A FREE WEEKLY E-ZINE OF MULTISPORT RELATED ARTICLES.
The Runner's and Triathlete's Web Digest is a weekly e-zine dealing with the
sports of running and triathlon and general fitness and
health issues. The opinions expressed in the articles referenced by the Digest
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1. Scotiabank Bay Street Rat Race for United Way - 5k Run - Toronto, ON June 15,
2006
Join us for a 5km run through the streets of downtown Toronto. Fantastic
entertainment, food and prizes in celebration of United Way
of Greater Toronto's 50th anniversary
http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/volunteer/uw_events_calendar.html#Ratrace

2. Challenger World.
Using our unique Intelligent Sport™ concept, Challenger World has developed the
most advanced, fun and diverse corporate team
building challenges in the world with one aim in mind - to create great teams
for your business
http://www.challengerworld.com/
What is Intelligent Sport:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060518_Challenger_World.html

3. RunnersWeb5K.com Race for Women
Women's only racing returns to Ottawa June 24th with a 5K race along the
Rockcliffe Parkway from the Aviation Museum.
More....
http://www.runnersweb5k.com

4. Runner's Web Online Store:
Through a partnership with HDO Sports, the Runner's and Triathlete's Web has
opened an online store. Check it out for your shopping
requirements.
**New** Garmin 305 now available with FREE shipping.
Digest subscribers are eligible for a $15 discount off the Garmin 305. Use the
coupon code: 15GFR305. This offer expires May 31st.
http://store.runnersweb.com

5. RunnersWebCoach
Through a partnership with HDO Training, the Runner's And Triathlete's Web now
offers Interactive Training.
http://www.runnerswebcoach.com

6. Road Runner Sports, the world's largest running store at:
http://clickserve.cc-dt.com/link/click?lid=41000000009525499

7. Toronto Waterfront Marathon. September 24, 2006.
http://www.torontowaterfrontmarathon.com/

9. The Toronto Marathon, October 15, 2006
http://www.torontomarathon.com

10. LifeSport by Lance Watson - Professional Coaching
Lance Watson has been coaching triathlon and distance running since 1987. Over
the years, Lance has coached some of the most
successful athletes in the sport of triathlon and duathlon. A Human Kinetics
graduate (sport psychology minor), Lance has had the
opportunity to work with and be mentored by numerous world-class swim, bike, run
and triathlon coaches and liaise with many top
sport professionals (scientists, psychologists, nutritionists, therapists, etc.)
Lance has coached at the 2000 Olympics, 2002 Commonwealth Games and 2003 Pan
American Games. He has been head coach at several
national-team events and coached at various Ironman, ITU World Cup and world
championship events. As well, he was an award recipient
as "Triathlon Canada Elite Coach Of The Year" four consecutive years from
2000-2003. He was the 2004 Olympic Team Head Coach
(Triathlon).
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/LifeSport.html


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THIS WEEK:
The Garmin 305 is now available with FREE shipping through our Online Store at
http://store.runnersweb.com.
Digest subscribers are eligible for a $15 discount off the Garmin 305. Use the
coupon code: 15GFR305. This offer expires May 31st.

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Women! You can now win an entry into the RunnersWeb5K.com Race for Women in
Ottawa on June 24th through Road Race Results at:
http://www.roadraceresults.com/road-race-results-free-entry-draw.php.
One entry will be awarded each Monday up to and including June 19th.

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The Ottawa Race Weekend, Canada's largest running event, announced its first
national charity partnership in 32 years with the
Canadian Athletes Now Fund.
The Canadian Athletes Now Fund is a not for profit organization that raises
direct financial support for Canadian athletes so they
can compete on the world stage. Since 1997, the Fund has raised over 4 million
dollars and supported over 500 able bodied and
paralympic athletes.
This is a fabulous opportunity to support our Canadian athletes when they need
the support the most. It takes tremendous dedication
and training to be the best in the world and it also takes financial support.
The Canadian Athletes Now Fund provides direct financial support to our Canadian
athletes. Athletes allocate the funds they receive
for equipment needs, coaching, training opportunities and proper nutrition.
The Canadian Athletes Now Fund is looking for 2008 passionate and proud
Canadians to run, walk or skate for our Canadian athletes
during the Ottawa Race Weekend. When you join the Canadian Athletes Now Fund
team you will find out which athlete your efforts will
be supporting plus donations of $25 or more will receive a tax receipt.
FREE Technical Running Shirt for all Canadian Athletes Now Fund Team members!
START TODAY! JOIN OUR TEAM: CLICK ON LINK BELOW:
https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/startup.aspx?eventid=5828
To Donate or for more information visit: www.canadianathletesnow.ca
or Call us at: 1-866-YES-2008 .

WIN a Trip for 2 to Scotiabank TORONTO WATERFRONT MARATHON
Flat, fast and festive!
Exciting, cosmopolitan, international, but right next door! "Experience middle
earth and marathon heaven all in one trip to
Toronto!" Join RW Hero Ed Whitlock, John "The Penguin" Bingham, and 10,000+
runners from 30 countries and 40+ states.
More...
http://www.torontowaterfrontmarathon.com/en/rwcontest_us.htm

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We are running a weekly quiz - starting Monday, March 20th - with the weekly
winner getting FREE entry into the RunnersWeb5K.com
Race for Women which will be held in Ottawa on June 24, 2006. Check it out at:
http://www.runnersweb5K.com.
Sub 18:00 5K women runners should contact me for FREE entry into the race.

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RUNNER'S AND TRIATHLETE'S WEB CONTENT PARTNERS

* Sports Nutrition by Sheila Kealey.
Sheila is one of Ottawa's top multisport athletes and a member of the OAC Racing
Team and X-C Ottawa. She has a Masters in Public
Health and works in the field of nutritional epidemiology as a Research
Associate with the University of California, San Diego. Her
column index is available at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/SK_index.html

* Carmichael Training Systems
Carmichael Training Systems was founded in 1999 by Chris Carmichael.
From the beginning, the mission of the company has been to improve the lives of
individuals we work with through the application of
proper and effective fitness and competitive training techniques. Whether your
focus is recreational, advanced, or you are a
professional racer, the coaching methodology employed by CTS will make you a
better athlete. Check the latest monthly column from
CTS at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/cts_columns.html.

* Peak Performance Online
Peak Performance is a subscription-only newsletter for athletes, featuring the
latest research from the sports science world. We
cover the whole range of sports, from running and rowing to cycling and
swimming, and each issue is packed full of exclusive
information for anyone who's serious about sport. It's published 16 times a
year, including four special reports, by Electric Word
plc. Peak Performance is not available in the shops - only our subscribers are
able to access the valuable information we publish.
Check out our article archive from Peak Performance Online at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/PPO_index.html

* Peak Running Performance
Peak Running Is The Nation's Most Advanced Running Newsletter. Rated as the #1
Running Publication by Road Runner Sports (Worlds
Largest Running Store) , Peak Running caters to the serious / dedicated runner.
Delivering world class running advice are some of
running's most recognizable athletes including Dr. Joe Vigil (US Olympic Coach),
Scott Tinley (2 Time Ironman Champ) Steve Scott (3 Time Olympian) and many more.
This bi-monthly newsletter has been around for over
13 years, and in the past two it has been awarded the "Golden Shoe Award" in
recognition of it's outstanding achievements.
http://www.clixGalore.com/Sale.aspx?BID=37234&AfID=103794&AdID=5075&LP=www.peakr\
unningperformance.com
Check out the Peak Running article index at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/PRP_index.html .

