Welcome to the ninth week of our program.

1) We meet again on Saturday, March 7, at 9AM, in the parking lot for Columbia Island Marina, in LBJ Park.

If you are still having difficulty finding our meeting location, please call me at 703-371-5171.

Our posted training distance for this Saturday [found at http://www.marathoncharitypartners.org/walktorun/calendar.doc] is the same as last week, 2.5 miles. Our route is posted at:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2584716

That is, we will run 1.25 miles from the parking lot, up to Memorial Drive, and along Memorial Drive until the monument to the Navy Seabees, which is our turn-around point.

2) Change in Modality

For the first time in our training program, this Saturday, we will be running more than we will be walking!

Our modality will be 2 minutes walking, 3 minutes running. This represents 50% more running than we have been doing, so you should take the running portion more cautiously than you may have before. Running for 3 minutes at a time may seem onerous, but so did 2 minutes at a time before your body adjusted to it.

It will take several weeks of 3 minutes running on your midweek runs, and on Saturdays, before it seems natural to you. But if you stay with the program, your body will adjust, and will become stronger. Think of how far you have come since you took your first minute of running in January! Slowly, but surely, you are progressing.

If you face any unusual problems adjusting to 3 minutes of running, please let me know - 703-371-5171, steitzj@georgetown.edu.

3) Warmup prior to run.

This Saturday, we may start at the day in the 40s - one of our warmest starts since we began. It's almost time for running shorts!

Since there will be less and less incentive to huddle in your vehicle due to the cold as the following weeks progress, make good use of your time waiting for our workout to begin by walking the length of the parking lot and back. Shake the cobwebs out of your legs with a simple warmup walk that should take you about 5 minutes.

After you finish the walk, do some *light* stretching, if you wish. Very gentle stretches, not of your prime movers - your hamstrings or your calves - but of the supporting cast, your glutes, hip flexors, ankles, or your abdominals.

You use your hamstrings and calf muscles the most in running, and if you stretch them too much prior to working out, you risk triggering the stretch reflex, which tightens up those muscles to prevent the perceived threat from over-stretching, and can actually impact your running negatively.

But the more you run, the more you realize that the supporting cast of muscles, tendons and ligaments, especially those of your "core," your abdominals, support and reinforce your leg muscles. A strong core takes pressure off your legs, and makes running easier.

So after your 5-minute walking warm-up, wake up your supporting cast, and let them help your legs in the workout that follows.

4) Running Form

As you do your 3-minute running segments, try to be conscious of your form. Don't concentrate so much that you trip over your own feet, but on each run (midweek runs too!), try to concentrate on one of the following points:

- Run Tall. Run with your back upright, not slouched. Head up, chest out, shoulders back and down. If you run slouched, the rest of your running form will suffer, and you may not be able to breath deeply or well, impairing the supply of oxygen to working muscles. Good posture while running also lets your abdominals contribute to the effort. In addition to physical benefits, running tall, with your head up, will make you more aware of the road or trail ahead, and any hazards you can avoid (like speeding cyclists!)

- Breath Deeply. Learn to take in as much air and oxygen as you can while running. Your body requires a lot more oxygen when running than it does with normal activity, but you may be able to avoid gasping for air at the end of your running segment, if you breath more deeply from its beginning. And if you have to slow down a little to breath deeply, maybe you're doing you're doing each running segment too quickly.

Don't be surprised if your inhaling takes less time than your exhaling. Many runners inhale on one stride, and then exhale on the two strides thereafter. But breathing patterns are highly individual, and shouldn't be changed - take breaths as seem natural to you. Just when you inhale, draw in a deep breath, and get as much air into your lungs as possible.

- Land each running stride with your foot underneath your body, and then push off that foot as it swings behind you. If you land with your foot in front of you, your heelstrike acts as a brake. Each step front of your body is a brake, followed by a push-off. Not only is this less efficient - as you have to overcome the braking motion with increased effort to get moving again - but the greater forces acting on your foot make you more susceptible to injury.

You want your heelstrike to be directly underneath you, as this adequately supports your body weight and aids forward momentum. If you find yourself striding with your footstrike in front of your body, shorten up your stride. Take shorter steps and concentrate on getting your body over your footstrike. Propel your self forward as your leg falls behind you.

- Front to back motion, not side to side. As you take step after step, and swing your arms to match your leg motion, make sure your arms are going front to back, and don't cross your chest as you run. If your arms cross your chest, it will twist your torso side to side, and result in wasted motion, slowing you down, and making forward motion more difficult.

Correct your arm swing by forcefully shoving your arm back as you stride forward with the leg on that side. The natural reaction to that shove will bring your arm back to your side, without letting them swing forward of your body, and potentially off-track.

[You may notice a pattern. Your torso is the forward element of your body on the run, and your arms and your legs are playing catch-up, as they propel your body forward.]

- Relax your shoulders and hands. Running tall, and eliminating side-to-side motion, do not mean running stiff. Keeping your hands, arms and shoulders stiff takes effort - mental and physical energy that could be better used by your legs and your abdominals in maintaining forward motion. Rather, relax your hands, arms and shoulders by concentrating on the rest of your body - head up, eyes forward, torso straight, and chest lifted up. Footstrike under your body, arms swinging back, and then to neutral. Your arms and hands contribute very little to the running effort - they're just along for the ride!

Again, don't obsess about any of these points. If you happen to resemble any error in form noted above, try working on it during your midweek workouts, and then on Saturday. It may take a few tries, but before long, you'll find it easier to run than it used to be, and the correction will have become second nature.

5) Target Race Roster (as of March 4):

W&OD 5K (March 28): Steve W.

Cherry Blossom 5K (April 5): Laura, Rajashree, Coach John

Cherry Blossom 10M (April 5): Coach Humaira

Azalea Classic 5K (April 18): Karen

GW Parkway Classic 5K (April 26): Anil, Georgia, Rakesh, Vandana

If you've already chosen your target race (and your name is not listed above), please let me know on Saturday. I'll update the list in two weeks. Hopefully by then, everyone still in training will have picked and registered for a 5K target race.

6) Post-run brunch.

Anyone who wants to join the group for brunch after the workout can meet us at the Silver Diner in Clarendon:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=silver+diner+clarendon+virgini a&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&cid=0,0,176813183584492688&ei=YbiZSZ2ZApPHtgfSka2lCw&sa=X&o i=local_result&resnum=1&ct=image

It is by no means a required activity of the program, but if you can join us, I hope to see you there after the workout.

And I hope to see everyone at Columbia Island Marina on Saturday! If you have any questions, please write back, or call me at 703-371-5171.

Till then, Happy Trails!

Coach John

John H. Steitz
RRCA Certified Running Coach
USATF Level 1 Certified Track and Field Coach
Arlington Cooperation Foundation
703-371-5171
http://www.marathoncharitypartners.org/walktorun/