A Runner's Guide to Cold And Flu Season (Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Neti Pot)

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It's been...goodness...weeks since I last posted. I'm sorry. With a fresh start at a new school and whatnot, I've been busy. It's only going to get worse because on top of training and homework, I now have a job. HUZZAH!

Anyways, I also had a cold this week, and it completely destroyed my routine. I should be posting again tomorrow, because sniffles or no sniffles, I'm running 20 miles, even if part of the run is to Rite Aid so I can get some nose spray.

Well, according to this article, it's okay to run if you have the sniffles as long as you don't have a fever or you have congestion in your lungs. Personally, I hate running if I can't breathe. I'm not a panter. I breathe rhythmically, like a swimmer. I like having the ability to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.

Meds are nice and everything, for a quick fix, but if your sinuses are congested, there's only so much you can un-congest them. Or is there? I've become addicted to the neti pot. Well, actually, I use one of these:

That thing that looks like a water bottle on the front? You fill it with saline and squirt that stuff up one nostril and it comes out the other side. The whole bottle, too. Yeah. It's not fun. What is fun is being able to breathe afterward. It's really nice. The neti pot does the same thing, but instead of squirting saline up your nose, you pour it. These are a bit more popular and look like this:

Another regrettable yet effective homeopathic remedy is raw cider vinegar. My mother swears by it. I say regrettable because the moment I tip back the shot of the stuff, I instantly regret it. It tastes beyond sour and burns my throat on the way down. I find it helpful if you follow it with a honey chaser. If you get the Bragg's stuff, there's a recipe on the bottle for some sort of health drink. I find that this stuff tastes even worse than just doing a shot of the stuff, for some reason, so I deconstructed the recipe by doing a shot of the vinegar, following it with the honey, and then chugging some water. The raw vinegar is good for cooking, if you ever decide you want to get rid of the stuff. However, it does help in keeping your sinuses clear for some time, I find, and I've been drinking that rather than taking NyQuil before bed. It makes it much easier for me to get up in the morning.

Less regrettable remedies that I like include zinc and sweating the cold out. I don't know why the latter works, but it does for me. Just bundle up and get nice and toasty. I think this just may be a comfort thing, but it helps. I once had a doctor tell me that in Europe they wrap scarves around their necks if they have a sore throat, so there may be more to that than comfort. Zinc is an immune booster and something else my family swears by. I take it regularly because my immune system is just terrible. If you remember Zicam at all, that cold remedy gel you squirted up your nose (before it went off the market for a while because people were apparently losing their sense of smell), it contained zinc. Just be careful that you don't overdose on the stuff. I did, once, and my glands swelled up so much that my jaw was completely indistinguishable from my neck. Also, make sure that if you take it in pill form, as opposed to lozenge, that you eat first. My friend recently took some without eating first and became quite sick to her stomach.

Most importantly, make sure you drink a ton of water and eat well. I sleep a lot when I'm down with a cold or the flu. Get plenty of rest. Luckily, most viruses like the cold or flu will only take up a week or so of your time and you'll be back up and running before you know it.

Drum Roll, Please...

Whenever I blog, all I can think of is Bob Loblaw's Law Blog. There, I said it. Now that that's out of my system, I can write what will probably be the most important post I will write on here. Not that my other posts aren't important, but this one is what the blog is all about. Whether you're one of the people who thinks I'm absolutely crazy or someone who is interested and is looking for information, I hope to settle the curiosity that is barefoot running here. Please bare with me, there's a ton of information on the topic and while I'll try to give you the highlights, I can't promise that this will be short.

Now, for a "quick" disclaimer: The closest I am to being an expert is having extensive personal experience, having read a great many articles and books on the subject over an expanse of time, earnest interest...oh, and I'm taking human biology this semester. I'm not a coach, I'm not a sports physicist, and I'm definitely not a doctor. That considered, as much as I dislike doctors, you should probably check with yours before changing any of your exercise and dietary habits, start a new exercise program, blah, blah, blah, and so forth. I feel like I have to put that in here. However, I do implore you to do some research of your own. You'll learn a lot that way and will be able to decide for yourself if barefoot running is something you'll be interested in trying. This method of running is a bit controversial, depending on which experts and research you chose to believe. I beg of you, please keep an open mind. I would never try to interest anyone in anything that I didn't think was worth their while.

