A.M. Ran 4 with Benjamin, 1.5 with Jenny and Julia, 1.5 with Joseph, and 0.25 with Jacob. Then another 3.6 including a pickup for 2100 meters in 7:00.5. Again focused on the calf push off, and got results similar to Saturday. I felt a bit sluggish from the start, but the pace did not seem to get much harder as the run progressed. So it is harder to get going, but easier to maintain the pace. This is consistent with the idea that soleus is primarily made of slow-twitch fibers, so if you are able to delegate some of the quad work to the soleus, you will lose a little bit of initial spunk, but will be able to hold the pace for longer. From that develops another thought. When you try to run fast, soleus would resist recruitment because it will think it is not fast enough and will want to delegate its work to other muscles that have more fast twitch fibers. So then the challenge is to train it to not be lazy at fast speeds. I remember watching Haile Gebrselassie in the movie Endurance and noticing a very energetic calf action. It left me thinking for a while. It's been over 10 years, but I am still thinking. It is not so much the matter of calf strength - you can get calf strength by going to the gym, so if it was all the matter of strength, every gym bum that works out his calves would be a great runner. It is more about the art of significantly recruiting your calf when running for the purpose of forward motion thus relieving the burden of the quad. Perhaps the East Africans and few Caucasians have that art naturally somehow, while others have to work to develop it. Like singing voice. Total distance was 10.85.
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