Running from the Belly

Training with a buddy has been interesting. He’s taught me a lot about running, especially how to run better on the track during fast intervals. As a former national-level middle-distance runner, he’s got loads of personal insight.

One thing he said to me still makes me laugh when I think about it. We were doing 400m repeats (68s), and during the middle intervals of the workout, I was struggling to maintain the pace over the final 100m. So what I was doing was pumping my arms wildly to make my legs go faster. After letting me carry on like this for a couple of intervals, he politely informed me that runners run with their legs, not their arms. 

True enough!

He explained what he meant: when you need to dig deep for speed, you need to look for it in your legs – relaxing, increasing turnover, keeping the knees up – and in your lungs – relaxing your breathing. Swinging my arms wildly was only making me tense up and slow down. The key to “digging in” is not, as I thought, to force things and tighten muscles like Hercules lifting some huge rock; it is to relax and channel power to where it’s actually needed – in the legs and lungs.

With this insight, I was able to maintain and even increase my pace in the late stages of that 400 interval workout. I became more mindful of my reaction to the gut-searing lactic panic that comes when I’m struggling to run fast. My attention on my legs and lungs become narrowly focused, and I was constantly adjusting to stay tall, fluid, and relaxed.

Recently, though, we’ve been pushing the length of our long runs and threshold runs in preparation for the marathon. This is new territory for him. And something interesting emerged in the early stages of our build up – he had trouble finishing some of the workouts and long runs. In fact, he had to stop during some of our longer threshold intervals, especially during some of our treadmill workouts.

What makes it so interesting is that he didn’t stop because his heart was overtaxed or his lungs were searing with pain or his legs weren’t strong enough. A 3:35-3:45/k pace is not a struggle for a guy who used to average close to 3:15/k for 10k. It was all mental. He just couldn’t lock in the pace and drive the car (so to speak) over the long haul.

After this went on for a few weeks, I just happened to mention during one of our long runs that, when I run long, I run from my belly. I explained that I take the pinpoint of my attention and move it down to a spot just below my navel and then leave it there. I let the thoughts in my head float and shift like clouds in a big blue sky and pay little attention to them. I step back from a narrow, focused attention on the chatter in my head or the pain in my feet (or whatever) and just sort of rest in a broader sense of awareness of my body and the environment as a whole. I still check my form and self-correct – but I don’t micro manage it like I need to on the track.

After that run, he told me that he tried running from his belly – and it worked! He did fine. He locked in the pace and drove the car home. Since then, he’s completed every longer threshold workout as well. No problem.

I think what was happening was that he was using his mind on long runs the way he’d learned to use it on the track – focused, intense attention. But the energy required to keep this up was just too much, and his mind was fragmenting mid run. There wasn’t enough going on to keep that kind of mind interested and engaged. It was the wrong mind to use on long runs. It wasn’t marathon mind.

I don’t know if any of that makes sense – and maybe it sounds a bit too hoaky – but I do think a different kind of mental activity is required for longer running versus shorter, faster running. And for anybody having trouble on the treadmill, trying to shift from narrow to broad awareness (from the voice chattering in your head to the space that receives that chatter) and putting attention in the belly might help.

I do my treadmill (sorry, dreadmill) running without any extra stimuli – no tv, no music, just me and the machine in a small room – and I do fine. Maybe I’m just kind of vacuous, but I like to think my mental ease on the long run has more to do with running from my belly. It isn’t about locking it in and disappearing; it’s about locking it in and expanding -- your awareness, that is, not your belly!