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| The last rolling hills before the finish |
Thanks to my friend and first time marathoner, Heather, my family and I had the privilege to watch this year's race from the bleachers right before the finish line and had a great angle on the runners so I decided to snap some pics and see if I can identify some common traits in the pros's form. After all good form makes a world of a difference and quite often, in any distance running race, the one who can maintain perfect form wins over competitors who might have the same aerobic conditioning but who's form is compromised by the end of the race. So what is good form? Well let's see how certain runners looked at the very end of their race.
The winner, Gebrmariam, had an awesome kick despite having over a minute on the second place runner. From this picture I think we can see how he uses loading his arches and elasticity to propel himself rather than laboring and pushing forward using the mainly muscle power. According to my favorite running coach, Bobby McGee, the ratio of elastic return to power (muscles) should be 5:1. This guy may have an even better ratio than that.
This is Mutai, the 2nd place finisher. I was able to capture him in a perfect moment. We can see his upper body is gracefully upright (not arched) and his forward lean is perfect.
Shalane Flanagan is one of the most beautiful runners I have seen. So fluid and graceful. Proud posture, arms in same relaxed position when she started the race. By the time she makes contact with the ground the "power move" or the push is already done. The contact with the ground seems like a mere scrape. Full extension of the legs backwards and loading of the arches creates the elastic snap back to the front. It seems she's pulling her knees up, but it's mostly that elastic snap that gets her knees forward and ready to push back again.
In this picture Meb Keflezighi, the fastest American and last year's winner, was captured in a great position to see the shoulder movement. Some people say running is in the arms. What they mean by this is that the movement of the arms dictates the turnover of the legs. Also, the slight counter movements with the shoulders adds to the utilization of the muscles' and ligaments' elastic nature.
Another similarity among these runners is the slight forward lean. As we can see, they don't lean from the hips but rather the ankles. The center of body is right over the point where the feet meet the road. This is almost always true of the elite runners whether they have a slight heel strike, toe strike, or most commonly mid foot strike.
Now let's see how other runners fared.
Corn Man here fell behind a little. Maybe the weight distribution of the corn threw him off, but it seems he had lots of fun anyway.
El Matador definitely kept his form all the way to the finish. Here he is trying to get somebody from the crowd to challenge him. He didn't have to contend with any bulls so I'm not sure how valid this result will be back in Spain.
Gene Simmons had a great race. Decent form right? Even his wig and makeup stayed on. Quite impressive!
The Orange Lightning celebrates his finish. Not sure what he has or doesn't have on his back but the guy behind him is clearly turned off by it. Whatever it is, it cannot be good form.
Hats off to this amigo.
Finally I have to make a special mention to a couple of friends.
Lisa kept her great form all the way, and as usual she negative split the course to match her PR. Great job!
At last but certainly not least, GREAT JOB AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEATHER! She's doing great at the end of her first marathon, form intact. She even threw a party at her house afterwards!
Heather's fan club.
Apologies to those friends I didn't take pictures of. It was hard to spot everybody especially when the crowds got dense...
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