A nolhtaud and My weekend at Two Rivers Treads

A nolhtaud (nahl todd) is a backwards Duathlon. I'm such a smarty! ha!  Two Rivers Treads has a running clinic each Saturday morning in Shepherdstown. Since I need to be really, really careful with my footstrike right now, I consider myself a 'new runner.'

I'm trying erase all the bad muscle memory and replace it with good muscle memory. I tend to run high on my fore foot which is bad. Bad for my calves, achilles, plantar plate and toes.

I live near the C&O Canal tow path, and Shepherdstown is on the tow path as well so I thought it would be a great idea to bike there, do the clinic, and bike home - bike, run, bike - a reverse Du!

I started really early because I wasn't sure how long it would take me. I arrived in time to change my shoes and wash my legs which is good because I must have ridden through some horse poo. Stinky, stinky!

Tom led the clinic and it was really good. He talked about many of the basics Dr Mark covers during the injury prevention clinics. He told us he wouldn't critique us, but I asked him to please tell me if I was up on toes at all. After some barefoot running drills we headed over to the Bavarian Inn where he showed us how to run uphill. The road to the Inn is definitely UPHILL!

Then we ran over the bridge into Maryland and then went back to the store. All told we went about 2 miles. I am so out of shape! Thankfully it's a beginner clinic so we were all close to the same pace and they didn't leave me in the dust! I have to say it was really nice to run with people again.

 We finished up, and I hopped on my bike and headed back hoping to beat the wrath of Irene.  I was tooling along, totally zoned out and suddenly there was a huge tree across the path and some people standing around wondering how long it had been there. 

I thought I must have gone past where I parked so I had to confirm where I was. Turns out that I had not gone past my car so the tree fell some time between 6:45 and 10:30ish. So scary! It's a huge tree and a lot of people are on the path during that time on the weekends. Thankfully no one was hurt and we were able to tromp down the branches on one side so folks could get through.

In the end I biked 16, ran 2 and biked 16 again. It was really fun, and I plan to do it again this weekend!

Earlier in the week, I got an email from TR Treads saying they were GIVING AWAY -as in for free - kids VivoBarefoot shoes on Sunday afternoon.  You didn't have to tell me twice; I was there!

They gave away about 150 pairs of shoes. So cool!   After measuring the kids, they had shoes to fit Ella and Shane. Hank's boats were just too big.

I was completely thrilled and very grateful. Vivobarefoot shoes are top notch and will survive anything these two can throw at them.  We'll be passing these shoes on to their kids I'm sure!

I don't know if the folks in Shepherdstown know just how blessed they are to have a store like Two Rivers Treads. I know that I'm very glad we live close enough to go there often!

Here's Dr Mark's video of it (I'm about 22 seconds into it, white tank, blue and white skirt. Thankfully you can't see the sweat running down my legs. I swear it wasn't pee.)