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
are the opinions of the writers and not necessarily
those of the Runner's Web. Visit the Runner's Web at http://www.runnersweb.com
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1. Challenger World.
Using our unique Intelligent Sport(TM) 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
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What is Intelligent Sport:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060518_Challenger_World.html

2. 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.
Join Olympian Emilie Mondor - who has promised to run sub 16:00 and Commonwealth
Games team member Nicole Stevenson - ranked #2 in
the marathon in Canada - and hundreds of women runners of all levels to
celebrate women's running.
More....
http://www.runnersweb5k.com

3. 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. The new Garmin 305 is now available with FREE shipping.
http://store.runnersweb.com

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

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

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

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

8. 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:
Women's Only road racing returns to Ottawa with the RunnersWeb5K.com Race for
Women starting at 9 a.m. at the Aviation Museum.
More information at:
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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
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Check out the Peak Running article index at:
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* 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 ONE personal posting this week.
1. ONE:
Hey Everyone,
I am training to participate in an endurance event as a member of The Leukemia &
Lymphoma Society's Team In Training. All of us on
Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin
lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. I am taking
on the challenge of a triathlon in honor of all individuals who are battling
blood cancers. Caylyn Bachman is the honored hero for the Greenville chapter of
team in training. Caylyn is the daughter of Tully
and Cathy Bachman. She was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) on
March 29th, 2006. Currently she is undergoing
chemotherapy, and doesn't complain about her treatment. She really is the cutest
little girl, and everyone at the greenville chapter
are hoping for the best in health and happiness for her.
Each year, leukemia and other related cancers claim the lives of thousands of
people. It is estimated that leukemia and other
related cancers struck more than 100,000 Americans last year, and killed 60,000.
Although the cause of cancer remains unknown,
steady advances in research and treatment are bringing us much closer to cures.
In fact, thanks to the research funded in part by
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the survival rate for the most common form of
childhood leukemia has improved from 4% in 1960 to
88% today.
To join the Team or to donate- Please visit-
http://www.active.com/donate/tntsc/tntscTDiaz
Thanks
Tiffany Diaz


THIS WEEK'S DIGEST ARTICLE INDEX:

1. Science of Sport: Carbohydrates for Endurance
2. Multisport: Training Short Cuts . Beware!
"He finished in the top 10 in his age group, so the way he trains must be good!"
3. Long, Intense Repetitions Build Endurance
From 5K and 10K Training by Brian Clarke
4. Dr. Gabe Mirkin's E-Zine
5. Sport, movement and molecules
6. Shorter's longing is a drug-free sports world
7. From Running Times
8. Joe Henderson's Running Commentary - Teammates
9. Get Your Acid Dose
Amino acids make up protein, which leads to muscle--and muscle will help you
ride faster, lose weight quicker and keep you healthy.
10. The Sun: Should we love it or fear it? Experts can't agree. But how much do
they really know?
11. Veg 'prevents artery hardening'
Eating vegetables may prevent hardening of the arteries, research suggests.
12. Everyone Into the Water
The factors that fostered swimming's racial gap are stubborn and the solutions
are expensive.
13. What the mind soaks up
Runners clocked faster times after drinking what they thought was
`super-oxygenated' water. But in reality, it just came from the
tap.
14. From Runner's World
15. Mastering the Mountain BikeReady to take your mountain biking to the next
level? Pro mountain biker Ann Trombley offers some
suggestions to help you improve your off-road skills. These tips will help you
master your mountain bike technique and feel
comfortable on the trails.
16. To Lower Risk on Jogging Trail, Get Off the Couch
17. Jog Your Brain
Exercise can stimulate creativity that lasts for hours. It's as simple is going
for a run, bike ride or swim.
18. 1st Day of Summer - Hot Weather Running Tips
19. Get the Facts on Low-Carb Foods
20. The art of athletic recovery
21. Under Pressure: Using Your Watch Barometer
Train right with tips and tricks and of the trade from Chris Carmichael and
Carmichael Training Systems.
22. The taper blues
23. Bike fit for women
24. Armchair inspiration for the marathon runner
25. Digest Briefs


RUNNER'S WEB WEEKLY POLL:
"Who will set a new world record in the men's 100M?"

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:
"Which of the following events have you done or will you do in 2006?"
1. Adventure Racing 1%
2. Bike Road Racing 6%
3. Duathlon 7%
4. Ironman Triathlon 9%
5. Marathon 32%
6. Mountain Bike Racing 0%
7. Olympic Distance Triathlon 7%
8. Running Road Racing (5K - 30K) 38%


FIVE STAR SITE OF THE WEEK: Running USA.
Running USA a tax-exempt, non-profit, association founded in 1999 devoted to
improving the status of road racing and long distance
running in the United States through, education, research, communications,
collective marketing, promotions, services to runners and
events. Running USA, through its conference and other communication channels,
provides the community 'meeting place' for major road
race, media and athletic industry personnel. Currently there are more than 180
members that produce 300+ events, 1.5 million race
entrants, and many more spectators and fans
Visit their site at:
http://www.runningusa.org/index.shtml

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


BOOK OF THE WEEK: The Perfect Distance - Training for Long Course Triathlon
By Tom Rodgers
Packed with technique and drills built on the proven Ultrafit platform, The
Perfect Distance is the first book to equip triathletes
of all levels for the long course. Every facet of effective preparation for a
long-course event is thoroughly outlined, and
extensive appendixes with workouts for swim, bike, run, key training sessions,
and indoor training make this book the ultimate
resource. Along with the sport-specific chapters, Tom Rodgers provides
instruction on:
Selection of equipment
Making smart nutrition decisions
Strength training
Overcoming common injuries caused by long-distance training
Available October 2006.
Buy the book from Velo Sports at:
http://store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/clink?velogear+gUFKFb+peditrgutolo.html


THIS WEEK'S FEATURES:

1. Science of Sport: Carbohydrates for Endurance:
Reviewed and Updated by ERB member Bob Seebohar MS RD CSCS- Director of Sports
Nutrition University of Florida.
Intro: Energy for endurance exercise is fueled by fats and carbohydrates, with
carbohydrate utilization increasing as the intensity
of the exercise increases. Thus, carbohydrates are crucial to competitive
endurance exercise performance. In addition to food based
carbohydrates, there are many different energy supplements marketed for sport,
which are available in a variety of forms. These
carbohydrate supplements are available as a result of demand based upon
experiential and research based evidence, but understanding
when your body needs each carb in which amount depends on three key areas:
capacity, conversion and type.
Capacity: At rest, the human body typically has enough carbohydrates to fuel 3
hrs of exercise at a rate of 10-12 kcal/minute
(600-700 kcal/hour) which includes blood, muscle, and liver glycogen stores
totaling 1,520 to 2,020kcal. The conversion of
carbohydrates to energy is highly efficient compared to fats and protein. Thus,
carbohydrates are a great fuel source, but our
storage capacity, even with training, is generally insufficient to meet the
demands of competitive endurance sports.
Conversion: The ability to rapidly replenish carbohydrates after training, and
the ability to consume and convert ingested
carbohydrates into a usable form of carbohydrate is important in allowing you to
train and compete at the your best. Ingestion of
the wrong carbohydrates at the wrong time, or ingesting too little carbohydrate
can impair performance both in the short term and
long term. Consuming a slowly digested carbohydrate during times where the body
is at, or above threshold can lead to disaster.
During times where you exercise or race at and above your threshold, your blood
circulation is focused on the working muscles and
away from the stomach. This makes digestion of foods difficult. In fact,
consuming a slowly absorbed sugar during these times will
slow gastric emptying (the emptying of fluids and foods from the stomach to the
blood stream) and in essence block fluids from being
absorbed. This can actually cause dehydration.
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060620_ERB_Carbohydrates.html


