September 19, 2025 • 25 mins
In Week 3 of our Stress Month series, we explore how stress weighs down the body’s physical frame—your skeleton and muscles. Stress doesn’t just make you feel mentally drained; it tightens muscles, slows recovery, and even weakens bones over time. We break down how stress-induced muscle tension can lead to injuries for runners and headaches for non-runners alike, why inflammation keeps your body sore and achy, and how elevated cortisol erodes bone density—raising the risk of stress fractures and joint pain. We also talk about fatigue and sluggish movement, where stress makes stairs feel like hill repeats. To round it out, we share real-world strategies: mobility work, active recovery, nutrition, and the importance of rest. Whether you’re logging miles or just trying to get through the workweek, this episode shows how stress literally makes you feel heavy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello, everyone, Greedy's and salutations. Welcome back to another episode
of the Back of the Back Podcast, second one. I'm
the host, Kyle Walker. Thank you so much for tuning in.
We're in our third week of our stress series, and
don't worry, it's an optical illusion. I'm sure there's not
more gray in my beard. You know, while we've been
talking about stress, and while life has been so stressful,
but good grief, like it's really starting to go on me.
(00:33):
It's it's kind of wild right now. But anyway, maybe
the series is gonna make it all better. That's where
we're going to go with. So the first week we
did the heart and blood pressure. Okay, right, that was
week one. Last week we did lungs and digestion, and
then this week we're gonna do skeleton and muscle. So
there's gonna you know, there's always gonna be a little
bit of crossover just because we're talking about different parts
of the body. So please bear with me on some
(00:54):
of that. But before we jump into that, because if
Facebook is good for anything, it is good for reminding
us of days past. I wanted to throw something out
there just because it popped up today. It's now in
my head and it just it's astounding how time can
both fly and then feel like it's not moving at all.
(01:17):
So I got notified that two years ago. And if
you're a new listener, this is gonna make no sense
to you. So I will explain. Two years ago we
did our k C Hustle Run. Now, this run was
our run, It was my brainchild. It was what I
wanted to do. Of course, I wanted to be called
(01:38):
the back of the pack podcast five K and ten K.
I lost that battle. That was when we still had
the former production company. We had our great friend Will
helping us out as race director, and then it was me.
It was a three headed monster of people trying to
get a five K ten K put together. And even
though it was a complete and utter debacle, an absolute mess,
(01:59):
the day itself was amazing. We had such a fun
time at the Case Hustle Run. What I think it
was September seventeenth, twenty twenty three, if I remember the
date right. It was such a cluster. I never even
got a T shirt. There's some T shirts made for
the race. I never even got a shirt. I have
a stack because our giveaway was beanies. I have like
(02:21):
three unopened packages of beanies. If you need one, let
me know. I have plenty. I still have some of
the metals lying around. It was such a cluster f
that I don't know how we ever pulled it off.
And again, this was right as we it was very
obvious to me that we were going to be separating
from our former production company. Their jealousy at our success
(02:43):
was becoming a little too much, and so the situation
just really couldn't continue on. That was kind of our
last hrah, like, let's be amicable enough to make it
through this situation and then we all go our separate ways.
So again you had three people, three very different people
with three different, very different ideas on how to do things,
all trying to get this one event organized. And the
(03:05):
turnout was amazing. I never went back and looked. I
know we were plus three hundred people, which for first
time race is great. It was also very helpful that
in that year we were the second race in the
Heartland thirty K series, so the ten k for the
case House to run was in that series. You had
to do it in order to complete the series. Thank
the Good Lord for that, Otherwise we might have really
(03:26):
stumbled coming out of the gates with registrations. It was
such a debacle. We never got to do it again.
It was one and done. I still someday hope and
if you have a business or you are willing to
sponsor something, let's talk. I still someday hope to have
an official the Back of the Pack podcast five K
and ten K. It is still a number one on
(03:47):
my priority list things I want to do. The problem
that you have when you're organizing a race. And again
I'm no race director. I'm not going to claim to be,
but I do know that you have to start with money.
You start with money, and then you can continue to
add money through registrations in other people's donations. You got
to start with X amount of dollars to start paying
(04:09):
the bills up front, and then everything you make after
that you can kind of give to the charity. We
ended up giving very little to our charity partner that
year because the bills took up everything. And then again
you had three different people with three different ideas and
three different ways of doing things trying to all coexist
and will and I did great, but the other part
was an issue. So anyway, it's been two years. If
(04:31):
you were at that race, I hope you had a
wonderful time. I hope your morning was as good as
I remember it. Being that race, I was the official
last finisher. I was the last person to come across
the finish line. I was going to make sure that
absolutely every other runner and walker of that five k
and ten k finished and had a good time before
I was ready to cross that line and in the event,
(04:53):
So that was great. I do remember Cody, our boy,
was there with a bottle of champagne. Gave me a
little champagne shower coming across the finished fine. That was awesome.
I walked in with my boy Sean, who came up
from Tulsa to be supportive. My daughters were with me.
There are folks waiting at the finish line. Absolutely wonderful day.
And if you were there, if you remember the Casey
(05:13):
Hustle run and we had great pictures. Credit to mile ninety,
thank you so much for being there. I really, really,
really really hope that someday we get to do it again.
So there we go. Time flies when you're having fun,
like I can't believe it's already been two years. And
then on the other hand, it feels like it's been
a decade. That feels like it was two lifetimes ago,
but mainly because so much changed after that event and
we've just been kind of rolling with it ever since.
(05:35):
So anyway, thank you for indulging me. I do appreciate
the little walk down memory Lane. That was a good day.
It was a disaster leading up to it, and a
complete cluster f coming out of it, but that was
a good day. I hope we can do it again.
All Right, let's go ahead and jump into getting back
into our stress series. Talk about stress what I'm just
talking about there. Let's talk about muscle tension and tightness,
(05:58):
because that can definitely be effected by stress. All right,
four runners, muscle tension and tightness, stiff muscles, duh. Stiff
muscles equals reduced stride, higher risk of strains or pulls.
