Listening to your body

Those of us crazy enough to pound the pavement for miles upon miles have all likely burdened ourselves with the stubbornness to run through some fairly chronic pain.  Heck, depending on skill level, whether 1 mile, 3 miles, 10 miles, 31 miles, 50, or beyond, most of our bodies do not just happily go with our agenda to push ourselves further.  From shoes, to apparel, to terrain, I've ran over the years seeking that running niche.  Where am I at my best?  Where am I confident that I can push myself to that next level?

Post-Race for the Roses.  Always lovely to have folks to
run a good race with! (L to R) Myself, Whitney,
Adrian, and Erin.

I was once asked at work if I was to set a world record in something what would it be and without having to think Forrest Gump popped vividly in to my head and knew that it would be walking an incredibly distance.  My exact response was  walking from Portland, Oregon up to Alaska, and then walking on to a container ship crossing the Bering Strait and preceding to walk back and forth until making landfall on Russia and making my way through Siberia...crazy?  Yes.  Impossible? No!

So where am I going with this you may ask? Well now that we are in the middle of the running season, and I have not quite yet hit my stride, I'm becoming more and more eager to push myself, but I know I've held back some this year as I've been battling back from injuries.  This would not have always been the case.  

Fellow competitive athlete with Team Nuun Nikki
Gaudreault and I at the finish for the Race for the
Roses.  Nuun was at each aid station and Nikki
was running the finish line Nuun table.

I was never a 'runner' up until about 7 years ago.  A javelin, shotput, and discus thrower in high school, I was more keen to hide behind the bleachers eating a slice of pizza than running a few warm up laps around the track.  In 2008, while serving in Uganda, I jumped on the fad of wearing a pair of barefoot running toe shoes.  I have to admit they were fantastic!  I ran all up and down those dirt roads of rural Uganda without nothing more than a sharp stone to an arch here or there (which hurt like a *&%(&#$&).  I never trained for any sort of race, but just got in to running after a fellow volunteer suggested she had heard of a college course in the US that all but guaranteed every student would complete a marathon after taking the course.  Seven years after this moment I've found myself having completed a road marathon, a number of 10ks and half marathons, a couple of 50ks, a 50 miler, and numerous runs of distances that one should not think of being fun...but I find it to be.  But then the pain hits...

Sometimes a knee, sometimes an ankle, always a muscle, and somehow sometimes the brain, but I just kept going.  I didn't want any sort of pain to stop, so I figured I would not just run through the pain, but by running the pain would work itself out.  I changed from barefoot running toe shoes, to Nike Frees, and have now found that Brooks PureConnect respond to my body well for the roads.  Saucony Peregrines and Montrail Mountain Masochist respond well to trails.  Body Glide responds well everywhere...this never gets left behind.  Nuun-how could I ever get through the miles without it.  I never stretched-even through swimming, track, football, basketball, soccer, and rugby from high school through college did I stretch.  I was immune to this.  I didn't need to.  Again-I could just run through the pain and work the pain out.  Boy was I wrong.

Training for race sweeping for the Gorge Waterfalls 100k with fellow ultra-
running buddy Brendan Soule.  I can never get enough of the Columbia
River Gorge!

Yes, the worst pain I've dealt with in the past year was not from running, but from flipping over my handle bars avoiding a squirrel and fracturing my elbow.  This though did take me away from running...from exercising...and put a hold on my training at the end of 2014 and forcing me to miss the Elk-Kings Traverse in the Tillamook National Forest.  It was during this time, and the beginning of 2015 here that I've come to realize the power of not just stretching, or cross-training, but actually listening to one's body.  STOP when it hurts (yes...I will still run through pain, especially in a race, but there is a difference between pain that one can recover from and pain that could have a lasting impact).

Post-race beer before 9am after the Shamrock Run

Portland.  Never have beer and chowder prior to 9am

tasted so amazing.

Runner's knee developed for the first time in January of this year (2015), and in February I decided it was time to do something different.  It wasn't working to keep running through the pain and just assume it would get better.  Since starting to stretch, even a few stretches to the large muscle groups to balance out the dozens of miles I put on them each week helps.  While I am still not as committed to it as I'd like to be, since beginning a series of mountain athlete bodyweight workouts, I've noticed a significant difference in how my legs are being strengthened.  Lastly, since getting back in to yoga, even just a couple times a week at Hot Yoga for Life here in Portland, the runner's knee has disappeared, the hip pointers are history, and my confidence that I'm truly listening to my body's needs for the first time in my life is greater than ever.  The next step is really supporting and working out that core...oh that core...the beer doesn't help but it tastes so good...

Along the trail in the Columbia River Gorge while
scouting the trails for the Gorge Waterfalls 100k route.

Multiple times over the past couple of years I've internally pledged myself to deem the respective year my year of running.  Last year ended abruptly with a fractured elbow, but I can proudly say that prior to that in July of 2014 I did successfully complete my first 50 miler race, the Mt. Hood 50, which in 2008 I would have never imagined doing.  I pledged to myself that 2015 was going to be my year of really breaking out and taking that next step in running.  A very proud moment this year is when I was selected to be sponsored by Nuun (http://nuun.com/) on the competitive athlete Team Nuun.  For those who do not know, Nuun is effervescent tablets are added to water to support and increase hydration in not just athletes but for anyone!  I had used Nuun prior to this, and to me this selection was an acknowledgment to the hard work I had put in over the years.  That said, the chronic aches, and pains have taken a toll, but having learned to listen to my body's needs, and achieving a PR of 1:33:00 in the Race for the Roses were no small feats.  And it's only the end of April!

These pledges to myself and the accomplishments I've experienced remind me that patience pays off, and that one does not go from couch to 50 miler in a day, but it is a fine balance of commitment, training, support from others, and a huge dose of craziness that allows us to achieve and surpass the feats we never imagined do so.  Well...and listening to one's body of course.