2. Multisport: Training Short Cuts . Beware!
By: Neil L. Cook, Head Multisport Coach - Asphalt Green, NYC, NY
"He finished in the top 10 in his age group, so the way he trains must be good!"
view most things with a bit of healthy suspicion. Not distrust, but analytic
suspicion. It's not that I think people intentionally
put out incorrect information. It's just that there is so much information and
much of it is second hand or anecdotal.
In addition, much of the research done is very technical and hard for the
average athlete to understand and apply. Add to that, many
coaches use "tried and true" training methods, techniques that have been used
for years, approaches that are not based on scientific
evidence. The interesting thing about human exercise physiology is that any form
of training will produce results. If you want to be
a runner, the one thing you need to do is run. It is really that simple. To
become a faster runner, just keep running. Your body
will adapt and you will gradually be able to run further and faster.
The same is true for cycling and swimming. Even though these sports involve more
skill than running, the simple act of running,
cycling and swimming will make you better at all three sports. No, it's not
rocket science. The basic principles of exercise
physiology are:
1. Stress
2. Recovery
3. Adaptation
4. Progression
Instinctively, our bodies understand these principles. We instinctively go
further and faster as we become fitter. We rest when we
are tired. Simple and instinctive stuff.
Actually, it is more difficult to design a scientific training program than it
is to put a rocket into space. Getting a rocket off
the ground and into orbit is all about known and measurable forces. Besides,
NASA has a big budget.
Most adult athletes are in the sport for personal enjoyment. We all have a bit
of competitiveness flowing through our veins. We all
want to be the best we can be. Most of us have some limit on the time and money
we can spend on our sport.
So, we look for short cuts. Instead of understanding the physiology, the
implications of a particular workout, an approach to
training, we look for a "quick fix" to make us faster, help us go longer. One
thing is certain. There are no short cuts, no "quick
fixes." Training takes time, effort, sweat and understanding of physiology.
The problem is that it is hard to measure everything that effects our
performance. The effect of a stressful workday, the wrong
lunch, too little sleep, too much hard training, all effect our performance, but
how? And, what can we do about them?
It all gets complicated when we enter a race and put a number on. No longer are
we satisfied with the instinctive and simple.
Friendly or not, competition changes our desires dramatically and does not
always lead to smart decisions regarding training. We may
feel that the natural progression is not enough. A reasonable amount of stress
is not enough. And rest, recovery? Forget about it!
"If 10 are good, 20 must be better!"
More...from the Runner's Web at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060620_SLB_Shortcuts.html


3. Long, Intense Repetitions Build Endurance:
From 5K and 10K Training by Brian Clarke
If stamina is the ability to run long and slow, what is endurance? According to
the way I'm defining the term, endurance is the
ability to sustain race pace at an uncomfortable level of exertion.
Because any racing distance can be uncomfortable, it follows that all races
demand endurance-even relatively short races like the 5K
or 10K. Short races can cause as much discomfort as a marathon, albeit for a
much shorter timeframe. In order to build endurance,
you have to structure workouts that demand race-specific amounts of discomfort.
This is different from stamina training, which
restricts you by definition to a very comfortable level of exertion.
Whether you are training for a mile or a marathon, endurance workouts are tough
to do because the duration of the tempo effort is
long enough to simulate the specific discomfort of the second half of a race,
when fatigue becomes a major factor. A lot of the
discomfort of a race near the finish is due to extreme fatigue. An endurance
workout doesn't have this extreme fatigue because it is
typically only a noticeably fatiguing, hard workout-not an all-out race. The
exertion of an endurance workout should feel like the
exertion in the middle to late stages of your goal-race, minus the extreme
fatigue.
Although endurance workouts incorporate an element of intensity, they can't be
so intense that the workout effort exceeds your
adaptive limit. Typically, this means the workout should be short enough to
qualify as hard, rather than very hard. It also means
inserting rest intervals to break up race-specific tempo running into several
repetitions. Each rest interval should be long and
slow enough that you are able to start the next tempo repetition at least
somewhat refreshed.
This view of endurance training is different from the common idea of long, slow
runs that build endurance. Remember, stamina and
endurance are different abilities, requiring different sorts of exertion
structures. Nonetheless, a long, slow run can take on the
marks of an endurance workout when it is so long that heavy fatigue causes you
to encounter uncomfortable exertion before the
finish.
If your stamina workouts feel like endurance workouts, you are probably running
too long for your adaptive purpose. You must be
clear about your purpose, and structure your stamina and endurance workouts
accordingly.
Buy the book from Human Kinetics at:
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showproduct.cfm?associate=880&isbn=0736059\
407


4. Dr. Gabe Mirkin's E-Zine:
* Endurance and Heart Size
What laboratory test is the best predictor of finishing times for a running race
of 100 kilometers (62 miles), or more than twice
the distance of a marathon)? A study from
Yokohama, Japan suggests that it is an echocardiogram to measure the size of
your left ventricular heart chamber (British Journal of
Sports Medicine, Volume 40, 2006), which determines how much blood your heart
can pump with each beat. This would be expected to
predict how fast you can run for short distances in which you have to move so
fast that the limiting factor is lack of oxygen. This
study is surprising because most athletes believe that the major limiting factor
for running very long distances is the amount of
fuel you can store in your muscles.
Now we know that the limiting factors for ultra-endurance competitions are
similar to those of shorter distances: the time it takes
to move oxygen from blood in your lungs to your muscles. This is determined by
how much blood your heart can pump and how much
oxygen your blood can carry. Since 98 percent of the oxygen in your blood is
carried by the hemoglobin in your red blood cells, the
higher your red blood count, the more oxygen you can circulate. However, a more
important factor is how rapidly your heart can pump
blood to your muscles, and this is determined by the strength of your heart
muscle. The longer and harder you train by running, the
stronger your heart, and that's what a thicker left ventricle means. The
runners who ran the most miles in training had the
strongest hearts and the best finishing times. So if you want to compete in any
sport requiring extremes of endurance, you have to
spend a lot of time training and you also need to exercise very intensely once
or twice a week to strengthen your heart.

* Dear Dr. Mirkin: Is loss of strength with age inevitable?
The older you become, the more you need to exercise. Researchers at Slippery
Rock University of Pennsylvania measured grip strength
in older men at baseline and an average
of seven years later (Aging Male, September-December 2005). The men squeezed a
machine that measured the force that they could
exert. They lost 20 percent of their grip strength in seven years. The older
they were, the more they lost. Those who lost the
most height or weight, those on calcium channel blockers for high blood
pressure, and those who took in the most caffeine had
greater losses of strength. Loss of height is linked to osteoporosis, which is
associated with loss of muscle. High blood pressure
and unintentional weight loss indicate other health problems. No explanation
was offered for the association of caffeine with loss
of muscle strength.
These results are expected. Muscles are made of millions of individual muscle
fibers. A single nerve enervates each fiber. With
aging, a person loses nerve fibers that cause
loss of each connected muscle fiber. However, you can continue to build
strength in the remaining muscle fibers into your 90's and
beyond. Perhaps all people over 50 should get a stress electrocardiogram as a
screening test to see if exercise is likely to harm
them. If they pass the test, they should start or continue an exercise program
that includes some form of strength training such as
lifting weights or using strength-training machines.

* Dear Dr. Mirkin: What would cause a leg clot in an otherwise healthy person?
Leg clots occur without warning with sudden pain and swelling in a leg muscle,
usually the calf. This is a particularly dangerous
condition because the clot can break lose from the
veins in the leg, travel to the lungs and block blood flow to kill a person. In
a report in the British medical journal, Lancet
(April 1, 2006), doctors at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
showed that infections may cause sudden clotting in
the leg muscles called Deep Vein Thrombosis. They showed a 20 percent increase
in infections, particularly urinary and respiratory,
one to two weeks before a person develops clots. This report supports the
current theory of inflammation causing heart attacks,
strokes, and clotting. Your immunity is good because it is supposed to kill
germs when they enter your body. However, if your
immunity keeps on being active, it attacks your own body to damage arteries and
other tissues.
People at the highest risk for clots are those who are sedentary for a long
time, such as in long distance plane flights, and those
who suffer cancers. Since infections are common and deep vein clots are not,
you should not worry about clots every time you get an
infection. However, if after a urinary or respiratory infection, you suffer
sudden pain in a leg without any other explanation,
check with a doctor immediately to rule out a clot.

