Tagged Again

I've been tagged by Laura. The rules of the tag are;



- Copy the rules (or your version of them) and the set of questions onto your blog

- Post your own answers to the questions

- Tag five new people.



If tagged, you’ll find your name at the end of this post.To be sure everyone tagged knows they’ve been invited to play, go to their blogs and leave them a comment notifying and referring them to your blog for details. Lastly, once the chosen have answered the questions on their own blog, they should come back to yours to tell you. Here are my responses.



1. How would you describe your running 10 years ago?



Maybe one or two 30 minutes jogs on the treadmill at the gym.



2. What is your best and worst run/race experience?



Best - The last 500 meters of my first half marathon in 2006. The feeling of accomplishment was amazing.



Worst - Regularly succumbing to shin / foot problems which lead to long periods of no running.



3. Why do you run?



To challenge myself, test my limits , find my boundaries etc etc.



4. What is the best or worst piece of advice you’ve been given about running?



Get some get custom fitted running shoes, don't increase your mileage too fast, shorten your stride length and try not to run on hard surfaces if you want to avoid shin splints.



5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people would know.

Never travel with me on public transport. I have a habit of just jumping on the first bus or train I see and could end up anywhere. Recently I was with a bunch of guys from work and we decided to take the train to a pub for some drinks one Friday after work. The pub was just up at the next stop. As I get a train to work I was in charge of getting everyone on the right train at the right time. Unfortunately we all ended up on an express train that took us to West Auckland. It was an interesting 20 minute trip that I am still often reminded of.

I'm breaking the last rule and not tagging anyone. I've seen this tag around the blog world a bit now so there's probably not many people left to tag.

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Coaching Under 8's Soccer

I'm coaching my six year old son's Soccer team again this year. It's our second year playing/coaching and so far it's been a pretty tough season. The team consists of seven boys and a solitary girl all aged six or seven.

We have retained a nucleus of last years team with just two new players joining the squad so that has helped with everyone already knowing each others game. Games played with five a side with no goal keepers on a 1/3 size pitch.

Jack and I missed the first four games of the season while were were on vacation and the team did pretty well losing just one of the four games, scoring 15 goals and conceding 6. They were grading games however and now that we have been placed in a division with teams of similar abilities we have been finding it a challenge. We have won just one of our last six games. The games have all been pretty close with our largest defeat being by 3-0. We have scored 6 goals and conceded 13.

This bad run has really started to test me as a coach also. The difficulty with coaching seven year olds is that it is extremely hard to get them to play to any sort of a game plan. At this age they just want to get out and play the game and sometimes I wonder whether as a coach of midget soccer (or any childrens sports team) it is us parents that strive for the wins more so and feel the losses more than the players themselves.

As a coach of kids you need to somehow be able to get the best out of kids with a wide range of skills, personalities and temperaments. Our team, like most I guess, has a mix of talented players, some less skilled but none the less hard triers, through to others that for most of the time seem to be in their own world oblivious to the game. One way of getting everyone involved is to give everyone a role to play and give them specific instructions on what you want them to do. As I said above, these instructions are often quickly forgotten in the mayhem of a game but gradually we are getting there.

The other aspect about coaching which I am quickly becoming acutely aware of is the pressure to win is as high as you would expect from a national league side. As I also mentioned above, sometimes it is the parents that create that pressure with our own huge desire to see our children succeed. I feel the losses as hard as anyone, but kids are kids and they quickly forget.

This week at practise, I had an intense discussion with one parent (I might as well call him my assistant coach) who it is clear has very differing views to mine on how we should be coaching the team. I am inclined to just let the kids play the game and let the game be the teacher, while offering bits of advice here or there. My assistant can be a lot more direct, is often in players' ears constantly, telling them where they should be and what they should be doing. I don't think that's an effective way to get the best out of seven year olds and I prefer to offer positive feedback and praise to someone who has done something well rather that come down hard on a kid for making a mistake. We need to let these kids learn the game their way, in there own time and from the mistakes that they make.

