Category: Healthy Running

Running: A Relationship Transforms
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Last week I went for a run after class. It was supposed to be an easy run. All my runs are easy runs currently. You could say they have a presumption of easiness. Easy until proven ready. Last week I was ready.

In the first five minutes, I decided I would run a fartlek. I finished my 10 minute warm up, and quickly googled a fartlek sequence since I’m a bit out of practice. I chose one, standing at the top of the hill by the train tracks. I reset my watch, and for the next 20 minutes, I enjoyed the challenge of speed play by the river. When I was finished, I ran my cooldown back toward the city skyline and felt satisfied – with my efforts and with my decision. At the end of my spontaneous fartlek, I felt, and I still feel, optimistic.

It’s taken a long time for me to reach this place with running. Read more >>

Am I Still A Runner If I Can’t Run?
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Years ago, a man at a bus stop eyed me and said, “You look like a runner.” It was a catcall; just an entry to comment on my body, I knew. Yet, I was secretly proud that my identity as an athlete was obvious to a stranger, however lecherous. 

For nearly two years, however, I haven’t been able to run, and I’ve been forced to wonder if I still deserve the credentials, which triggers a larger identity crisis: if I’m not a runner anymore, who am I? Read more >>

Introducing Spruce!
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Hello runners,

I’m Brianna, known around here as Spruce.  I was introduced to Salty Running when I serendipitously met Laura Parson on an outdoor conservation trip in Utah this spring. The alluring combination of running and writing immediately drew me to the community, and I wanted in. Read more >>

Readers Roundtable: Clumsiest Non-Running Way You’ve Sidelined Yourself?
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My reputation as clumsy is legendary in my family. There are fridge door handles that my parents stopped replacing because I’d tripped and tore the handle off the door so many times (grasping the handle in a futile attempt to keep myself from falling). My sister loves to recall the work day where she heard me fall down an entire flight of cement stairs, coffee in hand, when my stiletto heel got caught in the cuff of my pants.  I don’t just fall down stairs, I fall up stairs, and not gracefully. Ballet, ice skating lessons… nothing my parents put me in as a child helped. Read more >>

Cross Training With a Running Injury
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a bicycle wheelInjury got you down? Maybe it’s tendonitis, a sprain, a stress fracture or one of the Million Different Ways Your Knee Can Turn Into a Knob of Hot Fire-y Pain … whatever is ailing you, every injury sucks. The PT has prescribed time off. You’re completely justified in using that time to just not run, if you’re into that, but, like … who’s into that?

A serious study of anecdotal evidence (sponsored by the SaltyValu corp) shows that almost no runner wants to take time off, which we have unscientifically extrapolated to mean that you’ll probably be cross training if you’re injured, and that you might be cross training even if you’re not injured. Believe it or not there are many ways to exercise without running and some of them are actually fun!

Exhibit A:

A woman in a sport bra smiles while handling tiny dumbells
Tiny pink dumbells in your underwear is like the MOST FUN, amirite gal pals?? Let’s go have a powderpuff pillowfight next!

Okay but really, I don’t mean it’s fun to cross train in that stock photo, depressingly persistent and overwhelmingly male-driven ideas about women and athleticism kind of way, I mean it can actually be fun.

Please note that depending on your specific injury you may or may not be able to safely do all of these activities, so I recommend checking with your doctor or physical therapist and paying attention to how your body feels!

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5 Pilates Moves for Runners – With Bonus Video!
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Want to skip to the video? Click right here, baby.

I first took Pilates in college—for credit, because I was at a bougie Northeastern school—and I loved it. It spoke to my dancer spirit, and I loved the specificity of the practice, connecting breath with movement and being precise and intentional about every action.

I came back to practicing about the same time that I started running, when I joined a gym that offered mat classes. But after some life upheaval I stopped going and just ran more. Ultimately this resulted in stress fractures in both shins and a strained hamstring. Lesson learned! Once my injuries healed I joined a new gym, in part, because it also offered Pilates mat classes. I loved the classes and the gym so much that I decided to get certified to teach about three years ago.

Pilates can do wonders for runners. Its focus is on the entire powerhouse, not just your abdominals, but all the supporting core musculature including your hips and lower back. It can shore up your body to ward off a ton of common running injuries.

I recognize Pilates can be cost-prohibitive and intimidating, but I promise it’s not all graceful women hanging upside-down on what looks like a torture apparatus, and a lot of the exercises are simple things you can do at home. Starting right now!

Here are five of my favorite Pilates exercises for runners.

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Parsley and Her Stages of Injury Grief
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Squint to see me, but that’s my favorite form of alternate summer training- ocean paddle boarding!

Because not running is losing something dear to me.

Relief. When I was finally diagnosed with hamstring tendinopathy, it was almost a relief. I knew something has been wrong for awhile. It seems I’ve spent the past year or so trying to justify my disappointing race results, wanting to figure out why I wasn’t running faster. I wasn’t looking to make excuses, rather analyzing my performances to see what I could improve to do better in the future. And many times things just didn’t add up. It was reassuring to know that something was actually physically holding me back; it wasn’t just me underperforming, getting old, getting weak mentally; my body wasn’t functioning properly to run fast. Now with a proper diagnosis I can fix the issue and get back on the fast track.

