Bring on the Snow!

     Well for starters, i am still waiting for my new VFFs to get here but they should be delivered tomorrow! I did manage to get a pair injinji socks though and i love them! They were a little awkward to put on at first but then i got used to them. I haven't had a chance to test them out in the snow yet due to the fact i am waiting for my new shoes, but i did wear them to school the other day with the pair i have and they were much warmer!
      I was pretty bummed on friday morning when i got ready to go to my snowboarding class and got an email from the instructor saying the roads were closed and class was cancelled. So what do I do? I head to the gym for a while and hit the weights pretty hard and then run 3 or so miles. Luckily David Dominguez and I were able to head up to Targhee on saturday morning and spent the day there. I am still learning how to board but i feel like i am doing much better. This is a video of me making one of the runs while david records.  Click Here It's not the greatest display of talent but i am enjoying it and that's all that matters!
     Well monday came around and after a decent day at school, i came home and crashed on the couch for  an hour or so. After i woke up, i ate an Access Bar and headed off to the gym to tackle the treadmill :/ You all know how I feel about treadmills... I decided that i was going to try to up my mileage last night and started running; at mile 3 i took a 30 second break to take some sips of iskiate, we'll get to that in a minute. I ended up only doing 4 miles total because people were in line waiting. After i finished up I finished off the rest of my iskiate and i felt great! I was amazed at how fast i recovered from my run. Later  on in the night i went back to the gym and hit another 2.25 miles and then lifted for a while. My feet feel great and i think i can pick my mileage up a little more, this is exciting!
     So as for this stuff called iskiate, it is another thing from the book Born To Run. It is a chia seed drink, yes i mean the same seeds that are used for chia pets! It's amazingly hydrating and really good for you too! It's really simple to makes as well. One 16oz serving: 2 fresh squeezed limes, 2 Tbs chia seeds, a squirt of honey to your liking, and fill the rest with cold water; let it soak in the fridge for at least an hour and drink chilled. One serving has 8 grams of mono and poly unsaturated fats, lots of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, 10 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein. It sounds odd, i know, but it really tastes like limeade!
     So this is where i am at now and i hope to try and hit up a 5 mile run tonight after I finish up my classes for the day. I am also going to try and get more frequent so my posts don't have to be so long.

Through The Cold

Well I haven't been as diligent as I was planning in my writing but here I am again. I am actually sitting in my anatomy class waiting for it to start so i figured i would take a few minutes to update my last few days.

First of all, I had my first actual day of my snowboarding class on friday and it was great. It was only my 3rd time ever on a snowboard, and there was a lot of improvement. By the end of the day i was getting much better at toe carving which was a big step for me.

As for my running, it has been much like snowboarding... cold. Yesterday iwent for my first real run in the cold and it was fantastic, other than my numbing feet. I was able to run just under 3.5 miles around town in 22 degree weather, although it was not fast by any means, it is a step in the right direction. This morning i woke up and before class i decided to go for a run. So once again i put on my Under Armour tops and bottoms, sweats and my Melaleuca running jacket, beanie and gloves and headed off into the 10 degree cloudy weather. Due to my lack of time and still not having Vibram Five Fingers (VFF) built for the cold I only did just over two miles.

As for running in my VFF i am loving it thus far. I am not experiencing any of the running pains that i used to, including: Ilio-tibial band issues, knee pain, lower back and hip pain. Although they were never severe, with the exception of my knees anda 3 week bout with Ilio-tibial band syndrome back in 2006, they still were enough to cause discomfort. My lower back has never felt better and i am happy to say that my knees have not bothered me at all since i started running in them.

