Want To Run Strong Off The Bike?
So here’s the situation:
You’re 16 miles into an Ironman marathon. Your nutrition strategy’s going to plan, your pace and heart rate are where you want them… Then out of nowhere you begin to get those aches of tightness and the early warning pangs of cramp in your thighs.
Dammit!
You start to think: “Perhaps I pushed it too hard on the bike. Maybe that’s why my legs are wrecked…”
Maybe that is the case. We’re all different. However one thing is constant, and that’s the fact that cycling is a Quad dominant exercise, no matter how well set-up your bike is.
If your individual running style also happens to be excessively Quad and Hip Flexor dominant (which is the case with most triathletes due to the volume of time spent on the bike in training – and subsequent neuromuscular pattern development), then you will be running in such a way which predominantly uses the very same muscle groups which you have blitzed on the bike… Definitely a recipe for early fatigue, or worse, injury.
Craig Alexander and Chris Lieto – Running Video Analysis
With the 2011 Ironman World Champs in Kona coming up this weekend (at the time of posting this), now’s a great time for us to look back at some running footage from Kona 2009.
In the video below, we identify a few of the important running technique factors that made Craig “Crowie” Alexander such an unstoppable force on the run that day. Using this iconic piece of footage, where Crowie took the lead from Chris Lieto at the 21 mile mark, we can compare stride-by-stride how the two runners habitually moved once fatigued, and see the differences in their technique which affected their running performance.
