"Live life with the passion of an artist". -Jeremy Bloom
By "professional", of course I mean I make my livelihood doing something other than running. At this stage I have the resources to see where my running takes me, but here and now I am so blessed to have found a career in the helping field that I love almost as much, and on some occasions, perhaps a bit more. And I really love to run.
There are the more magical days than not where I walk away from training or working with an individual where I have a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that I can't accurately describe. On most days, I find that running compliments my practice and vice versa. I guess in both I get to put myself on the line and try to transcend the intangible; operating outside my comfort zone. It is like a fine art I will never perfect, and it's the pursuit that keeps me intrigued and working harder.
Then there are days that cause amounts of strain or at least difficulty with managing my time and energy. There are days when my attitude and outlook suffers. Days I just want to stay in bed, days I just can't take any more soreness, stretching, or foam rolling. Days when being a "professional" athlete is just hard. Days where I have to work a little harder to motivate myself and keep everything in perspective. Luckily, this isn't always the case.
Accepting that there will be the occasional out-of-town Saturday session after a long run, when I really want to nap and relax, or the high-priority, late notice meeting that I have to (sigh) arrange my training around is something I have to do. I may not have the luxury of having the time to nap, get daily treatments, or to rest properly as I ramp up my mileage, but I can do what I can-and I feel I have a lot to work with. I can listen to my body, I can eat correctly, and I can progress at a rate that is optimal for me.
This September there are lots of exciting things on the calendar: a race Labor Day weekend, followed by a post-race clinic for the athletes, speaking to college freshmen on goal setting the following week, then another Team In Training appearance for PowerBar. Busy? Sure, but I think this is how things should be right now as I am enjoying myself and my training.
My spring calendar looks even brighter with Elite entries to The Woodlands and Charlottesville.
Not everybody is fortunate enough to work their "dream jobs" in their lifetime. With blessings in life such as these, responsibility is part of it. And this is the way it should be. Being a "pro" runner is challenging, but I think that's why I do it in the first place.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
A Little Self-Assessment
I am enjoying my training right now-really enjoying it! Yes, it's so hot people on TV are doing cooking experiments in their cars (true story) and I feel hard boiled when I finish most of my runs, but that's not the point. My miles are increasing, my legs seem to be responding (fingers crossed), and I'm working this new training plan like I've always done it this way.
I capped 47ish miles this week after my recovery run this morning, not much to brag about yet, but steps in the right direction as I work to increase my volume in the safest manner possible. Speaking of safety, I changed it up today and headed to the "semi-hallowed" ground of The Woodlands High School (see the Oct. issue of Running Times and you'll know what I'm talking about) and hit their fields for some soft surface jogging. That's right-jogging! ....Don't worry Conroe ISD-I didn't do any damage to your facility, with the exception of leaving some cool footprint designs on the wet grass-who knows, this could become a new art form!
Yesterday I reversed my 12-mile hilly route and found the new stimulus refreshing. I'm still going Garmin-less on these but do the math afterward and sat slightly below 8:00 average just running by feel. I've become a bit of an antisocial long runner over the past few weeks, going alone on my training runs but convene with the others for coffee afterwards. I find it nice to just stay in my own head-and conserve oxygen on Saturday mornings; it also helps me run what feels natural for the day. Maybe it's the sport psychologist in me. And of course these runs are followed up by ice baths. Gotta mind the details and be consistent.
This week is the "faster week" with some higher mileage easy runs and some progression work on Wednesday-leading up to Labor Day weekend's 10k bookending a cut-back week. Yay for knocking some rust off with a little racing!
So far, I grade my progress satisfactory, and as in my personal and professional life-consistency really is key.
Run Happy!
I capped 47ish miles this week after my recovery run this morning, not much to brag about yet, but steps in the right direction as I work to increase my volume in the safest manner possible. Speaking of safety, I changed it up today and headed to the "semi-hallowed" ground of The Woodlands High School (see the Oct. issue of Running Times and you'll know what I'm talking about) and hit their fields for some soft surface jogging. That's right-jogging! ....Don't worry Conroe ISD-I didn't do any damage to your facility, with the exception of leaving some cool footprint designs on the wet grass-who knows, this could become a new art form!
