Real David H.

It’s so easy to get carried away with thoughts after a race or a different experience. After Saturday’s Trail Nut race, my thoughts are all over the place.
About a year ago, I posted this video to Facebook and recently posted it to YouTube from a run on Sharp Top mountain in Bedford County:

I’ve watched this video a few times today because I love my voice so much I need to be reminded of how much I was in love with the trails and mountain running just a year ago. The only problem is I only did a handful of runs like that. (If you happen to be a longtime reader, yes, I did blog about that run last year HERE.)

As I look back at my running over the years, even before this blog, I think it’s no coincidence that my injuries have come after many months of just running on roads. After Saturday, I realized that the mix of the two may be very beneficial to me.

Prior to the start of this blog 4 years ago, I ran trails quite a bit, hitting them at least once a week. I had ZERO injuries until I trained for a 10 miler in mid-2006 after I drifted away from trails. While it wasn’t all that much, the first half of last year I had a trail run at least once a month – my injury in the fall came after 4 months completely on roads.

The learning experiences from this past weekend aren’t limited to my post from Sunday. I realized while running Saturday how different my form was on the trails because it HAD to be. As I continue to work on stopping so much heel striking, I noticed how it was nearly impossible to heel strike even if I tried.

I even analyzed this inset photo from the race, blew up the area of my feet and noticed that the next step I was going to take was not going to be a heel strike.

The great thing about this photo is that it was a fairly flat portion of the race – whatever I’m doing to make these changes in my cadence is working.

The desire to run on trails more is also important to the “having fun” aspect of running. In my video above, I had a blast on that run up Sharp Top mountain. In Saturday’s race, I had the most fun I’ve had in years. I still think about how much fun a mountain adventure was back in January 2010.

At this stage of my running and what I feel like is a continued comeback, I have to keep mixing it up. It’s important, I think, to change things, to challenge myself and to keep having fun. If I’m going to have a stronger half of 2011 than the first half – which was my main 2011 goal – all of these things have to happen.