I just have to get this back thing behind me.  Yesterday I just walked three miles and by the end of the day my back was not better.  I just don't have the time to waste.  So, I started off the day by having a deep tissue and trigger point massage by Asha at the Shawsu Workout Studio in Los Altos.  It is only about a mile from my house.

Asha has been doing massage therapy for 22 years.  I had just met her right after I took that fall a week ago Saturday.  She worked on me for one and an half hours.  She is good.

Since Catherine can not run right now because of a foot issue, she works out here three times per week.  Catherine introduced me to Asha who works out of this studio.

The charts on the wall of the massage room reminded me on how complex the human body really is.

Can you tell that I have been laying face down for nearly an hour? I felt so much better after this massage.

Then tonight Dr Hunt worked me in for a session with him.  He used his laser treatment for the first 30 minutes.  Then he did some adjustments on me.  I like his style and I felt some more improvements right away.

If I was not doing my 50 race challenge, I most likely would not have seen either Dr Hunt or Asha today.  And like many times in the past, something like this can get worse.  Over the last couple of years I have not been able to race at all for 4-6 weeks because I don't jump on the problem.  I am thinking I have gotten a handle on this.  I am not totally out of the  woods yet, but I know I am heading in the right direction.  Thanks Asha and Dr Hunt for working me in today.

This morning I ran with the Pina family (we also filmed this for our movie "A Long Run").  They normally run around the Rose Garden, a park in San Jose near their place.  Like they do always, we started out with a one lap easy run.  Then we did some warm up exercises to get all the muscles going.

Photo: some of the warm up exercises include walking high kicks, lounges with waist twists, toe rotations, knee rotations and then last is the running butt kicks with hands behind our backs (shown)

Then we ran four laps on the grass around the park (about two miles) at about a 7:30 minute/mile pace.  They normally run ten laps under 6:00/mile pace.  Five one direction and five the other.  

Photo: I normally don't run on grass but I can really see the advantage after doing it this morning.  I felt like I was flying when we ran about a half mile on the road at the end of the workout.

Then we did some exercises including their most important bear crawl.  This exercise is good for your arms, legs and stomach muscles.  They are all racing in the morning so we didn't do their usual set of exercises that normally take 45 minutes to one hour. 

Photo: The bear crawl exercise is a regular part of the Pina family training routine.

We are getting a lot of good content for our movie "A Long Run."  We will be doing a lot of mini stories like what we are doing on the Pina family.

That's a wrap.  I finished off the morning by drinking about 8 oz of Beet juice they made for me.  After I got home I ran another six miles.  I have had some back issues the last couple of days (from the fall a week ago) and I needed some extra miles to reach my 30 miles/week goal.  Once I do another six miles tomorrow, this will be my 197th straight week of at least 30 minutes.  It can be walking if running doesn't work... photo by Catherine Cross Ujena Fit Club