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* Sports Nutrition by Sheila Kealey.
Sheila is one of Ottawa's top multisport athletes and a member of the OAC Racing
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* WatsonLifeSport
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This Weeks Personal Postings/Releases:
We have ONE personal postings this week.
I was wondering if any of you have a schedule for a first-time, marathon
trainer. What worked best for you, suggestions?
Mailto:stephproctor@...


This Week's Digest Article Index:

1. Can Supplements Make You Stronger And Faster?
2. Count the ways to burn calories:
Driving to the gym: 3.5. Running an errand: 75. With a high-tech device keeping
track, every move you make can turn into exercise.
3. Exercise: What's in it for you?
4. Joe Henderson's Running Commentary - Slow Joe to Rapid Robert
5. Fitting in (and benefiting from) a second long ride
6. From Runner's World
7. The Drop Zone
It's simple, it's beautiful—just lose ten pounds of fat and you'll fly.
8. Seniors sit down for chair yoga
A more gentle form of yoga is catching on in some retirement communities.
9. Beginner Triathlete Interview with Siri Lindley, 2 Time ITU World Champion:
10. The Athletic Performance Diet Plan
11. Mental Approach
What’s Missing From Your Training?
12. Can We Live to Be 1,000?
13. The treadmill: a triathlete’s best friend
14. First Steps by Gordon Bakoulis
A Handful of Female Marathon Pioneers Inspired a Generation of Women Runners.
15. The Science of 80/90 Workouts for Marathoners
16. Multisport thoughts for the new year
17. Multisport: Carbohydrate protection against muscle damage
18. Multisport: Tri Talk 101
19. Triathlon: Dress for success
20. Athletics: Marathon Preparation - Practice Makes Perfect
21. Sportsmedicine: Leg Length Discrepancies
22. Two-a-days: A double-dose of running can do you good
23. Sports Active: `If I Slowed Down, There Were at Least 250 Women Left to Swim
Over Me'
24. Dr. Gabe Mirkin's Fitness and Health E-Zine
25. News Scan
A collection of news items.


Runner's Web Weekly Poll:
Due to a transmission error last week's poll was not displayed. We apologize for
this problem.

This week's poll is: "Are you male or female and do you support women-only
races?"
You can access the poll from our FrontPage as well as voting on and/or checking
the results of previous polls.
Post your views in our Forum at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/runnersweb_forum.html
[Free Registration Required]

Last week's poll was "How many days per week do you train?"
The results at publication time were:
Answers Votes Percent
1. Seven 20 14%
2. Six 55 40%
3. Five 25 18%
4. Four 21 15%
5. Three 10 7%
6. Two 3 2%
7. One 0 0%
8. I don't train 4 3%
Total Votes: 138
.

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Five Star Site of the Week: CoachMcDonnell.com.
"Learn more about the most successful collegiate track and field program. See
our state-of-the-art facilities, coaches, athletes,
traditions, schedules and much more."
The nation’s winningest collegiate track and field coach has a new home on the
world wide web with a personalized web site,
www.coachmcdonnell.com. The site is active and available for browsing.
The web site features another aspect of Arkansas head coach John McDonnell and
the Razorback track and field program. Fans and
recruits can review the tradition and success and view UA’s first-class
facilities.
“This will serve as a great recruiting tool and allow for athletes from all over
the country and world to learn more about our
program,” Arkansas head coach John McDonnell said. “They can see how many
national and conference championships we’ve won and see
why we are so successful.”
The site also features bios on the coaching staff and athletes, schedule, a
downloadable version of the 2005 media guide and track
camp information.
Visit the site at:
http://www.coachmcdonnell.com/

Send us your suggestions for our Five Star site. Please check our
list of previous Five Star Sites available from the Five Star
Window under the link "Previous Five Star Sites" as we do not wish to
repeat a site unless it has undergone a major redesign.


If you feel you have something to say that is worthy of a Guest Column on the
Runner's Web, email us at
mailto:webmaster@... or leave your comments in one of our Forums at:
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Our Photo Slideshow is updated on a random basis. Check it out from our
FrontPage.

Book of the Week: Anything For A T-shirt
Fred Lebow And The New York City Marathon, The World's Greatest Footrace.
"Lebow's lifetime creation, the New York City Marathon, parallels his life
story, and nobody's told it better than Ron Rubin in
'Anything for a T-Shirt...'. Rubin shows us how this modest but complex man, who
was himself exhilarated with the transforming
effects of fitness, took an obscure footrace and turned it into an extravagant
festival that brought joy to the world's most
glamorous and competitive city and attracted millions of everyday people to
distance running. It is a case study in sports
marketing, event management and psychology..."
"The book's climax is superb, reeling the reader up very dramatically, day by
day, then mile by mile. Rubin pulls no punches as to
how Fishl-the name I always called him and the one he would return to before he
died-ran in his own creation for the first time,
between bouts with the brain cancer that eventually took him from us, on guts
and will. 'Anything' paints a vivid picture of Lebow's
inherent survival determination, heard from a dozen concerned voices in his
entourage. While the whole book is well-written, this
chapter is dazzling."
- Katherine Switzer
Buy the book from Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0815608063/ref=ase_runnersweb/103-\
2374287-0317430?v=glance&s=books
[Long URL]


More books from Amazon at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/amazon.html
and Human Kinetics at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/human_kinetics.html

This Weeks News:

