Search Results for: runners strip

Runner Time: The difference a single day makes

Posted on by — 12 Comments ↓

Yesterday I ran the hardest, fastest I ever have before. …today I crawled my way through four miles that PER mile were 3 minutes slower than yesterday’s and they felt 300 times harder. Only yesterday I was still recovering from stress fractures. …today I RAN the sweetest 6 minutes of my life. At this time yesterday I was horribly lost, should have been done with my long run three miles ago and not sure if I was going to be able to make it home. …today I’ve ran my longest run to date; it’s the one I’m most proud of because I DIDN’T ever stop running until I was home. Twenty-four hours ago I jogged 20 minutes, did 6 strides, and stretched like a fiend. ..Right now I’m standing at the starting line, poised and ready, nervous because I don’t KNOW what lies ahead but I sure hope it’s a PR. Oh, and a win would be nice too. 😉 It’s incredible how much a day makes in ‘runner time’. The bitter-sweet rewards of a hard workout are the tomorrows where you’re walking like a geriatric. Tear the muscles down to rebuild them stronger… …the tomorrow’s after the tomorrow’s after the tomorrow’s are then the fully sweet rewards of that work. Time will always march forward. Hold this truth close to your runner heart in times of injury. Cling to it in the moments after horrible races. Stay steadfast to the runner course…tomorrow will ALWAYS come. Sure, it may be sore or slow, but it could also be fast and euphoric. Either way, there will be another tomorrow for you to try again. Yesterday I was a runner. Today I still am. Tomorrow I will be too. ——- The site’s had an overhaul, so peruse the pages and check out Continue Reading →

About

I run. I write. I art. ​ Sums it up pretty well. I also love to laugh, all about the laughter. Laugh when it’s funny, laugh when it hurts, laugh when it’s hard, laugh to get through it. I like to make jokes about the fact that I’ve got a kankle. Runners don’t HAVE kankles you say? Well, I’ll get to that in a minute. I developed my passion for running around high school, worked my runner butt off to get to the 2004 World Junior Track Championships and set the then US High School 5k record. I then had the extreme privilege to run for a living as a Professional Nike Runner. A runner’s dream, right? Lucky Miss Cait. ​ The kankle comes in when I was out running in 2010 and struck by a hit and run driver. When I looked down and saw that my right leg was almost fully detached below the knee my first thought wasn’t, “Well, I’m glad I’m alive!” it was, “Oh my gosh, will I ever run again?” ​ The doctors told me that I would probably never walk normally again, and that running would be virtually impossible. I wouldn’t accept that answer and channeled all of that runner determination to get back to the sport of my passion. I know the only reason that I survived was BECAUSE I was a runner, if not I’m pretty sure I would have curled into the fetal position and never moved. Runner’s are tough. It took what felt like an eternity but I am officially a runner again. Well, a runner with a right kankle, a lasting reminder of the accident and also a reminder to be thankful for EACH and EVERY mile I am able to run…regardless of pace. ​ Training under and Continue Reading →

A Peek Into My Runner Mind: We’re all mad, our thoughts should be too

Posted on by — 32 Comments ↓

All of us runners are a bit mad, that’s established. That’s okay with me…I’ll share the madness that ran through my mind while my feet were doing what they do this morning. Right outside my house a pair of running shoes are dangled from a telephone wire. I’ve never understood how a pair of shoes winds up there. It seems to always happen at night, so do people come back from a party, rip off their shoes because their feet are hot, lace them together and chuck them up there? Obviously they couldn’t be runners, because they would have had more respect for their shoes. Game of sixes. I play this little game of luck in my head; on one of my usual routes I pass through six cross-streets that tend to be busy but don’t have an actual stop light or stop sign thing. I get a little anxious approaching because I DO NOT want to have to stop for any cars; the more times I can make it through each cross-street the ‘luckier’ I am that day. Forget fortune cookies, this is tons better. The thankless job is that runners ARE thankful for. I passed the poor sap who’s job it is to unload those port-a-potties. I caught I nice whiff; I did a little mental ‘thank you’ to him…I’m sure he got it. Your blinker was on IDIOT!! In one of those cross-streets this car had their right turn blinker on…so obviously I assumed they were turning and I wouldn’t be impeding their way. Guess not, horn blared, but I didn’t feel bad…c’mon, your blinker was on. Retro-wear. Finishing my run there is a guy rocking an old-school sweat band; white with a blue strip. Good old terry-cloth headband. Do people legit wear those anymore, I mean Continue Reading →

