Running Style - bobg

From bobg@Radix.Net Mon Feb  8 11:58:24 EST 1999

In article <79kmsf$gr8$1@mendelevium.btinternet.com>,
Gaz  wrote:
>I was running in a cross country race earlier today, and for once it was a
>course which allowed you to see thhe leaders for quite a while. My question
>is this: why do the look like they're dawdling along slowly, completely
>relaxed, when in reality they must be going at close to 100mph? I can't
>understand it.

  Law of nature.  The first runners in any race _always_ look like 
they're taking it easy compared to the later ones.  Conversely, the 
last runner in any race, regardless of time, looks like he's slow.
That, and they're mutants.

  I run down at the high school track after work, when (often) the
track team is still practicing.  While loosening up or rechecking my
shoelaces, they'll set off on a 200 or 400m repeat and I'll look at the
later people in the group and think that I could probably stay with 
them.  Then they come in and the coach is calling out 56, 57, 58, pull
it all the way in (to the last guy), 61.  The first ones in look like
they're jogging, and the last _looked_ very slow.  (Suffice it to say
that 61 on a 400m is _not_ jogging for me.)

  More seriously, part of the 'looking relaxed' is that only the muscles
that are actively helping the good types run are getting tensed.  The
rest should be, and, unlike with the rest of us, _are_, relaxed.  I try
to relax the others as a matter of intent from time to time.  It doesn't
change my speed any, but I _do_ feel better while I remember to do so.
(not very long as a rule).

-- 
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and various
amateur activities notes and links.