1. Can Supplements Make You Stronger And Faster?
Dietary-supplement producers have cleverly marketed dozens of different products
which are said to boost muscular strength. Do any
of these supplements actually work?
In an attempt to determine whether the majority of "strength-boosting"
supplements pad the pocketbooks of supplement makers rather
than the muscles of supplement takers, researchers Steven Nissen and Rick Sharp
of Iowa State University recently carried out a
"meta-analysis" of published scientific studies concerning dietary
supplementation and changes in strength and lean body mass (1).
The not-so-shocking result of the meta-analysis: Only two supplements - creatine
and HMB (beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate) - were
found to increase lean mass and muscular strength significantly.
To carry out the meta-analysis, Nissen and Sharp first compiled a list of
supplements from the product lists of eight major
dietary-supplement companies - and from a review of six magazines targeted at
the athletic community, as well as five published
scientific reviews on dietary supplements. 250 different supplements made the
final list for analysis.
For each supplement on the list, the Iowa-State investigators carried out a
thorough, PubMed examination of the scientific
literature published between 1967 and 2001, using the search terms body
composition, anthropometry, exercise, and human - combined
with the word "supplement" and the actual name of the supplement (for example,
"chromium"). Nissen and Sharp trimmed down the large,
resulting list of studies by confining their analysis to clinical trials and by
rejecting investigations which did not involve
resistance exercise or which included individuals suffering from abnormal health
conditions.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20050211_RRN_Creatine.html


2. Count the ways to burn calories:
Driving to the gym: 3.5. Running an errand: 75. With a high-tech device keeping
track, every move you make can turn into exercise.
I'm a low-tech exerciser. I don't use PDAs, software programs or even pedometers
to track my progress. I go to the gym, I sweat, I
come home. Several years ago a personal trainer persuaded me to get a heart-rate
monitor. It's still sitting in my sock drawer,
unopened.
But the exercise industry and technology are in a long-term relationship that
continues to spawn items such as fitness cellphones
and running shoes with microprocessors. The latest is a device called the
BioTrainer, which promises to track calories burned doing
"lifestyle activities" — walking, gardening, playing with the dog, etc. It looks
like a pedometer and is worn the same way, clipped
to a waistband or belt.
The BioTrainer is an accelerometer, which has a sensor that records forward,
back, vertical and rotational movement plus the
intensity of that movement. (Pedometers just track steps taken.) The BioTrainer
converts that movement into calories burned based on
your weight.
After entering my weight I went to the gym to see how the BioTrainer's calorie
count compared with cardio machines'. I know those
machines skew high, but I still get an enormous amount of satisfaction thinking
I've burned 800 calories an hour, even if it is a
total lie.
A half-hour on the elliptical trainer (the kind with moving arms) earned me 440
calories, according to the machine, and 260,
according to the BioTrainer. I was disappointed, but I could live with that
number. I had a harder time with the results for a
half-hour on the StairMaster — 330 on the machine, 80 on the BioTrainer.
More...from the LA Times at:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-bodywork7feb07,1,3086212.story?coll\
=la-headlines-health


3. Exercise: What's in it for you?
By Fabio Comana, M.A., M.S.
Exercise not only burns calories and strengthens muscles, it also improves the
quality of your life and makes you feel better.
People who exercise on a regular basis tend to have more energy, a more positive
attitude, and greater confidence. Exercise benefits
also include:
Decreased risk for osteoporosis and osteoarthritis
Weight bearing exercise will increase bone mineral density, which is especially
important for post-menopausal women. Increased bone
density reduces the chances of bone fractures and bone degeneration.
Evidence exists to support the notion that resistance training, in conjunction
with hormone therapy and proper diet may reverse some
bone loss associated with osteoporosis.
Exercise has been shown to reduce joint pain and inflammation.
Osteoarthritis is a breakdown of cartilage resulting in pain, tenderness and
swelling.
Decreased risk of developing type II diabetes
As the number of diabetics continues to rise (especially type II associated with
obesity), research demonstrates that both
cardiovascular exercise and resistance training lowers resting insulin levels
and increases insulin sensitivity, thereby improving
blood sugar control.
Onset is gradual, usually between ages 35-40 and closely linked to a sedentary
lifestyle (including obesity).
More...from the American Council on Exercise at:
http://www.acefitness.org/updateable/update_display.cfm?pageID=582


4. Joe Henderson's Running Commentary - Slow Joe to Rapid Robert:
Open letter to Bob Anderson, founder of Runner's World:
Good to hear from you, and about you, even if the letter wasn't meant for me.
Yours came in a public forum, a runner's mass
e-mailing containing your remarks. I rarely reply to such messages, but answer
yours here because you addressed me by name there as
if expecting me to read and respond.
You said, "Joe, you are good writer, and I did hire you to be the editor of
Runner's World for several years. But I do not think
your training ideas make any sense at all.
"I don't understand why you want everyone to think that Arthur Lydiard and
others liked your training ideas. They did not! If you
train slow, you race slow."
This is an old disagreement between us. It came up on your first visit with me
in California.
That was the fall of 1969. We ran together then and saw right away that our
paces didn't match. I can't recall us ever sharing
another training run.
More...from Joe Henderson at:
http://www.joehenderson.com/archive/493.html


5. Fitting in (and benefiting from) a second long ride:
You work 40-plus hours per week and are training for the Ironman. How do you fit
two long rides into an already packed schedule?
The hardest part for most people who are training for an Ironman is getting in
the required mileage on the bike. This is especially
true when most athletes are working full-time and have friends and families to
keep happy.
Fitting in that second long ride is always difficult, and if you don't have
flexible work hours, then the usual Wednesday long ride
is out.
However, with a little manipulating of the traditional training program, you can
get the benefits of that extra long ride.
Triathletes are sticklers for routine. Saturday is always the long ride day.
Sunday is the long run day. Tuesday is a tempo run and
Mondays are the day off.
That's fine, and for the majority of the year it's OK to follow this practice,
but once in a while, when trying to bump up your
mileage for an Ironman, changing the program may help you achieve improved
performances.
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=11479&sidebar=26&category=triathlon


