Thursday, Aug. 18th . . . nice easy run . . .

55 min. easy run and what I thought about while running . . .

I know I'm likely stating the obvious but I've been thinking a lot while running (nothing new there) about injuries and what causes it and specifically as it relates to speed and fast running and I think one of the major reasons speed increases the changes of injury is due to an insufficient warm-up and I mean a complete warm-up.

I've been taking note of myself and it can take me 40-60 minutes to warm-up before I can move into 10k or 5k paces. That's a long time which is why I only run race pace about 10% of the time because like many, I don't have enough time each day to properly warm-up then start a race pace workout. However, this is exactly what elite and professional runners get to do and we often overlook it, or a minimum we underscore it. I mean, you read that a 1-2 mile or 10-15 minute warm-up is sufficient and I call bull on that . . . it's crap. That's not enough time in my opinion especially for master's running like many of us.

This is one reason I often tack on race pace running at the end of my long run because I've spent up to 1 hr. of running nice and easy and my body is fully warmed-up and I often even stop and do 5 minutes of dynamic stretching then start to increase my pace.

This is one major reason I'm running so effortlessly because I'm completely given in to my body and I let my body dictate everything. I have no idea what type of run, how far or how fast I will run on a given day. I just head out and start running slowly and let my body decide the rest. At this point, all I know is easy, medium and hard running and that's all I need to know. Easy is obviously, medium is tempo; hard is race pace . . . I love the simplicity I've found.

I just thought I'd share it with others. I hear about the challenges many of you are going through and it's many of the same issues and challenges I faced for years and I really want to share all I can so that others can reach the point I'm at because it's heavenly. Running unconsciously, without serious pain or injury, then moving throughout the day without any issues. Honestly, I feel guilty because I want everyone to experience this . . . but the point is anyone can reach this point and each person's journey will be different but perhaps little tid bits from others that have gone through it will help along the way.

Harry