Run to Win

I just got home this week from a vacation in Greece, and it was a really good time.

I got to run barefoot in the stadium at Ancient Olympia, did a lot of hiking through Athens to visit all the ruins, and relaxed for the last few days at the beach on the island of Sifnos. No running, but I still managed to get quite a lot of walking in and my foot seems completely healed. Since then, I’ve run for the past 5 days straight with no problems.

So I got home late on Sunday evening, and had a few voicemails waiting for me from one of my best friends, John Tomac.

I ran with John in college and we’ve remained good friends since. In 2006, I paced him through his first marathon. That’s us to the right around mile 8 on route to his 2:55 finish.

John’s an ever positive individual, a great runner, and a talented illustrator (he designed my logo, as well as the cover for the first version of my book on marathoning.) He’s also in need of some help.
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Photo by boxercabDogs and runners have a love/hate relationship (usually hate.) As a runner, we are invading their turf, putting their owners in danger, moving fast enough to look interesting and tasty, or just have some bright colors on that makes the dog think that we are a toy. There are a lot of reasons for a dog to chase us, and for the most part they are valid reasons. Sometimes the dog just wants to play with us, or to come over and say hi, and sometimes the dog wants to hunt and maim us.

I was recently asked what do you do when a dog is not on a leash, and it looks like it may want to chase you?

I have had mostly good luck following the steps below, but I will also be the first to admit that I have also been bitten before. I have not been bitten very many times, and I plan on continuing to follow these steps as being the least intrusive to my run, the least danger to both myself and to the dog, and from my own experience has the highest success rate.

What to do when a dog chases you:

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As the temperature has been plummetting recently (it was below zero fahrenheit last night when I got home from work) and the wind and dark and traffic are not a good combination when you have ice and snow covering the sides of the road, I have started running my lunch loop again. It is a loop that is just over 5 miles long near where I work. The problem I had today, of course, came from having to share the sidewalk with a man and his dog.
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Resolutions at the new year are bad you. I do not like making new year’s resolutions, and I advise against them for anybody that bothers to ask me. This is not to say that the end of the year is a bad time to plan the upcoming year; I just mean to say that making a resolution at the end or beginning of the year is doomed to failure, especially if the resolution is related to fitness. They are a bad idea, and I recommend avoiding making resolutions and instead just make changes in your life. There are three major reasons that I do not like resolutions.

1. They encourage procrastination.
2. The weather is demotivating.
3. The weather can be dangerous.

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A training schedule is a great way to structure your training so that you are able to realize the greatest gains in your race performances. If you have a schedule, you are more likely to be ready for your race on race day rather than a couple weeks before or a couple weeks after. You are also more likely to put in the work you need because you will know what is expected of you every day.

Do not assume, however, that you need to have a training schedule that is set in stone. Sometimes you will have to swap workouts around, or skip a workout entirely and make it up a different week. Sometimes you might even skip a workout entirely and not bother making it up. Work, family, and your health are three things that can throw a wrench into the best plans, and being able to maneuver your training around obstacles will make it that much easier and less stressful to train. Here is a real-world example of changing up the training:
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The easiest way to sideline a runner is an injury, especially one in the foot or knee. A very sensitive part of the foot that does not always get enough attention is the arch. There are a few ways to easily injure the arch of your foot. One way to hurt yourself is that you could wear the wrong kind of shoe for your body type or training style and exacerbate an existing biomechanical innefficiency. In other words, you could wear an uncomfortable shoe that makes you run funny. Another way is to wear improper shoes for long distances, such as wearing your racing flats for every run and then covering 80 or 90 miles per week. You could also step on a nail; that can hurt quite a bit as well.

There are a few ways to stretch your arch. If you are doing a “Figure 4″ stretch and you can reach your toes, you can pull them back towards you and do a combination stretch. The easiest way does not involve that kind of flexibility, though. You just roll your foot over a tennis ball along the floor with your shoe off. You can also use some other ball of the same general size. I use a wooden juggling ball. The next method is not technically the safest way for you to stretch out your arch, but it is very effective. First, a little background:
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This advice does not apply to when you are injured or need a rest day due to over training. It does, however, apply to when you just feel lazy or you expect that nothing good can happen on any particular day. The advice I want to give you this evening is to always remember that your best runs will come in one of two situations: when you are at the top of your game and in the peak of your fitness, or when you least expect it to come.

When you are at the top of your game and at the peak of your fitness (whether that is a 10 or 15 minute mile pace or that is a 4 minute mile pace) you can sometimes have some break out runs that really get you going and make you feel good. In fact, the less fit you are and the less experience that you have, the more often you are going to have a run like this as you are getting into shape.

More often, however, those sorts of runs are going to happen on a random day when you are least expecting it. You might have had a stressful day at work and you are just able to completely unwind. Or perhaps you wake up in the morning and are running into the sunrise. Or you are in a horrific car accident and are really sore, but decide to run anyway and it really loosens you up.

The idea is that you really do not know when these types of runs are going to come, so you should try to avoid finding excuses to skip planned workouts. You may be tired, you may not feel well, but once you are out the door you start with a clean slate. You do your warm up and if you still are too tired or too sore or lethargic, then perhaps you change the workout then. But first, you give your legs a chance to express themselves. You just might surprise yourself.
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Jank pointed out an article about goals and losing focus after meeting those goals.
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