These Headphones Rock!

I was getting tired of my headphones falling out of my ear mid-run every 2-3 minutes.  I was tired of fiddling with my headphones throughout my run.  

I have gone through 3 or 4 different types and styles of headphones, and finally found some that I absolutely love.  If your looking for some great running headphones, you need to check out the Sennheiser PMX-70 Neckband headphones.   

They have an arm that goes around the back of your neck, they stay in your ear great, and they sound awesome.  I was tipped off to these through the Runner's World forums, got some, and tried them out today on my 6 miler.  I couldn't be happier, these headphones are great.  There is your consumer tip for the day!

Biggest Loser and Back on the Road Again...

Biggest Loser Thoughts

I totally did not get why Bob got so upset last night on the Biggest Loser. Or any of the contestants for that matter. Many of them had to switch teams, but big deal. Bob and Gillian are both good trainers, and they are still all about helping them lose weight. I know there are attachments that can develop with a trainer, but seriously several of them were in tears over it, and Bob was just acting weird. I didn't get it. It was sad to see the father and son brown team split up though.

I definitely have a favorite team now-the blue team, cousins Sione and Filipe. I was bummed they didn't win the "mud" challenge, but did anyone else think that Tara was not going all the way down to the ground on that challenge? I thought she was cheating. I hope she goes home soon, she is getting on my nerves. Part two is tonight, so we'll see who gets the boot.


Running Update -Back on the Road Again

These last few weeks I haven't been able to run much but now that my foot is feeling much better I feel like I'm getting my running mojo back, and I 'm getting back into my half marathon training groove.

I don't want to overdue it too fast, so I'm easing back into longer distances. I ran 3 miles yesterday, took a 3 mile walk with the family last night, and ran 3 miles this morning. Tomorrow I may or may not run, haven't decided. Tomorrow night I have a big basketball game against the top ranked and undefeated team in the league, so I need to conserve my energy. (our team is in 2nd place) I'm also using ice after all my runs, even short ones, for 5-10 minutes. The results seem to be great, it is reducing soreness and increasing recovery.

Along with running again, I feel like I have a renewed dedication to eat healthier. It is so easy to not eat right when you are injured and aren't exercising. So it's leftover spinach and chicken salad for me today for lunch.

Ice, Ice, Baby.....

 So I am still nursing my left foot back to full health, and have been taking it easy with running for the last 3 weeks.....I am taking anti-inflamatory medicine, stretching a lot, and giving my foot plenty of time to rest.......

I have a really good book on injury prevention and recovery called "Runner's World Guide to Injury Prevention:  How to Identify Problems, Speed Healing, and Run Pain-Free."  
This book is a great resource on injuries for runners. 

 Yesterday I re-read Chapter 8, entitled "I'm Injured: Now What?"  In  this chapter it talks about all the things you should do if you experience an injury from running....it even has a list of things to consider when deciding whether to continue to run or not that I think is good....so many runners (including me) want to keep running even when injured..this book breaks is down like this.....

Run....when you're feeling muscle aches that are not localized but general in nature or when the pain subsides as you run, but also does not return in more severe fashion after you finish.  
Don't Run....when you are experiencing a stabbing, wincing pain, or the pain clearly forces you to limp or alter your stride it, or when the pain grows worse upon running, etc.......

Another good tip from the chapter is to treat your injury with PRICE (many of you are familiar with RICE, but some doctors now add the "P" for protection as a reminder not to do more damage to the injured site.  PRICE stands for--Protection, Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.   There are tons of great tips in this one chapter alone, I plan on re-reading it as needed to get help on dealing with my injuries.

I realized as I was reading this book that I have never iced my injury, or my body period, to help with recovery or healing, so I decided I needed to try it.

This would be my first ice bath.  I went for a "test run" of about 2.5 miles, just to see how my foot was feeling. I stayed near home in case I needed to stop and walk, but overall the foot felt pretty good...just a little twinge towards the end.  But after reading so many other people proclaim the wonders of ice baths and ice treatments, I decided to give it a try.   I appreciated Aron's post recently about how to do an ice bath, although mine was just a foot bath today, and I must say it wasn't too bad. I could only last about 5 minutes with my foot in the ice, and the foot felt pretty good afterwards.  Of course my two sons came in and had to stick their feet in as well....my oldest lasted almost a minute with his foot in the ice and my youngest, pictured below, lasted about 17 seconds.  We had a fun male bonding moment icing our feet together...

Finally, check out Every Gym's Nightmare for a giveaway!

Running Barefoot.....

I have heard about people that run barefoot, and for the life of me I don't get it. Why in the world would you subject the bottom of your feet to such abuse? Heck, my feet hurt from running in nice shoes, with thick sock, and gel insoles. 

I ran across an article about a barefoot runner that I wanted to share with you all. This guy has run about 40 marathons barefoot, and he now has over 550 consecutive days of running barefoot...you can see the article here:

Running Barefoot

The runner's name is Rick Roeber and he lives in the Kansas City area. Evidently, running barefoot helps resolve his knee issues, and he is convinced that running shoes give people a false sense of security and teach you to run improperly. I am not so sure. He says that he he is saving money (probably true), but he also says "I've probably only had to pick a half-dozen pieces of glass out of my feet in the last five years." That's a half dozen more than me.

