9. Hips First

I once formed a theory that all of athletics could be defined as an effort to move the hips and to let the rest of the body follow. The trouble with my pursuing the theory too far is that I was never very athletic, and my athletic experiences were somewhat esoteric at best. Here are a few examples I came up with:

Rowing: the crux of the power generation is a lever using the gluteal muscles, supported by the abdomen and lower back. That creates the acceleration that continues the push from the legs into the upper back and arms.
Rock climbing: every bit of climbing wisdom ultimately reduces to moving the hips to maximize pressure on the legs and minimize reliance on the arms.
Whitewater kayaking: stability, direction, and speed all are dependent on adjustments with the hips.
Alpine skiing: it looks like a leg sport, but the legs just bring into effect a control process generated in the hips.

I'll leave it to others to talk about baseball, golf, football -- but I'm pretty sure this works there, too. Maybe Nascar is out, but I did intend this to be a post about athletics, after all.

How about running? I always thought of it as the calves and little else. But I now believe otherwise. First, sure, the calves push you down the road, but what are they pushing? It would be a funny sight to have a gal or a guy with infinitely strong calves and infinitely weak hips -- sort of like the cartoons of the road runner, where his feet take off before the rest of him. Second, the calves are at their best a pretty small set of muscles, so unless you see running as a reverse moon-walk, you need to engage through the legs -- and what lifts the legs, after all? Third, we use our arms and shoulders, whether to maintain rhythm or to assist in the stride -- I think it's the latter -- and the coordination of the upper and lower bodies runs through the hips.

Having reached the limits of my bio-mechanical intuition, here's an anecdote. I run much better with flexibility through the hip-flexors and quads, the kind of thing you emphasize in yoga poses like the cobra and the backward bow. That flexibility lets me push forward from the gluteal muscles, shifting to a stride with a long follow-through. An adjunct to that flexibility in the muscles that need to be extended is, of course, strength in the muscles that need to be contracted, hence a return to the overused notion of "core strength." Planks, yoga poses, and the dreaded stomach crunch improve my running, I'm sorry to say.

So my ninth lesson about running is that it fits the general theory. Hips first!

Silly Hilly and Neon Orange

Long run with D__ this morning. He picked the route, a metaphorical figure 8 from his place in Northern Virginia. The first loop, well, I would guess of the 7 or so miles, less than 1/2 mile even approached flat. The second loop was mostly off-road through a local wooded park, finishing with an aggressive 1/2 mile climb along a bike trail. Wow.

When I got back, Fed Ex had dropped off this year's Boston jacket. If the goal is to draw awareness to Iran's nuclear ambitions, this might just do it. Back in the '80s, ski gear used to come in bright neon colors. This company somehow had a following, although the gear was hyper expensive and known to compare poorly to gear from companies like Spyder and Descent. (The North Face was just coming on the scene at the time.) And how I did want a neon outfit -- pink, green, anything would do. The closest I ever had was a Columbia jacket/pants combo that was blue and yellow, and a few obnoxiously pink ball caps from ski areas I had visited.

By this point in my life I'm over that. And look what's happened -- last year's Boston colors were black with lime green accents, and I thought that made me look like a spice girl. This year? Full-on orange popsicle.

And then it got real quiet...

Ran streets this morning to beat a predicted afternoon lake effect snow.  Got out maybe 2 miles when the sky got that slate steel gray look.  Then it smelled like it was going to snow.  Then I felt it even before I could see the little flakes.  Then it got real quiet and I had a great run through the North Side and home through the snow as the city felt very still and rather pretty.  This is how it often goes around here in late November as the first snow arrives.  The fact that it is February 10th is even more remarkable.

So how many miles do I have to run tomorrow?

Didn't make it out today for a run for a variety of uninteresting reasons.  Now heading to 4 course at the Sunday Night Supper featuring cassoulet.  Their Fried Chicken last year and their vegetarian meal a few months were awesome.  Tonight, veggie it ain't.

New Shoes

I picked up a pair of Asics Gel Hyper Speeds from Road Runner Sports. Ryan Hall supposedly runs in them. Report: they wear like the Kinvaras -- zero drop, relatively low cushion, limited support from an ultra-light upper. But the foam is softer. My Kinvaras have been hurting as I slap the ground. These actually absorb the foot strike. They are black with orange accents (together with my green-stripe tracksuit from Boston last year, I felt like Halloween personified). Too early to say whether I will try running a marathon in these, or stick with my trusty Asics DS Race. I got a new pair of those, too, in slightly over-the-top electric blue.

8. Make it Social

My eighth lesson comes as I realize that most of my non-family (and much of my family) social intercourse comes from running or related activity.

A brief history: I count 4 periods of serious efforts to do athletic things in my life. First, I was 6 when Dad took first me, and later me, my brother S__ and my sister S__ running at lunch over the summer. That morphed into family race day, 4 or so times a year. In a family descended from reticent northern Europeans, this was our strategy for interaction. Second, I was in college, joined the rowing team, and found 90% of my society surrounding rowing, mostly because I didn't know how else one is supposed to meet people. When I think of college, I think of early mornings and winter training trips to Tampa. The third was after law school, when I shared a group house with J__. We ran together, then climbed together, then I paddled whitewater with others, but everything we did other than work surrounded some athletic event. I even met my wife, P__, both at work and at the climbing gym. The fourth is the most recent, since 2006, when I imitated my siblings' examples -- brother took up long distance cycling, and sister took up ironman triathlon -- and fell in with a running and triathlon crowd. J__ is part of this, too, now married and with kids. My running group came to include current and former co-workers and co-bloggers. But I've been able to ride this last wave for 6 years because I'm not sure what I'd do otherwise. I no longer know any good bar-flies or theatre-goers. This is my crowd.

New Shirt

I had this shirt made. (Translation: nobody wants to get off the bike and start running.) With my sloganeering, I should work for Hallmark.