Training

Last week I ran three days and biked three days.  All three runs were inside on a treadmill and two of the three runs were on a stationary bike.  The one bike I did out side was a 21 mile loop that took 1 hour and 30 minutes on.  At the end of summer before I took a little break and decided that I wanted to start training, in hopes of racing next summer, I completed the same route averaging 17 miles per hour.  This time out I averaged just over 15 miles per hour.  So I have experienced a slight decrease in my ability but I am hoping that I can improve throughout the rest of the winter.  I am also looking at buying an indoor trainer.  The one that I am currently looking at is the kurt kinetic rock n roll trainer.  The only problem is that I've heard that the unit is that the rock is strange when sitting but is nice when standing.  I also accepted a job offer for an associate technical engineering position in Casper, WY and will be starting there January 10, 2011.  I am waiting to hear back from then on the times that I will be working but it might be harder to train the way I am hoping to this winter, but it might give me more time to race next summer.

Snow, boxes, and boards

Today I went up to Terry Peak, on of two local ski resorts, and spent the day with a couple friends on the mountain.  The mountain only had two lifts open and basically four runs open but one was very sketchy and we only went on once.  All in all it was a good day spent on the mountain and got many runs in.  The terrain park had a five different boxes in it and one rail.  I hit a three box set a couple times through out the day and built up my confidence on boxes.  I also did a couple of kickers but didn't have anything that was good enough to try any 180's on but did pull a couple of grabs.  Throughout the entire day I had a good time with a couple of friends and only wrecked a couple of times but am still a little sore from the spills I did take, but thats just part of snowboarding.

Exercise and airplanes

Alright I've decided that I'm not going to post every workout I do right away.  I don't think I currently do enough to write about each one, being that I am currently more building a base rather then training very hard.  In order to build a base I have been running 20 minutes a day three days a week.  The temperature dropped and the snow fell so I have been running inside, due to no cold gear for running, but run outside on the nice days, about 35 degrees Fahrenheit and up.  I also weight myself and measure myself every Monday to keep a record of how my body has changed.  The scale I use also measures body fat so I use that for body fat and the military's way of measuring, I am also currently looking into getting a caliper.

Alright in the past couple weeks I have missed running on Monday November 29th and Wednesday November 24th and only ran for about 10 minutes on Friday November 26th. Thanksgiving went well and I got to see some of my family and the reason I didn't run on Wednesday was due to traveling.  Friday was a nice day but I got to work before the sun came up and left work after the sun went down and since I didn't want to risk running a went sidewalks that were going to start icing up I decided to run inside.  Luckily my employer has a treadmill that they allow employees to use so I just ran at work.  I only ran for about 10 minutes due to the fact that I had been working for ruffly 12 hours helping customers and when I started running I realized that my legs were already tired from work.  Even though I had been on my legs for 12 hours I ran on the treadmill for 10 minutes at a 7.5 mile per hour pace.

On Monday I missed my running due to traveling again.  I flew down to Denver for an interview with a company in hopes that I will someday actually use my degree.  On my way back, waiting in the Denver airport for a little over 2 hours I noticed that most of america will do anything that makes it so they don't have to work hard.  The have escalators and don't even put stairs next to them anymore and have moving sidewalks.  I also realized that there are a lot of restaurants and gift shops in the airport but I don't think I've ever seen a gym in an airport.  I think that it would be a great way for people who fly a lot to stay healthy.

Down to yesterdays run.  I ran outside due to the fact that it was over 40 out, I love rapids consistency in weather, but ran on the sidewalk due to snow covered grass.  I ran for 20 minutes like normal and have decided that it's about time to start increasing time and soon I may start having interval days.  I ran at a comfortable pace and by the end I had some pain in my chest; however, my pace was down to 6.9 miles per hour which made me a little disappointed.  Since it was nice enough my wife also came with me and road her mountain bike.

I have been lifting and biking a lot this summer and now that I have started running a lot I have noticed that both my lifting and biking have decreased in frequency.  My current goal is to increase those back up while keeping my running at three days a week.  All in all I have had a fairly good week even though I ran better at the beginning of the week compared to the end, but everybody has off days.

Mizuno Wave Inspire 6

Last winter when I decided that I was going to pick up running I decided to get a nice pair of running shoes.  I looked at all the different type of shoes that the store that I work at had, but didn't really know any difference between them since I didn't sell in the shoe department.  Being so new to running I didn't really even know that there was a big difference between a support shoe, and neutral shoe or a control shoe.  The biggest problem that I had was that I didn't even know what to ask someone.  So I walked around looking at the walls of shoes that we have and looked for all the colors that I thought were cool.  Once I found a selection of colors that I was interested in I went into the back and started trying some of the shoes on and ended up getting the Mizuno Wave Inspire 6 in a size 11.

I was discussing earlier this summer with some of the shoe experts where I work and they said that the Mizuno Wave Inspire 6 was a shoe designed for someone who slightly over pronated.  This made me wonder what I was, so we looked at the shoes that I had been using for walking around and found out that I had a fairly neutral stride meaning that I should have a neutral shoe instead of a correcting shoe.

