Safety First – Sidewalk Running Tips

Sidewalk running has become my forte, but it wasn’t without years of practice – luckily less tedious practice than piano lessons required as a kid, but still practice nonetheless. There is an art to running on sidewalks, of carefully avoiding potholes in crosswalks, and of maintaining a considerable level of personal safety.

Being aware of your surroundings is key to running on the sidewalk. This may get a little too Harry Potter for you, but constant vigilance is a must. I’m always on the lookout for kamikaze cars, airborne debris that’s been knocked skyward from the aforementioned cars, and any sign of a dark alleyway that I don’t want to turn down.  If you’re running solo, you really cannot be too careful.

Cars are definitely going to be your biggest issue, and you can never be too considerate of their lack of consideration for you. Remember, cars are not looking for you to be in crosswalks. I swear. They often screech to a halt beyond crosswalk lines, or if they are making a right-hand turn, well over the crosswalk and halfway around the corner. At this point, I usually make sure I have made eye contact with drivers before I even attempt to cross at a crosswalk.

Unless you’re running an really familiar route, pay attention to the terrain. City sidewalks aren’t smooth as a baby’s bottom; they’ve got character in the form of cracks, slivers, and holes. Watch your footing, or you’ll be out of the running for a few weeks with a twisted ankle.

Finally, know where you are. Yes, I have written frequently about getting lost on my runs, but I’m still aware of what city I’m in, what the people around me look like, and how approximately what direction home is. Honestly, if you ever find yourself in a neighborhood that looks less than friendly, it’s okay to turn around. Also, if you see a shadowy figure who just gives you the willies, turn around. Really. It’s better to be safe than well…anything but safe.

This may sound like a lot (too much even), and I know I’m a bit of a worrypants. But I’ve been close to flattened in crosswalks, taken down by the tiniest of blips in cement, and chased by a hopefully harmless homeless man apparently for sport, and I’d rather not have anyone share those experiences with me. I like it when you’re all safe, healthy, and full of sparklemotion!

Music for More Motion!

Perhaps it comes from having the sort of parents who love facts, charts, numbers, research, and proven hypothesis with all variables covered, but I love it when things I think and feel instinctively about exercise wind up to actually have a scientific basis. (Or perhaps I just like the validation of being right about something once in a blue moon!)

I recently posted rather cavalierly regarding how I feel when there is rhythm and harmony flowing through my earbuds – to give you the dime tour version of the post, I noted that music “always sucks me out the door and into the great wide running world.” In other words, it motivates to get physical.

Well, apparently some Canadian scientists were already on the case in support of my ideas. According to Dr. Renee Murphy, “Our research leads us to believe that if people are listening to music while they exercise, they are not feeling the soreness, or the fatigue, or the heavy breathing or the pounding heart. All these things become secondary to the enjoyment of the music.” If you’re in tune with your music and having any sort of positive reaction to the songs, you are less likely want to stop working out, thus increasing your stamina and your ability to push through mental barriers.

When I first started running to music, I used to be a high-tempo, “Eye of the Tiger” kind of girl. Only fast beats would get me moving, or so I thought. Interestingly, research has also been done on what kind of music is best to listen to when you work out. And the answer? Any. Dr. Smith says, “And it doesn’t matter if it’s Kylie Minogue, country and western or Mozart. The key issue is that it has to be music that the exerciser loves.” That’s all it takes.

The Beatles might have thought all we needed was love. But as it turns out, all we really needed was The Beatles.

Earbud Check

I’d forgotten something about running. Something kind of big. Something that after my first year really drew me out into the world for a good run, no matter how much my thighs felt like Jell-o, or my head hurt from a long day of staring at a computer screen. I had forgotten how much an artfully crafted playlist was able to take away lethargic leg syndrome and block out ambivalent thoughts about a run.

In the last year, I have sincerely become a podcast runner. Synch me up to This American Life, The Story, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Radio Lab,  or Studio 360, and I’m ready to rock and roll. Except…not. There is rarely rocking and never rolling when I’m NPR-ing it up. Don’t get me wrong; I have gleefully heard some amazing tales, laughed out loud as I caught up on this week’s news, and teared up in residential neighborhoods in ways music might not ever allow me to do.

