Coach Jeff is back

Three weeks we have had to do without the ever popular Wednesday night running sessions led by Coach Jeff.  Two sessions took place with a stand-in coach, although I was unable to attend those due to other commitments, and the other Wednesday was a public holiday (Swiss National day - 1st August), so no session took place.  We were all happy to see him back!

For a welcome present he got us to do pinwheeel. If you don't know what pinwheel is, it is a very hard intervals session.  The pinwheel session this time lasted for 20 minutes.  Pinwheel consists of a centre and then 4 spokes that lead out from the centre.  You either run hard out to the end of the spoke and then easy back, or vice versa depending on what coach Jeff says.  The whole group is split into similar paced runners, and each of those smaller groups is assigned a spoke.  After completing your assigned spoke each group rotates either clockwise or anticlockwise to the next spoke, depending on what coach Jeff says.

I was in the group with Femi and Tobias, both extremely fit runners.  Femi is training for the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc® and Tobias is training for the Jungfrau Marathon.  Tobias and myself being extremely competitive, we gave it our all from the moment go.  At first I was out sprinting Tobias and he was very surprised, since he usually beats me.  My lack of speed endurance soon showed up though, and I started dropping back.  I have the speed but not the speed endurance it seems.  Speed endurance is the ability to cover distance at speed, and not just how fast you can sprint (which is speed), or how long you can run (which is endurance).  This is what I will focus on in my training over the coming weeks, but is no surprise that I have a lack of speed endurance at present, having only run just over 70km in the last month.  Speed endurance is critical when attempting a sub 3 hour marathon however.

After completing the pinwheel exercise we rounded the session off with some group resistance training exercises.  You can see examples of these in the photos above and below.  We were all attached together by means of resistance bands, and then as a group we had to complete sets of both lunges and squats.  The resistance bands ensure that the hamstrings also get a good workout, and not just the quadriceps.

Next week is the final lesson of the current series, so we will be repeating the benchmark run that we performed in the first lesson of the series.  It will be interesting to see if I have improved or if my performance has dropped yet again.  I predict that my time will be similar to last time, as although I have not trained much over the last month, my energy levels have come back up to normal again.

With this weekend set to be a scorcher in terms of temperature (well in Switzerland at least) I wish you all a hot, sunny weekend.

High intensity mix of bodyweight exercises and sprints at the Hillseeker Wednesday night running session

Lunges using TRX Suspension Training®

I arrived at Saalsporthalle last Wednesday evening for the group coached running session not knowing what coach Jeff had in store for us.  He is always full of surprises (good ones of course).

Every session begins with a warm up, and during the warm up I got the chance to meet another blogger in the group, Christine Syrad.  She sometimes blogs about Jeff's coaching sessions too.  By strange coincidence she also guest blogs for Newly Swissed, which is where my post on running in Switzerland was recently published.  For anyone not living in Zürich let me tell you that Zürich seems like a very small place in terms of the number of coincidences like this that occur on a regular basis.

Anyway back to the point....the session.....

After the warm up and a few sprints through the agility ladder that was laid out for us, we waited for Jeff to explain the rest of the evening's training protocol.  I was a little distracted at first, because for some reason someone had discarded a bag of weed on the floor next to where Jeff was standing.  For certain people a bag of weed may have been a great find (and an interesting evening's entertainment), but for a group of runners about to perform an hour of intense exercise it was simply kicked to the side, out of the way.

Distractions over, Jeff informed us that he had designed a high intensity circuit involving bodyweight exercises and sprints to "induce fatigue quickly".  There were a few worried faces after hearing those last few words I can tell you.

The circuit that he had designed for us involved doing 16 lunges using TRX Suspension Training® equipment (8 on each leg), running a short distance to the stairs in front of the Saalsporthalle and sprinting 3 times up and down them, running to another location where we had to perform 12 bodyweight squats, then sprinting back to the start point.

The idea was for each person to do as many laps of the circuit as possible within a time limit of 20 minutes.  The average number of circuits completed by the group in the time limit was 4.

If you pushed yourself to your limit, that was tiring enough by itself.  But just in case we still had some energy left, Jeff did a pair exercise with us to round the session off.  The idea was for it to be a fun competition, with people competing to be the first pair to complete 3 sets of 5 "special Jeff burpees", a short sprint and 5 jump squats.

Some of the group then went for some beers, whilst Femi (who is training for the UTMB®) went off for another run wearing a 9kg weighted vest.  My preference after an intense session is usually to head home and rest, but I promise I will come out with you for a beer one time though guys.  One beer or two won't kill me!

Femi wearing a weighted vest

Chi Running workshop review

Fiona with Danny Dreyer, the inventor of ChiRunning®

Last Saturday I attended a ChiRunning® workshop in Zürich, held by Fiona McLellan.  Fiona is a Chi Running and Chi Walking certified instructor, of which there are only two in Switzerland.  She achieved her certification in May 2011.

