How to Run Without Using Leg Muscles

So, I picked up the book Chi Running by Danny Dreyer from my local library and have had a scant opportunity to flip through it. I've been told that this is a decent book for someone who wants to learn how to run with minimal impact on the body, thereby reducing injury, stress, blah blah blah. I'm in for anything that will reduce injury so I will take any and all advice in an effort to develop a running style all my own. The one thing that immediately caught my eye as I meandered through the chapters is the author's contention that in chi running one pretty much doesn't need to use the leg muscles at all! If this is actually the case then it's nothing short of revolutionary and must be shouted from all available rooftops to anyone who will listen! In fact, this philosophy could lead to all sorts of other wonderful chi like things:

• chi thinking: the art of thinking without using ones brain
• chi eating: the art of digesting without using ones stomach
• chi reading: the art of reading without using the alphabet
• chi breathing: the art of breathing without using ones lungs
• chi working: the art of getting paid without doing anything at all
• chi shopping: the art of buying stuff without using any money
• chi parenting: the art of raising children without having any
• chi farting: the art of expelling gas without eating cauliflower
• chi dieting: the art of losing weight without reducing calorie intake or increasing exercise

You get the picture... Feel free to add your own dreams of chi somethings.

Given that my calf still hurts I'm definitely open to any running that doesn't actually require this muscle. As I gather more information on this wonderful concept of running while drinking overpriced tea I will try and report how it's working out for me. Perhaps I can learn enough in the next week to fake my way through the Around the Bay 30k!

Which brings me to this afternoon:

Alas the lesson in chi running was simply too short on this first day of the experiment. After work I prepared for my regular 7k run home and everything started off nice and normal. The weather was perfect, my backpack was not very heavy, and I felt otherwise great. I turned the old Garmin on and set off thinking of nothing but my running form and trying to relax as much as possible below the knees while focusing on keeping my core in the correct position. This was a good mental as well as physical exercise and I think I was seeing the light when disaster struck: at the 1.6km mark my left calf decided to stop me in my tracks. Same spot as last Sunday, the thing just tightened up and I simply could no longer keep running. So much for not needing my leg muscles!

I am quite concerned with this and thought that skipping my run on Wednesday would take care of the problem. Evidently my muscle has not fully recovered. It really feels like the effects of a really bad cramp are lingering much longer than expected. You know that feeling after a calf cramp that lasts well into the day (I'm talking about thos infrequent but agonizing middle of the night calf cramps where you wake up instantly and hold on for dear life gritting your teeth and pray that it doesn't get any worse). The post cramp lingeringness is continuing to last in my case and I am seriously bummed out about it. What does this mean for my race on the 29th? Will I still be able to do it? What do I do to get this thing to heal?

I did get the two Home Depot buckets out when I got home and filled one up with hot and the other with cold (plus ice cubes) to do the whole shock and awe thing, however my legs are just too long and the affected area was nowhere near the water line. I used the buckets on my PF foot and just put an icepack on the calf. Now all I can do is stay off of it for the next couple of days (goodbye long run on Sunday!) and hope it heals enough to let me get a short test run into the schedule prior to next weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but must admit that my faith is shaken and stirred at the moment.

On a slightly positive note, however, when I loaded up the Garmin stats I was shocked to find that I was running WAAAAAYYYYYY faster than I thought I was. In my efforts to concentrate on form I totally ignored the Garmin and so had no idea how fast I was moving. Based on feel I would have guessed somewhere in the 5:30 - 5:45/km range. Instead I completed the first kilometre in 4:37 and at was definitely still motoring along on the second split, which registered at 4:57 even though I hobbled along for a couple of hundred metres while secretly hoping that the calf muscle pain was just a false alarm and would sort itself out and let me run as planned. Anyway, the point is that the whole chi running thing is still a mystery, but it did make me run fast (perhaps too fast) and I will have to pay closer attention to this when next attempting this technique.

Garmin don't lie.