Fixing my form and a baby Animal!

Today I did a 35-minute run in the hot, humid late May weather that we've been presented with this week. Would've preferred the warmth during Memorial Day Weekend but I'll take what I can get to be honest. This is Cleveland, after all! Unlike many people, I like a nice hot run that makes me work. I'm not a fan of the heat in races when I'm more concerned with it slowing me down, but I like to sweat--as unladylike as that may be! As I've mentioned before, that's part of why I love hot yoga so much!

I donned some new running clothes for my run today:

Not sure if you can notice, but my tank is coordinated to the orange stripe in my shorts!

On my run, I spotted these babies! Normally I HATE geese (they're a real hazard/annoyance when rowing and simply never seem to want to get out of the way, and they're mean). But these little fuzzies captured my heart when I found them in my normal stretching place after warm-up.

I've been thinking a lot about my running form since I picked up Natural Running from the library last week. I know that I need to work on stepping with my toes before my heels, getting some body angle, etc, but when I try to do that during my runs, it seems realllllyyy hard. Obviously that's because my body is not used to it! I think that my muscles need to be completely reconfigured in order to find "proper" running form. Hungry Runner Girl posted some good pictures a few days ago of what proper form should look like.

As I read more about natural running and running form, I'll have to update my own progress/thoughts on fixing your form. Personally, I think that in the long run, if I can maintain better form I'll be a lot more efficient and hopefully speedier when running. I think I have potential to eventually shave several minutes (if not many, many more) off of my half-marathon time if I can use my form to run more efficiently as well as more safely, which will likely reduce my injury rate by tenfold!