Fiona is originally Scottish but has been living in Switzerland for many years.  She usually runs her courses in German but also provides explanations in English as required.  There were 5 of us in the course last Saturday, and as most of us were English speaking she held the course in English.

The first thing Fiona wanted to know was what our reasons for attending the workshop were. Three of the participants came in the hope of finding a way to run injury free, one was hoping to learn better technique and then there was me.  I was there because I am interested in finding out about running trends, so that I can tell you guys (and ladies) about them.  I recently did a similar review of Pose Method® running.

What is Chi Running?

Chi Running teaches safe and efficient, natural running technique, with the aim of reducing injury and improving performance.  It is a method of running instruction developed by Danny Dreyer, an American ultra runner and t'ai chi practitioner, and it has been around since 1999.

The workshop

After a theoretical introduction, Fiona started with a series of simple exercises to get us to start focussing on achieving the correct posture for Chi Running.  The correct posture for Chi Running involves contracting the muscles at the front of your pelvis and maintaining a strong core, whilst keep everything else as relaxed as possible.

Gravity should be used to assist your running and acceleration and deceleration is achieved by either increasing or decreasing the lean of your body.  The lean should originate from the ankles and not from the waist.  The neck should be long and the chin level so that a C shape is formed by tracing from your chin, over your head, down your back, and then from the back of your pelvis towards the front of your pelvis and up to your navel.  The runner's ankle, hip-bone, shoulder and ear should be in a straight line when landing.

In Chi Running the arms are considered very important.  When running on the flat they should be doing just as much work as the legs (50-50), and that changes when running uphill or downhill.  When running uphill, Fiona told us that the arms do 70% of the work and the legs do the remaining 30%.  The effort should be made to swing the arms backwards rather than forwards, as they will naturally come forward by themselves unaided, due to the pendulum effect.  The angle of the forearm to the upper arm should be 90 degrees and the hands should be cupped as if holding a butterfly inside your hand that you neither want to squash nor to let escape.  The arms should not cross the centreline of the body, as Chi Running teaches that any movement not in the direction of movement is inefficient.

The steps should be small and quick and the whole foot lands at once, so as to help absorb impact (but in minimalist shoes or when running barefoot, Chi Runners land on the forefoot first and then immediately come down onto the whole foot).  To take off is simply a matter of lifting the heel as if peeling off a plaster.

After doing exercises to practise using the lean, getting in the C shaped posture and contracting our core, relaxing the rest of our bodies and minimising unnecessary effort, we headed outside to the park.  Here in the park we started putting everything together, and then Fiona told us about the Chi Running recommended cadence.  Chi Running teaches a cadence of 180 steps per minute (the same as Pose method running).  We used a metronome to practise running at 180bpm.  Some of us in the group found this cadence very natural and others found it too fast.  In general the ones that found it too fast were prominent heel strikers.

Chi Running teaches not to reach out for the ground in front but rather to open the stride out at the back. Fiona told us that when she was first learning Chi Running technique they practised running over logs, not by lifting the foot up at the front but by lifting it up at the back.  This is the opposite of what most of us would probably do naturally when faced with a log in our path, but if you try it you will see that you can also get over a log this way too.

Chi Running also teaches that the legs begin just under the ribcage rather than from the top of the leg alone.  We did an exercise where we had to run normally, then stop running and walk as fast as possible then run again.  What we found after fast walking was that our pelvis continued to rotate slightly whilst running.  This, Fiona says, helps us to achieve a slightly longer stride and is a good thing to do.

Fiona then went on to touch on the topics of hill running, and breathing when Chi Running.  These topics are covered in more detail in advanced Chi Running courses, but she told us that in terms of breathing it is good to breathe through the nose as much as possible, because when we breathe through the nose we naturally tend to use our stomach to breathe, rather than using purely the upper area of our lungs.  The part where she touched on hill running was extremely interesting, because I asked her how you should run up a really steep hill when you are unable to put your ankles down (because the gradient is just too severe).  I have never seen anything like it before, but she showed us that you should turn sideways and run up the hill.  It looked rather odd but it may be worth trying next time you are running up a really steep hill, because running on your tiptoes is very tiring and you won't be able to do that for hours on end.

In the final part of the lesson Fiona filmed us running and then we did some video analysis on the computer.  She gave each of us individual feedback, and my feedback was that I don't really use my arms at all and that I should try to use them more actively.  I also reach out slightly for the ground in front rather than opening up my stride at the back.  If I worked on these 2 points, apparently I would have a good Chi Running technique.

I found the workshop extremely informative, and if you too are interested in doing a Chi Running course in Zürich, the next one will take place on the 25th August.  Fiona will also be offering advanced courses as of the 22nd September.  You can visit her website www.runwithfiona.ch for more information.

