As readers, you might get bored of how ecstatic I am after running. It’s not always that way, but recently, I have been truly euphoric after each running workout.

Why? Because I love to move my body, to be in control of how my feet touch the ground, where my eyes lead me, how my breath rate increases, how my heart pumps blood so loyally to my extremities.

I wish there was a way I could shout from the rooftops that “There is a way to move pain-free, injury-free and joyfully. Step right this way, and I’ll show you how!”

This morning I headed out around 7am with Oliver to do our normal park loop, about 30 minutes. Before we left, I did a full course of Body Looseners and really paid attention to my core, keeping it engaged the whole time I did the Looseners. I made a decision before I left to go as slowly as I needed to in order to feel GREAT at the end of my run, like I hadn’t even gone running at all.

And I succeeded! While I was running, I was just focusing on staying calm, breathing, and smiling. I let Oliver off the leash and he was absolutely hysterical, causing me to laugh, as he tore around the frosted grass and splashed in shallow frozen water puddles.

I actually didn’t focus on one particular thing, but just let my body be happy, let it move freely and relaxed. I don’t quite know how to explain how I felt; I’ve never felt that way before when running. It was incredible. I really almost felt like I wasn’t running at all. I simply Body Sensed being at peace.

Now I know what people mean when the write to Danny and Katherine about their success with running and say, “I ran for an hour and couldn’t figure out when I was going to get tired! I didn’t feel like I was doing anything at all!”

There really is something to be said about joyful movement. There’s a fine line between feeling like you’re doing nothing and doing nothing; I think that fine line is joy.

Yesterday morning I got an itch to go for a quick run, but also needed to get the dog exercised.

LIGHT BULB! Take the dog running with you! Well, he’s just now 6 mos old so I’ve been waiting until he gets a bit bigger. But I figured it couldn’t hurt and he certainly has plenty of energy to burn.

Oliver was looking at me very strangely when I did the Body Looseners, especially the Gumby arm-flinging one. He literally cocked his head sideways and watched me.

We went to Carrier Park, a loop he’s familiar with. I tied the leash around my waist and started off running very slowly, really trying to focus mostly on myself and my own running form, but having awareness around this 4-legged companion running alongside. [Note: Mei Ling, the Dreyer's dog, is an amazing creature to watch when she's running. While I am certain Oliver will be an excellent running companion for me, he's no Mei-Ling, just like I'll never be a Danny Dreyer!]

Since I had the leash around my waist, it brought extra attention to my core muscles, encouraging me to keep them engaged the whole time I was running. Since I was able to keep my arms moving, I focused on keeping them at 90 degrees with rearward momentum. I also thought about keeping my lower legs limp and loose. I didn’t want the dog’s presence or excitedness to transfer to tenseness in my legs.  The whole run felt really good. It was about a 1.5 mile run altogether with a little bit of walking on either end and, of course stretches. During a few low grade downhills I opened up my hips and sped up a bit. Oliver took it all in stride (pun intended) and switched from a canter to a gallop. He looked up at me as if to say, “Now we’re talkin’!”

My knee has been in really good shape lately. The shorter distances are suiting me well, and since I don’t have anything specific I am training for, it’s just about the process and experiment of running just for the sake of it.

For those of you with dogs, if they’re in good enough health to take running or walking, I highly encourage it. Danny and Mei go out running everyday together, and Katherine often takes Mei running and walking, too. She’s one of the happiest dogs I’ve ever met, and as you all know, the Dreyer’s are certainly happy and healthy.  What a model to follow!

I went down to Carrier Park again yesterday morning early when it was still cool.

Doing the Body Looseners and a bit of ChiWalking before and after running is going to save me, I believe. Patience is certainly not one of my highest strengths, and by doing the Looseners and stretches and walking before and after running, it’s forcing me to take things a bit more slowly and in manageable bits.

I think this process is good because as Danny often says, getting your brain to really focus for steady periods of time is hard — your mind wants to wander! So if I can really practice focusing for the entire run (by starting with shorter times and distances), then it will get easier over time to focus for longer periods of time.

We talk about refocusing in the Beginner Marathon Training Program (and in the Intermediate, due out next month). This idea of focusing and refocusing is so imperative to all of us… not only when we’re running but when we’re doing anything in life. What’s so exciting, though, is that as runners and walkers, we can practice refocusing while we’re exercising (doing something we love) and then it starts to become 2nd nature and you can refocus more easily on anything in other veins of life.

So if I loosen, walk, run, walk and stretch, in that order each time I go out for a run, the entire process turns into a series of events when I must refocus, over and over again. If I apply this same reasoning to the rest of my life, say for example, my morning when I arrive at the office, perhaps I could use the same idea of refocusing:

Check email, get tea ready, respond to 5 emails, return phone calls, rebrew tea, walk around the office for 5 minutes, check email, prepare for meeting…

I think the most important thing about the practice of refocusing is that you make a choice about what you need to focus on (during your day, your run, your vacation, etc.) and have an implicit understanding with yourself that while there may be temporary distractions, going back to focusing on “this list” is the most important thing…

So, on that note, I am off to brew some tea.