* WatsonLifeSport
Lance Watson is "Just The Winningest Coach in Triathlon". He has been coaching
triathlon and distance running since 1987. Over the
years, Lance has coached some of the most successful athletes in the sport of
triathlon and duathlon.
Check out the Lance Watson Online Article Index at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/LW_index.html

Running Research News:
RRN's free, weekly, training update provides subscribers with the most-current,
practical, scientifically based information about
training, sports nutrition, injury prevention, and injury rehabilitation. The
purpose of this weekly e-zine is to improve
subscribers' training quality and to help them train in an injury-free manner.
Running Research News also publishes a complete, 12-page, electronic newsletter
10 times a year (one-year subscriptions are $35); to
learn more about Running Research News, please see the Online Article Index and
"About Running Research News" sections below or go
to RRNews.com.
Check out the article index at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/RRN_index.html


THIS WEEK'S PERSONAL POSTINGS/RELEASES:
We have NO personal postings this week.


THIS WEEK'S DIGEST ARTICLE INDEX:

1. Triathlon: Primer for the Self-Coached Ironman Athlete
2. Athletics: Final Race Prep - Race Strategy
3. Science of Sport: Sore No More
4. Fruit: Questions and concerns
5. My New Race
Chronicles of a Diagnosis.
6. Marathon Strategy
Adapted from The Competitive Runner's Handbook by Bob Glover and Shelly Glover
7. Joe Henderson's Running Commentary - Memory Laps
8. Health and Fitness: Let’s Talk Knees
9. Vitamins can aid a healthy diet
10. From Runner's World
11. Aging: Hit the Health Club: Offset Dementia's Onset
12. Hit the hills to boost power and confidence
13. My Most Unforgettable Marathon (And What I Learned From It)
14. Is Running Good for Children?
We all would love to see our kids as Olympic Champions--but is training them now
a wise idea?
15. The Overtraining Syndrome
16. Ten Commandments of Training
17. A Good Coach Stresses Safety First
Proper equipment, conditioning should be part of the ground rules, experts say.
18. Strength Training for Runners
19. Nike and Apple tell runners: "It's worth it"
20. Fitness with Chris Carmichael
21. Prosperous running: Dynamic movement
22. Dr. Gabe Mirkin's Fitness and Health E-Zine
23. Eating practices of the best endurance athletes in the world
24. Don't work out -- train!
25. Digest Briefs



RUNNER'S WEB WEEKLY POLL:
"Should charities get guaranteed entries into marathons which have an entry
limit?"

You can access the poll from our FrontPage ( http://www.runnersweb.com) as well
as 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 RESULTS:
"What should the cut-off time be for marathons?"
Answers Votes Percent
1. 3 hours 16 13%
2. 3 Hours 30 minutes 4 3%
3. 4 hours 6 5%
4. 4 hours 30 minutes 7 6%
5. 5 hours 33 26%
6. 5 hours 30 minutes 8 6%
7. 6 hours 21 17%
8. 6 hours 30 minutes 1 1%
9. 7 hours 12 10%
10. As long as the LAST finisher 17 14%
Total Votes: 125

FIVE STAR SITE OF THE WEEK: Irish Runner - "Keeping Track of Ireland".
News, photos, results, bios of Irish runners from around the world.
Visit the site at:
http://www.irishrunner.com


Our Photo Slideshow is updated on a random basis. Check it out from our
FrontPage.


BOOK OF THE WEEK: Gold Medal Nutrition-4th Edition.
Significantly expanded and updated, the popular Australian sports nutrition
manual Gold Medal Nutrition is back and more relevant to
athletes than ever. The fourth edition sports a new look, improved
illustrations, and new discussions of key topics like cramps, the
stitch, and sports drinks. Clear and concise, it is a practical resource for
recreational and elite athletes, coaches, and health
professionals who want to keep up on the changing world of sports nutrition–but
don’t have a lot of time. With the easy-to-follow
format in Gold Medal Nutrition, readers can find the advice they need, when they
need it, in a matter of seconds.
The text’s discussion of the physiology behind fuel intake and muscle
contraction will be useful to athletes who want to gain a
competitive edge in any sport. The book explains how to build endurance and
energy with the right mix of protein, carbohydrate,
vitamins, and liquids. Particularly helpful are the sound tips for burning fat,
building muscle, and losing weight safely and
sensibly. Readers will feel more confident eating out, reading food labels, and
even choosing snacks as they integrate these
guidelines into their daily lives.
Glenn Cardwell is an accredited practicing dietitian and sports dietitian in
Western Australia. While previous editions of his book
have been used primarily in Australia, Gold Medal Nutrition, Fourth Edition,
contains universal principles that anyone will find
useful. In his comprehensive—but not overwhelming—text, the author clarifies how
to:
* get enough protein,
* find the best nutritional supplements,
* eat to bulk up,
* select the best pre-sport meals,
* drink the best fluids for sports,
* travel well and avoid jet lag, and
* get enough iron and calcium.
Gold Medal Nutrition, Fourth Edition, is well organized, making it easy to
navigate. Part I discusses the fuel systems used in
generating muscle power, gives the principles of good nutrition for healthy body
functioning, and covers key aspects of sports
nutrition. Part II delves into the cooking and food-purchasing habits athletes
need in order to perform at their best. Athletes will
learn what to eat before, during, and after participation in sport. In part III,
the author covers a concern of most athletes: how
to control their body fat and gain muscle.
Buy the book from Human Kinetics at:
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showproduct.cfm?associate=880&isbn=0736060\
693


THIS WEEK'S NEWS:

1. Triathlon: Primer for the Self-Coached Ironman Athlete :
By Rich Strauss
As I ready my team for next season, and begin to teach new Team Crucible
athletes, I've been asked to explain my ideas on Ironman
training. I'll share these ideas here, but first I need to set the stage.
Common Pitfalls for the Self-Coached IM Athlete
Athletes usually come to me after a period of self-coaching. I'm able to see the
mistakes they have made. And as a self-coached
athlete myself, I've made them all as well. Here are the critical pitfalls:
I. An underestimation of the mental skills and knowledge required for success on
race day.
My first point has nothing to do with training. I've delivered pre-race talks at
four IMNA races, to a total of 250-300 Ironman
athletes. I've also coached Team in Training athletes. Surprisingly, I've found
both groups often have a remarkably similar
knowledge base and ask very similar questions.
We are adept at thinking of new and creative ways to beat our heads harder and
faster into a wall every day. But most athletes spend
only a fraction of that effort learning how to execute a successful race, how to
make decisions and solve problems.
They can tell you how much time their $800 race wheels will save them, but don't
have a clue on how to pace the bike. They haven't
even rehearsed a race plan.
On race day, your fitness is only a vehicle you drive 140 miles across the
finish line. The race doesn't care how fit you are, only
how well you execute. Read Ironman How-To, Ironman Nutrition, and Mental Focus.
II. Attempting to focus for too long on one race
With athletes now required to register 364 days before their race, the primary
question is "what the hell do I do for a year?" This
carries a tremendous risk of mental and emotional burnout, particularly for the
first-timer. It's December. If you are putting your
feet on the floor at 5:30am every morning and saying "Time to go train for
IMFL/IMWI/IMLP or any other IMNA race" you are in serious
risk of winding up in a tower with a high-powered rifle. For most athletes it is
simply too long to be focused on a single event.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060520_RS_Self_Coached.html


