Stretch the date

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The third post in this trilogy after the importance of diet and rest is stretching. If I could give one piece of advice to anyone new to running it is to get in the regular habit of stretching; not just before and after running but daily.

Every time I have suffered an injury it has been through lack of stretching. That’s not to say I follow my own advice all the time. Although it only takes 10 minutes out of the 1440 minutes in a day, I can still be too lazy to attempt it.

It isn’t just about warming up your muscles. You can do that through a slow jog or fast walk before each session. More importantly it is about developing a long term flexibility across the whole body and this only comes with time and sustained practice.

Over time I have combined a number of exercise from pilates, yoga and general stretching to form a routine. It covers the major muscle groups and can be done in a short space of time and anywhere.

I begin by touching my toes, leaning into calf stretches and then stretching the quadriceps by lifting my foot behind me until it touches my buttock on each side in turn. Next I do a forward yoga stretch for my back, breathing deeply with bent legs and reaching towards the floor with my arms crossed above my head.

At this point I adopt the downward facing dog pose and then bring my left leg forward into a crescent lunge with my hands pointing to the ceiling. I then bend forward and reach for my toes repeating both twice. Down into the pigeon pose – the hardest of them all – releases my hip. Back into downward facing dog and repeat on the other side.

Now back in DFD I transition into cobra to stretch my lower back. I rock back onto my heels into child’s pose before lifting onto my hands and knees and rounding my back, up in cat pose and then down in cow pose. I repeat this a few times.

I now sit with one leg out straight, the other bent so that my foot is by the opposite knee and twist to the side, swap sides. Then finally again on my back I bend one leg and flatten it over the other in the supine spinal twist. All done.

Often my daughter will ‘help’ me. She will copy my poses or jump on my back to add extra weight! It is vital when covering so many miles that I do these stretches at least once a day, preferably twice.

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