But music is prominently powerful in its own light, and simultaneously allows a runner to escape into their thoughts and feel the peaks and valleys of song. The music I listen to often sets a tone for my mood, or enhances how I’m already feeling, and it always sucks me out the door and into the great wide running world.

Interestingly, there are actually tips out there in the great wide internet about how to listen to music safely while you run outdoors:

Wake Up and Pay Attention!

It’s easy to be more engrossed in your playlist than you would be in a John Grisham novel, but this tends to leave you lacking attention to the terrain around you. Make sure you know your route well, and are paying attention to cracks in the sidewalk, curbs, and oncoming traffic!

Just Loud Enough

Running with earbuds means that you’re blocking out some of the commonplace outdoor white noise that is actually really important to an outdoor exerciser; make sure you can hear sirens, voices, and other tell-tale signs of what is happening around you.

Two Earbuds, Please

Studies show that using only one earbud instead of two does not keep you safer; in fact, it can confuddle your brain, and might be worse than simply listening with both ears.

Okay, I feel better after doing a safety dance with you all!

Listening to music keeps me sane, which in the midst of an anxious day I always seem to forget. But not only does music calm and heal, it also brightens and offers new ways of seeing the world. So even though I’m always waxing glowing-reviewishly about the latest episode of This American Life, I’m going to try to intersperse more tunes, too.

The Hand Worth Shaking (In My Humble Opinion)

Maybe no one finds the way my mind works quite as interesting as me, but seriously, what happened at spin class last week cracked me up. My spin instructor has us “going up a big hill” (which really means “use your imagination, ramp up the resistance, and struggle”) and announced it would be a seven minute hill, which seemed like cruel and unusual punishment, but I suppose that’s what a fitness class is really all about. Then in a motivational spirit, she called out “Imagine your goals at the top of your hill! Why did you get up at 5:30am to be here?”

Good question – why did I rip my face from my pillow after only six hours of sleep? Sure, I want to be fit and feel good about myself, but that wasn’t really the reason. What goals would I want sitting at the top of my hill? What in general would I want up there? And then it hit me.

The only thing I would want at the top of the hill, waiting for me to crest was a person. A person sitting behind a desk whom I adore completely and without reservation: Ira Glass.

Yes, the goal in my heart of hearts was to have Ira Glass awaiting me at the top of the biggest hill of my spinning life. I didn’t want him cheering or being wildly excited or even singing The OC theme song as I peaked. I just wanted him to shake my hand, maybe make some small talk, and not be too terrified when I told him how much I adored This American Life and how basically, it’s one of my favorite things about being alive.

Apparently, my motivation for waking up early and working out is to shake a PRI radio-show host’s hand. Or at least, it’s the though of hoping to shake his hand. That’s kind of peculiar, right?

The Best Running Rain Wear

It was a dark and stormy morning. I bound of out bed, slithered into my dry-fit pants, squished on shoes wet from hanging out on the porch during the relentless rain, and then looked around for a water-proof shirt.

Ha.

I live in Orange County, and keeping dry on the outside while running is not often a necessity in these parts. I rejected a cotton jacked that I knew would absorb water like a sand castle in high tide. The rust-orange, water-proof wind breaker that rolls up into itself was passed over because it was so big I might as well have just cut a hole in a garbage bag, and would have been more comfortable. Simply sticking a beanie on my head was going to be too hot. “Hmmm.” I thought. I eventually just went out without any water-protection, and enjoyed being soaked.

However, once I was back at home and dryer than the chess board in the back of our closet (and thinking way too much about how white-tshirts are not conducive to being ignored while exercising in the rain), I continued hunting around for a DIY fix to my rain running problem.

The issue is that runners like clothes that are pretty snug. Having something hanging off of them like a limp bear-skin rug made into a cape makes running uncomfortable. And trust me, even on my most motivated of days, set-backs can make or break my desire to run. Part of the problem is nothing I own is made of outer wicking material, so I didn’t have anything to chop up and build something out of.

Hats were out because I know I’ll get hot with something resting firmly on my head like a perched parrot. Umbrellas create drag, boyfriend’s clothes are too big and obviously not mine to play with, and I love my laptop too much to consider using it as a rain-sleucing device.