Series 5 of the Hillseeker Wednesday Night Running Sessions gets underway

Last Wednesday was the start of Series 5 of the eagerly anticipated Hillseeker Wednesday night running sessions.  At the start of the series Jeff always gets us to do a benchmark performance test, which he then repeats at the end of the series.  Ideally there should be some improvement between the second and the first attempt, although last series did not go so well towards the end for me, as I was suffering from extremely low energy levels.

The benchmark test this time was a cross country run near the Saalsporthalle on a mix of grass, sawdust (the Finnenbahn), gravel and asphalt.  The route started with a grassy uphill then went on to gravel, joined the Finnenbahn for a gentle climb to the highest point, descended the Finnenbahn, then exited it and took us down the road towards the sports playing fields.  The final dash to the finish was a flat grassy section.

The 2 fastest guys (Tobias and Fernando) were absent from the class so it was down to Ryan (the other MDS 2012 finisher) and I to battle it out for first place.  He took off like a rocket up the hill and I didn't stand a chance of keeping up.  My energy levels had recovered slightly compared to the previous days but were still lower than normal (and in fact still are).  I held on in though, staying as close to him as I possibly could.  The gap between us was around 50m by the time we reached the highest point of the course.  On the downhill I decided to attack and catch him up.  I caught up with him just before the end of the downhill and stayed on his heels all the way along the flat to the finish.  Our final time was in the same second, with him just a whisker ahead.  Our shared time was 5 minutes and 30 seconds.

After allowing everyone time to finish and get their heart rate back to normal we did some mental toughness talks relating to how you can use interaction with others to improve your own performance.  Jeff told us that he wanted us to do 3 hill sprints, each time using a different mental toughness technique.  The first time we were to run up the hill as fast as possible and imagine that the person in front was our prey and we were a predator, looking to catch and devour them.  The second time we were to use all our energy to encourage someone else to do well.  Then the final time we were to pick someone very special and do the run in honour of them.  I chose to do the last run in honour of my late grandmother, the only close family member who has passed away so far touchwood.

To do the second run we used elastic bands and paired up.  One of the pair ran with the band around their waist, whilst the other provided some resistance and a lot of encouragement for the other to run faster.  Then for the third run we had to write down on a piece of paper the name of the person we were doing the run in honour of, and then keep the paper in our hand whilst running.

After completing all 3 hill sprints we regrouped and Jeff asked us if any of the 3 tactics made us run faster in our opinion.  Several members of the group thought that running in honour of someone was a very powerful technique.  I myself found that technique very powerful, but preferred the one where someone was encouraging me to run faster.  I felt that running in honour of someone, I was too willing to push myself past my safe limits.

If you feel like going out and trying those techniques I would be interested to know how you get on with them, and which one you prefer.  They can be useful tools for your tool belt that you can pull out when needed.

Pose Method® and Efficient Running Workshop Review

Gravity is your friend in efficient running

In the article below I attempt to give an unbiased review of the Pose Method® and efficient running workshop that I attended yesterday in Richterswil near Zürich, led by Jeff Grant of Hillseeker Fitness.  In the past I was of the mindset that running is something that should come naturally to us and is not something that needs to be taught.  I started running myself at the age of seven.  However, I went into the workshop with a very open mind, determined to see if the Pose Method® could be another useful tool that I could use in my drive to become a quicker, more efficient and injury free long distance runner.

Background

The Pose Method® is a system for teaching human movement, developed in the 70's by 2 time Olympic coach Dr Nicholas S. Romanov.  Whilst the system can be applied to all sports, most are still in the theory stage (cycling, swimming, speed skating and skiing for example).  Pose Method® running on the other hand is well developed.  The aim of the Pose Method® is to improve training and performance, and to reduce injuries.

Description

The Pose Running method is all based around the "pose", a position which every runner will attain at some point during their stride pattern.  This position is characterised by one leg on the ground (ideally slightly bent) with the other leg bent at the knee and hanging underneath the hip.  The aim of the method is to reduce the time it takes the runner to get to this position from the moment their foot first strikes the ground (time to reach Pose), and to reduce the time it takes to get from "pose" to the point where the back foot leaves the ground (time from Pose to air).  The "ideal" time to reach pose is one 30th of a second.  The way to check this is to record yourself and then play back the video at 30 frames per second.  Click here for an example of fast pose running by Dr Romanov.

In addition to the time to reach Pose and the time from Pose to air, there are several other key ideas that I will describe below.

1) Conservation of energy

Any energy that does not help to propel the runner forward should be conserved.  The term Jeff uses for this is minimum effective dosage or M.E.D. The top half of the body should remain fairly still (other than the arms), the head should remain as level as possible and not bob up and down, and unnecessary tension throughout the whole body should be eliminated.  The arms should also not cross the body.

