Posts
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Set Your Sights on a New Goal for Autumn - Learn to Run at the Elkins/Randolph County YMCA
(Elkins, WV April 4, 2010) We all know how to run from something - but now you can get help with running towards your health and wellness goals. The Elkins/Randolph County YMCA is offering a 20-week “learn to run” program starting May 25th that will lead you through a training plan to help prepare you for the Mountain State Forest Festival 10k race on Sunday, October 2nd.
This program, designed for all levels of runners, will answer your questions about running, help you find your pace, team you up with people to run with, as well as outline a training plan focused on injury prevention and fun. Participants will train together for the 10k event and may chose to work with the instructor for the Elkins half marathon in the spring on 2012. All running goals can be accommodated in this running group.
The program will meet for weekly group coaching and/or runs on Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 7:15 p.m. at the YMCA. Some nights we'll run but I have found a few new hands on ideas that we'll be using the time with and when lessons are small, we'll get in a run. I will continue to assess strides for folks as well and hope to have you achieve ideal posture in your running and walking.
Carl Bolyard (that's me) will instruct the group. A runner since High School and an experiential educator for fifteen years, Carl had no aspirations to enter a race until autumn of 2007 when he used his first marathon to kick start his running program and began really enjoying the regular benefits of running again. Drawing upon advice from Tom Holland, Bart Yasso, Tim Noakes, Philip Maffetone and others, he believes in a simple low mileage plan that is focused on injury prevention and directed by the individual’s goals. Several running experts from our region will also contribute to the course by presenting some Wednesday evenings.
In the interest of encouraging wellness in the larger community, Learn to Run will offer a supplement to the regular twenty week program as a bridge course that supports runners who wish to train for their first half marathon. Davis Health System’s annual half marathon, scheduled for April 2012, is a wonderful challenge and runners who wish to train with Learn to Run, will have the opportunity to subscribe to a bridge course to continue to build their fitness from October until the race date in April.
The class fee of $100.00 for YMCA members and $110.00 for non-members includes the cost of the class textbook and training materials, advice and fitness planning each week and running plans that will be tailored to the individual’s fitness history. All revenue after expenses will be donated to the Randolph County Girls on the Run program.
Advance registration is preferred. Participants can visit the YMCA to complete an enrollment form. Sign-ups will also be taken at the first session on Wednesday, May 25th at 6:00 p.m.
The Elkins/Randolph County YMCA was established in 1908. The YMCA is dedicated to improving the lives of men, women, and children in the region through quality programs, classes, and activities. Financial assistance is available based on household income and family size.
The YMCA is located at 400 Davis Avenue and can be reached at 636-4515. Visit the Elkins YMCA on the web at www.elkinsymca.com
Register by contacting - Sue Gillispie - Elkins YMCA- 304-636-4515 - memberservices@elkinsymca.org
Monday, October 11, 2010
More nutrition resources
Here is a new resource that works well with teh Runner's Time Management post of last week a business called "Nutrition Made Easy" will plan your menus, generate a shopping list, & help with servings - a life planner for your intake, personalized to your needs. Clearly this is not free but hey, it is truly priceless for the time crunched runner. Here she is:
Christy Haney, Owner, AFPA Certified Nutrition & Wellness Consultant
Nutrition Made Easy
1840 Locust Ave, Fairmont, WV 26554-1288
(304) 333-3977 - Try it!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Runner Time Management
“If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don’t you are simply ducking your responsibilities.” Ann Richards
So you know it is important – and yet it becomes a lower priority to the urgent tasks. As Coach Shaw said, this is the hard part – not designing a program but staying on one. To succeed at this you need a few tricks, some mental focus and a review of time management.
Start with the truth - Stanford and Tufts Universities have each studied the long term effects of running on physiology and have found that vigorous exercise is associated with living longer and in better health – regardless of the age at which participants began their exercise program. Stanford’s 21 year study showed that runner’s age 50-72 experienced 40% reduced risk of disability, cancer, or Alzheimer’s and just plain lived longer. In the same study, runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including joint injury. So remind yourself that this really is use it or lose it, you are a runner now and you can enjoy these benefits too if you keep with a program that works for you. I like the funny adage that we spend our youth chasing money and our money chasing youth. Well you do not have to chase it, you just have to jog along and eventually you will run it down or come pretty close to it – while I am not any richer I sure do feel better.