So, remember I last blogged about lovely crisp mornings here in Asheville? Well, I must have been mistaken. When I got finished with my short run this morning I was stretching and noticed that I was literally steaming from my head. Granted, I have a large forehead… It was steamy hot this morning, and very muggy. When I was doing my Body Looseners before I got started, I got attacked by mosquitoes (they love my blood).

Bless Carrier Park in all its flatness. I walked down there and did two laps around. It’s just over 3 miles if you go twice around, like a 5k. I don’t know how long it took me, and I don’t mind!

I started with these focuses: tall crown, engaged core, 90 degree arms. I have a tendency to pull my arms up, so it’s really helped me to start running by standing still and then falling, but setting up the 90 degrees first and then recognizing as soon as I start how low it is compared to how I tend to bend my arms if I don’t think about it. I also worked on a short stride and relaxing my pelvic region to let my legs go behind me to help out my precious knees. No twinge of knee pain whatsoever. !

I wish you could all see Danny run. Seriously, I don’t mean to gloat because I get to see him at his best, but the man is so beautiful when he runs. I sometimes find myself imagining his form when I go running and try to emulate it. I don’t think  I do very well, but it’s fun to try.

I tried to take it easy with my breathing. I recognized about 1/2 way through that I was “efforting” too much, and using my lower legs to propel. I immediately let off and let myself fall. I could tell my PRE changed very quickly and I was able to pick up the pace just a touch by relaxing more. What a gift!

I might go for another run on Sunday. It’s feeling so good again, I am totally reinvigorated and hopeful and mindful of what’s been going on with my body and trying to honor it. I do notice, however, that my PRE is much elevated compared to several months ago… so I take it with a grain of salt because I know what I am capable of. I just have to get out there again!

Standing over a bowl of cereal and a Sudoku puzzle after my run, I rolled a frozen juice can alternately on each foot to help out my plantar fascia. It hasn’t bothered too much lately, but I certainly don’t want to nuture it.

Bon weekend folks!

hey folks.

went running this morning. it was a lovely day, and I was glad I went.

It was also a bit rough, but I added a good hill and still managed about 3 miles in 33 minutes, so I felt okay about it! Danny wrote a pretty important article awhile ago about running hills. Read it here, it’s a great set of focuses/thoughts to get you through the tough ones.

The thing about running is that I can do it now and not feeling like I am dying. Really, when I was running along today, (jogging, really) I realized that I didn’t hurt. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to curl up and sit on a bench and not take another step. Even though my poor heart and lungs are feeling a bit creaky, I could still do it, I could still feel good about getting up early to go running, to see the sun rise. My muscles felt fine, and I just tried to take it easy.

Danny has a great video blog on avoiding heel strike when running, which he says is best done by not stepping past your hip. When he first told me about this last fall, I didn’t like it. It didn’t seem natural, but now, as I keep my core engaged, keep my head tall, and take small, baby steps, I can feel what he is talking about.

I focused on keeping my neck long, crown high, arm swing at a true 45 on flats, using an exaggerated arm swing on the uphills, and on some of the hills I ran sideways, as described in the book.

Here’s to never giving up running. I will get out there again soon.

… so while most of Asheville was gearing up for St. Patty’s Day celebration by drinking green-tinted beer, I went for a run with Brynn.

I have one word: Rough.

Don’t ever stop running. I am totally motivated now to not take such a long ‘break’ from running. I could totally feel it today, and even though we only really ran about 3 miles, it was rough. We weren’t particularly slow (given my lack of training) but still, it was uncomfortable.

But, I still felt leagues better and more efficient than I used to when I was a non-enlightened runner.

We ran this route, which I have run before, but we shortened it just a bit. It was probably closer to 3.4 or 3.5 miles, which STILL put us at a good 10 minute pace, but I could just feel it.

At the end of my training for the first 1/2 marathon, I had about a 165-170 HR and fairly low PRE (4 or 5 on a scale of 10) for a similar run. This time, my heart rate peaked at 185 and my PRE was about 6, pushing 7. I even got a little nauseated at the end, which was annoying and alarming.

This route has some pretty minor false flats, but I could feel them, and just used my arms as best I could to keep my momentum going. I concentrated on high ankles to create a midfoot strike. I tried to stay nice and tall, too, which I noticed at the end really helped my lean be more efficient and I had a last minute burst of quickness to finish off the run.

I am gonna get out there again tomorrow, I believe. Apparently Seattle is not the flatest route, and I have great training tools here in Asheville with all of these crazy hills.