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Diary of an Injured Chili, Chapter 2: Aqua jogging and Violent Fantasies.
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I recently listened to a podcast that discussed statistics of people who have violent fantasies. According to several studies, a whopping number of women and men interviewed admit to having at least one violent fantasy in their lives, if not many more.

But not to worry, we aren’t all a bunch of psychopaths. There is often a “well-intended” catalyst for such fantasies; for example, self-preservation, a reaction to injustice or protection of others. The podcast went on to explain how one can “direct” these impulses into more acceptable forms of behavior, a defense mechanism that Freud labeled sublimation.

In layperson speak, sublimation is the transformation of an unwelcome impulse into an unharmful or even a beneficial outcome. Freud called it “a mature type of defense mechanism”—he actually believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity!

And now for my point: competition is a marvelous means of sublimating for a runner with lots of explosive energy and a drive for crushing her opposition. In fact, competitive sports are a prime example of healthy sublimation. But when a runner is on a forced break from running, the competitive outlet, is eliminated.

So, then, what is one to do? Read more >>

Diary of an Injured Chili, Chapter One: AFOG
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Chili after the Shotgun Trail Race, feeling studly

Running has been my life for the past 7 years. I rediscovered it on a beach in Jamaica, and when that happened, I rediscovered myself.

Then my husband roped me into Salsa lessons. At the first sign of foot distress, I blamed the dancing. For a couple of months I suspected it was the salsa shoes and opted for “dance sneakers” to help ease the force placed on the ball of my foot. But before I could even try these beauties out, the damage had already been done. Sure, I enjoyed the Salsa, but it wasn’t worth the cost of my passion.

We all have an injury story. I’ve had my fair share, but never to the extent of what I have now: a diagnosed partial tear of the Flexor Hallucis Longus, a new part of my anatomical vocabulary, and literally one of those muscles you never even knew you had.

Guess what? I’m special. Tearing the FHL is such a rare condition that nobody really knows how to treat it. Doctors are forced to look up case studies and, at best, provide a prescription for the most conservative treatment out there: Boot and Scooter, or what I now coin as “BS” for short.

My good pal Joe labels this sort of thing A.F.O.G.: Another Fucking Opportunity for Growth.

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Step by Step: The Runner’s Guide to Postpartum Recovery
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We runners are an impatient bunch. After a year or so of downshifting our running due to pregnancy and childbirth, we’re raring to find that running identity again. But physical changes mean physical challenges. Runners who’ve ever been pregnant often joke about peeing our pants – just a little! – on the run. Is it sweat on those gray shorts, or is it pee? Tee hee. And we laugh at the outdated medical advice that women shouldn’t run because their uterus might fall out, but pelvic organ prolapse is a real phenomenon (read Poppy’s guide to pelvic floor 101!)

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Coping with Injury…Again
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Welp, the dreaded plantar fasciitis has come back to bite me in the heel. It’s the other heel this time, for some reason. I’ve fought this monster before and emerged victorious, but it took a long time. This time around, I’ve started fighting it more quickly and more seriously, rather than trying to run through the pain before giving up and starting treatment weeks or months later. Hopefully this will let me get back to running as quickly as possible. In the meantime, since this is not my first rodeo (to switch fighting-animals-metaphors midstream there), I’ve got some coping techniques at my disposal. Not gonna lie, I am seriously unhappy and dealing with injured-runner-rage over the return of this injury. But the advantage of having to fight again is that I know what to do. Read more >>

An Ounce of Prevention: Essential Exercises for Strength and Flexibility
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This one weird exercise could cure all your running ills! 

As a physical therapist, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. There are a few exercises that every runner could do that could very well keep you from ever having to see me. Not that I don’t want to see you, I’m sure you are awesome. But, needless to say, there are some areas we all neglect in our strength training routine. These weaknesses may not manifest themselves on shorter runs, but more often than not, longer mileage and more time on our feet will exacerbate all of our little flaws! I’ve compiled a list of exercises (strengthening and stretching) that I feel can benefit most runners in some way!

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Rewriting My Running Story
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I started running because it felt good and offered relief from a stressful home environment. I mean, it wasn’t that bad, but in my family, something was always wrong. And after a run, it always seemed like everything was eventually going to be okay.

Over time, it got addictive. If I couldn’t control my home life, running was one thing I could control. Food had entered the equation, too, so there were two things. I started competing in high school track and cross country in 11th grade. Competition was fun, especially as I slowly improved on my meager 84-second 400 meter PR. But as the desire to control continued to escalate, my happiness decreased. I just couldn’t see it yet.

Underneath the carefully calculated miles and calories logged lay the belief that I wasn’t ever good enough. Read more >>

Bleeding While Running: What Are My Options for Period Products?
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Salty Running is here for you for all of your most intimate questions on running, especially if it pertains to bodily fluids (or solids — some of our most popular posts!).

Today I’m talking about blood. We Saltines have a collective 5 million runs on the rag, so here are some of the most common period products we’ve tried and how they worked for running. Read more >>

You Got A Running Stride Analysis. Now What?
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So you went to the physio and had your running stride analyzed. Maybe they filmed you on a treadmill? Or they hooked you up to a few sensors and watched you run down a track? Now that you have been videotaped, photographed, and are probably super self-conscious about your running form, it is time we tell you what to do about it all!

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