Thoughts for Company

Running is widely regarded as the simplest form of exercise.

Want to get fit, quickly and easily?  Just lace up your running shoes and go!  There’s no need for fancy gear or equipment that you don’t already have.  It can be done any time, anywhere, and by anyone (barring some sort of physical impediment).  So what if your gym is closed all week for the Jewish holidays, or even a forklift can’t lift your gym partner off the couch?  It’s just you and the open road.  No more excuses.

But, as I learned the hard way this weekend, there’s a lot more to the art of running than you might expect - and it’s going to require serious commitment and mental faculty to make it work.

You may recall that I’d been taking some lessons in the Alexander Technique with local guru Dr. Gabriella Minnes Brandes.  So when I learned that Gaby was bringing renowned running innovator and Alexander teacher Malcolm Balk from Montreal to deliver a series of workshops, I carved 4 hours out of my busy weekend (ha!) and patiently waited for Malcolm to turn me into a running artist.

About the clinic (from the Art of Running website):

Learn to run efficiently, effectively and enjoyably at one of Malcolm Balk’s ART OF RUNNING workshops!

‘Art of Running’ workshops are based on the proven principles of the Alexander Technique, which encourage good use of the body and greater awareness of the way it functions. Malcolm Balk is a Level 4 athletics coach, certified Pose Method instructor and a world expert on Alexander Technique and running. He shows how to achieve and maintain fitness without injury and overcome self-imposed limitations to successful running.

I have to admit, seeing this video of Malcolm running on ice in regular running shoes didn’t exactly make it a tough sell.  And I figured the $100 fee wasn’t too steep if I considered how I’d be able to avoid all future ice skate rentals…

To be honest, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with running.  My dad was supposedly a runner in his younger years, though my mom never saw such a need to rush anywhere.  And I’m no scientist, but I guess the powers of genetics managed to create a wholly mediocre hybrid.  I recall participating in grade school track and field clubs, though I certainly can’t claim to have excelled.  I favoured events like the 100 m “dash”, 4x100 m relay (can’t blame me, it’s a team effort!) and long jump - anything under 30 seconds, I suppose.

At that age, you’re encouraged to try basically everything.  There were years when I, the least tall of all girls in my class, was selected for high jump training at a nearby school.  (Maybe I was so bad they brought me just to catch up, or they just wanted to stop me from distracting our legitimate athletes during practices.)

In any case, I enjoyed the social aspects, mainly -  “training” after class at the boys’ school and missing tests for track meets.  As for those “long distance” fitness tests (where the runs should have taken less than 10 minutes) in high school - I’ve effectively erased all memories of when we may or may not have hid behind some bushes and pretended we ran 3 laps instead of 2.

I’ve never considered myself a runner.  Sure, I ran a few Vancouver Sun Runs and posted decent times.  I even ran at lunch hours during some of my university co-op work terms, either with my manager or with a fellow employee who moonlighted as a running coach.  (Did I tell you about the first time we ran together?  I later learned it was a 7.7 km loop around UBC, completed in under 35 minutes - no big feat for real runners, but for a short-legged poser I’ll take it!  Anyway, mid-run and desperately out of breath, I told him I felt like I was going to die, and he ignored me completely and kept on his way.  And it wasn’t exactly like I could just stop by myself, deep in the woods of the UBC forest, without any idea of where I was… I still had to report back to work, after all!)  But I’ve never (intentionally) run more than 10 km at once, and certainly not with the same pretentious vigour of those virtuous marathon trainees around me.

Running simply failed to excite me.  I didn’t seem to experience the same “runner’s high” that I thought I was supposed to feel.  I got bored.  Still, I went through the motions because it’s good for you and, let’s be honest, I’m kind of a sucker for those things.  I was always far happier to be done the run than to have actually been running in the first place.

So when my knee started acting up (and I found myself facing an unrelated physical issue), I took that as my excuse to stop running.  Fortunately, this “ailment” didn’t seem to affect some other, more interesting physical activities.  Funny how that works out perfectly, eh?

When Malcolm first came to deliver the workshops in Vancouver last fall, we had the opportunity to meet, although my knee prevented me from participating.  Malcolm, bless him, called me on my bullshit and said that I could indeed still run, despite my supposed knee problems.  “Alright”, I replied incredulously, “I’ll come to your workshop next time!” - which is a particularly convenient line to use if you’re not sure exactly when “next time” is.

But “next time” turned out to be the past weekend.  I still hadn’t been running for some time, though it wasn’t for a lack of effort (not entirely, anyway.)  I had tried to run on the treadmill the previous week in Vegas, but my knee still hurt, so I was relegated to entertaining the spa’s trail mix dispenser for the remainder of our gym time.

Turns out the running motions I was so sternly attempting to execute were all wrong!  How is it possible that running - something considered so natural, so innate, so instinctual - could be performed so poorly after all these years of evolution?  Apparently, children running barefoot in the yard are fairly good examples of how we old folks should do it, how we used to do it, before we overcomplicated things, learned and then reinforced bad habits.

We spent much of the afternoon session outside in the gorgeous Vancouver sunshine.  And while I can’t explain the concepts nearly as thoroughly (or in such an amusing manner) as Malcolm, I did pick up a few good points.  That “heel-toe” business?  Now why would you want your momentum working against you, forcing you in the opposite direction as you try to propel yourself forward?  Putting on the brakes, literally, is a waste of energy.  Same goes for those long, grandiose strides (lean and leggy runners be damned!) and bopping up and down any more than a few inches.

Of course, Malcolm shared many more juicy tidbits, but I’ll have to leave some of those for him to explain.

(from theartofrunning.com)

Malcolm recorded a video of our running form “before” and “after” his workshop.  The whole group then watched as Malcolm ripped our form to shreds, albeit in his complimentary but constructive sort of way.  And although there were almost a dozen participants at my session, not once did I feel like I didn’t get enough individual attention.  In fact, the group setting gave us the opportunity to learn from others and ample time to work through each of the exercises.  We even did some short hill runs, which - and I swear it’s true - did not even feel like hills.

I managed to squeeze a few extra tips out of Malcolm regarding my bum knee, which shouldn’t be a problem after some basic exercises and adjustments to my running form.

And, perhaps most importantly, I left the workshop surprisingly motivated to take up running again.

If you’re at all interested in running, I’d highly recommend attending Malcolm’s next workshop, likely in Fall 2010.  But until then, you can get a head start by picking up his book, Master The Art of Running: Raising Your Performance with the Alexander Technique.  It’s no substitute for time with Malcolm in the flesh, but it may save you some jabs at your running form when he critiques your videos.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Fitness, Reviews, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.