Runners Should Eat More Spinach!

My friend Kristin came to visit recently.  Kristin is fit and healthy.   It doesn’t come naturally, she works at it.   No matter what time zone she’s in, (vacation or not) she gets up early for her run, and she supplements her run with visits to a gym (even if she has to pay the daily fee when she travels).   She’s one of those “no excuses” people and it seems like she’s successful at it, because she’s healthy AND she has more energy than anyone I know.

Kristin noticed that I have a foam roller in my living room.    She said, “I have one of those, but I never use it — it hurts!”.    I started giggling, and she asked me what I was thinking.    I said, “You need to read the blog I wrote, My Foam Roller is Like Spinach”   I told her it was a story about how I learned to love my foam roller.    We chatted for a while, I sent her the link to the blog,  and I explained the types of moves I love on the foam roller.    She decided she would try it the next day after her run.

Fast forward a couple of days, and Kristin came in after her morning run.   “That foam roller really works!”    She said she usually has really tight hamstrings and they’re tight for at least the first mile.     The day after she used the foam roller — she said that first mile was easier because her hamstrings weren’t quite as tight.    She also said she usually has some “hurt” in her legs the last mile, and that it was definitely “less hurt” the day after she used the foam roller.   I’m not a runner, so I had no idea that the foam roller could make an impact, even after one use.   The foam roller didn’t instantly make Kristin more flexible, but it did have a measurable effect on how she felt during her run.

[tweetthis]Are you a runner? Do your legs hurt at the start of your run?[/tweetthis]

For the rest of her visit, Kristin returns from her run, and goes immediately to the foam roller, telling us “she’s going to have more spinach”!   She even said she’s going to start using her foam roller when she gets home!  Foam rolling is like spinach, it’s an acquired taste, but try it and see what a difference it makes!