One Year Ago

In my senior year of college (2019-2020), I started taking my fitness a lot more seriously. I would lift in the morning, play table tennis at least twice a week, and dance salsa regularly. Throw an occasional weekly run in the mix and an active lifestyle easily turned into an over-active one that my body couldn’t handle. In November 2019, after an easy 4-mile run with a roommate, I ended up getting a splitting pain in the side of my knee. At the college health center the doctor diagnosed me with tendonitis, a common injury for runners who increase their mileage too quickly. She recommended I take a 3 week break from running and ice my knee 3-4 times a day. I followed her instructions and started to feel better over time.

In January 2020 as I started to run again, the pain returned. This time, I went to the sports physical therapist who accurately diagnosed the pain as IT Band Syndrome. The Iliotibial (IT) Band is a ligament that connects your hip down to your knee, running along the outside of the leg. The tightness in my quads and hamstring was causing this ligament to be pulled and irritated, causing the pain in my knee. He told me to take it easy on the runs for a bit, and showed me some new stretches to add to my workouts to prevent this from happening in the long run (pun intended).

This is when I realized things needed to change. I bought a foam roller. I tried to incorporate a few minutes of light stretching before my lifts. I even tried (unsuccessfully) to fit a yoga class in my schedule. But it wasn’t enough. The pain kept returning, and was worsening so much that I had trouble walking normally on days after I ran.

Thus began my journey to make my body stronger, more flexible, and more resilient. Along the way I rekindled and cultivated my love for running, became much more aware of how my body worked, and developed a deeper mental connection.

Things I’ve Experienced and Learned

Over the course of the past year, I’ve stretched almost daily and gone on runs several times a week consistently.

Here are some of the things I can do now that I never have been able to do before:

But aside from the obvious physical benefits of stretching regularly, there are two other important things the past year has helped me develop: an acute awareness of my body and muscles, and a mindset that emphasizes progress over results.

Becoming Aware of Your Body

Before: “My leg hurts” After: “My hamstring is tight, and doing a few pike-to-squat stretches should loosen it up”

I’m not a doctor, and this is not medical advice, but can you see the difference there? When I search the internet for solutions to the first problem, I get a list of 16 problems that scare me more than help. Searching the second, however, leads to many simple resources for how to fix a tight hamstring.

The difference between being sore and being injured was one I learned early on because of my IT Band. As I learned which stretches helped release which muscles, I figured out what I could do to feel better after a long run or a hard workout. I was able to listen to my body for dietary habits (mostly: a lot more vegetables and protein) and hone my sense of what my body needs to grow and develop. Being able to fix smaller muscle knots and pulls as they occurred and proactively work on my weaknesses made a huge contribution to my ability to keep running longer distances at faster paces.

Progress Mindset

The other large change I made was focusing on the progress I made from my previous self. The fitness YouTubers I follow and look up to for inspiration sometimes make videos that focus on doing incredibly complex skills. It was so easy to look at them and feel bad about not being able to run a 4:30 mile, or hold a front lever, or, heck, even touch my toes. I would spend hours looking at videos from many channels comparing the different techniques and routines, creating spreadsheets and charts - while not actually putting any of that knowledge to use on the mat. There’s a phrase for this mentality called analysis paralysis that means “overthinking a situation can cause decision making to become paralyzed, meaning that no solution or course of action is decided upon”.

So it wasn’t a problem of not knowing what to do, but simply not doing anything. As I realized this, I came to the conclusion that my journey was just that - my own journey. It didn’t really matter to me that other people could do more advanced skills or run faster than I could. All that I started caring about was whether I was trying my hardest and whether I was doing better than yesterday, or last week, or last month.

Changing my perspective from an accomplishment-based one to a progress-based one has not only benefited my physical fitness, it has also helped me make progress and learn new skills at work, and for my hobbies (including starting this blog).

How I Started – and What I Do Now

To avoid analysis paralysis for any readers looking to follow a simple path and make some progress of their own, I’ve boiled down links and resources that worked for me. Note that there were many weeks in the middle where I tried new things that didn’t end up working or were too time-intensive. No matter how it may seem in hindsight, my progress wasn’t just a straight-line upwards but rather a random walk with a lean towards the positive.

Becoming More Flexible

For anybody trying to get more flexible, I highly recommend doing these for the first month or two:

These practices will get you moving and you’ll start to see progress very soon.

Once you start getting more comfortable, here are some links that I really enjoy. I’ve picked my favorite practices from each YouTube channel so that you can also enjoy for free!

I followed the Move program until it started getting very time-intensive (I couldn’t spend 90 mins in the gym after work), and then switched over to doing shorter practices by Tom Merrick and the other YouTubers.

Have fun with it! Switch up your teacher every now and then if you get bored, but don’t lose sight of your longer-term goals!

A Summer Of Running

In the summer of 2020, I used the Nike+ Run Club app’s built in coach to help me explore different types of runs like tempo runs, fartleks, sprints, and easy recovery runs. I highly recommend Coach Bennett’s audio guided runs! It’s just like having a running partner and somebody who will push you to the limits. Some of my favorite runs from the app were his interviews with Shalane Flanagan and Eliud Kipchoge.

In total I ran 287.4 miles between March and September of 2020. After I moved to Philadelphia, I joined the Philly Runner’s club and would run with them 4.7 miles on Tuesday nights and 8 miles on Saturday mornings (when I could). As I started work and the weather got worse, my running tapered off to about 3 miles a week (down from my peak of ~15 that I was doing in the summer!).

Now, I’m following the 10k program on my Garmin Forerunner 645 Music. This one has many more analytics features like measuring my VO2 and heart rate as I do the various exercises, but I do sometimes miss the audio guides from Nike.

My Current Routine and Goals

The more I learn about how much I can do, the more I want to push myself. Currently, I’m working on training for the Philadelphia Half Marathon in October/November and improving my pancake stretch.

In May 2021, I signed up for a fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for which I will run 62 miles in 31 days between May 1 and May 31. At the time of writing I’m 5.4 miles into this challenge!

My weekly running routine involves whatever my Garmin coach tells me! I’m trying to increase my mileage to 15 miles per week in order to meet my goal.

My weekly stretching routine involves the following:

I hope you enjoyed the read, and stay tuned for more about how my overall flexibility and running is going!