Month: August 2017

There once was a world where running did not involve a stopwatch. Running was playing. You chased your friends through the woods for hours. You asked the referee how much time was left in the soccer game, not because you were tired and wanted to stop, but because you wanted to play forever. Every now and then I see kids playing and laughing with what seems like an endless source of energy and I feel nostalgia for those glory days.

Although I started running competitively at a relatively early age, soccer will forever be my first love. I was that girl who slept with her soccer ball at night and dreamed of being the next Mia Hamm. I lived, breathed, slept soccer. I spent my weekends traveling throughout Florida, Georgia, and Alabama alongside my best friends to play 5- 6 hours of soccer a day. My thirst for playing could never be quenched. I lived in a world where all that mattered was who got to the ball first…and lucky for me, my little legs usually came out on top.

It is through soccer that I discovered my talent and passion for running. While I am eternally grateful for the sport of running and the experiences it has brought me, I wish I could have told my younger self to keep playing soccer. I took running so seriously at such a young age that it led to me quitting track my senior year. I was running times in middle school that won me top medals at Varsity State Championships. I was constantly being told how fast I was and how impressive my times were. On the surface, it all sounds great, but ultimately, it led to me feeling like I was never enough. How was I going to be able to reach the great expectations everyone had of me? I had this constant weight on my shoulders that I could never seem to lift. If I won, it was expected. If I lost, it was the end of the world. Every race was filled with anxiety and dread, and by the end of my senior year, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had hit a plateau and was not the ‘it’ runner anymore. I was getting beat by ‘me’ 6 years ago (the pre-pubescent middle school girl who glides along effortlessly and has absolutely no idea how this sport is about to turn her world upside down).

Running is an unforgiving sport. It exposes your weaknesses and challenges you in ways you could never imagine. But at the end of the day, IT IS JUST RUNNING. It is simply putting one foot in front of the other. We cannot always get caught up in analyzing the splits and worrying about hitting the times- leave the Garmin at home occasionally! Running should be the medicine, not the illness. It should heal our anxiety, not create it.

After a few years in college where I ended up stepping away from the stopwatch and away from the start lines, I found my love for running again. It took me almost three years of running without a watch, but fortunately I was able to remember the reason why I ran and I found joy in racing again.

Although I now have ambitious and lofty running goals, it is important to remember the days when I was a kid. I was passionate about racing through the woods with my friends and sprinting up and down the soccer field. I would never get tired. I wasn’t worried about winning or what my time was; I was just embracing the beauty of the sport. We must not forget the simplicity of what running really is. Running is pure and beautiful and it is simply a mechanism to set us free.

“Her heart was wild, but I didn’t want to catch it, I wanted to run with it, to set mine free.”

I feel it again. The same sharp, burning pain. The cramping sensation. Please, God, don’t let this be happening.

Last week I was given the green light to try running again. Keep it EASY and no longer than 25- 30 minutes was the rule. I was ecstatic. The pace didn’t matter. The distance didn’t matter. I was running again. But then, my ego caught up to me.

I was on a run this Wednesday with my brother who has recently caught the ‘running bug’ and is improving at an exponential rate. I was so happy to be running with him and he seemed to be so relaxed running his 7 minute mile tempo pace that I decided he was going to have the best tempo of his life. WARNING SIREN ADRIANA: DON’T BE AN IDIOT! Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the alarm.

We cruised along at sub 7 minute pace for the middle portion and then we ran our last mile in low 6:20s. Was this easy pace? No! Was this me being an idiot? 100% yes! In my mind, I was so comforted by the fact that I could still rip a 6:20 if I so desired, but my legs, they weren’t so thrilled with the idea. We started our cool down and in less than 3 steps I felt the sharp, burning pain that I have become oh so familiar with. NOOOO THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!

The next 24 hours I was in complete despair. I was icing, I was lightly stretching, I was texting my physical therapist every hour asking him if he thought I had re-injured myself. It is now four days later and I am still unsure of the answer. I feel better, but I still feel it. I am holding off on trying to run until I see my physical therapist and he can give me his expert opinion.

Throughout this whole process of rehab and recovery, I have been trying to stay positive and see every experience as a lesson. Here is lesson number 873,930,272.

Rehab, recovery, and rebuilding is a fine dance of pushing the boundaries, testing the limits, and then learning when to pull back. It is going to be a maddeningly frustrating process of two steps forward, one step back. There is no straight line to recovery. Instead, it is a messy, twisted, muddled path that we are all trying to figure out. There will be unplanned rest days and short breaks that you didn’t expect. There will be days where you think you’re back, and then there will be days where you think you’re going to be that “injured girl” forever and that all your fitness you worked so hard to build is wasted away. There will come a day when you take a risk and push yourself a little over the edge. Don’t freak out, it is all part of the journey. Just make sure to listen to your body and and know when to reign it back in. It is how we respond to what our bodies are telling us that determines the next step in our dance. Be patient. Remove egos from the equation. Choose to embrace the process, celebrate the small victories, and appreciate the rest days.

For now, I am doing my best to stay positive, stay smiling, and stay sane! 🙂

Here’s to health, happiness, and the constant pursuit of learning the steps to our new little dance.

“We can’t always choose the music life plays for us, but we can choose how we dance to it.”

Wake up, drink coffee, eat breakfast, go to the bathroom, go for a run. We all know this to be the standard/ideal version of a runner’s morning routine. Especially the pre-run toilet time 🙂 For me, this is the routine that comprises most of the days of my life. So what happens when your body shuts down and you are finally forced to step away from training and take time off? Well, my friends, I have recently discovered the habits that comprise the life of a resting runner…a whole lot of restlessness, bitchiness, and aggression. But also, you get to stay up late and sleep in! You can eat those pancakes or waffles instead of oatmeal and a banana! You can catch up on your trashy tv shows! You can drink wine AND eat dessert! You can start that hobby you always thought about doing! (cough start a blog cough cough). Rest is not all bad folks- and when you do get the green light to run again, it will be that much sweeter!

In the world of competitive running, being injured is simply part of the game. As we pound the pavement over and over again in blind pursuit of a goal, we forget the damage that we are putting on our bodies. Sometimes, the only way we can convince our mind to listen to our body, is when the damage is too far gone and our body finally cries out in despair, typically in the form of an injury. And then come the words every athlete dreads hearing, “You need to rest.”

As a semi-exercise addict, telling me to take time off of running is like telling me to put my life on hold. It is hard for me to think straight, to enjoy life’s simple pleasures, and even to function as a normal human-being. But the fact of the matter is, rest is not only important, it is absolutely necessary. To be able to push our bodies to their limits, we must be able to properly recover. It is impossible to be at your peak of fitness at all times, and more importantly, to be able to reach your peak, you have to be good to your body. Eat well, sleep well, and REST well.

Stress. Recover. Improve. Three simple words that sum up the basic tenants of how to get faster. Most athletes are typically so disciplined and devoted to their training that they tend to overdo the stress phase of the cycle and neglect the recover phase. Many athletes have the flawed mentality that the more they train, the more fit they will become. They train hard every day, sometimes 2-3 times a day, and don’t give the body proper rest. Ultimately, without recovery one will never improve. It is the rest period after a workout that allows our body to adapt to the stress we just put it through and come back stronger than before.

Bill Bowerman, cofounder of Nike and coach of legendary runner, Steve Prefontaine, used to tell his athletes, “Stress, recover, improve, that’s all training is. You’d think any damn fool could do it.”

C’mon people, let’s not be fools! Rest and recover! I promise, the sun will come up tomorrow 🙂

“You know you’re hooked when taking a rest day takes more discipline than working out.”