2. Athletics: Final Race Prep - Race Strategy:
You should have this one already sewn up, but for those of you who do not here
is my best recommendation. Research your times for
the last MGP runs & races & get back onto to the McMillan site again if you need
reassurance. Remember the Essay "How To Determine
Pace." It can really help determine pace. Be sure to find what that time
averages in minutes & seconds per mile. Make yourself a
pace band.
You need to develop a race strategy that takes into consideration your marathon
goal pace. I work with many beginner marathoners who
begin the training season believing that they only want to cross the finish line
& that time is unimportant. It may be true that at
the end of the marathon they do not really care what their time may be but if
they run the race (& the 30K & half marathon before
the marathon) at a pace that is faster than they are able to maintain then their
first marathon experience can be an unnecessarily
painful one.
All runners need to have a marathon goal pace plan. The reason for this is that
in the thrill of the moment, just after the race
starts, as the adrenaline is pumping, you will, almost assuredly, begin running
too fast. The marathon is a brutal race & one that
rewards the patient & punishes the impulsive. To ensure you do not count
yourself among the latter you need to set a marathon goal
pace (MGP) goal.
This goal should have been practiced in training, as for many folks MGP feels
counter-intuitive & sluggishly slow. The only way to
feel comfortable at this pace is to practice it repeatedly. The 30K is the
perfect opportunity to really test this pace under
race-like circumstances. To fail to do this is to enter the Freescale Marathon
ill-prepared for the experience.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060520_Rogue_Race_Strategy.html


3. Science of Sport: Sore No More:
By Owen Anderson, Ph. D. (Copyright © 2004-2006)
It has happened to you: You’ve gone out for an extra-long run, worked out on
some steep hills for the very first time, or completed
an unusual number of work intervals on the track – and then paid the price. For
a few days after your effort, your legs felt stiff,
your muscles were tender and sore, and your usual leg strength was missing in
action.
It's also very likely that you had an interesting, follow-up experience with
soreness, or lack of same. That is, you probably
performed – at a later date - a workout similar to the one which produced so
much leg distress initially. Somewhat surprisingly,
this second session produced no ill effects at all – not even a whisper of
protest from the sinews and cables in your lower
appendages. Why did the first effort lead to misfortune, while the second failed
to perturb your legs at all?
This scenario, in which a specific workout produces pain after its initial
completion and then rubs milk-and-honey balm on your legs
after its second and subsequent fulfillments, has been noticed by exercise
scientists and is often called the “repeated-bout
effect”. Amazingly enough, the “protection” from soreness and enfeeblement which
occurs after the first training session can last
for several weeks – and possibly for as long as six months in some cases.
Why should we care about this? If we can understand the underlying mechanism
which produces protection from significant soreness, it
might be possible train in ways which invoke this mechanism (without producing
significant tissue damage) and thus protect ourselves
from muscle strains and training-related tendon damage. There might, in fact, be
a general routine, a combination of strength
training and running, which, when carried out during an initial phase of
training, could provide many protective benefits over the
course of a training year.
Research concerning the repeated-bout effect has produced many surprises. One
shocker is that a muscle group does not have to be
exercised in the same manner in the initial and subsequent bouts of exertion in
order for a protective effect to occur (a clear
violation of the specificity-of-training principle). One study, for example,
found that 100 maximal, eccentric contractions of the
quadriceps muscles, carried out with a static body position, furnished
protection against quadriceps damage following a subsequent
bout of vigorous downhill running.
Note that I said "eccentric" contractions of the quadriceps muscles. Recall that
eccentric muscle contractions are notorious for
producing soreness and that an eccentric muscular contraction is one in which a
muscle is exerting force and attempting to shorten –
and yet ends up being elongated by other forces acting on the muscle.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060521_RRN_Sore.html


4. Fruit: Questions and concerns:
Nancy Clark, M.S., R.D.
"I know I should eat more fruit, I just don't do it ..."
"I've stopped drinking orange juice; too much sugar ..."
"Should I buy organically-grown fruit ...?"
Some athletes wisely devour lots of fruit, believing it to be among the
healthiest of food choices. But other athletes mistakenly
avoid fruit, seeing it as an evil source of sugar and carbs. If you're confused
about the role of fruit in your sports diet, keep
reading!
Should I eat less fruit to reduce my carb intake?
No! Athletes need carbs to fuel their muscles. Despite popular belief, carbs are
not fattening -- excess calories are fattening. Nor
do carbs cause diabetes -- lack of exercise and excess body weight are two main
contributors to diabetes. Carbs should actually be
the foundation of each sports meal and snack.
The carbs in fruit are of two types: sugar and starch. The starch in fruit
converts to sugar with ripening. For example:
* a green banana with some yellow is 80 percent starch and 7 percent sugar.
* a mostly yellow banana is 25 percent starch and 65 percent sugar.
* a spotted and specked banana is 5 percent starch and 90 percent sugar.
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=13078


5. My New Race:
Chronicles of a Diagnosis.
By: Stephen Brown - Editor, TransitionTimes.com
Many of you are used to reading step by step race reports from various events
that I have done through the years. Well, I’ve
recently taken on a new challenge. Or should I say a new challenge has taken me
on. This is the longest event I’ve done thus far,
but in 20 years of racing, I have always finished every race that I have ever
started. Not one single DNF in the lot. This one will
be no different.
I was starting to have some difficulty swallowing and finally after ignoring the
issue for quite some time, I decided to actually
try to figure out what the deal was. I knew I was born with large tonsils and we
assumed that they were finally starting to give me
some trouble. At 45 years old, I was not in a huge hurry to go through that
process of having them removed. But, finally, I made the
necessary appointments, saw the necessary specialists, went through the standard
pre-admission testing and made the commitment to
have the enlarged freakozoid, alien growths removed. After all, I am an
endurance athlete. A 7-time ironman triathlon finisher and
15-time marathon finisher. I’ve been racing for nearly 20 years and expect to be
racing for 40 more. I figured, “what the heck”?
Maybe I’ll breathe better and even get a little faster!
I was a little nervous but not overly so. I chose a good time to get it done
which would allow me to take a little bit of down time
to recover and then hit the 2006 racing season with a vengeance. Everything was
on schedule, until I received a phone call from the
doctor who was to do the surgery. “Mr. Brown, something came back in your blood
work that needs a closer look. We’d like to refer
you to a Hematologist/Oncologist for further testing and put this surgery on
hold until we fully understand what’s going on”. Every
emotion possible ran through my head from fear, panic, doom, anger, and
annoyance. I think I ended up somewhere closer to the
annoyed end of the scale with a few sprinkles of concern thrown in but I wasn’t
really concerned. I probably had some low grade
infection and didn’t know it. The doctor went on to say that my white blood
count (WBC) was a little high. Actually it was 10 times
higher than the norm.
More...from Transition Times at:
http://www.transitiontimes.com/viewstory.cfm?ID=8361


6. Marathon Strategy:
By Bob Glover
Adapted from The Competitive Runner's Handbook by Bob Glover and Shelly Glover
The marathon is unforgiving. Start too fast or don't take proper fluids, for
example, you blow your race. Not only do you suffer
physically and mentally in order to make it to the finish line (or before
dropping out), you can't redeem yourself in another
marathon in a week or two. Nor can you try again in a few days if you finish
feeling you could have pushed harder and run a faster
time.
Here are some strategic tips to help you reach your marathon goals:
Pacing. This is where many marathoners err. You'll suffer for a long time if you
don't pace wisely. You must combat the triple
terrors----lactic acid accumulation, dehydration, and glycogen depletion--which
may work individually or in combination to destroy
your race. Most marathoners run at a pace that is about 95 to 97 percent of
their lactic threshold pace. If starting too fast, or
surging too quickly, you'll exceed your threshold and waste glycogen supplies.
You'll also increase body heat, contributing to
dehydration which in turn increases heart rate and accelerates glycogen burning.
Going out too fast sets you up for failure. Don't
think you can build a time cushion by starting faster. This strategy usually
backfires.
The likely result is either a long struggle over the last several miles or
dropping out.
What's a good starting pace? Statistical studies show that runners starting a
marathon at more than 2-percent (about 10 seconds a
mile) faster than their average pace slow significantly over the last 6 miles
compared to those who run with even pacing or negative
splits. Most experienced marathoners should start at their goal pace. Determine
this from predicted times from buildup races and
experience in previous marathons. Most fit marathoners race at a pace that is
1-1 1/2 minutes faster per mile than their long run
training pace. A good bet for Novice and Intermediate Competitors is to start at
the same pace as you averaged for your last long
run and hold that speed to 20 miles. From there, hang on as best you can. You
may even be able to pick up the pace if you've trained
well.
Some marathoners benefit from starting slow (up to 10 seconds a mile) for the
first 2 or 3 miles and then picking it up. Others like
myself prefer to start slightly faster (no more than 5 to 10 seconds) than goal
pace in order to run more by equal effort. Some
prefer running the first half a minute or two slower than they will run the
second half (negative splits). If you go out a bit too
slow, you have adequate time to make up for it. So it's better to err on the
side of caution. If you can pick it up a bit from
there, go ahead. If it is a warm day, be prepared to start slower than your
original goal pace. If starting with a friend or a group
of friends, promise each other to keep the starting pace reasonable.
More...from the New York Road Runners at:
http://www.nyrr.org/divisions/training/marathonstrat.html