Remember that you are role model. While soccer players are only see by their fans, you see everybody as you run down the road and they see you. I bring this up because I have heard (and I have felt this myself at times) that when I am running I am taking time away from my family, my kids, my job or whatever else you can feel guilty about getting “you time” away from, and I have said to these people “look at how strong you are, and look at what your kids see. They do not see an uneven ledger – but someone who cares enough to exercise, get a bit of time to their selves, and take care of the only body they may ever get. Your kids need that good advice and you are modeling it” In an age where kids are inside, many obese, and more at risk of disease (including adult onset Diabetes) there is no better time for you to be a good example. While I’ll never urge my kid to join me on the road – at least when I tell him to go play and get some exercise he knows that I am serious because I do as I say. Of course I’d love to have him join me for a run but he’ll never do it unless he sees me enjoy it. If that does not motivate me to run and be an athlete – I cannot think of what will.
So let’s revisit that old Steven Covey analogy about time management. He would pour sand into the jar as a representation of what is urgent in our lives - all the stuff we feel like we need to do, and then he would try to get the big stones, the important stuff to fit in that jar. We all know what happened, those stones did not fit. Not until he placed the stones in the jar first, did the sand all fit around the stones, and everything did get into his jar. He was showing us how to manage our time with what was important vs. what was urgent. He made a lot of money showing folks that jar, when we all know how it works already. Robert Fulgum has written “all lessons are repeated until learned”.
You have to keep a record of what you are, and are not, getting done. When you seek to re-establish a routine you probably already know what works for you. For me it is that open calendar square that is unfinished or the task item unchecked – I can’t stand it. Your Learn to Run program fits nicely on a calendar and you’ll just need a few more calendar pages or a training log to keep planning your progress (www.personallogs.com) and you’ll want to modify and repeat your current plan or build a new one based upon your goals. A free online training log is at www.buckeyeoutdoors.com and they have some training plans you can overlay onto your race targets too. Some of these plans will even email you your daily/weekly assignments if that motivates you. Others will send them to your phone if you use your inbox as a do list. So map it out to see where it fits and then you can strategize.
The more I have to think about something – sometimes that daily minutia can serve as a barrier to completion. Where am I running, how far, what to wear, have I eaten, what time - Ahhh! Stress! Your schedule and some planning can ease this in just a single Saturday afternoon and I sleep better that night too, knowing I now have a plan of action. If this running thing is one of your “big rocks” of time management then you just have a puzzle on your hands to solve.
There is no perfect training schedule for everyone – you are “an experiment of one” and you need to listen to your body, ask for help and adjust the sails sometimes. It is not about the number of days you get out – but being ready, rested and in the mindset to make the days you do get – count as a quality effort.
How many days a week? Studies show that 95% of the cardiovascular benefits can be had with 5 days a week of running, with that said you can get nearly 80% on just 4 days a week. So can you make it work on three day a week? The Furman FIRST program is based on this very principle and they cross train and do floor exercises for strength on the off days. Strength training stimulates the production of red blood cells and stimulates muscles differently so that you are more ready to run with less actual running. If you got out less than that is it a bad thing? No – you have to make it fit your life and you should always feel good about getting some exercise. Do not let people tell you otherwise or “dumb down” the benefits of getting out and moving because everything helps. You ideally want a habit of some sort no matter how many days because A) you’ll find it gets easier B) you’ll see greater benefit and this means you’ll stay for life. It is your life, and that’s what we are building this program more - to enhance it.
Right now I am often in weeks where I can only pull off three runs a week due to a grueling school schedule but here is the deal. In my twenties and thirties I ran backpacking and river trips that were anywhere from three to thirty days long and I always said that a three day trip and a two week trip each take the same amount of time to prepare – aside from a little more food; I take the same tent, flashlight, stove, etc, etc. and yet on the three day trip I only get three days. I would always rather go for a week because the effort is the same but the payoff is greater.
