There seems to be an unpreventable burnout for my runining every three months or so.
Today I feel like I am back to being burnt out... or at least somewhere very near burnout. True burnout is aweful; a pure loss of desire. It's easy to not run when I'm truly burnt out because frankly, I am by definition burnt out on running. Indeed, I still want to run these days. I am full of desire and ambition, but things are getting mundane. I don't feel like I'm working towards anything despite the fact that I have a half marathon in 2 1/2 weeks, and a big track season after that.
I think what I'm currently pushing through isn't a case of running burn out. I think it's a case of running gone mundane. The roads are wet with rain, the sky dreary with clouds, and the landscape old and uninspiring. Perhaps I need some new routes, perhaps I need a rest. I still feel good after running, so I don't think that the latter is true. I am more in touch with my body now than ever. But constantly running the same roads, the same trails, the same treadmill, the same tracks; nursing the same injuries, trying solve the same problems... it gets old after a while.
Mundane times are difficult to get rhrough, but they aren't quite burnout. If I keep my goals close to heart, and my passion in my veins, I know I will eventuall bounce out of this. FIAGW
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Cross Training Lamentations
One of the most frustrating things to work into my running routine is cross training. Although it is important for a couple of reasons, I'll be honest, sometimes (like today) I'd rather take my chances running and developing an injury (knock on wood). Okay, maybe not the injury part, but I'd rather run just a mile than spending half an hour on that aweful spinning bike. As if regular biking wasn't monotonous enough, someone had the great idea to actually take the fun part out of it (going fast) by putting pedals on a steel frame, attatching handles and calling it a stationary bike. Sure, the spinning carbon-fiber plate that simulates momentum was a nice touch, and it gives spinning bikes a slight edge over regular excercise bikes, but I'll be honest, the interest the little spinning disc inspired lasted about 3 minutes. For the remaining 27 minutes, I tries just about everything to make the time go faster, and my percieved effort go down. I tried blasting intense, moving music through my earphones, but that didn't seem to get me anywhere. I tried to disassociate with the situation, but I found that to be equally unhelpful. The horrible truth was that I was literally spinning my wheel, going nowhere, and hating the whole thing.
Now, I would never submit myself to this punishment if I didn't feel it was good for me. While I didn't enjoy it, my legs were working in a slightly different way than they do running, strengthening a few more muscles. Not to mention it was a nice break from the beating my calves have been taking recently from minimalistic running, which was the main reason I chose to cross train today. I find that while it is about as boring as listening to classical piano music for hours, working on the lower end of my aerobic rate allows blood to flush out the lactic acid and repair the micro tears in the muscle fibers of my sore calves. While that sounds beneficial enough, the actual act of cross training is absolutely abysmal. I love running. I hate sitting around. Logically, cross training should be somewhere in between a day of and a running day. But it totally isn't. No, cross training has a very special place in my heart. It's on a different plane... the same plane that sprint workouts and wieght lifting are on. The plane of things that are good for me but are really (simply put) not fun whatsoever. I mean, at least on days off I can at least feel good about doing something that is good for me. With cross training, there is no rush, no endorphines. Sure I sweat, but it's a different kind of sweat. And sweat that seems to toy with me; as if to insesantly remind me that I am not running. On days off, I can control this realization. I can go do some wood working, start a new book, distract myself from my non-running reality. But cross training is so tantalizing because with every motion, it feels I am reminded that I'm not running... I'm doing something else. I enjoyed cross training over the summer when I got burnt out on running. But in a time when I am more in to running than I've ever been, cross training just feels annoying.
But I must stay positive, even in obnoxious adversity. Maybe a day of indoor cycling is just what my calves needed to expedite recovery so I can put in the big miles. Maybe cross training is just the prescription my running needs to improve... if nothing else, and I mean if there was truly no other benefit, cross training days like today make me apreciate all of my runs... even the bad ones.
Now, I would never submit myself to this punishment if I didn't feel it was good for me. While I didn't enjoy it, my legs were working in a slightly different way than they do running, strengthening a few more muscles. Not to mention it was a nice break from the beating my calves have been taking recently from minimalistic running, which was the main reason I chose to cross train today. I find that while it is about as boring as listening to classical piano music for hours, working on the lower end of my aerobic rate allows blood to flush out the lactic acid and repair the micro tears in the muscle fibers of my sore calves. While that sounds beneficial enough, the actual act of cross training is absolutely abysmal. I love running. I hate sitting around. Logically, cross training should be somewhere in between a day of and a running day. But it totally isn't. No, cross training has a very special place in my heart. It's on a different plane... the same plane that sprint workouts and wieght lifting are on. The plane of things that are good for me but are really (simply put) not fun whatsoever. I mean, at least on days off I can at least feel good about doing something that is good for me. With cross training, there is no rush, no endorphines. Sure I sweat, but it's a different kind of sweat. And sweat that seems to toy with me; as if to insesantly remind me that I am not running. On days off, I can control this realization. I can go do some wood working, start a new book, distract myself from my non-running reality. But cross training is so tantalizing because with every motion, it feels I am reminded that I'm not running... I'm doing something else. I enjoyed cross training over the summer when I got burnt out on running. But in a time when I am more in to running than I've ever been, cross training just feels annoying.
