Tag Archives: marathoners

Marathoners’ Torture #2: 3 ways marathoners use other sport equipment.

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  1. Golf balls are not for slicing. This is how marathoners use them when they’re not actually hooking into the forest (if you’re a beginner, start with a tennis ball and work your way to the hard little golf ball).
      a. Keep a sport ball of your comfort level under your desk (I have one at home and office).
      b. Wear pumps or slip-on shoes (or if you can work at home, bare feet).
      c. Set a trigger for yourself. For instance, when you actually get an email that adds value to your work.
      d. Whenever your “trigger” comes up, slip off your shoes and step on the ball, rolling it up and down the bottom of your foot for a minute or so.
  2. Tennis racket or baseball bat.
      a. Lie on your back.
      b. Draw your knees perpendicular to your hips.
      c. Place handle of racket or bat at your ankles.
      d. Roll the bat up to your knees and back 3 or 4 times for a quick DIY calf massage. Great for single people like me. Can also be done with a rolling pin. Hell, I never bake any more anyway…
  3. Treadmill:
      a. After you get home from your run and wash out your stinky running clothes, hang them on the treadmill to dry.
      b. When it is snowy or icy outside, your clothes are handy if you must run indoors.
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Marathoners’ Torture #1: 10-step guide for bathing in ice.

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Running is torture on feet, so is wearing high-heeled shoes at work all day. I’ve been through months of recovery for plantar fasciitis and am determined not to go there again, but equally determined to keep running and to wear pretty shoes. I’m my podiatrist’s nightmare.

Here is my 10-step evening ritual designed to keep me on my feet.
What you’ll need:

  • hot tea,
  • your favourite comfy chair and blanket,
  • a fluffy towel,
  • your favourite TV show (or your mobile device or laptop),
  • a basin,
  • two trays of ice cubes,
  • a watch or timer,
  • fortitude.
  • Optional: a glass of wine, scotch or tequila.

What you’ll do:

  1. Make tea and have it ready next to your comfy chair, blanket and timer.
  2. Turn on your favourite TV show. Make sure it’s something absorbing like Battlestar Galactica or Dexter. Alternatively, get out your mobile device or laptop and log in to Twitter.
  3. Fill the basin only to about 3-5 centimetres (1 to 1-and-a-half inches) of cold water.
  4. Place basin, trays of ice cubes next to comfy chair.
  5. Sit with feet bare and blanket over legs. Set stopwatch or timer for about 6 minutes. (You might want to start out with 2 or 3 minutes).
  6. Take a deep breath.
  7. Plunge feet into cold water.
  8. Immediately dump the two trays of ice cubes into the water around your feet. Try not to howl, it will scare your family and pets.
  9. Keep breathing! Keep your feet in there! Google your exes, Tweet your pain, fantasize about Michael C. Hall – but stay with it!
  10. When your timer goes off, you may gratefully and with much drama take your feet out of the water and wrap them in the towel.
  11. Optional: enjoy your wine, scotch or tequila.

Tips:

  • Do daily for injury prevention
  • To be enjoyed with a regular regimen of stretching and strength training.
  • Modification: do this with your legs in the bathtub (and more ice) after a 2+ hour training run or a race. Some races provide ice water barrels to jump in afterwards.

I’m not gonna lie to you, this is painful, but then so is running a marathon with injured feet. Embrace the suck. Besides, it feels so damn good when you take your feet out of that damn ice!

(With thanks to Duane Banman, the massage therapist who urged me to adopt this practice. His lair is otherwise known to marathoners and triathletes in Regina, SK as “Duane’s House of Pain.”)

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