I specialize in the long run, because I am never going to be a sprinter again and I like being out there and going places – it is transformative for me. So I am running farther/longer when I am out running but by going out three times a week I am getting a full week’s worth of workouts done. I think it is efficient and it works for me because I have already worked up to that kind of mileage and sometimes inertia is the enemy. Getting out the door takes the same amount of time every day and the hardest part is getting free for a couple hours to go – not the actual running. When Dan Lehmann spoke to us he told a story of a guy who did not run all week but did run a slow and steady Ultra every weekend for his mileage. That may be taking it a bit far but it is the same basic idea that he is getting his time in when and how he is able while allowing the body some rest in between. Think outside the box to achieve your goals.
When do I do it? Think about how you can squeeze more out of your day. If you are a night owl already you can likely run in the dark and not disrupt your sleep pattern. Dean Karnazes of Ultra Marathon Man fame is famous for running hours at night when he had a day job – to make it all fit. If you are an early riser now – then perhaps 40 minutes earlier will get you a run. One high school principal found running saved his life (he dropped 150 lbs and went off his Lipitor) and he did not want to give it up. But a principal already starts the day pretty early, so he found a new pair of pajamas, in that he sleeps in his running duds, and just rolls out of bed and into his shoes to go run for 45 minutes. When he gets home he drinks the smoothie, which was pre-frozen on Sunday afternoon and is thawing in the fridge now while the shower warms up. It sounds a bit like George Jetson’s morning routine (I think a robot made his coffee and brushed his teeth for him) but it got the guy the time he needed in his schedule for the big rocks to fit. One secret that works for me is that I have is to get the run done early in the day, that way I cannot couch it as a crisis comes up later in the day. Just as long as you have the time blocked out - you are most likely to complete.
Planning is everything. So ideally I try to eat one or two hours before a run or make your fuel intake light and digestible (300-500Kal + 10oz H2O) and as I said before familiar foods are best. Remember when I asked you to test those pre-race breakfasts and mid run snacks that will sit well while you run? Those same micro meals will allow you to dash out the door when you find that you have an hour that you did not realize you had. The other day I found that my afternoon appointment was canceled and lunch was hours ago. By having something handy to fuel with (I even split the food for some before, and some after the run) I was able to get a run when it was nice and I could serendipitously grab it. Don’t think that I do not have shoes and some shorts in my locker and my car either. Plan ahead and you can get it to fit – I know some folks who run at lunch but do not have a shower on site. They use the baby wipes, some deodorant and a change of clothes to still get the workout done.
Many people say to me that the run consumes the time that they might normally have to cook a decent dinner that they need to eat that evening and so they feel like they are robbing Peter to pay Paul by getting in a run. Many large families and families who are tightening their belts in this economy have taken to a set menu. If you have two weeks of meal ideas (just like your school cafeteria – but tastes better) you can plan and budget for how you will work them into your day. You can also fine tune them to your intake needs for running so that you are not haphazardly fueled. We use Excel at home and generate lists for the grocery, as well as add and subtract favorite meals easily. The other thing this allows us to do is make a Sunday into food prep time where we store away a few good meals in the freezer for the most chaotic nights of the week.
Planning and Tupperware is how the high school principal got his morning power smoothie post run too. I have even used ice cube trays to measure out the frozen portions to thaw or puree at will and this planning will carve out a bit more time in your schedule and not leave you hypoglycemic at the end of a workout. Nobody cares if you eat breakfast in the car on the way to work if you feel good and energized when you get to your destination. Do what it takes and you’ll feel better next New Year’s when this resolution was realized.
