Help! Feet slipping forward upon landing (mid foot strike)

Well it would only slip if you are hitting the ground from behind. (Like with your leg swinging as a lever) Your stride should go in a circular motion. The foot should momentarily be in front of your hips/body before pulling back and hitting the ground on your forefoot just in front your hips (with your whole body in line)

Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j9JtpSbPNg

Here's the same guy in shoes. His legs and feet are in the same line as when barefoot, but he hits with a mid-foot strike as opposed to a fore-foot strike:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfrsOFadIKQ

Looks like that barefoot guy strikes the same way regardless of shoes or not.

'I like to think that I've sorted my technique nicely over the past years, pretty much a pose style kind of running.'

Sounds like it

I doubt you could walk and chew gum at the same time

Thanks for the replies.

To state again, Im like to think my pose/midfoot strike is quite refined.

I'm talking about sprint speeds here, which in my case is north of 60'/400m speed. I ran a 13.3/100m not so long ago, my first ever try, when I really did not have my high gear, to give an example.

I am (really) tall and not light, 190lb and more usually. Hugely long legs.

I did not have this problem before.

Indeed my feet are striking the ground from behind. Due to imprefect interface between shoe and surface, or slow build-up of pressure application (soft landing?) I slide forward, just not fun.

I don't think I am overstriding much, I couldn't imagine how at near top speeds. When I am OK, I can sprint along sub-2'00 800m runners. Nothing special, but I am not a runner, and not young anymore (36yo).

Yesterday I was comfortably out-sprinting a 400/800m girl who did 2'14 last summer. My PB is slower, albeit a nonsense one-time effort. Close to a 2'00 400mH/800m guy, despite my problems with the slippage.

Perhaps I am not lifting my knees high or quick enough anymore? Just too little mileage to have my technique keep up with my new found natural strength when I show up to practice on a blue monday?

Again thanks for any insights! Running in the wet is much less fun this way...

Is this some sort of joke? Do people really talk like this and have these sorts of "problems"? How do live in the world when you make issues out of how to run? What messed up biomechanics guru have you tried to follow?!?! Just run!

Lack of basic mileage is your problem.

@Er...

I am well aware of more dire problems in this world which I cannot fix unless 51% of 7 billion people are on my side.

For this trivial issue with my running form, a few good tip might get me smooth sailing.

Lack of mileage, I'll believe that, but would like to understand how this gets expressed with such a specific off-form issue. I don't remember having this when I started to run midfoot striking, and building mileage from near zero.

Greetings from Euroland,

Skater

It sounds like your shoes may be too loose...?

Er... I have never understood it either. I ran D1 and never met anyone who dealt with these things, yet after college I joined a running group with guys of all talent levels and there would be 45 minute 10 k guys working on their footstrike all the time. It seems crazy to me. Just go out and run. Unless you have some horrible impediment, why not work on running faster instead of running better?

Skater wrote:

@Er...

I am well aware of more dire problems in this world which I cannot fix unless 51% of 7 billion people are on my side.

For this trivial issue with my running form, a few good tip might get me smooth sailing.

Lack of mileage, I'll believe that, but would like to understand how this gets expressed with such a specific off-form issue. I don't remember having this when I started to run midfoot striking, and building mileage from near zero.

Greetings from Euroland,

Skater

With more basic mileage, your foot plant should become more secure and precise. It doesn't matter whether you mid foot strike, forefoot or heelstrike because everyone has their own style, dependent on their own natural biomechanics. However improving running form requires lot of repetition - countless thousands of strides.

Skater wrote:

Thanks for the replies.

To state again, Im like to think my pose/midfoot strike is quite refined.

I'm talking about sprint speeds here, which in my case is north of 60'/400m speed.

Hugely long legs.

I don't think I am overstriding much,

Perhaps I am not lifting my knees high or quick enough anymore? Just too little mileage to have my technique keep up

My guess is that you're getting tired because you aren't running speed workouts enough and you subconsciously change your form towards the end of the interval.

It manifests as overstriding, but it's hard to say where the problem starts. I do it myself. In my case, it usually my cadence begins to slow and I compensate by overstriding.

If this is what is happening, tell us and I'll expand on what to do.

Make sure your feet land under the body.

@NHrunning. The legs land in the same line in both video, but a slight difference can be seen in the foot landing. The foot in the shoe lands slightly to the back of the foot while the barefoot lands slightly to the front of the shoe.

Skater, I would not suggest focusing on picking up your knees so much as making sure you pick up your heel and bring it up to your butt enough (not behind it, but straight up). This will cause your knee to drive through more during your recovery phase of the stride causing your knee to be lifted up in turn. This guy talks about it well:

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/p/archive.html

(just search the archives)

To those who say that they don't know why people work on their form, I can attest that the best thing I've ever done for my running is fix my form. It made it way smoother and efficient and light. And I can recall several several pros and elite coaches talking about the need to fix proper biomechanics. Not the least of which, Alberto Salazar (He talked about it in a recent podcast) who is working on Mary Cain's action, but works on all of his athletes' form (he did, however have mixed results with Ritz). I also remember Chris Derrick talking about working on proper biomechanics

This is my favorite video to illustrate this point. Bekele and Gebrselassie running with the same exact stride as they power away form everyone else:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJcHMVFb3pQ

(best seen at 0:55 on)