Happy Wednesday Runners!
I hope you all had a WONDERFUL Memorial Day Weekend! Here in Ventura we hosted the Mountains 2 Beach Marathon. It's nationally recognized as one of the top 10 races for a Boston Qualifier. Congrats if you were one of the finishers! We had a foggy/cloudy day, perfect race conditions for a fast run!


If you stopped by my booth you may have heard me talking about my running analysis raffle. The Mountains 2 Beach 2019 Winner (selected randomly ) IS...

*CAREN KEVACH!*

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CONGRATS!! I'll be reaching out to you soon with more information.
If you were not one of the winners don't fret! In honor of M2B race weekend I'm offering a 10% off deal but only for a limited time! Contact me now (May 29th - June 1st) and I'll honor the discount, don't miss out!

SO! You may be wondering just what is the analysis or how it could benefit you?
One thing that tends to happen is we put in the mileage but not our homework. To keep our cars running, we do monthly maintenance including oil checks, tire rotations, etc etc. We never take a car in to a mechanic AFTER the engine has blown, so WHY do we only take care of our legs/feet/knees AFTER we experience pain or break down?

That's where I come in! As a certified running coach I have the education (and eyes) to spot inefficiencies in running movement that causes pain.If you're experiencing pain or want to become a better/faster runner my analysis will help you. My video program slows down your movement so I can see what your feet, knees, and legs are doing while you're running. I'll educate you on a few mechanical fixes that is scientifically proven to reduce injury, increase speed, and promote running longevity. After the one on one session you'll also get a PDF document including homework videos and drill so you can practice everything I teach you. You'll also get all of your videos as well as the photo comparisons.

CONGRATS!! I'll be reaching out to you soon with more information.
If you were not one of the winners don't fret! In honor of M2B race weekend I'm offering a 10% off deal but only for a limited time! Contact me now (May 29th - June 1st) and I'll honor the discount, don't miss out!

SO! You may be wondering just what is the analysis or how it could benefit you?
One thing that tends to happen is we put in the mileage but not our homework. To keep our cars running, we do monthly maintenance including oil checks, tire rotations, etc etc. We never take a car in to a mechanic AFTER the engine has blown, so WHY do we only take care of our legs/feet/knees AFTER we experience pain or break down?

That's where I come in! As a certified running coach I have the education (and eyes) to spot inefficiencies in running movement that causes pain.If you're experiencing pain or want to become a better/faster runner my analysis will help you. My video program slows down your movement so I can see what your feet, knees, and legs are doing while you're running. I'll educate you on a few mechanical fixes that is scientifically proven to reduce injury, increase speed, and promote running longevity. After the one on one session you'll also get a PDF document including homework videos and drill so you can practice everything I teach you. You'll also get all of your videos as well as the photo comparisons.
CONGRATS!! I'll be reaching out to you soon with more information.
If you were not one of the winners don't fret! In honor of M2B race weekend I'm offering a 10% off deal but only for a limited time! Contact me now (May 29th - June 1st) and I'll honor the discount, don't miss out!

SO! You may be wondering just what is the analysis or how it could benefit you?
One thing that tends to happen is we put in the mileage but not our homework. To keep our cars running, we do monthly maintenance including oil checks, tire rotations, etc etc. We never take a car in to a mechanic AFTER the engine has blown, so WHY do we only take care of our legs/feet/knees AFTER we experience pain or break down?

That's where I come in! As a certified running coach I have the education (and eyes) to spot inefficiencies in running movement that causes pain.If you're experiencing pain or want to become a better/faster runner my analysis will help you. My video program slows down your movement so I can see what your feet, knees, and legs are doing while you're running. I'll educate you on a few mechanical fixes that is scientifically proven to reduce injury, increase speed, and promote running longevity. After the one on one session you'll also get a PDF document including homework videos and drill so you can practice everything I teach you. You'll also get all of your videos as well as the photo comparisons.

​The biggest question I get is "what if I don't live near you?" NO WORRIES! All you need is a smartphone! You'll get step by step instructions on what I need and how you can get your analysis done. Once submitted we will have an hour video chat to discuss what I see and what the next steps are to create better movement!
Interested?!
The next step is to fill out my athlete questionnaire on my website.

​For more running tips and motivation follow me on IG: Redheadrunner_hpc

Thanks for reading!