I found that to be very interesting. Has there ever
been a time you've gone on your run in your
stride didn't feel right? That's happened to me a lot. Actually,
(06:20):
I was surprised when I read this, because it's like, dang,
is that really a stress thing? Is that a stress indicator?
But I've gone out there and my stride just wasn't right,
felt like it was too small. If it feels like
your stride is too small, that very well could be stress.
That can be the tightness in your muscles. Now, it
can be a million other things. It can be muscle fatigue,
can be a muscle strain. But a lot of things
can bring down kind of your gait. But stress can
(06:42):
also be one of them. So take a look. It's like,
oh man, my stride is off, my gate is off,
and I'm going through a really stressful period. Well, ding,
ding ding, you might have just identified the problem. And then,
of course, because of that tightness in you, you have
a better chance of pulling a quad, pulling a hammy,
pulling a calf, pulling a lot of your things, especially
if you don't stretch like you're supposed to, and runners,
(07:03):
we don't stretch like we're supposed to, so you can
lead to a lot of injuries that way, just dealing
with the stiff muscles caused by stress, and that's yeah,
that can explain a lot of your problems. It can
explain a lot of mind. That's for sure, all right
for everyday life because we're trying to do both. That's
chronic shoulder and neck tension. If you're looking at the
screen a lot of times when you're stress out, we
(07:24):
kind of carry it. We clench. We talked about this
last week. I believe you just kind of clench and
everything's tighter. You carry that up here in your shoulders
and in your neck, and in your forearms and in
your hands because you're always clenched and in your jaw.
And again, this was someone pointed this out to me
and I couldn't believe it. It was a podcast that said
something they knew was gonna upset people, and then they
(07:46):
called us out on it. When you feel your tongue,
when you're pressing your tongue to the top of your
mouth very hard and for a very long period of time,
that is an indicator of stress or agitation. But it
is a way that, again your body is exerting energy.
I just pressing your tongue to the top of your
mouth in an angry fashion. Ugh, just kind of clinched.
And yeah, that's that's something to keep track of. I
(08:07):
found that fascinating because when they said what they said,
that was exactly my response. And then when he said, okay,
take the tongue off the top of your mouth. Made
me look around like, oh man, this guy looking at me.
It's definitely a thing, all well known thing. It's just
I had never connected those dots. So another one we
have is inflammation and recovery. All right, that's our next one.
(08:29):
See did I miss one? I feel like I missed one.
No I didn't. Okay, we're good. Sorry, inflammation and recovery.
So for runners, stress can cause slower healing, slower healing
from workouts. It can also make sure that like any
micro tears that you might have, linger longer. Say that,
there's a little alliteration for you, micro tears linger longer,
(08:49):
and then constant soreness, all right, and then when you
have those things. So when you have micro tears, or
when you are constantly sore, or when you're not healing
well from your workouts, that is one of the ways
you can plateau, like you can plateau in you're training,
and it's not because your training is bad or you're
doing anything wrong. You can help all these factors working
against you that might lead to a premature plateau situation
(09:13):
where you're training just will not improve because now you're
fighting too many other things and your body can only
fight off so much. So if you're fighting off slower healing,
micro tears and constant soreness, you're gonna plateau. And you're
also dealing with the stress on top of it that
is leading those three things to happen. So really your
body is going four on one right now, and you're
not gonna win that very that fight. Very often. That's
(09:36):
what we call really bad odds, and you don't want
to do that. So again, the stress can lead to
these things that can make you plateau early. And that's
all about the inflammation within you and your lack of
recovery for everyday life. That's general aches and fatigue even
without exercise, trouble sleeping because the body doesn't fully relax
(09:56):
right here, right here, on that one. Lack of sleep
because your body doesn't relax, that one spoke to me.
I know that is huge in my little world. I
can lay down and I can be exhausted. I'll tell
you y'all. Lately, I am falling asleep on my couch
at eight thirty nine o'clock at night, and I'm like, okay,
clearly I'm tired. I'm dozing off here while the rerun
(10:18):
of the Big Bang theory is on or whatever. I'm
going to go upstairs and I'm going to go to bed.
Then I'm going to go upstairs. I got upstairs. I
brush my teeth, you know, I comb my luscious hair,
great hat collection, remember that. I do all those things.
And then I get in bed, and then I can't sleep.
I was exhausted. I was falling asleep on the couch.
I was dozing off. And then I get into bed,
(10:39):
and then your mind might turn on and you might
start thinking about all the things that have been stressed
me out. You might think about all the things that
are coming down the road that you're like, oh man,
I gotta do this, and I got to do that,
and I've got this, and I've got that, and then
you can't rest. The stress is stopping you from resting.
So that is, even though I didn't exercise that day,
I'm still not able to sleep because because of the stress,
(11:01):
the stress won't let my body fully relax. It's keeping
that clinch. It's keeping that tightness, whether that that clinch
be physically in your body or that clinch in your mind.
And you know what I'm talking about, how your mind
just won't will grab onto something and won't let go,
and it's constantly on it. Your mind is even clinching
on something and you can't fully relax when your brain
is doing that to you. So that that is what
(11:23):
we call no bueno. You don't want that. So there's
the expression. A lot of times stress will make you
feel like you've been hit by a truck, And that's true.
Think about it. Have you ever had that, which is
your body has this level of soreness, or this level
of numbness, or this level of just kind of blunt
force out. That's what stress is doing in your body.
It's what it's doing to your muscles. Because remember what
(11:45):
we said in week one, stress is actually rewiring your
whole by day. All right, So again I tell you
all this so you don't beat yourself up. Don't do that,
because there's no point in beating yourself up over all, right.
