Lansing Marathon Report

Yesterday was the big day for my daughter. I paced her for Lansing's inaugural marathon. The weather was chilly but made MORE chilly by the sometimes 20 mile an hour head winds along the longest straightaway of the course. Nevertheless Lansing's first marathon was a great success. Owen Anderson (Race Director) and Blue Cross Blue Shield (Primary Sponsor) are to be commended for making Lansing into a cooler community by having a signature event like this marathon. The course was great but not without it's challenges. The weather was daunting at times with those northern headwinds. But in the end my 14 year old daughter plowed through 26 miles of pavement to make the distance her own in 6 hours. Without too many miles under her belt, other than her sheer desire to finish the thing, she prevailed. So it goes without saying, I'm proud of her achievement but even more so, I'm humbled by the fact that she would choose to do such a thing in the first place. Daughters are really cool. And for what its worth I cracked 180 this morning: 179.7. Life is good!

Hill Training and "The Bounce"

Every Wednesday rolls around and I'm so happy to go to this Lansing Marthon running clinic hosted by Owen (Anderson). Probably part of it is I get to run by him some of the things I've picked up along the way about running and have them challenged by someone who is so respectful. Every teacher and coach says things "as if they were truth" when in reality they can actually be things that are wrong or not as correct as they could be. One thing that I learned about running in a cross country camp from my high school days was the idea of "running tall". Basically the concept is one of running economy. Should you lean a bit or be straight up and down right above your legs. The whole "Good Form Running" plus all the other various incarnations of this movement seem to indicate that there should be a lean. I was taught and consequently teach that people should run tall keeping their bodies squarely over their power plant...their legs. Also that they should run evenly    and not waste energy moving up and down too much. In contrast, Owen talks about taking advantage of elastic energy when running and he says to bounce a bit in your stride. I was resisting the bounce. However he went on to explain that it takes advantage of energy that involves your muscles contracting and expanding naturally during running as opposed to willing your muscles to do the same thing which would interfere with economy. In the end, accepting that the bounce was a good thing versus a suspect thing was one item I came away with from tonight and I feel blessed to have such a kind coach.