Dealing With Injuries: Part II

I wrote a post last week about my history with injuries and I wanted to continue discussing the topic. I know a lot of runners deal with injuries off and on so I thought it was something worth spending some time on.

I mentioned that I had to have surgery three times in three years at the end of high school beginning of college. These three years were the hardest of my life. I was often depressed and struggled with my identity. But I made it through those years and I honestly believe they made me stronger.

When dealing with injuries it is really easy to lose motivation and get caught up in negative thoughts. But that really only makes things worse. During these times it is really important to focus on the positive things in your life.

Find new forms of exercise to do if possible so you don't lose your fitness.

Revamp your diet and focus on healthy eating.

Set goals that are not related to fitness, such as reading more books.

Use this time to spend more quality time with friends & family.

Try things that you may not have had time for when you were in training.

Try to learn something new about yourself.

Plan you comeback!

Despite many setbacks I was always focused on what was coming next, even if I didn't always know what that was. When I knew I couldn't return to swimming I thought about how I would then have time to start running. And so I started training for my first 5K.

Now I am training for my second half marathon with hopes of completing a full marathon next year. The most important thing for me was to stop myself from listening to the negative thoughts. Once I got over them I started to feel like myself again.

Have you had any injuries? How have you dealt with them?

Inspired by The New York City Marathon

I wrote a post last week about how much I love The New York City Marathon and I can proudly say that I love it even more after today's race. I spent all morning tracking my favorite bloggers and friends during their races and followed the leaders on Twitter. I tried to watch the live streaming but I sadly could not get it to work.

I channeled all of the positive energy of the running world today into my 5 miler this afternoon and had an amazing run. I was so inspired by everyone out there who ran the marathon today that it made me less worked up about a silly 5 mile run.

Reading all of the tweets and tracking everyone made me really excited to start focusing on training for my upcoming races so that one day I can run the NYC Marathon.

I love how cheering friends on in races or stalking the NYC Marathon can really motivate me. Without these random motivations I sometimes lose sight of my long term goals and get caught up petty little things.

I realize I am blessed to be able to run and it is something that I don't ever want to take for granted. I don't want to look back and realize that I could have pushed myself harder.

My next real race is a half marathon in March, and I really needed the inspiration that the NYC Marathon brought to get me excited to jump into training.

Congrats to everyone who ran this race! I hope you loved every minute of those 26.2 miles!

Dealing With Injuries: Part I

I wanted to write this post for awhile but I thought now was a fitting time given my current problems with my IT band.

As I have mentioned many times before, I was a competitive swimmer at the national level for 12 years. Swimming was what I was passionate about and was what kept me sane. It was essentially the most important aspect of my life.

I had always had some knee trouble and very flexible shoulders but I managed to stay relatively uninjured. I had some flare ups here or there but nothing that kept me out of the water.

Then, during my junior year of high school I broke my finger. The girl swimming in front of me kicked my finger and shattered everything in it. The bones were crushed, the ligaments and tendons destroyed. I went to the doctor and was told that I would need surgery immediately but I still probably wouldn't be able to make a fist again.

Due to the surgery I was out of the water for a month, which is a long time in the swimming world. I went to practice everyday and busted my ass cross training to keep some of my fitness. I pushed myself everyday and soon enough I was back in the water. With a lot of motivation and hard work I regained full use of my finger and hand. I actually ended up having a really great season, surprisingly.

Fast forward to the summer before my senior year of high school. I had been having a lot of shoulder pain that just wouldn't go away. I went to see my doctor and was informed that I had torn my rotator cuff and that I would need surgery in order to fix it.

I was devastated when I heard this news, but was even more crushed when I learned I would be out of the water for another four months. I could absolutely not believe I needed surgery twice in less than one year.

But I was serious about my swimming and wanted to do whatever was necessary to get me back in the water. At this point, swimming in college was something that I was very serious about and I knew that in order to be taken seriously by college coaches I needed to get back in the water.