RedheadRunner
Lori

​Happy Monday Everyone!
I hope you all had a wonderful mother's day full of family and fun! I was lucky enough to join my run club on the sunniest day of our month here (we refer to our weather as "May Grey" This time of year.) I have a SUPER exciting announcement! I have just a few more bags left from our Mud Run Obstacle course event. As you can see they're super cute and would also make a great grab bag for any runner! But there's even more. Sometimes in our training we can lose our focus OR motivation.

"Why am I out here...again?!...Why am I doing this?, I'd rather be asleep!"

Sound familiar? That's why it's SO important to establish your why, or in this case your it? What is your It? Why do you run ?

Maybe it's to be faster...stronger.. to feel good? To feel? To prove you can? For a cause? To Eat Pizza!

Mine? To Fly..I've always wanted to be a fast runner because I love having the wind in my hair.

How do you get one of these cute bags? For the next two weeks I want you to post on your social media your IT. A picture of you running or you with your IT or a picture describing your IT. THEN tag me in your post @redheadrunner_hpc and I'll then draw 4 people's names to receive one of these bags (including some running nutrition) and you can show your crew what your IT is :)

Starting 5/13 - 5/27 You have a chance to win one of these cute bags!

Start Posting!

Thanks for reading!

Lori AKA RedheadRunner

 Happy Monday!! 

Today's topic is not SO much about how you run, but how you get READY to run.  We tend to fall into 1 of 2 categories: The Average Runner OR The Non Average Runner, guess which camp we want to be in ;)


                          The Average Runner                                                  The Informed Runner
     

        Jumps out of the car, stretches quad, starts running              Spends 20-30 Minutes mobilizing                                                                                                                      and  performing running                                                                                                                                       drills before every run.
   

Now, Not all of us are perfect runners. There are times where our workout goes long and we get in what we can. However, I'm sure I don't have to tell you what column we should be putting our foot more in. 

So you could be saying, Ok, SO how do I warm up for a run?
Ideally we need to focus on 3 Pieces

 1) Ankles
 2) Hips
 3) Cardio System

Ankles are the elastic system that act like a spring when you pull your foot off the ground. If they're stiff and not ready to move we could be doing some serious damage to them. Think about the amount of force we're putting on them every time we make contact to the ground. Watch below to see a quick snip of how I warm up my ankles before I run..my background knowledge on dancing actually is helpeful!
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Warming up our hips is also SUPER important. In order to have efficient mechanics we must be able to open up our hip into full extension behind us and then be flexible enough to pull our foot through up off the ground to our calf. 

After you have sufficiently warmed up the tissue and joints, performing 1-2 running drills is important to reinforce good running mechanics. Below are a few you can include in your routine.

Grab a jump rope to not only warm up your cardio system, as well as to prepare your ankles for dynamic movement. The jump rope reinforeces good pulling mechanics through your inseam. This prevents heel striking as well as over striding.

Grab a band and play around with your falling angle. Falling allows us to use gravity to make us faster. Obviously we don't run a this aggressive of an angle (drills are over exaggerations of our actual movement). However by reinforcing a straight midline and a slight fall we now allow our body to move with gravity instead of using our muscles to force ourselves forward.

Try to implement some of these before your next run!

If you have any questions feel free to comment below and follow me on IG @ redheadrunner_HPC

Hey guys! Redheadrunner here. Hope you had a good start to your week. After racing a half marathon this weekend my hamstrings took a few days to recover, so I've been giving them some extra attention all week.

How do we recover tight hamstrings?

First, let's talk about why they are tight to begin with!

                                                                                The Pull

When we run, we want to create the least amount of injury on our legs as possible aka less impact. Think about if you're jumping rope. We don't want to hear your feet pounding into the ground every time. WE HAVE to think about the up part, to get our feet over the rope, right? SAME with running. We need to pull our feet off the ground with each step. less time on the ground = less impact= LESS INJURIES.

We use our hamstrings to trigger that muscle elasticity tendon complex. Our foot connects with the ground and soon as we feel that we PULL it off the ground, triggering it almost like a rubber band.  Over time these can get tight and we must recover them. How? I pull out my favorite tool, the voodoo floss band.

Here is a video of some drills you can do either to loosen up your hamstrings and/or prepare them for movement before your next workout.