Runner-Speak: A runner’s unsaid language defined

Posted on by — 21 Comments ↓

Runners, we really have our own language. True there are the actual words: fartlek, tempo, IT band, nip-guards, chaffage, etc. that we toss around. But there is the running BODY language that sometimes emotes much more than anything that could possibly be vocalized. Enter Runner-Speak… I hope you enjoy my little Sunday Runner Cartoon. Get some giggles, then go make sure your Garmin is charged and able to pick up a signal. 😉 —— If you want some more cartoonage you can see some of my other Runner’s Strip cartoons HERE, HERE, and HERE!! 🙂 —— 1) Any of those Runner-Speak pictures look familiar? Which one was the last you expressed? 2) What’s another Runner-Speak body tell that’s not pictured? 3) What are you doing with your fine runner self this Sunday? Runs, races, workouts, let’s hear it! 🙂    

Adrenaline and Endorphins Are My Drugs

Posted on by — 26 Comments ↓

The act of running floods the brain and body with endorphins, the rush of these feel-good hormones isn’t all that different from a drug-induced high. Those drugs being the ones you get on the streets; there are other kinds of ‘drugs’ that in the sport of running don’t call to mind images of strung-out addicts on the street shooting up. These drugs bring to mind images of runners floating on air, setting records, bulging muscles, endurance that seems inhuman and then being able to kick like a monster. It seems inhuman because it is, there are drugs involved. I’d call them steroids but at this point the science in that area is so advanced who knows what in the heck it really is, the bottom line is they are performance enhancing drugs. It’s been quite the year for drug busts; I know I’m a little late in Facebooking, Twittering or posting about the recent article in which running Christian Hesch admits to using drugs and explaining what it felt like. I’ll be honest, I hesitated because I wasn’t really sure if it was worth posting about; I like to keep things positive here or on the up and up but the truth is drugs are ever-present in our sport. It’s sad, it’s not only limited to the top of the top (Hesch proves that, he was in that floater, limbo area), and it’s naive to think everyone is clean. BUT it’s fact, and I also know there are many athletes who ARE totally clean. While it is disgusting to have to line up next to someone you know is dirty, in the end you CAN’T control what others are ever going to do. You can only control your own actions, your own training and what it comes down to is Continue Reading →

Running Invades Facebook: You Just Crushed a 5.6 mi Run

Posted on by — 12 Comments ↓

“Randy just crushed a 5.6 mi run using Nike Plus.” If social media is taking over the world, then those workout updates are the Starbucks of this new world. Every time I pull up Facebook or Twitter I feel lazy for not running or sweating at that moment, regardless of how many miles I ran earlier in the day. Am I alone in feeling like this? I’m kidding, I think it’s cool to see/read what my friends are up to running wise and I’m guilty as the next for ‘cheering them on’ on their runs. Plus, let’s face it I’m a big Nike fan anyways…so, yea. However, I DO think it’s high time they expand on the steadfast ‘crushed this run’, ‘just started a run’, etc. dialogue boxes and tired old icons. I’ve got a few suggestions… So here’s to your training logs going viral…like me on Facebook or Twitter and I’ll certainly cheer you on when you’re crushing that next run of your’s. 😉 ———- If you like comics you can see more of the Runner’s Strip series HERE! ———- 1) Do you have Nike Plus or any similar type of workout app that connects to your FB, Twitter, etc. account? Actually, in a nice twist of irony I don’t…and I’m even so old school I actually pen and paper my training log! 2) Do you like reading your friends’ updates when they’re on a run or after they completed one? 3) If you had a new dialogue blurb and matching icon for your last run, what would it be?

Running Humor Round-up: Laugh it up and then get your miles on this weekend!

Posted on by — 17 Comments ↓

Sometimes us runners just need to laugh. 🙂 Happy Friday my runner peeps, I thought we should usher in the weekend on a light note. May you smile, giggle, and keep running to your happy place over the weekend! ———- I thought it fitting to put up a few of my more comical pictures because the awesome runners over at Run the Edge seemed to like one of my Runner’s Strip cartoons enough they posted it on their wall. In case you missed that, go see it and also check out all the other awesome things Tim Catalano and Adam Goucher have going on over there! 🙂 ———- 1) What’s something that’s made you smile or laugh recently? 2) Do you have any running related humorous happenings you’d like to share? Did you smirk at someone running in jeans today?? 😉 3) What have you got planned for the weekend? 4) When you go into full hungry-miles-induced-beast mode what is your top pick for filling that stomach black hole?