6. From Runner's World:
* Coach's Corner
Calorie Burn: "Slow miles burn almost as many calories as fast miles. Fast or
slow, each mile you run burns approximately 100
calories. And that keeps your weight down, which, in turn, can help you run
faster." -Hal Higdon
*Injury Prevention
Hamstrung? Stretch the 'strings, and make sure to do it after all of your
workouts. A great way is to lie on your back with your
feet up toward the ceiling. With your hands on your inner thighs, gently push
your legs apart in a V shape. Hold for 15 to 20
seconds.
* Performance Nutrition
Go for the dark: Rich, creamy, and delicious, chocolates nestled in a red-satin
valentine box are guaranteed to set your heart
aflutter. They're also loaded with antioxidant polyphenols that guard your heart
from disease by reducing "bad" LDL cholesterol,
elevated blood pressure, and unhealthy blood clotting. But you have to eat the
dark variety to get those benefits. Researchers found
that in 12 subjects, eating 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate raised blood
polyphenols by nearly 20%, but eating milk chocolate produced
no elevation.
* Editor's Advice
"Don't clench your fists in a white-knuckle grip. Instead, run with a cupped
hand, thumbs resting on the fingers, as if you were
protecting an egg in each palm." -David Willey, editor-in-chief
* Training Talk
"Your body talks to you constantly. It whispers during every footfall of a run.
It tells you about uneven ground, about humid air,
about a wee bit too much impact on your shins. If you learn how to listen to
these subtle messages--many runners don't--you can
avoid most running ailments." -From the Complete Book of Women's Running by
Dagny Scott
* Words That Inspire
"I've always loved running--it was something you could do by yourself, and under
your own power. You could go in any direction, fast
or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new
sights just on the strength of your feet and the
courage of your lungs." -Jesse Owens


7. The Drop Zone:
It's simple, it's beautiful—just lose ten pounds of fat and you'll fly.
If you want to ensure a great summer of cycling or running, we've got one piece
of advice: Lose ten pounds this winter. Shaving body
weight is the easiest way to add kick to your game come Memorial Day. By that
time, your lighter (and dare we say sexier) bod will
be faster and sleeker—and primed for its best season of action.
The most famous example of the leaner-equals-meaner mantra is Lance Armstrong,
who lost more than 20 pounds as a result of cancer
treatments. That drop helped make him faster in the end. But you probably don't
have to lose that much.
A better example comes from another legendary cyclist, Miguel Indurain. In the
fall of 1990, the six-foot-two-inch Spanish rider
weighed a muscular 184 pounds—too heavy to stay competitive in the mountain
stages of the Tour de France. But that winter, a
consultant to Indurain's team, Max Testa, now director of sports performance at
the University of California at Davis, figured out
the optimal ratio of power to body weight for cyclists, based on his studies of
past Tour winners (see "The Golden Ratio," below).
To reach it, Indurain had to shed only 12 pounds. Which he did. The next year he
won his first of five consecutive Tours.
More...from Outside Online at:
http://outside.away.com/outside/bodywork/200502/lose-ten-pounds_1.html


8. Seniors sit down for chair yoga:
A more gentle form of yoga is catching on in some retirement communities.
The yoga mat is replaced by the chair. Sometimes two.
Instructor Lakshmi Voelker-Binder says her students can duplicate any yoga pose
typically done on the floor, but it's easier on
those less limber muscles.
During a recent one-hour session, she taught her comfortably supported
participants to stretch by holding modified versions of
traditional yoga poses.
The normally upright forward bend, for example, entailed sitting in one chair
and positioning both legs on a facing chair, the hands
reaching for the second chair's arms.
"The only thing I won't ask you to do is headstands," Voelker-Binder joked to
the group of six women ranging in age from 50s to late
70s. They were gathered in a dimly lit ballroom at the Joslyn Senior Center near
Palm Springs.
An estimated 13.4 million Americans practice yoga or other mind-body exercises
such as tai chi, according to a 2003 survey by the
Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Of those, an estimated 1.6 million
were 55 or older.
Those numbers are expected to rise, said spokesman Mike May, as senior citizens
join health clubs and senior centers offer more
exercise programs
More...from CNN at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/02/03/chair.yoga.ap/index.html


9. Beginner Triathlete Interview with Siri Lindley, 2 Time ITU World Champion:
Q: Tell me a little bit about your sporting background? Did you play sports in
high school? Were you a star?
I played field hockey, ice hockey and lacrosse... was MVP in ice hockey and
lacrosse in high school and captain, and in college
played on the varsity for all three at Brown University. Two years of field
hockey, one year of ice hockey and three years in
lacrosse. I was on the all time scoring leader list in the history of Brown for
lacrosse.
Q: Tell me about the moment you decided to do your first triathlon. Why did you
decide to do it? What attracted you to this sport?
After I watched my first triathlon. A friend of mine was doing it, I had no idea
what one was, it looked like such a great
challenge, and so much fun. It was then I decided, I am going to do this one
day!
Q: Let's be kind and say your first triathlon wasn't your best. Tell me a little
bit about it. Where was it? How old were you? What
did you learn that day?
I was 23 years old. It was in Englewood, Colorado - my first time at altitude. I
learned how passionate I was about the sport, no
matter how bad I was at it. I learned that it was all about passion for me, and
nothing else, a personal challenge that I was
determined to take.
More...from Siri-Lindley.com at:
http://www.siri-lindley.com/articles/beginner.htm


