I just don't know what to do with myself!

Eye just don't know ....



My bum's not responding to treatment and the complete breaks from running aren't helping. Just going to continue with the "Piriformis Syndrome" exercises and rolling on a ball (This hurts like a bastard on the sore spot) and hope it comes good. Very frustrating how it just seems to hang on. I haven't had anything like this. Wish me luck and also spare a thought for those that have to live with me, through this.

Still having said this it's not all that bad, still can run fast enough to satisfy me, and long enough to keep fitness. I think the way through this is simply to slowly increase the Ks while continuing stretching it and out while doing a few strides every 2nd day or so. Any other advice?

Also I have this bloody sore spot (sore to touch even) on the back of the heal on the otherwise good right leg! Anybody have any idea what this is and how to fix it?

You Have a Very Pretty Bird!

Lessons not only in Serbian but on how languages in general should be taught!

SAMURAI STRIDERS

It seems that link to the PDF was no good, thanks Marty, but anyway if you just contact me direct on abenoki@gmail.com I can send it to you. And Paul glad you're interested. I thought about you and wanted to get in touch but didn't have your contact details. Can you send them to me. Cheers!

OSAKA RUNNING CLUB

Last night I talked on the phone to Bob "Tokyo Racer" about setting up a running club similar to "Namban Rengo" the International Running Club he helps with (is the President of) in Tokyo.

He gave me some good advice, thanks Bob, and I've put together an outline that I'd like you to look at and give some feedback on. If you have experience with clubs please let me know if I'm missing something. Or if you are a local here in Osaka, foreign or Japanese, and would be interested in joinining a club like this please get in touch with your views.

Samurai Striders (tentative)(Osaka International Running Club)
To start early September 2011

FIND MEMBERS
Foreign and local runners (How to do this)
ARRANGE FIRST MEETING
To talk about its set up (Where to do this)
DECIDE A NAME
Decide on name and logo (Initial members decide)
APPOINT/ELECT CLUB OFFICIALS
President
• Treasurer
• Secretary
• Fundraiser Coordinator
• Social Coordinator
• Race Coordinator
• Club Coach
• Web Site Coordinator
DETERMINE THE CLUB MISSION
Who are we what are our objectives
WRITE THE CLUB HANDBOOK/BYLAWS
Do this as a group
PLAN A WEBSITE
Who will design and run it day to day (Me to start)
SCHEDULING RUNS
Time and duration (Week night 7:30 to 9:00)
FIND A LOCATION
Place with track and showers (Nagai Park)
SET ANNUAL FEES
To cover clubs running costs (annual 2000 yen)?

I’d appreciate any feedback and expressions of interest regarding the setting up of this running club.

Thanking you in anticipation

Scott Brown abenoki@gmail.com

Something else that might be of interest to you. A slide show on the beauty and strength of Bamboo. "Be Bamboo My Friend"

Be Like Bamboo (TEDxTokyo 2011 slides)

View more presentations from garr

Shodoshima Half

Post race



Nice weekend in Shodo Island. Took a ferry from Osaka and in three and a half hours we arrived. Spent Saturday doing tourist things. The cable car up the mountains and lunch and tour of olive farm. Shodo Island is famous for the olives they grow and turn into olive "everything". Also just about everything on the island is named olive something. There's the "Olive Bus Line", "Olive Drug Store", "Olive Gas Station" Kept the kids busy counting "Olive" references!

Sounds a bit over the top but it is a very nice place and we really had a good weekend. As for the race is was one of the best organised I've ever seen in Japan. The bag they gave us on registration took almost two hands to lift, full of samples of local foods! And the course was the best I've run. A few long gradual up hills but mostly they had us on scenic coast roads with the going slightly downhill all the way! Nice wind at our backs too!

If I wasn't injured and it hadn't rained so hard for the first 3K, (couldn't see the people more than 2 meters in front of me), I would have PBed for sure ;)

Anyway did 1:21:43 for 28th overall and 3rd in my age group. First guy in the 40~50 age group did like 1:13:00! And the winners in all groups were out of the rests class! Talking to some guy in the ferry coming back, he is 69 and did 1:32:00 and came 22nd in his age group!

I decided half way through this race to get professional help for my legs, the left one is aching almost constantly now! My next main goal will be a half in Perth in early August, I'll look for a PB there. Just one more 10K here in a couple of weeks before the weather gets too hot for racing. I'll do what I can there but that result will depend how the pins respond to treatment.

