Its always darkest before the dawn

Hello all ITA blog followers,
The only thing that seems to be going right for me since ive been in california is the weather! During my first workout out here in Santa Barbara we got the phone call that confirmed my entrance into the Mens mile at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix Formerly known as the Boston Indoor Games on Feb 5th. I was very excited to race in this meet again. I say again because many years ago I raced the High school mile there. I did alright but I knew I could have done a lot better. After that race I made it one of my goals to get back to this meet and run the Men's Professional Mile and win. About 6 or so years later I got the call that I was in the Mens Mile. After receiving the confirmation that I was in I continued  my workout. I noticed that my left Achilles was tight but put it out of my mind and finished the work out. I finished the workout and was walking around and I realized I couldn't walk without limping. I tried shaking it off and I threw my trainers on and went out to cool down with Ben and Toni. I lasted about five minutes before I had to turn around and head back to the track. At this point I still wasn't to concerned as I thought it was merely tightness from wearing a new pair of spikes. As the day went on I couldn't get my Achilles to loosen up so I took some advil and put it on ice in hopes that it would go away by the next day. I woke up and stepped out of bed and knew I was going to be in for a long painful run that morning. I piled into the van with the team and we headed out to the trails to go run. I stepped out of the van and Ben immediately asked me if I was okay an I then turned to coach and told him I couldn't run an that I could barely walk. So I took that day off (Wed 19th) off and for the rest of the week I was in the pool treading water. I went to see a Physical Therapist in Santa Barbara and things were going well and my Achilles was feeling better each day. Things then took a turn for the worst last Saturday(22nd) in the pool. When your in great shape it is fairly hard to get your heart rate up in the pool! you just cant get your legs to move fast enough in the water to really get your heart pumping. So I tried different types of interval work and I tried moving my arms faster and then I did something I knew I shouldn't have done. I over extended my stride and tried reaching down fully extending my leg. When your in the pool your feet are not hitting the floor so it is possible to over extend and reach to far down. Well I did that for an interval and I payed for it! I strained my hip flexor! Its funny you dont realize how much you use and rely on certain muscles in till you hurt them. Go figure while trying to rehab one injury I get another. By this past Thursday (22nd) I had run on the roads for a couple of days and my Achilles was feeling great but unfortunately my hip flexor was not. It got the the point were it was painful to walk the house after running.So me and coach sat down and on Thursday we decided it was best to withdraw from the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Feb 5th and focus on getting back to full strength. It was a very hard decision to take. I had my heart set on this meet! But I knew my legs were not ready to do what would have been necessary to be a contender in the race.

The following day Toni, Coach and I  flew to Seattle to attend the UW Invitational in hopes that my leg would feel better by Saturdays race. Unfortunately It did not feel better and I was left with the decision to race and risk prolonging my injury or scratch and rest my legs in hopes of being able to workout early this week. After talking with coach we decided to withdraw from the race and rest up even though we both wanted me to run. So in my uniform and spikes on, I walked over to the officials and scratched my name from the race, Mind you this all happened minutes before the race started. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I was there in uniform with spikes on ready to go and even thought as I walked to the line, to just get on the starting line and run despite the pain. But I stuck with my decision to withdraw in hopes that In two weeks when I am back in Seattle I will be at 100% and ready to roll. Things are starting to look up as the pain is starting to localize so it is healing and the inflammation is going down.

Sorry for the lengthy blog


Gags

Six Hundred for Sixty Dolla

Hello everyone,

I believe my last blog was around Christmas time back in the mitten. Since then I got myself back to New Hampshire, Relocated to Santa Barbara, flew to Michigan for a weekend for the retirement party of Ron Warhurst – my coach at Michigan and the man who told me to come run for Timmy Broe, and have since returned to Santa Barbara. It has been a busy last few weeks!

We are all also very anxiously awaiting the beginning to our work with the Boys and Girls Club out here. We met with 4 Branch Directors and they were very excited to get things going. Just waiting for some paperwork to go through and clear and we’ll be ready to get started!

