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Hi Jae,
Since your session at the Scottish Barefoot Run and Conference last month and now these two blogs I’ve been thinking about lean almost all the time I’m running! However I find it hard to tell if I’m getting it right and whether I’ve gone from originally sitting back in my stride to leaning too much. If I’m leaning from the ankles properly is it possible to over-lean? When I go really slow should I still be leaning? Thanks!
Hi Donald. My apologies for the very slow response, somehow your comment slipped by me when I was away on holiday. It is possible to over-lean; doing your best to follow all of the Balanced Runner Keys will tend to prevent that, though, since they affect each other and tend to move your form towards optimum. You should lean at every speed but if you’re going slower you lean less than if you’re going faster. Over-leaning tends to slow down your stride rate below 170 and cause you to overstride excessively, so you can tell you’re over-leaning if your stride rate goes down and if your hip is behind your ankle in midstance… that’s Key #3, which I’m writing about this weekend. Read the post over when it goes up and see if it helps answer your question. If not, let me know and I’ll see if I can clarify further. Thanks for asking, and enjoy your running.
ReplyI found your info very helpful it was the last key in my puzzle, i had everything comfortable but with no speed stride length and cadence were low. When i put the lean in my brain seemed to take over the rythem, and my speed when i say speed i mean the same as most recreational runners just increased without a conscious effort to increase.
Thanks now i can keep up with my friends
Regards
Ian
North Yorkshire England.
Thank you so much for these articles on the forward lean and the start-stop drill that helps with the correct forward lean as you run. I’m 3 weeks out from my first marathon, and I read these this weekend. I cannot tell you how much easier it was to run this morning. We did a 55 minute mid-week run, and our average mile time was 0:19 seconds faster than our best run since we started our training. And since we are tapering to the big day, you know we are in shape, so 19 seconds shaved off is a lot. The amazing thing is I could have gone faster and held back – pace discipline 🙂
I’m truly grateful and very happy! Thank you!
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