Mind Over Miles

Sometimes the FOMO hits hard. Even if I don’t want what I’m missing out on.

I am a terrible twenty-something. I was a terrible teenager, too. I don’t particularly like to drink. I don’t like big crowds and I feel uncomfortable dancing. So I generally avoid parties. It feels like such a waste of time being that person who stands uncomfortably at a table or in the corner sipping a clear liquid (water, not vodka) from a red solo cup. That’s the trick to not being bothered, either: have a red solo cup in your hands at all times, because you have to carry a plastic cup in order to avoid the inevitable, “What do you mean you’re not drinking?!? Here, take my cup. I’ll get us shots. No no no no no I’m gettin’ us SHOOOOOOOOTS.”

I went to a large state university. I tried to like sorority/frat/house parties approximately 2x and I hated every second of it. So I stopped and found other ways that I enjoy spending my time. I like photography, archery, running, and getting silly drunk off wine in my living room with people I actually know. But I still hate parties. 

This Saturday I spent the evening learning to speak Spanish. I work at a clinic with bilingual patients and I’d really love to be able to communicate directly without needing my coworker to translate. So I’m working on it. 

I also happen to live across the street from a different large public state university’s “sorority row”. And this Saturday was bid night. There was also a concert at the park two blocks away. 

Everyone sounded like they were having so much fun. Everyone sounded like they were living a more enjoyable life than mine. I was jealous of strangers I didn’t know in situations I wouldn’t even like if I was in them. I felt sad and useless for listening to the crowd when I was doing something as nerdy learning and studying.

Even worse? That my feeling towards learning something as useful as another language is automatically described as “nerdy” in my internal dialouge. That I often get distracted doing the things I enjoy because I’m thinking about how I’m not supposed to enjoy it. How I’m “supposed” to be out partying. Out making stupid decisions. Not inside curled up with a Spanish video.

How frustrating it will be when someday I break out in conversation and another unilingual person will look at me with surprise and say, “You speak Spanish? Cool, I didn’t know you could do that.”

Then it will be cool. Doing is cool. But learning is not. 

Have you seen the video of that kid breaking the world record of juggling three rubiks cubes while simultaneously solving them? It’s INSANELY impressive. But do you think he was considered cool when he was spending time learning to juggle and solve rubiks cubes? My guess is a hard no. But once he was able to do it...instant praise from millions on social media.

Part 1: First, you need to understand what kinds of stretches there are and what they do.

Static stretch: low intensity stretch held for a long time. 

Pros: 

Causes increase tolerance to stretch and increase in the length of muscles when done consistently.

Causes Autogenic Inhibition, which is just a fancy way of saying that a long, slow stretch causes receptors in your tendons to cause the muscle to relax and elongate.

Cons: 

Causes a decrease in muscle strength immediately after stretching that lasts for around 30 minutes.

Dynamic stretch: there are two kinds, ballistic and active

Active stretch:

Pros: 

Does not decrease strength the way static stretching does.

Strengthens muscles at the same time.

Cons: 

Difficult to hold for any significant lengthen of time (~10sec).

Ballistic stretch: using weight/momentum at end range of motion to force tendons beyond elastic threshold. A high intensity, bouncing stretch.

Pros: 

Honestly, didn’t find anything except warnings about performing them safely and the increased risk for injury.

Cons: 

Poor control. 

Potential for injuring weakened tissues. 

Also, there is a thing called the Stretch Reflex. 

It’s the same reflex that causes your leg to kick when the doctor taps on your knee with a reflex hammer. When your muscle is stretched suddenly, it causes the muscle to contract to protect itself from a stretch (

How is this useful? you’re probably thinking. Well, say you start to roll your ankle. Your ankle muscles start to stretch, and as a reflex the muscles contract and pull your ankle back to normal. Boom, useful! 

So bouncing into your stretch will just create more tension in your muscles rather than stretching them up like you’re aiming for.

Summary...Static and ballistic stretching have been shown in multiple studies to either decrease performance, strength, and/or power. Ballistic stretching also increases chance of injury. Active stretching has not been shown to have the same detrimental effects on performance as the other options and conversely, has been shown to improve performance in several athletic activities.

Part 2: How to perform each kind of stretch...coming soon :-)

Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3273886/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19486475

National Physical Therapy Exam Study Guide and Review 2018.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321897824_Hamstring_Stiffness_Returns_More_Rapidly_After_Static_Stretching_Than_Range_of_Motion_Stretch_Tolerance_and_Isometric_Peak_Torque

http://web.mit.edu/tkd/stretch/stretching_4.html#SEC31

You got sucked in by the catchy title, so let’s not waste time getting around to it.

Here it is...DRUMROLL...the easiest way to injure yourself during a run:

Ignoring Pain.

Yep, that’s it.  Especially sharp pains that come on suddenly. Muscle burning? Aching, tired, fatigue? Lungs feel like they’re gonna burst? TOTALLY normal. Sharp pains (of any kind, really)? NOT a normal part of exercise. “Pushing through”, while it may boost our pride or rep, will ultimately cause more damage to whatever is injured and cause you to need a longer healing time.  Which would you rather do: skip a day or two because of an injury, or push through and end up needing to take 2-3 weeks off because you let something go until it was unbearable/really bad/needs a doctor visit/a chronic problem you can’t get rid of?

So don’t ignore the pain.

Here’s some info on healing times to help you understand what I’m talking about a little better.