I’ll say one more thing about food and don’t think I am on a soapbox here but great Americana style food that I was brought up on (YUM) takes time to prepare. Meat may be the most intensive as well in terms of prep, cleanup etc. and this is where again, planning come in handy. Marc Bittman and other use a lot of grains, precut veggies, and less intensive ingredients as well a bit of pre trimmed meat you froze when you got home from the store to design great meals and it has taken a while for us to find all of our favorites but I have storehouse of them now. I even like Rachel Ray because her books divide dishes but how intensive they are to make – I resort the best of those by nutrient quality and go from there. (There are some good links on the blog site and you no longer need a cookbook to cook at our house if the computer is on…)
Equipment. Some people have bad names for treadmills but the fact is that they are open to run on when the weather is too hot, too cold, and too rainy or you have to make other use of the time that day. I know I told you there is no bad weather and I believe this, but sometime you need to multitask or you are not prepared to go out – and neither is a great excuse to miss what is important. My mom watches her shows during workout time and I listen to lecture when I am safe on the treadmill and can focus. They are great for the quick fix and you should use them as a time management tool. While a good treadmill is not cheap, there are a number of great ones in town that are easy to get to and have long hours. Remember that in March or April – after New Year’s resolution time is long gone and the weather is getting nice again, you might buy some poor guy’s $2,000 treadmill on Craig’s List for half price or better. This investment will last you over two decades with some light maintenance.
Another item equipment discussion includes is anything that you need to safeguard the time that you have so carefully set aside. So you carved out the time but it is snowing or whatever the weather does to keep you away from the run – recall that there is no bad weather, only inadequate clothing choices! I wear a rain hat, or great gloves, or put in my contacts for the pouring rain but I do not let something simple derail the workout. I have a great flashlight and a reflector for night runs and my neighbor use a vest like the road workers wear when he runs at night. Maybe you need a stun gun for that bad neighborhood right out your door - but a gym membership might be cheaper and not get you arrested for assault. I have come to find that there is no weather that I dislike running in and I feel all the more accomplished and infatigable for having made the effort. We even made ice cleats last winter just by putting little sheet metal screws into our old running shoes and I save them for icy days. Yes I feel silly running in them - but I kinda feel like MacGyver running in them too (and I still think he was cool). So find out what is holding you back – then work around it because you made the time, and you deserve the run.
Shuffle the big stones. There is an increase in folks who run to work or run home after work and anyone who has an HR department at their workplace should ask about any incentive that is offered for employee wellness or carbon savings. You are saving on gas or parking fees, gym membership and keeping your workplace insurance bills low, so anything you can gain in reimbursement would be gravy and could be put into a new pair of shorts. If they put in a shower – all the better, but there are ways around that too, have someone drop you at work and run home that evening.
Several folks have gotten a spouse, relative or buddy to run and this replaces their time at the bar or coffee stop with a cheap and healthy habit they do together. Jog strollers are another great investment and Craig’s List often has good ones so Junior can come along for family time. Two of my students got super fast by taking turns pushing their offspring down the bike trails in their jog stroller. I doubt it hurt their marriage either, as they ran along and shared their day. Check carefully, regarding how old your child needs to be before they can ride in one of these strollers.
There are a lot of multi-tasking things that you can get done during a run. Like I said earlier my mom gets her TV time when she runs on the treadmill. I study many days and Audible.com has thousands of unabridged books for download so you could listen to the news, read a bestseller you have been meaning to get to or even call your Ma like you should – because we run slowly enough to talk. Your phone has a voice recorder if you learn to use it and so you could easily complete you grocery list or anything else you wanted to while you’re out there. If you need to multitask then it clears some space to exercise when maybe you do not have time for both activities. If multitasking is more fun, then maybe you are motivated to get out the door more often and you reap the benefits – either way would be good, right? The way the story goes Dean Karnazes actually wrote his first book by dictation into a voice recorder on those long night runs of his and then retyped it later for his publisher. I know personally, that I do get a lot of good thinking done “on the road”.
Run by time not distance. You want to fit it all in and you need to know how long this will actually take. Run, snack, stretch, shower, all take time and there is pressure to get back to whatever the urgent thing is that is calling you. So make it easy and run by time rather than distance - seeking to keep your run a steady effort throughout and at PE 4. The distance thing is arbitrary if all you are looking for is fitness and wellness, and what is more important is to take some pressure off you. The funny thing is that this may actually improve your performance in the ensuing months. Now any route works, because you just split the time in half and double back on your route. You will know exactly when you’re home that evening and planning may be less complicated. Adding ten minutes a week to your long run is not a difficult computation, requires no new route research and if you are not watching the pace you can relax and just focus on a steady effort. (Recall, in order to learn the most about your “experiment of one” you must be consistent. Consistency also allows you to reap the subtle benefits that come from gradual training load increases. We shoot for 10% increases or less and the 10 minute technique works great and need not go to infinity to work – but one long run weekly makes all of your runs easier – trust me.)