Hey guys, It's almost FRIDAY! So, I know that means most runners are gearing up and getting ready to tackle that weekend workout or possibly that first race of the season!
We all seem to know what to do when it comes down to the workout, but how do YOU begin your session?

It's SUPER important that we start each run warming up our tissues and joints (and no I'm not talking about just running or using your first 10 minutes of your run "warming up").

The reason why so many runners get injured, AND STAY injured, is because we neglect the general principles of movement and focus solely on the sport. That's why warming up and performing drills BEFORE you start actually moving IS SO important to the life of your activity. Otherwise your friends will be lapping you while you're on the couch or a doctors office.

Before we perform the actual activity of our workout, we must prepare the tissues and joints to be active through mobility and warm up drills. "Hey get ready to work, we're going to start moving".

It's super important to get our tissues in the correct placement before we move them, ideally the hips, ankles, and hamstrings. If our hips are super tight, from sitting all day, and the first thing we do is run, VIOLENTLY opening and closing them without ANY prior movement, over time they were tear and or not perform to the ability THEY COULD....you could be eliminating your own potential. 

After 10-15 minutes of mobility, it's key to perform some sort of dynamic warm up to fire up the muscle elasticity chain, that includes the tendons in our ankles and the tissue and muscle that connects to the 2 lower calf muscles. Think of them as a rubber band, if we've been sitting all day then instantly load them with the impact of running, they could potentially snap...youch.

So, be sure to spend 10-20 minutes performing some sort of NON running dynamic warm up. Below is a short video of a few warm up drills I like to perform BEFORE I begin running. 

So what's that red band around my leg? It's called a Voodoo Floss Band, cool name huh?
It adds multiple benefits to your tissues and longevity of your running.

                                                                                 How?

1. It unglues sticky tissues (aka knots or previously injured tissue).
Think of those tight knots that we get, as a dryer sheet, it sticks to everything and it hard to roll it back out. The band tacks down the tissues and through movement, forces them to break up and become unstuck.

2. Compression creates blood flow for faster recovery
The band does add a compression component, like a sleeve that takes your pulse. When we release the band the tissues that's been rubbing together breaks up, releasing the knots and tightness and healthy blood rushes to that area, ushering out the excess scar tissue. AKA RECOVERING FASTER.

3. Inflammation
The compression also helps with inflammation.

My ankles and calves are always a little tight. Once I do this warmup, with the voodoo band, I feel as if I have brand new legs once I release the band. 

These guys are available on amazon/mobility wod and should be in every runners/athletes bag.

Thanks for reading.
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When we run, we must use the help of 2 things, Body weight and gravity, to move forward.
By adding a fall to our run we decrease the amount of work our body has to physically do, and it puts our body in the best position to pull our feet off of the ground AKA no more heel striking = less injury and a more efficient running form. 

Check out this drill below to help incorporate falling into your running 

Be sure to subscribe to my email newsletter on the homepage and follow me on social media for more running tips and motivation!

Raise your hand if you've ever had issues with your ankles? Yep, Mine is up. I've never had an injury from my ankles (thank goodness) however there was once a time where I couldn't do a single trail run without feeling severe tightness in my shins and ankles before reaching the top of the climb. THIS should have been my red flag warning that something isn't right, PAIN is NOT normal my friends. Yes, as runners we joke about how stubborn we are. How we can outrun any niggle or pain, yet it's just a time bomb waiting to express itself in the least opportune time (as if an injury has any is appropriate time to happen). 

Our Achilles is not a fragile tendon. Look down on the back of your ankle, that tendon that connects to your 2 major calf muscles is your achilles, this guy can suspend a Ford Truck up in the air, it's so strong.

Think about your AT as a bow and arrow. When your foot makes contact with the ground, your AT lengthens to push back with equal force (Newton's 3rd Law- For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) AKA Ground Reaction Force.  It then shortens, releasing the absorbed energy back into your stride, like an arrow releases from a bow. Our AT is the root of this system known as the Muscle-Tendon Elasticity System. It also can be thought of as a spring, or shock absorber that has a chain like reaction. (Nicholas Romanov)

So, if our tendons, more specifically our AT, was designed to be like a spring how does it become injured or inflamed?