7. Joe Henderson's Running Commentary - Memory Laps:
I don't just believe in ghosts but know they exist. They live, invisible but
real and generally friendly, wherever we have made
memories. We can visit the ghosts from our past whenever the opportunity or need
arises.
Some of my oldest ghosts live in and around Drake Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa. I
visited them again this spring on Drake Relays
weekend.
Much had changed since my last trip here. So much that I wondered if my ghosts
were still here, looking out for the legacy.
My first run of this trip felt wrong from the start. Instead of going out the
door at our family home near campus, as I'd done for
more than 40 years of living in and visiting this city, I ran from a hotel.
A student group now occupies this house. One of them, who could have been me at
21, walked outside to pick up the newspaper without
glancing at the geezer gawking from the sidewalk.
A two-minute run took me past Drake Stadium, the building that housed the most
ghosts. From the first time I saw the place in the
early 1950s until my last viewing a year ago, the stadium's outlines were
unchanged. Only the track surface had evolved.
Now I saw what $20 million and a year's work had done to this shrine of the
sport. It looked great, and it brought the stadium up to
standards required for hosting championship meets. But the new look didn't match
my old memories of the place.
Gone was the unique track, elevated above the infield, that made runners feel we
were on stage. Gone was the old scoreboard, where
my name had appeared (in 1961) for placing second in the high school mile, and
where last year a message to my late brother had
read, "God bless you, Mike. We miss you." Gone was the gate where I'd turned
into the stadium to finish the first Drake Relays
marathon (in 1969), and which I'd climbed for unauthorized runs inside as a kid.
With Relays events already underway this day, I couldn't set foot on the track.
I would wait until the meet ended to check on my
ghosts.
That Sunday I hoped to find a gate unlocked, allowing a lap or two on this
hallowed ground. It's still the same ground, even after
the renovation.
Luck was with me, or so I thought. The new main gate stood open as workers
removed the portable toilets.
As soon as I touched the blue Mondo surface, my feet couldn't stay in an outer
lane, where someone of my pace now belongs. I veered
to the inside, which approximated where I'd first run (on a crushed brick track)
as a high schooler… where I'd trained thousands of
laps as a student-runner at Drake… where I'd made the sudden decision on a hot
August day in 1966 that running long and slow on the
roads would be more fun than going for speed here… where I'd run the last 150
yards for the first Drake Marathon.
This was also where at least a few molecules of brother Mike's ashes remained.
The family had sneaked in to dust the former finish
line and long-jump pit. I stopped briefly to pay tribute.
More...from Joe Henderson at:
http://www.joehenderson.com/archive/home.php?article=2057


8. Health and Fitness: Let’s Talk Knees:
By Brett J. Hayes
If I had a ten dollar note for every time someone said to me, “I can’t run
because I have bad knees”, I would be a great deal
financially richer. Even though no one’s going to give me the dollars if they do
tell me, it’s still time to get real about
something.
There is no such thing as a “bad knee!”.
The health and vitality of the knees may leave a lot to be desired; yet calling
the knees “bad” is certainly not a step towards the
positive. The human body that you live-in, is an amazingly adaptable organic
mechanism and regeneration is definitely one of its
major attributes, given the appropriate resources.
The knee joint gives us the ability to move around on this little planet of
ours, with flexible organic shock absorbers that will
stay as flexible as we keep our mind and sight.
Having a look at the anatomy of the knee, it looks like there's not much to it,
although there is a lot to it and the way it works
is really quite complex. I always practice looking at complexity with the
K.I.S.S. mentality (Keep It Simple Sweetheart), so let’s
see the knee working in a similar fashion to a modified hinge on a door.
It not only bends back and forth like a hinge, but it also has a complex
rotational component that occurs whenever we bend (this is
called “flexion”) as well as when we straighten it (this is referred to as
“extension”). It is a major weight-bearing joint that is
held together by muscles, ligaments and tissue.
The cartilage that can be found inside the knee joint provides the shock
absorption when we walk, run, lift, climb stairs and any
other impact activity using the legs you can think of.
Bones of the knee
Your knee is made up of the thighbone (femur), the shinbone (tibia) and the
kneecap (patella). Together the thighbone and shinbone
come together to form a hinge with the kneecap in front of them, which provides
protection for the joint. All the while, the kneecap
moves in a sliding action up and down in a groove in the thighbone. This groove
is called the femoral groove and the sliding occurs
whenever we bend or straighten our knees.
Ligaments of the knee
The job of the ligaments is to assure that the components of the knee are held
together and kept stable. The medial (inner)
collateral ligament (MCL) and lateral (outer) collateral ligament (LCL) limit
sideways motion of the knee. All the while, the
posterior and anterior cruciate ligaments (PCL and ACL) limit forward motion of
the knee bones, thus keeping them stable.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060520_BJH_Knees.html


9. Vitamins can aid a healthy diet:
“I never get sick. I’ve got loads of energy,” said Melissa Norris, 46, a former
nurse who’s studying to become an interior designer.
The tall, slim mother of three owes her health and vitality mostly to proper
diet (she eats lots of fruits and vegetables, 80
percent of them certified organic); to exercise (she runs five miles four or
five times a week); and maybe to good genes.
But Norris thinks much of the credit should go to the vitamin and mineral
supplements she has been taking “on and off” for 20 years.
“I feel great,” she said. “I have much more energy than when I didn’t take
them.”
Vitamins are organic substances necessary for normal health and growth in higher
forms of animal life, including humans. We must
obtain the vitamins we need from food or from supplements because our bodies
can’t produce them.
Lack of a vitamin in our diets may lead to a deficiency disease – this is how
vitamins were discovered. In 1747, James Lind, a
surgeon on a British naval ship, noticed that eating citrus fruits could prevent
scurvy, which is marked by spongy gums, thin hair
and poor healing of bruises.
Lind never did learn exactly what it was in citrus fruits that kept his sailors
healthy, but scurvy largely disappeared when they
ate limes (which is how British sailors came to be known as “Limeys”). It would
be a century and a half before the nutrients that
prevented scurvy and other diseases were isolated.
More...from the Journal-Gazette at:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/living/14634187.htm