Yesterday I reversed my 12-mile hilly route and found the new stimulus refreshing. I'm still going Garmin-less on these but do the math afterward and sat slightly below 8:00 average just running by feel. I've become a bit of an antisocial long runner over the past few weeks, going alone on my training runs but convene with the others for coffee afterwards. I find it nice to just stay in my own head-and conserve oxygen on Saturday mornings; it also helps me run what feels natural for the day. Maybe it's the sport psychologist in me. And of course these runs are followed up by ice baths. Gotta mind the details and be consistent.
This week is the "faster week" with some higher mileage easy runs and some progression work on Wednesday-leading up to Labor Day weekend's 10k bookending a cut-back week. Yay for knocking some rust off with a little racing!
So far, I grade my progress satisfactory, and as in my personal and professional life-consistency really is key.
Run Happy!
6 comments: 
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Upcoming Race and Speaking Gig
For starters, I'm loving the new low-stress training plan! I checked off a 12-miler this morning and have distances of 8-10 coming up this week (all easy, at this juncture). Each week, the daily volume seems to slowly build! Tomorrow though is just for recovery as I will run a relatively brief one before entertaining my parents for church and lunch tomorrow. I love it when they come up to visit The Woods!
Also this week, I had a kind of a small a full-circle experience:
I got a nice email from Coach Leonard Garcia, race director for a fun little race Labor Day Weekend in Alvin, TX. The son is a charity race in honor of Garcia's late son and I have run this race twice prior, setting my original 10k PR there on a hot September day in 2009. Also on this day, a Chris Layman, an Elite Brooks Runner (like 14:00-15:00 range 5k speed or faster) ran the same 10k as a training run and did a little featured clinic for the runners afterward. I managed to catch the tail end of the talk, mainly because I wanted to pick his brain a little bit.
Back in '09 I was on both a PR tear and beginning to feel out the sponsorship thing. My main question was how he got started and managed to hook up with Brooks Running, one of my favorite shoe companies. For the record, I was sporting my T5 Racers (remember those?) that day!
Flash forward to present day, and now I'm very fortunate to now run for Brooks amongst other companies, have a great agent in my corner, and am now the athlete talking after the race. Wow, how things change with a little gumption and determination. I don't know what kind of time I'll run since I haven't run a 10k in ages, but that's not important this time around. I am quite excited about being able to share my knowledge and passion, especially with the young high school cross country runners.
I love reaching out to other athletes, even if just in a small way, as much if not more that I love running itself.
This little notion was a nice reminder of how blessed I am and how I get to share it with others.
Run Happy!
Also this week, I had a kind of a small a full-circle experience:
I got a nice email from Coach Leonard Garcia, race director for a fun little race Labor Day Weekend in Alvin, TX. The son is a charity race in honor of Garcia's late son and I have run this race twice prior, setting my original 10k PR there on a hot September day in 2009. Also on this day, a Chris Layman, an Elite Brooks Runner (like 14:00-15:00 range 5k speed or faster) ran the same 10k as a training run and did a little featured clinic for the runners afterward. I managed to catch the tail end of the talk, mainly because I wanted to pick his brain a little bit.
Back in '09 I was on both a PR tear and beginning to feel out the sponsorship thing. My main question was how he got started and managed to hook up with Brooks Running, one of my favorite shoe companies. For the record, I was sporting my T5 Racers (remember those?) that day!
 |
| Crossing the line to my then-10k PR on Alvin's flat course. |
Flash forward to present day, and now I'm very fortunate to now run for Brooks amongst other companies, have a great agent in my corner, and am now the athlete talking after the race. Wow, how things change with a little gumption and determination. I don't know what kind of time I'll run since I haven't run a 10k in ages, but that's not important this time around. I am quite excited about being able to share my knowledge and passion, especially with the young high school cross country runners.
I love reaching out to other athletes, even if just in a small way, as much if not more that I love running itself.
This little notion was a nice reminder of how blessed I am and how I get to share it with others.
Run Happy!
5 comments:
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Changing the Rules
This week starts a several-months long experiment with a 14-day training cycle. I have several reasons for trying this out, and after reviewing the simple sheet that Bill provided me with yesterday, I am pretty optimistic about it.
