Two Ears One Mouth

Yesterday was a bad day! I woke up at about 4:30 in the morning with some really bad pains in my lower abdomen around into my low back. I figured it was a pulled muscle or something and tried changing positions. Pain. Pain. Pain. So I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. No change. Walked around the house for a little while. No change, in fact, worse. I called my sister. It's convenient having a nurse in your pocket. She gave me her usual advice after the barrage of questions, "If it's the worst pain of your life, go to the ER." Now I have a severely skewed pain scale not entirely attributed to my endurance activity habit. A few years ago I managed a bout of meningitis which is by far the worst pain I could ever have imagined so my pain scale is often 1 to meningitis. That scale puts a broken leg marathon at a 3 if that gives you any indication of my perception. I try to use a "normal" pain scale when appropriate and that would make broken leg ...

Earlier this week I tweeted  a question to my followers (p.s. You should be one!) asking how I would spend my last free Saturday before inviting in the marathon monster. Upon further investigation I found that since I ended up changing my mind about which race I was going to do I was already a week behind. So last  Saturday was my last time to sleep in. Which I didn't do, if you'll recall that little swim I did. It was mildly disappointing but last night I decided to suck it up and spent a few minutes updating my play list so I could actually enjoy myself. What is it about new music that makes you really excited to run and listen to it? I mean, realistically I could just listen to the songs whenever I want.    source Anyway, in an attempt to do it right from the start this time I was up around 5 am so I actually had time to eat before I ran. I didn't do a great job at it today but at least being awake early will serve me well when I really need  to...

How many of you have had a training injury or a chronic injury that impedes your training? I'm sure there's some kind of statistic that says the likelihood of injury among those who participate in regular physical activity is relatively high and actually it's probably not too far off from the statistic of those who are injured performing everyday activities. Our bodies are not invincible despite their ability to endure repeated punishment in various forms. Perhaps the best part about our bodies is their adaptability followed closely by its ability to repair itself. Everyday, cells are dropping dead and even the healthiest of people are experiencing some kind of harm to their bodies whether it's just breathing in toxins or aging yet we still manage incredible feats every single day. There's no way to completely shield yourself from harm but what's more important is to not further the damage or let your ego be its cause. No athlete likes to rest. It's ...

Hello again! We all obviously know that I've been away for a while so let's just move on shall we? One of the things I've been doing in my absence has been swimming... a lot . Or at least a lot more than I ever have. I signed up with a relay team for Ironman 70.3 Muncie and I was dumb enough to be the swimmer so I spend about 4 days per week in the water in hopes to not be pulled from the race due to not making the time cutoff (which is a very real possibility). Since it's warm enough to be wetsuit free I'm trying to take advantage of as much open water time as possible and that included signing up for a 2k swim at Freeman Lake in Elizabethtown (just like the movie, except this was real life and we were all less attractive). source This wasn't a race, it was officially called an open water swimming clinic so very few of the people there had the normal intensity that can be seen in races. There were the serious athletes of course but I think we all k...