Running

RUNNING
 Jogging - a guide to starting your own running programme Unfit? Check your condition by walking and down stairs for two minutes. If you feel sick or dizzy or have pains after this get a medical check up. If this is OK but you have not done any exercise in recent years start periods of fast walking for two weeks.

Step by Step. The next step in the third week is to introduce jogging into your walk. Jog between lamp posts so you are pushing yourself but not getting out of breath. Soon you will reach the stage of jogging to the first lamp post and walking to the next. Covering your distance half running half walking. Next stage is to gradually increase the amount of jogging. Jog between two lamp posts. Walk to the third. Jog between three lamp posts, walk to the fourth. Don't be over keen. Relax. You should be able to have a conversation whilst on the move.

Try and go out 3 or 4 times a week. As soon as you arrive home from work is a good time as you can follow the run with a shower or wash and a change of clothes. Those who work at home may prefer first thing in the morning.

Time & Space. Rather than trying to make it around a chosen circuit start off by going out for a set time. Start off with ten minutes or less and build up to fifteen and then twenty. If you use the same route each time, turning back at half time (6 minutes out and 6 minutes back) you can monitor your progress by the distance you get from home.

Once you are fit, jogging all the way and getting a bit faster you will probably settle for a convenient circuit. Round the block or part is usually a good notion because it means you can avoid crossing roads as much as possible which spoils the rhythm.

Health check. Jogging need not speed up and can be just a bit faster than walking. At first you can expect achy legs but your chest shouldn't hurt. Only when your legs are in condition should you start to increase your pace and start breathing more deeply.

Pulse rate is a good guide to how fast you should work. Subtract your age from 200. Then subtract a handicap of 40 for unfitness (unless you are fit from other physical activity). This gives you a beginners maximum pulse rate. In other words whilst or immediately after jogging your pulse rate should not exceed this figure. If it does you are pushing yourself too hard. (Take your pulse for 15 seconds and multiply by 4).

Jogging is not recommended if you are pregnant.

 more running tips If the rythmn of breathing doesn't coincide with the rythmn of stride... allow it to be independent. Breathing should be allowed to respond naturally to need. Breath in easily through nose and when necessary mouth.... face relaxed.

It is important to find and feel good about your own pace. A good pace to take is one at which you feel that, if you were just that bit faster, you would be able to run for ever.

Don't worry whilst jogging. Keep your mind either on postural images or notice things that you are passing. If you still don't feel quite with it, try appreciating your speed in relation to stationary objects and think, "I'm Here! I'm here!" Be right there in the physicality of the activity.

It is best to go out before eating or drinking. Eating and/or drinking up to 2- 3 hours beforehand can cause stitch and other discomfort.

Wear warm clothes. Veer on the side of having too much on; its better to sweat than be cool. Sweating encourages a general dilation of the pores and organs that is an important benefit of jogging.

 Running Without Pain

Whilst running think of the following directions:

All the leg joints from hip through knee to ankle are imagined as if air could pass, between the lightly articulating surfaces.

You feet meet the ground firmly but without tension. At first as you relax your feet you may feel you are running flat footed.

The legs do not push (the back leg should not be straightened) The trailing leg is relaxed and empty.

There is a void above the top of the head, the skin of hte face drops down whilst the skin at the back of the head glides upwards. The back of the neck and spine e l o n g a t e.

Exhale from the belly.

No effort should be made. Running is perpetual falling with the legs gently catching you from falling down. The whole body is at ease.

The torso swings easily to counterbalance the alternating support of each leg.

(notes from a class by Miranda Tufnel and Eva Karzag in late 1970s)

"Only because there is no strength in the belly does one get our of breath when running" Okada Torajiro

 Running like a fish (if you are fit)

Run 10 minutes on day one; run 20 minutes on day two; 30 minutes on day three.

It may be noticed that on the third day after 20 - 25 minutes of running you get a 'second' wind. But it is often more than an extra burst of energy. Exhileration may sweep through your body. Your legs become light and bouncy. Where there was breathlessness minutes before, now you feel like going faster even faster, even leaping. Arms and head become weightless.

It seems that this 'second wind' is a very healing and creative space to enter and the euphoria may be followed by a deep relaxation.

A direction or encouragement that may help you to break through this barrier is to think: "I can run like a fish swims".

So, running is natural to us. Effort with accompanying tension can get in the way of something our body is evolved to do very efficiently. Perhaps it is something we do better by unlearning than by learning.

The direction 'Like a fish swims.' also suggests being aware of the medium of oir through which we move and by use of the oxygen of which we burn our fuel.

So perhaps you may find it obstructive to have a complex set of body images as previously suggested. It might be more useful for you to simply think: "Give Up...... Run with abandon".

From notes of a Contact Improvisation course in Cardiff given by Mary Fulkerson in the late 1970s.

"The first five miles is a sorting out process. You think what you are going to be doing the next day. You say maybe I've got to call at the grocery stalI after my workout'. The second five miles is sorting out your body. The third stage there are creative ideas. When was a journalist I used to go out and run until I got a lead for my story. Running is great for journalists. By the time you've clocked up 20 miles you're into free floating creativity, you think about ideas and things.

As for the last few miles.... You are into free floating floating fantasy. That is when people talk about a runners high; you're almost stoned on running. You hear a car honking, but it's like your're wearing a space helmet. You feel you could run for ever with the cares of the world away from you, you become a part of the universe." Kathrine V. Switzer. Quoted in Guardian 1:8:80 p8.