* Oxygenated Water Does Not Increase Endurance
Have you seen ads for oxygenated water, claiming to cure tiredness, improve
memory, help you to exercise longer and make you a
better athlete? A study from Austria shows that
oxygenated water offers none of these benefits for humans (International Journal
of Sports Medicine, Volume 27, 2006).
When you exercise as hard as you can, you gasp for breath because you cannot
meet your needs for oxygen, no matter how hard or fast
you breathe. Lack of oxygen prevents
you from breaking down lactic acid so it accumulates in your muscles and blood,
and you develop severe shortness of breath.
Researchers analyzed the effects of drinking oxygenated water daily for two
weeks on lung function and clearance of lactic acid from
the bloodstream during exhausting exercise. During both exercise and rest, there
was no difference between people who drank
oxygenated water and those who drank ordinary water as a placebo.
Oxygenated water would be helpful to fish because they have gills whose main
function is to extract oxygen from water. Since you
don't have gills, extra oxygen in water is useless to you. Lungs are the only
organ humans have to provide oxygen to the
bloodstream, extracting it from the air you breathe. Water is not broken down
into hydrogen and oxygen in your digestive tract; it
is absorbed, used and excreted as water. Since you have no mechanism for moving
extra oxygen from water into your bloodstream,
oxygenated water cannot possibly help you with exercise or anything else. I
recommend that you save your money.

Sign up for Dr. Mirkin's E-Zine at: mailto:mirkinzine@...
Visit the website at: http://www.drmirkin.com


5. Sport, movement and molecules:
By Mike Ferenczi
Athletic records are broken every year, but have you ever wondered what
determines the limits of sporting achievements? The answer
lies in the human struggle against the laws of physics. In the end, most sports
are constrained by the energy required to accelerate
a mass to reach a maximum speed, by the energy required to lift against the
forces of gravity, or by the power required to maintain
one's speed in spite of the drag resistance of air or water. In the one hundred
metre sprint, an athlete accelerates a hefty one
hundred kilograms to reach a speed of more than forty kilometres per hour in
about fifty strides. Although the sprinter may not need
to breathe for most of the ten seconds of the race, his heart, a muscle which
only stops once a lifetime, will be pumping two
hundred millilitres of blood in every heart beat, or about four buckets-full per
minute. In untrained, maximally exercising normal
young males, the heart output is about half this because their heart capacity
per beat is so much lower.
And yet, records keep on improving. Part of the answer is that athletes are
getting bigger. The average height of decathlon athletes
in the 1930 Olympics was one metre seventy six centimetres. By 1960, their
height was one metre and eighty four centimetres. In
track and field events, the winners in running, jumping or throwing events are
usually bigger than their less successful
competitors, except in the ten kilometre race and the marathon. The bigger the
body, the greater the capacity to pump oxygen (O2)
round it. Every litre of O2 taken in through the lungs, about one fifth of the
air breathed in, allows the body to burn up twenty
kilojoules of energy from its energy sources. This corresponds to a one kilowatt
electric heater being turned on for twenty seconds.
Measuring the O2 intake is a convenient way to measure fitness or athletic
ability. It is a routine procedure in physiological
laboratories where, for example, athletes run on a treadmill to simulate a
slight uphill run, whilst breathing through a measuring
apparatus, and it provides revealing insights. For example there is a strong
correlation between the maximum O2 uptake during
maximal exercise and competition results in sports such as rowing.
More...from the National Institute for Medical research at:
http://www.nimr.mrc.ac.uk/MillHillEssays/1995/muscle.htm



6. Shorter's longing is a drug-free sports world:
Last spring, the boobs of baseball were getting all the attention in the
national debate over performance-enhancing drugs in sports.

A sad parade of players appeared before Congress - Rafael Palmeiro pointing his
finger and denying steroid use a few months before
testing positive, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both quite suddenly losing their
facility with the English language.
Commissioner Bud Selig and union chief Donald Fehr were all too familiar with
the language - and willing to use it and use it and
use it some more in a strategy apparently designed to drive their critics into
catatonia.
But Congress heard other testimony on the subject in the spring of 2005,
testimony you probably never saw on ESPN, testimony you
probably never heard about.
It came from a world-class athlete who had been working for six years behind the
scenes to wipe out the blight of doping from the
world of athletics that made him famous.
It came from an athlete who does not believe the campaign against
performance-enhancing drugs in sports is inevitably a lost cause;
quite the contrary, an athlete who believes fervently the campaign can be won.
You know him as the friendly face of the Bolder Boulder. He'll provide
television commentary for the race again Monday.
The nation knows him as a running icon, maybe the best American marathoner ever.
But last spring, as Frank Shorter sat before the House Subcommittee on Commerce,
Trade and Consumer Protection, he was the voice of
elite, drug-free athletes everywhere, pleading for a level playing field. More
than that, he was the former chairman of the U.S.
Anti-Doping Agency, a Yale- educated entrepreneur who believed then and believes
now that the model exists for cleaning up sports,
if only sports will adopt it.
More...from the Rocky Mountain News at:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/sports_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_83_4\
731879,00.html


7. From Running Times:
* Training Tip of the Month - Slow Down, Speed Up, and Get Faster:
If there is one thing that elite runners do that most pack runners don't seem to
do, it is to regularly run both very slowly and
very fast. Proportional to their top speed, elites often run VERY slowly.
Granted, they run more: their slowest runs are typically
their morning runs of six to ten miles. They follow up with mid-morning and
afternoon runs, many equally slow. Every day, however,
they also run very, very fast. On tracks in Kenya you'll see runners doing
sprints along the diagonal or up and down the field every
day. At the end of each longer run they do wind sprints and regularly do drills
to work on leg speed and power. In these they do
very little volume -- just a few to get their legs moving very fast. They also,
of course, run fast track and fartlek workouts when
preparing for races, but they rarely, if ever, run at that moderately difficult,
best-I-can-do-today pace that many of us fall into
day after day. By running too fast on our daily runs, we limit the volume we can
put in comfortably, make ourselves too tired to run
very hard when we should, and make ourselves prone to injury. By not running
fast regularly, in wind sprints and drills, we limit
our range of motion and the power of our strides. We would do better to emulate
the best by both slowing down and speeding up.
--Jonathan Beverly, Editor in Chief

* Q and A:
Q: I've just had a baby and will soon begin running with my son in a baby
jogger. Has there been any indication that training with a
baby jogger either improves fitness (because you are having to push the weight
of child and stroller), or causes an increase in
likelihood of injury?
A: Congratulations on the birth of your son. Bringing your child with you on a
workout is a great way to introduce the next
generation to the joys of running and companionship. A search of relevant
information does not reveal much statistical data on
fitness or injuries while running with a baby jogger, so I went straight to the
source, mothers and fathers who have spent many
years and hundreds, if not thousands, of miles pushing up to three kids at a
time in a jogger.
Most of the parents I talked to had similar reports on training with their
children. The consensus seems to be that pushing a baby
jogger improves fitness only as an alternative to not running at all. RT Editor
Jonathan Beverly has been pushing his son, Landis
for a couple of years. He says: "I've found that it does produce extra strain on
upper body and abdominals, and thus does increase
overall fitness, though not necessarily speed. I am much more "fit" overall than
I've ever been, evidenced by being able to do other
weight bearing tasks easier, my jeans fitting well (and my shirts not quite as
well), and ease of running on hills, rough terrain,
and distance. But, it does slow you down." If you're looking to get fast, a baby
jogger is probably not your best training tool.
None of the parents I talked to had become injured from pushing a baby jogger.
However, as with any increase in effort or intensity
in a workout, caution is in order, especially for new mothers. Start your baby
jogger workouts slowly at shorter distances and take
your time adding miles. Following the 10% rule makes sense - do not increase
your baby jogger mileage more than 10% per week.
--Candace Karu, Editorial Director

* Cheers
Beer, Dehydration and Recovery
By Pete Pfitzinger, M.S.
As featured in the June 2003 issue of Running Times Magazine
A few months ago, Jonathan Beverly and I were discussing ideas for this column
and decided to ask the dedicated Running Times
readership to contribute their burning questions. The first response (I am not
making this up) was from Zach Gonzales who wrote,
"I'd like to see something that addresses the correlation between running and
beer consumption. Drinking beer seems to be a favorite
among many runners, especially right after a race and at social events tied to
running clubs. How does it affect recovery? How does
it affect performance?"
Our first reaction was, "Well, we asked, didn't we?" -but upon further thought,
we concluded that this topic could provide rather
pertinent information with the approach of summer. So, this month's column will
look at alcohol consumption, dehydration and running
performance. Thanks Zach.
In one of my favorite studies investigating the effects of alcohol consumption
on running performance, five sprinters and five
middle distance runners raced over 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500 meters while
sober and while intoxicated. Running performances were
negatively affected at all distances except for the 100 meters. This is
practical knowledge if you are at a track meet, have had a
few drinks, and get the urge to race. Stick to the dash, and, if nothing else,
it will all be over quickly. The authors of this
study commented that "more research in this area is warranted." Do not attempt
to further this area of investigation at home.
In all seriousness, many runners drink alcohol with no deleterious effects, but
for some it is harmful not just to running
performance but general health as well. The effects of alcohol and how much
alcohol can be safely consumed vary widely between
individuals and depend on the conditions. After a hot weather race, two beers
may affect you like a six-pack. Besides the well-known
short term effects on the brain-impaired reaction time, balance and hand-eye
coordination-other negative effects of alcohol
consumption for runners are dehydration and delayed recovery.
More...
http://www.runningtimes.com/rt/articles/?id=3950&c=359
Sign up for the Running Times E-Newsletter at:
https://www.runningtimes.com/newslettersignup.asp


