I've been a regular runner since high school, and over the years this habit has taken its toll on my body.  All in all, I've been incredibly lucky - I've never broken a bone, or been seriously injured - but I have a few nagging problems that sometimes make it uncomfortable, or at times, painful, to run.  Since reading Born to Run, I've had hopes of figuring out a sustainable way to run, something that will allow me to run injury-free as I get older.  So, when my friends gave rave reviews of a Pose Running workshop they had attended run by Tracy Peal, I knew I had to try it out. 

I met with Tracy on a Saturday morning for a little more than an hour.  He looked at my posture standing, then watched me run a few feet, and I think that was enough for him to figure out where I was injured and what I was doing wrong. It was a little freaky, I almost think he was reading my mind, he was so accurate in diagnosing what my injuries have been. Apparently my right foot pronates slightly, while my left foot does not, and after years and years of running, this has caused my IT band injury, my brief bout with plantar fasciitis, and my current ankle woes.

If you're not familiar with the Pose technique, you can find more information at www.posetech.com.  The basic idea is that the movements of running can be broken down into poses. The most important of these is a figure “4” that you make with your legs. To make this figure, you stand on one leg (very slightly bent), the balance of your weight on the ball of your foot with your heel gently touching the ground. You raise your other leg, keeping that foot even with your standing leg, making the figure “4”. To run, you lean forward with your whole body - no bending at the waist! - until you lose your balance and start falling, then catch yourself with the leg that was raised, simultaneously bringing your other leg, previously on the ground, into the figure “4” position. And repeat!

It sounds so simple.  I had read a lot about Pose running and watched some very excellent videos on YouTube, but I really didn’t get it until I met with Tracy. He would explain something, run me through a drill to illustrate it, then have me try to implement it and correct me again. For a specific example, I was unconsiously favoring my right leg, maybe because of my ankle or maybe because my right leg is more injury-prone than the left. He could see that I was leaving my right foot on the ground longer than the left, but to show me what I was doing, he had me run a drill with my hands clasped together and held out straight in front of me, parallel to the ground. My arms moved back and forth with my movement, but veered much farther to the right than to the left. He did this maybe 5 or 6 more times, each time tweaking something different about my running and setting me up so that I could feel that what I had been doing wasn’t “right,” and that changing my form felt better and faster.

The best was that by about halfway through, I could run without triggering any pain - at all! - from my ankle. I haven’t been able to run without ankle pain for nearly two months. The worst was that even though I didn’t run all that far during the training session - I’d guess maybe 800m, total? - because Pose running uses different muscles, my calves were massively sore for days afterwards.  I am going to have to spend serious time building up these new muscles!

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about Pose.  If you're in the SoutheasternPA/Delaware area, I highly recommend Tracy as a Pose trainer.