Relentless Forward Progress_ A Guide to Running Ultramarathons - Bryon Powell [87]
This is a big no-no in running for all distances, but particularly for long ones where the name of the game is conserving energy. For if you’re fried and fatigued, then no matter how strong you are, you’re goose is cooked (even if you’re vegan).
Your future barefoot running stride is more efficient for two more key reasons. First, when you’re running barefoot, or with a barefoot-like stride, your stride shortens as your stride rate increases. You go from a stride rate from as few as 110 strides per minute to more like 180, or about that of pedaling a bicycle. This helps further conserve momentum (less braking), reduces the work your legs have to do with each landing (running is really a controlled fall, and the shorter the distance we have to fall or land on each leg, the less work it has to do, and the less it’ll be fatigued over the distance), and greatly reduces the up-and-down bouncing we do from stride to stride. In a traditional shoe we try to “stride out” or reach long between strides to maximize the cushioning of our shoes—in essence, to land on our heels. When we go barefoot and get off the heels, we bring the strides in closer and closer. (This again conserves your legs; it’s like going into a smaller gear on a bicycle to get up a hill . . . less leg work, less leg fatigue.) Additionally, it means we don’t have to leap up and down between strides to stride out or reach long.
Did you know the average runner bounces 3 inches up and down between strides? That doesn’t sound like much, does it? But do you know what that is over the course of a marathon? That’s a full vertical mile a runner’s gone uphill at the same time he or she has run
26.2. Multiply that by nearly four for a 100-miler, and you’ve run over 20,000 feet into the sky, even on the flattest of course! Even worse, though, is it’s 4 vertical miles you’ve come downhill onto your heel or foot, driving force up through the body. That’s why we’re so wrecked at the end: because we’ve been bouncing up and down, pounding our bodies over the distance. When you shorten your stride, you lessen the bounce. And when you train barefoot, you can feel yourself bouncing (going barefoot, or awarefoot, is really a game of awareness or shutting off the iPod and going inside your body to find your lightest stride), and work to eliminate it. Reduce your bounce by an inch, and you’ve eliminated one mountain on your course. Reduce it by another inch, and that’s two fewer Pikes Peaks you have to climb in your race. See the difference?
Training barefoot helps you wake up the mind–body connection, find your lightest stride, and develop yourself into the most efficient runner you can be. It greatly reduces impact on your body, too, helping you to go the distance year after year. Finally, by feeling the ground, you gain greater proprioception (body sense over the ground), gaining the agility (becoming more nimble) that helps you to dance from rock to rock, keep from falling, or prevent rolling an ankle. And of course, as a longtime barefoot runner, I’d say it just feels great, too. There’s something amazingly special about connecting with Mother Nature through the dirt beneath my feet, and truly being connected to the trail. When I’m barefoot, I’m no longer watching the scenery, but a part of it. I feel I draw power from the earth, power and strength that help me go the distance.
Less is more when it comes to running the distance; that’s why great runners like Anthony Krupicka have been shaving the heels off their shoes for years. Just get into this slowly. Baby-step your way in with a little barefoot running, and very slow, incremental changes to your form and your footwear. As the Tortoise always said to the Hare, slow and steady wins the race. Have fun!
For more information on barefoot running including proper form, a step-by-step transition, overcoming the