8. Joe Henderson's Running Commentary - Teammates:
While casting about last year for the name of a new training group, we hooked
onto Marathon Team. At first I thought the term "Team"
might be too strong for one that met just once a week for a few months, then
disbanded.
With four such groups behind us now and a fourth just formed, I know that "Team"
works. "Friends" might have worked even better.
These runners aren't that close at first. A few married couples sign up, along
with some pairs of running partners.
But most of the would-be marathoners begin as strangers to each other, and often
to me as well. We grow closer as the weeks and
miles add up. By marathon day we're almost a band of brothers and sisters.
Our latest Team happened to reach its big day on my birthday. I've never
celebrated a happier one, with so many people I'd come to
know so well.
Twenty-five of them ran the Newport, Oregon, Marathon. All finished (plus two of
two the next day at Rock 'n' Roll in San Diego). Of
the 13 marathoners with previous PRs, nine set new ones -- by as much as 55
minutes.
Those are just numbers. "What you'll remember the strongest and longest from
this marathon isn't what you ran," I told the runners
afterward. "It will be who you ran with in training and on raceday."
My training program and my coaching weren't the main reasons why these runners
succeeded. Any number of programs might have worked
as well, or better. Any coach, or none at all, might have led to the similar
results.
The runners ran better than most of them could have alone because they teamed
up. They asked for help, received it and gave it back.
They paced, advised and cheered each other.
Years from now they'll look back at the DVD that we made from the Newport
Marathon, a slideshow that wouldn't move anyone not in it,
and smile or shed a tear at seeing these faces again. The Newport Team has
parted but will remain linked forever by this common
endeavor.
Most of the photos show our runners together, in pairs or greater numbers. They
also grouped up a week before the marathon, at a
dinner hosted by married couple Amanda and Matt, and at a post-race lunch
arranged by Katie and Patricia. These meals came about
without any urging from me.
Gregg could have been on a different team far from here. As a military
reservist, he'd been called to service in Iraq this spring
and then had those orders cancelled.
Rayna and Tod are professional teammates, she as a nurse and he a doctor in an
emergency room. At 22 miles, a runner had the good
timing to collapse beside Dr. Tod.
He put aside his athletic goal to do his medical duty, and Rayna later joined
him. They helped until an ambulance arrived, then ran
to the finish together.
Our second married couple, JoAnna and Chris, didn't intend run together. But
after having troubles separately, they teamed up for
the final miles.
Several sets of women trained every step together, then ran their marathon that
way. Last of them to finish were Susan and Rachel.
Rachel said later, "I had a foot problem and had to walk more than planned. I
told Susan not to slow down and wait for me."
Susan's response: "No way. We've come this far together, and I'm not about to
leave you now."
At the end, these two set a Marathon Team record for tears. They weren't alone
in their emotion.
Most of their teammates had stayed to greet them, some waiting for almost two
hours. I hadn't asked them to do this, and didn't need
to ask.
More...from Joe Henderson at:
http://www.joehenderson.com/archive/home.php?article=2061


9. Get Your Acid Dose:
Amino acids make up protein, which leads to muscle--and muscle will help you
ride faster, lose weight quicker and keep you healthy.
By Selene Yeager
Many cyclists throw down oodles of noodles to fuel up for a big event. But if
you really want staying power, make like Rocky and
crack a few eggs into the mix. (But cook yours instead of drinking them raw.)
In a recent study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology,
researchers found that canoeists who'd been given leucine
(an amino acid found in eggs and other protein-rich foods) supplements for six
weeks improved the time they could row until
exhaustion by 11 minutes and lowered their rate of perceived exertion, or how
hard they felt they were working, nearly two points
from "hard" to "somewhat hard." A similar group of rowers taking dummy pills
enjoyed no such benefits.
"There are far too many endurance athletes who emphasize carbs to the exclusion
of all else," notes Leslie Bonci, M.P.H., R.D.,
director of sports nutrition at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "That
can lead to all kinds of performance problems." While
Bonci doesn't recommend popping amino acid pills, because they're "distressing
to the gut," she does think cyclists should be sure
their diets include enough of the right types of amino acids.
Simply put, amino acids are the building blocks of protein, which in turn are
the building blocks of muscle. They also supply some
much-needed fuel for your churning pistons, especially as your glycogen supplies
run low. "During endurance exercise, 3 to 8 percent
of energy needs are supplied by branched-chain amino acids, specifically
leucine, isoleucine and valine," says Bonci. "These are the
BCAAs that muscles oxidize for ?energy." Leucine also seems to help dieters
spare muscle tissue as they lose weight. A study
published in the Journal of Nutrition found that substituting some high-quality
protein foods such as lean meats, dairy, eggs and
nuts for high-carb fare such as breads, pasta and potatoes accelerated fat loss
and helped maintain lean muscle tissue in exercisers
who were trying to shed pounds. What's more, research suggests that BCAAs may
also boost immunity, lift mood and sharpen mental
function during endurance activities like, say, a 100-mile bike ride.
More...from Bicycling at:
http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s1-4-21-14658-1,00.html


10. The Sun: Should we love it or fear it? Experts can't agree. But how much do
they really know?
The sun is directly overhead in a bright blue sky, flooding the beach with
light. Glittering on the water, it dazzles the eyes of a
toddler and his father as they paddle. Some rays hit the sunblock on the little
boy's face and skitter away from him, but others
soak into his dad's skin. "Gorgeous day," says Dave, an electrician from south
London who is just glad the sun is shining on his
family trip to the seaside. But how does it do that? "You what?" How does the
sun shine, exactly? "Haven't got a clue."
Few of us have. We just expect it to be there, day after day, even when hidden
by the weather. We seldom think about the heat on our
faces having been born of nuclear fusion in the heart of a far-off star where
the temperature is 15 million degrees. Standing on a
beach in West Sussex with eyes closed and face upturned, it is hard to absorb
the notion that the energy falling all around as heat
and light is older than humanity.
Once created in the core of the sun, this energy may take a million years to
rise to the surface. It must then travel 93 million
miles through space and the atmosphere, weakening all the way, before reaching
human skin. This it does quickly. "Listen Dave, that
warmth we are feeling left the surface of the sun only eight minutes and 20
seconds ago."
He is not listening, preferring to swim, and who can blame him? The sun is a
terrifying power that hangs in the sky, daring us to
look. But people who do so go blind. Better to ignore it then. It is hard to do
that, however, when you have been sitting in a dark
planetarium with a mad-keen scientist who sets your brain on fire with talk of
solar storms and flares. If staring at the sun can
burn your eyes, considering the scale of the thing can do the same to your
brain.
Even Nasa feels it has so much more to learn that a joint project with the
European Space Agency will see a new fleet of probes
examine the sun over the next few years. Meanwhile, earth-bound scientists can't
agree on whether sunlight is good for us.
More...from the Independent at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article1090209.ece