10. The Athletic Performance Diet Plan:
By Matt Russ
Interestingly the athletic diet has changed very little over the years. The
reason being is that there are not many pathways to
fueling the body most efficiently. A diet consisting of 60-65% carbohydrate,
20-25% fats, and 15-20% protein is the proper ratio of
macro nutrients for most athletes and has been the mainstay for years. A highly
trained endurance athlete would not last very long
on a high protein diet, because their glycogen stores would quickly become
depleted and they would no longer have the energy or
reserves to train effectively. There is little controversy in athletic nutrition
when compared to the general population. I believe
the reason for this is athletic nutrition is based on hard science and fact,
rather than sensationalism and circumstantial evidence.
Coaches rely on clinical studies and proven methods rather than the latest hype.
Remember, most diets have to have a "hook" or
gimmick to get you to purchase their plan or products. That is not to say there
is not hundreds of performance enhancing athletic
supplements, many with dubious value. But the overall big picture on how to fuel
an athletes body really has not changed all that
much. This is what most athletes should focus on, rather than the latest
supplement, performance enhancing product, or fad diet
plan.
Complex carbohydrates such as starches and fiber should be the cornerstone of
the athletic diet. Complex carbohydrates include
breads, pasta, cereals, vegetables, rice and other grains, and potatoes. I try
to choose carbohydrates that are in there "natural"
form such as whole grains because they have more fiber and nutrients, and give a
slower steady release of energy. Processed
carbohydrate foods such as pasta and bagels are great for loading your body with
energy before and after competition. Simple sugars
are good during a competition and for quick energy replacement afterwards
(sports drinks). I try to avoid fruits before competition.
They can upset your stomach and the type of sugar, fructose, can be harder for
your body to process during exercise. Carbohydrates
are broken down and stored as glycogen; the bodies fuel source, or converted to
energy to compete and train. When glycogen stores
run out you may "bonk" or "hit the wall." You feel lousy, lethargic, and slow.
Your body begins breaking down your muscles to use as
fuel. Several days of hard training can also deplete glycogen stores. This
sluggishness and inability to train hard is often
misdiagnosed as overtraining. A good post work out recovery plan is crucial to
maintaining glycogen stores for repeated training and
competition. This means eating carbohydrates and a little bit of protein (4:1
ratio), immediately after training.
More...from The Sport Factory at:
http://www.thesportfactory.com/article_59.shtml


11. Mental Approach:
What’s Missing From Your Training?
By Michelle Cleere
I was a head triathlon coach for the Presidio YMCA Triathlon Team for many
years. On my team was a woman, Tish, who has been a part
of the team since the inception of the program. She, like many of the other
people who came into the program, was either a)
struggling with her exercise motivation and thought training for a triathlon
might be good motivation or b) needing a challenge.
Either way a lot of these people were new to one, two or three of the sports
involved with triathlons and therefore were challenged
in learning and participating in certain of these aspects so each year to help
with those challenges I would do a sports psychology
clinic. I would talk about motivation, anxiety, positive affirmations, self
talk, etc. and about how the mental aspect of sport is
many times overlooked but can be more important than the physical aspects.
One year I was discussing becoming aware of your thought process and then
continued on talking about how to change negative thinking
into positive thinking by using positive affirmations (2-3 motivational words)
or key words (1 motivational word). I continued
talking about how many times we get to a big hill in a run and we start thinking
all sorts of crazy thoughts: that hill is way too
long; I can’t make it to the top or; I hate hills. These negative thoughts make
a person more anxious, tighten muscles for
restricted movement, and actually become a self fulfilling prophecy; which means
you will struggle getting to the top.
More...from Transition Times at:
http://www.transitiontimes.com/viewstory.cfm?ID=6490


12. Can We Live to Be 1,000?
Nobody lives forever - but we're about to get a whole lot closer, says Aubrey de
Grey, a controversial age theorist and a gene
database manager at Cambridge University. In February's issue of the
international journal Gerontology, the self-taught scientist
argues that recent advances in our understanding of aging may allow today's
sixtysomethings to reach their 1,000th birthdays. Wired
asked him to explain how mainstream research has veered off course.
WIRED: Your Gerontology piece claims that the current approach to prolonging
life - developing drugs that mimic nutrient
deprivation - is wrong. How so?
DE GREY: I present a detailed evolutionary argument that caloric restriction in
humans will give only a very small increase in
lifespan. Starved worms and flies can live many times longer than normal,
whereas mice can live only about 40 percent longer and
dogs only 10 to 15 percent. We'll get only two to three years from that
approach. Better than nothing, but not enough. This is a big
deal because the majority of academic-led biotech startups aimed at postponing
aging are developing drugs based on caloric
restriction.
More...from Wired Magazine at:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/view.html?pg=3


13. The treadmill: a triathlete’s best friend:
By Cliff English/Competitive Edge Training
Having been a staunch treadmill supporter for quite a few years, I am pleased to
see this fantastic running tool growing in
popularity. My competitive nature inclines me to pay heed to the whispering in
my right ear that says, ”Don’t let the secret out!”
but I’ll let you in on one of the most important, yet overlooked training
secrets: treadmills can make you faster. We have seen them
for years lined up one-by-one in health clubs. Menacing and daunting they rest
there in silence. Treadmills are viewed by some as
monotonous, a last resort when the weather is terrible. Staunch running purists
scoff at treadmill running, and some even consider
it not real running.
I am going to share with you what top runners and top triathletes have known for
years. Treadmills are incredibly versatile training
tools because athletes can perform a variety of specific training sessions such
as hill repeats, fartlek, tempo and interval runs
with precision. On the treadmill, you are in a controlled environment and have
access to a great deal of data, which can help keep
you honest. Plus, your pace awareness, aerobic conditioning and lactate
threshold call all get a boost from the treadmill.
From cruel taskmaster to secret weapon
Most triathletes include a staple long run plus a track session in their weekly
training programs. I actually do very little track
work and usually reserve that for a four- to six-week block to fine tune leg
speed leading into a major peak. For me, the bread and
butter is the tempo run. Tempo runs can range in intensity from off-season
upper-end aerobic base runs to race-pace tempo sessions
and in-season lactate-tolerance sets. The treadmill offers a brilliant
opportunity for athletes to improve their run economy and leg
turnover.
More...from Triathlete Magazine at:
http://www.triathletemag.com/story.cfm?story_id=9355&publicationID=92&pageID=173\
2