The most exciting thing for me so far has developed in the past few days – because I’ve started to jog a bit on the track!! I had come back from surgery on my left heel very quickly with the help of an alter-g treadmill and was feeling great a couple weeks ago, progressed to running outside a few times and started having some pain near the incision. The pain forced me to back off for a while and Tim and I decided that I’d wait until we got to California to get back to running where there is no ice and nice outdoor tracks to run on. Today I alternated 2 minutes jogging, 30 seconds walking, for 20 minutes. It’s not an 18 mile long run or 20 quarters on the track, but it’s a step in the right direction!

I didn’t get a chance to read David’s entire blog, but saw the picture he posted of the pool. I’ve been hopping in there and getting in some good aerobic work. I swam a mile today and aqua-ran for 30 minutes. It’s much easier to stay motivated when you can look forward to going to an outdoor pool with things to look at, instead of the walls of the Dartmouth pool.

The setup we have out here on the left coast is incredible, to say the least. We are on the ocean with blue skies every day, and have everything we need within a short drive up the beautiful 101 to the North in Santa Barbara and South in Ventura. To visualize how close our house is to the ocean, I purchased a 6-iron from Play-it-Again Sports and hit golf balls into the ocean from our back patio. I thought it would get expensive pretty fast until we took an unintended detour the other day on our way to get some coffee after a morning pool workout. We missed our exit, got off at the next one, and as we were back tracking I saw a huge banner on the side of a car that said “GOLF BALLS ->>.” I made Toni turn around and follow the signs to a warehouse. We walked in the door and I have never seen so many golf balls anywhere in my life. A Hispanic man came out of the back and was telling me about all of the deals they had in the baskets up front. “$20 per dozen here.” “$6 per dozen here.”  All the while I’m thinking, there is no way I’m spending that much money on something I’m intentionally going to lose. So I told him what I was using them for; that I was hitting them straight into the ocean and everything he had was way too expensive. He immediately says “follow me,” leads me to the back where he is keeping boxes stacked upon boxes upon boxes of golf balls. I would not be surprised if there were a million golf balls in this place. He points to a box and says “I give you six-hundred for sixty dollar.” I look in my wallet pull out a Hamilton, and ask for one hundred golf balls. He scoops out a range bucket full and asks if I want to bet $10 that there are exactly 100 balls in the bucket. I would normally take this bet with anyone, but I felt like he’d done this before. I respectfully declined the bet but asked that he prove it. He takes me to a wooden box, pours the bucket in, and the balls fall out into ten perfect rows of ten golf balls each. It was incredible. He boxed them up, tossed in 5-6 extra, and we were on our way to the coffee shop. Best purchase I’ve made in a long time, should keep me occupied for a week or so!

Stay Classy Santa Barbara, 

Lex

Good Morning,

Unfortunately, this has been my view of sunny California. 

My achilles injury is taking a bit longer than expected to get back to 100%. Therefore biking and pool workouts have been on my agenda. I do not mind cycling, I enjoy it to be completely honest. However, my swimming skills are rather pathetic and I am fairly confident I would rather sit and watch grass grow than nearly drown myself working out in the pool. It however has motivated me to get healthy and accomplish all the little things that I need to get better and stay that way. It really has been a frustrating journey to get my achilles back to 100%. Thankfully, I am learning plenty of valuable lessons and some preventative maintenance throughout the process. 

On a positive note the weather forecast predicts sunny and 70 degrees for the next week. We have miles and miles of new roads, trails, and sidewalks that we will be using for training. Next weekend will start the indoor season for some ITA athletes. We will also start our first week working with the Boys and Girls Club of Ventura Co. Its an exciting time in the ITA community!!!!!!

This evening after picking up Lex from the airport and stopping at the grocery store we had an unexpected surprise on the ride home. It consisted of some fun 80's music and one heck of a sunset!!!!!

David

Life's Tough, Eh?

Wowzahs, what a difference a day makes.  Saturday morning I awoke to a bitter -8 degrees Fahrenheit, bundled up with every article of clothing I owned and lumbered out the door for my last “winter” long run of the year.  The next day, after I had finally thawed out, I boarded a plane and flew with my fellow ITAers to sunny Santa Barbara and ran along the beach shirtless.  Oh what a difference a day makes.

