How to Exercise in the Morning (And Like It)

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Jessica

Every so often, it will be 4:30 am on a Friday morning and I will be sitting in my car in the driveway debating on whether or not my spin class will miss me if I don’t show up.

Actually, it is most Friday mornings.

Because I fit training and fitness instruction around a full time job, I am often given the times that no other sane human would decide to be up, in exercise clothing and sans coffee. Somehow, life has thrown a schedule to me where sleeping in is 5:45 am on a week day and 6:30 am on a weekend. [My mother likes to cheerfully remind me that I will adapt perfectly to having an infant someday.]

I haven’t always loved mornings. And some days I still don’t. But I have found some clever little tricks to fool my body into thinking it is thrilled to be up in morning darkness until I get a surge of endorphins to carry me through the rest of the day.

1. Try to get to bed at a decent hour.

2. When that inevitably fails, make sure everything is 100% ready to go for the next morning before you go to bed. I have been known to sleep in my sports bra and padded shorts so I can literally roll out of bed, grab my clip ons and drive to the gym. If I am running a trail or two, I have the shoes by my bed and my garmin laid out so I can hit the road 5 minutes after waking if I want.

3. Invest in a coffee maker with a timer so you can wake up to the smell of fresh coffee. Coffee is one of the best legal ways to dope in sports and I take full advantage.

4. Have someone or something that holds you accountable.What keeps me going when I just want to stay at home and conveniently “forget” that I was supposed to be teaching a 6 am class is something that happened this winter:

It was weather like this:

Except add snow and ice, so not really like this but just as wretched

Roads and schools were closed. I had been in a car accident 2 weeks earlier and totalled my car. I inched to the gym, passing vehicles going 30 km an hour and arrived half way through the time my class should have started. I taught what I could and afterwards, a woman in the back came up to me and said, “I was awake listening to the storm last night and was wondering if I should come this morning or not. But then I remembered it was you teaching and I KNEW you would be there.”

So now I am plagued with the paranoia that they think a lot higher of me than they should considering I think about bailing on them almost every Friday.

But having a friend meet you (if you can find one as crazy as you are) or having a group waiting to be instructed is a safety net to make sure it HAPPENS.

5. Bribe yourself. Before you write me off, it is a sad reality that I can be convinced to get out of bed before a rooster just because there is Starbucks waiting for me at the end of my workout. Some call that a problem, I call it success.

But seriously. The real question is WHY should you exercise that early in the morning? Well, if you aren’t a morning person and have tons of time – don’t.

I am speaking to the many people who are here who I know are busy and if you are following a training plan for a marathon or have some goals you want to tackle head on, sometimes a morning workout is the best time of day as there is rarely a soul to bother you and it is amazingly quiet. (I sound quite introverted for an extrovert). But it is the one time of the day I claim as MINE. I don’t need to worry about answering my phone or email because everyone else is asleep.

Another benefit is you are up, moving, full of endorphins and then your workout is over for the day. Life can happen. You are more likely to be consistent with it if you have a routine going where no one can bother you.

A final word: Big breakfasts. Because you can.

If none of this has made any difference, watch this and feel epic about morning workouts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SuPLxQD4akQ

Have a fabulous weekend. May it be full of endorphins.

Michael Fisk Memorial Arrhythmia Run

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Jessica

When I was very young, my mom’s brother passed away from an unknown heart condition in his early thirties on a Valentine’s Day evening.

Every February 14, my mom will buy a bouquet of flowers for James, call her mother and our family will spend a few moments talking about this man that I will never remember. Growing up, hearing a death at thirty something seemed to me like he had lived a nice full life, but now that my age is steadily creeping upward (let me have this moment of lament – I have a birthday next week), dying in your early thirties has registered as the tragedy that it was. I see the affect that it has had on his family and how Valentines Day will always be bittersweet.

So heart conditions are heredity in my family. I run to keep mine healthy and strong, but genetics are genetics. So when I found out that my friends were orchestrating the Michael Fisk Memorial Arrhythmia Run, I was completely on board.

