Yes, I did it one week after doing the Cape Marathon and was experimenting (probably foolishly) with shoe inserts. I am sure my foot was doing more than the funky things it usually does without inserts. I finished in 3:29:22. Here is my report on running with the inserts last year: http://recoveryourstride.blogs…
Jim

While the VFF runner is landing with very straight leg and heel striking of all the runners he is landing with his foot the closest to his center of gravity. *All* runners have to land with their foot in front of their center of gravity, when running at a steady state, as you’d fall flat on your face otherwise. That’s why all of the photo’s here and anywhere else you’ll find the landing with foot in front of the center of gravity.

The idea of landing in front of center of gravity being poor form is very wrong, you can’t have a running form that is physically impossible being good running form, and all the physically possible forms being bad. Yes Chii Running, Good Form Running etc. are teaching something that can’t happen in the real world.

In the case of VFF runner, he’s landing close to center of mass, and he’s trailing leg is only a small angle behind indicating to me that of all the runners in the shots he’s probably running with a shortest stride and slowly at the point of the photo. I’d guess he’s jogging here, while most of the photo’s here the legs are far more open indicating that they are running with longer stride and at a faster rate.

Pete’s has added that the VFF runner shortly afterwards suffered from his quads locking up, so it might well be likely that he was slowing and changing to more of shuffle gait to avoid bending his knees as an attempt to less the load on fatigued quads. It would be interesting to look at photo’s of the runner prior to fatigue settings in.

I have a lot of statistics on this, but am working on getting them
published in a scientific journal before posting anything here – stay
tuned!

I have all of that data actually – both for left/right asymmetry and
patterns at mile 6 vs. mile 20 for individual runners. Trying to get
it published first, then more will come out here on the blog.

Also, look at the VFF runner landing on his heel! Amazing how that’s even possible on pavement.

Good catch, Paul! In my initial glance at the photos I hadn’t noticed that one of the most severe heel strike and leg lock was definitely the VFF runner. Worse yet, is that he’s doing that on a very hard surface. Won’t be long before he either fractures his calcaneus or he changes his footstrike pattern.

Excellent points Robert – I’ll see if I can put up a “before” picture of the
VFF runner.