Over the weekend, I went
to a workshop about running. It was two
hours of great information and hard work!
I liked it so much that I’m doing a three-day version in May!
I have never been much of
a runner. I got in trouble in high
school P.E. and had to work off the demerits or whatever they were called by
running. I hated every minute of it, but
I got better at it. It was the memory of
getting better at it that led me to try it when my forearms and hips objected
to biking. Cue the ruptured plantar
fascia. This did not improve my feelings
about running. However, with the rupture
healed, with clients running more, and with the purpose of the workshop stated
as running without pain, I figured I could try again.
There were three things I
took away from the workshop that I want to share. One was that we need to strengthen and
mobilize our feet. The activation and
stretching exercises we did percolated up my legs and freed up my ankles and
knees as well. The exercises were
surprisingly challenging and I felt them the next day in that post-workout
soreness way.
The second was that we
need to squat more. I don’t mean that we
need to do more squats, although that is also a wonderful thing. I mean that we need to make an effort to hang
out in the deep squat position, heels on the floor if possible. For me, this will take some getting used to
and I suspect that I am not alone (I will have to find an activity to link with
it—maybe while my breakfast eggs boil?).
We can thank our chairs and our too-sedentary lives for this particular
difficulty.
Finally, and this is what
truly won me over, running should be fun.
When our bodies are adequately prepared for running, it can be play,
like when we were kids at recess.