1) Excessive hill running (or lack of preparation for the hill running) 
2) No warmup, agility practice in your daily running regiment. 
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1) Excessive hill running-or my 2 cents, lack of preparation for hill running. Before you hit the trail head are you breathing hard? Is your body warm? Have you even spent 5 minutes stretching your lower extremities? Try adding these 3 moves into your daily warm up:

1) Squatting
2) Plank-Down Dowg
3) Lunging

2)No Agility Practice- We must always prepare our tissues and joints to be active before we require them to move. Running is one of THE highest impact sports we can perform, therefore we should treat our warmup like such. IF we want to improve with our running we must take our tissues and joints along for the ride= preparing our body for impact.

ALWAYS perform 10-15 minutes of agility/warm up drills to the point of either an elevated HR . A good indication is that warm up jacket/hoodie needs to come off.

Some good warm up drills include:

1) Varied Position Squats
2) Toe In/Out Jumps
3) Pony Drills to Pose
4) Bilateral Hops to Pose
5) Jumping Jack- Skier Jumps
6)Heel - Toe Rocks
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 Good Morning Readers!
Phew! I can't believe the weekend is finally here! A few more hours of work and then on to supporting the local Seaside Half Marathon.

I had 2 pretty tough running sessions this week. The first session included retesting my threshold pace. The 2nd included my first marathon pace training. Today is my recovery day! One of my favorite treats on my recovery days, and love for supporting local businesses, is to spend an hour or two at my favorite coffee shop, Cafe Ficelle. Of course, my laptop isn't far as I catch up on a few running analysis or other social media tasks.

When it comes to your recovery day, it's important to avoid any high intensity activity to allow your tissues and muscles to rest. Low impact movement can be done such as a yoga class but make sure you're still focused on restoring that energy for tomorrow's next training session.

Another important aspect to include on your recovery day is also mobility. Resting your tissues and joints is important however, it's crucial to take this day and spend even more time, than the daily 10-20 minutes, performing soft tissue maintenance. I recommend hopping on a foam roller and hitting every muscle group on your legs as well as your feet. Then, take a lacrosse ball and getting even deeper to some of the tighter knots that have formed in your quads and hamstrings. My knots always form around my knees, they're killer! Resist the pain face and breath my friends!

Here's a link to one of my favorite mobility moves. You don't need any fancy equipment, just a wall (or a couch) and go to town for 2 minutes : Couch Stretch  

Thanks for reading! For more content follow me on IG: redheadrunner_hpc or facebook at redhearunner

Wahoo! The weekend is finally here, Sometimes I feel like it takes forever to get here!

For most of us that are training for an event or just have an awesome run, bike, or swim club in their community, the weekend tends to be the time to really put that distance training in. 

However, remember my friends quantity always beats quality. 

We always seem to get so wrapped up in the mileage ("I gotta get 20 this week!") However we don't seem to put in the homework at home to get ready for these miles.

Before we can build our engine, we must prepare it for activity. The tissues and joints need to warmed up and activated before we can move. Most importantly, our ankles, feet, hamstrings, and hips ALL the major movers for running and cycling. 

So put on your favorite playlist (mine is Meghan Trainor) and try these moves the next time before you run:
                        * Lunges with a pause at the bottom 
                        * Squats (knees out, chest up)
                        * A few running drills that activate the elasticity in your ankle (hopping, skipping)
                        * Hip Circles
                        * Ankle Flexion and Extension 

Tell your joints "Get ready to be active" by warming them up efficiently and properly and you will be rewarded with a successful run for weeks to come!

Be sure to follow me on IG at redheadrunner_hpc
Or Facebook at Redheadrunner

If you haven't seen this video on Youtube I'd HIGHLY recommend it. 

When I tell people I'm a Crossfit coach, I get very similar reactions. Most see it as a easy way to get hurt, but in actuality, if you have GOOD coaches, it's a way to stay out of injury. It's a way to help prepare you for a functional life.

A life where you can be practical in your career, a life where you continually chase your kids around a playground, stay out of the nursing home longer, and out of the doctor's office from pain caused from an inactive lifestyle combined with bad nutrition. 

Knowledgeable coaches make the difference when it comes to the actual activity. Good coaches provide instruction, education, guidance and motivation to push you to your truest potential in a safe environment. 

Good coaches guide clients through the proper movement along with body awareness and correlation to real life scenarios. 

What type of functional training are you including in the your weekly training?

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