The four main components of the Chi Running form are posture, lean, heel lift and arm swing. This blog entry discusses arm swing.

In Chi Running the arms are completely relaxed from the hands all the way up to the shoulder. They are also constantly bent at a 90 Degree angle and swing at the same cadence as your legs. Keep your shoulders relaxed and down and let your arms hang down from the shoulder socket.

This 90 Degree angle because it creates the shortest arm length, which also is the easiest length to swing. To emphasize the point try swinging straight arms (longest length) versus arms bent at 90 Degrees (shortest arms) and notice the difference in effort.

The arms swing at your side front to back with a slight angle inwards in front of you but never crossing your centerline. If they swing past your centerline, they create momentum in the sideways direction rather than to the front, which wastes energy.

You never swing your elbows further forward than your ribs. This throws your legs forward which can cause heel strike and also rotates the shoulders. You also never swing your wrists further back than your ribs.

Your arms swing like pendulums from the ball in the shoulder socket and as separate entities from your shoulders. This is to ensure your shoulders don’t swing with the forward and backward movement of the arms. In Chi Running your shoulders always point forward, and never rotate. If your shoulders rotate they reduce your stride length and you lose speed.

You swing you arms to the rear like you are elbowing someone behind you rather than swinging them to the front like you are punching someone in front of you. Once your arm is swung to the rear, just let it fall forward using gravity. Swinging their arms to the rear instead of forward will keep their shoulders stable and not rotating along with the arms. This helps stabilize everything above the midpoint of your spine. It’s everything below this midpoint that rotates when you run.

My husband and I went to the movies the other night but asked the babysitter to come over an hour and a half early.

As she walked up the driveway, the girls ran to her. And then we donned our sneakers and went for a run together. Up a hill and then through the woods. watching for roots and rocks, stumps, as my husband ran ahead of me and the dog let her tongue fall far out of her mouth. Careful not to slip on the broken slate, pushed up a hill, the dog turned back to me, happiness in her eyes.

My legs were burning and my lungs were screaming as I tried to keep up with my husband. Down the hill to a lake where we rested and threw a stick for the dog. Turned around and home again, my ankles were tired, my legs were lead weight. We snuck back into the house (the kids were outside) and rinsed off, got ready quickly for our movie. Gave goodbye hugs and kisses and don’t-forget-to-brush-your-teeth’s.

Cheeks still flushed and we left the windows down on the drive to cool off. He reached over and squeezed my leg.

It was the best date we’ve had in a while. And the movie stunk.

I ran a half marathon in June and a sprint tri in July. I had the best intentions of doing another sprint in September, and a half in February and, and and…

Last week someone asked me what my next goal was and I kind of gaped, open-mouthed, like a fish and stuttered, “Uh… I don’t know.”

And I don’t. Summer’s winding to a close and I just kind of want to enjoy it, instead of focusing on a race. I’m not very good at balancing all things in my life and find that when training revs up, something else suffers. I believe that eventually, I’ll figure it out as I’m not willing to stop racing, but still. Life has been quiet and lovely and warm and summery. The house has been cleaner, the kids sweeter, the nights cooler. We’re on vacation for two of the next three weeks, I don’t want to have to run while we’re away. I want to run because I want to run.

There’s a 1ok in September that I’ll probably do, it’s been a while and I think I could shave a good chunk off my previous time. My run clinic ends tonight, culminating in the Halifax Navy 10k next Sunday. I went for a run by myself (well, me and my dog) yesterday because it’s been so long since I’ve run alone, and it was… nice.

I’ve always claimed that I need a goal to stay focused, and maybe this upcoming 10k is a good one. But maybe I’m at a place where I can cruise for a couple months, in between. It’s been kind of nice.

It’s hard not to happily lick dripping ice cream off a cone in the heat of summer, isn’t it? Or smack as you suck the barbeque sauce off your fingers after eating too many ribs. The perspiration on a cold glass of beer as you wash the car or build an extension onto your deck, the whipped cream that goes so well dolloped on juicy, local strawberries.

The women in my husband’s family are bakers. I’m not. Well, I make a mean birthday cake, a pretty solid apple pie and a quickly devoured pan of brownies, but I don’t spend one day a week baking. Especially in the summer (my general rule is: the oven only turns on when the temperature is below 22C). He grew up in a home where the after school snack was a handful (or three) of cookies, followed my milk, chugged straight from the bottle.

I made cupcakes with my girls this weekend. Steve works Saturdays and they were climbing the walls, so we mixed and poured and baked together. They love helping me, regardless of what I’m doing, so it was extra fun that the finished product was something delish instead of say, a folded basket of towels. They happily devoured the warm, unfrosted cupcakes after their lunch. We iced them after nap and hid them in the office for a grand presentation when Steve got home from work. They’re “I Love You, Daddy” cupcakes! My four year old gleefully exclaimed, extremely proud of her green sprinkles. Cake! Cake! Daddy! Cake! My two year old chimed in. We ate them all, too, over the next few days.