10. From Runner's World:
* Coach's Corner
"After a good performance, visualize what you'd do next time to make the
training experience better, faster and more fun. Write down
these notes, and the path to your next goal will be smoother and straighter."
-Jeff Galloway
Picture yourself in a big race--doing well--every day you train.
* Injury Prevention
Before deciding on today's run, remember yesterday's. Even if you follow a
"hard/easy" schedule (one day long or fast, the next day
short and easy), postpone that scheduled hard run if you're tired, sore,
stressed, or sleep-deprived. Likewise, don't run hard if
you overdid an "easy" day the day before. An unscheduled easy day won't cost you
any fitness, but running hard when you're tired
opens the door to injury.
* Performance Nutrition
Sweet Red Peppers:
These crunchy, colorful vegetables supply more immunity-boosting vitamin C than
oranges. They're also loaded with carotenes. Use
them as a colorful addition to any pasta dish or salad.
* Editor's Advice
"Warm-weather wear should be light in color, lightweight, with vents or mesh.
Microfiber polyesters, such as CoolMax and DuoFold,
and cotton blends are good fabric choices. Also, be sure to wear sunscreen with
an SPF of 30 or higher." -Erin Polskonka, RW
designer
* Training Talk
"A simple guideline for practicing recovery runs is the hard-easy rule: Follow
every high-intensity run, long run, or race with a
recovery run the next day, or whenever you run next." -From The Cutting-Edge by
Matt Fitzgerald


11. Aging: Hit the Health Club: Offset Dementia's Onset:
Being in poor physical shape may increase the risk for dementia and Alzheimer's
disease, a new study has found, and being fit may
help delay the onset of the illnesses.
Researchers studied a group of more than 2,200 people over 65 and without
dementia from 1994 to 1996, then followed them through
October 2003, examining their mental abilities with standard tests and their
physical performance with strength and agility tasks.
During the follow-up, 319 people developed dementia. Of them, 221 had
Alzheimer's. But the poorer their physical performance at the
start of the study, even among people with no signs of dementia, the more likely
they were to develop dementia.
The associations held even after adjusting for age, family history of dementia,
heart disease and other factors.
A co-author of the study, Dr. Eric Larson of the Group Health Center for Health
Studies in Seattle, said the relationship between
physical performance and dementia was likely to go both ways.
"The two processes are intimately connected," Dr. Larson said. "People more
likely to develop dementia show early signs of physical
function decline, and people, especially in old age, will develop decline in
physical function as a result of dementia that may be
too mild to be detected."
Does this mean that keeping in good physical condition can help prevent or delay
the onset of dementia? Yes, Dr. Larson said.
More...from the NY Times at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/health/23agin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


12. Hit the hills to boost power and confidence:
Hills. Love 'em or hate 'em, they're always there and can be a factor on race
day. Sometimes they're massive and intimidating, like
the Beast at St. Croix. Other times they're small and more gradual, like the
rollers at Ironman Wisconsin. Or, occasionally, they're
invisible and get lost in the wind gusts, as in the lava fields of Kona.
But regardless, with specific emphasis in your training program you can learn
how to tackle hills and turn what may be a weakness
into a strength.
Hills are most often used to increase specific power and strength, but they also
help improve pedaling technique and efficiency and
challenge our mental focus and confidence. When integrated properly into a
training program, hill training can be the key to
stepping up to a new level, but it's not as easy as finding a steep climb and
trying to invoke the spirit of Lance.
Here are a few key training sessions to help you break through and get you
climbing like a mountain goat.
Adaptation and endurance phase
Early/mid-season or three-plus months prior to an A-priority race
In order to prevent injury and prepare for the big days to come, it's useful to
schedule three to four sessions (one per week) of
adaptive hill training. One of the best ways to do this is to ride hill-cruise
intervals.
Hill-cruise intervals strengthen muscle and connective tissue in preparation for
higher-resistance sessions. Find a fairly gradual
hill that's five to 30 minutes in length. You'll ride this hill comfortably
hard, staying seated and spinning at 80 to 90 rpm. This
effort should be just below your lactate threshold -- you should be able to
talk, but would prefer not to.
Your first workout is short, only 20 to 30 total minutes of climbing divided
into several work intervals of five to 10 minutes
apiece, each followed by five minutes of easy-spin recovery. Add to the total
work-interval time by about 25 percent for each of
your subsequent two hill sessions, either by increasing the number or duration
of intervals. Be sure to include 30 minutes of
warm-up and cool-down to this workout.
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=13097


13. My Most Unforgettable Marathon (And What I Learned From It):
By Patti Catalano Dillon
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, October 24, 1976-My most unforgettable marathon has to
have been my first one. It was the inaugural Ocean
State Marathon in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall of 1976. But ironically,
what I remember most are the events that led up to
the race, not the race itself.
I had started running barely 11 months before this first marathon because I
wanted to lose weight. I never ran in high school or
college. As I recall, I weighed 107 when I graduated from Sacred Heart High
School in Weymouth, Massachusetts, but in the five years
since then, I had gained 45 pounds.
I had attended Quincy Junior College, where I majored in kiddy whist and beer. I
had worked as a nurse's aide all through high
school and was still doing that job many years later. I loved it. But I was
getting kind of tired of my life. I just really got
tired. I knew there was more to life. I was very unhappy with the way things
were going for me.
Many times a group of the nurses with whom I worked would go out after work and
have a few drinks, and I'd join them. I worked the
second shift, from 4:00 P.M. to midnight. This going out for a few drinks after
getting off work at midnight eventually developed
into a lifestyle. First it was Thursday nights, then I added Fridays, and then
every other Saturday night as well.
I was around women-married women-and I was the only single one in the group. One
night in March, I just got tired of listening to
them complain about their husbands. I'd said: "If you don't like it, leave!" And
somebody threw that back at me: "Look at you! Look
who's talking!" (Only she didn't say it quite so nicely.) And I sat back and
took stock of that. I slid off the bar stool right then
and there and didn't go back. Meanwhile, a patient came into the hospital. She
had a very unusual last name: Hajjar. And I thought
to myself: I wonder if that's the same family as this girl I went to school
with. And it turned out that it was. It was her mother.
I hadn't seen her since we graduated. When the girl came in to visit her mother,
she looked stunning! Navy-blue suit, briefcase,
slim, educated, confident. I'm seeing this, and here I am, this lowly
scrub-the-floor-and-empty-the-bedpans aide. And I thought: Oh,
my gosh! She looked so happy. I knew what I was missing. I wasn't happy, and I
didn't know what to do about it or how to get myself
happy.
More...from Marathon and Beyond at:
http://www.marathonandbeyond.com/choices/pdillon.htm


14. Is Running Good for Children?
We all would love to see our kids as Olympic Champions--but is training them now
a wise idea?
Steven Poskus remembers with pride the day his son Daniel, age four, asked him,
"Can I be a runner too?" Poskus happily obliged. He
signed his son up for the Monster Mash Dash, a short-distance event for children
connected with a Trick or Treat 5-K on the Chicago
lakefront one October.
Daniel trained for several weeks, running with his grandmother. On race day, his
parents pinned Daniel's number on the front of his
shirt. "He stretched and drank water before the race, just like adult runners
do," recalls Poskus. When the announcer called the
runners to the start, Daniel was the first one on the line--and he was the first
one crossing the line 50 yards later!
"I have never seen him more excited than the moment he knew he had won," beams
Poskus. "Just the look on his face was priceless. I
was very, very proud. My only dilemma is that now he wants to race all the
time."
A future Olympic champion? Or is Daniel only going through a phase, soon to pass
on to soccer, Nintendo, even girls?
Fat rather than fitter children
Hopefully Daniel Poskus will maintain his interest in running and/or other forms
of exercise through a long and healthy life, but
the sad fact is that too many of our children are getting fatter, rather than
fitter. Jordan Metzl, M.D., medical director of the
Sports Medicine Institute for Young Athletes at the Hospital for Special Surgery
in New York City, says sadly that in the last 25
years, obesity in children has more than doubled. "We're becoming a nation of
couch potatoes," admits Dr. Metzl.
Senior Writer John Brant ably documented this problem in the September 2000
issue of Runner's World: "To a potentially catastrophic
degree, our kids have stopped moving. One quarter of Americans under age 19 are
overweight. Worse, approximately 5.3 million kids,
or 12 percent of all youths aged 6 to 17, are seriously overweight."
Blame television and video games and car-pooling kids to school instead of
having them walk, but our school systems also have failed
abysmally in providing exercise opportunities during the admittedly crowded
school day. Because of budget crunches, physical
education programs have been all but eliminated (along with art and music) in
many school systems. At Alimacani Elementary School in
Jacksonville, Florida, Jan Tipton is the single physical education teacher
supervising 1,250 children. "I see each class once every
10 days," admits Tipton. "I like to think I make an impact, because of the
support from many classroom teachers, who are good at
motivating their students to run during recess. But until schools start
providing physical education at least three days a week,
we'll have a hard time meeting our exercise goals."
More...from Hal Higdon at:
http://www.halhigdon.com/kidsrunning/index.htm