Dr. Philip Maffetone discusses the idea that I posted a while back of being able to run the same distance, over each successive month, at a slightly faster or more efficient pace as your cardiac capacity improves. Even if your speed never significantly increases – your ease in performing this effort will improve and this, as well as how fast you return to your baseline heart rate – are good indicators of adaptation. Running by time is a great way to do this and is very low key. If you still worry about how many miles you run or what to tell someone – just don’t tell them. Keep it a secret and they’ll just think you are training for London in 2012.
How will I find time to race, because I want a few big goals? Folks that have a regular mileage program find that they can sharpen their speed and endurance for a particular race in just 5-8 weeks depending on their physical state. Most runners plan to take a break from running one or two times a year to stay fresh and let the body rest & see no adverse affects from doing so. Build that into your schedule too so you can gear up for the events you’d like to run and can clear that time to maybe add a day to training for the big event.
When you see that race you have always wanted to try – and I want to break my record! I simply work backwards from that race day. So I want to run on April 1st and I know that I have been really steady on my program this year. So I need 8 weeks where I can run 4 days a week instead of three. Cool, so I’ll count backwards eight weeks from April 1st to Feb 1st or so, and then see how can I shuffle my schedule for that one extra day of running and I’ll call Carl for a few new stretches and a route that resembles my race course. All set - and you should do that once in a while to mix it up and because it is fun.
Likewise enjoy a week (or two) of no running. Laying around or not having that extra schedule item is great because it frees you for something else, and you need not feel guilty or despondent because you know when you are coming back. Each time you do this you’ll come back to running renewed and ready to run. I hope that is what happens for any reader is that they build a habit, that they then find enriches them so much that they wish to do it every week, forever. To do that you really have to build it in and use the tricks you have to make that work. I used to work in an ivory tower – a university recreation facility so amazing it was like Las Vegas and it was all free to student use. Yet there were times that we joked that we needed to actually pay the students to exercise and recreate and enjoy themselves physically. Professionally the “tipping point” that we always spoke of was six months. If you can retain a person for six months in some fitness or wellness activity they’ll stick with it. After that amount of personal investment you have them in a habit, they have carved out a space for this in their lives and they are really seeing the benefits that we all know exist. The kicker is that many reading this have just finished a 5 month program that began in May - so you just have to stick with it a few more weeks and then as the days get darker – you’ll be successfully inoculated for your fitness habit and cookie season will not infect you! Neither will a host of other possible ailments and while we always have dark days sometimes the running will be there for you. It is one of the things that we were designed to do.
If you have not read enough on sacrificing something urgent, in order to dream and aspire to something important, then I have a good interview for you. The female winner of this year’s Western States 100 miler is a full time Mom of four kids and works full time as a teacher at 45 years old and NOT slowing down. I wanted to see if she had any new tricks that I did not mention above and she did mention a few - some extreme – as you might imagine. But she said that she seldom cleans house and her kids have learned to do a lot of their own chores, and yet they still sit down to a family meal every night (runners are all about a square meal, right). Read her story here at Runners World. Then get away from the computer and lace up your shoes…
“Good habits are worth being fanatical about.” John Irving
So you know it is important – and yet it becomes a lower priority to the urgent tasks. As Coach Shaw said, this is the hard part – not designing a program but staying on one. To succeed at this you need a few tricks, some mental focus and a review of time management.
Start with the truth - Stanford and Tufts Universities have each studied the long term effects of running on physiology and have found that vigorous exercise is associated with living longer and in better health – regardless of the age at which participants began their exercise program. Stanford’s 21 year study showed that runner’s age 50-72 experienced 40% reduced risk of disability, cancer, or Alzheimer’s and just plain lived longer. In the same study, runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including joint injury. So remind yourself that this really is use it or lose it, you are a runner now and you can enjoy these benefits too if you keep with a program that works for you. I like the funny adage that we spend our youth chasing money and our money chasing youth. Well you do not have to chase it, you just have to jog along and eventually you will run it down or come pretty close to it – while I am not any richer I sure do feel better.