2) Foot strike

Ideally the runner should land on the forefoot and then the heel should come down and "kiss" the ground.  Theoretically it would be faster if the runner remained on their forefoot without bringing their heel down to kiss the ground, but this is extremely tough on the Achilles tendon and the lower calf muscle and so for anything other than than a short sprint it makes sense to let the heel kiss the ground.  Heel striking is the worst possible foot strike as it carries the highest associated risk of injury due to the increased jarring effect.

3) Cadence

The ideal minimum recommended cadence is 180 foot strikes per minute.  This is closely related to muscle-tendon elasticity, and making use of the natural spring effect of our bodily tissues.

4) The pull

The idea of the Pose Method® of running is that to take quick steps the runner should focus on pulling their foot upwards in the groove underneath their hip rather than focussing on pushing the leg down towards the ground.  You can go out and try this by yourself.  Try to run up a flight of stairs quickly and you have 2 ways to accomplish it.  Either you focus on using your legs like a piston and pushing them into the ground using your quads or you try to keep your foot muscles and quads relaxed and focus on pulling your back leg up quickly using the hamstrings.  If you listen to the sounds made by these 2 different methods you will notice that the first is a lot noisier than the second and so has a higher associated risk of injury.

5) Gravity

Using gravity to our advantage is the basis of efficient running.  Leaning forward by opening the hips (and not just leaning forward with the head), we can take advantage of gravity to help us run faster.  The next step is not to stop that forward momentum when our foot strikes the ground.  As we land our centre of gravity should be over our foot and not behind it, and our foot should have as little contact with the ground as possible.


The Hillseeker Fitness Workshop

There were 7 of us in the workshop, 3 men and 4 ladies.  After  a brief introduction Jeff took us outside to record videos of each of us running.  This was before we had received any instruction on Pose running so that he could assess our natural styles.

When we went back inside he started to go through our videos and provide us with feedback.  I was a little nervous when it was my turn, because I was wondering how my technique was going to look on video, having never recorded myself running before.  It was also a chance to confirm whether I was a heel striker (like I used to be), a mid foot striker (which I thought I am now) or a forefoot striker.

Overall my style was not too bad.  Playing the video frame by frame at 30 frames per second revealed that I was definitely a mid foot striker and my cadence was more or less 180 strikes per second.  The frames to reach Pose was 2 (recall the ideal figure is 1) and the frames from Pose to air was 2.5.  On landing, the weight-bearing leg remained bent, which Jeff says is good as it reduces the chance of knee injuries.  The constructive criticism Jeff gave was that I carried a lot of tension in my upper body, my steps were louder than they needed to be and I was pulling back my toes and reaching out for the ground meaning that my centre of gravity was slightly behind the foot when landing (causing a braking effect).  He wanted to focus on reducing the tension in my upper body, get me to land more on my fore foot and try to stop me reaching out for the ground so that on landing my centre of gravity would be over my landing foot.

The rest of the day consisted of the theory behind the ideal efficient running technique, interspersed with lots of technique drills.  Each drill focussed on one aspect of efficient running technique at a time and then now and again Jeff would give us time to try out consolidated runs where we tried to apply everything we had leaned from each of the separate drills together.

The technique drills included buddy starts (where you hold your buddy while he leans forward and runs on the spot and then let him go so that for the first few steps gravity is assisting him), heel holds (where you hold your buddy's heel while he tries to pull it up snappily several times on each foot and then he goes off for a run where due to the lack of resistance he now ends up pulling his heel up very quickly), barefoot running in the agility ladder (to encourage forefoot running), running with your hand in front of your belly button and trying to touch it but never letting your hand touch it (to encourage opening at the hips), running with your hands on your bottom (once again to encourage you to open up), running up flights of stairs (focussing on quick and quiet steps using fast pulls of the foot upwards rather than loud piston like steps where the leg is pushed downwards), doing sidesteps then turning to run forwards (so that gravity assists your first few steps), running with bungee cords attached to your feet (to encourage quick snappy pulls of the foot under the hip and precision) and framing (where you run with a buddy behind you holding on to your shoulders so that your chest is open and so that you don't kick excessively backwards).

Each person in the group found that different drills worked best for them, and I think my personal favourites were the sidestep into forward running and the running with your hand in front of the belly button trying to catch it but not allowing your hand to touch.

Afterwards we recorded new videos of each of us running so that we could see if the session had helped us to run more Pose like.  Most of us noticed some differences in our before and after videos, except for 2 of the participants who were seasoned runners and for whom I guess it would take a lot of time and effort to make changes to their running form.  They were definitely heel strikers before and definitely heel strikers afterwards, and they were also overreaching with the front foot both before and after.

In terms of my after video, the tension in my upper body was somewhat reduced (although I was still clenching my left hand in a fist), my foot strike changed more towards forefoot than mid foot and my centre of gravity on landing shifted over my foot rather than behind it like before.  My steps were also somewhat quieter and my frames to reach Pose came down from 2 to 1.75 and my frames from Pose to air came down from 2.5 to 1.5.  You could say that after the session I ran more Pose like than I did before the session.