Next one, number four stress hormones and bone health. All right,
So for runners, we've talked about this before. Cortisol weakens
(12:07):
bone density. Cortisol is like the it word right now
in the running world. Higher risk of stress fractures, shin splints,
plantar fasciitis, and flare ups. Okay, Again, the rewiring of
your body makes you more prone to these things, higher
risk of stress fractures. Stress fractures are big in the
running world. It can be in your foot, it can
(12:27):
be in your shin, it can be knee problems. That
is because of the physical pounding that our lower half takes.
Stress fractures are certainly more of a prevalent injury shin splints.
As we said, big one plantar fasciitis flare ups. Okay,
so plantar fasciitis. If you are unfamiliar, the big muscle
that runs along that bottom of your foot that you
(12:48):
can always feel, that is your plantar facial muscle. When
you have plantar fasciitis, those are micro tears within the
planter facia. Okay, they hurt, They hurt all the whole
whole bunch. Ask me how I know twice in my
running career in fifteen years, no, yes, fifteen years, Wow,
I have had to deal with plantar fasciitis issues. The
(13:10):
one thing that has worked for me, and this is
not doctor diagnosed, this is not I'm telling everyone to
do this because it's gonna work. Great. What I have
found when I have plantar fasciitis issues, and the bottom
of my foot is hurting and the micro tears are there.
Stretching my calves makes everything heal faster. And I don't
(13:32):
mean just stretch your stretch your calves once or twice.
I mean you're doing it all the time. Like the
first time I had it, I was working at a
downtown Kansas City, Missouri bank, and in that bank, I
was on the third floor of one of the big
high rise buildings. I know, I'm in a big high rise.
I'm on the third floor, how exciting. But from the
first floor to the third floor you took escalators. Okay,
(13:53):
not elevators, but escalators. So every time I got on
the escalator, I would just put my toes on the
step and then I would let my heels dangle, and
that stretches your calves. And so for three floors, probably
multiple times a day, because I go up to go
start the day, I go down at some point, go
to the coffee shop on the first floor. Then I'm
going up three floors again dangling the heels, letting them stretch,
(14:16):
and then go to lunch, and then I'm going back
up again after lunch, and then maybe one trip to
stretch my legs in the afternoon and then back up again,
like multiple times a day. I'm doing three floors worth
of elevators, dangling the heels off the elevator to stretch
my calves. That really helped my planer fasci itis issue.
And the second time it rolled around, well, I wasn't
(14:37):
in that building again. I made a concerted effort to
always be stretching my calves whenever possible. Just go to
your bottom stare, put your toes on it, and dangle
your heels. Count to one hundred, count to thirty whatever,
do it multiple times. I'm telling you, stretching your calves
is the biggest way to help with plant fasciiis knee issues.
(14:58):
Tight calves. Clearly again, is this doctor approved? No? Would
they argue with me much? I doubt it doesn't work
for me. Yes, it has definitely worked for me. So
I'm passing the information simply along to you. Okay, all right,
So that's the stress fractures, the shin's plints, and the
plant fasciat all right. So for everyday life joint pain,
(15:19):
slower healing from small injuries and then even weaker nails
in dental health. Dental health, stress can mess with your teeth?
Can you believe that? Like for me, that was surprising,
And I'm sure it has something to do with these
higher cortisol levels. Again, I don't have a full and
complete understanding of all that, but all of this sounds
like things that can affect your body, whether you know
(15:39):
it or not. And then a relatable note, Stress ages
us faster physically. Bones literally lose strength over time. So
when you are dealing with long term stressful situations, you
are aging yourself. Okay, ask me how I know. I'm
forty five, a lot of gray and the beard, not
(16:02):
much hair left on top. I have been under pretty
much constant stress for fifteen years. When you go through
a divorce, it's stressful. Then things don't much improve over time.
You have your up to you ever, your downs. We've
been over all this stuff. But yeah, I think I've
definitely been aged pretty well for forty five. Againting with
all the gray starting to come into beard and whatnot
and the lack of the hair on top. Yeah, the
(16:23):
stress has aged me. And I don't know about you guys.
I was point it out here. So you'll see this
silver ring on my finger here. This is one of
those aura rings, and I love this thing. I love
the or ring. I've got my garment over here on
this wrist, I've got my or ring here. I love data.
I love the health data that these things give us.
But my AUR ring tells me that my heart health
(16:46):
is like seven and a half years older than my
actual body health. So my heart health is somewhere around
fifty two and a half. No, granted, I've had two
open heart surgeries. I'm sure it reads a little funky
at times, but I think that's the aging that stress
is put on me. Now, there was a period where
it said it was ten and a half, and when
it said it was ten and a half, that's where
(17:07):
I went on like this big run train, eat right,
do all the right things for a little while, and
it brought it down to seven and a half. So
I could probably get it down from seven and a
half to closer to my actual age. We need to
do something extreme, and hopefully when some of the stress
in my life is cleaned up, which it's in the
process of doing right now, Praise Being, then maybe I'll
do that and then I can try and get that
(17:28):
help down because there's a lot of health aspects for
me that I need to be focusing on that have
been neglected because of everything else going on in life.
But I definitely hope to get back to those here
very very soon. So but keep that in mind. That
stress is actually aging you, one hundred percent is and
it's aging all parts of you, and you trust me,
you don't want that smoke. And the next one fatigue
(17:50):
and movement efficiency. So for runners, tired, heavy legs with
no pop, running feels harder at normal pace. I can
mildly relate to that. There certainly have been races or
runs where I've gone out and I just felt that spring.
I felt like, man, my legs feel good. I feel
like I just got that little extra bouncing them, that
little extra hop in them. Those are the best runs.
(18:13):
But the stress can take those away, which is why
I don't have them often. But you might have had
that before. You might have had that run where you
just felt that little pop in your legs, that little bounce,
that little woo, let's go. Those are great means you're
runn pretty stress stress free. If you don't have that,
or at least you don't have it, often might be
stress for everyday life, sluggishness at work, low motivation to
(18:33):
get off the couch, brain fog because body and mind
are weighed down. Yes, yesh, I think that's why so
often I'm falling asleep on the couch. Usually you wouldn't
find me laying on the couch or just laying around
like a lazy dog. Most of the time I'm doing stuff.