A bit of background:

Michael Fisk was raised in Roseville, Ontario. He graduated from Southwood Secondary School, was a trained Physiotherapist and a qualified Biology Teacher. He was a ski instructor for over 20 years at Chicopee Ski Resort and was also a Field Manager at Flag Raiders Paintball. Mike was happily married to his high school sweetheart with 2 young, adorable sons. Mike has touched many lives in the Waterloo Region and he is sadly missed by everyone who knew him.

A fatal, sudden arrhythmia took Mike. He had no pre-diagnosed heart conditions, and no indication that anything was of concern. He was healthy, active and living his life to the fullest. He was 35. It was a total shock to everyone.

Sound familiar?

Proceeds of the run go toThe Canadian SADS Foundation, a registered Canadian charity, that is dedicated to supporting families affected by inherited cardiac rhythm disorders. SADS refers to a variety of cardiac disorders which are often genetic and can be responsible for sudden death in young, seemingly healthy people.

Join me on the trails on August 25 for a 5 KM run to raise awareness for healthy hearts and to remember Michael. It will be a beautiful run at the Chicopee Ski Resort with a BBQ and a day pass to the resort with access to beach volleyball, disc golf,hiking and biking trails and tennis.

100 Miles of Wild Recap

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Jessica

A big thank you to all of you were so patient as I pressed a giant reset button and took a few weeks off of blogging to go on the Trek and get organized when I returned. This past Friday night, I spent that majority of the evening unpacking, organizing and going over the financial details of the trip. Can I just say that driving all the way to North Dakota and back cost me a mere $330 in my Prius? LOVE my car!

I have gotten a lot of people asking me about my trip. How it came about? How the experience was? How I am feeling? I have a lot of caring people in my life and I figured this is the best way to bring everyone up to speed.

How it came to happen:
A couple Wednesdays ago, I was sitting in my regular spot in Starbucks, sipping a latte and trying to hammer out my column for A\J: The Green Athlete. The latest one can be seen here.

I was short on time and I was scrambling to find an organization that connected athletes and environmentalism. I forget exactly how it happened, but I landed on Adventure Science out of the blue and read their information on 100 Miles of Wild Trek in North Dakota this spring. I began furiously typing up my piece, getting more and more excited about the organization.

I thought it was an American company, but I felt a compulsion to email the founder, Simon Donato, and said I wanted to get involved somehow. I was thinking helping with the website, content, copy or promotion, but within 10 minutes, he had emailed me back and said that one of his athletes was hit by a car and potentially could not participate in the trek and would I be interested?

The days before leaving were a blur of requesting time off from bosses, cancelling appointments and a surgery, borrowing gear from friends, getting travel insurance, buying gear from Adventure Guide and figuring out how to tell my mother who had left the country for a short trip and had no idea that I would up and leave for a 100 mile trek while she was gone. (She has known me for over 23 years, I cannot understand why she would be surprised anymore).

My favourite conversation was with my A\J boss before I left. I called him to ask permission to go:

“So, it is going to the badlands of North Dakota and running 100 miles and it would be my vacation time and I will get everything done that I need to when I get back and (Insert other run-on, desperate pleading sentences here)”

He was silent for a moment. “Jessica. I knew you were an unusual human being when I hired you, but I can never get used to the requests you keep throwing my way. But GO!”

So I went. I had a brief conversation with my father as I headed to the border so he could tell my mom and break it gently. He gleefully crowed “THIS is the reason I held you over the banister by your ankles and swung you around when you were young – so you wouldn’t be afraid of anything!” (Do not jump to thoughts of child abuse. We loved it and always asked for more.)

Anyways. So the drive was a LOT longer than I thought. I taught a spin class before heading out and was on the road by 8 am on the last Friday of April. I had loaded up my iPod with new music and an audioversion of Wild by Cheryl Strayed, but the roads blurred into each other and I was almost hallucinating when I reach Minnesota for the evening to stay with one of the trek leader’s houses.