TGIF Foto Friday....

Yes, it is Friday, which means my contribution to NikeMom's Foto Friday....this is a picture of me and my twin brother (yes, I know we don't look alike, but we're still twins)....this was on our birthday last year, and we are holding the cakes that my mom made...these are the same cakes we had for our 1st birthday, which I thought was very cool.   Notice my 6 year old son peeking out from behind the cakes....he just had to get in the picture........

Also, I ran across a great post over at the Runner Inside blog...check it out here .   He took up running after being invited to run in a 5K with some friends at his work, and got hooked...this is  a great post for any runner --"You know you're a runner when....."

Staying Fit at Work...

I am very fortunate to work for a Fortune 500 company that tries to make it easy for us employees to stay in shape.....we have a very nice workout room (that honestly I rarely use), my company provides discounts at various gyms and fitness centers, and we even have a Health & Wellness Committee that does various incentives/activities to promote fitness among our employees.....



Last year the Health and Wellness committee sponsored a Step Challenge and sold employees little pedometers to track their steps for 3 months, and those that had more than a certain number of steps were entered in a drawing for a Wii fit...... many employees participated (including myself) and it was a fun event.

I decided that the committe should build on the Step Challenge from last year and have a "Become a Runner" challenge. Originally I was calling it the "Half Marathon" Challenge, but then I changed it to make it more accessible to all running levels. This past week I made a presentation to the committee, asking them to sponsor this challenge for our employees......here is how it would work, as I presented it:



2009 “Become a Runner” Challenge


The Become a Runner Challenge basically is all about getting our employees involved in running/walking a race together. I think the right distance would either be a 10K or a half marathon. ( I later revised this to say 5K or whatever would get the employee moving)

We could identify a race or several races that we as co-workers could participate in together, and have them sponsored by the Health and Wellness Committee.

We would invite our employees, spouses, friends, etc to run in these races together. The goal is not to win, but to finish. It would be great if we could get 10% employee participation.

The Challenge
For employees, we would issue the challenge and encourage people to register for designated race(s). Then, they would notify the official team coordinator (TBD) that they plan to run the race.

Then, if they complete the race---even if they only walk—they will receive the following:

--An official Team t-shirt. We will all wear these the day of the race.
--Reimbursement for their registration fee.
--Official public recognition at the next All Employee Meeting following the race.

In addition, we could measure improvements in all kinds of things for our employees, such as BMI, weight loss, heart rate, cholestorol levels, blood pressure, increase in distances ran, etc, etc.


I then gave the committee a list of all the health benefits that runners experience. Much of it was what I shared it one of my previous posts.

I also floated the idea of employees traveling together to a race destination, and also the idea that the company could reimburse 3 or 4 race registrations a year for each employee as an ongoing benefit.

I do not know if any of these ideas will go anywhere, but the committe seemed very interested...I will keep you all posted.................

Good Run and Some New Stuff...

As a new runner, I am constantly learning new things,  discovering new things, buying new things, etc related to running.   However, today I had the opportunity to try out 3 new things in one day.  Woo-hoo.

Running Update

First let me say that I have only ran about 4 miles in the last two weeks because I am still recovering from my foot injury, which by the way I decided was a Stone Bruise (which I guess is the same thing as a deep bone contusion, as diagnosed by the doctor).   I believe I know exactly where it happened and I am not going to run that path anymore.

Anyway, my foot is still healing and today was my first run of any distance so I took it slow, 4 1/2 miles at about a 10 min pace.   This run counted as my Freakishly Flexible 5K run.  It felt good to be back out running, and my foot only bothered me slightly the last half of the run.

The New Stuff.

My wife surprised me by getting me this water bottle/fuel belt for Valentine's Day.  I wore it during my run today and it worked perfect.  Thanks sweetie! (I know you read my blog).   I really think she got me this so she wouldn't be embarrassed by me wearing my fanny pack anymore.

The second new thing I tried was these shoes.  This past week I got some New Balance shoes in the mail to try out as part of the New Balance Wear Test program.  Today was my first chance to try them out.   I was instructed to specifically pay attention to the sole of the shoe, which works out great because with my foot injury that is exactly what I am paying attention to.   They felt really good today and I look forward to running in them more over the next couple of months.

Finally, thanks to my friend Adam, I finally broke down and bought some stretchy running pants.  These are Starter brand from Wal Mart, only like $15-20, and they kept me nice and warm today.  Okay, it's Wal Mart, but I'm glad I didn't have to spend $60-70 and they work fine.

With my foot injury I also tried out some Molefoam padding on the ball of my foot, and it works okay, although I didn't wear any on my run today.  If you have calluses on your feet, I would recommend the  Molefoam.    

But there is another new thing I have a question about, if anyone has advice...

Insoles?

I've been considering getting insoles for my running shoes, to give extra shock absorption and padding for the bottom of my feet.  Does anyone use insoles?   Do they really work?  Any recommended brands?