But I must stay positive, even in obnoxious adversity. Maybe a day of indoor cycling is just what my calves needed to expedite recovery so I can put in the big miles. Maybe cross training is just the prescription my running needs to improve... if nothing else, and I mean if there was truly no other benefit, cross training days like today make me apreciate all of my runs... even the bad ones.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
What They Didn't Tell Me About Minimalist Running
So recently I changed my foot strike from heel strike to mid foot strike. This was in the wake of reading a book that had a powerful impact on me: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. It's a truly inspirational book... I would recommend it to anybody. It poses an interesting point: humans have been running without shoes for millions of years, and with injury rates at an all time high and rising, why is it we continue to look to the shoe companies to improve our running?
I instantly became a big believer in barefoot and minimalist running. I went out and bought a pair of Reebok RealFlex shoes, which supposedly simulate barefoot running. I liked the shoes, but they seemed a little too soft, a little too shoe like to be a true member of the naturalistic running shoe clan. So I recently purchased a pair of New Balance 730s, which have a very flat, thin, hard sole and an extremely wide toe box, which both help my running quite a bit. The mid foot striking was feeling good, except for one thing nobody warned me about:
When you land on the middle of your foot, you instantly put all of the stress that was being absorbed by your joints (with a heel strike) into your muscles.
Okay, maybe they did tell me that. And I agree that long term, this is a good thing... It will save my joints and hips and make my muscles stronger so that I am ultimately a more efficient runner with a longer running lifespan.
What they didn't tell me was there would be growing pains.
My calves have been so sore, I can hardly walk. You want to know how many tiny muscles there are in your lower leg? Go for a 10 mile run, landing with a flat foot the whole time, and you'll know the next morning. All of the itsy bitsy supporting muscles in addition to the gastrocnemeus and soleus muscles will be absolutely shredded.
I should have known to take a day off after that kind of pain developed... Rule of thumb: if you're so sore that you cannot walk, you definitely shouldn't run. But I did. I ran so far and fast because once I got warmed up, the feeling is incredible. If you stay light on your feet, land in the middle of the foot, you will feel it too. It's like landing on a loaded spring... except it's not a spring, it's your leg.
So I went out, and I ran. Fast and far. And then one day, about two weeks ago... and odd tightness formed in my left Achilles tendon. It exacerbated until I finally took a day off.
I am still nursing this injury... It's doing a lot better. I'm stretching, icing, and on a heavy ibuprofen regimen. I think I'll get through this setback in no time. I expect it to be minor. But the truth stands:
Don't jump into barefoot style running all at once. You will get hurt.
And if you get hurt, like I did, do what you have to do to fix it. Rest it, ice it, blast it with non-steroidal anti-inflamatories. Do everything you can to make every setback a minor setback.
I instantly became a big believer in barefoot and minimalist running. I went out and bought a pair of Reebok RealFlex shoes, which supposedly simulate barefoot running. I liked the shoes, but they seemed a little too soft, a little too shoe like to be a true member of the naturalistic running shoe clan. So I recently purchased a pair of New Balance 730s, which have a very flat, thin, hard sole and an extremely wide toe box, which both help my running quite a bit. The mid foot striking was feeling good, except for one thing nobody warned me about:
When you land on the middle of your foot, you instantly put all of the stress that was being absorbed by your joints (with a heel strike) into your muscles.
Okay, maybe they did tell me that. And I agree that long term, this is a good thing... It will save my joints and hips and make my muscles stronger so that I am ultimately a more efficient runner with a longer running lifespan.
What they didn't tell me was there would be growing pains.
My calves have been so sore, I can hardly walk. You want to know how many tiny muscles there are in your lower leg? Go for a 10 mile run, landing with a flat foot the whole time, and you'll know the next morning. All of the itsy bitsy supporting muscles in addition to the gastrocnemeus and soleus muscles will be absolutely shredded.
I should have known to take a day off after that kind of pain developed... Rule of thumb: if you're so sore that you cannot walk, you definitely shouldn't run. But I did. I ran so far and fast because once I got warmed up, the feeling is incredible. If you stay light on your feet, land in the middle of the foot, you will feel it too. It's like landing on a loaded spring... except it's not a spring, it's your leg.
So I went out, and I ran. Fast and far. And then one day, about two weeks ago... and odd tightness formed in my left Achilles tendon. It exacerbated until I finally took a day off.
I am still nursing this injury... It's doing a lot better. I'm stretching, icing, and on a heavy ibuprofen regimen. I think I'll get through this setback in no time. I expect it to be minor. But the truth stands:
Don't jump into barefoot style running all at once. You will get hurt.
And if you get hurt, like I did, do what you have to do to fix it. Rest it, ice it, blast it with non-steroidal anti-inflamatories. Do everything you can to make every setback a minor setback.
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