Of Winning Conference and the Search for Confidence.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous..." -Joshua 1:9


So I got to the end and burst into tears. But this time not the "I ran so bad my legs hurt so much" tears as I've become accustomed to these past few weeks but the "I'm so thankful" kind of tears. ... maybe I should start at the beginning.

I guess it starts with last two weeks. I did everything. EVERYTHING to get back that confidence that I've been missing. I searched every single workout, every trail I ran on, every running dream that I had. But finally I came to a realization. Maybe these past few weeks I had been looking in all the wrong places.

This past Saturday was the conference race for my cross country team. Aside from Regionals it's the most important meet of the season. To much of my team it IS the most important meet of the season. I wrote down all of my positive affirmations in preparation. Read them over and over and over again. And got ready to run for real.

My coach's only instructions to me were "Just go out there and run your own race. And please don't run a 2:30 for your first 800" (it was a 2:57!) before he walked away.

At UW Parkside's Wayne E. Dannehl nationally known cross country course they don't shoot a gun. They fire a cannon at the beginning of the race. And with that we were off and running.

Finally, finally somehow I found my stride. I found my confidence. After the first 800 meters I was all alone. I spent the entire race chasing down the gator that served as our pace car. 

The trails at UW-Parkside are absolutely gorgeous this time of year so I was actually quite distracted for the first couple miles.I went through the mile slightly above 6 minute pace and the 2 mile at about the same. I didn't hit my first mental block until mile 3. I threw in a surge to pick up my stride a little bit. Unfortunately right after that surge I turned a corner and staring me right in the face was a steep hill of solid mud. 

My mantra changed from "Confidence, confidence, confidence" to "Believe, believe, believe". I made it to the top of that hill, and from there the last 800 meters was all downhill and finally to the finish. Almost a minute and a half faster than I ran my previous race in. 

I got to the end and hugged my dad and burst into tears. Because I was so thankful to have found my stride again. Somehow in those four miles I found what I had been looking for all these weeks. Or maybe, I had it all along and I just remembered where to look. 

The Last Day

Overlooking Rose Lake

Not bad for a last run eh? Today was my last run in my hometown before I move back to college.  I ran on the trails around Rose Lake today. Otherwise known as Dorothy Carnes Park. Yes I ran there yesterday too. But I can't get over how much I love it there. I always feel like I could run for hours and hours. Today in particular I got there and watched a storm roll in for the entire hour and 4 minutes of my run. Right as I left it began to downpour.

I'm all the more thankful for running when I look around places like this and realize how lucky I am that I can run around for hours. My last day running in my beautiful town, and I'm going to miss it a heck of a lot. I don't want to go back to the concrete jungle that is Milwaukee. I don't know how I'm going to survive without my peaceful, awe-inspiring runs at places like this.

So here's to the summer where I never thought I'd run again, but at the end rediscovered all the reasons why I truly love to run. Happy Trails :)

Clouds rolling in at Rose lake

"This part of my life... this little part.. is called "happiness" 
                                                           ~ Pursuit of Happiness

In the Long Run

"You won't realize the distance you've run until you take a look around & realize how far you've been."

First long run back. So I'm going about 50 minutes today. As I head onto a pathway in the woods, with my music blaring I suddenly see a set of eyes staring out at me from the trees. Of course my immediate, irrational thought was "bear". (in Wisconsin? Come on, Katie). But as I stopped and paused my music what it really was, was a huge horse. Now, I love horses, so obviously I'm not afraid of them. Still though, it was 6 in the morning and I was alone and the last thing I expected to see on a path in rural Wisconsin was a horse. So what did I do? Jump on it and ride bareback into town? No, I turned and ran the opposite way. Chicken.

Second long run back. It's been hot all week and by 2 minutes in I'm soaking wet. I don't think I'll ever run in anything but a sportsbra again its SO hot. My ipod is broken. On this run today however, I realize that I don't need an ipod. Sometimes there's just something about running in silence. I listen to the rhythm of my feet and my breath and somewhere along the road I make up my own song to run to. It was only a few days before that I hadn't run with a watch or music. I mean I am starting over. I might as well start from square one. No music, no time, just me and the sound of my feet.

