A Chirunning Tune-up

The off-season tune-ups seem to be the order of the day lately.  Last week was my  bike fitting and this week is a running tune-up. One of the Chirunning instructors from our workshop at Kripalu in 2009, Ann Margaret McKillop, had read my previous post about analyzing my form.  She emailed me and said that she would be in the area the day after Thanksgiving if we were interested in a private lesson. The timing was perfect.  My wife has been ramping up her running lately and it was a great opportunity for me to get a check up on my Chirunning form.

When Ann Margaret arrived, we debriefed her on our current issues as we made our way down to the local park. We found a nice flat stretch of path that we could demonstrate everything we had forgotten from 3 years ago. The wife and I each took turns running up and down the path as Ann Margaret videotaped us with her iPad(). She instantly identified and pointed out the cause of my IT Band issues via the Coach’s Eye iOS application. The amazing thing was that it was all rooted in my upper body. She then gave me a couple items to focus on as we made our way up and down the path. The changes I needed to make were ever so slight, but holding them required extreme focus. As soon as took my attention away from those forms I was right back to my old ways again.

I then went off on my own for a bit while Ann Margaret worked with my wife on her issues. We eventually converged after a few minutes and worked on some basic form exercises. I kind of remember doing these at the workshop back at Kripalu. We then wrapped up our session demonstrating our new forms while Ann Margaret videotaped us again. She then analyzed us and did a little “chalk talk” action on the iPad. This time we could really see the changes and much more efficient it looked as well as we felt it. The hard part will be maintaining these improvements as time goes on.

It is a great time of year to identify these types of issues so you can gradually work into them and build as the season training volumes increase. Ann Margaret is an excellent teacher breaks things so well, which really helps you understand what you doing wrong, how it affects your running and how to correct it. She also makes a point of bringing out the things that you are doing well too, which really helps balance the session and build your confidence in correcting the things that need correcting. Can’t wait to get out there and starting making improvements!