A Backwards Plot to Running: Would knowing the outcome sway your decision to start?

Posted on by — 16 Comments ↓

8:34:23 – She crosses the line, looks up at the clock. Slightly bends forward, hands on knees for just a moment before rising and looking up again, this time to the woman who beat her, then back at the track again. 8:00:02 – Crack. The starter gun goes off. 7:23:46 – She starts off on her warm-up, sweats on. Over the course of the next 45 minutes she’ll slowly strip off the layers until she’s down to just her singlet and racing shoes. 5 Days Earlier – Last tune-up workout. She finishes feeling sharp, confident, shares a laugh with her training partner as they cross through the line on the last interval just as the sunset dips below the stands of the local track. “That’ll do,” yells the coach from the sidelines…the laugh comes because she just muttered under her breath to her teammates, “That’ll do, Pig.” They all got the reference. 17 Day Earlier – It’s colder than usual, her skin pricks a bit as they all start out on their long run. Some of her training buddies, best friends, are wearing long sleeves but she’s only in a tank top…she knows she warms up fast and hates being overly hot. 45 Days Earlier – The rain is coming down hard, it burns her face as she makes a turn straight into the line of fire and she swears there has to be a little hail mixed in there. Blinking like crazy she laughs and thinks, “Only 10 more miles to go!” 53 Days Earlier – Just before shutting out the light she closes her eyes and thinks of a day in the future, not so far away, but one she’s had in the back of her mind for weeks, months, maybe years. She thinks of a time, the Continue Reading →

Test Your Running Knowledge: Important Facts That Make a Big Difference

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

“Listen up, I’m about to drop some knowledge on you.”I thought it would be fun to issue a little running test…time to school up, strip down to your skimpiest running shorts, and prove to the class just how smart you are true or false style. 🙂 1) Warming up will only zap my energy for the race; better to save every ounce of energy for the race, if I need to I can use the heater in my car to stay warm. False. This is a big-time false but I always tend to forget that newer runners think that running before the gun goes off is insane…oh, us newbie runners, so cute…hehe. Just like you shouldn’t peel out in your car, your body runs its best gradually working into the faster paces. It’s surprising how much of a difference a warm-up will make on your performance actually; think about it, if you’re racing a 5k and you skip a warm-up, you’ll really only be running a 2.5k race as the first part would be your body basically trying to catch-on to the fact that you’re racing. It’s tough to make up that much ground with only a half-race distance left. You can check out some tips to perfecting your own warm-up routine HERE. 2) Treadmill running is the same as outdoor running, just sometimes it can be more boring. False. Now, there are definitely ways to adjust those treadmill runs to best simulate conditions outside but there are still some differences between the two. Some of the big ones are: on a treadmill you don’t use your hamstrings like you typically would outside because of the way the belt drags and because the treadmill offers up an even, consistent motion your body doesn’t have to worry about turns, miss-steps and Continue Reading →

The Running Tax: What would Uncle SaMiles as you as payment of your annual running?

Posted on by — 6 Comments ↓

So for all of us in the US of A, April brings taxes and it got me wondering what if there were a similar sort of taxing system that was applied to our running and working out. Would you have to rack up a yearly total of our miles? A tally of the minutes, hours, eternities spent sweating…then pay back some kind of dividend? * Total yearly miles: Calculate just how many of those 1,609 meter’ers you busted out and you will be asked to pay back 15% on top of a set base rate of 100 miles. * Races: Races act as deductions; the total number of races you ran for the year when multiplied by 10 will be the percentage deducted. For every new PR you set that will act as a 20% deduction off of total owed. * Are you married: For people who are married (this runnerchick will INCLUDE everyone here, same sex couples are counted.) you will be even a credit if some of those miles were in fact run together. The total number of shared miles will be deducted from what you owe. * Any kids: If you’ve got kids and they are active in a sport, for every sport your child or children are in will also be accredited as a deduction in the value of a percent. Example- a child who participates in three sports will be a 3% deduction. * Community service and donations: Got dead running shoes? If you’ve donated them to a worthy charity or cause, done a re-use a shoe recycling program, or even bought shoes for a running program you will be offered a deduction. * Cross-training and other workouts: We all get injured and for those times cross-training is in order you will instead calculate time Continue Reading →