There's always something to do, you know, whether you're doing
the dishes, or you're getting your laundry done, or you're
(18:55):
going for a run, or you're going out to meet
with the friends at the bar, or you're taking swim
lessons whatever. Man, there's usually something to do. So for
me to just be chilling on the couch as much
as I happened lately, it's one hundred percent due to
stress around and that there is that sluggishness, and there
is that low motivation to get off the couch. There
is brain fog, for sure. I swear my memory has
(19:16):
gone to crap lately. Brain fog. Just things aren't firing right.
They're not firing like they're supposed to or let that
they usually do. Probably because I'm stressed out and I'm aging.
My brain might be eighty at this point. Who knows.
I probably don't want to know. Let's see here. So yeah, yeah,
in the mind being weighed down again. That can affect
your sleep, That can affect your day to day, That
(19:37):
can affect your training, That can confect your motivation, that
can affect your podcasting, That can affect everything when your
mind just has that weight on it. All right, So
let's talk about coping in real world strategies here, all right.
Active recovery is what we're gonna talk about right now.
Active recovery things that will help you, things that can
help you with this stressful stuff. Yoga is the thing
that puts out most. If you are a yoga person,
(19:59):
more power to you. I think you're amazing for doing it.
Yoga doesn't do it for me, but I do want
to start getting into it a little more. So I
did buy a program that is four basically broken down
old athletes like me, because that's exactly what I am.
I am a broken down old athlete. While I've never
played anything on an uber competitive level, I've played everything
(20:21):
on a competitive level. My body's been through it, y'all.
So I need that. I need the yoga that if
you can't do this move you can do this to
kind of substitute it because nerve damage. My shoulder doesn't
work all right, my knee is completely blown. Like I've
got issues left, right and center. But I would like
to get into the yoga because the yoga is gonna
help with mobility. It's gonna help with stretching, and then
(20:45):
all that will help in the running game if I'm
a little more mobile and a little more limber. And
then also you can take short breaks from your desk
to stretch out right, that's something we can always do.
I do that twice a day at work. If you
ever see on my Garman Connect, you see me do well.
It shows it just as lapse. That's me walking the
parking garage at my office building ten and five. Every
(21:07):
day I am out there going up the four floors
and down the four flowers. That's what I do. It's
about a mile and so I do that twice a
day because I need just to get moving. I need
my legs to work. Next, massage and body care foam
rolling or professional massage for the every day. Take a
hot shower, use warm compresses, or even walk around the
block and get more just stretching the legs. I love massages.
(21:29):
A huge fan. Hot Stone massage is one of my
favorite things in the world. They are also one of
the more expensive things in the world. If anyone does
those for free just because they think I'm sexy, then
I'm in. I would gladly go down that road. But
nobody's really lining up for that. Very sad. Next. Nutrition,
Nutrition is always important when you're dealing with stress. Let's
(21:50):
not lie about that. Protein, calcium, vitamin D. Those are
the things we need, and those are the things that
can be depleted quicker when you are under stress. Again.
The calcium for your bones, item in D for your mood,
protein for your muscles. Tada, look at that. I didn't
even have notes on that part. I know what those
things do. I'm so smart ish every day, it's not
just for athletes. Bone health protects against aging. There we go,
(22:13):
so the cowsim man, drink your milk, have some cheese.
Nothing wrong. Cheese. Cheese is the greatest thing ever. So
do all those things that will help your body out.
Mindful practices, progressive muscle relaxation. Every day. Let's say, oh yeah,
so it just says progressive muscle relaxation, whatever that looks
like for you. I don't even know what all that is.
My muscles do not progressively relax. I wish they did.
(22:34):
And then every day, if you can get your muscles
to relax, that helps you sleep, lower's tensions, and it
can even help with your headaches. Okay, training adjustments. Rest
days are part of training. We've been over that eleveny
billion times. Don't skip your rest day. If you're supposed
to rest, rest, don't rest for two months straight. But
if you're supposed to have a rest day in your
training on of the rest day, and then for your
(22:55):
every day permission to unplug, rest your body and come
back stronger. I have to do that. I've had to
unplug a lot. I've got all the knee issues, which
we're going to go into at a later date and time,
but they are definitely affecting things. So there's been a
lot of unplugging, which really kind of stuck. Sucks. All right.
So inclosing, stress shows up in the muscles and the
(23:15):
bones for both runners and non runners alike. All right,
So please don't dismiss the tightness or the soreness or
the fatigue. That's not just getting older. That is the
stress aging us. I think we can get back down
to our actual ages, but we don't have to be
kind of the decrepitible people just because we're allowing the
(23:36):
stress to completely rewire our body in ages five, seven, eight,
ten years whatever. All right, And so next week, next
week is going to be brain and Mental Health. That
is how we're going to end the series, because that'll
be our last week. Next week is brain and Mental Health.
So I hope you are enjoying this series. I like it.
I'm having a good time with it. A little shorter
(23:57):
of an episode today, but I don't ever think that's
a bad thing. This weekend, we're going to be at
the final race of the Heartland thirty K series. That's
the Boulevard ten K that is in East Kansas City, Missouri,
so east of where the Plaza ran, and looks like
it's going to be a decent day right now. It's
pouring outside, but I think we're supposed to have a
little bit cooler temperatures than we did for Woodstock, which
is exactly how it lined up last year. Last year,
(24:19):
Perfect Plaza ten k way too hot Woodstock, and then
it was a muggy but cooler Boulevard last year, and
I think we are following that script just right along.
So that's where we're at. We will be back on
Monday's episode of the Back of the Back podcast with
another special guest. I know we've had a lot of guests,
but more of other people less of me. As always
a good thing. You don't want to miss it because
(24:40):
it is our buddy Dave from the Casey Sports Commission.
