Stretched

Stretching is vital to the success of any runner.

Anyone want to teach me how to do that?

On my seventh 400 of speed work on Thursday, I took a bad turn. Since I usually run in the street, my course is often obstructed by vehicles. It's not really a problem unless they're moving, so it normally works. However, when a a moving car and a parked car show up in the same place, it means I've got to move to the sidewalk.

Again, this is not usually a problem, but on this particular occasion, it happened right before a turn. Now I had to move quickly back to the outside before making a sharp turn inward. In that moment, I felt a small tweak in the muscle. Not a pull or a strain, but a tweak.

It didn't prevent me from finishing my workout, nor has it kept me from running any day since. The main problem is getting out of the seated position. I can do it, but I need to slowly extend my hamstring muscle, which has gotten a little annoying.

So I've tried to really focus on post-workout stretching in the last couple days, and I'm terrible at it. I've never been flexible, but now I can't even get a good stretch on specific muscles. Enter yoga.

Yeah, remember when I was going to do that with my off days? Me neither. I enjoy doing yoga (despite how much I suck at it), and the only way I've had to practice is with the Wii Fit. The problem here is that you have to select each pose. They don't have a "routine" option. Enter Netflix.

My running partner has informed me that there are yoga programs on Netflix, which will finally give me the chance to follow someone's lead without risk of ridicule, which I would deservedly get from a real person. My stretching problem is solved.

Although my leg still hurts.

Sunday's Run:
4.4 Miles