Going up the stairs today at work is semi-painful. What did I do? My right adductor, medial quad and glute are sore. What on earth did I do?

It’s a puzzler, but definitely something to consider when I go running on Sunday!!

Thoughts? Tips? Who knows!

We did this route, which we’ve done before… it’s around town and pretty consistently hilly. We ran it in about 26 minutes, and it’s just shy of 3 miles, so we had a pretty decent running pace.

Miraculously, my knee doesn’t hurt yet, as I think my Form Focuses are helping me get through these runs more mindfully and without hurting myself.

I don’t have a whole lot to report, except that running up the first hill, I was feeling my legs beginning to beg for air, so I shortened my stride and worked my arms harder… lo and behold, my legs chilled out and I felt pretty good. I was focusing on ‘tracking’ my feet so that big toe/pinky toe left the ground at the same time. I think that’s helping my knees. I also know I am trying very hard to focus more and more on not letting my feet hit past my hip. It’s such a strange sensation, but gosh my knees really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading, folks. Here’s to cool mornings! … and as Brynn said, “It feels so nice to get running out of the way and done with. And major bonus, I started work only 15 minutes later than normal!  Score!”

I like to have it out of the way, but I really actually do like the act of running, too…

I ran this very hilly 6.16 mile route. It’s all uphill for the first part and then all downhill for the 2nd part. The downhill run is more gradual than the uphill portion, so I got a very sufficient cardio-aerobic workout in.

I went running on this route during lunch time in October. Just to show you the change in my conditioning level: at that time, I ran the 6 miles in 60 minutes (last ~.16 was a cool down walk), but when I went running yesterday, I pooped out at mile 5 at about 57 minutes and walked the last mile. Quite a bit slower, wasn’t it? I reread my blog about running this route last fall, and had described it as “glorious”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say that yesterday.

I think I had eaten some funky food the day before and it was having an effect on my belly, so my running was compromised. The neighborhood that I ran in is lovely and a ton of Chi flows around Asheville, so I felt good about that… Overall, I felt alright, but certainly not great. I really tried to keep my arms pumping on the uphills, keeping my stride very short. Running on hills forces my stride to be shorter, which helps my knee. Good lesson there.

I felt great to have gone running yesterday, and managed to get in a good stretch afterward.

Here’s to the hills!

View looking uphill and south along the Matt Davis Trail - Marin County, CA

Funny you should ask that. I was just out running this morning and came up with the answer.

Since I moved here to Western North Carolina almost three years ago, I’ve been learning how to play the fiddle (when in Rome…). I have a great fiddle teacher named Jamie Laval and I highly suggest you check out his website if you’re interested in any form of Celtic or Scottish music. He’s one of the best around.

I’m still very much a beginning fiddle student and so Jamie has me do these great warm-up exercises where I’m learning finger placement. I begin by playing one note at a time with my first finger, and then matching it with an accompanying string so that I get the right pitch. Then I do the same thing with my second finger and so on until a four fingers of my left hand have practiced their respective positions on all four strings. When I can hit a good pitch with all 16 notes I get to move onto playing the songs I’m learning. What this does is get my fingers to always land on the right spot on the finger board so that playing the song is much more fluid and  accurate. I’ve already noticed a huge difference in my playing when I do these warm-up exercises.

So, I was out on my run this morning doing my 1-minute intervals on the trail. It was a one-hour run and I started out the first five minutes pretty easy and then got into alternating one minute of race pace focuses with one minute of easy resting pace. As I progressed through my workout, I noticed that my body was feeling more and more relaxed and the speed intervals were feeling easier and easier. So, I started doing 2-minute race focus intervals with one minute of rest. Throughout my run I gradually increased the length of the fast intervals and kept the resting intervals at one minute. By the end of my run I finished the last ten minutes at race pace feeling very little effort because I’d spent the better part of the run warming up and working on focuses.

My goal is to get to the point where I can run at race pace for an hour without stopping for a rest break. My race is at the end of August, so I don’t see any problem with working my way up to that. And, as you can see, it is absolutely the same thing I’m doing with my fiddle practice. It’s built on the premise that if you do your technique work up front, the rest just falls into place. I meet many people who think that speed comes strictly from strength and I couldn’t disagree more. Speed with running, just like speed with the fiddle, comes with efficiency, accuracy, and most of all relaxation. If you don’t have all three, you’re going to have to work harder to get that speed you’re looking for. It doesn’t matter whether you’re watching Salina Kosgei (the Kenyan woman who won this year’s Boston Marathon) or Itzak Perlman, they’re both doing the same thing underneath it all.

Spring is upon us and I hope these shots inspire you to get out and see Nature in its finest season (in my opinion). There’s nothing better than feasting your eyes on the millions of shades of green that paint the landscape this time of year. I had a wonderful 90 minute run through redwoods, past waterfalls, and along vast fields of blooming Lupines. I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed running to find them. I find that it’s really hard to match trail running for connecting your eyes, your heart …and your legs!

Carpe diem!
Danny

This is a shot of San Francisco looking south from the top of the Matt Davis Trail above Stinson Beach. The tower in the background is Sutro Tower which rises above Golden Gate Park. The water you see is the Pacific Ocean as it enters the San Francisco Bay (to the left, out of the picture). 

Looking south from the Matt Davis Trail towards ocean side of San Francisco

WHAT? I know, I can hardly believe it. I won’t say too much, cause it’s only going on 4 hours after running, but I really think it’s on the mend. I don’t want to or plan to go crazy running, but it is so amazingly joyous that it’s not stiff and slightly painful.