I saw distances like this on my GPS.

Drive 760 km, then turn left

Soon, I was in the barren world of cactuses, oil trucks and country music. I heard advertisements for liquor stores that were leveraging cattle branding parties as a reason to come in and buy booze.

I arrived on the Saturday to the tiny town of Grassy Butte where I abandoned my car, picked up my huge back pack and headed to the base camp with the leader of the trek, Richard.

From there, I met the team and was briefed on what we were to expect for the week.

We were to head out into the badlands and would cover territory that people have never walked on and probably will never walk on again. We were to stop every 2-3 hours for “science” as they called it. We entered an analysis of the surrounding vegetation and wildlife into a book and took film and video footage to back it up.

Why? Because they are planning on putting in 30 – 50,000 new oil wells in the badlands over the next 5 years. Our team’s goal was to go into the badlands as a completely neutral group of scientists and ultra runners, go to the wildest and most remote bits of the badlands and report back. The research will be taken to the University of North Dakota and the information will be presented to the citizens to help them make informed decisions when it comes down to the decisions surrounding the oil pads. Also, many years ago, it was the Badlands that inspired Theodore Roosevelt to develop the National Parks System and it was our job to see if the Badlands were as life changing now as they were back then.

I can tell you they are. I spent 7 days immersed in them, outside every day. Some days it was so cold that we woke up with frost on our tent and other days I came back with a sunburnt nose. We saw every form of wild life and woke up to sights like this:

Photo cred: Andrew Reinhard

I had experienced a lot of sad and discouraging things in 2013 – a break up, financial set backs, surgery, fear for Jolene. And even though the Badlands didn’t take any of that away, it was a reset button. I met some of the most incredible people who either love science or ultra running and in many cases both. I was able to learn so much from the people around me. I learned how to orienteer from a US Army Ranger and discovered native flints in the creek bed with a geologist. The badlands broke me open and then filled me again.

Getting away from the sappiness, an average day out there would begin with this.

We would put on our running clothes for the day (or in my case, almost every piece of clothing I brought to stay warm) and head to the eating area for Stoked Oats. (Buy them).

By around 7 am, we were ready to hit the Badlands with our maps, detectors and garmins. I was either on team Speed Deer or Mountain Kitty and we covered 20-30 miles with 3000-4500 ft of altitude each day. We would hike, climb and run through rolling buttes, grass lands, cattle feeding pastures and creek beds reporting on the wild life, landscape and oil pads, arriving at the last point at around 5-6:30 pm each night.

Modelling some petrified wood

Taken on the last day. They told us to take fun pictures but after running through miles and miles of cattle grazing, this was as creative as we could get.

We were picked up and taken to base camp, which moved about 3 times throughout the course of the Trek. From there, we would “shower” (baby wipes), change into every article of clothing we had and gather around the fire to eat dinner and discuss our day, which was recorded or filmed to provide additional data.

By 10 – 11 pm each night, we would fall exhausted into our tents and the day would start all over again.

Our Team was the following:

[Photos from the 100 Miles of Wild Blog]

Simon Donato: Geologist, Elite Adventure Racer, Founder of Stoked Oats, Host of the tv show Boundless. (Watch the trailer here) Ultrarunner.

Richard Rothus: Archaeologist, Historian, and Owner of Trefoil Cultural and Environmental and was in charge of Basecamp and Logistics.

Andrew Reinhard: Director of Publications for the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), Archaeologist. He headed up the control group which walked the trails of the Badlands.

Tim Puetz: Biomedical Research, National Institutes of Health, Army Ranger. Ultrarunner.

Keith Szlater: Technical Service and Basecamp and Logistics coordinator.

Tyler Leblanc: Our paramedic and member of the control team.

Jane Davis: Community Health Educator and Ultrarunner.

and, um. Me.

Needless to say, it was a wonderful experience to get to know all of these amazing and accomplished people over the course of a week. Another cool thing about the trek is that we carried the Explorer Club Flag.