Remember that you are role model. While soccer players are only see by their fans, you see everybody as you run down the road and they see you. I bring this up because I have heard (and I have felt this myself at times) that when I am running I am taking time away from my family, my kids, my job or whatever else you can feel guilty about getting “you time” away from, and I have said to these people “look at how strong you are, and look at what your kids see. They do not see an uneven ledger – but someone who cares enough to exercise, get a bit of time to their selves, and take care of the only body they may ever get. Your kids need that good advice and you are modeling it” In an age where kids are inside, many obese, and more at risk of disease (including adult onset Diabetes) there is no better time for you to be a good example. While I’ll never urge my kid to join me on the road – at least when I tell him to go play and get some exercise he knows that I am serious because I do as I say. Of course I’d love to have him join me for a run but he’ll never do it unless he sees me enjoy it. If that does not motivate me to run and be an athlete – I cannot think of what will.
So let’s revisit that old Steven Covey analogy about time management. He would pour sand into the jar as a representation of what is urgent in our lives - all the stuff we feel like we need to do, and then he would try to get the big stones, the important stuff to fit in that jar. We all know what happened, those stones did not fit. Not until he placed the stones in the jar first, did the sand all fit around the stones, and everything did get into his jar. He was showing us how to manage our time with what was important vs. what was urgent. He made a lot of money showing folks that jar, when we all know how it works already. Robert Fulgum has written “all lessons are repeated until learned”.
You have to keep a record of what you are, and are not, getting done. When you seek to re-establish a routine you probably already know what works for you. For me it is that open calendar square that is unfinished or the task item unchecked – I can’t stand it. Your Learn to Run program fits nicely on a calendar and you’ll just need a few more calendar pages or a training log to keep planning your progress (www.personallogs.com) and you’ll want to modify and repeat your current plan or build a new one based upon your goals. A free online training log is at www.buckeyeoutdoors.com and they have some training plans you can overlay onto your race targets too. Some of these plans will even email you your daily/weekly assignments if that motivates you. Others will send them to your phone if you use your inbox as a do list. So map it out to see where it fits and then you can strategize.
The more I have to think about something – sometimes that daily minutia can serve as a barrier to completion. Where am I running, how far, what to wear, have I eaten, what time - Ahhh! Stress! Your schedule and some planning can ease this in just a single Saturday afternoon and I sleep better that night too, knowing I now have a plan of action. If this running thing is one of your “big rocks” of time management then you just have a puzzle on your hands to solve.
There is no perfect training schedule for everyone – you are “an experiment of one” and you need to listen to your body, ask for help and adjust the sails sometimes. It is not about the number of days you get out – but being ready, rested and in the mindset to make the days you do get – count as a quality effort.
How many days a week? Studies show that 95% of the cardiovascular benefits can be had with 5 days a week of running, with that said you can get nearly 80% on just 4 days a week. So can you make it work on three day a week? The Furman FIRST program is based on this very principle and they cross train and do floor exercises for strength on the off days. Strength training stimulates the production of red blood cells and stimulates muscles differently so that you are more ready to run with less actual running. If you got out less than that is it a bad thing? No – you have to make it fit your life and you should always feel good about getting some exercise. Do not let people tell you otherwise or “dumb down” the benefits of getting out and moving because everything helps. You ideally want a habit of some sort no matter how many days because A) you’ll find it gets easier B) you’ll see greater benefit and this means you’ll stay for life. It is your life, and that’s what we are building this program more - to enhance it.
Right now I am often in weeks where I can only pull off three runs a week due to a grueling school schedule but here is the deal. In my twenties and thirties I ran backpacking and river trips that were anywhere from three to thirty days long and I always said that a three day trip and a two week trip each take the same amount of time to prepare – aside from a little more food; I take the same tent, flashlight, stove, etc, etc. and yet on the three day trip I only get three days. I would always rather go for a week because the effort is the same but the payoff is greater.