15. The Overtraining Syndrome:
by Dr. Phil Maffetone
A lot of good published research exists about overtraining. Unfortunately, there
is not a lot of agreement on how it should be
defined. I'd prefer a more clinical definition so it's useful for all runners
rather than a technical one that scientists can debate
about.
Overtraining is easy to recognize in its chronic state when exhaustion, poor
performance, depression and other clear problems are
evident. However, it's more important to identify earlier warnings about
overtraining to avoid more serious problems later. I look
at the full spectrum of overtraining which can be seen as three phases.
Overtraining comes with many potential structural, chemical and mental problems,
often intermingled to create any number of diverse
signs and symptoms. As such, calling this problem an overtraining syndrome may
be more appropriate.
Most would agree that the overtraining syndrome is associated with too much
training volume, and/or too much intensity. I think of
overtraining as a state that occurs when there is an imbalance in my simple
formula: Training = workout + recovery. Without proper
recovery, including rest, even low intensity training may result in
overtraining. By including recovery, factors other than training
and racing, including any lifestyle stress, become part of the equation. For
example, if your work hours are high and you don't get
enough sleep, it can impair training recovery.
STAGE ONE
By recognizing the earliest onset of this problem, it becomes clear overtraining
is very common. Unfortunately, most runners won't
admit to being overtrained until the last stage. The first stage of overtraining
may blend with the normal overreaching -a normal
part of training where you ride slightly beyond your ability to force your body
to adapt and improve. However, a fine line exists
between overreaching and overtraining. If overreaching results in an injury,
even a very minor one, or one not clearly defined (that
elusive knee discomfort that comes and goes), you may have gone beyond healthy
training into overtraining.
More...from the RRCA at:
http://www.rrca.org/publicat/sum99ots.htm


16. Ten Commandments of Training:
by Patti and Warren Finke, Team Oregon
Often when we work with runners, we see that most of their problems are created
by the same training errors. Over the years we have
created a list of 10 common sense rules that can be used to avoid most training
problems. We call them the TEN COMMANDMENTS OF
TRAINING.
1. Have a plan
It is important to have a list of goals and the steps to reach the goals. Doing
this is the key to self confidence and motivation.
Keeping a log of how you do in following your plan helps to see what does and
does not work for you. This will help you to create
better plans in the future.
2. Train seasonally
Plan a 6 - 12 month training program Periodicity is important. No one can
maintain top shape, train at maximum levels or race all
year around. We all need periods of physical and psychological recovery. Build
an adequate base and strength before adding
speedwork. Speedwork is a sharpening technique that is only used for short
periods of time, (8 to 12 weeks), to prepare for racing.
After a period of racing there should be a period of reduced training, rest and
recovery leading into another sequence of base and
strength building.
3. Use the Hard/Easy system
For training effect to take place, a period of overload needs to be followed by
a period of rest, during which the actual adaptation
to the stress takes place. Exercise physiology research has shown that the
hard/easy cycle for running needs to be 48 hours or more.
It has also demonstrated that alternating long and short runs is more effective
training than doing the same length run each day
even though the total mileage is the same. Thus alternating hard and easy days
or long and short days is appropriate training for
runners. The most common beginner running mistake is to run the same distance
and the same pace every day.
4. Train specifically
Ask yourself, does this training make sense for the racing I'm planning to do?
If not, do something that makes sense. Adaptation
needs to be specific to attain your goals. You must train duration specific
energy transport systems and you must train pace
specific neuro-muscular responses.
More...from Team Oregon at:
http://www.teamoregon.com/publications/tencom.html


17. A Good Coach Stresses Safety First:
Proper equipment, conditioning should be part of the ground rules, experts say.
Keeping kids safe when they play sports can mean many things to many parents --
buying the right equipment, making sure the child
eats and rests well, even providing adequate sunscreen.
But medical experts say the most important injury-prevention step within a
parent's power often goes overlooked or unnoticed:
finding a knowledgeable coach.
"Parents should look at the philosophy of any program their child is going
into," said Dr. Douglas McKeag, chairman of the Indiana
University School of Medicine's Department of Family Medicine, and director of
the university's Center for Sports Medicine. "That
philosophy is one of the paramount things people should find out."
In the United States, about 30 million children and teens participate in some
form of organized sports, according to the American
Academy of Pediatrics. And each year more than 3.5 million injuries occur during
youth sports. In fact, almost one-third of all
injuries incurred in childhood are sports-related.
More than 775,000 children ages 14 and under are treated annually in hospital
emergency rooms for sports-related injuries. Most of
the injuries occur due to falls, being struck by an object, collisions, and
overexertion.
A good coach will check protective gear to ensure that it fits, provide
conditioning exercises to prepare for the demands of
competition, make sure players aren't overexerting themselves, and teach the
basics of the sport, experts said.
More...from HealthScout at:
http://www.healthscout.com/news/1/532821/main.html


18. Strength Training for Runners:
If you’re a runner who does not strength train then I can almost guarantee that
the question is not if, but when you’ll be ...
you’re a runner who does not strength train then I can almost guarantee that the
question is not if, but when you’ll be sidelined
due to injury. The old belief that runners don’t need to (and shouldn’t) lift
weights is outdated and usually put forth by runners
who will defer marathon entries due to injury and/or become what I call
“accidental triathletes”—runners forced to swim and bike to
rehabilitate running-related injuries.
I contend that running doesn’t cause injuries but rather illuminates our weak
links and allows us to see what we need to improve
upon. There is no greater way of determining how to improve our bodies than by
listening to and accessing how we respond to running.
By pinpointing our weaknesses and working on strengthening them early on in
life, we can build a strong musculoskeletal system that
will carry us through our later years with little or no pain.
The problem with strength training and runners is that most runners have
absolutely no idea what, when or how often to do it. The
basic keys are as follows: runners need to lift weights consistently, correctly
and at the right intensity.
More...from New England Sports Magazine at:
http://www.newenglandsportsmag.com/article/?Guid=6f78d270-b33a-404c-9af0-3e172cb\
c88f7


19. Nike and Apple tell runners: "It's worth it":
Is all this exercise really helping me?
Nike Inc. said on Tuesday it is making running shoes that will tell the wearer
how far and how fast he or she has run and how many
calories they have burned.
The instant information will come from a miniature Apple Computer Inc. iPod and
a new wireless system called Nike+iPod.
Nike shares rose over 2 percent following the announcement of its plan to
capitalize on the popularity of iPod portable digital
music players with runners, 75 percent of whom already listen to music while
they exercise.
Using a Nike+iPod Sports Kit, expected to sell for about $29, miniature versions
of the iPod will be able to give audio data on
time, distance, pace and calories burned on-demand through an attachable
receiver that gets data from a sensor in the insole of
special Nike shoes.
The new Air Zoom Moire line of running shoes -- priced at $100 -- are the first
to have space for the sensor, but others will
follow, Nike said. The removable sensor, about the size of a piece of bubble
gum, can be used with any compatible shoe.
More...from Yahoo at:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/24052006/6/n-technology-nike-apple-tell-runners-s-wor\
th.html