11. Veg 'prevents artery hardening' :
Eating vegetables may prevent hardening of the arteries, research suggests.
US researchers found 38% less build up of fatty deposits in the arteries of mice
who were fed a mixture of vegetables, including
carrots and peas.
Evidence on the effects of diet on atherosclerosis in humans is not clear but
eating fruit and vegetables is known to protect
against heart disease.
The study in the Journal of Nutrition said the average person only eats three
portions of fruit and veg a day.
The researchers from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine assessed the
effect of diet on heart disease by studying mice
that had been specially bred to rapidly develop atherosclerosis - the formation
of fatty plaques in the arteries which can
eventually block blood flow leading to heart attacks and strokes.
Half the mice were fed a vegetable-free diet and half the mice were fed a diet
which included broccoli, green beans, corn, peas and
carrots.
After 16 weeks, researchers measured cholesterol content in the blood vessels
and estimated that plaques in the arteries of the mice
were 38% smaller.
Although there was also a reduction in total cholesterol and body weight in mice
fed the vegetable-rich diet, analysis showed that
this could not explain the reduction in atherosclerosis
More...from the BBC at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5076850.stm


12. Everyone Into the Water:
The factors that fostered swimming's racial gap are stubborn and the solutions
are expensive.
FOR at least one day a year, the overwhelmingly white world of swimming gets
turned on its ear in places like Asphalt Green, a
fitness center tucked away in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Hundreds of
children swarm the pool deck, goggled faces of every hue
popping out of the water after triumphantly finishing a lap at the Big Swim, the
culmination of a program that fights doggedly to
close the sport's racial gap. That divide, born of a slavery-era myth that
blacks cannot swim, has created a world where black
children drown at rates up to five times higher than white children, and has
left competitive swimming bereft of minorities.
Girls wait to compete at the Big Swim recently in New York, part of a program to
teach minority children to swim.
"We are putting our finger in one small hole in the dam," said Carol Tweedy,
executive director of the Asphalt Green, as she stood
among the children, their parents howling encouragement from the bleachers.
Closing the gap is not particularly easy. The factors that fostered it - race,
class, tradition, culture - are stubborn, and the
solutions are expensive. But the cost of not closing it is measured in lives
lost. As public beaches and pools open for the summer,
the issue is being addressed on both local and national levels.
A handful of programs like the one in Asphalt Green - which has taught New York
City public school second graders to swim for 11
years at no charge - have popped up around the country. This year, USA Swimming,
which is in charge of developing the sport as well
as the Olympic team, began offering financial support for things like free
classes. In April, the organization sent Maritza Correia,
the first black woman to make an American Olympic team, in 2004, to Asphalt
Green's Big Swim. Earlier this year, USA Swimming also
hired its first diversity specialist, John Cruzat, an African-American who grew
up in Chicago and most recently worked for the Urban
League.
More...from the NY Times at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/health/healthspecial/19swim.html


13. What the mind soaks up:
Runners clocked faster times after drinking what they thought was
`super-oxygenated' water. But in reality, it just came from the
tap.
Can "super-oxygenated" water make people run faster? Yes - if they think it can.
The water, marketed under different brands, is touted as having more oxygen
content than regular tap water and, thus, the ability to
enhance athletic performance - claims that have been debunked by scientists who
consider it no more than nicely packaged snake oil.
In a new study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse showed a
video about the water's purported benefits to 32 male
and female test subjects, all competitive or recreational runners. Then, half
the runners drank commercial bottled water, while the
other half got tap water that they believed was the "super-oxygenated" water.
Afterward, all ran 5 kilometers on an indoor track.
The groups switched test conditions and ran again.
During the trials, men and women ran an average of 83 seconds faster, about 3.3
seconds faster per lap. Slower runners who ran the
5K in more than 20 minutes in the control run shaved their time by an average of
2 minutes, 22 seconds during their tap-water run.
"This is huge," says John Porcari, one of the researchers and a professor in
exercise and sports science at the university. "The
results were more dramatic than we'd hoped."
Also surprising was the fact that despite the faster times, the runners' heart
rates, rates of perceived exertion and blood lactate
levels remained almost the same between the two groups. The reason, Porcari
speculates, may be because "they were feeling better and
not as physically stressed."
More...from the LA Times at:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/fitness/la-he-water19jun19,1,1325948.stor\
y?coll=la-health-fitness-news


14. From Runner's World:
* Coach's Corner
"Don't get discouraged by hearing somebody else boast about workout mileage.
Almost certainly you're hearing about that person's
best week, and that's because he or she, like you, feels embarrassed about
disclosing the lower level of mileage actually achieved."
-Jeff Galloway
Drills like hopping, skipping, and other bounding exercises can improve your
running form
* Injury Prevention
Try these tips to prevent quad cramping:
~ Stretch your quadriceps thoroughly before and after running.
~ Drink plenty of fluids when exercising in hot temperatures. (Sports drinks are
good because they contain needed electrolytes.)
~ Make sure you're consuming the recommended dietary allowances of potassium,
sodium, calcium and magnesium in your diet.
~ Incorporate plyometric activities (i.e., bounding and hopping) into your
workouts to improve quad strength and endurance.

* Editor's Advice
"Exploring your competitive side can offer benefits beyond running. Racing can
help you tap into a goal-setting, assertive and
self-disciplined side. Channeled correctly, these attributes can boost your
success in other parts of your life-such as in the
workplace."
-Kristin Baver, RW editorial intern

* Training Talk
"General stretching may not prevent injuries, but targeted stretches for
specific problem muscles and tendons are an effective way
to rehabilitate and prevent the recurrence of some injuries." -The Cutting Edge
by Matt Fitzgerald


15. Mastering the Mountain Bike:
Now that you have your yearly schedule mapped out and you know what types of
training tools you will use as well as when to be
tested and how, it is time to start training. In this chapter you will learn
about the four phases of training-preparation,
specialization (I and II), competition, and transition and recovery along with
the benefits of overreaching and the dangers of
overtraining.
It is important to work on your technical skills and any weaknesses that you may
have. This is also a good time to take part in some
training races as well as practice your starts. The start of a mountain bike
race will determine how you will finish. If you don't
have a good start, you will have only a slim chance of making the top 10. Doing
a few practice races in your area is a good idea.
This will give you some feedback on how your training is going and most likely
push you to train harder.
PREPARATION PHASE
The start of your training year, or early season, begins with your base training
or preparation phase. This means long, slow riding,
keeping your heart rate down, riding on road bikes, group rides, building your
endurance, training your diet, practicing your pedal
stroke by doing some drill work, and cross training.
Taking Long Slow Rides
The true purpose of the long slow rides (LSR) is to increase your body's ability
to tolerate sitting on the bike as well as to
increase your body's fat-burning capability. Most coaches agree that the early
season is the best time to build endurance. If you
question your training at all, you should find another coach or training book,
because if you do not believe that what you are doing
will help, it won't!
The only way you will tolerate racing long hours on your bike, both mentally and
physically, is to spend long hours on your bike. I
generally say that your long rides should be one-fourth to one-third longer than
your longest race. So, if your longest race is 3
hours, you better be able to tolerate 3.75 to 4 hours on the bike. This does not
hold true for riders who are planning to do
ultra-distance or 24-hour races. That's a different form of torture that will
not be covered in this book.
The following is from Serious Mountain Biking by Ann Trombley. Copyright 2005 by
Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc. Excerpted by
permission of Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL.
http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showproduct.cfm?associate=880&isbn=0736054\
995
More...from Windy City Sports at:
http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/rw_news_20060621_HK_Serious_Mountain_Biki\
ng.html


16. To Lower Risk on Jogging Trail, Get Off the Couch:
A previously healthy man in his late 40's died of a heart attack during the
Turkey Trot on Long Island last year. Then on Memorial
Day, another seemingly healthy man in his 50's went out for a run in Brooklyn
and died.
When you hear about someone who has suffered a heart attack or sudden cardiac
death while jogging, the immediate assumption is
likely to be that jogging is dangerous to the heart. But is it?
The answer is somewhat paradoxical. While jogging, a person - especially someone
with underlying heart disease - is more likely to
die than if that person were walking or resting at that same moment. During
vigorous exercise, the heart can develop an irregular
beat, blood pressure can rise to a dangerous level or plaque from a partly
clogged artery can break off and stop blood flow.
But - and this is a big but - over all, people who jog, including those with
major cardiac risk factors, are less likely to have a
heart attack in the long run than if they had not been joggers.
Reducing the Risk
Centuries ago it was commonly thought that the heart was limited to a certain
number of beats and that those who used them up too
fast would die young. We now know a lot better.
The heart is a muscle, and like any other muscle in the body, exercising it
makes it stronger. It does not have to work as hard to
get the job done. This is what is meant by "conditioning" the heart through
moderately vigorous physical activity.
Conditioning occurs by exercising at a level that gets your heart rate within a
target zone determined by your age (subtract your
age from 220, then take 50 percent and 75 percent of that number to determine
your zone).
More...from the NY Times at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/health/20brod.html


