Why not to be lost..

The sounds.
The sights. God the sights were so amazing. 
The feeling. 
The click. 
The snap.

What was it? What exactly did you do? You ask yourself over and over what you missed in the last while but you don't know exactly where you misplaced yourself. You just knew you were lost. You tripped and fell hard. Falling down the black hole as you stared up at the sun as you continued to fall deeper down the dark abyss. The deeper you fell the harder it became.

We all know the feeling. Sometimes we fall off our paths and get lost...

It takes something sharp for us to click back in to life. Sometimes we have to see the blood to realize there is pain.

Once you heal the wounds, you pick yourself up, throw on your track shoes, and get back on the track.

You've never lost your way. 

Start. 

Start with the realization. 

Just start, and you're way ahead of everyone else who is still falling down that hole looking back at you as you climb up to the surface.

The story of a girl and her foot..

Starring Plantar Fasciitis as the lead role, with shin splints playing the antagonist role. The movie started in January, and it continues on. The more I work on distinguishing their roles in this movie, the more they seem to linger on. I have proficiently snuffed the previous lead role of "Left Hip Pain." He comes back to me once in awhile begging to come back but I refuse his posting.




Plantar Fasciitis is one of those characters that was self created. He's not well liked by most, and usually appears after speed related track workouts. Lately he has been fighting alongside Shin Splints. They hate each other, yet seem to work so well together in the bigger picture of things. I've had many therapists try to get them to work a long side each other, but each one makes the other worse.



Then we have the deeper part of the story. Food! My director said that for each pound of food in the movie equals 5-7 pounds of force on the body for each impacting force on the track. I like his story, but it doesn't work well for this movie. It only makes the star and the antagonist more pissed off, because they want the best catering service around, and I can't get that for them 24/7. They run around like a bunch of crazy Italians pissed off and yelling at each other and me about the food content on this movie set.



I'm becoming quite frustrated with the fact this movie has taken so long to reach its full performance and potential. I understand fully, but I realize that there are more steps that are needed in this process. I take full responsibility! I've taken a few days away from the set, and I think that some more time might be needed away from the characters and the set. A little bit of gym and bike time is required.

A bit more focus in to the catering business might be a splendid idea as well.

And onward we go.

In to the process..

The part I love about injuries is hunger. It's the hunger that you can't have it. Every day that goes by doesn't go by with more determination and drive than the last day. Albeit frustrating at times, you know it's a process. Every day being a day to better yourself from yesterday. Another day to become a better you.

(Some outside time on a work break in BC)

Are you going to sit there and stand by as your competitors continue to excel and get better? NO. You're going to do everything that you can do at that moment. You're injured? Great! You can focus on strength and power. You can make that machine better than it was before.



Injuries can be weakness, so you can make that body part stronger than ever..

I thought it was going to be a few weeks, but it turns out hips are a pretty important body part ;)
The hip is healing.
The plantar fasciitis is a process.

It's all steady and we are working small steps every day.

With that being said, I decided to do some rehab in Hawaii for 2 weeks.

Time to taste the sunshine.

M

Another coffee, another day.

I ask myself where I am today and it's hard to describe. Where do I exist on my timeline of training? I am taking a minimum of two weeks off the track right now. My left hip issue has been slightly over bearing. The constant hitting of the track wearing spikes during speed endurance has put phenomenal pressure on my right plantar fascia.

Night splint to keep calf and tendons stretched during the healing process at night.

As an elite level athlete, it's hard to describe to someone who runs that it was hard for you to come up with the decision to take time off. I've battled with these two minor injuries for the last three weeks. It's been a constant rotation of feeling better and producing amazing results, and not being able to walk the next day, and coming back at it two days later. The extreme detrimental part of this was that my mood was fluctuating constantly. A great work out would turn in to high levels of stress concerning the injuries and the pain they were creating for me. I would binge eat. The feeling of stress would be over whelming. I want to run well, but some of the days training would be cut short, and so I would turn to food that would make me feel better. Of course, this line of action was moving towards heavy carb and sugar laden food. So we all know what happened after these incidents... The crash and the weight gain.
Delectable chocolate goodies.

Being someone with blood sugar sensitivity issues, I don't just eat healthy for the reason of training. It keeps me sane, it keeps my moods elevated, that's what I need, and this binge eating wasn't keeping my mood levels stable.