14. First Steps by Gordon Bakoulis:
A Handful of Female Marathon Pioneers Inspired a Generation of Women Runners.
Can you imagine being stopped by police during a marathon-training run simply
because you're a solitary female? Being tackled,
threatened, and cursed at by a race director while running your first marathon?
Setting a marathon world best at age 38, winning the
New York City Marathon, yet still being ashamed of your body? Entering your
first marathon because women weren't allowed to run more
than 1,500 meters in international track competition, and setting a world record
by more than two minutes? Winning the first women's
Olympic marathon, then running an American marathon in a record time that still
stands after 16 years?
I can't imagine doing any of these things.
Every time I contemplate the obstacles women marathoners have faced and what
they have done in spite of them, I'm overwhelmed by
their athleticism, courage, and vision. I consider it a privilege to know
personally several of the women who pioneered the
marathon. It is the great fortune of us all that they are accessible,
articulate, personable, and possess tremendous insight into
the sport of marathoning.
When asked to name those women whose achievements as marathon pioneers mean the
most to me, my choices were surprisingly easy. I
must emphasize, however, that the athletes profiled here are not an
all-inclusive—nor even representative—group. The women whose
stories follow are simply those whom I've grown to most admire, respect, and
just plain like. A list of female marathon pioneers is
incomplete without Roberta (Bobbi) Gibb, Sara Mae Berman, Beth Bonner,
Jacqueline Hansen, Gayle Baron, and Ingrid Kristiansen.
My Webster's defines "pioneer" as "a person or group that originates or helps
open up a new line of thought or activity." The five
women profiled here exemplify the bravery and originality implicit in that
definition.
More...from Marathon and Beyond at:
http://www.marathonandbeyond.com/choices/bakoulis.htm



15. The Science of 80/90 Workouts for Marathoners:
In the late 1960's, Dr. Robert Cade, a kidney specialist at the University of
Florida Medical School in Gainesville, made one of the
great discoveries in the history of sports medicine. Watching the Gator football
players wilt in the southern heat and humidity, he
wondered if he could help them avoid heat exhaustion and dehydration by
replacing their lost sweat. His solution (pun intended)
developed into Gatorade, a perfect example of the scientific mind at its
inquisitive best. Over the years, Doc Cade’s conclusions
have been validated by the countless other experiments that good science
requires.
The Hypothesis
Bart Yasso may not have the credentials of a physician. He has, however, the
same gift of empirical observation as Doc Cade, that
allows someone to observe a relationship and then wonder if there is some
general truth about it. Bart noticed that if he did a
speed workout of 10 x 800 meters with a couple minutes rest interval, the
average time of the 800’s, in minutes and seconds, seemed
to predict his marathon finish time in hours and minutes. He started asking
other veteran marathoners about their speed work. Sure
enough, checking their logs, they found the same correlation. With that, Yasso
800’s were born and popularized. It’s now time,
however, for other scientists to validate Yasso’s conclusion with more
controlled experiments.
More...from Running Times at:
http://www.runningtimes.com/issues/02julaug/8090.htm


16. Multisport thoughts for the new year:
The thought of surviving the holiday season brings a sigh of relief for most
people.
The holiday season is a multiday, multisport event composed of parties, friends,
family, food, and in some cases, a nice dose of
stress.
At the holiday finish line is the prospect of a new year, time to start fresh
and make some new goals. If you are hunting for some
new goals, this column contains a few thoughts that might help you out:
Try a triathlon as a team
If you aren't quite ready to do the entire event on your own, recruit some
buddies and plan to do a race as a team. If you are an
experienced triathlete, escort new triathletes into the sport by putting
together a team with at least one athlete that has not
participated in triathlon before.
For the speed demons, put together a team to see how fast you can go.
Try a new race in a new city
Traveling to a new location to race is fun. Add some vacation time after the
race and make a holiday out of the trip.
Try a new, longer distance
If you have been doing sprint triathlons, move to Olympic distance events. If
you've been doing Olympic distance events, how about a
half-Ironman distance or Ironman distance event?
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=11414&sidebar=26&category=triathlon


17. Multisport: Carbohydrate protection against muscle damage
Eating in a way that keeps your body primed for peak fitness can also reduce
your risk of injury. Firstly, eating foods that will
help to fend off fatigue will minimise injuries arising from tiredness and
weakness. Secondly, some of the metabolic processes which
can lead to muscle soreness and damage can be counteracted to a degree by
dietary factors.
It' s old news that keeping your muscles stacked with glycogen can help your
endurance capacity. But did you know that a respectable
glycogen credit will also make injury less likely? There's evidence linking
muscle glycogen depletion with both fatigue and injury.
The connection is simple - muscles that are fatigued lose their strength, and
thus their ability to protect joints. For example,
take that favourite injury, the shin splint. While you're running, you rely on
one particular muscle to take proportionately more
strain - a strip of sinew that runs down the shin to the inside edge of the foot
and pulls the foot inward and upward. During
running, this muscle works at least twice as hard as other local muscles, and is
therefore most likely to fatigue first. As it gets
tired, the risk of shin splints and stress fractures is likely to rise, as does
the risk of knee injuries.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20050211_PPO_CarboProtection.html


18. Multisport: Tri Talk 101:
By: Lindsay Hyman
VO2 max, anaerobic threshold, lactic threshold, tempo, and steady state what
does this all mean in relationship to your training?
Actually, these terms are rather important and once you understand the concept
of these common buzzwords you'll be ready to hit the
road.
Let's begin with the basics, aerobic verse anaerobic exercise. When performing a
set of aerobic exercises you are causing the body
to utilize oxygen in order to create energy. The oxygen is needed to breakdown
glucose; glucose is the fuel needed to create energy
during exercise lasting more then 3 minutes. However, the opposite applies to
anaerobic exercises, which are short bouts of exercise
lasting no longer then 10-15 seconds. In anaerobic exercises the body creates
energy without oxygen, this happens because the body's
demand for energy is consumed rapidly, therefore the body naturally finds
chemicals to create it on its own.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_CTS_20050211_Hyman.html


