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It is a powerful feeling to sense an acceleration out of every corner just by positioning your body correctly.

Imagine you are riding a bicycle at a decent speed. You come to a left turn. What do you do to take the corner? Do you turn handlebars bars to the left?

The answer is No. You lean the bike to the left and countersteer the handlebars to the right.

You don’t turn the handlebars to the left going into the corner. As you come out of the corner though, you may make a small correction to your trajectory by turning the handlebars slightly. But to get through the corner, you lean and countersteer.

When you run a turn, your hips are the bike, and your shoulders and sternum are the handlebars.

If you are running into a left turn, don’t twist your shoulders to the left. Instead:

• Keep your shoulders and sternum pointing straight as if you are not going to corner at all.
• Lean your hips to the left.
• The moment you lean, you’ll feel your shoulders and sternum pointing away from the direction of the turn – the equivalent of countersteering which is what you want.
• As you come around the corner, you’ll feel a force pulling you through the turn – a free acceleration you earned for cornering well.
• Finally, once you’re around the corner, turn your shoulders and sternum slightly to the left so that your hips and shoulders/sternum are pointing the same direction.

And if it is a right turn, swap all the lefts in the list above for rights. Cornering is an important technique. It is a powerful feeling to sense an acceleration out of every corner just by positioning your body correctly.

Turns as a Focal Point

Further, focused cornering gives you a specific technical focal point to look forward to during workouts. Deconstructing reps into small “chunks” is extremely helpful. Let’s say your rep is 1km and you run a turn three times. Your chunks become:

• Start with the Drive Phase (1 chunk),
• Rule #1 between each corner (4 chunks)
• Proper turning into each corner (3 chunks).

Add it up and rather than a 1km rep you have 8 chunks each with a specific focus to keep your mind engaged.

Rotational Bias

Each athlete has a “rotational bias,” and innately prefers to run a turn (or turn in general) in one direction versus the other. Coach Ken Jakalski posted an article on Freelap Why Do We Turn Left on a Track if you want to learn more about rotational bias.

I mention this because you will surely prefer turning in one direction over the other. Make sure that you practice both. You want to decrease the discrepancy between left and right turns. And some runners, like me, feel a HUGE difference.

However, during more challenging interval runs at the track or on a road course with turns, stick to your preferred turn direction. Practice your non-dominant side during your Base runs first and during slower speeds reps to build it up gradually.