I specialize in the long run, because I am never going to be a sprinter again and I like being out there and going places – it is transformative for me. So I am running farther/longer when I am out running but by going out three times a week I am getting a full week’s worth of workouts done. I think it is efficient and it works for me because I have already worked up to that kind of mileage and sometimes inertia is the enemy. Getting out the door takes the same amount of time every day and the hardest part is getting free for a couple hours to go – not the actual running. When Dan Lehmann spoke to us he told a story of a guy who did not run all week but did run a slow and steady Ultra every weekend for his mileage. That may be taking it a bit far but it is the same basic idea that he is getting his time in when and how he is able while allowing the body some rest in between. Think outside the box to achieve your goals.
When do I do it? Think about how you can squeeze more out of your day. If you are a night owl already you can likely run in the dark and not disrupt your sleep pattern. Dean Karnazes of Ultra Marathon Man fame is famous for running hours at night when he had a day job – to make it all fit. If you are an early riser now – then perhaps 40 minutes earlier will get you a run. One high school principal found running saved his life (he dropped 150 lbs and went off his Lipitor) and he did not want to give it up. But a principal already starts the day pretty early, so he found a new pair of pajamas, in that he sleeps in his running duds, and just rolls out of bed and into his shoes to go run for 45 minutes. When he gets home he drinks the smoothie, which was pre-frozen on Sunday afternoon and is thawing in the fridge now while the shower warms up. It sounds a bit like George Jetson’s morning routine (I think a robot made his coffee and brushed his teeth for him) but it got the guy the time he needed in his schedule for the big rocks to fit. One secret that works for me is that I have is to get the run done early in the day, that way I cannot couch it as a crisis comes up later in the day. Just as long as you have the time blocked out - you are most likely to complete.
Planning is everything. So ideally I try to eat one or two hours before a run or make your fuel intake light and digestible (300-500Kal + 10oz H2O) and as I said before familiar foods are best. Remember when I asked you to test those pre-race breakfasts and mid run snacks that will sit well while you run? Those same micro meals will allow you to dash out the door when you find that you have an hour that you did not realize you had. The other day I found that my afternoon appointment was canceled and lunch was hours ago. By having something handy to fuel with (I even split the food for some before, and some after the run) I was able to get a run when it was nice and I could serendipitously grab it. Don’t think that I do not have shoes and some shorts in my locker and my car either. Plan ahead and you can get it to fit – I know some folks who run at lunch but do not have a shower on site. They use the baby wipes, some deodorant and a change of clothes to still get the workout done.
Many people say to me that the run consumes the time that they might normally have to cook a decent dinner that they need to eat that evening and so they feel like they are robbing Peter to pay Paul by getting in a run. Many large families and families who are tightening their belts in this economy have taken to a set menu. If you have two weeks of meal ideas (just like your school cafeteria – but tastes better) you can plan and budget for how you will work them into your day. You can also fine tune them to your intake needs for running so that you are not haphazardly fueled. We use Excel at home and generate lists for the grocery, as well as add and subtract favorite meals easily. The other thing this allows us to do is make a Sunday into food prep time where we store away a few good meals in the freezer for the most chaotic nights of the week.
Planning and Tupperware is how the high school principal got his morning power smoothie post run too. I have even used ice cube trays to measure out the frozen portions to thaw or puree at will and this planning will carve out a bit more time in your schedule and not leave you hypoglycemic at the end of a workout. Nobody cares if you eat breakfast in the car on the way to work if you feel good and energized when you get to your destination. Do what it takes and you’ll feel better next New Year’s when this resolution was realized.
