There is this African proverb my mom shared with me when I first decided I wanted to pursue running.
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or gazelle. When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
I was 13 years old and my core was on fire for the journey I was about to embark on. I set my goals pretty much from day one. I knew the pursuit of these goals was not going to be just any ol’ walk in the park. It was going to be years and years of countless work to even toe the starting line of what might take a lifetime to conquer.
But that’s the fun part , right?
Years and year go by.
Over a decade passes.
I still push onward.
I’m still going, 18 plus years later… I am still running!! THAT IS WHAT MATTERS.
Literally every morning when the sun comes up I am doing something to prepare myself to get out the door running. Now, when I was 13 years old, my body was able to walk out the door and go for a run, but as I have pounded my body over the years I’m no longer able to just walk out the door. I need to dust the rust off my joints and muscles every morning. I believe if you dedicate just 15-20 minutes before every run doing a few dynamic stretches or pre hab exercises, you will:
First, have few injuries
and
Second, be able to run for years to come.
My personal recommendation is to pick three exercises in addition to some light foam rolling to “wake up” your muscles. If one works a traditional 8-5 desk job, you have been sitting for most of the day. So whether you are an en evening runner or morning runner you will need to get those running muscles firing.
In order to target different muscle groups and to encompass a wide variety I suggest picking 3 different mini exercises to complete on the different days of the week you run. Below I have my current three in addition to several other options to incorporate in your daily running regime.
My current 3:
3x 20 Monster walks with band, forward, backwards, sideways.
Example 1:
Example 2:
Example 3:
Whether you run 1 day or 7 days per week, you can rotate between these different routines as well as find additional exercises to add.
Best of luck to you all on your running journey!
even be able to count the number of times I have had to take the dreaded 6-8 weeks off due to injury. I know that sounds horrible. Looking back, it all started after I had my first injury. In 2006, I tore my rectus femoris tendon at its origin, the anterior inferior iliac spine (hip area). After this injury is was a domino effect of injuries. All of which have been isolated to my right lower leg. Ranging from torn muscles to stress fractures to other weird stuff I can’t even recall. Obviously it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that something biomechanically must not be working properly. The downfall is everyone has their own opinion on which biomechanical factors are impaired or malfunctioning. It may sound depressing and frustrating. Don’t get me wrong, it totally has been; the past 12 years have been full of ups and downs. But at least I can still run, it may not be everyday, but it’s enough to be slowly chipping away towards my goals.…
litefeetracing 