The Explorers Club is an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research, of which Theodore Roosevelt was an honorary member. The flag represents the impressive history of courage and accomplishment, and has been carried by members to the Moon, the depths of the ocean, and around the globe. I am excited to be able to join the club having been on an approved expedition with the flag.

I will be going on more adventures with this team as I am now an ultrarunner for Adventure Science. I was given a huge boost of confidence by some of the ultra runners who told me they didn’t slow down for me. It instilled a desire in me to train harder, race more frequently and in more international races and the belief that I am good enough to do it.

It was sad to say goodbye to everyone on the team, but last Saturday, I dropped Jane off at the airport and began the long trek home. I stayed in Chicago for the night, ate deep dish pizza for the first time in my life (overrated) and slept for a solid 12 hours.

I arrived home on Sunday night and hit the ground running Monday morning.

Needless to say, with 48 hours of driving, I had a lot of time to think, some of which relates to the blog. Keep your eyes peeled for some new changes. Laces and Lattes will be around for a long time, but it will continue to change because I keep changing. Thank you all for being along for the run!

For more reading on the trek, check out:

Adventure Science Facebook Page

Article in the Dickonson Press

Article in the Bismarck Tribune

100 Miles of Wild Press Conference

The massage therapist who didn’t give a massage

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Jessica

One thing I am finding out about myself as I grow into my adult life is that I don’t trust my decisions enough.

I am still learning everything there is to know about me as an adult. I knew me pretty well as a teenager, but there is nothing like belly flopping into the real world to realize that you have some reconfiguring to do.

So as I continually reconfigure, I am learning to trust my gut on certain things. I generally am right and one of the beautiful things about being an early 20′s human being is that people generally expect you to be a bull in a the china shop of life and seem to give you a “get out of jail free” pass. The only question becomes where that invisible line is that demands that pass stop, but I do not want to over think it; it would be another post anyways.

All this to say, I trusted my gut today and it was awesome.

I booked a massage for a great deal online and didn’t read it carefully and promptly forgot. I received a reminder email about my purchase and quickly booked as it expired next week.

In between shifts at work today, I drove 30 minutes only to arrive at an industrial area with no massage area in site. I called the company and was told that I was right by the location.

I located the place and walked in with the full intention of walking out hating everything except how yummy my IT bands felt after being stripped of tension and whatever else jams up my legs and causes me pain in racing season.

It even continued when I opened the door and saw a beautiful women in a Crossfitesque gym.
“How …trendy.” I thought.

It all changed when she started going over my training, my past injuries, and my racing season. She moved at my pace of appointment style: break neck speed. She knows all my past coaches and physiotherapists and she wasted no time in getting me on the table and began explaining all my injuries and stress points.

“I am a sports therapist first and a massage therapist second.” she said.

She took me on the floor and analyzed my gait, my squats and my running strides.

She then did one of the most surprising things of my massage appointment: she didn’t give me a massage. She gave me fascial stretch therapy.

What is Fascial Stretch Therapy? (source)

FST is a form of assisted stretching during which one person takes another through various stretch positions. But FST has some unique characteristics that distinguish it from other types of assisted stretching.

It is guided by ten principles:

1. Synchronize your breathing with your movement.
2. Tune your nervous system to current conditions.
3. Follow a logical anatomical order.
4. Make gains in your range of motion without pain.
5. Stretch the fascia not just the muscle.
6. Use multiple planes of movement.
7. Target the entire joint.
8. Use traction for maximal lengthening.
9. Facilitate body reflexes for optimal results.
10. Adjust your stretching to your present goals.
FST uses traction and a multi-planar stretching technique to increase a joint’s full range of motion and works in a deep to superficial muscles direction. Typical stretching does not follow this approach.

It is also very participant oriented. The participant needs to contract and relax a muscle as the therapist moves it through stretch positions. This uses the participant’s nervous to help improve the muscle response by manipulating the muscle stretch reflex.

FST follows a logical anatomical progression to work through the entire chain of muscles.

It looked something like this:

One important thing is that you must be comfortable with getting up close and personal with this type of treatment. The therapist uses their body weight to guide you through the stretches.