I worry about my kids, though, in this world where they will all too soon become aware of the unrealistic female ideal that is portrayed by our media outlets. As soon as they can read, they’ll start seeing that they could lose belly fat with this one easy trick! And they’ll see how celebrities are scorned for being so human as to have cellulite. And that’s just in the grocery store. Online, in school, in books and television shows, it goes on and on.

It’s frightening just how targeted children are. The most important task in my life is to protect those children, and I do, ferociously, against inappropriate cartoons and books, against the gag-inducing amount of princess marketing. My job is to keep them safe. And part of keeping them safe is keeping them healthy. So we eat no processed foods, mostly organic meats and vegetables. We talk about food, about the job it plays in your body. We talk about taking care of your body through exercise, be that running or yoga or walking or swimming or bike riding, or even just playing. I think it’s the most we can do.

The fact remains, however frightening and at times heartbreaking, that there will come a time when they grow away from me. It happens a little more each year, but eventually, I’ll have to let go. As young women, much too innocent to be out on their own (as we all were, once), they will be armed with what my husband and I have taught them. That it’s important to take care of your body, through exercise and food. That even after “Happily Ever After” there’s still a lot of work to be done. And maybe most importantly, that sometimes, cupcakes and dripping ice cream cones are ok. Even if they do spoil your lunch.

“To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.”  Pablo Picasso

GRANT: I think we all know this feeling in a race or a run when we reach the end.  We can see the end.  Maybe there is a crowd cheering, or maybe not.  Regardless we feel the pull of the finish.  It is carrying us forward even if our legs are faltering.

VICKY: You must be getting near the end of PRE.

GRANT: Yeah.  It’s horrible.

VICKY: Yes, it was quite painful for me too.  I hated it.

GRANT: For me it is the fact that I have watched 2 PRE movies.  Read Running with the Buffaloes and Bowerman and the Men of Oregon and I am now 3 quarters finished PRE.  I have been reading so many books about Prefontaine and track and field I just can’t take it anymore.

VICKY: Exactly.  Don’t you just wish you could rip the mustache right off of him.

GRANT: I don’t want to be harsh, but I can’t wait to get to the end already.

VICKY: Hurry up and finish so we can move on to the next book.

GRANT: I can see the finish.  It is not that far off.

I’ve been in cruising mode this week. Not really energetic enough to have a decent run or bike, but not technically sore enough to have a valid reason not to. One run, one bike ride, one very short (and very cold!) swim.

Is it actually important to take the week off after a race if your not burnt out or sore? I told myself it was my reward for a job well done, although now it’s time to get back into training. You see, I’ve gone and signed up for another Sprint Tri. Eh, why not? I figured. It keeps me focused for the rest of the summer.

I find that I need races on my horizon to keep me going. They are the only thing that actually motivates me enough to consistently exercise.

Now that the high of my first triathlon is all but disappeared, I find myself thinking about a fall 2011 marathon again. I’m fairly certain that I will commit to it. There are two marathons in the Maritimes in October, Valley Harvest and PEI. I ran Valley Harvest last year, and since I think this will be my last for quite a few years, I’ll probably do PEI. My husband ran it two years ago and though it’s a beautiful route (what compares to PEI in late summer and fall? Not much.), the last 10kms are roller-coaster-like hills, apparently. Which sucks, especially since I have a rather ambitious goal time. You know, if I do it.

The rest of the summer will be spent training for another sprint, and maybe a fall 10k. After that? Who knows.

What about you? What races and/or goals do you have for the rest of the year? I’d love to hear.

I think that when you finish a race this happy:

it should be considered a success.

I did my first triathlon yesterday. A Sprint (750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run). In 1:29. The whole time, even when my legs were screaming on the bike and even when it felt like my calves were going to explode on the run, all I could think was “This is so much better than a half-marathon!”

Probably because of the perfect conditions and a great route (that I was familiar with), and really sound organization, and crazy friendly participants, and doing it with my husband (his first, too), and the best cheering section I could have hoped for, and even practically falling face first in the sand when I got out of the water, and not to mention actually wearing a wet suit in public (how’s that for a run-on sentence?), it was such a great experience.

But also? It was just… fun. I mean, you long-distance runners know what I mean when I talk about the pain, right? And that mental fight you come up against? It just didn’t happen yesterday. I even scored a PB on the 5k run!

Let’s just say, this has me seriously reconsidering that 2011 marathon I was thinking about.

(Pre-race with my husband and our two girls.)