Origins
I've been talking about strength and getting strong and I discovered (the hard and painful way) that endurance running requires a lot of strength.While just getting out there to run and adding mileage is great for increasing endurance, the load your body takes pounding out all those miles can lead to a lot of injuries.
Speaking for myself, I hurt myself running my first marathon by A: not training properly and B:...well there was no B as I had A staring me in the face laughing at me at the 10 mile mark as my right knee exploded (later to discover it was my ITBand) forcing me to pull off to the side of the road and 'stretch' it out. I did finish the race, albeit a pretty broken person. The only reason I finished was, I needed to find my sister Con who was actually running the marathon herself and she was my only ride home.
After taking a month off, and taking up running again, I was still feeling 'off.' I don't think I completely healed from my injury as I had my cousin who's a physiotherapist take a look at my legs and she couldn't believe how tight both my ITBand's were. "Like piano wire..." is what she said. So I started looking into preventative measures for running and I did the whole foam rolling routine.
After a couple of months my legs and joints started to feel better but I was idiotically still running too much. I believe I was putting on too many miles more than my body could handle. I was trying to get in the mileage for another marathon, but I wasn't really prepared per se with a proper training plan. Yeah, I was running for the sake of running because it was 'fun'. It can be fun, but not when you're bothered by these little aches and pains, especially my achilles which were constantly sore.
So when the time came to run my goal marathon (TCM), I was this time sort of 'prepared' at least mileage-wise I knew my body (notably my legs) could handle the distance. But this time, my mind was all out of whack. And that put on a different set of stresses on its own. When I crossed the finish line, I was satisfied that I finished but was pretty annoyed with my time. I know I could do better. So this time, I set about planning everything out that I could control. Other external life factors will have to come and be dealt with on a case-by-case basis but as long as I kept myself focused and just ENJOY the process, then I know everything will be fine regardless of my marathon time. Life truly is too short.
But I needed to stop and get completely healed and rested before I set out to tackle another training cycle. I also needed to either sit down and create my own training plan, or find a coach who can help me with one. I seriously realized that marathons take a lot of time and preparation and that marathon training programs were designed to slowly increase the distance over a period of time. So I chose to find a coach, and run with a group and also run with training partners. As I learned from experience in another life when I was very young, training with guys who were better than you, helped you get better and show massive improvement. I have to thank my childhood friends J. Baloro, S and M Pabuaya and my brother Roger for those lessons.
My local running store offered a marathon running clinic so I signed up. I run with Osty and Tyler who also signed up and are returning from last year's clinic so they'll be my training partners as those two guys run incredibly fast and our coach Dan, has experience as a PE teacher and has run multiple marathons. The clinic wouldn't be for another two months so I decided to prepare myself prior by keeping up with my Yoga and doing what I found for myself a simple and effective strength training program.
Look...I don't want you to think that I'm all OCD and that running is my be all end all. I have a life outside of work and running, with two beautiful girls that I love being a father to, my career is pretty satisfying and overall, after some personal adversity, I think I'm a pretty lucky guy. My family supports me, even though I know they think I'm crazy. I have great friends from all walks of life who help celebrate my ups and are there for me when I'm falling down (just run away when I'm Breaking Bad). Running to me is not just a way to stay in shape and be an 'ideal' body weight but I find that when I'm running...my mind clears...
Having said that and not to sound all contradictory, I am running with a purpose, and that is the Fargo marathon. I'm also running with a training plan as I know this training is hard and I do have a goal time. The training is intended to help me prepare mentally and physically to meet that goal time. It does require a focus and sacrifice. It's not meant to be easy and to a lot of people this is not 'fun,' but to me, the process of having a goal and laying out the foundation in preparation for that goal and it's execution, is what it's all about for me. Like I said, it's not for everyone, it is a unique thing. And my momma' always told me I was different.
In my next post I'll write about Yoga, the miles between and the discovery of my ass...