Summary

Is there one technique that can be applied to all runners?  I am not sure, but for me personally a lot of the things in the Pose method® seem to make sense.  On landing it makes sense to me that the Centre of Gravity should be over the landing foot and not behind it, and it also makes sense to me that heel striking is never a good thing in terms of injury risk.  Regarding the cadence, it may seem too fast for some runners, but as the before and after videos showed I was already running at a cadence of around 180bpm before even receiving any instruction, so for me the recommended minimum cadence seemed fine.

Does it make you a more efficient runner?  This is where some of the anti Pose method® camp say that the technique fails.  They say that after applying the Pose technique some runners have shown a reduced running economy in tests.  The pro Pose method® camp say that maybe the runners did not learn or apply the technique properly.  This for me is an interesting open question.  Either way, there are a lot of things to remember in order to fully apply the Pose technique to your running, and for some runners attempting to change their running style so drastically may cause their running performance to be reduced at least in the short term.  I myself however enjoy trying out different running styles, having already transitioned myself without help from a former heel striker to a mid foot striker, having already started touching on barefoot and minimalistic running, and so for me, applying aspects of the Pose technique to my running will be another of my interesting experiments.  Some people enjoy the simplicity of running, and others like me enjoy treating it as a science experiment and trying out different styles, reading about the biomechanics of running etc.

Whichever way you view Pose running, Jeff leads a very interesting workshop and even an anti Pose method® runner should consider going into a similar workshop with an open mind and seeing what they get out of it.  Maybe nothing or maybe something, but it can't hurt trying.

I would be interested to hear your personal views on Pose running, both for and against.  Or maybe your thoughts on one of the other schools of running like Chi running or Evolution running.

Pacman game (in real life running form)

The photo on the left was taking during last night's coached running session with Jeff Grant.  You would be mistaken if you thought the person in the bright orange jacket was a roadside worker who decided to take on one of our group members in a head to head sprint.  He is in fact a fellow group member.

Whilst the jacket may not be a fashion accessory, it has a significance.  The guy (or lady) wearing it is Pacman (or Ms Pacman).

Jeff decided that last night's session would be a good chance to play a real life game of Pacman.  The rules are as follows:

1. You have a Pacman (or several Pacmans) and you have ghosts

2. Pacman wears the fluorescent orange jacket to identify himself/herself

3. The area of play is a square

4. Ghosts run hard back and forth along their allotted side of the square

5. Pacman runs one lap around the square as fast as he can

6. Ghosts may only take rests at the corners of the square

7. Pacman has one safe side of the square where there are no ghosts and he can go a bit slower (if he wants to)

8. When Pacman and ghosts are running in the same direction along one side of the square they race each other to the next corner of the square

9. If Pacman outsprints a ghost he is awarded 2 points

10. If a ghost outsprints Pacman he is awarded 1 point

11. After completing his one lap, Pacman nominates the next Pacman and he then becomes a ghost

12. The person with the highest number of points at the end of a fixed time period wins (although we lost track of the scores)

Basically Pacman is a hard intervals session, disguising itself as a fun game so that you don't even notice how hard you are working. This was exactly the point of the session - when you are really struggling mentally, find a way to distract your mind so that your body can get on with the task at hand unimpeded.  Anyone who has run a marathon or even more so an ultra knows that mental toughness plays a huge part in completing the race.  Physical strength alone is not enough.  So when you are really struggling, try to make the situation seem like fun, turn it into a game, imagine certain colours that work for you (see last week's post mental training with colours) or whatever else it may be.

Last night's session was rounded off with a core workout involving butterfly kicks and reverse crunches.  By that point it was raining (yes Jeff's consistent record of it raining at some point during every single one of his sessions that I have attended was indeed the case again last night), and we got rather wet and muddy.  I am sure Jeff does a rain dance before the session, and asks for rain so that he can increase our mental toughness to the point where none of us even batter an eyelid at a rainstorm anymore. 

What will next week bring?  Who knows, but another nice surprise and a fun session from Jeff I am sure.

Mental training with colours - does it make a difference to your running or is it just red raging bull?

The Finnenbahn where we did the mental and barefoot training

Last night was my regular weekly group running session with coach Jeff Grant, and this time coach Jeff covered the following topics:

1) Minimising contact time with the ground
2) Barefoot running
3) Mental training - imagining certain colours whilst running

First let me get the negative energy out of my system by starting with one small complaint, and then I will be able to continue complaint free for the rest of the post.  So here goes.  Bad weather - almost from the start we were doomed weather wise.  It has rained every single session for the last month or so, and last night was no exception to the rule.  As coach Jeff says we must always try to find a positive point, regardless of how bad the situation first seems, so I will see the positive as the fact that this time it was only rain and not hail.  Hooray!  Now that I have got that out of my system, let me continue with a description of the session itself.