17. Jog Your Brain:
Exercise can stimulate creativity that lasts for hours. It's as simple is going
for a run, bike ride or swim.
Halfway through a 45-minute run, I was thinking about a far-off friend and the
bane of long-distance relationships. As I traced a
well-known route through downtown Portland, Oregon, I wondered if the
relationship could ever work out. And suddenly, practically
from one step to the next, I had the idea for a science fiction story about a
space pilot's lover, whiling away the centuries in
suspended animation until the pilot returned from the stars. I raced home to
write the story.
I'm not the first writer to lubricate the creative process with exercise. Narnia
author C.S. Lewis was fond of long, contemplative
walks. Most mornings, Stephen King runs several miles. And fitness buffs of all
professions have long known that the best way to
unlock creativity is to go for a bike ride, run or swim.
Now science is proving that eureka moments during exercise are more than mere
anecdote. Stephen Ramocki, a marketing professor at
Rhode Island College, found that a single aerobic workout is enough to kick the
brains of college students into higher gear-and that
the benefit lasts at least a couple of hours. To function optimally, each
person's brain needs a physically fit body, Ramocki
believes.
Poll a group of runners and you'll find that on-the-move insights are so common
that most athletes take them for granted. But it's
disconcerting to know that you're likely to be miles from the office when
insight strikes. Fred Lebow, founder of the New York City
Marathon, once told an interviewer that whenever a great idea came during a run,
he'd grab a twig and scratch it in the Central Park
dirt. He'd go back later to recover his notes.
More...from Psychology Today at:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20060518-000001.html


18. 1st Day of Summer - Hot Weather Running Tips:
By Jean Knaack
June 21, 2006 marks the first official day of summer, also know as the summer
solstice or longest day of the year in the northern
hemisphere. To celebrate the first day of summer, the Road Runners Club of
America wants to remind the running community about the
importance of following our hot weather running tips. Running in the heat of
summer can be dangerous if proper precautions and
preparations are not followed.
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. Indications that you are running while dehydrated are a
persistent elevated pulse after finishing your run and
dark yellow urine. Keep in mind that thirst is not an adequate indicator of
dehydration.
Visit Gatorade Endurance's site at http://www.itsonthecourse.com. You will find
great tools for developing a hydration strategy and
coupons for Gatorade Endurance.
To stay hydrated on your run, consider using one of the many products designed
by FuelBelt, Inc, "The Official Hydration Delivery
System of the RRCA". Find them online at http://www.fuelbelt.com.
2. Avoid running outside if the heat is above 98.6 degrees, body temperature,
and the humidity is above 70-80%. While running, the
body temperature is regulated by the process sweat evaporating off of the skin.
If the humidity in the air is so high that it
prevents the process of evaporation of sweat from the skin, you can quickly
overheat and literally cook your insides from an
elevated body temperature.
3. When running, if you become dizzy, nauseated, have the chills, or cease to
sweat.. STOP RUNNING, find shade, and drink water or a
fluid replacement drink such as Gatorade. If you do not feel better, get help.
Heatstroke occurs when the body fails to regulate its
own temperature, and the body temperature continues to rise. Symptoms of
heatstroke include mental changes (such as confusion,
delirium, or unconsciousness) and skin that is red, hot, and dry, even under the
armpits. Heatstroke is a life-threatening medical
emergency, requiring emergency medical treatment. For more information and
symptoms of heatstroke visit
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/87/99468.htm.
4. Run in the shade whenever possible, avoid direct sunlight and blacktop. When
you are going to be exposed to the intense summer
rays of the sun, apply at least SPF 15 sunscreen and wear protective eyewear
that filters out UVA and UVB rays. Consider wearing a
visor that will shade your eyes and skin but will allow heat to be transferred
off the top of your head.
5. If you have heart or respiratory problems or you are on any medications,
consult your doctor about running in the heat. In some
cases it may be in your best interests to run indoors. If you have a history of
heatstroke/illness, run with extreme caution.
6. Children should run in the morning or late afternoon hours, but should avoid
the peak heat of the day to prevent heat related
illnesses. It is especially important to keep children hydrated while running
and playing outdoors in the heat.
7. DO wear light colored breathable clothing. DO NOT wear long sleeves or long
pants or sweat suits. Purposefully running in sweat
suits on hot days to lose water weight is dangerous!
8. Plan your route so you can refill water bottles or find drinking fountains.
City parks, local merchants, and restaurants are all
good points to incorporate on your route during hot weather running. Be sure to
tell someone where you are running how long you
think you will gone, and carry identification.
Stay hydrated, cool, and safe this summer!
The Road Runners Club of America is a non-profit organization of over 700
running clubs and 175,000 members across the United
States. The RRCA chapters organize races, have training runs, provide safety
guidelines, promote children's and masters fitness
running programs, and have social programs. http://www.RRCA.org


19. Get the Facts on Low-Carb Foods:
Lara Hassan, M.S., R.D., L.D., C.D.E.
Low-carb diets have created a lot of confusion. If you are eating fewer
carbohydrates to lose weight, you may have jumped with joy
as hundreds of low-carb foods have hit the grocery store shelves in the last few
years.
Food manufacturers have capitalized on the popularity of low-carb diets and have
produced lower carbohydrate versions of some of
their original products as well as new products. The terms "net carbs" or
"impact carbs" that you see printed on some labels were
created by the food manufacturers and are not approved by the Food and Drug
Administration. It is important to still look at Total
Carbohydrates. These terms have created a lot of confusion and are not approved
by the Food and Drug Administration.
How were these products modified? Some of the carbohydrates may have been
replaced by ingredients that are higher in protein such as
soy flour, higher in fiber, or higher in fat. Sugar alcohols such as xylitol and
mannitol are often used to replace some of the
sugar.
Low-carb foods also sound appealing to individuals with diabetes since fewer
carbohydrates means a lower rise in blood glucose. If
you are counting your carbohydrates, ignore the "net carbs" or "impact carbs"
you see on the label. Sugar alcohols contain 2
calories per gram and must be accounted for as part of the total carbohydrates.
Sugar alcohols will raise blood glucose levels about
half as much as other carbohydrates do for the same amount. On the other hand,
fiber is not completely digested and absorbed as
other carbohydrates are and can be subtracted from the total carbohydrates if
the product contains 5 grams of fiber or more per
serving.
If you are choosing low-carb products to lose weight, you may want to compare
the labels between the low-fat version and
low-carbohydrate version. You may be surprised to know that some of the low-carb
products may contain more saturated fat than the
low-fat products and may be higher or only slightly lower in calories. A good
example is comparing low-fat and low-carb ice cream.
Do not assume you can eat as many servings of the low-carb foods as you wish.
These foods are not calorie-free. This brings us back
to the days when low-fat diets were popular, and some people ate fat-free and
low-fat foods freely to later realize they can gain
weight consuming these products in excessive amounts. Your total caloric
consumption is what matters when it comes to losing weight.
Lara Hassan, M.S., R.D., L.D., C.D.E., is a registered dietitian and certified
diabetes educator with Cooper Clinic Nutrition
Department. For more information or to schedule an appointment with a Cooper
Clinic dietitian, please call (972) 560-2655.
For more health articles visit www.CooperComplete.com


20. The art of athletic recovery:
By Brian Dorfman
There's an art to athletic recovery. At some point, you have to stop and wait
for your legs to recover, and for your body to feel
sharp and responsive. Recovery balances the immune and hormonal systems, aids
digestion and facilitates the removal of cellular
debris.
In order to perform at your best, it's important to develop a sound strategy for
recovery. No athlete can achieve peak fitness all
the time, so an effective recovery plan is just as important as a proper
training plan.
Stretching and improving circulation through the lymphatic system, located in
the inner leg and groin area, will help accelerate the
recovery process. Although there are powerful muscles in the inner legs, the
focus of these stretches is on the lymphatic system.
The lymph system needs movement, stretching and gravity in order to circulate
properly. An imbalance in the lymph drainage will
cause swelling due to fluid accumulation, which will prevent the return of
proteins and vitamins to the cells. In addition, lymph
nodes are an important part of the immune system.
Lymph stretches
This series of stretches improve overall lymphatic functioning and focuses on:
~ Releasing the powerful leg muscles to access the lymph duct.
~ Decongesting the lymph nodes by opening the inner legs -- this position
facilitates the process.
~ Relaxing and lengthening the inner-leg muscles and using gravity to flush out
accumulated fluid.
More...from Active.com at:
http://active.com/story.cfm?story_id=13138


