Nothing bothers an athlete more than an injury. We can usually muster up the strength to compete through illness. Stress is usually alleviated by intense training, and we can convince ourselves, even in times of immense pain and torture, that our training is good for us. When pain or soreness turns to injury, that's when we as competitors are usually forced to throw in the towel.

Injuries are serious and should be handled seriously. There are many strategies to try to prevent injury. I say "try" because sometimes there are freak occurrences and those types of injuries, we shouldn't beat ourselves up over. They are to be unexpected. The typical injuries we see in runners come from "too much, too fast" training strategies and imbalance of strength between antagonistic muscle groups. The importance of this entry isn't the alleviation of pain, or specific exercises to prevent training injuries, but rather the manner in which we handle these injuries emotionally and psychologically.

It was only 3 weeks ago when I had those thoughts of doubt that every true competitor fears possessing. I thought I would never be faster again; I was on my decline.

I had just arrived back from Delaware where I had one of my best runs in recent memory. Complete bliss. Along a stream, on an uncrowded path which Lisa and I enjoyed the scenery of a 5 mile jog. I felt complete relief. My previously and chronically injured left knee held up great and I was able to escape the mental fatigue due to constant refocusing on form, which my prior two runs were swamped by. Things like, How long was my stride length? My turn over rate? How about these shoes? Are they still the right shoe for my foot strike? Instead I heard absolute silence from my brain. Then, after returning to San Diego I went on a go-to 5k route to reestablish my bearings, after too much travel, and found it a crazy struggle. I was slow. Weak! Out of breath!? Confused. I took two months off running and pretty much all sustained cardio due to a bad MCL sprain, but the literal thought of, "I'll never be the same" went through the my head a hundred times. Injury ruined my stress relief mechanism and my internal competition with myself. I literally felt no need to ever run or work on speed again.

This is important to me because I have never been a quitter. Anyone who knows me, knows I believe in myself, but for the first time I felt like I failed myself. I began to understand the complacency pit that people fall into. I thought I lost my lust for running.

what we must remember as humans is that even though we are breakable, we are very fixable. Our bodies are the most magnificent machines we know of. I am 27 years old, the same age as my first vehicle. That old Nissan pick up still runs but it has had repair after repair and maintenence after maintenance done to keep it working. Are we to suggest that the human body, after 27 years won't have atleast some problems? And what about 30,40,50,60 years down the line? Wouldn't you expect your vehicle to have some changes and repairs made? What I'm getting at is we shouldn't expect injury or fear it. But if we want to reduce our chances of injury, we must prepare ourselves mentally for the struggle of rehab and practice preventative care to avoid all together.

Injury is not the end. It is a whole new battle. It is like trying your hand at a different race distance that you had never trained or even imagined training for. Over coming injury is quite possibly as great a feeling as winning.

Glide TC was born, in my mind, in November 2014. I was and still do work as a personal trainer at a boutique studio in Point Loma, an eclectic bay side neighborhood just outside Downtown San Diego. We work with mostly middle-aged adults in a one-on-one setting, with the occasional small group class. We have a great reputation for being educated and effective. I had been at the studio for about 2 years and recognized that business had reached a state of stagnancy. We were lacking the community feel that we see dominating the fitness market. Social status both online and within the community was lacking. While our trainers had a great relationship with their clients and we saw very good retention rates, we weren't building our brand recognition.

I decided to make an effort to create a bond between clients. A familiarity and sense of pride for those who came to work with our trainers. I once heard that the best way to bring a group together is to create a common enemy; Coach Kober would be that enemy. I began encouraging clients to join myself and another trainer, Lisa, in training for the San Diego Half Marathon. We eventually encouraged 4 clients to run the race, but as many as 10 people would show up to group runs on Sunday. At first people were hesitant and couldn't believe they would eventually run 13.1 miles. Fatigue, weakness, and soreness plagued everybody at some point, just like any race training program. Yet, Sunday's had become so popular that I felt the need to begin a track workout. This speed workout would be the foundation I am building upon. It was through the burn in the lungs and legs of my runners that each would grow to both love and detest me.

Track workouts were brutal workouts for runners of all levels. We usually ran more than advertised, which led to the assumption that I was now always lying when explaining at the beginning of our session. The most important traits of a team are trust and loyalty, and if they didn't trust me they would trust eachother and bond over how hard I was drilling them. The loyalty trait of our team came from a social environment I call a "competitive support system." This not only tightened up the group but also helped each runner make big gains. Keeping track of splits and having relays were a couple strategies we used, along with promoting and praising individual efforts. Sometimes we would even run and feel the pain with them, just to prove the relativity of pain. By race week, we had a swagger about us.

The night before our race was a very emotional night for me. I have never been overly competitive with my running, atleast not against other runners. It is much more about the battle against yourself. There are a million stories about running saving someones life, or how it empowers people to achieve greatness. My running story isn't so much about me, as it is about them. My runners getting faster physically and stronger mentally. Ascending toward and surpassed their goals. Glide TC wasn't intended to be anything more than a group that got together and ran. But I realized when making my final speech before sending everyone home for the night, with everyone's eyes staring up at me, holding onto my every word, trusting that I am right and have prepared them well, that I had a team. For my first time, I coached a team and couldn't have been more proud of the effort they gave and the commitment they held onto. I applauded them and thanked them for being my first.

One year later we are establishing ourselves as a personal and performance driven training company. We look to better the athleticism of the amateur and to increase the ability of each individual.

To the top!