SELF DENIAL

"I'm on my way from misery to happiness today"

On my 4th day of not running and feeling better for it. Still some lingering pain in my Achilles, my ankles and left hamstring but hopefully this rest is enough to fix the problems I've been having. I'm chomping at the bit to run again and will do a long slow one tomorrow.

On a different note. I was listening to an interesting podcast this morning. They talked about studies that have shown that athletes who were able lie to themselves were the best overall.

How they ascertained that these people were lying was by asking them questions such as "Do you enjoy your bowel movements?" "Have you ever wanted to be raped and/or rape somebody else?" "Have you ever thought about suicide in order to get back at someone?" And many more such unpleasent questions. It was supposed that everyone has these thoughts at least once so if you answered "no" to any of these you were prone to lying to yourself!

Well it seemed in follow up studies those that did answer "No" (a lot) whether they were runners, swimmers, or other such timed obsessed athletes.. well they were the ones that did the best in their sport! They were the high achievers.

Bringing this home. The people who are able to say to themselves such things as "I'm the best!" "Nobody trains harder than me!" "I'm a lean machine!" etc etc help themselves and make it a kind of self fulfilling prophecy! It's not like they totally believe it but they are able to hold these thought in the face of contradictory ones.

I heard a story by Pat Carroll where he and a friend told Darren Wilson, for a joke, that they were doing 20 X 1000 meter repeats when actually they were actually only doing 6 or something like that. But the laugh was on them when Darren being the positive guy that he was, did these without much thought and, came out and blitzed both of them in a 10K race the following month.

A little self deception can go a long way in our lives too! I'll leave you with another example, one from my youth...

When I was a teen I saw my girlfriend walking in the park with another guy and I ignored it saying "Probably her brother!" But I broke it off a week later when I walked in on them making love! I had to. I couldn't abide by incest now could I!?

Currently unattended!

"In The Long Run" is currently unattended while the management visits clinics in the former Soviet Union seeking answers to the question of recent form slump. Please enjoy this musical interlude!

Take me out to the ball game!

A day not to forget.

Went to see our "Orix Buffaloes" pro baseball team play today with G'Dad and the kids! Nice day out! One of the best things being the girls walking around with beer kegs on their back serving draught beer! And if that wasn't enough there were these giant sized hot dogs! I think I now understand the George Bush refrain of "They hate us for our freedom."

Related to old George, how about them catching and killing Osama? Is it only me or does this life seem like a made for TV movie! We seem to go from one thing to another with no time to catch our breath! My own life recently has taken a turn towards the dramatic!

I'll relate a story from last Saturday morning. I woke up in my usual daze clutching the wall and pulling myself up it to my feet, we sleep on a futon on the ground. There was a basket of washing on the side table that I'd bumped, and I thought at the time, cleverly caught and replaced back on the table.

Anyway, I headed out of the bedroom into the kitchen naked except for a pair of "Sponge Bob" boxers, poured out a cup of coffee and stared out the window to see what kind of day it was. Before my second sip I felt a strange sensation, a dripping and a wet feeling on my feet. I looked down slowly to see several big splotches of deep red blood on my feet!

For some strange reason I looked up to the ceiling thinking that the blood had came from there but when I couldn't see anything I instinctively shoved my hand down my boxes fearing the worse! Well everything seemed connected but I pulled out my hand and it was blood red to the wrist!!

I rushed to the bathroom in a state of panic that you can probably understand only if you've seen "Alien" or your family name is "Bobbit"! On pulling down my shorts I let out a blood curdling scream that brought in my two sons. One, the youngest had a ghost white face and the other a smile that had me thinking, in a vain effort to make sense of this, that he'd set it up! After yelling at him "What have you done to me!" I proceeded to wash my groin area I was at this stage covered in thick blood from my navel to my knees!

"Jesus Christ this is coming from my old fella" I screamed, or something to that affect! I grabbed the shower hose again and turning it harder on myself I attempted to see where this blood was coming from! If this was you, would you rather that the blood was coming from your front hole or back one? Yes, I know it's the kind of a lose, lose answer but luckily I found the leak and it was coming from my sack!

You'd think that "Luckily" and blood coming from ones ball bag should not be used in the same sentence but I was able to stop the blood flow and make sense of why I was standing buck naked, surrounded by (mostly) concerned family members in a pool of my own blood!

Once the panic had subsided I put it together rather quickly. I seems like when I snatched the falling washing basket the steel buckle on my sports watch had cut deep into my scrotum and produced this fearsome deluge!

I'm fine now but it did put things into perspective. I mean when you think you are bleeding profusely from the penis your case of Plantar Fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis tend to fade in importance!

Nevertheless my present injuries remain an issue that I'll touch on next post.