Researchers have reported on the stiffness of running in holistic terms, i.e. for the structures that are undergoing deformation as a whole rather than in terms of specific locations. This study aimed to estimate both the natural frequency and the viscous damping coefficient of the human foot-surface cushion, during the period between the heel strike and the mid-stance phase of running, using a purposely developed one degree-of-freedom inverted pendulum state space model of the leg. The model, which was validated via a comparison of measured and estimated ground reaction forces, incorporated a novel use of linearized and extended Kalman filter estimators. Investigation of the effect of variation of the natural frequency and/or the damping of the cushioning mechanism during running, using the said model, revealed the natural frequency of running on said foot-surface cushion, during the stance phase, to lie between 5 and 11. Hz. The "extended Kalman filter (EKF)" approach, that was used here for the first time to directly apply measured ground forces, may be widely applicable to the identification process of combined estimation of both unknown physiological state and mechanical characteristics of the environment in an inverse dynamic model. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.