Some may recall a post from some months regarding my case of "mileage envy". After researching and reviewing a 14-day training plan, it looks like increasing my weekly mileage to a healthy volume is not only possible for me but safer. After a few seasons that were cut too short due to injury, too many days where I am sitting there scratching my head wondering what I was doing wrong, dealing with dumb little aches and pains, I got the nerve to ask the coach for his blessing on changing things up. Over the typical post-track workout Guinness-and admittedly nursing a sore posterior tibialis muscle at the time-I openly theorized that perhaps its not that I'm deliberately running too fast on easy days, or not warming up/cooling down properly, or stretching/foam rolling enough (I'm an admitted stretch-a-holic), but my hard days were spaced too close together. I finally asked to shuffle the deck and try something new. Should I have come to that realization sooner? Sure-but sometimes even relatively smart girls like me can be a bit dense at times!
Probably why I didn't try and change things earlier was the denial that my body needed something different than all the others. I simply just kept waiting to adapt. I also thought that longer training cycles were "softer" and only running hard once every 7 days of so wouldn't get the job done. Upon further investigation, I get to do the runs I enjoy more often: relaxed, such as evenly paced 8-10 milers during the week, progression runs on Wednesdays, and lots of recovery in between hard efforts While dropping the hammer is a lot of fun, I also have recently embraced running easy-its a good time to process the day's events and get a good endorphin fix without feeling like you've been beaten by a stick a hundred times over when you're done. It always seems that the longer I go on an easy run, the better everything feels.
As Jack Daniels asserts, you have to know the purpose of every run and more importantly understand your body, environment, and what works best. My line of work isn't always the most predictable or stress-free, so my training should fill that void and not be an additional stressor.
An old cycle looked something like this: Monday: progression run, Tuesday: easy 5-7, Wednesday: track intervals or fartleks-6-8 miles, Thursday: rest, Friday: easy 5-6, Saturday-long, Sunday-recover quickly for next session...ouch! Some athletes may do fine with this routine, myself, however, seem to struggle with the hard-easy-hard-easy-hard scheme.
Here's an example of what I'll likely be doing, give or take for the next cycle as I start to ramp up for San Antonio:
Week 1:
M: Easy 6-7 on treadmill and weights.
Tu.: Easy 4-6 and core routine
W: Progressive 6-dropping down to low 6:00's (depending on weather conditions); 1 mile cooldown
Th: R-E-S-T!
F: Easy 4-6
S: Long-ish 10-12
Su: Recovery run of 25-30 min or cycling
Week 2:
M: Easy 6-8
Tu: Easy 4-6
W: Easy 10
Th: R-E-S-T!
F: Easy 4-6
Sat. Easy 10-13
Su: Recovery 3-4 miles or cycling
...and hopefully it progresses from there. I'm curious to see how it affects my speed for an upcoming 10k I plan on running, but in the grand scheme I'm more focused on being a good half-marathoner for the time being. If nothing else, I like the idea of trying a fresh new approach. Simple, methodical, running. I like it.
So here goes....
5 comments:
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Interview With Jarrett Smilie of Body Mechanix Therapy
I'm please to announce my first guest poster and my personal massage therapist, Jarrett Smilie, L.M.T., M.M.T., NASM-C.P.T./C.E.S. of Body Mechanix Therapy in The Woodlands, TX. I have been working with Jarrett for well over a year now, and his treatments have been integral to my running and quality of life. I seriously doubt I could run at the level I do without his help. Below is a bit of an introduction to some of the essentials of massage therapy for athletes and active individuals; plus a little background on what makes his practice unique.
Q: Besides being a “regular” Licensed Massage Therapist and Certified Personal Trainer, what other specializations and credentials do you currently carry?
J.S.: In my first year of training I had great success with my client Leelo Moore, who I had helped learn to walk again among many other things, as well as, had him almost completely symmetrical from the right to the left side of his body. Meaning, the right side of his body which had become very de-conditioned from the left side brain injury 20 years prior, had caught up with his left side in just eight months. He was a happy man when he could finally flex his arms up and see big matching biceps. Not to mention that he also became the 1st annual MOST IMPROVED GOLDS GYM MEMBER IN THE WORLD! But to hear more about Leelo’s story keep reading the weekly blogs because it’s coming soon.
Q: Besides being a “regular” Licensed Massage Therapist and Certified Personal Trainer, what other specializations and credentials do you currently carry?
