Category Archives: Running

Recommended reading: A good yarn about sticking with it

If you’re just beginning a exercise program — be it walking, swimming, cycling, whatever — and are having doubts, take a few minutes to read about the Yarn Harlot’s foray into running. She assures you you are not alone.

If you’ve ever made anything out of two needles and a very long piece of string, you probably know about the Yarn Harlot. If you buy all your sweaters, socks and toboggans at Penny’s, the Yarn Harlot is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, a prolific knitter and an even more prolific writer-about-knitting. She’s written a number of books and writes an enormously popular blog. read more

Walk, don’t run

“Squeeze your butt and take full steps,” Kpop (a k a Karley Poplestein), 02 Fitness trainer by day/walking coach by early evening instructed as we began walking from The Athlete’s Foot in Cameron Village to the nearby Rose Garden. That’s a … curious request, I thought. Fortunately, before I could reach behind and grab my buns while taking full steps I noticed my cowalkers were clinching their gluteus maximus, not palming them. read more

Hamstrung: The recovery

Finally, the exciting conclusion to our hamstring injury! (Guilty of hyperbole. Let’s proceed.)

OK, a hamstring injury isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t have the cache of, say, an ACL injury. But it’s common among weekend warriors. Don’t warm up, go out too fast — ping! — there’s a debilitating snap in the back of your leg. A muscle snap that if you ignore can hobble you for weeks. First, a look at how to avoid irritating your hamstring in the first place. read more

Hamstrung by a hamstring

It was the second inning and we were only down by two, but already I could feel the game slipping away. There was a short fly to the first base side, I started to sprint over and — Aiieee! — I felt a hamstring go. The semitendinosus, if my reading of the Full Body Anatomy chart was right. I one-hopped the fly, another run scored and I suddenly had visions of my active life grinding to a leg-elevated, ice-bagged halt. read more