I hit the stores. One of my near and dear friends has a Nike Hoodie that she adores, so I went looking for that first. Unfortunately, the cost of it outweighs the benefits. I figured I’d rather get wet. But no one else was selling anything remotely similar – either there were non-hooded options, non-wiking options, baggy options, or worse, all put together. After hunting through REI, Sports Authority, Sports Chalet, Target, TJ Max, Puma, Dick’s Sporting Goods and JC Penny, I was still empty handed.

So what’s a runner to actually do?

Get wet.

That’s my best advice. Throw a headband on your head to keep water from dripping in your eyes, make sure your iPod is protected, and soak it up for forty five minutes. It’s like getting back to nature.

Looking Pretty vs. Going Fast. Conundrum!

Don’t get me wrong – I love compliments. Particularly, compliments about something I practice and work at, like swimming. A few days ago, a fellow lap swimmer stopped me to offer warm and fuzzy words about my style. He then flattered me by thinking I was six years younger than I am, and asked if I had been on the swim team in college. It was definitely nice to hear, and I even swam an extra 400 meters because I felt ready to fly away on my inflated self esteem.

However, I have to be completely honest about my crawl stroke. When I started working on it oh so many years ago, I worried less about its effectiveness, and more about looking like a smoothly synchronized swimmer. So while perhaps I manage to be almost splash free while I paddle through the water, I tend to not swim with speed, strength, or anything resembling intensity.

Knowing this makes me feel like a swimming traitor. Instead of doing as Associate Content suggests, which is considering what it takes to create speed in the water and actively attempting to actually be a better swimmer, I remain stubborn as an elephant who is chomping on peanuts and doesn’t want to move out of the way, and simply want to swim with pretty hands instead of swim fast.

But if you actually want to swim faster, and aren’t feeling as ornery as myself, here are a few suggestions:

1. Appreciate the Pause

In music, conductors often remind their orchestra’s that “the rests are just as important as the notes.” The same is true for swimming. The moments in which you are not pumping your arms, such as the glide portion of the breast stroke, are essential to improving your swim time. Elongate your body, and you’ll go faster.

2. Know Your Calculus

You gotta stroke less. But not by simply subtracting the number of strokes you graze the pool with. This is sort of a mental idea, but you want to let your body travel farther every time you stroke, and thus create the need to stroke less. You also want to “thrust” your body through the water. I do this by telling myself “try harder!” But as for the technical side of it, check out Swim-City.com, or any number of YouTube videos about swimming.

3. Get a Head

The direct placement of your head is critical, according to Mat Lubers at About.com.  Keeping your head with the “eyes down” position* while swimming freestyle is the best way to keep your hips neutral, and your kick strong. However, to get the best speed, you’ll want to lift your head just a tad, so your forehead pokes out of the water, as keeping your head underwater entirely causes a lot of drag – the fancy swimmer term for things that slow you down.

Okay, swimmer friends. Go forth and good luck! If no one is complimenting your pretty hands, you very well are on the right track.

* When I taught swimming to kids, we used to say “Keep your eyes down! Watch the elephants dancing on the bottom of the pool!” Oh, swim class.

Hot Hot Heat

My fancy-pants* gym just wowed me a little more, thanks to the single-sex sauna located in the locker room (right next to the single-sex steam room and single-sex hot-tub). Until last week, I hadn’t been in a sauna since I was a pint sized, not too gangly kidlet. Almost certainly, I only went in at that age because my father dragged me in with him in the way that parents have to do when they’re watching their children. I remember it being hot.

Saunas are not particularly en vogue these days, at least in Orange County. The citizens of Irvine and the outlying cities are not busily discussing their latest sauna-stint in the grocery store, nor are they busy building little saunas into every empty plaza suite. Yet saunas are a world-wise, cross cultural heat-producing place, and I as I got out of the pool one day, I started at the little room with a steamed up window and wondered the simple question, why?