My runs are getting longer. So now I'm actually starting to get tired on them. I'm up to an hour. My next one I head back to my old high school bike trail and crank out the run. To my own surprise I actually start out at sub-7 minute pace. At the 2.5 mile mark I'm able to stop and gather myself and pull the reins a bit. But overall I'm sweaty and exhausted and I just covered about 7.5 miles in 55 minutes.

And finally yesterday was the best one. I did the first 3 miles relatively relaxed. Once I reached mile 4 I was still feeling really good and was going a bit to fast. So I decided to tempo it instead. Each mile I even brought my pace lower and lower until by the end I ran the last 7-8 minutes at about 6min/mile pace.

By some miracle it seems like I'm running healthy again. I never expected that I would get better so fast. Interestingly enough, once I gave up on being bitter about running so little and forgot about running to win and because I "had to" was when I started getting better. Coincidence? I'd like to think not. My leg couldn't heal until my mind was. Once I started appreciating running and loving it for what it is, my leg slowly followed my heart on this path of recovery. I never would have believed it those weeks ago when I was doing 1 minute on/1 minute off barefoot around a high school football field. But still, here I am.

It's been a long journey for me this summer, back into running. But one, I think that I had to take in order to get where I am now. I love it now more than ever. All I have to remember is that we run because we love it and for no other reason.

Watch Your Speed

"There are thousands who run to hear the leaves, and listen to the rain, and look to the day when it is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight."
                                                                             -George Sheehan 


What is it about us runners where we feel the need to time everything, to dissect the splits, to know our averages? Yes, it is to our advantage to know these things sometimes but tell me-where is the fun in knowing everything about running? It eliminates, for me at least some of the freedom and the mystery. Knowing how fast you're going doesn't make you faster.

Fartlek -Speed Play

At this point I'd rather not know my speed anyways . Yesterday, was my first experimentation with a speed workout since oh well....track season. After work I stopped at an old bike trail in Lake Mills, WI. To me, this wasn't just a  random trail to run on. When I was in high school this is where I ran every day. It was here that I dealt with high school drama and stress and boys. But most importantly it was here where I first really learned to run. It was nice to go back to where it all started.

 I started out easy the first 5 minutes or so but it was hard to hold back.  What I ended up doing was a form of interval training known to runners as a fartlek. You spend your entire run playing with different speeds going faster and slower at certain times or in certain intervals or if you're me-entirely dependant on how you feel.

The heat index was 102. yuck. After the initial warm-up I played around doing some segments simply by feel and some by counting the minutes in my head. Because of the heat my run was a combination of sprint-run-jog for the middle 2-3 miles. The weather, though hard to deal with ended up being a good thing so that my first experimentation with speed was controlled.

The thing about running fast is that miraculously it helps you forget your pain. Normally I spend my entire run thinking about my knee, my IT band and whatever else I can worry about going wrong with my leg. But when I'm drenched in sweat and worried about how fast I'm going or trying to hold my pace all of that goes out the window. Could it be? That going faster makes my legs feel better?

It was nice to go by feel, and it helped  for once to just run freely without the restrictions of a watch or paces or even the tempo of the song on my ipod.

Halfway through I passed a man and a woman running on the same trail as I was. They were both wearing one of those belts with water bottles in it. Yes, I was really temped to ask for a sip. But I feel like that may have been overstepping my bounds a bit. There IS such a thing as proper running conduct. Anyways I pulled up next to this guy for a bit and we talked about the weather briefly. He asked how far I had gone down the trail and then said "nice pace" before I sped on. I know, I know, he was probably just being nice. But it was good to hear on my first speed workout back no matter what the reason.

By this time I was pretty much melting. I don't recall the last time I produced this much sweat. I wished I had water. I wished I hadn't sprinted 3 miles ago when I was feeling awesome. In the worst case scenario, though they were now a solid 5 minutes behind me, if I were to pass out the nice man and woman would find me eventually and perhaps drop some of their water down my throat. Of course I eventually made it back to my car. For next time  though when there happens to be a heat advisory out running is probably not in my best interest.