People will say, why don't you just avoid it? You can run 400m hurdles, hurt yourself and keep running, yet you can't control these urges? WELL YES, they are right, how does one push their limits on a consistent basis yet they can't control an impulsive behavior of avoiding sugar laden food. I'll give it to you straight. Working five days a week, driving straight to practice, training, and coming home at 8pm every night. It's a regular routine. It can be so overwhelming, and sometimes the outlet is food to feel better. Food has been the easiest thing to turn to in these high cortisol moments. This needs to stop.Low - dye taping procedure for plantar fasciitis.

Rehab has started this week. I worked myself up to the fact that I was probably going to take time off, and Saturday's practice was the deciding factor. It was an easy CF big circuit tempo workout and I struggled to control the pain from the injuries when the workout was about 75% done. I knew it was time to do what I had been going over and over again in my head. Taking time off. I was ready for this. No negative feelings come attached with this time off. I know what I need to do. The main focus is body recomposition and rehabilitation. During this time I will also have a mental break from the stresses of track work, and come back with a bang, and super fresh mental motivation.
Bike sprints.

My advice to other athletes. No matter what people say to you, trust your own body, trust your injuries. If you aren't able to finish a workout without being in pain, you need to take time off. It's hard, but it's better now than later. If you continue on through these injuries, you will only hurt yourself more, and cause more mental pain than the physical pain by choosing to continue through.

Stick with your rehabilitation therapy and make sure you are aggressive with it daily. Don't forget to think outside of the box. Look for the less used methods, they might just work for you.

and ICE, ICE, ICE!

Love and strength,

Melissa

Vulnerability..

What is vulnerability?  Vulnerability is being open to the possibility that you can be hurt.  Letting your guard down and opening yourself up to the chance of failing. Or in this case, falling.

Yesterday was hurdle day. To our surprise, we had decided to move up to the 200m hurdles, instead of doing the 100m hurdle repeats. This meant that we were starting 400m race portions. Exciting and progressional, yet slightly intimidating. Intimidating because there is so much that can go so wrong, and you NEED to be focused and have everything pretty technically sound. 

One thing before I move on, most people say you do not need to be technically sound to run the 400m hurdles. They say that as long as you are fast and can power off the hurdle effectively, you'll do just fine. I don't agree with this. Why do something haphazardly if you can do it perfectly? There's no room for error in a race. "Acceptable" and "satisfactory" hurdling are words that I will never accept.

The 200m hurdles were set up. The first 200m in the race with 5 hurdles set up. Warm up went okay, but something was off. My left hip was tight. It's always tight, I don't have a full time masseuse yet, and once a week isn't cutting it. I need DEEP work done weekly. The hip was more tight than usual, which was putting me off kilter every time I used it as a trail leg. Not the best, but acceptable when running higher speeds, as the momentum will help carry you.  I started the first rep with my usual start position, left leg on the start line. This is what I'm used to, but I know running full speed I'm going to hit that first hurdle with my left leg being the lead on the turn. For those of you who don't hurdle, this gets your body landing not towards the turn. Knowing this, I wanted to run the first one out of comfort, and make adjustments later. Probably not the best idea. So It went almost full speed. As the body starts to come up out of drive phase you see hurdle one approaching you at a very fast pace on the turn. That feeling is so intimidating, and I was trying to tell the younger girl that this is what it's going to be like. You're scared. You don't know what's going to happen, but you have to face it, and you have to just go for it. You can't slow down, you need to attack it, and you need to know that no matter what, it will work out.

I made it over the first hurdle with some inconsistant stride patterns. The rest of the hurdling was sub par on this rep! I was so focused on attacking and running hard that I was over striding coming up to the hurdles. One of them was a stutter. It felt so good to run over these fast, yet scary seeing these things come up to you so fast, regardless of only being 30 inches high.

2nd rep. I was told to be lighter on my feet, more up tall. I switched start legs and I was slightly mind blown on how to get the power out of my legs starting like this. I think from now on I need to only practice running starts and speed work this way. I stuttered to the first hurdle, I was all over the place! I hit the 4th hurdle with my tight hipped trail leg. Of course it was acompanied with a loud yell. I'm quite the vocal hurdler, and I express pushing myself hard with noise, ha. Hitting that hurdle with my trail leg wasn't really a good choice, but it was very evident that my striding was all worng, because the more I tried, the more everything didn't work. I was over thinking the whole process.