There are a bunch of ChiRunners participating with me at the Expo and the race, so please holler if you’re going to be there, too.

Here’s to NEVER STOPPING. Ever. It’s way too hard to start again.

So I ran! After traveling most of the day on Friday, we got to the B&B and I decided I had to get out and jog or I would go crazy.

Besides, how could I go assist at a workshop the next day in good faith without having run in awhile?
I ran this route in about 35 minutes. No surprise there, classic 10 min/mile pace as always. I have to break that somewhere, don’t you think?

I was feeling pretty good, but sitting on planes is the end of my flexibility. I get off the plane and my right piriformis is painfully sore and tight. I fell on it 6 months ago and it still bothers me. Between The Stick and my acupuncture clinic, I have got to get it to go away.

I felt good on the run. Wasn’t too cold and I was just trying to keep things centered, keep my energy centered and collected. Since it was getting to be sundown, I figured the ice would be a little slippery and I might end up on the ground so I just took it easy. I wanted to feel good later in the evening and of course the next day.

After the run I felt great, refreshed, energized, and very wet around the nose. Fun! My focuses were pretty simple: core engaged, high heels.

“keep on keepin’ on” is the word.

got up early this morning and headed out the door… was gone for awhile, but I don’t know exactly how long because I chose not to wear my watch/HR monitor at all. I just wanted to get out there and see how I felt without feeling the ’should’ stuff.

Here is the route, it was about 4 miles. I felt pretty decent throughout the run, but my right hip is sore and my knee was a little strange.

I have been going to acupuncture regularly for the last month, once per week, to tackle the knee issue and yesterday for the first time since race day afternoon, it didn’t bother me. That was pretty awesome. The run didn’t seem to excacerbate it either, so it’s just a matter of keeping up with stretching and preventive maintenance.

My hip is another dumb thing. From WAY back late last summer, right before I really got into training, my poor hip has been struggling. It comes and goes, but I also think the cold weather doesn’t help much.

In any event, I felt great today running. I was trying to envision my column just falling over and over again and making sure my midfoot strike was landing behind my center of mass. It felt right and the reflection in the glass windows of retail fronts seemed to reflect the same!

I ran with music again, just to keep a smile on my face. Although this isn’t the exact order that the music played, here are some of the songs that kept me going:

1. Pictures of You, The Cure
2. I Feel it All, Feist
3. Free Your Mind, En Vogue
4. Lovin’, En Vogue
5. Rebirth of Slick, Digable Planets
6. Hey Tonight, Credence Clearwater Revival
7. Some Days You Gotta Dance, Dixie Chicks
8. … then my iPod died. No batteries left

Hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday.

Hi folks!

I am happy to report that my 20 minute run today went well. I can feel my body well and only felt a minor twinge in my right lower calf. It’s similar to how it felt after the 5K in Orlando, and I’m just trying to remember how it felt and what I was doing incorrectly to try to prevent anything big and bad from happening during the race tomorrow.

I really went out this morning with an easy pace and no expectations. I just wanted to listen to my body and feel clear about listening to what it was saying. The only thing I heard was: “Remember to really go slowly at the beginning, don’t get caught up in the big rush at the Start Line” and also “Relax the lower legs, don’t push off and don’t dorsiflex.”

I was surprised to recognize that I was dorsiflexing a little bit today, and I think it’s because my heel lift isn’t quite as high as it should be. I am going to try to brush my inside heel across my opposite calf muscle tomorrow if my legs start to scuff to keep that circular rotation going and to keep myself from dorsiflexing.

I am going to smile, stay positive, keep leaning, keep my core engaged, keep tall, keep quick turnover without efforting, and enjoy every moment, even the chilly standing around at the start line.

I hope to post a picture tomorrow after the race, so stay posted!

well it’s right around the corner, isn’t it?

I am happy to report that I ran on Thursday evening after work: it was a chilly 25 degrees all day, so by the time I ran as the sun went down, it was getting colder.

I ran 3.64 miles in 35 minutes: I am still nothing if not consistent… I think it’s good news that my pace still seems to hover around 10 minutes/mile.

It was cold and I was dressed up warmly enough so that I think a few drivers thought I was a bank robber
One guy was in a car and almost hit me, crossing perpindicular to the way I was running. It was dusk and he wasn’t paying attention. It freaked me out and I thought, ‘Look, man, I’ve been training for this race for months. Not now, please…’

I focused on keeping a steady breath, good arm swing, small steps and legs swinging to the rear. I was able to warm up fairly quickly once I got going and it made me realize that I can probably wear less clothing during the race.

The run made me feel better about my potential for Sunday, since the long run on Wednesday didn’t help my ego any…

My breath felt good, my muscles felt good and I didn’t feel any weird twinges. That was a relief.

Off to Houston this evening… and a quick run tomorrow to keep my body awake…