Resolution about what this blog is about.

Today I sprinted! It was painful and glorious and now my calves are killing me. Feet too. Ow. We did 10 (ish) ten-yard sprints (five flying starts, five dead starts) 5 (ish) 40-yard sprints, and then the killers: 2 100-yard sprints. Yeouch. My calves have been sore for about a week now because I *finally* started doing what I have purported to do in this blog the entire time: run.
See, lately P-dazzle and I have been focusing on strength workouts. This is in part out of laziness and in part because once we get the weights out, both of us lift, and we put the weights back, we've already killed two hours and the world outside of fitness is imposing its demands and strictures upon us with stuff like showering before going to work.
Anyway, I've started to talk the talk and run the...run. I've just been doing a warmup jog before lifting, getting a feel for the new Vibrams (which I broke in and got extremely dirty on a hike last week), and trying to develop a technique akin to the POSE method. Who knew running had to be so complicated? The first time I took off on a warm up jog, which was a little under a mile long, I realized how great running feels and how much I've been missing it. Before this summer, I'd worked myself up to 3.5 miles and was feeling good about it. I haven't run that distance all summer, unfortunately, and I think that I've suffered for it in more ways than one. Much better athletes and runners have said this before me, but it really does affect my mood. So, now I'm renewed in my quest! It's time to start running more. I'm not planning on dropping the strength bit of training--it's been useful and gratifying--but I need to start pushing myself more. Especially since I started this blog with a deadline: February = 13 miles. Hoo boy.

So, sprints were good, I've been active, and I've been improving in my lifting! Just so I can gloat, I'm going to list my lifting stats as they stand now:

Back squat: 95 lbs (almost 100!)
Dead lift: 120 lbs
Bench: 65 lbs
Overhead Press: 50 lbs
Power clean: 75 lbs

To the seasoned lifter, this probably isn't much, but weight lifting like this is something I've never tried before, and it's been an incredible source of empowerment for me. It's nice to share these stats now with everyone--it feels like a motivator to improve so I can show you all the work I've been able to do. It's incredibly humbling at times because it is incredibly difficult, but it's also pretty cool to feel yourself push 95 extra pounds up with your back. Someday soon it'll be even more.

Thanks for reading, folks.

The Shoes Make the Runner, Right?

Or lack thereof, perhaps.

I'm certainly not the first person to take on the issue of whether or not running shoes (in the sense that most of us understand them to be) are actually good for you and your running. Many would argue that we need them in order to run correctly: they provide arch support, cushioning for your heels--there's the idea that this is a case of human ingenuity and technology improving upon the bodies we were born with.

Of course, this is the ideology that I grew up with, that we need shoes with good arch support and fat cushy heels to make running possible. Then again, I also considered running to be something anyone can just do, no problem.

As you know (if you've been reading up to this point), this summer has proved to be a major shift in the way I think about fitness, and running has not been an exception. P-dazzle and I have come across a running technique known as POSE running. We're still in the early stages of learning how it works--it's a complicated technique that asks, in many ways, for you to unlearn a lifetime of thinking of running a certain way. Basically, it's hard, especially when you're trying to learn it from YouTube videos. But it is a legitimate technique--the man who developed it is an Olympic running coach, and it's commonly accepted in the CrossFit community--several of the trainers on CrossFit Endurance teach the method themselves.

My own motivations for learning this technique are that, for as long as I've participated in running, I've had persistent knee pain. Up until a few months ago, I dismissed this as the collateral damage of being active. However, it does strike me as strange to think that a body that is made for movement, whose ancestors have been moving for thousands of years, would have chronic pain because of the very same movement. At 22 years old, I shouldn't be dealing with joint pain.

So, P-dazzle and I have been taking steps to learn about this running method, which is rather difficult to do without paying to have a trainer instruct you. But we're working with the wealth of the internet, so we are still fortunate to have some reliable resources.

One thing that we've found, however, is that it is really difficult to use this new method with the traditional running shoes. One main tenet of the POSE technique is to do away with the heel-strike, which is how most of us run: slamming our heels hard into the pavement, leading us to need all that extra cushion that our running shoes so happily provide. The alteration that POSE makes is that the foot strike the ground not on the heel, but on the ball of the foot, with the heel lightly "kissing" the ground to get full calf extension. (There are other components, too, and many of which I don't have a very good understanding, but this is what has been essential to me so far.)

So, in order to develop my new runnin' skillz, I either need to go barefoot (which is awesome on grass, not so awesome on concrete) or buy some "minimalist" shoes. There are different ways to go with this option; you can shell out some big bucks for some Inov-8s, some Vibram FiveFingers, or some other brands that I am less familiar with. Unfortunately, this is a rather expensive option, so P-dazzle and I were resigned to the fact that we'd just have to wait til Christmas.

However, P-dazzle found a website that was selling Vibrams at a major discount, and so I splurged! They came last week and I've had a few opportunities to try them out, and they are pretty cool.

Here's a picture:

Because I was getting them at a discount, I was stuck with pink, but they're fun and I have definitely noticed a difference when I try running on the balls of my feet rather than my heels. Pretty exciting stuff. Hopefully this will put me on a more serious track with training; lately I've just been messing around and doing strength workouts instead of running and endurance.

Thanks for reading, y'all.