I went through four intense months of physical therapy before I was able to start kicking again. It wasn't swimming but it was better than nothing. I was able to start swimming again in November, which was the same time of year I started after my first surgery. I had hope that my senior season wasn't going to be a complete bust.

But my coach was not the most supportive person. When I asked him about competing again he told me I would make a fool of myself and that "no coach or spectator would want to see me swim" because I wasn't in my best shape.

I quit on the spot. I had been swimming long enough to know some really great workouts and to know that I wanted nothing to do with this coach ever again. I was absolutely terrified about training without a coach for the first time but I knew it was the right thing for me to do.

Even without a coach though, I trained my ass off and had a really great season. I have never been more proud of myself. Everything that I had achieved that season was because of only me, I had done absolutely everything by myself. I even managed to get a spot on the University of Pittsburgh swimming roster.

Over the summer I joined a swim team that was about 45 minutes away from my house with one of my former swim coaches. I knew that if I was going to swim in college I would need to train with a coach again. But I loved training with him and I was so happy about where my swimming career was going.

When I went to school I was not in the best shape of my life but I was pretty darn close. I trained hard everyday because I had earned this spot. But as early as October of my freshman season I was having some trouble.

My left arm kept going numb and my hand was turning blue. I went to the ER a few times, where they initially thought I was having a stroke. It was then discovered that I had an extra rib near my neck which, you guessed it, required surgery.

I was more than devastated. I knew that I could no longer swim competitively. I didn't know what to do with myself. I had always been a swimmer and suddenly I wasn't anymore. I gained weight and completely stopped working out. I became depressed and was in a really bad place.

I had my surgery in January of my freshman year of college and stayed at home for my spring semester to let my body properly heal. The recovery was long and painful, but I began to develop hope.

I had been inspired by the New York City Marathon earlier in the year and so I began to run as soon as I was cleared to do any form of physical activity. I have absolutely fallen in love with running ever since but I have learned a lot about myself and about sports during this time.

The New York City Marathon

In my mind the New York City Marathon is the greatest marathon in the world. Growing up I never knew much about running or marathons but I knew about the NYC Marathon. Last year at this time I was trying to figure out a lot of things in my life. I was unhappy where I was at school and I was really struggling to find motivation to exercise. I had just found out I needed surgery and mentally I was just not in a good place.

And then I started seeing coverage for the NYC Marathon and I started to have hope. I had always hated running but for some reason I became very intrigued with running. Marathons in particular. I knew that marathons were something only crazy athletes did, which was part of the reason I became so interested in them. As soon as I heard about the Marathon last year I told myself that I would run that race one day. I wanted to be a part of such a special athletic event.

Part of my intrigue with the race was my love for the city of Manhattan. I have always loved big cities and New York is, of course, the greatest city on Earth. It is a place where people go to accomplish their dreams. I also love the wonderful fashion that is such a part of New York.

I don't know when I will run this marathon but I can promise you that I will run it one day. And I know that it will mean so much to me to be able to participate in the event that founded my love for running. 

Even though I am not running this race I am still soaking up all things Marathon. I have been stalking bloggers who are running the race and reading all the coverage on Runner's World. I truly hope that everyone who is running this race or who is lucky enough to spectate has the time of their life and enjoys every minute of this spectacular race.

When I need inspiration for training, I think about this race. I know that I will never be able to run this amazing race if I cannot run a marathon, and that enough motivation for me. I may be alone with my reasoning but when I find something that I want to do and has meaning to me I hold onto it for dear life.

I have read many race reports from bloggers like SkinnyRunner, Lindsay Runs, Fitness NYC and I have been reading unhealthy doses posts by bloggers running the NYC Marathon this year, such as Carrots 'N' Cake, The Blue-Eyed Runner, and The Hungry Runner Girl.

Good luck to everyone running The New York City Marathon on Sunday!

Adding a Little Spice to Your Run

Right now I am training for a 5K and it has been quite enjoyable so far. It has been really nice to work on gaining speed and building strength rather than endurance. I am still doing some longer runs but they are not my main focus right now.