We have everything Garman Kansas City Marathon, and you don't
want to miss it. You also don't want to miss
the information you share us about FIFA soccer. You just
you don't want to miss any of it because Dave
is like he's our most reoccurring guest and he is
still one of the best. Because this guy does a
little bit of everything. So I love day. So that's
(25:00):
gonna do it. For this week's episode of the Back
of the Pack podcast, I'm your host. Second one, I'm
your host, Kyle Walker. Thank you so much for tuning in. Everyone,
have a safe week of training. We will see you
next week.
Hello, everyone, Greedy's and salutations. Welcome back to another episode
of the Back of the Back Podcast, second one. I'm
the host, Kyle Walker. Thank you so much for tuning in.
We're in our third week of our stress series, and
don't worry, it's an optical illusion. I'm sure there's not
more gray in my beard. You know, while we've been
talking about stress, and while life has been so stressful,
but good grief, like it's really starting to go on me.
(00:33):
It's it's kind of wild right now. But anyway, maybe
the series is gonna make it all better. That's where
we're going to go with. So the first week we
did the heart and blood pressure. Okay, right, that was
week one. Last week we did lungs and digestion, and
then this week we're gonna do skeleton and muscle. So
there's gonna you know, there's always gonna be a little
bit of crossover just because we're talking about different parts
of the body. So please bear with me on some
(00:54):
of that. But before we jump into that, because if
Facebook is good for anything, it is good for reminding
us of days past. I wanted to throw something out
there just because it popped up today. It's now in
my head and it just it's astounding how time can
both fly and then feel like it's not moving at all.
(01:17):
So I got notified that two years ago. And if
you're a new listener, this is gonna make no sense
to you. So I will explain. Two years ago we
did our k C Hustle Run. Now, this run was
our run, It was my brainchild. It was what I
wanted to do. Of course, I wanted to be called
(01:38):
the back of the pack podcast five K and ten K.
I lost that battle. That was when we still had
the former production company. We had our great friend Will
helping us out as race director, and then it was me.
It was a three headed monster of people trying to
get a five K ten K put together. And even
though it was a complete and utter debacle, an absolute mess,
(01:59):
the day itself was amazing. We had such a fun
time at the Case Hustle Run. What I think it
was September seventeenth, twenty twenty three, if I remember the
date right. It was such a cluster. I never even
got a T shirt. There's some T shirts made for
the race. I never even got a shirt. I have
a stack because our giveaway was beanies. I have like
(02:21):
three unopened packages of beanies. If you need one, let
me know. I have plenty. I still have some of
the metals lying around. It was such a cluster f
that I don't know how we ever pulled it off.
And again, this was right as we it was very
obvious to me that we were going to be separating
from our former production company. Their jealousy at our success
(02:43):
was becoming a little too much, and so the situation
just really couldn't continue on. That was kind of our
last hrah, like, let's be amicable enough to make it
through this situation and then we all go our separate ways.
So again you had three people, three very different people
with three different, very different ideas on how to do things,
all trying to get this one event organized. And the
(03:05):
turnout was amazing. I never went back and looked. I
know we were plus three hundred people, which for first
time race is great. It was also very helpful that
in that year we were the second race in the
Heartland thirty K series, so the ten k for the
case House to run was in that series. You had
to do it in order to complete the series. Thank
the Good Lord for that, Otherwise we might have really
(03:26):
stumbled coming out of the gates with registrations. It was
such a debacle. We never got to do it again.
It was one and done. I still someday hope and
if you have a business or you are willing to
sponsor something, let's talk. I still someday hope to have
an official the Back of the Pack podcast five K
and ten K. It is still a number one on
(03:47):
my priority list things I want to do. The problem
that you have when you're organizing a race. And again
I'm no race director. I'm not going to claim to be,
but I do know that you have to start with money.
You start with money, and then you can continue to
add money through registrations in other people's donations. You got
to start with X amount of dollars to start paying
(04:09):
the bills up front, and then everything you make after
that you can kind of give to the charity. We
ended up giving very little to our charity partner that
year because the bills took up everything. And then again
you had three different people with three different ideas and
three different ways of doing things trying to all coexist
and will and I did great, but the other part
was an issue. So anyway, it's been two years. If
(04:31):
you were at that race, I hope you had a
wonderful time. I hope your morning was as good as
I remember it. Being that race, I was the official
last finisher. I was the last person to come across
the finish line. I was going to make sure that
absolutely every other runner and walker of that five k
and ten k finished and had a good time before
I was ready to cross that line and in the event,
(04:53):
So that was great. I do remember Cody, our boy,
was there with a bottle of champagne. Gave me a
little champagne shower coming across the finished fine. That was awesome.
I walked in with my boy Sean, who came up
from Tulsa to be supportive. My daughters were with me.
There are folks waiting at the finish line. Absolutely wonderful day.
And if you were there, if you remember the Casey
(05:13):
Hustle run and we had great pictures. Credit to mile ninety,
thank you so much for being there. I really, really,
really really hope that someday we get to do it again.
So there we go. Time flies when you're having fun,
like I can't believe it's already been two years. And
then on the other hand, it feels like it's been
a decade. That feels like it was two lifetimes ago,
but mainly because so much changed after that event and
we've just been kind of rolling with it ever since.
(05:35):
So anyway, thank you for indulging me. I do appreciate
the little walk down memory Lane. That was a good day.
It was a disaster leading up to it, and a
complete cluster f coming out of it, but that was
a good day. I hope we can do it again.
All Right, let's go ahead and jump into getting back
into our stress series. Talk about stress what I'm just
talking about there. Let's talk about muscle tension and tightness,
(05:58):
because that can definitely be effected by stress. All right,
four runners, muscle tension and tightness, stiff muscles, duh. Stiff
muscles equals reduced stride, higher risk of strains or pulls.
I found that to be very interesting. Has there ever
been a time you've gone on your run in your
stride didn't feel right? That's happened to me a lot. Actually,
(06:20):
I was surprised when I read this, because it's like, dang,
is that really a stress thing? Is that a stress indicator?
