In the Beginning

Before babies can walk, they must develop muscle strength and coordination.  They do this by learning to sit, roll over and crawl.  Then they begin to pull themselves up and stand.  As a baby’s legs get stronger, they can bounce themselves up and down by balancing on their feet.  By the time they are nine months old, most babies can pull themselves up and walk around the room by holding onto sturdy furniture.  

Within six weeks of taking those first steps, most babies learn to balance themselves and even bend at the knee.  By the time they are 15 or 16 months old, babies can usually toddle around with push-and-pull toys.  Most children have become pretty good at walking by the time they are 18 months old.  This is how we learn to walk.

I thought about this as I watched a swimmer with no legs below the knees compete at my daughter’s high school league championships.  She qualified for the championships in the grueling 500 yard freestyle event.  She starts from the blocks and does flip turns.  It was an inspiring performance. 

In that same event was a girl who is about to undergo chemotherapy for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  That girl recently had five inches of her lower intestine removed.  She swam a State Championship qualifying time which was her third fastest time ever.  It was a heroic swim. 

Once a child masters walking, the next developmental milestone is running.  Running requires a high level of balance.  So, after they learn to walk, most kids practice standing on one foot.  Then it’s just a matter of time before they are jumping, skipping, hopping, and galloping, all of which help them learn how to use their muscles to run.  This is how we learn to run. 

I thought about this as I watched a mother running with her young son on the Highline canal.  The kid was about five years old.  It was a heartwarming scene.  The temperature was about 30 degrees and this kid was clearly having fun. 

Once we learn to run, we want to run faster and father.  It is a primal instinct of ours.  Two things determine how fast we can run: stride rate and stride length.  There are a few things we can do to increase stride rate.  One way is to do consistent speed work.  This can take the form of intervals on the track or fartlek runs.  An example would be running 100 – 200 yard repeats at a fast pace with a recovery of equal distance. 

Another way is to run in place with a metronome.  The goal is to run about 180 steps per minute.  This exercise translates into faster leg turnover which leads to faster times.  This is how we learn to run fast.

I thought about this as I was watching the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix which was held at the Reggie Lewis Center on the campus of Roxbury Community College near Boston.  Mary Cain, a 16 year old, smashed the USA high school and junior records for the two mile and 3000 meter runs.  We think we run fast until we see people who really do run fast.