Week 7 - 8 Miles in the Rain

On we go.  8 miles down, 5.1 remaining...

A beautiful (for running) evening - cloudy, a little rain, not too hot.  Jan picked a good route - even if it did include going up Tienken from the PCT to Livernois.  Completed in 99 minutes - a good pace.

Some folks travelling, some busy, some new (welcome Chelise Sylva - we think you will fit in well!).  Danielle sprained her ankle after 3 miles and had to walk back to the car - hopefully no damage done.  Amy ran like the wind, along with Rick - couldn't hold the two of them back!  Coincidentally neither had their significant others present - hmmm?!

Probably a few sore folks today - sort of to be expected.  If you get soreness, ice down the joints. Here is an article on this issue:


One of the biggest mistakes that you can make is to ignore aches and pains when they are minor. Your body is very good at telling you things; the trick is learning how to distinguish between minor tears that are getting repaired and major tears that could lead to an injury. The easiest thing to remember is to ice early and ice often. When you finish a workout, your muscles have been torn. This signals your body to repair the muscles, and if the tear is bad enough and you have properly fueled yourself it will repair the muscle in such a way that the same workout will not cause as much damage. This is how we get better at any physical activity.

When you do too much too fast, or you twist something in a way that your body doesn’t want it to twist, you risk pulling a muscle or bruising a bone or causing a fracture. There are countless ways that you can hurt yourself. As you get more experienced in working out and you begin running more miles and doing more speed workouts, you have to be mindful of how you feel. In general, you should be able to tell the difference between being sore because of a good workout and being in pain because you have injured yourself. Any time that you are not sure, then ice the sore spots after your workouts.


There are different ways to ice your muscles.. In general, you want to apply the ice to the sore spot directly after your cool down and stretching. When you are done icing, you will generally want to wait for 20 minutes and then ice again.


Icing your sore muscles will not heal an injury, but it could help to prevent one. When in doubt, apply a little ice. If you are just a little sore, then one round is probably enough. If it gets worse from workout to workout, then you should ice more and even consider taking an extra rest day or two. Icing your muscles can help you keep yourself on your training schedule, but pushing your schedule back a day or three now and again may help prevent you from pushing your schedule back a month or three.



Whenever your muscles are feeling a bit sore or overworked, you should “Ice Early, Ice Often.” The first and easiest way to do that is to just grab a bag of ice and slap it on your sore spots. Leave the bag of ice on your leg or joint for 20 minutes, and then take it off for 20 minutes. Put a new bag of ice back on for another 20 minutes if necessary.

In general, you do not want to ice for more than 20 minutes at a time. When using the bag of ice method, you generally do not want to use full ice cubes, since there will not be a lot of surface area for you to use in the ice bag. Crush the ice into smaller pieces first, or else use the old bag of peas method. Take an old bag of frozen peas, and slap them onto your body where you are sore in lieu of ice. They will need to be refrozen after each use, and I recommend labelling the peas so that you do not accidently eat them later. Frozen peas that have been thawed a few dozen times really do not taste very good. The size of the peas is perfect for conforming the bag of ice around your muscle, and they do not require any work other than pulling them right out of the freezer.


The nice thing about using a bag of ice is that you do not need to do anything other than position the bag and then wait. There is no thought needed, there is no effort needed, and you can easily multitask. If you are using a plastic bag, then you generally do not need to worry about frostbite. If it is too cold for you, you can just place a paper towel under the bag to get most of the cold but not all of it concentrated on your skin.



Topics that should have been covered but weren't (I picked the wrong week card!)


Cross Training

• Uses other muscles and creates balance
• Helps to prevent injury
• Keeps training interesting
• Examples:
• Bike
• Swim
• Rowing
• Elliptical Trainer
• Yoga
• Pilates
• Tennis
• Dance
• Strength train

This is really important and is something I believe we as runners (yes - you) need to do better.  Looking around, physiques of runners aren't always that impressive - good legs, with undeveloped upper bodies (I am a classic example of that, with the exception of the good legs part).  It is important for both running and good health to develop both.  We will talk about core strength in the future weeks.

Keep up the good work and lets get everyone back for the next run!

Tim, Jan and Danielle

PS Don't forget your BW8 shirt orders - we want to role them out as soon as possible (a little inter-group competition never hurts...!)