19. Triathlon: Dress for success:
By Lance Watson & Stefan Timms
Power Suits, Bold Ties, High Cut Skirts -- whatever it is you use to present
yourself in your non-athletic world, your attire says
something about you to your potential partners, employers, and clients. Of
course, the same can be said about the triathlon world.
If you are running around in cotton, then it says to the trained eye that either
you enjoy chafing and being cold, or you are new to
that whole running outside thing. The people you see out on their bikes in fully
coordinated outfits probably live by the proverb:
"it doesn't matter where you finish as long as you look good!" And who hasn't
enjoyed commenting to whomever they are with when they
see someone jogging by in shorts and a singlet in zero degree weather?
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20050209_LW_Dress.html


20. Athletics: Marathon Preparation - Practice Makes Perfect:
By Claudia Piepenburg - from Road Runner Sports Run Today Newsletter
It’s a good idea to do a trial run a few weeks before your big race on the race
course or a simulated course -- this is particularly
important for a marathon.
The Course
Do a trial run on the course if your race is local. If you’re gearing up for a
marathon, run just the last 10-12 miles. The purpose
of the trial run is to become familiar with the course. You don’t want any
surprises on race day! (Like a mile long hill at the
20-mile mark of a marathon or a hairpin turn you weren’t expecting.)
If the race is out-of-town you have two alternatives. Get a course map
indicating elevations. Most races, marathons in particular,
publish course maps on entry forms. Course maps are also usually published
online. Contact the race director if you’re having
trouble finding a map. Once you have the map find a course near you that’s
similar. If you live in a part of the country that’s flat
and part of the course is hilly, you’ll have to improvise – try running the
route on a treadmill. On the other hand, if you have the
time (and money!) to travel to the race destination city a few days early, you
can practice on the real thing!
Your Pace
Except for the last few hundred yards when you can pick it up, run your trial at
the same pace you run your easy days. Remember,
this is a run designed to familiarize yourself with the course. It isn’t a time
trial.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20050208_PRP_Marathon_Prep.html


21. Sportsmedicine: Leg Length Discrepancies:
By Dr. Dennis Kiper, DPM
The problem is a 10-minute-a-mile right foot and an eight-minute-a-mile left
foot. Funny? Maybe to the non-athlete who has not
suffered the problems related to this condition
There are two different types of leg length discrepancies: congenital and
acquired.
Congenital means you are born with it. One leg is anatomically shorter than the
other. Through developmental stages of aging, the
brain picks up on the gait pattern and recognizes some difference. The body
usually adapts by tilting one shoulder over to the
"short" side. A difference of under a quarter inch is not grossly abnormal, does
not need a lift to compensate and usually does not
have a profound effect over a lifetime.
Differences over a quarter inch can take their toll on the spine and should
probably be compensated for with a heel lift. In some
cases, the shortage can be so extreme that it requires a full lift to both the
heel and sole of the shoe.
The acquired shortage is by far the most problematic. In my practice, I see four
problems always associated with acquired shortage:
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20050208_DK_LegLength.html


22. Two-a-days: A double-dose of running can do you good:
My introduction to endurance sport was through swimming. By the ripe old age of
12 I was introduced to the concept of two workouts a
day -- an hour before school and two hours after and, during the summer, three
hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.
That's a lot of aquatic sensory deprivation at a time when all of my friends got
to watch Gilligan's Island, do lay-ups on the
basketball court or catch a fly ball. I could do all four strokes?and not much
else. It's no wonder to me now that, by my 14th year,
I'd committed myself to dry-land pursuits.
I didn't start running regularly until I was a junior in high school which, if
you want to run competitively, is considered a late
start.
A broken hand on the football field, a friend who needed someone to run with, a
sister who wanted to run a marathon and a
mesmerizing PBS documentary on the marathon combined to launch me headlong into
a 28-year (and counting) love of man's most basic
form of high-speed locomotion: running.
One day, our coach pulled the distance freaks aside and, like a back-alley drug
dealer, said quietly: "If you want to be the best
possible distance runners this year, you should be running in the morning, too.
I'm not telling you guys that you have to run in the
morning, but the guys you're trying to beat are doing exactly that."
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=11478&sidebar=26&category=triathlon


23. Sports Active: `If I Slowed Down, There Were at Least 250 Women Left to Swim
Over Me':
Take Part in a Triathlon, Says Kate Rew, and You're Likely to Wind Up Fitter
(and Thinner) Than You Ever Imagined. It's Easy to
Swim, Run and Bike Yourself into Shape
At 1pm on 31 July last year, I was thinner and fitter than I have ever been in
my life, and much more terrified. I had just set off
for the swim in the Michelob Ultra London Triathlon with 300 other women, and
was experiencing my first underwater crowd crush; my
face was in somebody's feet, my feet were in somebody's face, and their hands
were clawing all over my wetsuit.
Of all the things I expected to experience on this sunny day of finely tuned
fitness, the last was terror. But face-down in murky
water, gasping for breath (which came with mouthfuls of water), I discovered it
is possible to hyperventilate yourself into a state
of complete panic within five minutes.
More...from RedNova at:
http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=125222


