Archive for March 12th, 2008

Last Thursday, I woke up with a cramp that felt exactly like a side-stitch you get when running. It hurt a lot merely to be sitting and when I sneezed? Soooo painful. That day I had an interval session, and the funny thing was that as soon as I started running, the cramp disappeared, then when I got home, it was back…the anti-side-stitch, as it were.

Meanwhile, it’s been hanging around for days, but diminished to almost nothing while sitting. Instead, it’s begun to infiltrate my runs, though not during the meat of the run or fast stuff – just during slow cooldown miles.

So today I go out for a recovery jog and get the cramp almost from the start (and I was doing 10min/miles!). I suffered through the run for about 4 miles trying everything: bending, straightening, exhaling on the left footfall, raising my arm, pressing the area, stopping entirely (temporary fix), but nothing was working.

Then I tried something that I must have hinted at during the “exhale on the left foot” attempt…I started forcefully exhaling to the point where I could hear the air huff out of me, like some weird Lamaze class. And in no time at all, I felt the cramp subside till it was gone entirely. That was the first light bulb. But wait, there’s more!

For just three easy payments of $19.95… No seriously, there is more.

Because remember in my 10K report, I mentioned how I was gasping for air and embarrassed by the sound? Well, today I realized that by accentuating the exhale, the inhale takes care of itself and gasping is no longer an option! It’s not physically possible.

So I get back from my run and immediately go on the net, finding an article from a book that explains this stuff perfectly. Took me a minute to realize I already own this book! It’s Programmed to Run by Thomas Miller. I bought it for tips on running form, totally ignoring the section on breath. That’ll teach me to read selectively.

Anyway, here’s the article, and a telling paragraph:

The next opportunity you have to watch a roadrace, observe the breathing techniques of the frontrunners, the midpackers, and the tail-enders as they near the finish line. Typically, the leaders breathe with short, forceful exhales and quiet inhales. The midpackers begin to gasp as they start their drive to the finish. These runners suck in harder as they try to breathe more deeply. Finally, the slowest runners often don’t change their effort or breathing at all.

Looks like I’ve got some experimenting to do on tomorrow’s run. And if it works like I think it will, I may or may not have my fastest 5K this Saturday, but it will certainly be my quietest!