No Fools here! running week 30Mar -05Apr

[Crankin]

Emily, I have come to the same conclusion as you. I like running, but it's overall so much harder for me. I live where essentially, there is no flat, so it's never easy. I can pretty much handle 3 miles, with hills, but I am not sure if I can or will do more. My legs just feel like cr*p if I go to ride the next day, which happened yesterday.
I am not going to stop running and I do envy those of you who can go out and run 10 miles and then ride 50 the next day. Riding is too much a part of my life, in a way that running isn't that it's always going to come first, even if I am getting older and slower.

[Jolt]

Well, I took about a week off because of having banged up the ball of my right foot on a rock during a trail run. That healed, so I went for a run yesterday with my sister (I went to NJ to visit my family for a few days) on a local rail trail. For some unknown reason, that #@*! left IT band acted up, after having behaved itself just fine for the past three months on runs up to 45 minutes. Not sure if it was from slacking off for a few days on my stretches/hip abductor exercises, having started cycling again last week after not doing any over the winter, crashing on the couch in a tight curled-up position the night before (because I had to share the couch with other people also crashing in front of the TV), the change in surface (that rail trail is very hard packed dirt/small gravel, and a lot of it was sloped sideways a little), or some/all of the above. I did find a trigger point in that TFL muscle, which was most likely the direct cause of the ITB getting grumpy. So, it will be a few days of working on those trigger points and stretching like crazy, along with doing extra glute exercises, before I try running again. That should get things under control, I hope. And then no more slacking on those exercises!

[emily_in_nc]

Emily, I have come to the same conclusion as you. I like running, but it's overall so much harder for me. I live where essentially, there is no flat, so it's never easy. I can pretty much handle 3 miles, with hills, but I am not sure if I can or will do more. My legs just feel like cr*p if I go to ride the next day, which happened yesterday.
I am not going to stop running and I do envy those of you who can go out and run 10 miles and then ride 50 the next day. Riding is too much a part of my life, in a way that running isn't that it's always going to come first, even if I am getting older and slower.

Yes, I think that I just have to accept that I can't do everything with excellence; there are some activities that will always come easier than others, and some that will always be more fulfilling than others. But it doesn't have to be all or nothing; if we don't LOVE running like we do cycling, that doesn't mean we should just quit running. I think cross-training is the best of all worlds. Running is better for bones than riding, it's better in the winter than riding (for me, anyway, not a fan of cold weather), but much worse in the summer (pant pant). I have access to a free gym at work, so running on the treadmill my lunch break is something I can do since I can't ride mid-day. We can do all of it, just not necessarily excel in everything at once. And that's ok.