TEN MILES!!!

Before I say anything else I have to address my title.

I RAN TEN MILES!!!!




I still can't believe my body ran that far and I did not collapse into a heap of complete unintelligable exhaustion afterwards.  On my way home I was feeling pretty drained (like I needed fuel drained) so I took one last gu chomp and it did the trick.  I didn't feel a crash again until that night!

So rewind....my original plan was to run 10 on Saturday in Gettysburg, after the running clinic.  The running clinic was put on by Rick Meyers from the Runner's Sole at the YWCA in Gettysburg.  I was hoping it would be good, but I in no way had high expectations.



Rick totally blew me away!!  The clinic was supposed to be 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM.....He didn't leave until 10:45!!!  We focused on gait analysis and form- specifically looking at cadence and how increasing your cadence changes your stride, form, pretty much everything about how you run.  We learned that your form changes after you warm up and have been running for a bit of time- so you never want to have your gait looked at from your early strides because it is always the best then.  Apparently I am a midfoot/heel striker.  He said I did do some heel striking, it was a combination. Boo. 

Then he had us run barefoot. At first it kinda freaked me out because I never have before- but after I got settled in, I felt lighter on my feet and my cadence picked up.  Then he had us run with a metronome.  This was by far my favorite part because I FELT such a difference in how I ran just by focusing on my cadence.  When I picked up my cadence and ran at the 180 bpm he set it to- I was treading so lightly, it was like a mouse hitting the treadmill. ::Angels singing::   And the miracle of it was- it felt so much easier and like less effort expended that when I was at my slower normal cadence of 165 bpm. Weird, huh?  It's what he said it should feel like, but I was still shocked.

We then talked about breathing techniques and how you should breathe only through your nose.  Let me repeat that....breathe only through your nose.  That is HARD, people!! Try doing it just while walking- no breathing through your mouth, and you'll see what I mean.  He said that yeah, it was totally normal to feel like you are suffocating.  Sounds like fun, huh?  You have to re-train your body to breathe this way to get maximal oxygen to your lungs and heart.  He talked about belly vs. diaphram breathing and I was having flash backs of symphonic band with Mr. Ross at Newark High School! 

He answered a bunch of other questions, and I also got to ask him about my lingering issues with hamstring tightness and stiffness and he thinks the major problem is all my driving, but it's aggrivated further by my heel striking form. Fantastic.  One thing I have no control on and the other is going to take a while to move past.  He said what I was doing was good and I could also try a compression thigh sleeve (picked one up at his store immediately afterwards and its helping a little).  So lots more foam rolling and massage stick are in my future!

Hello friends!

So having said all that about the great running clinic- I ran out of time to do my long run in Gettysburg. And to make matters worse I was stiff and painful as ever after running and then just standing around for 1.5 hours.  Not great for stiff muscles.  Hence, the Sunday morning run instead.  On the treadmill.  I know, I hate doing long distance on the treadmill but there is simply not a safe place that I have found in my town to run long distances.  My neighborhood is kinda shady, but more importantly all the longer (not neighborhood roads) have zero shoulder and no sidewalks.  Not cool, Middle River, not cool!!!  I do all my shorter runs around my neighborhoods but after zig zagging so many times up and down the same roads, it makes you hate running.  I don't want to get this feeling.

So, the important thing is that I ran 10 MILES!!! Really proud of myself and everyone has been telling me if you can mentally get to 10 miles, the illusive double digit distance, you can totally hit 13.1!