Okay, I have to admit it, I got a bit frustrated with the right leg yesterday and didn’t do a whole lot more than the Pose Method Lesson 2 drills, an aborted 1:00 minute run and some walking later after I had a chance to think about things. It was time to re-fill the optimism cup and do what I set out to do for the month of August.

Give the body some time off to recover from 8 years of continually pushing to run and learn if the Pose Method will work for me.

What happened?

First, I got frustrated over nothing. I got a bit pissy about what I can’t do right now versus the stuff that I can still do even while the Periformis/Right butt cheek/leg are grumpy.

Back at the start of the month I set the goal of taking the month off to learn the Pose Method and let the body heal from the miles that I have done over the past eight years. This not running, thing bothers me a lot more than I thought it would and the Periformis doing its best to strangle my Sciatic nerve is not helping my attitude. Especially, since it is limiting what I can do as far as strengthening my body and attempting to run a bit differently using the Pose Method.

It raises those ugly doubts of whether attempting to change my running is something that is worth doing at all and I have only done five days – well sort of – I haven’t been able to do the 1-2 minute runs comfortably yet and the pre-activity work has been shut down as well.

This almost feels like the body is rebelling against the idea of changing how I run and won’t relax until I stop and move back to what is comfortable for me. However, I am not ready to give up on the Pose Method and will get back to doing what I can this morning, while resting the Periformis, sitting on the ice block a few times a day and in the evening using the heating pad to relax things. Which all seem to be helping enough so that I can finally sit on the foam roller for a little while.

So it is time to stop the whining, do the things that I can do and fill the cup back up. What I am doing now is stuff I can control, so I have no excuses to back out or stop learning more about the Pose Method – by doing the lessons in the book.

Lesson Three

Focus Preparation

The second time around for this lesson and I will:

• 3×30 seconds. Complete all three body weight perception drills: springiness position, running in place, and Pose position.
• 3x – Do the Pose hold drill for twenty seconds on each leg.
• 3x – Wall-fall drill from the springiness position
• 3x – three wall-fall drills on each leg from the running Pose
• 3x – Timber drills on each leg
• Go for a short run, one to two minutes (which I will not be doing today)

Do weight work, foam rolling and periformis stretches or Yoga video

Post session review

I went through a modified warm-up routine and then did the Pose drills multiple times. The right butt area is still not all that happy, but the drills didn’t seem to bother it all that much.

Once I finished the drillwork, I did a 20 minute Yoga for Runners by Adrienne and that really seemed to help the butt area. It re-emphasized how stiff and inflexible I am, but I did remember some of the poses that she did in the video from whe I was taking yoga 2x a week back in 2015.

Then I planned to do a 2.0 mile walk down to Shepard Road. The leg didn’t bother too badly all the way down, but coming back up the hill, it did get a little grumpy, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. When I got to the speed limit sign I decided to go ahead and do an easy run back to the house. No push or focus, just running and actually made it without a lot of discomfort. Some is okay and expected, but not crossing the threshold into pain that stops you cold.

So the icing and heating pad seem to be loosening up the Periformis or whatever is bothering back there. Now it is just a matter of staying smart, keep doing the yoga stuff, not attempting to be a hero and run through pain and just letting time heal what needs to be healed over the next three weeks, while I continue to learn more about the Pose Method.