As i am training for the Teton Dam Marathon in June, i willneed to do a lot more running through the winter. I have all the appropriate clothes except for VFFs warm enough to run through the snow. In an attempt to remedy this problem I am going to Idaho Falls tonight to try on a pair of VFF Flows with a a pair of Injinji socks. The Flows are made of neoprene and areintended for colder weather running; wether or not they are intended for "Rexburg Cold" is to be determined. Because they are made of neoprene and and slightly insulated they "should" be ideal for running through the snow (if it ever snows this year). I hope to be back to report on the Flows within the next day or two. I will still continue to use my VFF Komodo Sport LS for lifting weights and speed drills at the indoor track.

Snowboarding Friday 1-13-12

Monday 1-16-12

Tuesday 1-17-12

An Idle Mind... and feet

(first of all i am not an english major so be kind and patient with my writing)

Well i think that we have all heard the saying, "An idle mind is the Devil's playground" but i have recently come to realize that this also applies to idle feet. I have just returned from a quick little 3 mile run. I am in the process of once again making running a focal point in my life. I remember back in high school, although classes were hard and the social pressure was at it's height, i always found peace within myself during the late summer and fall. It was not the pleasant change in weather that took my mind off of the stress and pressure, but it was the escape i found while i was running with my closest friends.

I joined cross country my freshman year in high school thinking it was a great way to get in shape for baseball; little did i know it was gettingme ingreat shape for life. I showed up the first week of school hoping that the coaches would let me join the team even though i was not there for "hell week." Mike Brown allowed me to join but jokingly said "I can see this one is going to give us a lot of trouble." I quickly discovered that it took a different kind of person to go out and run long distances and actually... enjoy it. As my legs got stronger and my lung capacity increased I too began to find joy in running. I would join in with the other runners as we ran down the canal talking and even singing at times (you can imagine how good we sounded). I ran through all four years of high school and loved the feeling that the team and running brought me.

After i graduated i slowly lost contact with some friends and began to get ready to serve a 2 year mission for my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the "Mormons" as many of you know us. The service and sacrifices i offered over those two years changed my life in many ways; i found out who i was and where i was going in life and i wanted others to feel the same way. After returning home in October of 2010, i then began preparing for school at Brigham Young University in Idaho. It was during these two months or so of preparation that i realized that one of the friends i had lost contact with was running. I began running a few times a week but never exceeding more than 7 or 8 miles. As school came around I continued running and going to the gym. I felt great and i was in great health, i always had energy to make it another day and all of this reflected in my grades. After that semester I picked up a job answering phones for a company here in town. This took away my day from 10-7 which were the hours i normally liked to run.

One saturday in May i was having a particularly rough day between a rough week at work and relationship issues. It was a nice sunny day, which was rare here Rexburg, so i laced up my shoes and started running. I had my usual 6 mile run that i liked and i set out. When it came to the 3 mile marker i had a choice to either take a right and finish up the 6 miles or i could take a left and keep running, so naturally i went left. After running out to an old mill i decided to turn around and come back. I was feeling great and i didn't have a care in the world except for the pavement under my feet; ironically it was the care i needed to be paying attention to. At mile 12, my knees decided that they didn't like that constant pounding and the pain became more than i wanted to deal with. After walking the last mile and a half with bruised knees i began to wonder if running was for me anymore.

I took it easy of the coming months and even the next semester never running more than a mile or so at a time. In September i ordered a pair of Vibram FiveFinger shoes, hearing that they were good for joints i wanted to give them a try. For those of you who don't know what they are, well they are the funny looking shoes i have on the the following picture.

I soon began running here and there trying to break my feet into their new found freedom. My knees were doing great! I once again let school and work get the best of me and running soon lost its priority in my life.

After a high stress semester and sub-par grades i decided i wanted that feeling i had back in high school and the previous semester. For Christmas i received the book Born To Run by Christopher McDougall, and not being a reader i was thinking to read it slowly over the semester. Well a long story short, i read it in two days and it reminded me why i found such an escape in running. I am once again making running a focus in my life and plan to run the Teton Dam marathon this June here in Rexburg.

This will not only be a record of my running and training but it will also be stories of a college kid trying to work his way through school with all the troubles and great times that it brings.

Here goes nothing...