I thought I'd take this time to talk about running injuries. I have come across lots of people, especially in my field of work, who believe that running is the worst possible activity one could do. In my opinion its one of the best forms of exercise one can take on. However, I think that if it ends with running off a clif, then running can be extremely detrimental to your health. I do believe that certain cautions should be taken when one decides to run. Its not a smart idea to go from couch potato to running a marathon in one day and I don't believe that anyone out there would dream of such a thing or make it thru to the end of the 26.2 miles alive and breathing to talk about it. Didn't that guy who ran to marathon keel over and die once his message was delivered? I believe his name was Pheidippides... Anyway, the point is that running is great for you as long as you do it properly and safely and listen to what your body tells you.
In my many years of experience as a runner, there have been lots of times in which I should have listened to what my body was telling me. I should have taken a few days off when my shin splints came, that fateful first week of running the hills of Jerusalem. Or that time that I ran with a bag on my right hip (it wasn't on purpose, I was in a hurry) and the muscle on my left side got so tight that instead of stretching when I bent down it pulled my ilium out of place a month before the Jerusalem Half Marathon in 2008. I do believe that that has attributed to all my other ailments, since they all are on my left side, but when that all happened, I could hardly walk and I did go for physical therapy, which helped a lot. I probably should not have ran the 1/2 marathon, but I was raising money for Sderot, so there was no way I was backing out because I hurt my back, there were people who were under daily attacks who needed my help. Truth is, I don't know if there would be a time in which I would sit out of a race in which I was planning on doing, it would be like a failure to me and I don't know how I would handle that. Now that is something I have to work on. Since I know that missing out on one race to heal would mean that I could race in future events as opposed to racing once while injured and causing damage that could stop me from running altogether.
I am very stubborn and it is something that I am working on, listening to my body. In the meantime I am trying to prevent further injuries with different hip strengthening exercises. For some reason, I asked to workout this Wednesday with my boss, the head trainer at the KD. It was time for something new in my routine. Since this week was Purim, my whole running schedule was thrown off, so instead of my long run being on Sunday morning, it was Tuesday afternoon. I ran 18km. It was hard. I was tired. I told the trainer that I was tired in my legs especially. What did we work on? My whole body, yes, but it might has well been just my legs. Squats, jumps, lunges, all with the bench press bar, all dynamic and static and insane. I am still unable to walk normally or sit down on a chair like a normal human being without being in agony. Thursday was definitely brutal. I went for a run with Danielle in the morning, if it wasn't for the set time I would never had gotten out of bed. It was good to get my legs moving and let the lactic acid build up disperse itself but I was in so much pain I could hardly move forward. Thursday was my day off from school and I went to Tel Aviv with Danielle and Noa (yay!!) so that we could have a little fun, get lunch at my favorite bakery in Tel Aviv, Lechamim and analyze their feet so that we could buy running gear. Danielle bought new Brooks running shoes. I finally bought a fuel belt for my long runs and Noa bought an amazingly green fleece. (I love going to Pro:Sport, even thought I haven't worked there in 3 years, I am always welcome and feel right at home. If I lived back in Tel Aviv, I would definitely work there again.) Going up and down stairs took me forever, it was embarrasing. Friday was a little better. I was able to sit down a bit easier and stretch my legs without crying out in pain. I did speed work at the gym. The speed work loosened up my legs a lot more, but not 100%. I did 2 minutes slow running, 1 minute a bit faster, but not all out, 11.5kmh, for a total of 5 reps. I then amped it up to 1 minute moderate 30 seconds sprint for 8 reps and then I ran out the last 5 minutes with upping the speed each minute by .5kmh. I also went for a run right before shabbas and my legs were much better. I think that my muscles being so achy has taken the focus off of my left hip, which is a good thing, but tomorrow I will know for sure. No pain no gain, right?
Tomorrow I will be running with Danielle our last long run, since the 1/2 marathon is in 11 days (!!) We hopefully will be doing around 15-16 km. It all depends on how much time we have and how we are feeling. These next runs will be us tapering down and focusing on saving our energy for the big day. Keep us in your prayers, I just want to make the 2.5 hrs cut.
I will hopefully put up a link to the hip exercises in the next few days.
Have a great week!
Peace out.
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