Free Copy of MEDICUS

But, there is a quid pro quo. My latest e-book,  MEDICUS, is available through several major distribution outlets for $3.99. But you can get a pdf of the book for free if you promise to rate and review it. Learn more about the book here. If you are interested, please leave a comment and how I can get in touch with you. Thanks!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/441898 

Hill Running Secrets of a Big Sur Survivor

In late April, and eight months after knee surgery, I ran the Big Sur Marathon, one of the most beautiful—and hilliest –marathons in the U.S.  In fact, I counted about 6 equivalent Heartbreak Hills over the course of Big Sur.

Needless to say, I was intimidated by the elevation maps of the course and stories from past participants, not to mention the prospect of training and running a race on a knee that underwent meniscus repair last August. But the story has a happy ending. Using my Chi Running technique and a relatively slow pace, I emerged from the race exhilarated and 

intact, at least as far as my legs were concerned.

It was all about proper training and technique. From a training standpoint, I did very little speed work, but a lot of hill work. All my long runs involved steep inclines and declines and few of my shorter runs were done on flat surfaces. I dialed back my usual average mileage in deference to my delicate knees and the rigor of my longer runs.

Now, about attacking hills. Actually, you don’t. I never try to race up hills, especially steep Pacific Coast Highway hills. Instead, I focus on maintaining the same steady turnover as I do on flat surfaces—for me that’s a cadence of 86 steps per minute—slower than optimal, but it works for me. As the incline steepens, I shorten my strides while maintaining my cadence.  On especially long climbs (the longest Big Sur hill rises steadily for 2 miles!!), my central focus is on relaxation.

The key focus in Chi Running is taking your legs out of the game. That means letting gravity pull you along while your core maintains your posture. With hill running, I pretend my legs are like a transmission with endless gears. Whenever I feel tension and resistance from the hill, I “downshift” to release the tension from my legs—in other words, force my column from my butt to my feet to relax and just let my forward lean move my body forward.

It takes tremendous concentration. But on long hills, you have to keep downshifting to remove the resistance and just sort of glide up the hill. On the famous 2-mile Hurricane Point climb at Big Sur, I counted about 12 downshifts to shake the tension and resistance out of my body. It’s not easy to do when you start getting tired, but not impossible if you focus hard enough.

I know this sounds weird, but it does work. The downside is you’re taking such short choppy steps, your movement up a hill sacrifices speed. The upside for me, however, is I didn’t breathe hard on even the toughest hills and didn’t use up excess energy, which means you can theoretically make up any lost time on descents and flat surfaces.

I also employed other standard hill techniques, including a more forceful arm swing to help propel my body forward and focused on maintaining a correct upright posture (eyes straight ahead, neck relaxed, shoulders-over-hips-over-ankles)—slouching leaks energy.

These days, at my advanced age, I tend to bonk at marathons around mile 18. But, for some reason, I made it to mile 22 at Big Sur before my body started screaming no mas! I attribute that to a disciplined approach to hill technique and a healthy terror of a very challenging race.

For more about running hills and the Chi Running approach, check out the website.

For Chi Runners Only--A Reality Check

Chi Running is been a breakthrough for many runners. If done properly and diligently, the Chi Running forms can greatly reduce and even eliminate injury while potentially increasing speed and endurance. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this website and learn about a form of running that could help extend your running career for a lifetime.

But this blog is for people who practice or are thinking about practicing Chi Running. Let’s call it a reality check. Or more to the point, my reality check.

First off, I’ve been diligently practicing Chi Running since 2005, ever since an ill-fated marathon training regimen resulted in painful shin splints, strained hamstrings, and wobbly ankles—all leading to an abysmal Boston Marathon in which I bonked at Mile 16 and cried liked a whipped nine-year-old at the Finish.

As a result, I scrapped my old way of “power” running and picked up the gentle lean, rapid turn-over, and mid-foot strike of Chi Running—all in an effort to never run hurt again. I read all of Chi Running inventor Danny Dreyer’s books, took a couple of workshops plus a few refreshers over the years and through repeated gait analyses have confirmed that my running form is near-perfect. (Keeping in mind that Chi focuses do require constant attention and are not easy to master.)

So, the reality check, based on my 9 years of experience: Does Chi Running eliminate injury and improve speed and endurance?

• ·       Injuries. For the most part, I was injury free until last year. I did have occasional calf and hamstring issues, but those were mainly a result of insufficient warm-up and careening down crazy rock-strewn trails covered in ice. I blame my stupidity, not Chi for those mishaps. More seriously, I had knee surgery last year, caused mainly by a slight congenital hip misalignment that subtly altered my foot strike, which over the years increased the torque on my knee, leading to a meniscus issue. The surgery went fine, but my knee is again acting up and I’m back on the shelf for a few weeks. The verdict? Chi Running has greatly reduced the aches and pains of running, but the bottom line is, however gentle and efficient, running—even Chi Running—is still an impact sport and any slight physiological weakness or imperfection will surface over time as an injury. Chi Running is good—but it’s not perfect.
• ·       Endurance. Many Chi runners insist that they can run farther with less effort with Chi Running. In my case, I don’t see it. The farther I run, the more tired I get. However, I didn’t start doing Chi Running until I hit age 51, so maybe I was hitting a point of diminishing returns anyway. While I wasn’t running farther with less effort, I was running as far with no increase in effort. Maybe Chi helped me somewhat offset the aging process.
• ·       Speed. Again, no difference there. My speed didn’t increase or diminish. My first marathon using Chi was just as fast as my personal record set two years earlier using my old running form. Maybe the aging hypothesis proposed above as applied to endurance also applies to speed. I am certainly not faster—and at age 60 I am slowing down.  

The takeaways—at least for me—are these: Chi running has greatly reduced my aches and pains, even if I haven’t enjoyed speed or endurance enhancements. I’m pretty sure my results are not on account of form issues, because my Chi form is pretty righteous.

I’m thinking that perhaps the purveyors of Chi Running may over promise a bit. You can still get hurt doing Chi Running, because your feet are still hitting the ground, regardless what style you use.  And while I’m sure people with really crappy form before starting Chi do see improvements in speed and endurance when they adopt the efficient Chi form, learning Chi Running is not necessarily a panacea.

Chi Running, as with most things, falls a little short of being a miracle. But I still think that what it does offer is pretty great and it has certainly prolonged my running career—and it could have the same effect  on yours!

MEDICUS Debuts

Lucky you! Now you can finally download my latest novel, MEDICUS. The pre-sale is over and now you gotta pay the full price, still a measly $3.99—hey, I’m not Stephen King! I’ve been told it’s a pretty good yarn, moves quickly and has a nice grisly vengeance theme. Learn more about it at Barnes and Noble, Apple, Amazon, and Smashwords. Your comments and ratings are appreciated.