24. Dr. Gabe Mirkin's Fitness and Health E-Zine:
* Eating For Endurance
It takes a lot of energy to run, cycle or ski long distances; to play three
sets of tennis or a pickup game of basketball; or to
walk for several hours. During intense exercise, your muscles draw sugar from
your bloodstream at a rapid rate. Your liver can run
out of its stored sugar and your blood sugar level can drop. You can markedly
improve your performance in any of these events by
eating shortly before your event begins,
and by starting to eat and drink as soon as you start exercising.
The energy for your brain comes almost exclusively from the sugar in your
bloodstream. When blood sugar levels drop, you feel tired
and have difficulty coordinating your muscles. However, there is only enough
sugar in your bloodstream to last three minutes at
rest. To maintain blood sugar levels, your liver has to release sugar into your
bloodstream. But there is only enough sugar in your
liver to last around twelve hours at rest and far less than that when you
exercise. When muscles run out of their stored sugar
supply, it hurts to exercise and the muscles
become difficult to control. Most people who exercise for more than an hour
will improve their endurance if they start replenishing
energy reserves as soon as they start to exercise.
Hunger during exercise is a very late sign of not getting enough calories. You
can increase your endurance by starting to eat
anything or to drink fluids that contain sugar as soon as you start to exercise.
This will give you far greater endurance than
waiting to take food after an hour of exercise or when you feel hungry.

*Dear Dr. Mirkin: I ride a bike to work and don't have any place to shower. How
can I avoid offending my coworkers?
You don't have to smell bad just because you can't take a shower after a
workout. Sweat doesn't smell when it first reaches your
skin. The odor comes after bacteria on the skin's surface break down the fat and
ferment the sugar in sweat to form chemicals that
smell. It takes at least an hour for bacteria to produce an odor, and bacteria
do this job best when the skin is wet.
Most of the glands in your skin secrete sweat that will not smell because it
does not contain sugar of fat. Only the sweat glands
around the breasts, genitals and armpits produce sweat that contains fat and
sugar. You can prevent body odor by washing just these
areas and then keeping them dry. Use antibacterial soap or towelettes ("baby
wipes"), then apply powder to keep the skin dry, and a
use deodorant.

* Dear Dr. Mirkin: Why would I have chest pain when I carry something heavy, but
not at any other time?
You could have a condition called airport angina. It's named after a case report
about a person who developed chest pain only when
he ran to catch a plane while carrying a heavy suitcase.
The oxygen for your heart comes from blood vessels on its outside surface. The
blood that is pumped inside of your heart does not
supply significant amounts of oxygen or nutrition to your heart muscle. As long
as your heart muscle can get all the oxygen that it
needs, it doesn't hurt. When the blood vessels on the surface of your heart are
partially blocked, your heart may be able to get all
the oxygen that it needs for normal activities. However, when your heart needs
to work extra hard, it may not be able to get enough
oxygen so it starts to hurt.
When you walk carrying a heavy object, your arm muscles stay contracted and
partially obstruct the flow of blood through their
arteries. Your heart has to work harder to pump against this increased
resistance. Narrowed heart arteries may not allow enough
blood to flow through them and your heart will not get the extra oxygen that it
needs, causing pain. Please check with your doctor.


25. News Scan:

* Fishing for a Solution to Exercise-Induced Asthma (Dr. Roc Byrd)
Proper breathing is a vital component of effective exercise, whether you're
running, swimming or lifting weights. Breathe in,
breathe out; inhale on the way up, exhale on the way down. Sounds easy, right?
Not if you suffer from exercise-induced asthma. It's
been estimated that nine out of 10 chronic asthma sufferers, and four of 10
individuals with allergic rhinitis or atopic dermatitis,
will feel the effects of exercise-induced asthma. Symptoms can include chest
tightness, coughing, shortness of breath, and fatigue.
There is hope for sufferers of this condition, however: Researchers at the
University of Indiana have found that fish oil may reduce
the severity of exercise-induced asthma in athletes. Subjects who consumed fish
oil capsules daily for three weeks (approximately
5.4 grams of fish oil per day) showed improved post-exercise pulmonary function
and reduced symptoms of exercise-induced asthma
compared to control subjects who received no fish oil supplementation.
Good dietary sources of fish oil include herring, albacore tuna, salmon,
mackerel, sardines and anchovies. And if you don't have the
time (or palate) to fit fish into your regular diet, you can always get the
benefits of fish oil from a regular supplement. Ask your
chiropractor about the benefits of fish oil, particularly if you suffer from
asthma.
For more information on vitamins, minerals and supplements, go to
http://www.chiroweb.com/find/tellmeabout/nutrients.html
[From http://WesHobsonPerformance.com]

* Choosing Your Water
January's nutrition tip was to stay hydrated, primarily by drinking
approximately 8-12 glasses of water per day depending upon your
body size, activity levels, and other factors. This month, we review our water
options, and the relative pros and cons.
Tap water is the cheapest and most convenient option, but is not the best choice
if you can afford another alternative. Municipally
treated water is typically (recognizing regional differences) chlorinated,
fluoridated, and can contain measurable amounts of
substances that have harmful effects on the body, such as hydrocarbons,
pesticides and other chemicals, parasites & bacteria, and
heavy metals (e.g., lead & aluminum). That being said, it is better to drink tap
water than no water. Good alternatives to tap water
include:
1) Bottled Water - check it's source (whether a mineral spring or municipal
water source), and packaging. Any source may be fine for
drinking depending upon the production company's track record with consistent
chemical assays, fraud, tampering, etc. Regarding
packaging, the best choices are bottles made with the stronger materials. Glass
is best, and a strong, clear plastic bottle will
also suffice. Look for a #1, 3 or 7 in the recycle triangle on the bottle. Stay
away from the #2 bottles as they leach plastic into
the water.
2) Filtered Water - the filter source may be charcoal, carbon, ceramic, reverse
osmosis, or some combination of these. These filters
may be purchased as home units for installation on a counter-top or under a
sink. You can also purchase simple carbon filters, such
as a Brita, for one jug at a time. For overall effectiveness, ease of use and
maintenance, the higher end under-the-sink filters of
the ceramic or sub-micron carbon block are preferred, even though they may cost
a little more up front (~ $300 -$800). There are
many such filters in the market to choose from.
3) Distilled Water - boiling water into steam and then condensing the steam back
into liquid water is distillation, and it produces
the purest water, which is why it is used for scientific experiments. If
purchasing distilled water, follow the same guidelines for
packaging as for bottled water, above.
As the nutrient that you will (now) be consciously ingesting the most, water
deserves your extra attention and investment. Quench
your thirst according to these guidelines, and your body will respond
swimmingly! Next month, tune in for an electrifying discussion
about electrolytes.
Tania Persad is a registered nutritionist from Personal Best and can be
contacted at mailto:tania@...
[From http://www.PersonalBest.ca]

