No wait, here me out… Ok so the ovely Chrissie Wellington is a trillion times faster, stronger, better, generally just all around more awesome than me, all the superlatives! However we do share a particular style of running I’m just a ‘touch’ slower than her. Just a smidge. *cough*

Want to know what the heck I’m talking about? Well, typically there are two types of runners… The gazelles and the gliders. Their names kind of give them away but let me explain further.

When you think of a ‘gazelle’ type runner you think of someone like Rinny (Mirinda Carfrae), an athlete with a hugely powerful stride, a super high knee drive meaning much more time in the air and therefore more distance covered per stride. This style of running is suited to sprinters or athletes that don’t tend to suffer from injury, it’s generally more suited to short course racing although as we can see, Rinny doesn’t give a hoot what we think about that! She just get’s the job done like the legend that she is.

On the flip side the utterly awesome Chrissie Wellington would be described as a ‘glider’. She has a shorter stride, a higher cadence and a relatively low leg lift, keeping her feet close to the ground minimising that impact upon landing. In order to be fast as a glider you really have to nail that high cadence however as Chrissie has shown, a sub 2:50 marathon (at the end of a 3.8km swim and a 180km bike ride, might I add) is still possible with this style of running and really, how much faster do you need to go?!

I definitely fall into the latter camp when running longer distances and I’m working hard on trying to make sure my biomechanics are as efficient as possible in order to run easy and stay free of injury right up to the London Marathon and beyond. When you’re out there on your long runs and you start to get tired, that’s when you should really start to think about a few key pointers regarding form in order to stop your stride completely falling apart, leaving you wide open to a whole host of injuries and issues.

1. Stand nice and tall and relax those shoulders. I know when I run my shoulders start to creep up somewhere around my ears, even when I don’t feel particularly tense. You want to keep everything nice and loose, holding your shoulders up just wastes valuable energy.
2. Think of a piece of string coming up out of your head and pulling you up tall, eyes up and forward, don’t look at the floor whatever you do because as we all know – where you look, is where you tend to go. Your shoulders will hunch forward, you’ll start to lean and tilt at the hips and the result is that you’ll be placing pressure on your lower back and just generally throwing your stride out of whack. Look at where you want to go.
3. This is a tip that my lovely coach (Steve Trew) gave me because I tend to run a little bit like a baby elephant. Imagine the ground is giving you little electric shocks every time your feet touch it, focus on landing lightly on your mid foot and then spend as little time on the ground as possible. Think fast feet and quiet landing.
4. Running isn’t just a legs game! Using your arms effectively can really help your stride, especially when fatigued. Your arm swing when timed properly with your legs will help with propulsion. Focus on keeping your fists unclenched (again, wastes energy), I tend to focus on keeping my thumb and forefinger just lightly touching. If you feel your fists clenching, you’re probably raising your shoulders too, shake off your arms and get back to that relaxed position. Also, when you’re swinging them arms, think about a forward and back motion, crossing them across your chest (again, been guilty of this myself) will hinder breathing and as we all know, we want to be aiming for nice big lungfuls of oxygen!
5. I know I mentioned a little bit about stride in number 3 but really focus on increasing that cadence, think shorter strides and more of them. If you’re taking super long strides you’re most likely landing on your heel with your foot way out in front of your body, this places a lot of strain on your joints. Aim for your foot to be landing directly under your hips.

I should end here by saying that I’m not a professional runner or coach (nor am I anything like Chrissie Wellington, sadly… Not by a long stretch), however I have been given this advice over the years by some of the best in the biz so it definitely can’t hurt to focus on some of the points that feel most relevant to you.

Apologies if this lifestyle blog is starting to look a bit more like a running blog but bear with me! I really hope these tips help in some way and if you have any to add just drop them below in the comments…

Happy running!