It was AWESOME. I immediately felt mobility return to some of my joints. My problem areas are my ankles (particularly my left side), my right IT band and my left shoulder.

The cutest thing in the world is that her and her husband own the company and they work together to get clients healthy together. They had a professional Ironman competitor who had completely mangled biomechanics and they had him riding with ease within three sessions.

I have begun a program to help prep me for my race season. Which is fabulous considering she told me that no one should be as tight as I am in off season and if I didn’t have muscle, I would be falling apart.

Thanks.

But I am going to be continuing with the fascial stretch therapy, having a true stride analysis done (they will be videoing me after 15 minutes of running and after 100 minutes of running and using that to correct my stride.) I am also working with the trainer to help condition me so I have corrected the things that are problem spots in my biomechanics.

You may be asking why? And that is an EXCELLENT question. I am NOT a professional athlete under any circumstances. I am at best a front of the middle pack runner. But the fact is, I want to be an (almost not mediocre) runner for the rest of my life. Which means I need to put in some of the preventative time now.

Also. My livelihood depends on me being able to move well and without injury or pain.

You may be asking who and where? I have some athlete readers and if you are local, check out KMTS Athletic. In particular, Karla McConnell.

All that to say. I have signed up for Tough Mudder in May.

Beyond excited.

And if you follow me on Instagram, you saw I started my long weekend with a wee bit of Hip Hop Pop Cardio at work.

It was a sight to behold because not only am I a white girl, but I also am 100% Mennonite.

Ouch.

How did you kick start your Easter weekend?

New tactic to get my attention

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Jessica

Good morning everyone!

I hope everyone had a fantastic St Patricks weekend. I spent an evening with friends on Friday, taught a few classes on Saturday and spent the evening with my parents watching this movie:

What a bitter sweet movie. I loved it – anything with Meryl Streep in it can do no wrong in my mind.

Sunday, I went for a run.

Jesse was with some friends in Kitchener and I realized it was colder than I thought. I raided his dwindling closet [he is in the process of moving] and found his ratty, lululmon windbreaker that he used for landscaping last summer.

And some ~~socks~~ gloves.

Upon my return, I began stretching while Wilson, Jesse’s Yorkie, circled around me.

Wilson is a special animal. He has a bit of a sordid past so he can be a little strange.

He wanders aimlessly from room to room with a blank stare on his face and is quite like a cat in the way that he will come to you as he feels necessary and never when called. Hearing his name is more like an open invitation to bolt away from you.

He has a collapsed trachea so he sounds like a goose in distress every time he takes a drink of water.

He has cataracts so his eyes never quite seem to focus on you when you are talking to him.

He hates playing.

If I try to take him on a run or a walk he deems too long, he will feign a limp, but the second there is a dog nearby that could rip him into two, he will run straight to him as if his life depends on it. (Is it any wonder that the leading cause of death for Yorkies is overconfidence?!)

All this to say that he has developed a new “ism” so to speak. This is his new tactic to get my attention:

I will never understand this dog.

If you have a pet, what are some of the stranger things they do?

chasing the footprints of those better than me.

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Jessica

Happy Monday, one and all! I hope your weekend was as relaxing as mine. I spent as much time as possible outside, soaking up that amazing sun!

On Friday, I hinted that I went shopping for a something that I had been waiting for over a year for.

Which means I am now on instagram! It is a whole, new world of filters, friends and selfies. I kid. Self portraits are one of my least favourite things in the world. So on the off chance that I need to perform them, I will try to do them as creatively as possible.

Exhibit A

The very first picture I put up on Instagram was this lovely piece:

Now. I promise that I will be more creative in the future than putting my mud caked, sweaty runners online for the entire world to see, but I truly felt as if it were myself or the shoe. So really, you all won. And I was so excited about the fact that I went on a long run on the most beautiful day in 2013.

I thought I would take this opportunity to use this seamless leeway to tell you another running story. A good one that is at the foundation of why I run. It is wrapped up in a single person who is fuelled by foreign beers and anger.