But I've gone out there and my stride just wasn't right,
felt like it was too small. If it feels like
your stride is too small, that very well could be stress.
That can be the tightness in your muscles. Now, it
can be a million other things. It can be muscle fatigue,
can be a muscle strain. But a lot of things
can bring down kind of your gait. But stress can
(06:42):
also be one of them. So take a look. It's like,
oh man, my stride is off, my gate is off,
and I'm going through a really stressful period. Well, ding,
ding ding, you might have just identified the problem. And then,
of course, because of that tightness in you, you have
a better chance of pulling a quad, pulling a hammy,
pulling a calf, pulling a lot of your things, especially
if you don't stretch like you're supposed to, and runners,
(07:03):
we don't stretch like we're supposed to, so you can
lead to a lot of injuries that way, just dealing
with the stiff muscles caused by stress, and that's yeah,
that can explain a lot of your problems. It can
explain a lot of mind. That's for sure, all right
for everyday life because we're trying to do both. That's
chronic shoulder and neck tension. If you're looking at the
screen a lot of times when you're stress out, we
(07:24):
kind of carry it. We clench. We talked about this
last week. I believe you just kind of clench and
everything's tighter. You carry that up here in your shoulders
and in your neck, and in your forearms and in
your hands because you're always clenched and in your jaw.
And again, this was someone pointed this out to me
and I couldn't believe it. It was a podcast that said
something they knew was gonna upset people, and then they
(07:46):
called us out on it. When you feel your tongue,
when you're pressing your tongue to the top of your
mouth very hard and for a very long period of time,
that is an indicator of stress or agitation. But it
is a way that, again your body is exerting energy.
I just pressing your tongue to the top of your
mouth in an angry fashion. Ugh, just kind of clinched.
And yeah, that's that's something to keep track of. I
(08:07):
found that fascinating because when they said what they said,
that was exactly my response. And then when he said, okay,
take the tongue off the top of your mouth. Made
me look around like, oh man, this guy looking at me.
It's definitely a thing, all well known thing. It's just
I had never connected those dots. So another one we
have is inflammation and recovery. All right, that's our next one.
(08:29):
See did I miss one? I feel like I missed one.
No I didn't. Okay, we're good. Sorry, inflammation and recovery.
So for runners, stress can cause slower healing, slower healing
from workouts. It can also make sure that like any
micro tears that you might have, linger longer. Say that,
there's a little alliteration for you, micro tears linger longer,
(08:49):
and then constant soreness, all right, and then when you
have those things. So when you have micro tears, or
when you are constantly sore, or when you're not healing
well from your workouts, that is one of the ways
you can plateau, like you can plateau in you're training,
and it's not because your training is bad or you're
doing anything wrong. You can help all these factors working
against you that might lead to a premature plateau situation
(09:13):
where you're training just will not improve because now you're
fighting too many other things and your body can only
fight off so much. So if you're fighting off slower healing,
micro tears and constant soreness, you're gonna plateau. And you're
also dealing with the stress on top of it that
is leading those three things to happen. So really your
body is going four on one right now, and you're
not gonna win that very that fight. Very often. That's
(09:36):
what we call really bad odds, and you don't want
to do that. So again, the stress can lead to
these things that can make you plateau early. And that's
all about the inflammation within you and your lack of
recovery for everyday life. That's general aches and fatigue even
without exercise, trouble sleeping because the body doesn't fully relax
(09:56):
right here, right here, on that one. Lack of sleep
because your body doesn't relax, that one spoke to me.
I know that is huge in my little world. I
can lay down and I can be exhausted. I'll tell
you y'all. Lately, I am falling asleep on my couch
at eight thirty nine o'clock at night, and I'm like, okay,
clearly I'm tired. I'm dozing off here while the rerun
(10:18):
of the Big Bang theory is on or whatever. I'm
going to go upstairs and I'm going to go to bed.
Then I'm going to go upstairs. I got upstairs. I
brush my teeth, you know, I comb my luscious hair,
great hat collection, remember that. I do all those things.
And then I get in bed, and then I can't sleep.
I was exhausted. I was falling asleep on the couch.
I was dozing off. And then I get into bed,
(10:39):
and then your mind might turn on and you might
start thinking about all the things that have been stressed
me out. You might think about all the things that
are coming down the road that you're like, oh man,
I gotta do this, and I got to do that,
and I've got this, and I've got that, and then
you can't rest. The stress is stopping you from resting.
So that is, even though I didn't exercise that day,
I'm still not able to sleep because because of the stress,
(11:01):
the stress won't let my body fully relax. It's keeping
that clinch. It's keeping that tightness, whether that that clinch
be physically in your body or that clinch in your mind.
And you know what I'm talking about, how your mind
just won't will grab onto something and won't let go,
and it's constantly on it. Your mind is even clinching
on something and you can't fully relax when your brain
is doing that to you. So that that is what
(11:23):
we call no bueno. You don't want that. So there's
the expression. A lot of times stress will make you
feel like you've been hit by a truck, And that's true.
Think about it. Have you ever had that, which is
your body has this level of soreness, or this level
of numbness, or this level of just kind of blunt
force out. That's what stress is doing in your body.
It's what it's doing to your muscles. Because remember what
(11:45):
we said in week one, stress is actually rewiring your
whole by day. All right, So again I tell you
all this so you don't beat yourself up. Don't do that,
because there's no point in beating yourself up over all, right.
Next one, number four stress hormones and bone health. All right,
So for runners, we've talked about this before. Cortisol weakens
(12:07):
bone density. Cortisol is like the it word right now
in the running world. Higher risk of stress fractures, shin splints,
plantar fasciitis, and flare ups. Okay, Again, the rewiring of
your body makes you more prone to these things, higher
risk of stress fractures. Stress fractures are big in the
running world. It can be in your foot, it can
(12:27):
be in your shin, it can be knee problems. That
is because of the physical pounding that our lower half takes.
Stress fractures are certainly more of a prevalent injury shin splints.
