ChiRunning

As I sit here tonight thinking of what to write, I just draw a blank. It seems like these moments are happening more frequently than they used to. Kaelyn didn’t want to take a nap and threw a wrench in my usual routine.

On the up and up though, I started running again today. The only exercise I did for a week was foot circles, foot flexes, other stretches... and meeting with my personal trainer. Now my leg pain is completely gone and I purchased new running shoes. I also read ChiRunning by Danny Dreyer. I am going to give it a try. Well, I already started to give it a try today. And I have to say... if you try ChiRunning, make sure you do your prep work before you try to run. I worked on stuff at home before going in and I think that helped.

The basis of ChiRunning is that running doesn’t have to hurt. Humans are built to walk and to run and it shouldn’t hurt us. Also, you run with the same cadence no matter what speed you go. Speed comes as you lean forward and take longer strides.

So today I focused on two things: maintaining good posture with my feet landing in the right place in relation to my hips and shoulders and running at the same cadence. Danny says every cadence should be in the 85-90 range (meaning your right or left leg should land on the ground 85-90 times a minute). It’s easier for me to run with one beat per leg so that ups it to 170-180 range (plus, then I can listen to upbeat music). That is the goal. I chose to start at 160. Each week I’ll increase the speed by one click so that I’m not straining my body.

After a 5 minute warm up, I ran until my body said “you probably should stop now” and then had a 3 minute cool down. The running period ended up being 10 minutes. I was shocked that it was that long because it didn’t really seem like it was. The other reason I was shocked was because 10 minutes just a few weeks ago was really tough because of my leg pain. Amazing what you can do without pain.

I still found myself doing some of the at-home exercises throughout the rest of the day. I’m really getting the feel for what it should feel like whenever my feet touch the ground. I also practice picking up my heels. And relaxing my foot while going in a circle (like pedaling a bike except with no bike and just on one leg and not going anywhere). Working on these things while not also running will help it come more naturally when I do run.

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve done a very tiny bit of painting. It’s not done yet but here is what my sister’s table currently looks like. I was going to start working on the top but my printer’s color ink cartridge decided to stop having one color. Please ignore the horrible quality of the picture.