Welcome to the official blog of top U.S. distance runner Ryan Hall as he begins his quest for Olympic gold! Check back every other Friday for Ryan’s latest entry at http://ryanhall.thefinalsprint.com/
Eleven weeks to go. I go back and forth between thinking I have too much time before the games, and then feeling like there is not enough time. Eleven weeks sometimes feels like a long time to train at the intensity that I am now daily putting forth, but then when I think to myself that in two months I will be heading out to Beijing, I wish I could sneak in a few more weeks at altitude before then. I have found that it is usually a good sign to feel like I wish I had one or two more weeks of training. It is a sign that I am still fresh, still hungry, and still moving forward. Contrast this with my first marathon run at the 2007 London Marathon when I had been hanging on for a month after training for what seemed like an eternity.
Today I will be repeating the same workout I ran two weeks ago before I left for Bolder Boulder—a ten mile tempo run. Last time out it didn’t go so well. Waking up to snow was my second sign that I was going to have a tough day, with the first sign being my cranky ankle that had been bothering me after doing an hour and a half run on a rocky—yet beautiful—single track trail in Big Bear. So between my cranky ankle, snow falling, and being out there all by myself without my shuffle (which I forgot at home) I set myself up for a long day. Let’s not get too much into the specifics; we can just leave it at that I went out slow and came back even slower. Not to mention picking up my bottles off the ground didn’t seem to speed things up any. I left for Boulder concerned.
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Ice or heat? As straightforward as this question sounds, these two choices are often points of hot debate amongst athletes attempting to soothe injured body parts.
Yet despite strong arguments from both sides, here’s the simple truth: ice and heat both have their advantages and neither is a cure-all. Therefore, the safest bet to heal sports-induced injuries is to understand which method works best for what conditions and when.
Read the rest of this entry at our partner site: HesFit.com
It is hard, at times, to find a quality physical therapist. As a practicing physical therapist for nearly 15 years, I have heard some incredible horror stories of people going to “PT” only to receive a hot pack, ultrasound, and a sheet of exercises. The therapist might have had 5 or 6 other clients being treated simultaneously, and the new client had a barely 5 minute “consultation” before having the hot pack slapped on.
Of course there are also great therapists out there who can eliminate a chronic pain after only 2 or 3 sessions. Those who can explain and teach proper body mechanics in ways that even the most uncoordinated clients can understand and put into practice. So how does the average person find the latter and not fall into the former?
Read the rest of this article at our partner site: HesFit.com
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