As we said, big one plantar fasciitis flare ups. Okay,
so plantar fasciitis. If you are unfamiliar, the big muscle
that runs along that bottom of your foot that you
(12:48):
can always feel, that is your plantar facial muscle. When
you have plantar fasciitis, those are micro tears within the
planter facia. Okay, they hurt, They hurt all the whole
whole bunch. Ask me how I know twice in my
running career in fifteen years, no, yes, fifteen years, Wow,
I have had to deal with plantar fasciitis issues. The
(13:10):
one thing that has worked for me, and this is
not doctor diagnosed, this is not I'm telling everyone to
do this because it's gonna work. Great. What I have
found when I have plantar fasciitis issues, and the bottom
of my foot is hurting and the micro tears are there.
Stretching my calves makes everything heal faster. And I don't
(13:32):
mean just stretch your stretch your calves once or twice.
I mean you're doing it all the time. Like the
first time I had it, I was working at a
downtown Kansas City, Missouri bank, and in that bank, I
was on the third floor of one of the big
high rise buildings. I know, I'm in a big high rise.
I'm on the third floor, how exciting. But from the
first floor to the third floor you took escalators. Okay,
(13:53):
not elevators, but escalators. So every time I got on
the escalator, I would just put my toes on the
step and then I would let my heels dangle, and
that stretches your calves. And so for three floors, probably
multiple times a day, because I go up to go
start the day, I go down at some point, go
to the coffee shop on the first floor. Then I'm
going up three floors again dangling the heels, letting them stretch,
(14:16):
and then go to lunch, and then I'm going back
up again after lunch, and then maybe one trip to
stretch my legs in the afternoon and then back up again,
like multiple times a day. I'm doing three floors worth
of elevators, dangling the heels off the elevator to stretch
my calves. That really helped my planer fasci itis issue.
And the second time it rolled around, well, I wasn't
(14:37):
in that building again. I made a concerted effort to
always be stretching my calves whenever possible. Just go to
your bottom stare, put your toes on it, and dangle
your heels. Count to one hundred, count to thirty whatever,
do it multiple times. I'm telling you, stretching your calves
is the biggest way to help with plant fasciiis knee issues.
(14:58):
Tight calves. Clearly again, is this doctor approved? No? Would
they argue with me much? I doubt it doesn't work
for me. Yes, it has definitely worked for me. So
I'm passing the information simply along to you. Okay, all right,
So that's the stress fractures, the shin's plints, and the
plant fasciat all right. So for everyday life joint pain,
(15:19):
slower healing from small injuries and then even weaker nails
in dental health. Dental health, stress can mess with your teeth?
Can you believe that? Like for me, that was surprising,
And I'm sure it has something to do with these
higher cortisol levels. Again, I don't have a full and
complete understanding of all that, but all of this sounds
like things that can affect your body, whether you know
(15:39):
it or not. And then a relatable note, Stress ages
us faster physically. Bones literally lose strength over time. So
when you are dealing with long term stressful situations, you
are aging yourself. Okay, ask me how I know. I'm
forty five, a lot of gray and the beard, not
(16:02):
much hair left on top. I have been under pretty
much constant stress for fifteen years. When you go through
a divorce, it's stressful. Then things don't much improve over time.
You have your up to you ever, your downs. We've
been over all this stuff. But yeah, I think I've
definitely been aged pretty well for forty five. Againting with
all the gray starting to come into beard and whatnot
and the lack of the hair on top. Yeah, the
(16:23):
stress has aged me. And I don't know about you guys.
I was point it out here. So you'll see this
silver ring on my finger here. This is one of
those aura rings, and I love this thing. I love
the or ring. I've got my garment over here on
this wrist, I've got my or ring here. I love data.
I love the health data that these things give us.
But my AUR ring tells me that my heart health
(16:46):
is like seven and a half years older than my
actual body health. So my heart health is somewhere around
fifty two and a half. No, granted, I've had two
open heart surgeries. I'm sure it reads a little funky
at times, but I think that's the aging that stress
is put on me. Now, there was a period where
it said it was ten and a half, and when
it said it was ten and a half, that's where
(17:07):
I went on like this big run train, eat right,
do all the right things for a little while, and
it brought it down to seven and a half. So
I could probably get it down from seven and a
half to closer to my actual age. We need to
do something extreme, and hopefully when some of the stress
in my life is cleaned up, which it's in the
process of doing right now, Praise Being, then maybe I'll
do that and then I can try and get that
(17:28):
help down because there's a lot of health aspects for
me that I need to be focusing on that have
been neglected because of everything else going on in life.
But I definitely hope to get back to those here
very very soon. So but keep that in mind. That
stress is actually aging you, one hundred percent is and
it's aging all parts of you, and you trust me,
you don't want that smoke. And the next one fatigue
(17:50):
and movement efficiency. So for runners, tired, heavy legs with
no pop, running feels harder at normal pace. I can
mildly relate to that. There certainly have been races or
runs where I've gone out and I just felt that spring.
I felt like, man, my legs feel good. I feel
like I just got that little extra bouncing them, that
little extra hop in them. Those are the best runs.
(18:13):
But the stress can take those away, which is why
I don't have them often. But you might have had
that before. You might have had that run where you
just felt that little pop in your legs, that little bounce,
that little woo, let's go. Those are great means you're
runn pretty stress stress free. If you don't have that,
or at least you don't have it, often might be
stress for everyday life, sluggishness at work, low motivation to
(18:33):
get off the couch, brain fog because body and mind
are weighed down. Yes, yesh, I think that's why so
often I'm falling asleep on the couch. Usually you wouldn't
find me laying on the couch or just laying around
like a lazy dog. Most of the time I'm doing stuff.
There's always something to do, you know, whether you're doing
the dishes, or you're getting your laundry done, or you're
(18:55):
going for a run, or you're going out to meet
with the friends at the bar, or you're taking swim
lessons whatever. Man, there's usually something to do. So for
me to just be chilling on the couch as much
as I happened lately, it's one hundred percent due to
stress around and that there is that sluggishness, and there
is that low motivation to get off the couch. There
is brain fog, for sure. I swear my memory has
(19:16):
gone to crap lately. Brain fog. Just things aren't firing right.
