A Standard Running Form?

   The big debate currently going on in my family is whether or not there is a standard running form.  To me it has always seemed that running is just second nature to all of us, one foot in front of the other.  We learn how to crawl and then walk on our own, so why wouldn't running be the same way?  With my ever constant knee pain and me searching and searching for answers and different solutions, running form is a topic that seems to keep popping up. Most of the time I have paid little attention to it, because like I said, Isn't running second nature to us?
  
    In my family we always do a Secret Santa drawing between the siblings since there are so many of us.  My little brother Nick, who is 8 years old, picked my name and was trying to think of something I'd really like.  Normally it seems that my Mom and Dad just pick something out and just say that it came from the younger siblings.  This year, apparently, Nick woke up one morning and told my Dad that he wanted to get me a book about running for the rest of your life.  He and my Dad did a google search to only discover that yes in fact there is a book by that exact name!  Run for Life by Roy M. Wallack.  So they bought it for me along with Bike for Life also by Roy M. Wallack.  He was beyond excited and stood at my feet as I opened the present so that he could see my reaction!

   Now, I'm only about 60 pages into the book but am already rethinking my running form!  Roy presents some good arguments about running form and how it should be learned just like someone would learn to golf or play baseball.  One thing I know for sure... I am a heel striker!  Now, if you are anything like me you are probably thinking, "So, What's the big deal about being a heel striker?"  Roy breaks it down into 2 simple explanations.  Heel Striking causing braking and breaking.  Umm... What?  Surprisingly enough when you heel strike it is actually braking your momentum causing you to go slower!    The second part is that heel striking literally breaks you down!  Heel Striking doubles the shock on your body!!! HOLY COW!  Bad running form creates shock that goes up your entire body with as much as 5 times your body weight on each stride!  Our body absorbs the shock in our knees, lower back, hips, tendons, ligaments, etc. 
  
   You can imagine that I am totally blown away at this point.  Now, I knew that our body takes a mighty beating from running, its why people say that you are running your body into the ground.  I had just accepted it as a fact and was mentally preparing myself for a knee replacement down the line.  But not only do I have knee pain but also lower back pain that is sometimes so severe I can't even bend enough to touch my knees!  So this concept of a standard running form is truly intriguing. 

    In his book, Roy talks about two types of running forms, Soft Running and the Pose Method.  Basically they both have the same concept and goal in mind, to reduce the injury and shock that is absorbed by our body everytime we land. 

   So the question is... Is there a standard running form?  Is running something, like golf and baseball, that to do properly has to be learned?  What do you think?

Personally, I think I'm going to try and change my running form and see what that does for me as far as injuries go!

The Big Reveal: My Place

  I moved into my own place back in October, so you would think that I'd have posted on what it looks like completed (or almost completed) and yet I never did... So here it is for all of you who have been patiently waiting!

The Kitchen:

Before

After

   Notice, we switched the location of the refrigerator and also raised the cabinets.  I also painted the walls a blue/green and the wall that is shared with the living room a neutral tan color, so that it would work well with both rooms!  The Kitchen table was my family's old kitchen table that we had grown out of, so it came with me!  I think it works perfectly in this space!

The Living Room:

Before

After

  If you noticed, I carried the same blue/green color into my living room as an accent color behind my couch.  I think it works well to bring together the two rooms.  The book case, end tables and picture frames are from Ikea.  The rug is from Lowes, believe it or not!   Lamps are from target and the couch and swivel chair are an amazing donation from my parents!



The Spare Room/Office (one day):

   

Before

After

    I painted the walls in this room as well, they are a neutral pink-beige color.  The can of paint was actually an oops can from Lowes, some how the color was mixed incorrectly.  But I love it and think it works wonderfully in the space!  I plan to eventually have a desk on the opposite wall, directly to your left as you walk in the room, so that it can double as an office space for me as well as a guest room.

Master Bedroom:

Before

After

   I've gotten a lot of flak for this room.  I LOVE the color purple and the room was already painted purple but definitely needed a face lift.  So I just painted it a new shade of purple, it is purple for anyone wondering.  Sometimes, depending on the light and the angle it can look pink, but I promise it is purple!  The bed was given to me by my Aunt and Uncle, my first queen size bed, so I feel all grown up now!  The dresser I purchased from Ikea and it took me a good 3 days to actually get it all together but it is a great dresser, well worth the effort and time to build it!

The Bathroom:

Before

After

  I painted the bathroom as well with an oops can of paint!  It is just a neutral beige color but it works perfectly in the bathroom!

  I hope you like the outcome, I'm more than a little pleased with it!

A New Year, A New You?

  Every year at this time, people make resolutions on what they are going to do in the coming year and where they want to be in a year from now.  I've joined the ranks of people making resolutions, time and time again, often with them failing within a week!  This year, however, I've decided not to do that... sure I have a few resolutions in my head but they are more long term goals. But I've learned that you can't figure out where you are going if you don't think of where you've been!  So here is a recap of my life within the past year!  A lot has happened!

  

   The year started out pretty average, with me still living at home, running and just living life one day at a time.  As usual the year started to pick up in the spring and I'm pretty sure it hasn't slowed down since!  I had my first race of the year in April, when my family and I made the trek down to STL to run in a 1/2 marathon and visit my sister Katie who was living there at the time! 

It ended up being an amazing trip, filled with family, fun and running!  For me it wasn't one of my best races, because I had landed wrong on a training run and hurt my ankle pretty bad.  But you know me... I still ran it!

