jogging

3.8 miles
37m14s
(9m48s/mile)

i ran through atherton and gawked at all the mansions. so funny to start in redwood city and watch the sizes of the houses slowly increase, until BAM you're in atherton and everyone has an apocalypse-ready 12-foot concrete wall around their two or three story mansion...

anywayz... running at night is great because the air is cool, there aren't many cars, and nobody can really see you if you decide to wear biking shorts (which are ideal for running because it means zero chafing). in fact parts of my run were pitch black for 100 feet all around me, so you just have to trust that there are no potholes (it *is* atherton, right?) or rocks to twist your ankle on. most of atherton doesn't have sidewalks, so when a car comes by, you either have to play chicken with them, or run on the shoulder of the road. i also got lost briefly because of a street that i thought had a left *and* right turn, but it actually slowly circled back and pointed me perpendicular to where i thought i was going.

i ran in my vibram five finger's again and i am really starting to like them. i was unsure about them at first, because they work an entire new set of stabilizing ankle muscles... which caused a lot of soreness initially. but i am used to it now, and also the shoes make it near impossible to over-stride.

speaking of stride, i had read about ways to improve your stride, and tonight i played around with two of them:

1. shortened pendulum is the idea that you can reduce the amount of effort needed in each stride if you use your hamstrings to turn your legs into shorter pendulums. basically, if you lift your ankle up to your butt in your backstride (meaning, after your back foot comes off the ground), your shin and foot can swing more easily. i've never really gotten this to work, but tonight i was playing with it... meaning, i would use the hamstrings to lift my ankle up high, and without any additional exertion, i noticed a huge jump in acceleration. then i would stop lifting my ankle, and i slowed down. pretty useful way to run faster without much more effort. you need to be careful here that you're not springing or pushing off from your backstride, because this can cause damage to the ligaments at the base of the ankle.

2. forward lean means just tilting your whole body forward, and it's another way to play around with acceleration. this one seems obvious, but you do actually need to force your body to lean far enough forward to get that acceleration. my "default" running angle is actually somewhat back-leaning, so i have to consciously force myself to lean forward. doing so greatly increased my speed. btw, don't confuse slouching forward with leaning forward. the forward lean is another useful tool to improve your running technique.