They're not firing like they're supposed to or let that
they usually do. Probably because I'm stressed out and I'm aging.
My brain might be eighty at this point. Who knows.
I probably don't want to know. Let's see here. So yeah, yeah,
in the mind being weighed down again. That can affect
your sleep, That can affect your day to day, That
(19:37):
can affect your training, That can confect your motivation, that
can affect your podcasting, That can affect everything when your
mind just has that weight on it. All right, So
let's talk about coping in real world strategies here, all right.
Active recovery is what we're gonna talk about right now.
Active recovery things that will help you, things that can
help you with this stressful stuff. Yoga is the thing
that puts out most. If you are a yoga person,
(19:59):
more power to you. I think you're amazing for doing it.
Yoga doesn't do it for me, but I do want
to start getting into it a little more. So I
did buy a program that is four basically broken down
old athletes like me, because that's exactly what I am.
I am a broken down old athlete. While I've never
played anything on an uber competitive level, I've played everything
(20:21):
on a competitive level. My body's been through it, y'all.
So I need that. I need the yoga that if
you can't do this move you can do this to
kind of substitute it because nerve damage. My shoulder doesn't
work all right, my knee is completely blown. Like I've
got issues left, right and center. But I would like
to get into the yoga because the yoga is gonna
help with mobility. It's gonna help with stretching, and then
(20:45):
all that will help in the running game if I'm
a little more mobile and a little more limber. And
then also you can take short breaks from your desk
to stretch out right, that's something we can always do.
I do that twice a day at work. If you
ever see on my Garman Connect, you see me do well.
It shows it just as lapse. That's me walking the
parking garage at my office building ten and five. Every
(21:07):
day I am out there going up the four floors
and down the four flowers. That's what I do. It's
about a mile and so I do that twice a
day because I need just to get moving. I need
my legs to work. Next, massage and body care foam
rolling or professional massage for the every day. Take a
hot shower, use warm compresses, or even walk around the
block and get more just stretching the legs. I love massages.
(21:29):
A huge fan. Hot Stone massage is one of my
favorite things in the world. They are also one of
the more expensive things in the world. If anyone does
those for free just because they think I'm sexy, then
I'm in. I would gladly go down that road. But
nobody's really lining up for that. Very sad. Next. Nutrition,
Nutrition is always important when you're dealing with stress. Let's
(21:50):
not lie about that. Protein, calcium, vitamin D. Those are
the things we need, and those are the things that
can be depleted quicker when you are under stress. Again.
The calcium for your bones, item in D for your mood,
protein for your muscles. Tada, look at that. I didn't
even have notes on that part. I know what those
things do. I'm so smart ish every day, it's not
just for athletes. Bone health protects against aging. There we go,
(22:13):
so the cowsim man, drink your milk, have some cheese.
Nothing wrong. Cheese. Cheese is the greatest thing ever. So
do all those things that will help your body out.
Mindful practices, progressive muscle relaxation. Every day. Let's say, oh yeah,
so it just says progressive muscle relaxation, whatever that looks
like for you. I don't even know what all that is.
My muscles do not progressively relax. I wish they did.
(22:34):
And then every day, if you can get your muscles
to relax, that helps you sleep, lower's tensions, and it
can even help with your headaches. Okay, training adjustments. Rest
days are part of training. We've been over that eleveny
billion times. Don't skip your rest day. If you're supposed
to rest, rest, don't rest for two months straight. But
if you're supposed to have a rest day in your
training on of the rest day, and then for your
(22:55):
every day permission to unplug, rest your body and come
back stronger. I have to do that. I've had to
unplug a lot. I've got all the knee issues, which
we're going to go into at a later date and time,
but they are definitely affecting things. So there's been a
lot of unplugging, which really kind of stuck. Sucks. All right.
So inclosing, stress shows up in the muscles and the
(23:15):
bones for both runners and non runners alike. All right,
So please don't dismiss the tightness or the soreness or
the fatigue. That's not just getting older. That is the
stress aging us. I think we can get back down
to our actual ages, but we don't have to be
kind of the decrepitible people just because we're allowing the
(23:36):
stress to completely rewire our body in ages five, seven, eight,
ten years whatever. All right, And so next week, next
week is going to be brain and Mental Health. That
is how we're going to end the series, because that'll
be our last week. Next week is brain and Mental Health.
So I hope you are enjoying this series. I like it.
I'm having a good time with it. A little shorter
(23:57):
of an episode today, but I don't ever think that's
a bad thing. This weekend, we're going to be at
the final race of the Heartland thirty K series. That's
the Boulevard ten K that is in East Kansas City, Missouri,
so east of where the Plaza ran, and looks like
it's going to be a decent day right now. It's
pouring outside, but I think we're supposed to have a
little bit cooler temperatures than we did for Woodstock, which
is exactly how it lined up last year. Last year,
(24:19):
Perfect Plaza ten k way too hot Woodstock, and then
it was a muggy but cooler Boulevard last year, and
I think we are following that script just right along.
So that's where we're at. We will be back on
Monday's episode of the Back of the Back podcast with
another special guest. I know we've had a lot of guests,
but more of other people less of me. As always
a good thing. You don't want to miss it because
(24:40):
it is our buddy Dave from the Casey Sports Commission.
We have everything Garman Kansas City Marathon, and you don't
want to miss it. You also don't want to miss
the information you share us about FIFA soccer. You just
you don't want to miss any of it because Dave
is like he's our most reoccurring guest and he is
still one of the best. Because this guy does a
little bit of everything. So I love day. So that's
(25:00):
gonna do it. For this week's episode of the Back
of the Pack podcast, I'm your host. Second one, I'm
your host, Kyle Walker. Thank you so much for tuning in. Everyone,
have a safe week of training. We will see you
next week.
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com