My father has a long time employee, we will call him George, that keeps to himself except to utter a few sarcastic tones and is generally not thrilled with people as a rule. However, if you want him to talk, ask him about running.

George has a way of deflating your best stories with a single word. I remember in high school when I was winning cross country races, I would go to him and tell him I ran 5 KM in less than 19 minutes. Without missing a beat, he would throw back at me: Run an ultra-marathon and let me know if you are good then.

And so I did.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t just as easy as just strapping on shoes and running. You had to join a club first. George invited me out to a trail running group that met every Tuesday night and introduced me to his friends, and then told me to run with another group.

Typical.

So I did. I found the most advanced group, who were winning ultra marathons around the region and I kept up, even if it meant returning to my car with blood and mud on my legs and either the taste of blood or vomit in my throat. (I am such a lady).

And I kept running until I fell in love with it.

George still talks to me when he sees me. Rushing over quickly to tell me about the latest race and checking in to make sure I am still running. He is over 60 and runs at least an ultra marathon a month in racing season. Beyond his crusty exterior, I found he has become fond of me, and what’s more – proud. He has invited me to his house to celebrate race victory parties, to train with him before a long race and has even let me sub in for him on a 30 km race for free.

Despite trying other sports, in a very strange and inexplicable way, running is like coming home every spring. Long winter months of fitness instruction and the odd foray into the icy weather to gingerly scamper over snow banks make me forget the pure joy of just running hard and fast until your breathing syncs with your foot falls and your brain becomes quiet and it is just you and the road and maybe some birds for miles and miles and miles.

Sometimes I break my quiet runs to chase those who are better than me, to remind myself how far I have to go. But no matter how far he finishes behind me, I always can count on George to tell me that I would have been that much better if I would have ran straighter, had newer running shoes, or had been on the trails one more day a week.

And I love it. Because it was his dissatisfaction with my 5 KM that made me think I could do 50 KM. And why I am in the midst of planning to make it 50 miles. Sometimes overt pride from people suggests that your accomplishment is the best you can do, and I love that there is someone who always will have something I could have done better.

No matter how old I am or whether George is always in my life, I will always have his crusty voice telling me what I am doing wrong and how I could be doing it better which keeps me running. Running after perfection. Running after the finish line. And mostly, running for the sheer beauty of running.

Who inspires you in the things you are passionate about?

When Runners Don’t Run

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Jessica

Lately, I have not been running.

Unusual, considering the fact that running was one of the founding reasons that I started this blog. Not surprising considering the amount of exercise classes that I am teaching as the holidays approach.

I think it is normal for runners to go through a hiatus. I find my year cycles through times when I am running almost every day and some times when I go months without strapping on my Garmin and heading out for a decent run. I think a break is necessary and vital for almost every runner to exhale, cross train and prep themselves for the next race.

I am used to this hiatus now, but before I settled into a rhythm of running and taking breaks, I would think I was less of a person, less of me, because I wasn’t running. It sounds ridiculous, but I know I am not alone in this. I have seen many friends journey through injuries and sink into a slump. If this is you right now, my encouragement to you is if you love running, you are a runner whether you are off for cross training, due to injury or simply for a mental break!

As the New Year is looming, I am reflecting on my race schedule of 2012 which truthfully was quite meagre. The busier my year is, the less races I can fit in because I want to make sure that I have proper time to train and prepare.

March 2012: Around the Bay:

A fantastic race where I got to run with some of my best runner friends that started with a sleepover and ended with a surprise appearance from Jesse. It did make me rethink doing a spring 30 km + because it is hard to train when the weather gets nasty because I love training outside. There were more heart attacks and ambulances at this race than any other I have ever seen.

May 2012 – The Starbucks Run for Women

This was a fantastic 10 km race. How could it not be? There was Starbucks coffee and I met Catriona Lemay Doan.

Since May, I did a couple of varsity 5 KM races. And that’s it!

