I am tired, allergies are kicking in, more than a little frustrated and probably have too much time on my hands. None of which is all that good, especially when I have another of those mystery injuries that start as a nagging little thing, that grew suddenly into something that is bad enough for me to say I need to take some down-time from running.

It is not like I have been pushing the body that hard, I have limited myself to 25-35 miles a week – maintenance running and not really doing a lot of quality or longer distances…it has been just running.

However, it seems that I have reached the definition of insanity – doing the same things over and over, but expecting different results. Since I won’t be doing any races or so it seems much running anywhere other than from my house, it is the perfect time to change things up and see if I can work the Pose Method of running into my training over the next 9-10 weeks.

Changing my stride or at least improving it, has been one of those things that I ought to do, since I know it ain’t all that great and more than a couple of times I have tried for a couple of weeks and then just went back to running the way I always have, because it was just too much work. Earlier this year I re-read The Running Revolution by Nicholas Romanov and thought seriously about giving it a real go.

However, I disliked the low mileage totals that are required to do it correctly, not a half-assed effort like I tend to do and get no where but frustrated. That ego trip stuff tends to trip me up and lead me astray and yes, like most runners I do have a bit of an ego about me and my running.

However, this bout of having a pain in my right arse cheek, which I am fairly confident is another case of Periformis Syndrome, after battling hamstring issues with my left leg most of the Spring have really made me stop and think about what I can do to get off the injury merry-go-round.

I can walk with some discomfort, but not enough to stop me from doing the ADL stuff, but when I attempt to run more than a few minutes, it becomes more a how much discomfort are you willing to endure to get your miles in? On Thursday’s run, I shut it down before getting to my normal finish line, because the butt cheek pain was just that pain and it was really affecting my stride. Not what I expected or wanted.

I also know that a lot of my injury or should I say re-injury issues are directly related to my running form and how bad it is. So I have a choice keep doing what I am doing and know that every 2-3 months I will have down time to take care of yet another running timeout from some running overuse malady, because my body is out of sync or not resilient enough to endure what I expect from it.

So I have started to re-read The Running Revolution again and ordered the physical book, which I think will be easier to use as a workbook than my eBook. I plan to start in on Monday with the drills and the nine week program in the book and see how far I get with it.

In addition to doing the Pose method routine, I also plan to ride my bike more and yes, lift weights and jump rope three times a week, until I develop a good routine/habit doing those things.

I am interested in seeing if I can change my form to any significant degree by using this program and initially getting my cardio from my old mountain bike.

With the pandemic still a real thing, I can’t think of a better time to experiment with something like this and maybe, it is time for me take a little break from worrying about getting that weekly, monthly mileage and work on becoming a better runner or at least one that is more efficient and hopefully, a bit more injury-proof.

Wish me luck.

Tomorrow I will start first Running Journal entry on this journey by doing the first entries recommended by the book on this blog.

It should be interesting.

By the way, I did ride my mountain bike for 5.15 miles in 24:41 and the best part was that even though I wasn’t feeling all that great, too much fun in the sun working clearing old wood piles and brush (mold, rotting logs, etc.) out back the last couple of days…I didn’t experience any discomfort while riding. Although I could tell when I walked 2.0 miles with Bennie that the Periformis was still pretty grumpy.