Essays on life, adventure and figuring it all out.

I wanted to take some time to let you all know what’s been growin’ on (the branch, or in the ground).

It has been a while since I updated you about my garden. Months in fact. Here’s to the down and dirty. The first of which is my radishes! Don’t they look great! This was back in March just before I went up to Savannah. I took a bunch up to the Hostel in the Forest to share. I also left some of the smaller ones in the ground. When I got back into town they were huge.

Unfortunately the cucumbers that I planted at the same time as the radishes never really took off. They were a non-vining variety which I thought would be better starting out. A few of them slowly started growing, but they never got really far.

The ones that did take off were the carrots. Here is the first of those that came out of the ground. It was a bit small, and a bit bitter, so the rest are still hanging out for now. Maybe in a couple weeks. By then the onions should be ready as well.

The Swiss chard was going so well that I didn’t get a chance to harvest much of it before others decided to eat it. The critters really enjoyed it. More of it is starting to grow in now. I’m hoping to be able to pick enough soon for a meal.

On top of these regular garden goodies I also have my assortment of potted plants. I inherited most of them from friends who were moving into an apartment. I have a few pepper plants, a tomato plant and a large bucket with a bunch of papaya seedlings. There seems to be two varieties of pepper plants that I received. One is a small orange pepper right now. The other is growing this bad boy red pepper right now. I’m looking forward to digging into him.

The three avocado plants that I started are doing really well now. I had to do some triage work back in March. I forgot to ask my roommate to put some water in their pots while I was away. Two of them lost some of their leaves, and the third’s trunk started to wither. As penance I made sure to water them consistently when I got back and give them some friendly words. This seemed to only do just enough to sustain them.

When I first was reading about growing avocados they said the plants only really need to be watered a couple times a week. Which aside from my one week I was doing. I grew more concerned with little progress, and decided to throw caution to the wind. I bumped up the waterings to every other day. Summer is upon us, I figured it would be good for them. Turns out this is what they needed. All three are flourishing now. Even the one whose trunk is half withered has formed a new primary segment of leaf growth.

Over the past year and a half we’ve had some interesting surprises. One came early on in the form of a tree bearing starfruit. Around the same time we also found a kumquat tree. Nice, but not nearly as exciting as the starfruit. Especially since the kumquats usually wind up squashed under foot when I take out the trash. Both of these trees are on the side of our backyard and don’t get too much direct attention.

In between these two trees has been a third tree that has mostly just hung out. Like many of the plants in the backyard it had a tropical feel to it, but we hadn’t thought much of it. That is until the other day. I was in my office (the garage) looking for motivation (staring out the window) when I finally noticed something hanging from this tree. I had to get up and confirm what my eyes saw. There they were, to my surprise, fresh ripening mangoes growing from that tree! One of my favorite fruits fresh in my backyard! While they are not entirely grown by my hands I’ll eat and enjoy them just the same.

Right now, I’m really starting to love this Spring! The weather in Florida has been beautiful. Perfect for running. Flashback two months ago, and this actually had me worried. Two months ago I was still worried about my knees hindering my distance running.

Knee pain doesn’t just go away. I tried that tactic, both ignoring it and resting it, and I doubt it worked for me any better than you. What I have found through my own experience, and what seems to be prevalent for most modern runners is that the knees or feet aren’t responsible for what ails us. The problem is actually one joint higher in our hips.

Americans on a whole spend less time standing, or mobile, than we did 100 years ago. Office jobs and commuting have pretty much eliminated our needs to be physically mobile. If you think about it, can you say you are actually on your feet more than a cumulative hour throughout the day? Maybe, but doubtful that it goes passed two hours. Two hours is not enough to compensate for years of atrophy of the muscles that connect your hips to the rest of you.

When you then translate the weakening of your hips to doing something active like running you are likely asking for trouble. If you were active in high school and younger, you might stand a chance, but for those of us who never built much muscle in those areas we are prime candidates for pain associated with weak hip-stabilizing muscles. Some dedicated effort is necessary to start getting your body in a strong place.

What, aside from resting, are some of the actionable items you can take to improve your hip strength? Two major factors; dynamic stretching and 100Ups. Individually, dynamic stretching was doing pretty well to help minimize the pain I felt. I added the 100Ups a couple months later and can attest that combined they helped push me back into a positive place with my runs.

Dynamic stretching, unlike static stretching gets your body loose, helps lubricate joints and warms up the body. I do this routine before every run I do.

Standard Warm-Up: As demonstrated by Jason from Strength Running

100Ups are a real simple exercise that I do every morning when I wake up. You can do it right out of bed, or in the kitchen while you’re waiting for your coffee to brew.

100Ups: As demonstrated by Jack from Natural Running Store

Combined both of these routines have eliminated my knee pain that I was consistently seeing after two miles of running for a period longer than six months. As I build up to running another marathon I will be adding two other routines to help ensure my legs staying strong. When that time comes I will post those routines. Until then, try these exercises and see how much they help you.