Looking ahead to the New Year, I want to do a significant race in the spring and the fall. I am leading a half marathon clinic in the spring, so I am thinking I will aim for a Triathlon in June and a marathon in the fall. The crazy thing is I have never ran a marathon. I have done a 1/2, 30 km and 50 km, but never the actual marathon distance. This is my year!

What are some of your running goals for the New Year?

Not a runner? What are you doing to stay healthy and strong in 2013?

Shin Splints

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Jessica

I received an email with a question on what causes shin splints and how to treat them. Shin splints are pain in the leg below the knee and above the ankle. It often happens late in the training season for athletes due to overtraining and to new runners who are starting out after a period of rest. Symptoms are pain, tenderness and sometimes swelling, but trust me, you will know it when you are suffering from them!

Shin splints are a progressive injury so if they go untreated, they continue to worsen. What may have been a dull pain that went away as a runner is warmed up will swiftly turn into a painful, acute pain that interferes with running.

1. Watch Intensity and Distance: Sometimes they can be treated simply by lessening the increase in distance or intensity. I have already felt an onset of shin splints, cut out a run day or ran less than I planned and they vanished. Then, I slowly added the milage back in.

2. Ice: The best thing you can do for shin splints is ice the area to lessen the inflammation. After a long run, I run a cold bath and soak my muscles for 7-8 minutes to cut down on inflammation, but ice packs can be used – as long as they are not applied directly to naked skin, which can cause frost bite. Wrap them in a thin towel and ice frequently.

3. Stretch: After every run, I stretch out my calves which are the main offender of shin splints in my experience. Below are pictures of effective stretches for shin splints:

Calf stretch

Warrior Pose

Also, check out this video on more stretches.

4. Look at the shoes you are training in: Shoes can be a huge offender in running injuries. Make sure that you have between 300-500 km or less on them. This article offers a great explanation on how shoes can cause shin splints.

5. Mind your form: Incorrect running form will cause injuries. Check out the photo below for correct running technique. (Except for the landing between heel and midfoot bit. Running on the front of the foot causes your body to naturally assume correct form and is correct.)

Best of luck with those shin splints!

Runners – anything I missed?

Summer is a collective unconscious

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Jessica

This weekend, I went camping with some cross country friends. It was a wonderful number of days full of trail runs, beach days and drive in movies. I don’t want summer to end…

Summertime, I think, is a collective unconscious. We all remember the notes that made up the song of the ice cream man; we all know what it feels like to brand our thighs on a playground slide that’s heated up like a knife in a fire; we all have lain on our backs with our eyes closed and our hearts beating across the surface of our lids, hoping that this day will stretch just a little longer than the last one, when in fact it’s all going in the other direction. -Jodi Picoult

Triple Tangent

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Jessica

1. Today I was leading an assembly for Team Up at an elementary school in Cambridge. We go through the Six Steps to Success and share our personal experiences and what makes us so obviously successful. (What? They ask us for autographs, they clearly think we have accomplished something worth while..) Anyways. I was asking them who their role models are and the cutest little guy in the back raises his hand and said: ” My dad. Without the smoking part.”

Congratulations, sir, on ALMOST being a role model!

2. Speaking of smoking, Jesse and I have moved into a new, more drug filled life in the role of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain.

Actually, we went smoke-free to our friend Kaitlyn’s birthday party which was a ridiculously fun time. (Don’t judge it by the looks on our faces, we were in character!!) I loooove themed parties and we have another Trailer Park themed one this weekend. I am obviously going to go pregnant and missing a few teeth.

3. I am training with the Cross Country team again! It feels good to be back and injury free (ish). Last night I went to practice and my friend and I sprinted around Waterloo Park which is surprisingly beautiful in the dark and cold of January. I am settling into a more realistic workout schedule this term. Instead of running copious amounts every day of the week, I am swimming, running, biking, cross country skiing, body flowing and weight training on alternating days of the week. Here’s hoping I can emerge into the spring racing season as an uninjured beastly force of athletic power!

Tag Archives: running