Injury Prevention, fruit! and Book Review

I clicked on a link today on hungryrunnergirl.com about injury prevention, expecting it to be the usual "stretch, rest, wear the right shoes" business but it was actually extremely in-depth and helpful, to the point that I had to include it in this post! The article is called fittingly "How to Prevent Common Injuries,"and was published by runner's world. There are pages and pages of really well-thought-out and explained exercises to strengthen the most common problem areas. Usually when I hear "most-common," I automatically think unnecessary...it just doesn't strike a chord with me. However, I clicked through these exercises and realized that many of them would strengthen the problem areas that I've been mentioning, many of which have been in serious want of strengthening since I've left my physical therapist. I HIGHLY recommend these exercises to anyone who's starting out or knows they're injury-prone, or even if you just hope to be running for a long time but haven't had problems yet! Here are some examples (there are is a video of all the exercises included too!):

I'll definitely be adding alllllll of the exercises (there are many, many more than the ones I just included above) to my daily routine with arms and abs. I've actually taken the day off from running/arms/abs because I feel totally blah. Mostly a mental fog but also not 100% physically. I've not been sleeping well and I think it's finally catching up with me. Luckily, I think pink pants with pink polka-dots are good at brightening anyone's day:

Sometimes a good healthy snack can really improve my mood too, so I had this plummy and appletastic snack this afternoon: 

A big part of my love of summer is my love of fruit. Yum!

Last night I stayed up very late waiting for Alex to land in the United States from his trip. I read Eat and Run, which I mentioned a few days ago because I just picked it up from the library and was excited to sit down and read it. 

I plowed through this awesome book. Scott Jurek is crazy...but only in the best way. I loved how much he wrote about his childhood and how he got into healthy cooking and eating (he's vegan, for those of you who don't know) over the course of a slow evolution. I loved his story of why and how he became arguably the world's best ultrarunner. He shares many stories about how close he was to his mom, who sadly wasted away before his eyes throughout most of his life due to her fight with multiple sclerosis. His stories about his mom and caring for her made me realize what a sweet, good person Scott is, and how he channeled this sensitivity into his sport. Any stress or sadness, and he would throw it into his running, pounding the pain away at the ground. Reading this book has encouraged me even more to live a more natural life in general, besides running, but also environmentally. It also has encouraged me even more to seek out some real trails to run on. That'll be my mission after I finish the half-marathon on the 16th.

At some point I'll write about the first running book I ever read, which was Born to Run in 2009. I was intrigued with the concept of such natural running, like what the Tarahumara do. Scott writes a lot about them because he's actually run with them! He knows more about them than many people and it's interesting to see how his knowledge has shaped his running and his perspectives on it. 

I love that the book includes his own vegan recipes and many running tips, as well. There's a section called "Easier Not Harder," that I intend to try to apply to my running sometime soon.

(p.52).

I don't personally have any interest in becoming a full-fledged, 0-support, barefoot runner, but for anyone that does, Jurek provides some good insight and advice on the subject after his experience with the Tarahumara. 

p. 149, 152.

For more the rest of his advice, you'll have to read the book! Until then read his blog!