3rd rep. Start line, GO. It seemed to be working. OH, maybe not... Stuttered to the first hurdle. Try to make up the striding coming off the first hurdle and notice I'm not going to make it to the next hurdle. I proceed to over stride approaching the next hurdle. It was very slow motion in my head. I leaped and new immediately that I was taking off far too soon, but there was nothing I could do to escape what was bound to happen. My lead leg extended and I started coming down ON the hurdle. so instead of cutting down just after the hurdle, my leg was coming down right on the hurdle, scraping my achilles and lower calf. As this was happening, my back started to flip backwards as my center of gravity was off. My lead leg landed on the support bar on the bottom of the hurdle and I twisted my trail leg as it landed. OKAY, I stopped, not as bad as it could've been, but it was a wake up call. Everything I was doing was wrong, and this over striding habit has got to stop, otherwise something bad was going to happen, IE a detrimental injury or broken bones. 

My concerned coach talked to me, and what she was saying started to click in my brain. I can't be over striding. In fact, I need to be taking a whole other step. The hurdle will come up fast, but that's where your quick hurdling skills and cut down skills come in to play. I decided that from this moment on I'm going to realize that it's likely not going to be "if" but "when" I bail on a hurdle, and I need to realize this and run my season accordingly. This was a point of vulnerability. I had to trust that what my coach was saying made sense, and that I needed to forget evereything I had learned in my past, and take another step. It was scary thinking about this. What if I don't make it? What if I hit the hurdle coming up to it? Doesn't another step mean that I'm going to be so close to the hurdle that I'll just run through it?! I couldn't think like this, I turned off my brain and realized I needed to trust what my coach was saying, and realized that what I was doing was not working, so I had to trust a whole new process.

I approached the start line and cleared my brain with my quick focus work that I do. It works so well, I can clear everything and just turn it off. I decided instead of running "bat sh*t crazy," that I just slow down a touch and focus harder. What happened was a succesion of hurdles being ran with perfect striding and perfect hurdling.The bets hurdling I've done in years. It made me happy. Every hurdle that came up to me just made sense. I took that extra step, I trusted what was going to happen and although it was slightly harder to do, it worked. It didn't ruin my momentum and each leg hit the hurdle at the appropriate striding. When something like this happens, I can't even tell you how good it feels. It makes the last 3 months of hurdling obsolete. This practice has set the standard and I now know what I need to do next time. It only gets better from here. 

This little act of vulnerability let me know that this is going to be a fantastic season, and I can't wait to get in to competition time.

xXXXx

Melissa

Florida training

It's that lovely time of year where the work load increases. In all manners of the expression: work, training, and of course Christmas "errands." With the hustle and bustle of the daily life, and Christmas being added to this, the anxiety can be over consuming. Saying no to the treats being brought to work is a hard concept to swallow. HA.

The last two months have had a lot of anxiety.  I've switched teams, started working seven days a week, and have brought a lot of new things in to my life. It's not just having one thing, it's having all of them be  cumulative.  With my need for control it makes things a tad bit interesting.

I struggle with anxiety. Okay I said it. I think a little bit differently than your average person. I work constantly at doing my best to control it. Sometimes it slips through.  You need the right people in your life who know how to handle you and this minor issue for it to flow easily.  More work to be done, always of course. 

My point that I was sliding in to.. I am currently in Florida for a training camp with Tyrone's group. I was getting burnt out with the busy schedule I was keeping. I have faith that January will be less stressful, especially coming in to it from this camp.  It's going to be a great trip to learn some new things, and having all the time in the world to do it. 

This camp will encompass great biomechanics, healthy eating, the perfect warm weather for sprint training, and hopefully a safe return from a level 1 calf strain from almost three weeks ago.

The strain put a big hamper in my training, but It's better it happened now and not in March. The last thing I need is to be plagued by another injury. Speaking of which, the achilles have held up tough.. Gerry Ramogida is the best physical therapist! I can't say enough about him and the rest of the Fortius Institute. 

I flew in yesterday, and today was a shake out day with warm up and drills. We are heading into tomorrow with likely some light tempo RAWR.

I'm very happy to be here, and I am slowly unwinding from a very busy December.  This is super good for me.

M out