The long run
Sometime in 2020, in the thick of the pandemic, I went from not being able to run even a mile without complete exhaustion and extreme pain in my shins and knees to almost overnight being able to run over four miles comfortably with minimal pain whatsoever. This post is about chronicling the lessons that led to this breakthrough in the hopes that they may benefit others, especially beginner runners. The disclaimer is that these are subjective learnings whose scientific basis I haven’t tried to verify too much. Nevertheless, their impact has been substantial for me.
There are two main takeaways:
You run with your hips (not your legs). Condition your hips before the run; the Myrtl routine is fantastic for this. Activate your hips during the run (a good way is to focus on them mentally) and ensure that you aren’t using your legs for anything but support and stability. An approximate picture of running is the following: there is a forward momentum driven by your hips with the firm support of your hind leg, leading to a fall that you catch with the stability of your foreleg. The role of the legs is thus only to ensure support and stability. If you ensure this, shin and knee pain should almost completely disappear as it did for me. Furthermore, the hip muscles are a larger muscle group that carry you over long distances much more efficiently than exerting your legs.
Be in the moment. While point 1 above is the most crucial, leveraging that point fully to transform your run requires a strong mental game. Here is the key point: your goal at any point in time is not to quickly finish the run, but it is to find the most comfortable stride and pace in that moment, even if it means indefinitely delaying the end of the run. That means constantly monitoring your muscles for any pain and lack of form and slowing down as much as necessary to achieve a comfortable stride where your hips do most of the work, and your legs only provide support and stability. If you are not in the moment, and you start thinking about how much of the run is left or how slow you are, your body involuntarily responds by trying to speed up, overexert, and not using your muscles in the most efficient way for long-run success. So forget about the end. Forget why or where you are running and single-mindedly focus on the now. You can slow down as much as you want, even if it becomes far slower than walking -- in fact, I suggest you start at that pace. The only thing is to ensure that you maintain a running stride and not actually walk.
To me, these two were the crucial factors that led to my transformation. But by no means are these the only factors. Unless your running muscles are conditioned well (both hips and legs), it would be difficult to fully leverage point 1, e.g., weak leg muscles may not provide the necessary support and stability, leading to injury and pain. Slowly ramping up the duration of the run and cross-training can help condition the muscles over time for more efficient and pain-free runs.
Incidentally, very similar learnings led to a major breakthrough in my swimming as well, where I almost overnight went from being completely exhausted after a single lap to being able to swim for 30-40 minutes continuously. In this case, the mental game, where I increased my focus on being comfortable in the moment, was even more crucial. But that is for a different post.