The first drills involved the agility ladders, which most of us in the group were familiar with.  Jeff explained that we should try to minimise the time that our feet are in contact with the ground, and that we should try to land on our mid foot.  It is perfectly fine for the heel to come down to the ground after the mid foot has struck the ground, but the heel should not strike the ground first.  Heel striking tends to cause us to brake.  He reinforced the idea of getting us to land on our mid foot and minimising our contact time with the ground by making us run through the agility ladders as quickly as possible, taking very small quick steps (since the rungs of the ladder are close together).  Landing mid foot is something that I have already been focussing on for some time now, so the drills felt rather natural to me.  As you know I have been doing some barefoot running, and when you are barefoot running heel striking is not an option, as it hurts if you land on a stone with your heel.  My Newton Sir Isaac guidance trainers are also meant to help runners transition from heel striking to mid foot striking.  The fact that I didn't really notice any difference wearing them compared to wearing normal running shoes suggests that maybe I was mid foot striking already.

After we finished the drills with the agility ladders Jeff gave us the exciting news that we would be heading to the Finnenbahn at the bottom of the Uetliberg and doing some barefoot running and mental exercises involving colours.  Everyone seemed rather pleased at this news, and off we went with a spring in our step to the start of the Finnenbahn.  As I have explained before, Finnenbahns (Finnish paths) are paths made of soft materials to allow runners a more forgiving surface than asphalt or concrete.  You can find them all over Zurich, and most likely all over Switzerland too.  Up till now I have come across 4 in Zurich throughout my travels: 1 near the zoo, 1 in Irchel park, 1 at the bottom of the Uetliberg near the Saalsporthalle (the one I discovered last night for the first time) and 1 on the Hönggerberg. Until last night all the ones I knew were made up of wood chips. However, the Finnenbahn near the Saalsporthalle is made up of sawdust.

I was not sure if everyone in the group would be up for barefoot running on the Finnenbahn, as I had imagined the surface would be wood chips (like the ones I had run on before), but once I saw it was sawdust I knew everyone would be in.  The sawdust was very fine, and it was really, really soft on the feet.  There is no way you would hurt your feet on that surface unless there was a foreign object lying on it like glass.  As I predicted everyone took off their shoes and socks and got ready to go.

The mental training for last night was done on the Finnenbahn.  Before starting each lap of the Finnenbahn, Jeff gave us a colour to think of, along with various ideas about what that colour should represent, and we were supposed to focus on that colour and those attributes whilst running.  In total we did 5 laps, with enough time to get our breath back in between each lap.  The colours and ideas about those colours were as follows:

1) BROWN - representing earth and gravity.  Imagine running on top of a ball as it starts to roll and you are only just able to stay on top.  You are almost falling off the ball but not quite.  Gravity is pulling you along.


2) BLUE - laser focus.  focus on one point or one person and don't be distracted by anything else.  Pick off that person and then focus on the next person to pick off.


3) GREEN - wide focus.  Take in the nature, take in your whole surroundings, listen to the sounds, smell the smells.  Everything is giving you energy to run.


4) ORANGE - bursts of solar radiation.  As you are running you can feel bursts of solar radiation warming you up and giving you energy to run.


5) Colour of choice and attributes of choice - I chose red as my colour and I thought about being a raging bull.


After finishing the 5 laps Jeff asked us for feedback.  He wanted to know if we felt that we ran better when thinking of certain colours or not.  Personally I found that blue and green were good colours for me.  I ran well when I was thinking of blue and the laser focus like he mentioned, then I also ran well when I was thinking of green and the wide focus and taking in all your surroundings like he mentioned.

The mental training with colours is something you might want to try at home and to let me know the results.  What colours work best for you, or does it make absolutely no difference?

After the colour exercise, Jeff rounded the session off with a team relay back to the Saalsporthalle.  I can't wait till next week to see what he has in store for us.

100km training week, kettlebell swings and weighted sled pulls

Ryan (another MDS 2012 finisher) doing a weighted sled pull

Saturday and Sunday last week were rest days as I decided that this week was going to be my first 100km training week since the MDS (preparing for the Ticino Trail in 2 months time).  42.68km down, and 57.32km left to go so far this week.

I have been running to work each day since the 1st June (last Friday), as June is the Bike to Work month in Switzerland (which I signed up for as part of a team), and one team member is allowed to use other human powered means of transport to get to work, so I am the runner of "The Saddle Sores" UBS team.  In addition to this I ran Monday lunchtime, did yoga Tuesday lunchtime, ran on Tuesday night and last but not least did the group coached running session tonight with Jeff Grant.

