Tri-ing to stay young!

Yesterday was another very productive day. I started with a timed 800M in the 50M Crystal Pool. The first 200M were pure hell but after that the 50M lengths were kind of nice. My time: just under 24Min. Not a great time but not bad for me.
I did 2 afternoon runs again. The first was an hour and a bit with Tom; 6 easy miles in and around Rockland, Fairfield and along Dallas Road and of course the required coffee and oatmeal-raisin cookie at Bubba Rose on Cooke Street. If you see two sweaty runners sitting outside on a Tuesday or Thursday at about 3:00, say hi!
I had a chance to practice pushing off using my glutes as opposed to using my quads. Mechanically, I found that concentrating on the glutes naturally brought my hips and fore leg forward, tended to bend my knees more and relax the lower leg and ankle. I found that it worked particularly well on hills. I think, on a longer race, one could alternate between powering with the glutes and quads to rest the other. Hmmm, I think that I will try that next week. The Y Tri class lesson for the day was relaxing your lower leg and letting it swing from the knee like a pendulum and then to drive from the hips as if your were cycling. (You’ll have to excuse me here, as my command of body mechanics terminology is not good) It had the effect of lifting my foot quicker and shortening the recovery part of my stride. The natural foot motion that was created resulted in a solid mid sole strike with the foot already moving in the right direction (as opposed to a heal stride where your foot stops each time your foot touches down) The results were definitely positive however, I am finding it difficult to concentrate on all of the lessons as I am running. Let’s see now; first here was running with one foot in front of the other, then there is using your hips to extend the stride, lifting your recovery foot over an invisible rod protruding from the other ankle, moving your hips forward with each stride to extend the stride length without increasing the actual leg motion, maintaining an 180 stride per minute tempo, driving with the hips to increase power, swinging the lower leg like a pendulum and using the upper leg s if you were cycling, prancing up hills, leaning down the incline while going both up and down a hill and all the while monitoring the quickness of the foot recovery and a couple of other things that I can’t think of right now. When does a person have time to run!?! The good part is that I have noticed my style, posture and power are improving and …hopefully … with a few more months of practice while training, I will be closer to the type runner that I have imagined myself during those long runs.
I find it absolutely amazing that I have run for so many years and have learned so little about the mechanics of the sport. I have to recommend the Y Tri club to any one in Victoria starting Tri’s or wanting to learn how to do the sport properly to prevent injury, extend a career and improve performance and results. So far Coach Bob gets all A+’s from me.
I’m taking today and tomorrow off to rest the old bones for the UBC Sprint Tri. My goal: sub 90 minutes.
I’ll talk to you again on Sunday or Monday
Bill