Category: My Personal Journey
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My method for optimal recovery: POSSM
In my own recovery journey and subsequent battles through injury, I’ve developed my own acronym for how I want to recover in time for the next effort. I call it ‘POSSM’.
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How can you inspire others, if you can’t inspire yourself?
To kick off 2023, I’ve had the privilege of teaching a coaching & leadership class to undergraduate students at Western University. To end the final class, I asked them one simple question – how can you inspire others, if you cannot inspire yourself?
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The anti-stick with a pack agenda – Around the Bay Recap
I will forever be dramatic. But three months ago I half-heartedly told my parents that I was going to have to retire from running. I had been out with plantar fasciitis for thirteen weeks, with minimal improvement and no end in sight for the vast majority of that time.
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High ambition, high caution: my new running motto
As I enter a new phase in my running career and take on a cautious approach to dedicated training, I find myself balancing the line between all of these crazy ambitions I have within my running career, and accomplishing those ambitions in the most cautious ways possible.
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Around the Bay & the quest for intentional training
Since March has rolled in, it’s been all the more imperative me to slightly adapt my approach to what’s coming at the end of March – Around the Bay 30k. Around the Bay is one of Canada’s most famous races, and is often stacked with a deep field of runners from a variety of categories…
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My best mistake was plantar fasciitis
As much as the past three months have been somewhat brutal from both a physical and mental perspective (I even thought I’d have to retire at one point!), plantar fasciitis has been one of the greatest learning experiences I could have asked for in my running journey. I now feel like I’m setting myself up…
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Why you need a therapist
Last year, at the lowest point in my life, I finally took the leap to do something that I should have done long ago, and seek out therapy. I had often shied away from therapy out of fear of the price, the time, and whether or not things were truly “bad enough” to “need therapy.”…
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Why you need a training plan
Throughout my life, I’ve done my best training for running with the help of fantastic running coaches, who helped to dictate a lot of the intense workouts and running efforts I conducted. But since leaving university, I’ve failed to get coaching advice from others, and I’ve failed to follow a distinct plan. Instead, I’ve followed…
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What I’ve learned through five weeks of injury rehab
The past five weeks have been mentally exhausting, but also incredibly rewarding as I’ve undergone my injury rehabilitation from plantar fasciitis. I’ve spent a significant amount of time learning about ultramarathon running as a sport, but also about injury prevention and healing, ensuring that when I come back to running, I’ll be in it for…
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Hidden Gem #1 – Running with a varicocele
A year and a half ago, I started to realize that my left-sided friend down under was significantly larger in size than the right-sided friend down under. I also noticed that exercises like jumping jacks or certain stretches caused me peculiar pain. It was the type of momentary pain I had experienced for years in…
Rhys Desmond 