Tendonitis: Heals between 3-7 weeks

Muscle Injuries:

Exercise induced: 0-3 days (often referred to as DOMS)

Grade I (general sprain/strain): 0-14 days

Grade II (bad, swollen sprain/strain): 4 days to 3 months

Bone: heals between 5 weeks - 3 months

So...you have DOMS that you decide to ignore and not give yourself a rest. Or you start having pains in your feet, suspect stress fractures, and decide to ignore it because you haven’t hit your miles for the week. Or you roll your ankle on a rock and decide to keep going on it, because its not THAT bad, really.  All of these could extend the time it takes to heal, OR cause additional damage that takes it from a minor injury to a moderate injury. 

Listen to your body, and rest when you need to.

And that’s how you avoid an injury.

                                     Men and women are different.

THERE. I SAID IT.

Also, it turns out (*le gasp*)...different does not mean unequal, and different is not always bad. When it comes to the gender you were born as, it is just physiological fact. Women have wider plevises (pelvi?) because the body is built to give birth, and the different array of hormones allow tendons to stretch more than men. There is also generally less muscle mass, so the body can move more freely around the joints.

Pro of Flexibility in Runners: Slightly loading joints differently with each step, meaning less likely to be injured.

Con of Flexibility in Runners: Looser tissues mean less energy return with each step. Tight tendons snap back faster. So, high flexibility can also mean slower.

Source: Dr. DS Blaise Williams, director of VCU Run Lab. (Information is paraphrased from NYT article for blog reading.)

“#6. Nipple Health.

There is no nipple bleeding.”

When someone “recently wrote...that the marathon is a dangerous, expensive and meaningless pursuit, my initial reaction was annoyance — why do people get such smug enjoyment out of disparaging our sport? Yet I concede that he has a point about the glorification of the marathon. The race isn’t the only means to health, fitness or even bad-assedry. (Ethiopian runner Muktar Edris just ran a 5K in 12:59.43 — that’s three 4:10 miles strung together.) Typical 5K training plans call for something on the order of 10 to 30 miles of running per week or the equivalent in timed runs — in the optimal range for health benefits.” -sneak peak of the article above

Can I just say how much I am NOT a morning person, before this post goes on. Just so you know.

So I recently started a job where I have to get up in the 5 AM.  I know, I know, lots of people do it daily, its not a special situation.  But its been a struggle.

What I started doing, without really planning on doing it, was while laying in bed before my second alarm goes off, is listing all the things I can think of that make me grateful for the day.  I get the weekend off soon, I get to see Ms. XYZ get discharged to go home with her husband, I get to talk to my boyfriend on the phone later that day, I’m sore from my workout the night before (which I always take as a good sign that I’m gaining strength)....basically anything good I can think of.  Just to not be so grumpy, because my usual thought process between my first and second alarm is along the lines of “I hate this, I hate mornings, I don’t want to do this, I can’t wait to sleep later”.

And I’m not writing this to say like, “Oh, you should do this in the mornings too.” or so you can add something else to your list of “Things I Should Do in the Morning and Never Quite Get Around To”.  I have just been generally astounded by my difference in mood this morning lately.  It doesn’t make me any more awake.  It doesn’t make me move any faster.  But it definitely has made me less of a grouch!

#MindOverMatter #MindOverMiles

I haven't posted much lately other than my own training things. A few things about layering and cold weather running, but thats it. Is there something you want to hear about? Shin splints, cross training...?

DM me if you have something specific you'd like me to cover, because for some reason I can't get the question and answer feature to work here.

Click here to follow the new Mind Over Miles Instagram.

I’m dedicating my training this year to All Hands Volunteers, a disaster relief organization currently working in Texas, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands to help them rebuild after the 2017 Hurricanes.  (They’ve also been in Nepal since the 2015 earthquake, Peru since 2016 flooding, and Louisiana since 2017 flooding).

Just created a new Insta with the same name as this Tumblr to track my training and fundraising process.  

Things beyond the “10 degree rule” and layering properly when it looks like THIS ^^ outside:

1. Phone battery properly charged. (I’ve gone running when its 20 degrees after a few weeks of negative windchill and been like, “How warm it is!  This is great.”  And my phone dies halfway through a run because 20 degrees is still cold.  It’s annoying because I like to pace myself with music, but also not so safe because if I were to slip and fall on ice or something I wouldn’t be able to call for help.)

2. Phone solidly in pocket or bag or something. (This keeps it from shutting off from cold for longer. Even if the battery is charged, when the phone reaches a certain temp it powers down. Just put on a playlist, bundle it up, and leave it alone! Body heat and being protected from the wind has been enough for my phone to stay on.)

3. Ear covers. (Why does nobody seem to mention this when talking about layers? Your ears need some lovin and lack of frostbite too!)

4. Shirt/scarf that can be pulled up over the nose/mouth. (Sometimes it feels like I don’t need this, sometimes I do.  Better safe from windchill than frostbite from windchill.)

5.Water resistant socks or shoes. (Kind of an expensive “tip”, but just be aware that snow and ice may get on your shoes and make your socks damp.  Next time you’re buying new shoes, you may or may not take this into account.)

Picture taken by yours truly.

Been earning about how important goals are lately. I’ve been having trouble keeping up with running the past week or two. My plan after Thanksgiving (my last registered run of the year) was to work out for 1/2 an hour a day 6 days a week. Strength, running, yoga, doesn’t matter.  Just do something for 30 min almost every day... but when there’s not a race to work towards or a new PR to try and hit, missing a day or two doesn’t seem so bad.  And then that day or two stretches to three or four.

I need new goals!!!

I think when people try to “lean into a hill” while running, they bend from the waist. This isn’t what leaning should be, and its bad for your back. Try leaning your whole body forward, and don’t just bend at the waist.  

The point of the lean is to move your center of gravity forward farther.  If you hinge at the waist, you’re barely changing the center of gravity, you’re adding stress on your low back, and you’re adding unneeded stresses on hip and back muscles.

              Cross-Training Tuesday: Swim Night