A Passion for Running

Before the pose clinic I ran using mostly my quads and calf muscles. After the clinic, I was challenged to begin using mostly my hamstrings.

Question: How does one make such a drastic switch?
Answer: With a lot of patience, practice and emphasis on drills and exercises.

I’m actually having quite a bit of fun with this and when Aaron and I talk, we are surprised how motivated we are and how keen we are on the exercises.

For instance, since coming back, we are both very conscious about how we stand and walk – always with our weight on the balls of our feet and always with a slight bend in the knees. We NEVER straighten our knees.

We also often (and wherever we can) find ourselves practising the pose stance and changing support. I do this at work all the time! I was even practising this past Friday evening when we took the kids neon-bowling. It was cool when Cassandra saw what I was doing and started copying me doing my change of support drills. She was a natural and picked it up super quick! Kids learn SO fast don’t they? I finally had to stop at the urgent request of my lovely wife who began noticing people noticing us! Oh well. What are ya gonna do when you live in a shoe?

Every day, I try to spend at least 15 minutes with my jump rope. I find it to be a good exercise for focusing my attention on the balls of my feet, making very brief contact with the ground, and for making me think about staying loose in my lower legs (calfs and shins). Jumping rope is super easy to “jump” into too! You just pull out your rope and away you go – no need for getting ready or a lot of equipment to put on.

Since our return from L.A. I have done four “running” sessions – two on my own and two with Aaron. During the sessions I’ve had on my own, I have spent a fair amount of time running barefoot in the grass. Again, I find this helps me to focus on keeping relaxed feet (particularly in the ankles) and on making very brief contact with the ground. Plus, I find the barefoot running to be an extremely tactile and pleasurable experience!

In last nights session, Aaron and I pretended we were newbie runners. He set his watch so that we were running for 120 seconds and walking for 30 seconds. It worked well. Just enough time before I would tire and when maintaining form became difficult. Over the next few weeks, we will increase the running time in between the walks but we are already noticing improvements in our endurance. Give us a couple months and things should be moving along quite nicely.

This is a fascinating experience for me!

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P.S. A special “hello” to my good friends Nella and Randy who I found out just last night have been reading my blog and are actually getting something out of it. Thanks you two! It’s nice to have you around…even if you are sort of ghostlike at the moment!