Without any preconceived notions of what the sauna could, should and would do for me post work-out, I slipped in that day curiosity had gotten the best of me. The room is made entirely of wood (sans the floor, which was gym-y tile, of course), and rests between the temperatures of 160-180. I’m a little shocked people can exist in that kind of heat, but I’m here to tell the tale. I spread out a towel and sat down, watching the walls and wondering if I was going to experience anything peculiar, like hallucinations or feeling faint at such temperatures. No dice. Just me, heat, and silence. The only irregularity I did notice was that when you move in a sauna, you feel the heat. It pricks your skin in a not entirely unpleasant way. But if you sit still, you don’t really feel much different – just warmly snug as a bug in a rug.

Mainstream known benefits of the sauna seem to be fully focused on having clear pores, clearing the body of toxins, and relaxation. Many sauna-proponents also tout that your immunity will rise because bacteria and viruses cannot survive at high temperatures (which made me think we should just send sick people to Venus. It’s hot there, right?). But what I wanted to know was what were the actual health benefits to hitting up the sauna. Would it help my running? My swimming? My overall health?

According to an article published in 2007, Effect of Post-Exercise Sauna Bathing on the Endurance Performance of Competitive Male Runners, the conclusion was drawn that, “3 weeks of post-exercise sauna bathing produced a worthwhile enhancement of endurance running performance, probably by increasing blood volume.” Look, I love science. But probably? Seriously? I’m an English person – I pick up on indecisive language if only because it’s my job.

There do seem to be a lot of cautions for sauna use, including straining your heart, extreme loss of sweat, and unpredictable blood pressure. That all sounds really fun! Except not, so if you’re going to sauna, be careful and have a good sense of your heart’s capabilities.

So, saunaing for the purpose of being snuggly and warm work out great. As for what it will do for my health…we’ll see.

*I must admit that I still cannot believe I belong to a gym that anyone might describe as “nice.” I was a Gold’s Gym person, or a fitness-center at the apartment complex person. But now, I’m a “it’s possible I’d see an Olympian here” gym person. Can’t lie, it’s pretty spectacular. Kudos to the boyfriend! Nutty, chocolatey kudos!

Sick? Get Running!

My boyfriend has this wacked-out theory that one needs to rest when they are sick. I cater to the other end of the spectrum, and possess the sane and rational notion that one should simply ignore their illness and go about their merry-cherry day despite any sort of potential feelings of being under the weather. Before I let you decide who is right, let me tell you this story:

I once had the flu in graduate school. The kind of flu that knocks you down while you’re standing at the sink brushing your teeth, and you crawl back to bed so sure the world is falling out from beneath your hands and knees that you barely remember to call in sick to work before you begin shaking with fever. However, on day three of this flu, I got angry at it. Who was this darn flu to get in my way, to take away fun things like hiking at Big Sur and hanging out with my rambunctious feline friend? So I insisted my BFF come over and hang out with me. I got out of bed, put on clothes, puttered around my kitchen, and then we sat down to play Scrabble…three moves in, I asked if I could take a nap, and we could resume our game at a later time.

Right. I’m guessing my boyfriend’s theory is a holds more validity than my own.

Despite knowing this to be true with a complete mirror image of a doubt, I still tend to err on the side of waving off being sick with a flick of my wrist, as if illness were a pesky moth that kept thinking my eardrums were an old sweater.

Apparently, I’m not entire wrong on this. The MayoClinic online doctors say that, “Mild to moderate physical activity is usually OK if you have a cold but no fever. Exercise may even help you feel better by temporarily relieving nasal congestion.” And if the MayoClinic is okaying something, that’s a pretty good reason to consider it yourself.

However, earlier this week, my fever was 101. Still though, I was determined to go for a run. I’ve been sick off and on for almost a month, and I have missed plenty of good running moments due to illness, fatigue, and general lethargy. So I didn’t bother with my temperature, and went out the door.

Fevered running is certainly not advisable. For starters, a fever doesn’t give you the best perception on anything – depth, reality, etc. Thus, judging where curbs are, bumps in the sidewalk, and oncoming cars can be quite a mental challenge. Plus, I kept seeing webby shadows in my peripheral vision that I mistook for the Loch Ness Monster (just my luck that my brother’s most vile fear would actually be something worth fearing). Those darn hallucinations almost merited using my pepper spray, which I was gripping as though it might help me keep my head on straight enough to get home.

Running while having chest congestion is probably not advisable because it makes your chest hurt a little. For me, though, it can loosen up lung rocks that so unkindly settle in for a long winter’s nap in the base of my chest. This might not be for everyone, though, so be careful.

