“Resiliency: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change.”

-The Meriam-Webster Dictionary

Resiliency is a key characteristic of most successful runners. Let’s face it, running is hard, and if you run a lot, you will likely experience great physical and mental adversity. How you prep your body and mind determines how much you can withstand, and how well you will recover afterwards.

Enter Self-Care, a blanket term I use to describe the numerous activities around running that, in my opinion, you must do to become and remain a consistent, successful runner.

Practically and financially, most of us cannot employ our own personal bodyworker to help us address the aches and pains that inevitably come from regular running. So, the first component of self-care I’d like to highlight is self-massage. The concept of working on yourself may seem strange, but it’s incredibly helpful and empowering once you hone your skills. There are a wide variety of tools available: foam-roller, massage guns, “The Stick”, a lacrosse or tennis ball, the Theracane….the list goes on. If none of these are available or works for you, you can even use your own fingers to probe for and work out muscle knots, fascial adhesions, etc. Self-massage can be done before a run as a warm-up, after a run as part of a cool-down, or as a stand-alone activity.

The next component is your warm-up. Here are activities I view as excellent ingredients for an effective warm-up:

· A 10- to 15-minute easy jog to loosen up your legs and prime your cardiovascular system for the work ahead.

· Once your muscles are working and warm, you can add some dynamic stretches like leg swings or walking lunges.

· If your planned run for the day involves speed work, or if you want to prep for a speed workout the next day, be sure to do running drills. Some of my favorites are butt kicks, a-skips, b-skips, carioca and lateral skips.

· You can also do strides, which are relaxed accelerations of about 50 paces during which you speed up to almost a sprint, then decelerate and jog for a short period. Think quick, light on your feet, fun! Recover completely between each bout of strides.

Your post-run activities can also go a long way towards promoting resiliency. Here are some post-run things I like to add into my programming:

· Strides at the end of a run can be an excellent introduction to speedwork in the early season, or for a new runner. Do 2 to 10 reps, 2 to 4 times per week. Try them barefoot for foot-strengthening benefits.

· Short, steep hill sprints after a run have a similar purpose to strides and can be done in place of them. These also have an added strength-building effect. Do 2 to 10 reps of 8 to 12 seconds each twice a week.

· If your run involves speedwork, or if you are racing, it’s always a good idea to end with a 10-to-15-minute slow, easy jog to help your body transition from hard effort to recovery.

· Strength training is a great thing to do after running and may even assist with your recovery. Ten to 15 minutes of core and bodyweight strength training after a run helps train stability and can be done 4 to 7 time per week. Heavier resistance training of your large, prime mover muscles – like your glutes, quads and hamstrings – is best done on your hard days. Make sure you’re keeping your hard days hard, and your easy days easy!

· Stretching is another popular post-run activity. Static stretching, where you are holding a stretch for 30 to 60 seconds, is common and best done after running, when your muscles are already loose and warm. Other types of stretching, like Active Isolated Stretching (short, repeated stretches of 8 to 12 reps per stretch) can also be helpful.

Self-Care for Runners