   Frustration was beginning to set in with all my knee problems and my parents had been suggesting for a while that I should get into triathlons.  I had talked about wanting to do one for a long time but had no idea where to start.  Somehow the triathlon concept scared me way more than running a marathon ever did.  But I thought, maybe they were right and so, I went and bought myself a road bike... big purchase I know!  If I was going to get into tris my Mountain Bike, just wasn't going to cut it!

I'm pretty much obsessed with the color!  Definitely not your standard color for a bike!

  Then one day my Dad got an email from the local bike shop saying that they were going to get a Triathlon Team together.  Naturally my Dad told me about it, and so I figured I might as well check it out!  It ended up being the best thing for me!!! (more on that in a second)

  In May, I took a trip to visit my brother in Arizona, he had moved out there in April to do BMW training.  He was more than a little nervous and so my friend Jenna and I decided we should go visit him for Memorial Day weekend!  It was a short trip but so much fun!

So many great sites to see! Sedona is beautiful, if you haven't been there, I highly recommend it!  Minus the sun burn, it was awesome!

  Now, onto June, my favorite month of the year, partly because it is my birthday month and partly because I just LOVE the weather!  My new found tri team managed to convince me to do the Naperville Women's triathlon... AHHH... I literally decided on Wednesday to participate in the race, without any "formal" training.  I had obviously been running, riding my new bike as much as I possibly could and then getting myself to the pool.  I definitely underestimated the swim, and was pretty spent by the end of it.  But I pushed through and couldn't have been more ecstatic when I finished my first triathlon!

Little did I know, a new obsession was beginning to take hold of me!

  Next thing I knew July was upon me.  I wiped out for the first time on my bike, scraped up my elbow pretty bad (which I still don't think it's back to normal, shh... don't tell my Mom!) but worst of all, my new sparkling bike was no longer in mint condition! I was devestated!  But I became a chicken and was terrified of my bike... I mean literally afraid to get on the thing!  I had my Jewels in July event with Architreasures, which was a blast!  August came and again my Tri team was trying hard to convince me to do another triathlon.  How about Chicago?  I again waited until the last minute to register and so noone from my family could make it out to cheer me on.  It was brutally hot and a disaster of a race for me! I had to wait about 5 hours before I even could start my race.  I didn't drink anything in that time, didn't eat anything before my swim and forgot a waterbottle for my bike! How did I do that?!  Luckily I ran into some or my teammates and got an extra waterbottle.  But still hadn't managed to figure out how to properly put my waterbottle back and as a result dropped it in the first 5 minutes of the bike!  My time wasn't very good, I was dehydrated and physically spent, but somehow managed to finish my first Olympic distance race!

  

   My next race was supposed to be the Lake Geneva Triathlon in September, ironically enough, this race was the only triathlon I was thinking of doing at all!  My cousin Michael said he would do it with me and my Dad quickly jumped on the Bandwagon! Man I'm persuasive!  The day was nasty, pouring rain, cold for september and the entire time, I just kept praying that they would cancel the race.  My fear for the bike is intensified when wet, since that was why I wiped out earlier in the summer!  Crap, the race started.  I got a bunch of funny looks since I didn't have a wet suit, but whatever!  My Dad had decided that he would swim the supersprint distance and then bike and run the Olympic distance with me.  I swam and was back before my Dad even got close to setting foot in the water!  So he just scrapped the entire swim portion.  My swim was faster than my cousins, so I had a few minutes head start on him with the bike, but he, unlike me isn't terrified of falling.  Within the first 5 minutes of the bike someone had already wiped out bad enough that an ambulance was on the way!  AWW CRAP! That'd be my luck... I certainly didn't push my bike time, at all, and thankfully it wasn't raining for the majority of the bike, just was pretty wet.  My run was nothing remarkable but somehow I managed to shave off 40 minutes from my Chicago Olympic distance time! Booyah!

    October... Chicago Marathon month... I'd be lying if I said that I properly trained for this race.  I didn't, not even close!  The most I had run was 15 miles, I had been focusing so much on my triathlons, because they were so new to me.  But I couldn't back out because I was doing it with Sabrina!  It was my slowest marathon time but it was also such a great experience!

Plus it was 10.10.10... Doesn't get much cooler than that!!!

   October brought another HUGE change in my life!  I finally found my own place! 

Talk about a busy month!  I moved in, painted, ran the marathon all within 3 weeks! Needless to say, I was exhausted and very drained by the end of the month. 

   Naturally the marathon ended with more knee pain and me becoming desperate to fix it!  So I joined a gym, my first real gym membership (college doesn't count).  I started working with a trainer to strenthen my knee and work out some muscular imbalances that could be contributing factors to my knee.  When he gave me the news that I couldn't run in my Thanksgiving Day 1/2 marathon in Atlanta with my family I was devestated!  I must be going crazy if I was that upset at not being allowed to run 13 miles!  But after being pretty persuasive, I managed to convince him to let me run!  It was a blast, definite knee pain that probably set me back a little for my full recovery but an experience I will never forget!

I close out the year with my Thanksgiving 1/2 marathon being my last race of the year.  I am focusing on my knee to make sure that I am still running when I'm 100!

Just remember, you can't make any New Year's resolutions unless you take a while to look back and see where you have come!  I am so thankful for the blessings that have been given to me in this past year and I look forward to a new year and the new experiences I will face... to name a few on the list so far: becoming an Aunt, running the Indy Mini Marathon in May, hopefully a 70.3 race in Racine this summer and a 2 week trip to Spain!  It's gonna be a year to remember!

Happy New Year to you all!