Learning the importance of posture

3 weeks into 2013.  I ran that 50k the first week, rested up a bit week 2 and put in 55 miles on week 3.  The goal for now is 60 miles for week 4.  Then I will keep adding 5 miles per week till I am at 100 miles per week by the end of March or mid April.

Last week's training went well and I was able to get in 55 miles. As I increase my weekly mileage, I am also running more trails.  Right now I am running about 50% on roads and 50% on trails.  I am lucky to have a huge empty track of desert land only one mile from the house where I cam make a 4 mile loop that includes some small hills and canyons.  I am running more trails as they are a little softer than roads, although I am not sure how much as our trails are not soft cushy forest floors or anything like that.  Our desert  trails are a mixture of hard packed sand at best to hard scrabble rock that you have to really watch your footing on.  I always where fingerless cycling gloves out here to protect my hands in case I fall which luckily doesn't happen every day.

Unfortunately the hamstring started tightening up a bit again this week, but again I believe I discovered the cause or causes.  One is that I slacked of on stretching when the hamstring was getting better so I am paying for that a bit now.  I need to become religious with the stretching.  The second problem I notice is related to posture.  On the roads my running posture is fairly good.  A good running posture is an upright posture, hips directly over you knees and feet as they land under you.  U.S. marathoner Meb K. says that he imagines an imaginary wire from the clouds to the top of his head pulling him up as he runs.  On the roads this is not so hard to do because you don't have to be constantly scouting for rocks that you might trip over.  What I need to do is learn how to maintain good running posture while running trails.  On the trails I consistently find myself bending forward looking down at the trail.  This is an inefficient way to run as it puts extra stress on your leg and back muscles to maintain balance.  When I catch myself and straighten up, I also notice that my hamstring starts to get some relief.

What I decided to do is mix up the trail and road running more in the same run.  Instead of going out and running 10 miles on the trails until I am exhausted and running with bad form, I will alternate between road and trail in the same run.  I think a combination of 1 mile on the road followed by 1 mile on the trail should work.  Hopefully this way I can translate the good running posture habits I have on he road to the trail.  I can't wait to try it out tomorrow.