they look like). The Puma H-Street is one of several types of shoes recommended by Dr. Romanov and by many people who frequent the POSE website forum. The shoes are light as a feather. In fact, they are remarkably like wearing slippers. Totally minimalist and 180 degrees from the type of shoes I wore previously.

Sunday Morning
Day two was considered the “advanced” part of the clinic. In fact, we lost a couple of participants who apparently only signed up for day one. My personal view on this is I would have found it very hard to walk away after only one day. On the plus side, we got a new participant in day two. A fellow who had never taken a clinic, but who imagined he’d fit more appropriately in the advanced one (since he’d had been practicing for a year) joined us.

We spent the morning doing a bit of review of the previous day’s learning, had a question and answer session and then swung into some advanced theory. It’s hard to get into specifics because there is SO much but suffice to say it was fascinating and very reinforcing information.

Afternoon
We headed back to the field where we did more drills and exercises all designed to further ingrain the skill into our spongelike brains. Sunday was a good day. The POSE was really there for me. I felt like a light-on-my-feet speed-monster. Aaron had a good day too. He hardly got yelled at, at all and he looked GREAT.

I took one for the team on Sunday too. It happened when Dr. Romanov decided to use me to demonstrate a drill involving running in place with a very heavy lean while being held from falling by an elastic band Romanov was holding onto. I was running along feeling complete trust in the good Doctor when suddenly, I found myself flat on my face on the ground! Apparently, I was supposed to keep on running! Hmmm…wish I’d have thought of that. I just thought he was going to explain something about the drill. Oh well. I tried a second time and then a third. I rocked on the third try and then everybody else got a chance. They all rocked on their first try but they had my sacrifice to thank for that.

We did drill after drill each time running in between 50 yards at a time to reinforce the skill. Then, Dr. Romanov showed us many very novel exercises designed to build overall body strength and coordination. Really good stuff.

Then, it was back to videotaping. One trip past the camera slowly and another more quickly – just like we did on Saturday.

Then Romanov took us to a small but sharp crested hill and showed us how to run both up and down it. It was AMAZING! A tiny little adjustment was all it took and I was running up that hill like it wasn’t there! Downhill was a little trickier but two tries was all it took and I had it. And guess what? No jarring going down the hill. Smooth as silk. Well, smooth as silk the second time anyway. Needless to say, by this time, I was thinking Romanov was a god or god-like being at the very least!

Romanov called the final run of the day a “long” run. To be sure, it wasn’t a very long run by most runner’s standards. In fact, it consisted only of five consecutive 200 meter circular laps. Keep in mind we had just learned a new skill and had been working for two and a half hours already. The challenge was to run the laps each time passing by the camera for 50 meters. The point of the exercise was to see how long we could focus on the skill without losing form.

Let me tell you – it was a challenge. I started feeling fatigue after the third lap. During my fourth pass by the camera, things were starting to fall apart a bit and I clearly began to brake (a bit of forward planting) on the fifth lap. This all came out in the video analysis which was to follow next…

How Did the Shoes Do?
In a word: FANTASTIC. Because the method requires lightness on ones feet, there is hardly any contact with the ground so you don’t need cushioning, structure-laden shoes. Bottom line: The shoes were as light as air and so was I!

Back to the Classroom for the Last Time
Our second session of videotape analysis was comprehensive to say the least. We went frame-by-frame (1/30th of a second in each frame) for two runs (fast and slow) times eleven runners and then we looked at all five laps each of us had done in the “long” run. If you are counting, that is 77 pieces of video analysis!

It was a mind-blowing experience to see everyone improve and let me assure you – everyone really did improve. Can I rate improvement? You bet I can:

-The Best in Class award has to go to a young gal with only four months of running experience under her belt. I think not having a set of bad running habits really contributed to her ability to learn the POSE method. In other words, she did not have to unlearn or forget anything before learning the method. So, for all you new runners who may be reading this thinking, “I wonder if I could learn?”. There’s your answer. The best time to learn is when you have nothing to un-learn.

-Aaron and I tied for second place for doing the POSE correctly, but were in first place in the Most Improved category because we sucked more than almost everyone else at the beginning of the clinic. No lie!

Everyone else did really well and I would say that out of all eleven of us, only one did not really “get” the method. Ten out of eleven is not bad. Not bad at all in my opinion anyway.

Why We Succeeded
First, we had top-notch instruction. Doctor Romanov ROCKS. There is no question about it. He really wanted us to succeed and he worked tirelessly to help us learn the POSE method.

Second, the POSE Method itself is so scientifically sound, so easy to understand, so common-sense oriented and, in the end, such an elegant way to teach running, it makes itself easy to “get”.

Third, Aaron and I really wanted to learn the method. During and after the clinic, we talked a great deal about this component of success. You may recall in the beginning of my report, I talked about going in with an open mind, becoming a student and forgetting what we thought we knew about running. The only thing I can add is that we had enormous desire to learn the method. I think that for anyone to learn anything, they really have to want to learn that thing. How about you?

In Aaron’s case, he’d spent the last five years with varying kinds and degrees of injury and pain. He desperately wanted all of that to end. He needed to believe he had been doing something wrong so it was easy for him to surrender to Doctor Romanov.

And my case was similar. I was recovering from a stress fracture incurred during my last marathon and I had been haunted by a video clip Lori took of me during that marathon. The haunting thought I got from watching that clip was, “That’s not the form a runner should have when running marathons”. I was truly saddened when I watched that 10 second running clip. THAT was the moment where I began seeking something different. It was the moment which eventually led me to the POSE method and, THANK GOD, to Dr. Romanov.

Sad Goodbye’s
I know it sounds corney, but I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to say goodbye to Doctor Romanov. He had led me through such a life changing event I didn’t want it to end. Ever. Nevertheless, we shook hands promising to become his Canadian ambassadors AND to one day bring him to Edmonton.

I can’t wait for that day.

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I hope this report has been helpful. I’m going to write one more post focussing largely on where Aaron and I will go from here so stay tuned!