The run was good. I sucked air for a little while, but then just got in a groove and managed to keep my running form in good shape and astonizhed myself when I asked Brynn at the 20 min, 30 min and 1 hr marks how long we’d been running. I didn’t bring my watch, which turned out to be quite a blessing. Maybe that’s the problem with me. I should just always go running without a watch!

In any event, I was focusing on the upper-cut of my arm swing on the uphills and really trying to keep my feet nice and light, my chin down and the crown of my head light and tall to the sky. I also focused on aligning my body forward so that I didn’t have ‘stray parts’ going in other directions than my y’chi. It worked wonders. I really like having a running buddy, too. Some days it’s nice to go out alone and just really get into my head, and other days I am so sick of myself I just want company on my running routes. Thanks Brynn!

Overall I was astonished, happy and proud about our run today. We ran the 5.5 miles in about an hour, which included a few stops (@ lights) and a quick detour to pick up som moxa sticks @ the acupuncturist. All told, we rocked the run today!

PS. Ivan and I were dog sitting this weekend for Katherine and Danny (the dog is Mei Ling, no jokes, please) and my friend Rachel’s dog, Nuna. They are freakishly alike, and they had a great time playing. We took them for a hike on Saturday and this is how they were the rest of the afternoon:

Mei Ling (darker) and Nuna (lighter) in the backyard

My friend Brynn and I went running for a quick second around Biltmore Forest neighborhood, a lovely area with little traffic and pretty lawns. We took it easy, and I felt pretty good. I wasn’t sore after running: we only ran about 22 minutes, but it was long enough to feel productive, and short enough my knee didn’t talk back. I stretched after the run, and did do the Body Looseners before running, which I have been negligent with. I think the knee and hip circles are going to be really restorative for me knee, and I have intention to make more of a habit about doing them, even if I don’t go for a run. I was also thinking of ‘tracking’ like I wrote in a previous post, about being able to lift my foot off the ground while running, making my big and small toe come off at the same time. It’s a good focus.

I honestly can’t figure out what is the cause of my funny little knee issue. I don’t want to induldge in the “what if” scenario because I think it is a bit gratuitous: if I go there, I’ll probably let it hurt more. Sometimes I think of it like a yoga posture: if you look to the ground in a pose that’s balance oriented (all of them) you’re probably going to head ‘down’, ie fall down. So, if I use that same thinking and just recognize that my knee is in a strange place, honor it, and give it appropriate but not gratuitious attention, I believe it will heal itself.

But just as a word of warning for those of you who are expecting me to be running in Seattle with some crazy results: It may be a really slow run for Lizzie. I am just really looking forward to getting out there and running and having fun. Certainly the warm weather that’s creeping into North Carolina is giving encouraging rays of sunshine to the mornings to motivate some healthy movement.

Happy Friday you all.

When I transition into running the “race” pace intervals during these trail runs, I’m not focusing on speed per se, but on the running form required to run the fastest through whatever section of trail I happen to be passing through. Then, instead of working harder and harder, I’m actually making it a fun game. I’ve only played a few video games, but approaching my runs in this way feel much like playing a video game where you’re working through different levels of difficulty and developing new skills in the process. I would have to say that this is a far cry from a video game because it’s in real time and it has a direct influence on my mind/body connection in ways no virtual reality could possibly do.

Happy Trails,
Danny

I have been running, a few times, though nothing too long. I have also taught ChiRunning twice recently,  and it’s so completely satisfying. Trying to teach running is making me realize how much ChiRunning really is a process. I give myself a hard time for not being perfect with my running form, for having a twinge here and there. But that’s the whole process, it’s about listening and adjusting, listening and adjusting. Always going back to Body Sensing so that you can really get into your running form and enjoy the simple act of running.

One of our Instructors has this tag line on her email signature: “Somebody busier than you is out running right now.”  !!

Part of my absence is indeed do to being busy, but I have to be honest with you all: I have had a little running pain. My knee is bugging me. As some of you know, after my race, I did something to it, and the medial side of my right knee has been a squeaky wheel.

I know that with ChiRunning, my chances of injury are low, low, low but despite that, I am listening to my body, and she’s saying, “Let’s back off the running for a little while.” I keep wanting to fight it, but I have been swimming instead, walking, lifting weights occassionally. I talked with Danny about it, and he suggested a few things to me:

• Keep my core engaged all the time. What this will help me do is alleviate some of the weight bearing down on my knee by lifting those muscles and bones in my upper legs. I tried it very consciously one day, and by the end of the day my knee felt better. Danny says that he is ALWAYS checking back in with his body every moment to see if his core is engaged. Wow.
• Pay attention to the way I move around when I am not running: being careful of not turning my upper body while keeping my feet stationary, being careful about getting out of the car, being careful about not driving with my ankle torqued laterally, about sleeping in such a way that my knee is not torqued.
• When I do run, to be really clear about tracking (both) leg(s) straight, not letting my right foot go splaying out, which it apparently likes to do, especially when I get tired. Master Instructor Kathy Griest gave this great visualization once about keeping your leg really aligned as you run: every time each foot comes off the ground, imagine that your big toe and little toe come off at the same time. What this will do is prevent your foot from straying out or in, creating torque on the knee or ankle.

So with all that said, I want to let you know that I am still here, I am still planning on running in June, I just need to listen to my body, and take it easy for the moment. I have a little disappointment creeping up on me that the Seattle R.n.R. race won’t be faster than Houston, but who’s counting? I went out to race Houston with a smile on my face, and it was great. I’ll do the same in June.