When I saw all the equipment that Jeff had brought with him, I knew we were in for a tough but interesting session.  He had brought weighted sleds, a tyre with a rope attached (for tyre pulls), kettlebells and bungee cords.  In addition to being a running coach, Jeff is also a CrossFit instructor, so he uses this equipment on a daily basis.  After a couple of minutes of warming up we started with a technique drill.  We did some drills to show us the importance of leaning forward whilst running to increase speed, but doing it from the hips rather than from the head (which causes us to break at the hips and for our weight to shift backwards).

Now it was time for 20 minutes of seriously intense exercise to begin.  We had to run around a loop as fast as we could, and then when we arrived back at the start point we had to pick up a kettlebell and do 10 kettlebell swings, followed by one small loop either pushing/pulling a weighted sled or dragging a tyre behind us.  Then we had to start all over again, and keep doing this until 20 minutes was up.  The hardest part for me was not the weighted sled or tyre pulls or kettlebell swings, but the running in between the sets.  My running pace slowed down significantly between the first set and the final set.

To round the session off, Jeff made us split into 2 teams.  One member of each team had to use a rope to pull a weighted sled towards them until it reached their feet, then another member had to put on a harness attached to the weighted sled by a seriously strong bungee cord and do 4 bear crawls out as far as they could against the resistance of the cord and then back.  It was rather funny to watch, as some people got to the end of the cord and then were catapulted back at warp speed towards the sled.  Luckily no one was hurt though.  The whole exercise was repeated until all team members had done both parts (pulling the sled towards them and bear crawls) and covered a set distance on the ground.

It will be interesting to see how I feel tomorrow, as I can imagine that there will be quite a few aches and pains after tonight's killer session.  Whatever happens I will still be running to work in the morning and then either running at lunchtime or running back home from work.  Then to get to 100km I will have to do a half marathon on the weekend.  6 days of running and 1 rest day is the plan.

Tonight's session was being filmed by someone who is helping to promote Inov-8 shoes in Switzerland.  So don't be too surprised if you see me popping up somewhere on YouTube or Facebook over the next couple of days.

A long hard interval session

Tonight's coached running session was the last of the current series.  For me it was my second session, as I only started going last week for the first time.  We met down at the Saalsporthalle and started the workout promptly at 7pm.

The first exercise to help us warm up involved running up and down stairs repeatedly, interspersed with longer flat sections.  After that we headed over to the sports fields and did a quick lap whilst Jeff placed some cones on the ground, ready for the next drill.

Just as we finished the quick lap of the sports field there was a thunderstorm and hailstones started falling from the heavens.  It was a little cold so we were keen to get moving again in order to stay warm.  Most of us were not equipped with wet weather gear as the day had seemed rather sunny and pleasant beforehand.  Luckily the thunderstorm quickly passed.

I cannot recall the name of the next drill but it basically involved laying out a course shaped like a cross or 4 spokes of a wheel.  The idea then was that we split into 4 groups, one per spoke, and for six minutes we had to sprint from the centre of the wheel out to the edge of our spoke and jog slowly back, then repeat for the next spoke (moving in a clockwise manner) and so on.  For the following six minutes we had to do the same but in reverse, so jogging slowly to the end of the spoke and then sprinting back to the centre.  After that we did the same but in reverse for a further 3 minutes, and then we reversed it again for the final 3 minutes, making a total of 18 minutes of interval running.

There were 3 of us in our group.  One guy was the same guy from last week who just beat me by a fraction of a second in the timed 1,600m run, and the other guy was by chance someone that just completed the Marathon des Sables 2012 like myself.  So we were a strong group and very competitive.  That meant it was an extremely hard interval session for all 3 of us.  After the interval session finished we all shook hands like good sporting gentlemen should.

A few minutes of rest and then it was time for another drill.  This once involved splitting into groups (and guess who I ended up in a group with) and then seeing which group was fastest to retrieve the cones placed at the ends of the spokes.  Once at the end of the spoke we each had to do 10 squats before running back with the cones.  Our spoke was uphill, so the other groups had to do 10 squats extra as a handicap.  Unfortunately we still did not win, but you cannot win them all eh.

The final part of the workout was a slingshot relay in pairs.  One of the pair had to do squats whilst the other one ran back towards the Saalsporthalle, and then when that person had had enough running they had to stop running and start doing squats.  The other partner would then stop doing squats and start running until they had passed their partner, and continue as far as they wanted, and then the process would repeat until all pairs arrived back at the Saalsporthalle.  I paired up with one of the ladies and we were the first pair back, which pleased me greatly.  I did narrowly manage to avoid getting bitten by a few off-lead dogs on the way though.  I was pretty mad that the owner let them off lead when they can see that there is a group of runners nearby, probably knowing full well that the dogs were likely to chase us.  Even if the dogs were only trying to intimidate us, that is not acceptable.  Owners of dogs that like to chase runners, I call on you to be more responsible in public areas and to keep your dogs on the lead at all times, especially when you can see that there are runners nearby.