That said, I suppose I should explain what exactly makes up barefoot running. There are three basic types of barefoot running. First, there's minimalist running. The style of running is the same as barefoot running, but the shoes are a little more conventional-looking. Should you get into running with minimalist shoes, for example, you'd be wearing something like these. Next is the type I'm into, where you wear something like a shoe-glove. While they look downright odd, they're as close as you get to running barefoot while protecting your feet from the elements. By "the elements" I mean broken glass on the side of the road. Not something you want embedded into your foot if you desire to run. For an idea, my shoes look like this:

The final style is running without anything on your feet, should you desire to be hardcore. When I ran the Eden 5K this August, one of the men who placed ran without anything on his feet. This man has more cahones than I could ever dream of having, mostly because I don't want to step on anything sharp. However, these kinds of runners eventually develop thick calluses on the bottoms of their feet which act as a protective barrier from sharp pointy objects and scalding hot blacktop. I don't have the patience to develop calluses of this caliber, so I wear the shoe-gloves. There is another kind of shoe one would wear, and it's more of a sandal that looks like you stole Hermes's shoes and ripped the wings off. More on that, later.

For those who are in the group wondering why on Earth anyone would run without arch support, I would like to ask you this: Were you born wearing shoes? In fact, when I was working back at the shoe store, we generally discouraged mothers from buying shoes for their babies until they learned to walk. Why? Babies need the sensational feedback from the ground to learn to balance. It's naturally how we learn to walk and run. Arch support is a modern convenience that man made to cushion the feet. However, arch support has a great disadvantage.

The Romans knew that the arch was one of the strongest architectural formations, which is why they used it to support many of their structures, most commonly seen on the aqueducts and the Colosseum. The advantage of the arch is that the weight applied to the top is equally destributed throughout the structure. However, should one put pressure on the underside of the arch, this completely defeats the purpose of the structure and the arch becomes weak. The same applies to the arch of your foot. By supporting your arch, you are weakening it.

Another issue with conventional running shoes is that they force one to land on their heel when running. However, when you run naturally, you land on the ball of your foot with your knee already bent slightly, and then come down to your heel before pushing off with the ball of your foot again. This is seen in the following video:

Also, the cushion of the shoes can be a menace. The cushion in running shoes is designed for shock absorption, which is designed to take the shock out of your knees. The shock is indeed absorbed by the shoe, but every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The shock is then bounced back up your leg, defeating the purpose of the shoe.

Some may say that they bought super expensive shoes because they either overpronate or supinate. Either one of these problems is characterized by hitting with your heel, and either rolling to the outside or inside of your foot before you reach the ball of your foot. Should you switch to barefoot running, you will naturally strike with the ball of your foot, eliminating the pronation or supination that is caused by a heel strike. Since many sports injuries are caused by such problems, by switching to barefoot running, you could eliminate such injuries altogether.

Barefoot running uses different muscle groups than conventional running. Most of the strength comes from your feet, calves, and abdominal muscles. The strength of your ankles will increase, as well, giving your better stability and balance. Don't be surprised if your feet become muscular looking. It's not my favorite side effect of running barefoot, but I prefer that to shinsplints and balance problems.

Should you decide to run barefoot, you'll want to change your form. Usually, this happens naturally as you get used to the shoe. For proper form, your shoulders should be relaxed, you should be hitting with the ball of your foot and rolling to your heel, and you should lean forward slightly from your ankles. This will give you the feeling of falling forward. This is what you want. Let gravity help propel you forward. Your feet should lightly hit the ground (no pavement pounding, ladies and gents) and then kick back toward your butt. You'll feel like you're shuffling rather than running, and you won't be taking long strides but your feet will be moving rapidly.

