Running tips

Day 12, on the road again. Jess' best friend Mike from Louisiana was up here in Michigan this weekend and volunteered to run with me. Mike played Rugby for Louisiana Tech, and I hoped that he could give me some hints for running and fighting the tension when sleepiness sets in. Today, we ran at Jess' parents' neighborhood. A nice and quiet run through a suburban area with trees and some riding stables. The loop we ran was two miles long and I was surprised that after the day of rest yesterday, I could handle these two miles without any problems and could have gone for another mile, but that was the plan for the next day. Here are some tips I got out from Mike:

• Try to land on the middle part of your foot, do not land on your heel. Landing on the heel forces a back push and makes it more difficult to move forward. The best way to land on your foot is to aim for the front bulge of your heel
• As soon as you get tired, muscles tend to become stiff and tense. The moving motion of the arms slow down, which should be avoided by any means. Drop your shoulders and try to step like you are walking on eggshells. Relax is a key point here.
• Get rid off access spit, by releasing it on the side of the road. I found the mouth motion and the loss of the spit is relaxing. The mouth muscles tend to become tense if one keep too much fluid in the mouth, which can result in whole body muscle tension.
• How to get a change of scenery without leaving the usual path. It is as simple as just running the route backwards. Never thought about it that way. Also, if you put your iPod, or MP3 Player of your choice, on random music choices and close your eyes for a little bit. Do not think about the distance (This is solely my own experience)

Please let me know if you have anything to add to it. I am looking for some simple tips on how to make longer runs more pleasant.

Time: 20 minutes
Distance: 2 miles
Strategy: Just running

Day 13 & 14 Days of rest unfortunately. Due to my allergies, I cannot stick to my workout schedule. Since today is Day 14, I will have to see how well I will be doing tonight. I might update this day depending on what's going on with Mother Nature.