20. Fitness with Chris Carmichael:
Q: I am a slow runner. In fact, last week I was running and I was passed by a
glacier. How can I improve my speed?
— Mark
Yonkers, New York
A: Biomechanists have long known that there are two ways to improve running
speed. Increase your stride length and increase your
stride frequency. It makes sense, right? But how can you do that? Both require
increased flexibility and sport-specific strength, as
well as improved neuromuscular efficiency. Fortunately, you can work on these
things with a few specific drills. For all of these
drills, complete each three to six times. Recovery between each should entail
either walking back to the starting point of your
drill or one to two minutes easy walking.
Running Strides
These efforts should be anywhere from 50 to 150 meters in length, and can be
done after your daily run. The interval should be done
as a build-up effort; that is, starting at a low speed, build to near 5K race
pace, and then gradually ease off the gas to the
finish. You should be focused on maintaining an upright posture, lifting your
knees, and executing a proper arm swing.
High Knees
These efforts may be more accurately described as "fast knees." They are short,
20- to 50-meter efforts that require you to lift
your thighs parallel to the ground while running, repeatedly, as fast as you
can. Horizontal speed is not important with this drill,
but vertical speed is paramount.
Power Skips
Although possibly the hardest of the three drills for many people, these are
good for specifically improving strength in the ankles
and calves. Go back to your childhood and re-learn how to skip. Make it more
explosive by attempting to vault as high as possible
with each push-off. Your thigh and opposite upper arm should raise parallel to
the ground at the same time. These should be most
often done in 20 to 50-meter intervals as well.
Incorporating these drills into your running program will increase your running
dexterity, strength, and neuromuscular conditioning,
and will help you to run faster next year.
More Q and A from Outside Online at:
http://outside.away.com/outside/bodywork/carmichael-20060421.html


21. Prosperous running: Dynamic movement:
By Reece Haettich, For Active.com
In the last article, we looked at how flexibility can influence efficient
running, now we'll look at how dynamic movements can help
improve running performance.
Let's define 'dynamic' as accelerated movement. For a runner, this means we'll
be using movements that target the muscles used in
running and will take those muscles through an active range of motion to prepare
them for work. These movements will closely
resemble what will take place during your actual training.
Movements like "high stepping", "butt kickers" and light "bounding" all serve to
increase blood flow, prepare joints and warm up the
muscles properly.
Adding these movements to your correctly performed repertoire of static
stretches prior to training will increase running efficiency
and help avoid injury.
Skip the static moves
Let's say you're at a well-attended 5k or 10k event. The weather is a
comfortable 55 degrees and you arrive a little behind
schedule, so warm-up time is of the essence. After a light jog to get the blood
flowing and the muscles ready to respond, many
runners use the remaining time to down the last sip of coffee and find friends.
Leave the hamstring, quad and calf pulls to those
guys, because the following is what you should be doing.
More...from Active Running at:
http://active.com/story.cfm?story_id=12977


22. Dr. Gabe Mirkin's Fitness and Health E-Zine:
* Muscles and Protein
Many body builders and weight lifters are overly concerned about what they eat
and what food supplements they take. If you want to
grow larger and stronger muscles, it helps to
understand how food can help your training program. Just exercising does not
grow large muscles. If volume of exercise made you
strong, marathon runners would have the largest muscles. The only stimulus to
make muscles larger and stronger is to stretch them
while they contract against resistance. When you lift a heavy weight, your
muscles start to stretch before they start to contract.
This tears the muscle and causes soreness on the next day. If you rest and let
the muscle heal, it will be stronger than before you
stretched it. You improve by taking hard workouts so your muscles can grow and
heal while you recover on your easy days.
Anything that helps you recover faster from a hard workout will allow you to do
more work to make you stronger. Scientists have
known for years that you recover faster by eating
immediately after you finish your hard workout. Now we know that eating extra
protein helps you recover even faster. Muscles are
made primarily from protein building blocks called amino acids. Muscles heal
from a hard workout when amino acids and other
nutrients travel from your bloodstream into the muscles. Eating any food,
particularly foods with plenty of protein, immediately
after you finish your workout helps your muscles heal faster so you can do more
work. The sooner you eat protein after you finish
your hard workout, the quicker you will recover.
However, you don't need to take expensive supplements; ordinary foods provide
high-quality protein and taste better. Remember, your
body cannot store extra protein. If you don't need all of the protein you have
eaten, it is broken down into ammonia and organic
acids, which are used for energy. Any excess is stored as fat.
From Dr. Gabe Mirkin at:
http://www.drmirkin.com


23. Eating practices of the best endurance athletes in the world:
By Owen Anderson, Ph.D. - For Active.com
It's strange, but true: The nutritional practices of the best endurance athletes
in the world have not been carefully studied.
Those "best endurance athletes" are clearly the Kenyan runners. Attempting to
verify this fact for you is probably unnecessary, but
it can at least be noted that one study found that athletes from just one
collection of Kenyans, the Kalenjin tribe, had won
approximately 40 percent of all major international middle- and long-distance
running competitions in the 10-year period from 1987
to 1997.1
In addition, approximately half of all of the male athletes in the world who
have ever run the 10K in less than 27 minutes hail from
Kenya. When they're allowed to enter freely, Kenyan athletes dominate road races
around the world.
And yet, until now the eating habits of the top-level Kenyan runners haven't
been examined in a scientific way, even though the
Kenyans' nutritional practices must assuredly represent a key reason for their
running success. The person who argues that "If only
the Kenyans would eat differently, they could run much faster," would be on
flimsy ground. The Kenyans are doing things right when
they sit down at the dinner table, or they wouldn't dominate international
competitions.
But what is it exactly that they're doing? Are they Zone dieters, followers of
the Perricone Promise, adherents of the Atkins Diet,
or do they focus on the South Beach eating plan? Do they eat lots of
"discredited" carbs or large ladles of lipids? From what foods
do they get their seemingly limitless energy for running?
Study specifics
To answer these questions, Yannis Pitsiladis of the International Centre for
East African Running Science in Glasgow, Scotland,
along with Mike Boit (the Olympic bronze-medal winner from the 1972 Games),
Vincent Onywera, and Festus Kiplamai from the Exercise
and Sports Science Department at Kenyatta University in Nairobi and the
Department of Foods, Nutrition and Dietetics at Egerton
University in Njoro, Kenya, recently monitored everything that went into the
mouths of 10 elite Kenyan runners over a seven-day
period at a training camp near Kaptagat, Kenya.2
This group of Kenyan athletes was truly top-level, including several Olympic
medalists and also first-place finishers from the Paris
and Athens World Championships.
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=13101&category=Running,Running&num=1


24. Don't work out -- train!
By Matt Fitzgerald
There's a big difference between working out and training. To work out is to
exercise without any long-term performance goals in
mind. You do more or less the same thing every time you work up a sweat, because
your main objective is to maintain your current
fitness level.
To train, on the other hand, is to exercise in a way that lifts you step by step
towards a performance goal such as finishing a
triathlon or running a personal best 10K time. Workouts are carefully formatted
and sequenced to move you from point A -- your
current fitness level -- to point B: peak fitness.
All too many runners, swimmers, cyclists and triathletes work out when they
should be training. Even though they set and pursue
performance goals, they continue to exercise in ways that are better suited to
maintaining fitness than to improving performance.
To make the leap from working out to training, follow these three simple
guidelines.
Plan ahead
The need to move from working out to training arises the moment you sign up for
a particular event on a certain date in the future.
When you commit to participate in an event such as a mountain bike race or a
marathon you automatically establish a goal of
achieving the highest level of event-specific fitness you can reach between now
and the date of that event. The art of training to
achieve maximum fitness at just the right time is called peaking.
Always allow yourself at least 12 weeks and as many as 24 weeks to prepare for a
fitness peak. Twelve weeks are adequate when you're
preparing for shorter events (10K runs, sprint triathlons) and when you're
beginning at a fairly high level of fitness. Allow more
time if your current fitness level is fairly low or if your goal event is long
(Ironman triathlon, century ride).
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=13074


