Runstreak day 20 - 4 miles of form work - 3/26/12

My right shin and calf are still feeling it from Saturday's run - which wasn't necessarily long by normal long run standards, but it was done with the Minimus shoes, and it was the long run of a base/mileage building week.  I'm also still a little sore from some single leg squats I did on Friday and Saturday night.  I'm trying to get back into doing those kinds of things on a regular basis - and as I found out the week before the Hampton half, if I skip for too long a time and then just do the whole leg routine, I end up pretty sore for several days, and that impacts overall training.  So this time I'm taking a more gradual approach and worrying less about the ability to do all the lunges and squats, and more about the ability to maintain overall consistency.  So with that in mind, I opted for the 4 mile loop during lunch today instead of the 6 mile loop.  I wanted to give myself another relatively low stress day to work out some of the soreness.  Plus, I have yoga tonight, so that should help.

So during today's run I tried to focus on a few specific things form-related:

1) Tried to maintain upper body posture to lengthen upper spine and neck (http://www.chirunning.com/chi-library/article/a-new-take-on-posture/) and engage lower abs to keep pelvis aligned. Was only so-so effective at the upper body part - had many other things to think about so it tended to get lost in the mix.
2) Mostly paid attention to pelvis movement and rotation - letting the trailing half of the pelvis go back with the trailing leg to load up spring-tension in the psoas to recoil back. Was fairly effective at this - a sign that it is getting more and more imprinted in muscle memory. Still a long way to go, but its getting there. Actually found that by doing so, in order to maintain cadence I had to foot-plant sooner on the recovery, which helped with a more even full-foot plant, which leads me to the next item:
3) In my ChiRunning video, I saw how I tend to engage my shins a lot more than necessary, which was leading to a minor heel strike (even if not all my weight was bearing down on my heel). Regardless of whether I was actually putting weight on the heel or not, there's no benefit to engaging the shins (which pull the toes up) - so I really tried to keep the shins loose and unflexed. Ended up feeling somewhat floppy back there by comparison - but just something to get used to.
4) Ok, this was the wierd part. Yesterday I was looking at the ChiRunning book, and it mentioned an advanced part: using your obliques for generating power to go up a hill. Say what!? Well, ok. So I tried it (since this loop at work has some hills), trying to avoid using hamstring, quad, calf strength to power the legs, and let hip rotation take care of it - and believe it or not, by the time I got to the top of the hill, I could actually feel somewhat fatigued oblique muscles (outer lower back). The quads? They were all like 'What now? There was a hill? Huh - didn't notice'.
Very strange - instead of having power come from the legs, it all came from the hips and core muscles, and the legs became just a conduit through which power was transferred on its way to the ground.