Every week we go close and today was no different. We played the side that beat us 3-0 six weeks ago. We were up 1-0 at half time but unfortunately let in two second half goals to go down 2-1.

At the end of the game I asked the opposition coach how his season was going. He said they had not yet lost a game and that the two games against us had been their closest and toughest games.

Next week is another game.

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Self Massage could be the Answer

I've been trying out self massage on my calfs for the last week to try and loosen them up. I'm hoping it might just be the solution to my problems of calf tightness and shin splints.

I'm massaging them daily for about ten minutes each, quite firmly along the whole length of the calf and hard against my shin. I've already noticed some improvement in with my sore shin.

Last week I went for three run/walks of only about a mile each. This week I'll step the distance up slightly and also increase the time running vs walking. I've been here before though so I know not to be in a rush when it comes to increasing my distances too fast.

I know that I've got many years of running left in me once I fix this so rather than feeling like I'm missing out on valuable training time or being robbed of race opportunities, I'm taking the approach that time is my friend and whether it takes one, six or twelve months to get over the shin splints, there is going to be ample time when I am fit to train hard and race.

So if you haven't tried it before and you have a few niggling injuries you want to get rid of, give self massage try, or better yet if you have a willing better half you could always bug them! (my better half is usually too rapt up in Grey's Anatomy, Men in Trees, or Desperate Housewives to be interested in giving my legs the attention they need).

Have a good week.

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Still on the Road to Recovery

It's hard to believe that we have been back from our North American vacation for a over a month now. Time does pass quickly doesn't it , though the fond memories from our trip won't be easily forgotten.

This last month I have been slow to get back into any type of physical activity. I still sense that my shin and foot are not totally right so rather than rush back into any type of training I've taken my time to decide on what my next step will be towards getting me back running.

The time I've had away from running (over three months now) has re affirmed to me the enjoyment that I do get from running and I would so much like to be out there, but somehow I need to figure out a way to put these injuries behind me.

I was reading some stuff online last night about treating and preventing shin splints (or more correctly Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome) and it was encouraging to read that it is possible according to experts to fully recover from this cruel injury. Sometimes over the past few years I have doubted that and wondered whether I just don't have a body made for running?

There is so much stuff on line covering shin splints that sometimes you wonder whether the so called experts even know the true cause. Some seem to think that an exaggerated pronation of the foot is the chief cause others say it's an over use injury brought on by too rapid an increase in mileage etc.

Truth is there does seem to be a multitude of factors that can contribute to shin problems and I just need to find out which ones are relevant to me.

What I do know is this;

- I have always had very tight calf muscles and achilles.
- I have generally been inflexible from feet through to hamstrings / glutes etc
- I have and some muscle imbalances which needed strengthening.
- I have not had the best running form.

It seems to make sense that these factors are the main ones that will be causing my shin problems. I don't think I have overly flat feet which would encourage excessive pronation and the last podiatrist I visited did not think I pronated extraordinarily so while I may always need a stability shoe I don't think over pronation is a main cause.

So to enable me to get back on on the road (well grass firstly) I need to continue working on stretching and strengthening my feet, calves and legs. For the next few weeks that's what I'm concentrating on.

For the next month I'm going to try and run/walk one or two miles twice a week on grass just so the legs don't forget what running is all about and also just to try and not lose too much fitness. I haven't done any swimming for three months either nor biking so my fitness will have dropped bit.

Something I picked up in my reading last night about running technique was that over striding can be a factor also. This leads to an excessive heal strike and 'slapping' of the fore foot and over use of the tibialis muscle. So in my short run/work workouts I will be also concentrating on good form and short strides.

Another treatment I picked up on was regular self massage of the calf muscles to loosen them up. This is something I haven't really tried too much of before though I have heard of it working for others. It's got to be worth a try.

Happy running.




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