When I finished the session I felt a little sick.  Some of the others went to a restaurant to celebrate the end of the series, but I felt like I needed to go home and rest.  I was most likely dehydrated as I had forgotten to take water along with me, and I felt much better after drinking and eating something.  It is also possible that I pushed myself a little bit too hard as well.  I am not used to doing interval sessions yet.

There is no coached session next week.  The following series will start in 2 weeks time.

A lot of fun - just back from my first coached running session

Howdy friends.  Tonight was my first coached running session with Jeff Grant of Hillseeker Fitness.  He runs these group sessions once per week in Zürich, on Wednesday nights at 7pm.  Based on what I have seen a variety of people of all ages, nationalities and abilities seem to show up.  I would estimate that there were around 15 people at tonight's session.

We met at the Sihhölzli track in Zürich, although the location sometimes varies and next week for instance we will meet at the Saalsporthalle nearby.  The class was a lot of fun and after 2 laps of warming up we started some drills using a set of agility ladders.  Jeff placed 2 ladders at right angles and then he would instruct us whether to run straight from one end to the other or whether to run to the junction and then sidestep to the left or right.  The aim is to take small, quick, light steps whilst traversing the ladders on the floor.

After we finished the agility drills we did a short mental training exercise.  He played some music on his laptop, which encouraged box breathing.  This apparently is when you breathe in to your belly for x seconds, hold the breath in your belly for x seconds, breathe out for x seconds, wait for x seconds and then begin the whole process over again.  Whilst breathing in he would say a phrase such as "Breathe in the energy" and then whilst breathing out he would say something like "Breathe out the tiredness".  It was similar to what my yoga teacher says when we are calming down at the end of the lesson, and if you try to listen carefully to the words (and try to follow them too) it does help you to achieve a good mental state.

Now that we were mentally prepared he sent us on the track to do two timed 1,600m runs i.e. 4 laps of the track.  It was up to us whether we wanted to run the first one faster or the second one faster, but Jeff wanted us to make a good effort for both of them.  I chose to go for it on the first 1,600m run.  I had no idea how long it would take me, as I have not done a timed 1,600m run since childhood.  Luckily there was another very strong runner in the group and I used him to help pace myself.  I stayed on his shoulder the whole duration and in the last 200m I tried to pass him but he was a competitive fellow who didn't want to let me pass, and he finished just ahead of me.  It took me 5 minutes and 40 seconds to complete.

After everyone was back and had had a chance to rest, we did the second timed 1,600m run.  This time I was rather tired and I took it much easier.  I still came in second though, but my time was 6 minutes and 32 seconds.

Then finally to round off the session we did some fun drills.  Jeff placed 2 cones on the ground and then we had to form pairs and run between the cones in our pairs doing leapfrog over each other and then bear crawling and then bunny hopping and then a freestyle animal movement (up to us to choose) and then finally normal running.  My pair was the winning pair as my competitive nature took over again.

I was impressed by how Jeff made the session a lot of fun, so that you didn't really realise what you were doing was hard work when in fact it was.  He seems to be passionate about his work and really wants his clients to enjoy their training experience with him.  Not everyone in his group is super fast but he still makes them feel good about themselves with his encouraging words.  At 25CHF per session it seems like very good value for money.  Importantly for me too, it is a great way to meet other runners so I don't have to do all my training alone.  There are a couple of other ultra runners in the group.  One is running in the Ultra Trail of Mont Blanc this year, and another who was not there tonight just completed the Marathon des Sables like myself so Jeff was telling me.  It may even be that I recognise him when he comes to the session next week, as I talked to so many people during the MDS that I lost track of all their names.

The sessions could even be something that Anny will enjoy, especially as most of the attendees are female and of a similar level to her.

Group coaching sessions from next Wednesday

Up till now I have done most of my running training alone.  I really enjoy going at my own pace and the peace and quiet that comes from running alone.  Sometimes though it is nice to train with a group.

I used to do my Wednesday lunchtime runs with my colleagues at UBS and when I start there again next week I will see if they are interested to resume the lunchtime runs.  On top of that I have signed up for group coaching sessions, led by an American coach called Jeff Grant.  He runs these sessions once a week on Wednesday nights at the Sihlhölzli track.

I prefer to take tuition from someone that can do what they are asking their pupils to do.  Jeff has completed the Marathon des Sables (2nd American home and top 50 place), the Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc, the Swiss Inferno triathlon and the Hawaii Ironman World Championships.  That is a very respectable set of events to complete, and anyone who can complete all of those gets my respect hands down.  Jeff is trained in the Pose running technique and is also a Crossfit teacher.

It will be very interesting to see how I get on with the coaching sessions, especially the part where he teaches us the Pose running technique, as running always felt like one of those activities that we were born to do, and coaching in how to do it seems just a little unusual to me.  I have a very open mind though and have taken lots of coaching in others sports before, such as squash, so am happy to try it out.  The fitness gains from the drills and core conditioning workouts will also be invaluable.