21. Under Pressure: Using Your Watch Barometer:
Train right with tips and tricks and of the trade from Chris Carmichael and
Carmichael Training Systems.
One question we hear a lot from people who buy a heart-rate monitor like
Suunto's t6 is, "Why the hell do I need a barometer on this
thing?" Well, it's there-among other reasons-because it could save your hide
from a torrential afternoon downpour.
Think about it: If you're on an all-day bike ride, hike, or multi-hour training
run, you'd like some advance warning that the
darkening skies overhead are indeed going to dump instead of pass on. That way,
you can seek shelter or head home sooner rather than
when it's too late. That's where the barometer comes in.
By checking the barometric pressure (a number usually between 28.00 and 31.00
Hg, or inches of mercury) throughout your workout, you
can get a good sense of how the weather's going to play out. According to Dennis
Feltgen, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a rapid fall in pressure-up to one tenth
of an inch in less than an hour-may signify the
impending approach of a strong to severe thunderstorm. If the Hg reading holds
steady or rises, then the weather is getting better,
and you may be alright.
More...from Outside Magazine at:
http://outside.away.com/outside/bodywork/carmichael-training-systems-5.html


22. The taper blues:
By Gale Bernhardt
It's late June and in the next few weeks most triathletes will reduce training
volume, commonly called taper, in order to feel
rested for important races. As athletes begin the taper process, some notice
they feel down and experience "the blues."
Not all athletes experience the same feelings, or combination of feelings, but
it's common to experience taper blues. The list below
can help you identify if you've experienced any of the common taper symptoms.
Being aware of these feelings can help you handle them
properly, and ensure your tapering remains on track.
If this is your first season of racing, the list can help you recognize common
taper symptoms.
Common taper symptoms:
~ At the beginning of the taper, some athletes say they feel more tired than
when they were putting in long training hours. For
those who are tapering their volume over several weeks, this feeling leads to a
temptation to resume higher volume. Resist the
temptation; it'll pay off on race day.
~ When tapering for a key race, many athletes feel flat and fatigued during the
final workouts, wondering how they'll ever make it
through the event. This feeling can sometimes cause athletes to test themselves
on the actual race course or distance to be sure
they can make it. This is what I call fear-based training -- and giving into
this feeling can harm your performance.
~ As the taper continues, many athletes notice (or more likely their family and
friends notice first) that they're slightly grouchy
-- okay, some athletes are more than just a little grumpy. Often, family and
friends will urge the athlete to put in more hours, in
desperate hope of extinguishing the foul mood. Take their comments and
observations to heart and lighten-up. ~ Apologize for any
over-the-edge behaviors and educate your family and friends about the tapering
process.
~ Roughly half the athletes I work with begin to notice little aches and pains
they never noticed before the taper period. The pains
show up for no apparent reason. In fact, these pains were nonexistent during the
high-volume training phase, making it tempting to
resume longer training hours. If aches and pains emerge, resist the urge to
increase training volume.
~ Some athletes may feel slightly blue or depressed the week before the race.
Others feel they have so much energy they'll go nuts
if they don't work out. Don't act on either of these feelings -- just let them
pass.
~ Within one or two days of the race, most athletes feel good. They're typically
ready to race and are anxious to race --
immediately! This feeling is exactly what you want, and why you've tapered your
training volume. Unfortunately, the feeling comes
late in the taper process and it takes a leap of faith if you've never
experienced the feeling of racing with a rested body.
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=13135


23. Bike fit for women:
By Gale Bernhardt
If you're shopping for a new bike for yourself or for a special woman in your
life, you know proper fit is critical. In 1998 when I
was writing The Female Cyclist: Gearing up a Level, it was common knowledge in
popular cycling literature that women have shorter
torsos than men. I didn't find a single document in cycling that was contrary to
this belief.
Assuming this short-torso issue for women was fact, I thought it would be fun to
include anatomical drawings of the male and female
bodies in the book to display the differences. When I began searching for data
to support the notion that females have shorter
torsos, I found none.
What I found is that there's little difference in the ratio of torso or leg
length to overall height when comparing average male and
female body data. Gross data did show that given a male and female of equal
heights, women have shorter arms and smaller hands.
When 64-inch male and female data is compared for arm length, women's arms are,
on average, shorter by two inches. Comparing hand
data of the 64-inch athletes, women tend to have hands about 0.58 inches shorter
than men of the same height. This translates to
concerns with reach to the hoods or drops and reach to the brake levers.
Comparing a 64-inch man and woman works well to examine the differences between
the genders; however, the average male in the data
is 69 inches compared to the average of female at 64 inches. When The Female
Cyclist was written, the majority of stock bicycles
were manufactured to meet the needs of the average user, and the average cyclist
used to be an average-sized male.
Since that time, the cycling population has grown and great changes have taken
place. This growth has created a demand for
recreational and high-performance bicycles for people of all sizes. Because
equipment is available to make cycling more comfortable,
more people are attracted to cycling. This is an excellent synergistic
relationship.
More...from Active.com at:
http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=13161


24. Armchair inspiration for the marathon runner:
By Clay Evans, Get Out Editor
26.2: Marathon Stories by Kathrine Switzer and Roger Robinson. Rodale, 255 pp.,
with color and b/w photographs. $29.95.
When I was just venturing into the world of running marathons, I found myself
almost obsessed with reading about a race that
literally goes back to the ancient Greeks.
I loved poring over Marathon & Beyond and Runner's World, anticipating what my
first race would be like. All that reading, tucked
between increasingly longer weekend runs and daily workouts, was one of the
great pleasures of preparing for my inaugural marathon -
and I didn't even have to sweat.
If you are training for your first marathon, or know someone who might enjoy a
little armchair training, the new book "26.2:
Marathon Stories" by Kathrine Switzer and Roger Robinson will be a great
inspiration.
As the authors write in their opening chapter:
"The prelude to a marathon is one of life's strangest yet most vivid times. It
is a time of intensity yet relaxation, apprehension
yet resolve; a time of deeply introspective solitude in the midst of the biggest
jostling throng most of us will ever join. So many
people, intent on a separate inward commitment, but united in one common
physical endeavor. Our motive is private, the context is
public. We are strangers who are instant comrades, competitors bonded by the
shared knowledge that we are all about to undertake one
of the hardest tasks in our lives. Ahead lie strenuous effort, weariness, and
pain, but we will endure it all voluntarily, for the
sheer enjoyment of trying."
Oh, yeah. I get goose bumps just reading those words. In fact, after reading
"26.2" and talking to a race-director friend of mine, I
think I'm going to spend the summer gearing up for my fifth Boulder Backroads
Marathon in September after not running the race for
the past few years.
But this book isn't just about inspiration. It offers hundreds of color and
black-and-white photos, a concise history of the
marathon dating back to the legend of the Greek Phaedippides, tales of
marathoners, from superstars to average Joes and Joannas, and
inspirational quotes about the marathon.
There are photos and stories of glory and ignominy, including the infamous "win"
by Rosie Ruiz at the 1980 Boston Marathon (she took
a bus, but to this day has refused to return her gold medal), the agony of
falling short of the finish and the simple triumph of
average runners who completed their first race. It also provides advice and
philosophical musing on why and how to run a marathon.
"(T)here is no tidy time pattern for the awkward, illogical marathon. ... If it
makes little sense to think in terms of time, why do
almost all of us do it? If you dare, try telling runners that no finish times
will be released after a marathon," the authors write.