25. Digest Briefs:
* Strengthen Your Medius For Injury Prevention
By Steve Elton
One of the most neglected muscles in a runner or triathletes training program is
the gluteus medius. This fan shaped muscle is
located just behind the hip joint and just in front of it's bigger brother the
gluteus maximus. Even though the main action of this
muscle is to move the leg away from the midline, its primary functional role is
to stabilize the pelvis while standing on one leg.
The hip joint tries to maintain constant forces from all the muscles that cross
its borders. During repetitive stresses, such as
running, the gluteus medius can fatigue and other muscles have to contract to
maintain the proper forces about the hip joint. These
compensations often are the main culprits of iliotibial band problems,
piriformis syndrome and other repetitive stress injuries.
A simple way to strengthen the gluteus medius is through an exercise I call
'kicks'. Stand sideways, an arms length away from a wall
and place your hand on the wall to balance. Now lift the opposite leg parallel
to the floor with the knee bent at 90 degrees. At a
moderate pace, alternately bend and straighten the knee 10-15 times keeping the
leg parallel to the ground. Repeat to the opposite
side, and do 3 repeats to each side.
This can be a challenging exercise and can also be used as part of your dynamic
warm-up prior to running. Alternately, you can do
the 'kicks' in between other exercises to really stress endurance strengthening
of the gluteus medius. Doing this exercise, and
incorporating lateral movements into your strength training regularly, will help
to prevent some of the overuse injuries mentioned
above.
Steve Elton is a physical therapist for Body Pros, strength and conditioning
specialist, coach, and triathlete. He received his MS
from the University of South Carolina and holds certifications through the NSCA,
NASM. Steve is a former elite triathlete with
racing experience from sprint to Ironman distance.
From the Sport Factory http://www.thesportfactory.com

* Hot Weather Running
Running in the heat can be dangerous if the proper precautions and preparations
are not followed. The following are some of the RRCA
Sports Committee's recommendations for running in a hot environment:
1. Avoid dehydration!!! You can lose between 6 and 12 oz. of fluid for every 20
minutes of running. Therefore it is important to
pre-hydrate (10-15 oz. of fluid 10 to 15 minutes prior to running) and drink
fluids every 20-30 minutes along your running route. To
determine if you are hydrating properly, weigh yourself before and after
running. You should have drunk one pint of fluid for every
pound you're missing. lndicators that you are running dehydrated are a
persistent elevated pulse rate after finishing your run, and
dark yellow urine. Keep in mind that thirst is not an adequate indicator of
dehydration.
2. Run in the shade whenever possible avoid direct sun and blacktop. When you
are going to be exposed, apply at least #15 sunscreen.
Not only can the sun affect your skin, but its rays can affect your eyes, so
when it is sunny wear sunglasses that can filter out
UVA and UVB rays. Wearing a hat with a visor will not only shade your eyes but
also the skin on your face.
3. When running, if you become dizzy, nauseated, have dry skin or the
chills...STOP running and try to get a drink. If you do not
feel better, get help.
4. If you have a heart or respiratory problem or you are on any medication,
consult with your doctor about running in the heat. In
some cases it may be in your best interests to run indoors. Also, if you have a
history of heat stroke/illness, run with extreme
caution.
5. Children should limit their running in the heat due to their lower tolerance
of heat.
6. Avoid plastic sweat suits, late morning races, salt tablets, and consuming
drinks with high sugar concentration. Avoid running
ill.
7. DO wear light colored clothing, check hair and body for ticks after running
in the woods, drink plenty of water, listen to the
race director's pre-race announcements regarding the heat/humidity prior to
racing, and tell someone your running route.
Ayne Furman, DPM and Cathy Fieseler, MD - Courtesy of Road Runners Club of
America

* Endurance Lab Training Tip #1 - Practice Makes Perfect
Race season is upon us...such an exciting time of year! When we get to put to
the test what we have been practicing in training. If
only we were that logical... doing in racing what we do in training.
Unfortunately, so very many athletes try something new on race day. We run
harder than we have in training. We use a new piece of
equipment on the bike. We alter our nutritional plan. We pace ourselves
differently. Rather than listening to our own body like we
do in training, we are influenced by what everyone else is doing on race day.
All of this spells d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r-! It is during training that we teach our
bodies what we want them to do on race day. If we have
not shown our bodies what we want them to do on race day, then trying something
new in the race is a recipe for sub-par, if not
disastrous, performance.
Be sure to show your body the intensity of a race in training.
Be sure to experiment with the equipment you want to race with during training.
Practice your nutritional plan in training so much so that it becomes habit…and
use the very same plan on race day.
You listen to your body in training, listen to your body (and no one else) on
race day.
Joel Filliol, National Triathlon Training Center Head Coach, has a great quote
on his website:
"We don't rise to our expectations on race day, we perform at the level of our
training."
From the Endurance Lab at: http://www.endurancelab.ca



THIS WEEK'S FEATURED EVENTS:
*Please verify event dates with the event websites*

May 26 - 27, 2006:
NCAA Division I Regionals
http://www.ncaasports.com/track-and-field/schedules/outdoor/divi
TrackShark Coverage
http://www.trackshark.com/coverage/2006/ncaa_regional.php

May 26 - 28, 2006:
American Triple-T Triathlon - OHIO
http://www.americantriple-t.com/index.php

May 27, 2006:
Bay Shore Marathon, Traverse City, MI
Half-Marathon, 10K
http://bayshoremarathon.org

Nordion 10K - Ottawa, ON
http://www.ncm.ca

Step Up for the Children 10K, Montreal, QC
www.standardlife.ca/stepup

May 28, 2006:
Brentwood Run 5K / 10K - West Los Angeles, CA
http://www.w2promotions.com/public/start.php

ING Ottawa Marathon - Ottawa, ON
http://www.ncm.ca
CBC Coverage
http://www.cbc.ca/ottawa/features/capitalmarathon

Ironman Brazil - Florianópolis, Brazil
http://www.ironmanbrasil.com.br

Ironman Japan - Nagasaki, JPN
http://www.ironmanjapan.com

KeyBank Vermont City Marathon - Burlington, VT
http://www.runvermont.org

Limestone Charity Triathlon - Kingston, ON
http://www.limestonetri.kmfrc.com

Prefontaine Classic - Eugene, OR
http://www.preclassic.com

Run for Research - Toronto, ON
http://www.runforresearch.ca/

Saskatchewan Marathon - Saskatoon, SASK
http://www.saskatoonroadrunners.ca/2006marathon/marathon.html

May 28 - 29, 2006:
Saddleback Memorial Half Marathon - Laguna Hills, CA
http://www.kinaneevents.com/

May 29, 2006:
Celestial Seasonings BolderBOULDER - Boulder, CO
International Team Challenge
http://www.bolderboulder.com

June 24, 2006:
RunnersWeb5K.com Race for Women - Ottawa, ON
http://www.runnersweb5k.com



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/

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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Forward the Runner's Web Digest to a friend and suggest that they subscribe at:
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YOUR FEEDBACK AND COMMENTS:
Comments, contributions and feedback are always welcome via this list at:
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our FrontPage. If you post to the mailing list and
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Have a good week of training and/or racing.

Ken Parker
Runner's Web
mailto: webmaster@...
http://www.runnersweb.com/running.html
A running and triathlon resource portal
Runner's Web Online Store
http://store.runnersweb.com
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http://www.runnerswebcoach.com


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