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Friday, March 03, 2017 · Mike Davis

Good morning and happy Friday!

For some reason my coffee is extra amazing this morning!

Yesterday was my last day working at the golf club and I am grateful for the opportunity to get to know some great people, but I am happy that I am done. It can be challenging catering to people that feel entitled and I felt it best to leave before I became resentful. I am not sure what if anything is next in the way of employment, but I have plenty that I can focus on with my studies, ACE certification and my Road Runners Club of America Level II certification. I would also I like to do some volunteer work as well and will pursue that over the next couple of weeks. Of course, NFLR is a constant for me and we have many initiatives that need some focus, so that can take up many of my hours. I am getting much better at time management and that has helped with my course studies.

Yesterday, I got my second run in of the week and it was a good/bad story. Let’s start with the good. I was not super motivated, but I changed immediately from my work clothes into running shorts and top, despite knowing that I wanted to eat lunch and do some other things before running. I have chatted multiple times about dressing for a workout, when motivation is waning and despite it being a couple of hours before I planned to run, I thought it best to “feel like a runner.” That strategy worked, as almost 2 hours later, I was out the door and moving my feet.

It was another beautiful day for running, despite strong winds and I felt so blessed to be out enjoying it. My current route cuts through multiple golf courses and eventually along a path, so I am free of worry about vehicles except for a golf cart here and there. Not that I felt particularly strong, but my pace was considerably faster than Tuesday’s run and that concerned me some, but I decided to go with it. I am really trying to focus on glute utilization and that requires a concerted effort of pushing off (propulsion) with each step. We have helped many runners become stronger and more efficient runners through improving their propulsion and yet personally, I struggle with it. Anyhow, I emphasized it as I ran and the immediate impact was I moved along much faster than I intended. Though keep in mind, my fast pace, may not seem very fast to some. Pace is relative to the individual and today anything below 9:30 mile pace is fast for me.

I pushed along and had some thought of running 60 minutes instead of the planned 50, but as I approached the 45-minute point, I realized that 50 was best! Between my pace, my still recovering body and the hills, I was pretty much tanked. It was so nice out, I was glad that I had a quarter mile to able to walk and warm down. I had no idea what my pace was, but comparably, I ran 5 miles on Tuesday in 50 minutes, when I glanced at my distance as I hit 50 minutes yesterday, it displayed 5.54 miles. As I clicked through the data, I saw that my pace was 9:04 overall. Way to fast, but the prideful side of me felt a little pleased. Most definitely, I attribute the pace to my focus of getting my glutes involved through better propulsion, and that focus also steered me away from thinking about how I felt physically. We often defeat ourselves mentally, when we do not feel great and that’s the focus of our thoughts and when running solo, those thoughts can make us miserable. Instead, I encourage runners to make a concerted effort to focus on things such as posture, form, problem solving, or whatever else that might distract them from what their brain wants them to believe. Our brain will surely impede us if we let it dictate and for runners, it is important that we train it, instead of let it control us.

So, the good was, I was able to work on my running efficiency, push pretty hard and got to enjoy the blessing of running. The bad, my left foot was screaming by the time I got home! This may be the worst case of Plantar Fasciitis I have ever had and it is not going to go away quietly. Last night I rolled it with ice and kept the boot on until 2:30am, but today, it is painful. I will continue to work on keeping the boot on longer and hopefully through a complete night, but the boot hurts like heck and makes sleeping really difficult. I am trying to schedule an appointment with whoever my new doctor is supposed to be, but that has been a bit frustrating. Interestingly, I placed a lot of blame on the minimalist shoes I had tried, but I am now 70 miles in with these stability shoes and it has gotten worse.

I believe that this same ankle has range of motion issues and that, that may be at the route of my problem. From a coaching/gait analysis standpoint, I am actually intrigued by my problem and am trying to work through cause and effect. If I am correct in my belief, and able to correct the range of motion and positively impact my injury, it will be a valuable process to understand. Absolutely, this is outside of the scope of practice for a running coach, but understanding how the anatomy chain works, will help with evaluating running gaits.

My cup is empty, which means I need to wind this up. Have a great Friday and an even better weekend! Thanks for having coffee with me.

God Bless!

Mike