Today was 2K Day! My first run beyond the easy 1km I’ve been doing for several weeks now. I couldn’t have picked a better day for it, sunny and warm.
I set off remembering to keep my head up, try to lean forward slightly and try to kick my legs back behind me with each stride. I could feel it in my calves right away but tried to focus on my movement to take my mind of the possible damage I was once again doing to my calves. After about 100 metres I noticed something different was happening.
Previously all my stride had been on my forefoot, I’d found it hard to finish my stride by putting my heal down, just before picking my foot up again. However this time I found that by concentrating on: head up, lean forward, kick legs back, my heal seemed to land naturally just at the end of the stride. Not only this, but my whole foot strike was a much more fluid movement. Kicking back my legs seemed to ensure that by the time my foot had come forward again and was ready to land, it was already under my centre of gravity. This meant that I didn’t have to actively point my foot forward to ensure a forefoot strike.
The whole movement was just much more fluid. So much so that it almost felt as if I was cycling a bike and my legs were turning an imaginary set of pedals, rather than a left right striding motion. The touch of my feet on the ground was so light that if I’d have closed my eyes I could have been mistaken for thinking I wasn’t touching the ground at all, it was that pronounced.
This is encouragement indeed. I just need to stick to my distance plan all the way. 2 km 3 times a week for the next two weeks.