So what IS it about running today where everyone feels they need a GPS, an ipod, a watch. It it really that beneficial to know the exact .001 miles you ran? The exact millisecond when you stopped? I just found that a "successful" workout can be completed without all the fancy gadgets (and water hah). I think there is something to doing  a free run every once in awhile so you can properly learn to listen to your body. So that you can remember why you love running. Not for the times or the distance but the feeling you get somewhere in the middle.


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Running Barefoot, Minimalist, and Such

"Free your feet, and your mind will follow"   

I first heard about barefoot running when Nike came out with their "frees" years ago. In high school my coach used to have us do striders barefoot as well at the end of runs. I put it out of my mind however, and thought of it as something minorly helpful but overall useless in the concrete jungle that we live in.  Recently however, I came across an article in which the author claimed that their IT band pain was cured forever by barefoot running. Go on.......I'm listening...

On the homepage of the Barefoot Runner's Society they claim to be "Changing the running world one odd look at a time." They have articles on everything from minimalist running shoes to how people's lives and legs were changed through barefoot running, to ripping on companies like Asics and Nike for "ruining" our feet. I started sorting my way through websites and articles, reading about the different theories behind running barefoot.


Ironically 3 days after my attention had been caught by these articles I was reading Born To Run. And I stumbled upon the well-known "barefoot chapter" which has inspired hundreds of runners across the U.S. to ditch their "foot pillows" (cushioned shoes). Now remember I was already reading the various blogs that claimed barefoot running could cure my chronic injurys for life. So then I read something like this: "Shoes block pain not impact" and quotes such as "...when runner's train barefoot, they run faster and suffer fewer injuries." There's almost 20 pages dedicated to why people such as myself will be able to kick their chronic runners knee/IT band syndrome/plantar fasciitis/whatever. I'm not 100% sold on this...and neither is most of the running community. However, I also think it's worth a shot.

 Even Harvard University...you know THE authority on everything has an entire research project dedicated to the art of running barefoot. And you know what? They think its a good idea too! "But some runners get repetitive stress injuries each year (estimates vary from 30-75%) and one hypothesis is that heel striking contributes to some of these injuries. We emphasize though, that no study has shown that heel striking contributes more to injury than forefoot striking" (Lieberman)

 At the beginning I wanted to dive right in, because I thought that it would be a cure-all for me. However, this isn't healthy for anyone....especially not someone as injury-prone as myself. So what I did, was I went out and bought 2 pairs of shoes. I got a pair of Brooks Ghosts, which I trust with my life, but more importantly, with my IT bands. However, I also decided to grab a pair of transitional shoes, the Saucony Kinvara. I have read a lot about the Kinvara over the past six months or so and had been drooling over them for about as long.

So far I really love the Kinvaras. In fact, they're even lighter than my road racing flats! My legs have felt really good running in them, though when I do wear them I wear them on days that I'm doing mainly off-road running. At first it was weird. Because the rise is so low (a.k.a. there isn't much difference in height between the heel and the forefoot) you don't heel/toe run like you do in most shoes. Instead, you land midfoot as nature intended.

Here's the thing about barefoot running that I don't think people realize: running barefoot does NOT make you a faster runner. And it does NOT magically take away your injuries. The reason the runners in Born the Run are so good is because they run as a part of their life. Running has a huge role in their culture, their name meaning "The Running People". They're not fast because they run barefoot. They're fast because they run constantly.

Barefoot running and minimalism does have it's place in Western Society as well. Go easy-start off right with a minimalist shoe. Make your transition slowly, and then reap the benefits of running barefoot every once in awhile. When done correctly bare- footing can improve your running. Start off with running in minimalist shoes  on soft ground a couple times a week. Then graduate to full time....if all is well take a look at some truly "barefoot" shoes such as Vibrams.

So my take? I love the feeling of barefooting. I love being that much closer to the ground when I run. When done correctly it can have a great impact on your training. But please, watch out for sharp,pointy objects.

{Photo Cred :http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/jun/05/running-shoeless/ }