For those starting in barefoot running, I would suggest easing into it. It will take some time before you get used to the stride, the form, and the different muscle usage. However, the lack of injury and the natural feel are well worth the practice. If you are training for an event, please finish your event and then try running the new way. It will take a lot of getting used to, like I said, and that might interrupt your training if you're changing over before an event. This might mess with your time, as well. You'd only be shorting yourself on that one, so please wait until you are done with your event. In the meantime, try switching to shoes without arches (I wear solely flip-flops, ballet flats, and flat-soled boots). Walk around barefoot as much as you can. Naked feet are happy feet.

The Cons:

Of course, I will not tell you that barefoot running is for everyone. I strongly suggest that you do your research before starting a new running style. At first, your feet absolutely will hurt. They'll also ache after long runs. At first, it might be because you are used to pounding the pavement and you haven't perfected the form yet. With time and patience, this will go away. Once you get into longer runs and your form is correct, the soreness will be because the muscles in your feet are getting a good workout. This is easily fixed by giving yourself a decent foot massage. Actually, this is an excellent excuse to get your significant other to give you a foot massage and, by all means, you should take advantage of it.

Like I said, this will take a lot of time and patience; you will have to learn new strength training techniques and stretches. Never fear, I will post both of my favorites on here at a later date. However, I understand that barefoot running isn't for everyone, but I urge you to give it a try.

The History:

I would like to conclude this little lesson by talking about those sandals I described earlier. I first learned about them at the same time I learned about barefoot running. Those sandals are called huaraches and they are worn by the Tarahumara tribe in Copper Canyon, Mexico. The Tarahumara are known for their ability to run super long distances in these things. By super long distances I mean hundreds of miles. There is actually an ultramarathon in Copper Canyon, now, in which runners from all over compete with the Tarahumara. If you would like to know more about them, I recommend checking out Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. However, for the purposes of this post, the huaraches look like this:

Here is a video of the famous Barefoot Ted running in these babies:

Note: Watch his form. This guy has been running barefoot much longer than I have. His form is beautiful.

For More Information:

To aid you in your quest for info, especially the stuff I forgot to mention here, I'd check out these sites:

Nerd Fitness: A Beginner's Guide to Running

Nerd Fitness: Is Barefoot Running Really Better for You?

Barefoot Ted's Site

Marathon & Beyond: The Barefoot Route

Mark's Daily Apple: Jumping on the Barefoot Bandwagon

Mark's Daily Apple: How to Make the Barefoot Transition

Mark's Daily Apple: A Sea Change Coming to Wash Your Shoes Away

Mark's Daily Apple: How to Strengthen Your Flat Feet

Barefoot Ted on Silent Movement

Oh the Long Weekend...

Oh, I apologize. The long weekend threw me off. I was going to post about hill running (I'll have that up a few Thursdays from now) and I was also going to post about barefoot running, which will be up this Thursday, I promise.

I did it again, folks. I tripped over the sidewalk. The sidewalks on my street are horribly jagged and this is the second time I fell and skinned my knee. Last time, it was Friday the 13th. This time, I can't blame it on the date. I will, however, blame it on the nasty sidewalks. I think they wanted both of my knees to be evenly skinned, but since it was cold and I was wearing long spandex, the other knee wasn't skinned as much. I'm working tirelessly on getting the taste of soap out of the reservoir of my Camelbak so that I can bring water with me wherever, and I don't have to run circles around my neighborhood so I can stop in for water and energy gel breaks. If anyone has any idea on how to actually do this, please let me know. Today, I dropped it in my washing machine with a ton of baking soda and put it on a warm cycle with two rinses. I hope this worked, but I think it still smells soapy.

I did nineteen miles today. Nineteen. I'm super proud. However, it never sounds like nineteen in my head. Whenever I do a long run, the distance I tell myself that I'm running always sounds like it came out of a Charles Dickens novel. I'm running ten-and-nine miles, today. I'm messing with my own head when I do this. Ten miles is easy. Nine also is, obviously, because it's less than ten. I always break down my mileage into smaller chunks so I don't psych myself out. Nineteen miles is far. Ten-and-nine miles is easy.

