I shot the videos below at about the halfway mark, capturing 3 seconds of actual running, replayed over 12 seconds back at 25 frames per second. This is a great place to observe as the athletes are well into a fatigued state and thus sees them with their “default” form compared to being fresh, or just out of T2. Any weakness will be on show at this stage, however they haven’t completely lost form yet, making it a “fair” assessment of their technique under fatigue.
Crowie is the gold standard for good running form. His hips are stable, back is straight, head is steady and he has a slight forward lean from ankles (whole body, good) rather than from the hips (just torso, not so good). The lean is a crucial part of his form, at a whole angle such that if he were just standing his nose would be above his toes. His body position means his body weight (and momentum) is forwards, and puts his hips over his feet at point of landing (rather than thinking of his feet being under his hips). The end result is that he is a mid-fore foot runner...not something you should aim for without consideration for your whole body position. Interesting to note his right hand swings a little more than his left, but it doesn't create any imbalance. His overall form is compact and relaxed, but his form easily allows him to "rev up" to faster speeds with ease.
Cam Brown
Brown is almost gold standard, with many of the same characteristics of Crowie. The main contrast is that Brown is more upright and thus doesn't quite get the benefit of rolling momentum that Crowie does, and the efficiency that comes with it. He is also light on his feet, with great agility, with another contrast being that his upright form sees him as a flat foot runner, which almost appears like heel striking but isn't. His form is very sustainable but wouldn't quite lend itself to higher speeds and efficiency of Crowie without considerable effort.
Van Lierde runs very like Crowie, with mechanics that are almost identical (his arm carriage is a little lower). But if you put van Lierde alongside Crowie what you would mostly notice is their different body shape - van Lierde is simply a bigger guy, especially around his hips. But what this also highlights is that a guy his size can still run very well with good form, and that good form is possible (almost) regardless of body size.
With Llanos we start to see variations to the basically ideal form of the first three. While he has good control of his hips / body position, and has a nice forward lean, I would say that he is leaning too far forward and running too much on his fore-foot. So while the top-3 place their feet on the ground with each step, Llanos falls onto his feet which apart from really loading up his calf and achilles (he's obviously adapated to this), has the effect of shortening his stride a little a front in that he doesn't get the very small amount of "float" the top-3 guys do. This might only be small, but certainly adds up over a marathon. I would like to see him run a little more upright and think about placing his feet down rather than his continuous falling forwards technique...I feel this could improve his speed and sustainability.
With Matthews we start to see a clearer contrast between the fast runners and the good runners. Matthews still had a cracking run, but to watch his form you see how he is sitting back on his form somewhat, and landing a more heaviliy on his feet. It would be interesting to see him at the 35km mark as I would suspect he might tend towards heel striking as his fatigue increases, but at this point he is landing flat foot. I would like to see him bring his hips forward a little more so his weight comes a little more forwards, so he "rolls" over the ground rather than running across it - a subtle but important change of body position.
Bell runs in quite a similar way to Llanos in that he falls onto his feet, and has his body nicely forwards. A contrast with Llanos, however, is and that Bell tends to extend his head and neck forwads, and in conjunction also thursts his chest forwards a little with each step. The combination of this is that with each step his chest, shoulders and head are not stable, but rock forwads which I feel has the effect of upsetting his smooth, rhythmical momentum, decreases his efficiency and also shortens his stride to a greater extent than Llanos. So what I'd like to see him do, like Llanos, is to straighten up a little, lift his arms a little closer to his chest, pull his head back a little, stabilise his shoulders (without tensing up) and perhaps work on shortening his stride a bit. Also, his hips have a little tendency to be unstable. I think Bell has a lot of potential for form improvement, especially of the guys I videoed.
Joe Gambles
Gambles and Matthews wore the same kit, and also run in quite a similar way. A contrast is that Gambles holds his hips and little higher and more forwards (which is good) compared to Matthews, and isn't quite as heavy on his feet...so to that end his form is slightly better than Matthews. Gambles also tends to swing his arms a little excessively which may reduce his efficiency over IM distance.
I would love to have seen more pros, and especially the women since their standard of running is rapidly improving and would provide great contrasts between the "new breed" of fast IM runners and their female counterparts. I hope this analysis illustrates the key role of good running form, which is the combination of many parts, but is focused on hip and body position.
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