When I first got the shoes I hadn't ran more then a mile at a time but wanted to get into shape and possibly try triathlons.  I looked up some training methods online and started running for 20 minutes at a 5.5 mile per hour pace, but being a cyclist I found that these shorter distances were fairly easy and by the end of the month I was running 6 miles in an hour.  I plateaued at this for a which and ran 6 miles at a 6 mile per hour pace for about a week and a half when my knee started to hurt after a run.  I stopped running until it stopped hurting and decided to try to run again.  I was on the treadmill for about 10 minutes before I couldn't run anymore and when I got off I could hardly walk.  I looked up on the internet and self diagnosed it as runners knee and stopped running for about 8 months.  Now that I am starting to run again, I strapped on my shoes and took off thinking to myself that I was going to build a base before I increased my time spent running up.  The bad part is that after three days off running in a week my knees started to hurt again.  Talking to some people at work I decided to get a new pair of shoes that were a neutral shoe and all my knee pains have went away.

The Mizuno Wave Inspire 6 shoes have had great reviews and I know a lot of people at work who love them.  The reviews that I have found online have people who love them and then people like me who have knee pain when running in them.  The biggest downfall for me was that I had ran over 50 miles on the shoes before that pain started so its hard to tell in the store if they will work for you.  The one thing that I can say about the shoes is that they last very well, I've put about 69 miles on the shoes (55 being on a treadmill and the rest on concrete) and they show very little sign of wear and tear.  The other thing that I noticed when I put the shoes on is that it feels like the shoes try to force my feet to bank out so I'm striking the outside of my foot more then the rest.  All in all I believe that if you need a shoe to help with over pronating then these shoes could be the next pair for you, otherwise Mizuno has a control line and a neutral line for the rest of us.

First snow run

Yesterday was the first time that I've ran outside in the snow.  Last winter is when I really started running but I just picked it up in the gym where I was lifting since it was in between work and home.  The temperature was about 30 degrees and being my first run at that temp I wasn't exactly sure what to wear.  I ended up wearing under armor compression cold gear top and bottom, an under armor loose fit heat gear top, under armor heat gear short, a Burton beanie and my vibram five fingers KSO.

I found during my run that people who are out running and biking when its colder out generally are nicer.  Everyone that I met on the bike path waved and said hi to me.  Running in the vibram five fingers in the snow made my toes cold but the rest of my body was a good temperature and I started sweating at the end.  I ended up running 2.54 miles in 20 minutes which is only .02 miles farther then last time but I'm still trying to adapt to my vibram five fingers.  All in all I had a good run and am going to try and stay off of a treadmill as much as possible this winter.

KT Tape

KT tape is a brand of kinesiology tape which is used to help rehabilitation, prevention, and maintenance.  I initially noticed the product when we brought it into the store.  I didn't give it much consideration because I thought it was just another athletic tape.  My opinion of the tape started to change when I noticed a significant number of cyclist using it on their calves and quads during the Waterloo, WI Centurion ride/race.  A couple months after I participated in the race I decided to pick up running again, stopping due to knee problems, and soon after I started my knees started bothering me again.  My knees would hurt below the knee cap and just to the outside of center.  After the first time I picked up running, I was forced to stop running due to knee pain  and I decided to do a little research and self diagnosed myself with runners knee.  Now that I had taken a brake for ruffly eight months, I was confused that my knees were already hurting again after about six miles over five days and started thinking that I may never be able to pick up running as a hobby.

I decided that before I put up my running shoes for good that I would try some KT tape and see in that would help.  The first time I put the tape on it ended up pulling off about 30 minutes later.  Being the first time I ever tried applying any type of athletic tape to any part of my body I decided that it was probably a mistake on my part.  I waited until the next day and applied a 10 inch strip to my left knee in the pattern that they recommended for runners knee shown in the following pictures.

After I waited the recommended 30 minutes before activity I started walking around and seeing if any drastic change had occurred.  After the rest of the day including four hours of walking on concrete at work, my left knee felt a lot better then it did at the beginning of the day.  The knee cap seemed to be supported and I assumed that my knee was tracking better then before.  I decided that the big test was going to be when I ran with it on.  On that next run I finished with my knee not hurting and decided that the KT tape was worth the money.

I found that the KT company says that the tape will last 2-3 days on knees, but it doesn't fall off after that amount of time.  What happens is that kinesiology tape has elastic properties and with the tape around a joint like the knee that elastic properties diminish and the tape doesn't have full effect after 2-3 days.  Also with having hairy legs I looked up to see whether I needed to shave the area that the tape was going on and the site said that you didn't need to because the tape will contact better to short hair rather then having no hair at all.  I decided that before I cut my leg hairs down to 1/8 on an inch, which is what the recommended, I would try it on my leg as it is now.  The following pictures shows what happens if I don't apply the tape just right.  The tape will stick to a leg with long hair, but if you don't tape it right and you don't let the tape fully set before moving at all then the tape starts to pull its self off.

The experiences that I have had with  KT (kinesiology) tape has been very good.  It allowed me not to fear running so much and has helped me in everyday life when my muscles get sore.  As long as the tape is applied correctly and the applicator has some practice with applying athletic tape I beleive that the tape will help a person out who has small muscle and joint problems.  As with all tapes and braces, they are not a replacement for medical advise and in order to save from a lot of hassles down the road I believe that sport doctors should be visited if you ever experience an issue with exercise and training.

Beginning

I am a recent graduate from an engineering school.  In high school I didn't do a lot and once I came to college I became active.  It started with a mountain bike.  My first mountain bike was a nice little trek 3700 which didn't last very long.  From that bike my activity level soared.  I started rock climbing, snowboarding, wake boarding, road biking, and mountain biking.  The big three are road biking, mountain biking, and snowboarding.  I am currently working part time at a all sports store called Scheels, and have gained a lot of knowledge.  The basis of my blog is to share the life of an active person and hopefully get a couple product reviews going.  Hope you enjoy.