If there are any other long distance runners on here, what kind of running technique do you like to use?
This Scooby article originally motivated me to put some thinking into it, so to master the Claw and Kick + Torsional Spring ideas I started using a forefoot landing to get more stride length and spring. My observations over time-
1. I definitely get more distance out of every unit of work I put in.
2. Landing on contracted calf muscles a few thousand times on a run blows me out- at an hour and half what happens is similar to a car's tires falling off.
3. Using the traditional midfoot landing that's probably the standard for everyone seems to cause me to lose more energy hitting the ground but is almost as fast for me, and lets me keep my legs fresh for the "high gear" original technique for later in a run. However, doing this after high gear cannot save my legs if they were already wearing down.
4. Going from low gear to high gear with technique in the middle of a run has me suddenly feel like the ground is a forward trampoline, and lets me really empty my tank better than I could with just one technique the whole way through.
My favorite running workout other than a standard ~90-120 min long run is an hour of ~40 mins of low gear than the last ~20 switching to a near sprint in high gear. It lets me keep my legs fresher for more runs, mixes endurance with high end work and last month gave me the best runners' high I've had in my life: it's hard to describe beyond endorphins but it physically felt like I had completely removed all of the excess air from my lungs, which was the perfect way to know when to stop. Other runs have come close but this type of workout was the only one to get me to that next level of feeling good.