So here we are, chilling and thrilling out on the California coast.  The days have been hot, sunny, and full of ocean views.  Today we cruised up to the U.C. Santa Barbara campus for a workout before firing up the grill for burgers.  Relaxing out on the deck, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Channel Islands, one could see that these next few weeks are going to be, well... awesome.  And now don’t get confused, this ain’t no holiday vacation for us.  We’ve been busy lathering on layers of SPF (and aloe when we forget) and the twenty foot walk to the beach is quite labor intensive.  Not only that, but we have been running a few times a day, eating fresh succulent fruits from the local farmer’s market and are lulled into glorious naps by the crashing of waves.  Brutal, huh?

Lex and Dave hard at work

But all kidding aside... we have a lot of miles to run and workouts to complete before we are raring and ready to go for U.S. Cross-Country Nationals, the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, and U.S. Indoor Nationals.  And while we are making sure to get adequate rest and recovery, we are also bringing our community-minded spirit west with us, and are meeting with the the Boys and Girls Club of Ventura tomorrow to begin reaching out and setting up volunteer work within the surrounding communities.  Our time west is not in vain, and we all are eager to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Until next time, the Trueth abides

Ben

Ring out the old, ring in the new

Instead of spending the first minutes of the new year racing through Central Park at the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run, I rang in the new year in stereotypical fashion: with a plastic flute filled with cheap champagne in one hand and a blow horn in the other. 2011 may not have started as anticipated but I am determined to finish it according to plan.

I knew my plans were muddled when I began to experience pain in my shin the week before Christmas. Initially I wasn’t too concerned since I often experience a dull ache in my shin around this time of year – which I attribute to increased running on pavement and workouts on the indoor track. However, unlike years past the pain continued to increase until I realized it just didn’t make sense to try to run through it anymore. After a solid week off from all activity, I commenced running again, almost pain-free. Three weeks of interrupted training later I think I am finally ready to resume working out. (And just in time for the boatload of snow that was dumped on Hanover and the rest of the northeast today.)

From a glass-half-full perspective this has been the first hiccup that I have experienced since joining In the Arena. During that time I have ramped up the quality and quantity of training considerably compared to what I used to do, and this has given me a lot of confidence that I can handle this type of work.

Of course, it is all the more frustrating when you are unable to do the one thing that you focus on day in and day out. While I am fortunate enough to have access to top-notch massage therapists, doctors and podiatrists, I still do not have a definitive answer as to the cause of my injury. With some orthotics on the way and a hip strengthening routine I’m hoping to prevent its reoccurrence.

Less than a month remains until the US Cross Country Championships and I am raring to go; and looking forward to putting my shin problems behind me. We depart for sunny Santa Barbara in less than four days, and with any luck the change in scenery and warm weather will be just what I need to get back on track.

Cheers to a new year and another chance to get it right.

No Sound on Video!

I apologize everyone for the lack of sound on the video youtube flaged it for copyright reasons. In stead of just removing the songs in question they remove all of the audio. David is working out on the bike right now but when he gets back we will be working on getting audio for the parts of the video were we talk

Brian

Dust in the wind...

Sorry for the late post but David and I were working on making a video of my race yesterday for the blog. And when I say David and I, I mean David did all the work I just raced and picked some songs for the video. I hope you all enjoy watching the video as much as we enjoyed making it!

And on a side note in the video when Becka And David make their prediction they're referencing Video games. I just wanted to point that out to our older readers who may not be familiar with the words Halo or Call of duty.


Also give the video a minute or two to load for a crisp HD viewing

-Brian

Holidays in the Mitten

Hello Everyone, 

Since my last blog I have spent most of my time back in Michigan with friends and family. The holidays were eventful and busy. Training was going great until I ran a harvard hill workout in Ann Arbor. The next few days after the workout my achilles decided to feel like someone hit it with a baseball bat repeatedly. I took a few days off and getting my achilles back to 100% has been number one on my priority list. 

As some may know I very much enjoy I Movie. While I was home I decided to see if I could produce an oscar winning film that recapped the highlights of my holiday season. Below is the award winning film for your enjoyment.  

The video is also on our new youtube page!!  Hope everyone enjoyed the short film!!

Live long and prosper, 

David