Background of Running

While playing music and touring, I took up smoking and eating poorly. My weight and health ballooned to an unacceptable point. I started biking with some buddies and became pretty obsessed with it. My weight started to drop and my overall health started to improve naturally. My wife wanted to start jogging, so I decided to put the bike down a couple of days a week and jog with her. It HURT! It hurt bad, but in a very good way.

Running became a new challenge, or obsession for me. It was not easy, and took a lot of mental discipline. After my wife became pregnant with our first son Barrett, I started running more and more out of necessity due to time constraints. I began to enter races and I also began fairing well amongst my peers. I have a 5k PR of 20:45, and a 1/2 Marathon PR of 1:45:12. These are the only two distances I have truly "raced" at, although I have ran other events of other distances. I began having pain in my left foot and just kept running through it, running to a point I was almost trying to run away from my own insecurities. I eventually got very hurt. Plantar Fascitiis, Peroneal Tendon, and Achilles Tendon pain were all inflamed to a point I could barely stand.

I read everything I could on training and injury prevention during this time and started coaching other runners. (2 runners to a Boston Qualifying marathon performance) After a year of battling this foot injury, my chiropractor Dr. Leslie turned me on to Graston, which is torture but got me running again. Now with a renewed appreciation for being able to put one foot in front of the other, I am smarter about my training, my diet and most of all the craziness which almost destroyed my running has left and a more civil person has emerged.

I love to run, and it is the most rewarding form of exercise. I am just thankful for family and friends who helped me get back to what I love to do. The power of spirit seems to always prevail in cases like this. I don't think my experience is any different.