I am far more interested in training for the Rock n' Roll USA Half Marathon in March, but I wanted to take the time I had after running the Baltimore Half Marathon to try some new things. I have been going to yoga twice a week, started doing Insanity again, got back in the pool, and started biking as means of cross training. 

But I also have been switching up the style of runs I do. I started doing speed work for the very first time and have been doing more tempo runs. 

Sometimes, though, a little creativity can really improve the quality and enjoyment of a run. One thing that I have been doing lately is incorporating stairs into my runs. Running stairs are a great way to bring in some interval training to a run and also work on increasing strength. 

My favorite stair workout to add to a run is:
2 x
sprinting, hops, and double stairs.

I have been working on adding another repeat each time I do stairs. I struggle the most with the hops. I find them very awkward and rather difficult, but I know that jumping really helps build strength and power in legs.

I find stairs to be the most beneficial and challenging thing to add to a run but I also have incorporated things such as push ups, crunches, planks, and jumping jacks. Adding these things to a run really adds some variety and can make a hard run seem like a totally different workout altogether.

What do you do to add some variety to your runs? Have you ever added stairs to your runs?

The Importance of Stretching

I started running back in April by training for a 5K in May. Then I ran another 5K in June. Over the summer I decided that I wanted to train to run a half marathon. I decided on running the Baltimore Half Marathon on October 15 and started training right away.

When I was training for my first 5K I was never sore. I had been an athlete all my life so training to run 3.1 miles was nothing too spectacular to push my body to do. Because of that, I never really stretched.

Even throughout my half marathon training, I was never sore and therefore did not stretch. I wasn't running very many miles so I just thought that stretching wasn't really going to be able to help me all that much.

Then race day came. I was feeling great up until mile 9ish and then I started to develop a terrible pain in my right now that almost caused me to walk the rest of the race. I was too determined to run the whole to stop and walk but I was really hurting.

I was sore the day after the race and I did some stretching. Then I started running again and discovered that the pain in my right knee was still there. I tried icing, stretching, advil, rest, and when none of those things were helping I decided to see an sports medicine orthopaedic surgeon.

He told me that I had aggravated my IT band and that I could have prevented this by stretching after each run. I felt so stupid. I had always known stretching was important but I neglected to do it because I was never sore or felt I needed to.

Well now I have been stretching before and after each run. I am trying to do everything possible to make this a little flare up and not an actual injury. I am even working on getting a foam roller to help with this process.

So let me go on the record and say that stretching is incredibly important and absolutely necessary to keeping your body healthy. Please, don't wait until it is too late like I did. It only takes a couple minutes to stretch after you run and your body will thank you for doing so.

What are your favorite/most helpful stretches? Do you stretch after every run?

Welcome, November

As I'm sure you all already know, today is the first day of November. We have definitely been seeing lots of fall, and even winter, weather. There are only two months left in 2011 and I want to make them count.

This is my absolute favorite time of year, with all the holidays and snow. However, I usually put on some weight during this time of year. I am not super concerned with my weight but I really want to work on losing weight this year instead of gaining it.

Growing up I never liked this time of year but now I love it. I love the orange & red leaves, the cooler air, and everything pumpkin. And I am looking forward to so much more.

I can't wait for even cooler temps, running in those cooler temps, hot chocolate, snow, Christmas decorations, Christmas cookies, and fireplaces.

I am probably most excited about training for and running a Thanksgiving 5K. I have done a few speed sessions and have really seen some big improvement. Despite my recent trouble with my IT band I am looking forward to completely crushing my current 5K PR.

I have been a vegetarian for more than three years now but lately I have been struggling to incorporate enough fruits & veggies into my diet. I am making it my goal for this month to eat as many fruits & veggies as possible.

I want to get healthy and strong and I know that sticking to a healthy diet is maybe the most important way to do that.

What are your goals for November?