How to Sleep In and still Run Like Carl Lewis

So this morning, I declined to set the alarm, letting my awesome sleeping habits and ability to go to sleep earlydelusion be my alarm instead. And it worked like a charm. I woke up, got ready, headed out and was completely alone on the trail.

Because it was noon and 90+ fricking degrees out with 40% humidity.

Still, today marked an important milestone in my post-injury recovery: The first time I slowed down because I had a sudden epiphany that will solve the world's oil crisis I couldn't breath instead of because my knee hurt! Although I could be deluded, I think it's in part because of my weak attempts at following the Pose Method of running which look something like this:

If you watch that video carefully, you'll notice that Carl Lewis' feet don't actually touch the ground for the entire 100M.

So Pose, is this method by a bunch of British sport scientists who are trying to make their triathletes faster and it basically involves running by falling forwards. They claim that its two main benefits are being easier on the knees and keeping your heart rate lower at the same speed. There is a lot of debate about the second claim, but as for the first claim, I can say I'm a believer. For the whole story, buy their Book or watch their Movie, but my two take-aways for knee-saving today are thus:

1. Lift up with your knees. You can seemingly get a similar propulsive effect from not leaning forward as much and pushing back with your trailing foot, but this is most definitely much harder on your knee. Especially one with a torn PCL.
2. Shoulders back, head up. Just like Mom said. Mostly this is significantly more attractive makes your body more like a plank, which means it falls forward faster and with less effort. Also helpful is that it is easier on your lungs to breath this way.