J.S.:Now I need to add that I was in physical therapy assistant’s school at the time, but I didn’t start training already having the knowledge. I do or learn to do what my client needs to excel, and that philosophy has help me grow quickly in the therapy field. Soon after that I became a Corrective Exercise Specialist, which taught me a systematic approach to therapeutic exercise in personal training. Half a year later I met Trigger Point Specialist Julie Donnelly, the author of a book titled "The Pain Free Triathlete" that I had bought about nine months earlier and had taken a great interest too. I learned how to apply the self treatment techniques in the book to my clients effectively, and when Julie saw this skill and what she calls "natural ability", she immediately took me under her wing and began teaching me her own style of Julstro Muscular Therapy Trigger Point techniques.
From there I began massage therapy school which upon completion immediately begin advanced studies in several disciplines of massage therapy including medical massage, sports massage, myofascial release, and of course trigger point therapy.
Q: You work with both the regular population and with athletes. What are some of the similarities and differences between working with the two populations?
J.S.: Most bodily pain comes from overuse activities. But unfortunately everybody engages in overuse activities at some point in their daily lives. Overuse activities cause knots to form in the muscles, knots cause shortness in the muscle, shortness in the muscle causes compression of the joints that the muscle crosses, and the result is joint and/or body pain. For athletes, you may be working out a little bit too hard during the training session or pushed yourself to the limit during the game or race. But for a non athletic individual, and overuse activity could occur simply from climbing a flight of stairs or even walking from the couch to the fridge more than usual in a particular day.
Many times the athletic population has the healing advantage, due to their constant muscle stimulating routines. But this can also cause problems. When athletes try to train through their postural distortions, they often reinforce the knots and tightness, leading way to much larger issues.
Q: What are some benefits athletes reap from receiving massage/muscular therapy versus simply stretching, resting, and using the foam roller?
J.S.: The main problem with stretching a tight muscle is that you can't stretch at knot out of a muscle. As I stated earlier, it's the knot(s) that has shorten the muscle. So it is the knot that needs the focus, not the surrounding healthy muscle fibers.
As the overactive knotted muscle fibers are relaxed, we can now productively stretch the appropriate areas. Resting is great for preventing the further agitation of the issue, but unfortunately knots don't just go away from decreased activity. Knots must be released; otherwise they simply become dormant until re-agitated and reactivated with the future increase in activity.
Foam rolling is a great method of self treatment. When done properly foam rolling can help to relax and inhibit those overactive muscle fibers that formed knocks in the muscles. But foam rollers are more affective for bigger muscle groups than smaller, more precise issues. For most muscle and joint issues an educated therapist is going to be your fastest path to recovery. When I see an injury, I follow it all the way to its root cause. Stopping the painful symptoms by eliminating the true issue.
Q: What are some of the most complaints runners come in with?
J.S.: The most common issue that runners come see me with is hip imbalances. The problem is usually either that the hip flexors and or adductors are tightened and overactive; glutes in the rear are weak and not activating properly which can cause a multitude of problems. Tip: Strengthen your gluts to balance your stride.
Q: Do you have any unique “success” stories to date in your practice?
J.S.: Yes, I have helped people recover from toe and ankle sprains to facial numbness and chronic migraine headaches and many other issues between. To read some of my testimonials, go to my website at www.yourbodymechanix.com/Testimonials
Q: You are currently working on a new studio. What do you look forward to most with the upgrade?
J.S.: With the 2 new therapy rooms my clients don’t need to sacrifice comfort for great body work anymore. Our goal was to make these rooms as nice as any massage rooms around, and I think you’ll agree when you see them that we hit our mark.
Q: Lastly, in massage therapy, quality and levels of symptom relief often vary. In your opinion, what are some important variables to consider in choosing a therapist to work with?
J.S.: This is a great question! One that I dive into deeply in my FREE REPORT, “4 Key Reasons Your Massage Fails and You Still Hurt!” It will be released soon- if you haven’t already, go to www.yourbodymechanix.com.
Look out for future posts about the subject of massage and performance, and thanks goes out to the talented Mr. Smilie for sharing his expertise and insight. And constantly putting me back together:)!
Jarrett can be reached at [email protected].
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