* Running Times Newsletter:
Fuel your training and racing properly. This will require you to eat three meals
a day (you need your muscles to be adequately
fueled, and skipping meals won't help you achieve that goal); eat one or more
snacks a day, but be sure they are healthy snacks,
like fruit, cereal, peanut butter, or energy bars; eat the right balance of
carbohydrates (60-65% of total calories), protein
(15%), and fats (20-25%); and refuel after training, especially in the
"carbohydrate window," the 30 minutes immediately after
exercising. Keep thinking to yourself that "food is fuel" as you decide what to
eat and when.
Control your body weight. The important thing to keep in mind if you are trying
to lose weight is that you need to make smart
choices--don't just cut out all fat or all carbohydrates, or you will miss out
on important nutrients that your body needs. Make
sure that you eat a variety of foods from all food groups. Instead of focusing
on trying to avoid particular foods, concentrate more
on how many calories you are taking in versus how many calories you are
expending.

* Question: Assuming you're doing the same workout in both places, does cardio
training at high altitudes burn more calories than at
low altitudes?
Answer: Not unless you count the muscles needed to breathe hard as major burners
of calories. Which they surely are not, compared to
say, the muscles needed to run hard. Thin air initiates a host of responses in
the body. "These include changes in breathing rate,
the pH of your blood, the pH of your muscle, and the rate at which you utilize
energy," says Lawrence Armstrong, Ph.D., associate
professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut and author of
Performing in Extreme Environments (Human Kinetics Press,
2000). "You also experience changes in the nervous, endocrine, and
cardiovascular system."
While people who live at altitude ultimately come to utilize oxygen better than
those who live at sea level (though the steepest
performance advantage is said to be for those who train low and sleep high),
this does not necessarily translate into a workout that
burns more calories.
Putting aside the vagaries of calculating calorie burn in a workout according to
standard tables in the first place (because caloric
burn is highly individual, the only accurate way to tell if you burned off that
PowerBar is via a calculation based on your
individual oxygen consumption), chances are you don't burn that many more
calories in Denver than you would in San Francisco. But it
will feel that way.
"Your ventilation increases," says Armstrong, "but this perception of increased
effort doesn't necessarily mean you're expending
more energy. The only increase in energy output would be due to the increased
work performed by the rib cage and the muscles
involved in breathing. Other than that, you may have a breathless feeling but
that doesn't mean you are expending more energy.
Additional energy output would be a function of workload, but other than the
increased work spent breathing, at a higher altitude
you still are doing the same amount of work."
[From Outside Online]

* The Golden Ratio » A potential world champion in an endurance sport like
cycling needs to maintain a power output of 2.7 watts per
pound of body weight for 45 minutes. (Which, coincidentally, is believed to be
Lance Armstrong's output during a mountain climb in
the Tour de France.) Mere recreational mortals should consider themselves
optimally fit once they attain a more down-to-earth ratio
of 1.6 watts per pound of body weight. Translated, this means a 170-pound
athlete should be able to pump out an average of 272 watts
over 45 minutes. And remember: The more weight you lose, the easier it will be
to hit the target ratio—a 160-pounder's goal is a
more reasonable 254 watts. To find out your current ratio, hop on any treadmill
or stationary bike that measures watts, go as hard
as you can for 45 minutes, then do the math.
{From Outside Online]

* Watch LA Marathon on the Web: NBC4 in LA is broadcasting the race live on the
Web (and the tube) on Sunday, March 6 from
7:30-11:00 a.m. PT. For Web viewing visit http://www.lamarathon.com or
http://www.nbc4.tv.

* Muscle Soreness (or) Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness
Muscle soreness is inevitable, and easily treatable.
Definition:
Muscle pain and inflammation following a race, speedwork, downhill running or
other hard workouts.
Remedies:
At the end of a hard run, race or marathon, walk rather than stop completely.
Then cool your legs off with cold water over the
entire leg. Take anti-inflammatories, stretch often and, if possible, get a
massage. After a marathon, take three days off from
running and cycle instead. Pick up running again on the fourth day if you want.
To help prevent muscle soreness, add some downhill running to your training
every two to three weeks, especially when you're
preparing for a downhill race. Your quads will thank you.


*End of Articles*



This Weeks Featured Events:
*Please verify event dates with the event websites*
For more complete race listings check out our Upcoming Races, and Calendars.
Check the Runner's Web on Sunday and Monday for race
reports on these events at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running.html

February 11, 2005:
Tyson Invitational - Fayetteville, AR
http://www.tysoninvitational.org

February 13, 2005:
Freescale Austin Marathon - Austin, TX
http://www.freescaleaustinmarathon.com/home.asp

Mercedes Marathon - Birmingham, AL
http://www.mercedesmarathon.com/

February 14-22, 2005:
Yukon Arctic Ultra - Whitehorse, Canada
http://www.arcticultra.de

Check out our FrontPage and our Runner's Web Television Links page at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/rw_television.html

For Triathlon Coverage check out The Sports Network at:
http://www2.sportsnet.ca/tvschedule/tvsked_sport.php?region=ONTARIO&schedule_id=\
25

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Have a good week of training and/or racing.

Ken Parker
Runner's Web
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END...OF DIGEST...