Keeping Your Eyes On The Horizon

Head up. Eyes on the horizon line
Don’t lean forward; keep your body posture upright
Head on your neck, neck on your shoulders, shoulders above your back, back above your hips
Relax your shoulders, relax your arms, relax your jaw
Breathe from your belly button, not your chest
RELAX

Running is a complex collection of movements. Swing your arms, lift your knees, kick your heels, focus on the landing zone, pull then follow through. Rinse and repeat.

Oh, and remember to breath, relax and be efficient in your upper body movements. The smoother and more efficient you can transfer power to the ground, the faster and further you can go.

Easy, eh?

It’s amazing that your brain and body keep that complexity together and running efficiently. And it does, as long as you don’t think about it. But when you think about it, your form falls apart and then the inevitable thing happens, you slow down. And we all hate that, don’t we.

I hate that. A lot.

Head up. Eyes on the horizon line

There has to be a short cut, right? Maybe I can get away with that latest and greatest food supplement? Oh, wait a second, it only works for some and only until you get caught. Isn’t that what happened to Ben Johnson and Floyd Landis, to mention a few.

Right... Ok, let’s skip that one, shall we?

How about a heart rate monitor or a pair of those cool new shoes with a fancy computer interface or springs? Toys, yup, that’s the way to go. It has to be doesn't it? Isn’t that why they have all those fancy ads in all those fancy, glossy magazines? All those pieces of consumer gold have magic sprinkled inside. They all have to don’t they, to make you faster and help you go further? They wouldn’t print that stuff it wasn’t true, would they? Would they?

Don’t lean forward; keep your body posture upright

I try all sorts of thing to keep this loco-locomotive on the tracks. I do things that will get me from the round house to the rail station where the passengers can get the heck off my aching back and on to their own darn feet.

I try letting that fast guy in front of me pull me along with that imaginary rope I have tied to him. I just hope he doesn’t realize that it’s me back here slowing him down. Maybe he’ll use it as his excuse for not setting a PB,

"Yeah, that slow middle aged guy was tugging on me the whole way. Yeah, that's him over there, the one with the beard and ear rings. Wait here, I’ll be back in a second. I want to give him a piece of my mind."

Head on your neck, neck on your shoulders, shoulders above your back, back above your hips

I’ve tried negotiating with this old body, telling it that it can "go walkies" at the next corner, or the next water station, or when I get to that kid in the funny looking hat at the side of the road. I try and make a deal with these under-trained and over-extended legs, but no matter how much I sweet talk, they ain’t buying any of it.

"Dinner and a movie after? Shower and a massage? I’ll make it worth your while, honest! Please? Purdy please?"

"Nope, not going to happen today, dude," comes the reply.

Relax your shoulders, relax your arms, relax your jaw

So, maybe the trick is to think about it all the time and not just when you need it the most. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Except that when you try, you can’t keep it all together, because you can’t think of it all at once. But you have to think of it all at the same time, because if you don’t you’ll lose your form, or you won’t maintain your pace or keep your mind off all the aches and pains.

It’s like picking up soup cans from a broken grocery bag. You pick up three, four, five, maybe even six and then as you reach for that last one, you drop one of the ones in your arms. Maybe you drop the whole shebang back on the floor.

Well, it’s a known medical fact that you can only actively hold five to seven different ideas in your head at once before the brain has to drop one of those darn soup cans to pick up another.

Ok so, maybe remembering them all isn’t the way to go. Back to square one.

Breathe from your belly button, not your chest

I guess when all else fails, you have to fall back on the tried and true. Training and repetition. If you’ll pardon the pun, I heard that it has a good track record and has gone the distance. So, during my lunch time and evening runs, I spend some time focusing on running using proper form, only focusing on one element at a time, trying to get it ingrained so that it’s a learned, automatic response. When I have that one point down, I switch to another, then another. At the track I try and put all the trained responses to controlled testing, not thinking about it, just doing it.

Remembering to not think about it is the point. You have to be the skill you are trying to perfect. To be the bunny, you have to become the bunny. But you have to practice it first, perfecting it one run and one skill at a time.

RELAX

So, in the end, what’s a runner to do? How does one put all the rules, training and good advise to work? I guess you plan, you remember, you use tools that work for you and practice, practice, practice. When race day comes you implement and get it done.

Head up. Eyes on the horizon line
Don’t lean forward; keep your body posture upright
Head on your neck, neck on your shoulders, shoulders above your back, back above your hips
Relax your shoulders, relax your arms, relax your jaw
Breathe from your belly button, not your chest
RELAX

By Mark G. Collis

Revised: February 4, 2008.