What is training?

I've been thinking about what training is, which sounds really silly, but it is perplexing me. I've been a runner since I was a little kid - by 10 I was running with an athletics club, and with the odd period of semi-retirement I've run for the competition or the pleasure ever since. I have a short attention span and a love of shiny new toys so I've climbed, cycled, scuba-dived and all sorts of other stuff too. If its active then I probably like it. Except racquet sports.

Now, I reckon that I've missed a trick with running efficiency, as I've said previously. With a VO2 Max over 70 in my hayday I had the aerobic capacity to be really good, but I never made it past strong mediocre. I wish someone had put me through a gait analysis because I reckon running heel first in big fat shoes will not have helped. The few times I've really excelled and felt like I was flying was in track spikes or once when I tried Nike Mayflies in one of their event trials .

I recognise that there will be other factors, like not putting in enough miles, or not having the right attitude to make it happen. But I know that I've lacked that personal guidance that points things out. When I fenced we watched films of top swordsmen, but I never did the same for running - ultimately my bad, but it set me thinking. How do you learn the basics when you are not quite getting it? In my defence, apart from being thick, I didn't know what I was doing wrong to know how or what to ask for help with.

Now I've got into barefoot running, I read BFT and BF Ken Bob's sites, about running easy and smooth and so on. I've also wondered how this relates to Tim Noakes bible of knowledge, the "Lore of Running" now in Volume 4. Then there is the veritable Gordon Pirie, who basically said 'get out and run'. So basically it is clear that distance runners are the most efficient runners and they do it by adding so many miles that their bodies learn to move efficiently. So that seems clear - relax, get out in your own time, run far, run relaxed and the benefits will come. I like that ethos.

BUT - then I come across a variety of learn efficiency fast and never get injured again sites - also with strong followings, these include POSE for the technological believer, CHI for the spiritual runner and even MovNat for the animal runner (in a good way). Now I REALLY like the MovNat philosophy, and I know that BFT is a friend of Erwan, the head guy, so he must be cool too, but there is no way that I can afford the time and expense required to be taught how to move in an idyllic setting. I'd take my family, but the bank manager says no.

So what to do in cold Britain? I like what I've seen on the MovNat website, of breaking down apparently complex skills into simple components and drilling them like you do in martial arts training, so that they are second nature. This seems like good sense, and natural. I'm less convinced by Pose and Chi - I'm sure that they work, I've not tried either so I'm not running them down, but I don't like the concept underpinning Pose, and Chi seems to be lots of puff around basically running barefoot style with some energy flow talk on top. I don't have an answer, I'll just keep having to following these guys who are pushing at the forefront of change and thinking what it means for my own development.

I just feel a tension between the advice to run naturally, unfettered and free, and the need to teach people methods for how to do it. How did that come about?

Run into the hills, and don't stop till you have to.