By now you are probably tired of reading about issues surrounding my IT band and I don’t blame you! I’m tired of dealing with it but the whole journey of feeling the most frustrating pain ever, dealing with it, treating it, and now finally feeling as though I’m going to get through it is hard not to write about. It seems like a strange addiction to be constantly reading about other people’s experience with ITBS, but it’s comforting to know I’m not alone and I hope that what I write brings information, comfort, and hope to others as well.
Despite the excruciating experience of my recent deep tissue sports massage, I truly think it helped. It also showed me where I need to focus with the foam roller and I have to believe more concentrated rolling is also making difference. Why do I believe change is actually happening? Because this morning I did a slow and steady 20-minute jog around a quaint and peaceful neighborhood in North Carolina and felt no pain. Zero, zilch, nada. Continue reading
A key element to living a healthy lifestyle is simply getting in some form of exercise that is enough to raise your heart rate and which is typically recommended to be 30 minutes per day. It doesn’t sound hard, but for some reason, sometimes getting in 30 minutes of heart pumping exercise is the last thing you want to do. If you’re tired, injured, bored, indifferent, frustrated, too busy, or any number of other excuses we can conjure up, there is one thing that will almost always bring motivation–the unconditional loving eyes and happily wagging tail of a 
The past couple weeks I have 
There are several names that came to mind for this post: “That’s the Spot!” “Ouch!” “Digging Deep,” “Seven,” and plenty of others, some of which sounded totally inappropriate and others that could be misleading. So as not to leave you wondering what all these possible post names relate to, they are tied to the deep tissue sports massage I had over the weekend.
Lately it feels like life has been moving full speed ahead; this is definitely true for me and many of my friends and people I come in contact with on a regular basis. We cram as much as possible into each day, we start early, end late, we say “yes” to everything, and end up rushing from one thing to the next.
Running is a fascinating sport to me because nearly anyone can run and it can be done at almost any stage in life. Of course, not everyone likes to run and there are many other sports that welcome athletes of all levels with open arms. I have a number of friends who consider themselves beginner runners and I know plenty of people who hate running but love biking, lacrosse, swimming, tennis, pilates, and every sport in between. In trying to define what kind of athlete I am, I also find myself asking what kind of athlete to I want to be. I have always considered myself a runner at an intermediate level with middle distances as my preferred “
They say that 
Usually whenever you are most tired, least motivated, and want to do anything but exercise is when you really should just strap on your running shoes and do something to get your heart rate going. I can think of many a run I dragged myself out to do and at the end I was always glad I had gone. Today was one of those days when I really just didn’t feel like putting on my running shoes.