Kiwis Switzer and Robinson know of what they write. Switzer won the 1974 New
York City Marathon and helped pioneer the official
entrance of women into the marathon in the 1960s, before which they could only
enter the races illegally. Robinson, Switzer's
husband, was a top-ranked runner for New Zealand and England and today is one of
the foremost running historians.
Whether you are tentatively considering running your first marathon, have made
your first date with a 26.2-mile race in your future,
or are a veteran of many races, "26.2" is truly a "goose-bump" book, full of
inspiration and non-aerobic training for the world's
oldest foot race.
Buy the book from Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/159486330X/runnersweb/102-0182896-9006569\
?v=glance&s=books


25. Digest Briefs:
* Age Related Cardiac Fatigue:
Professor Jack Goodman explores the possibility.
Funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, Professor Jack Goodman's
current research will examine heart function during
prolonged exercise, specifically the factors that may evoke cardiac fatigue, or
transient dysfunction. This research will help
address recent concerns about the risks of exercise, especially after the
exercise related deaths of individuals participating in
recreational sporting events and several well known athletes.
While prior work in this area focused on younger populations, this project will
compare older participants (50-60 years of age) to
younger participants (20-30 years). Aging effects and hidden ('occult') disease
that may be more common in the older athlete may
make this group more susceptible to dysfunction Professor Goodmans says.
Exercise intensity in provoking cardiac fatigue will also be assessed. The
effects of prolonged exercise, and in particular, the
intensity of the exercise itself, on the cardiac receptors that regulate heart
rate and pump function will be closely examined.
Initial findings from pilot work just completed, indicate that these receptors
may be temporarily 'down-regulated' or desensitized
after prolonged exercise, leading to less effective heart function in the left
ventricle. Goodman and his collaborator Dr. Zion
Sasson of Mt. Sinai Hospital, make use of state of the art techniques in the
stress echocardiography laboratory to image the left
ventricle and quantify diastolic and systolic function before, during and after
exercise stress.
This research is especially relevant considering the rising participation in
endurance events (e.g. 10 km and marathons) among the
over-35 set, and the currently limited understanding of left ventricular
function during prolonged exercise of this population.
Recruitment for this study will begin shortly and the study is expected to take
two years to complete. If you know of anyone that is
preparing for a marathon or endurance event that will last at least 2 1/2 to 4
hours, and will be attempting the event for the first
time, please contact Jack Goodman, at mailto:jack.goodman@...

* Refueling the Female Athlete:
Dr. Mary Jane De Souza investigates the links between calorie intake,
menstruation and bone health
The Women's Exercise and Bone Health Laboratory has had a busy year under the
direction of Dr. Mary Jane De Souza. Six
undergraduates and two graduate students worked very hard to successfully
complete part one of the Active Women's Study focusing on
the Female Athlete Triad. A term coined by the American College of Sports
Medicine, the Triad includes disordered eating, amenorrhea
(absent menstrual cycles) and osteoporosis (severe bone loss). These problems
occur when the individual fails to eat enough calories
for the amount of exercise she is doing, leading to an energy deficiency and
metabolic disturbances that in turn lead to menstrual
cycle disruption and bone loss.
There is a concern that the incidence of the individual Triad components are
increasing not only among female athletes but also
among women who are active on the recreational level.
To date, the prevalence of the Female Athlete Triad has not been well
investigated. In order to accurately detect the frequency of
the Triad among women, there needs to be a reliable method to screen for
biomarkers of the Female Athlete Triad. Thus far, Dr. De
Souza at the University of Toronto has found that 33% of the athletes tested had
either an energy deficiency or a severe menstrual
problem, including amenorrhea. It was also noted that their recreationally
active counterparts have a similarly high prevalence of
these Triad problems. Energy deficiency, as indirectly indicated by menstrual
cycle disturbances, was related to a higher rate of
stress fractures in both populations of women. The more severe the menstrual
cycle disturbance, the more likely the individual is to
experience an energy deficiency and subsequently, a stress fracture.
Interestingly, a much higher prevalence of osteopenia, which is
mild to moderate bone loss, was observed in the recreationally active women.
This is likely related to the athletes' long-term
participation in physical activity, especially during puberty, the primary
bone-building period.
Much of the information collected during this phase of the study is yet to be
fully analyzed. You can look forward to a more
comprehensive update in the future.
Looking forward, the Women's Exercise and Bone Health Laboratory team is very
excited about their next phase of study: "REFUEL"
Active Women's Study II: The Impact of Increased Caloric Intake on Bone Health
and Menstrual Cyclicity in Energy Deficient
Exercising Women, a million dollar study funded by the U.S. Department of
Defense.
"As we know, the Female Athlete Triad stems from women burning more calories
than they eat," comments Professor De Souza, "resulting
in their bodies making metabolic adjustments to conserve energy, which in turn
suppresses the hormones that maintain regular
menstrual cycles and keep bones healthy. As the problem of poor calorie intake
progresses, this nutritional imbalance usually
results in a missed or irregular menstrual period. And remember, irregular or
absent menstrual cycles cause bone loss and
infertility."
When these women see a doctor they are typically put on birth control pills.
Although the prescription may restore regular menstrual
bleeding intervals, it does not prevent bone loss since the pill does not fix
the cause of the problem - which is not eating enough
food for their exercise energy expenditure - and it certainly does not restore
fertility.
This study is designed to examine the effects of increased food intake on the
menstrual cycle and bone health in physically active
women who have irregular or absent menstrual cycles (amenorrhea), Professor De
Souza explains. The goal of the research study is to
determine whether increased food intake over a period of 12 months will resume
menstrual cycles and strengthen bones. Potential
volunteers will include physically active women who have either irregular or
absent menstrual cycles and women with regular
menstrual cycles. All of the testing involved in the study will be done at the
Women's Exercise and Bone Health Lab at the
University of Toronto inside the Athletic Centre. Volunteers will be asked to
collect daily samples of urine, give some blood
samples, keep diet and physical activity logs, meet with a dietician and a
psychologist, have tests to measure metabolism, bone
strength and physical fitness, and fill out questionnaires. Eligible subjects
must be physically active women between the ages of 18
and 35, in good health, and experience either regular menstrual bleeding every
month, or have irregular menstrual cycles or no
menstrual cycle. Women taking birth control pills are not eligible. Volunteers
will be compensated for their time. Anyone interested
in finding out more about this exciting new study can call the "REFUEL": Active
Women's Study hotline at 416-946-8707 or send an
email to mailto:active.womenstudy@...

* Potassium-Enriched Salt Could Cut Risk Of Heart Disease
London, United Kingdom (AHN) - A recent study conducted in Taiwan by Hsing-Yi
Chang of the National Health Research Institutes and
fellow researchers revealed that use of potassium-enriched salt in place of
regular salt in diet could cut the risk of heart
disease.
The study, involving 2,000 elderly people, also found that high-sodium diets may
lead to high blood pressure, a major heart disease
risk factor.
However, the researchers say people with kidney problems should not take extra
potassium in order to avoid problems such as abnormal
heart rhythms, IANS reported.


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

June 24, 2006:

Captain Christopher Cash Memorial 5K,
Old Orchard Beach, Maine
www.RunForCashOOB5K.com

Clear Mountain Ultimate 10K/5K,
Memphis, Tennessee
www.ultimate10k.racesonline.com

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


June 24-25, 2006:
Philadelphia Triathlon - Philadelphia, PA
http://www.phillytri.com/

June 25, 2006:
Great Women's Run - Sunderland, UK
http://www.greatrun.org/events/event.asp?id=

Ironman Coeur d'Aline - Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
http://www.ironmancda.com

Ironman France - Nice, FRA
http://www.ironmanfrance.com

New Charles River 7.5-Mile/5K,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
www.baevents.com

Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon & 5K - BC
http://www.canadarunningseries.com/svhm

Smiths Falls Classic Triathlon & Duathlon - ON
http://www.somersault.ca/eventsmithsfallsclassic.htm

Sturgis Falls 1/2 Marathon & 5K,
Cedar Falls, Iowa
www.cedarriverrunnersclub.com

The Beach Triathlon - Long Beach, CA
http://www.active.com/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1314288


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

Send this to a Friend:
Forward the Runner's Web Digest to a friend and suggest that they subscribe at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunnersWeb/join

YOUR FEEDBACK AND COMMENTS:
Comments, contributions and feedback are always welcome via this list at:
mailto:runnersweb@yahoogroups.com and in our Runner's Web Forum, available off
our FrontPage. If you post to the mailing list and
get your email returned, please contact the Runner's Web at
mailto:webmaster@... to notify us of the problem. To update your
Runner's Web eGroups subscriber's profile, go to the web
site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunnersWeb/join , sign in and update your
changes.
Forward the Runner's Web Digest to a friend and suggest that they subscribe at:
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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
RunnersWebCoach
http://www.runnerswebcoach.com


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