My main concern about running while sick is that a fever often makes my heart flap around in its (rib) cage like a locked up finch that used to be free, even at rest. Apparently, I’m not the only person who has noticed this effect, as the internet is a hearty source of information when it comes to trying to answer questions about working out while being ill. About.com says this:

The body needs to be in good health in order to go from the catabolic state caused by the exercise to an anabolic state of recuperation and muscle growth. So if you have the flu, your body is already fighting a catabolic state caused by the Influenza virus. In this case, weight training would only add more catabolism, which in turn would negatively affect the efficacy of the immune system against the virus, causing you to get sicker. Therefore, absolutely no training if you have the flu.

Interesting, right?

So, should you work-out while you’ve got a case of the sickies? I think it depends on how you feel, but also on knowing yourself. I tend to push myself right to the edge of things, so much so that I have all but my feet leaning over a cliff. But I know this to be my personal limit. Yours might be different.

Anyone refuse to get physical when you’re ill? Anyone on my side of the fence?

Reckless Abandon

While running the other day (with a fever of 101, I might add), I saw a man in a business suit in the parking lot of a local carwash. He looked like a high level exec, slightly balding, in decent shape for a corporate junkie – the kind of guy I’d see at the gym. He was slurping up a Drumstick ice cream bar like he was seven years old, though. I couldn’t help but watch him enjoying the Orange County sunshine, the sound of airplanes taking off in the background, as I plodded by clunkily. If only I could enjoy a Drumstick with such reckless abandon….

I’m a Spinning Top!

If you’re a regular reader, you might have picked up on some things I enjoy while working out: music, a lack of bright lights, repetitive motion, group experiences, disco balls – just kidding on that last one! Well, I cannot believe what I tried this week has eluded me for so darn long, because it has every single one of these elements: spinning.

Spinning is apparently not what it was when we were kids, friends (meaning standing on a grassy field and twirling around, preferably in a dress that popped out well, until you wanted to puke so you laid down on the grass and let the world zip around you with your eyes closed). Spinning in adult-gym land is when a group of people get on stationary bicycles and pedal to nowhere together to the beat of songs of various tempos.

So, in a way, it’s kind of like a strange version of marching band. On bikes. But you want your feet to hit on the downbeats, and there are all these different positions on the bike (most accurately described as something like, butt on the seat, butt off the seat, flat back, curled back, arms down, arms up) that you switch to when the instructor calls it out.

Oh yes, an instructor. I love exercise with instruction, as I am really darn good at following directions! Of course, an instructor can and will make or break a group fitness experience; thank Apollo that Randall, though resembling a hip-hop version of Richard Simmons, was a motivatingly quirky teacher.

One of Randall’s interesting characteristics was that he drank coffee the entire class. He biked like a fiend while imbibing caffeine. Kind of gross, and yet kind of enchanting. He also was fond of yelling really strange things, like “This class is about you! You need to focus! Don’t think about shopping right now! You won’t look good in anything you buy until you are healthy!” As cheesy and almost mean as these kinds of comments are, they totally work for me. I was like, “Dude, this guy is smart!”

Spinning was a great way to do very low-impact yet very high intensity activity. You maintain your heart-rate by either amping up the resistance on your cycle, or letting it out a little in order to peddle faster or slower; obviously, you want to have as much resistance as possible while going any tempo in order to burn calories, but I kept reminding myself to work up to it.

Also noteworthy is that spinning will make you sweat more than if you ran a marathon. I swear to Scrabble. I had sweat stains that could have been giant wings on my back, and a nice sweater vest on my front. Hawt, right? Luckily, every other person in the class has the same issue. Oh, and we were all reminded at the start of class to make sure we had a towel over our wheels, because apparently getting the wheel wet will make it not work correctly. And you will sweat all over the floor, the bike, and everywhere else.

It’s not running, but I realize that as I get more mature, I cannot feasibly run every day. I mean, I could, and maybe I should; but I want to make sure I have a healthy list of options that aren’t going to ruin my knees (or just a list of things I can do if I do ruin them). Besides, anytime I can listen to “Poker Face” with a bunch of fifty year old men in the room without flinching, I’m kind of excited.