I'm cramming the protein, of course, although my mother's boyfriend just handed me a rather large vodka tonic, and I suppose I shall have to drink that. I'm definitely going to take another glucosamine before bed because the distance runs mess with my knees. I think that it's more of an IT Band thing, but you can never be too careful. I want to run for the rest of my life and I don't want to have to stop because my knees no longer have cartilage. That's a silly reason to have to stop if I can prevent it now. I think that my multivitamins have a joint support complex in them, as well, so I should be well-covered. I'm going to move my long run this week to Saturday, so if you don't mind, the next progress post will be a day early.

Much Love,

Michaela

Runner's Log...

Ladies and Gentlemen: there's another barefoot runner in my neighborhood. I saw him! It was at about the five-mile mark when I saw another runner coming toward me. From a distance, I was watching his form (alas, I do judge other runners' forms) and it was unusually good. Relaxed stature, leaning forward slightly, feet lightly sweeping the ground. I checked his shoes. The man was trotting along in a pair of these. (I look awesome sporting a pair of these.) I was quite excited to see another pair of Vibrams on a runner, let me tell you. Usually, I just get comments along the lines of, "You're running in those?," accompanied by a look signaling that I must be crazy. Today, I wasn't alone. We knew how awesome our shoes were.

Anyway, on with the rest of my run. I ran 17 miles this evening. Seventeen. I didn't keep track of time because I have to cross a busy road every few miles, so waiting for the traffic light doesn't figure in. Also, waiting like that makes my muscles seize up, which is a terrible nuisance right around mile 12 when your muscles have been working for a while.

On the more positive end, I am somewhat confused about my endurance. For the short runs in the middle of the week, I get exhausted after the first mile or so and finally get warmed up after the third mile. This confuses me because long runs are like taking a nice long stroll. My muscles will get tired before I do. I think this is probably a good thing. No. It is a good thing. Yes, everything from the waist down kills, but I probably could have had a nice conversation while on the run because I wasn't winded or tired at all. I don't think it has to do with pace because I run an even ten-minute-mile pace no matter what.

Another plus to my run this evening -- and most runs I do in Kenmore -- is that my runs are a spectator sport. I get quite a few people cheering me on from their porches. Usually, it's the people in or around the park, seeing that I'm pretty much a regular there. Today, it was an older woman on my street who told me that I was very ambitious and wished me luck. It really makes me happy to be running in an area where even strangers are supportive.

Tonight, I'll be taking some aspirin and glucosamine and getting a good night's sleep. Not only do I have four miles and strength training to do tomorrow -- something that will require a good helping of protein, I'm sure -- but classes start first thing tomorrow morning. It's going to be a busy week!

And So It Begins...

I feel that an introduction is needed.

My name is Michaela. I'm 21 years old and I know two constants in my life: writing and running. I've been writing since middle school when I used to hide short stories in my science teacher's classroom. I've been running for a much shorter time than that. I started running on my high school's track team in my sophomore year; I was a sprinter and I failed miserably at it. Later on I was to realize that I'm more of a distance runner.

I'm also a barefoot runner and a Celiac, and I'm absolutely positive that these facts will influence almost everything I write. For those who don't understand the ins and outs of barefoot running, I'll be sure to explain everything in detail in a later post since I'm an adamant follower of the barefoot movement and I feel like the topic deserves its own column. As far as being a Celiac, it means I'm gluten intolerant and I can't eat grains. Therefore, I will be sure to offer up my recipes and tactics for "carbo-loading" before a run or a race without the use of bread, cereal, and the all-too-popular spaghetti.

I'm mostly writing this, however, because I'm running the Marine Corps Marathon at the end of October with my uncle, and I wanted a medium for the whole family to track my progress as we get closer and closer to the race. Although I plan to do a marathon a year for the next few years, this is my premier marathon and I'm pretty darn excited about it. I'll probably have something new every Sunday because those are my long run days so that everyone can get a feel for how well I'm doing.

As for my future fans who are not a part of my family-and-friend circle, I sincerely hope you enjoy the rest of my content, as well as my anecdotes of my progress (and failures; I'm finally fully recovered from introducing my face to the sidewalk while on a run -- on Friday the 13th, no less!)