I’ll say one more thing about food and don’t think I am on a soapbox here but great Americana style food that I was brought up on (YUM) takes time to prepare. Meat may be the most intensive as well in terms of prep, cleanup etc. and this is where again, planning come in handy. Marc Bittman and other use a lot of grains, precut veggies, and less intensive ingredients as well a bit of pre trimmed meat you froze when you got home from the store to design great meals and it has taken a while for us to find all of our favorites but I have storehouse of them now. I even like Rachel Ray because her books divide dishes but how intensive they are to make – I resort the best of those by nutrient quality and go from there. (There are some good links on the blog site and you no longer need a cookbook to cook at our house if the computer is on…)
Equipment. Some people have bad names for treadmills but the fact is that they are open to run on when the weather is too hot, too cold, and too rainy or you have to make other use of the time that day. I know I told you there is no bad weather and I believe this, but sometime you need to multitask or you are not prepared to go out – and neither is a great excuse to miss what is important. My mom watches her shows during workout time and I listen to lecture when I am safe on the treadmill and can focus. They are great for the quick fix and you should use them as a time management tool. While a good treadmill is not cheap, there are a number of great ones in town that are easy to get to and have long hours. Remember that in March or April – after New Year’s resolution time is long gone and the weather is getting nice again, you might buy some poor guy’s $2,000 treadmill on Craig’s List for half price or better. This investment will last you over two decades with some light maintenance.
Another item equipment discussion includes is anything that you need to safeguard the time that you have so carefully set aside. So you carved out the time but it is snowing or whatever the weather does to keep you away from the run – recall that there is no bad weather, only inadequate clothing choices! I wear a rain hat, or great gloves, or put in my contacts for the pouring rain but I do not let something simple derail the workout. I have a great flashlight and a reflector for night runs and my neighbor use a vest like the road workers wear when he runs at night. Maybe you need a stun gun for that bad neighborhood right out your door - but a gym membership might be cheaper and not get you arrested for assault. I have come to find that there is no weather that I dislike running in and I feel all the more accomplished and infatigable for having made the effort. We even made ice cleats last winter just by putting little sheet metal screws into our old running shoes and I save them for icy days. Yes I feel silly running in them - but I kinda feel like MacGyver running in them too (and I still think he was cool). So find out what is holding you back – then work around it because you made the time, and you deserve the run.
Shuffle the big stones. There is an increase in folks who run to work or run home after work and anyone who has an HR department at their workplace should ask about any incentive that is offered for employee wellness or carbon savings. You are saving on gas or parking fees, gym membership and keeping your workplace insurance bills low, so anything you can gain in reimbursement would be gravy and could be put into a new pair of shorts. If they put in a shower – all the better, but there are ways around that too, have someone drop you at work and run home that evening.
Several folks have gotten a spouse, relative or buddy to run and this replaces their time at the bar or coffee stop with a cheap and healthy habit they do together. Jog strollers are another great investment and Craig’s List often has good ones so Junior can come along for family time. Two of my students got super fast by taking turns pushing their offspring down the bike trails in their jog stroller. I doubt it hurt their marriage either, as they ran along and shared their day. Check carefully, regarding how old your child needs to be before they can ride in one of these strollers.
There are a lot of multi-tasking things that you can get done during a run. Like I said earlier my mom gets her TV time when she runs on the treadmill. I study many days and Audible.com has thousands of unabridged books for download so you could listen to the news, read a bestseller you have been meaning to get to or even call your Ma like you should – because we run slowly enough to talk. Your phone has a voice recorder if you learn to use it and so you could easily complete you grocery list or anything else you wanted to while you’re out there. If you need to multitask then it clears some space to exercise when maybe you do not have time for both activities. If multitasking is more fun, then maybe you are motivated to get out the door more often and you reap the benefits – either way would be good, right? The way the story goes Dean Karnazes actually wrote his first book by dictation into a voice recorder on those long night runs of his and then retyped it later for his publisher. I know personally, that I do get a lot of good thinking done “on the road”.
Run by time not distance. You want to fit it all in and you need to know how long this will actually take. Run, snack, stretch, shower, all take time and there is pressure to get back to whatever the urgent thing is that is calling you. So make it easy and run by time rather than distance - seeking to keep your run a steady effort throughout and at PE 4. The distance thing is arbitrary if all you are looking for is fitness and wellness, and what is more important is to take some pressure off you. The funny thing is that this may actually improve your performance in the ensuing months. Now any route works, because you just split the time in half and double back on your route. You will know exactly when you’re home that evening and planning may be less complicated. Adding ten minutes a week to your long run is not a difficult computation, requires no new route research and if you are not watching the pace you can relax and just focus on a steady effort. (Recall, in order to learn the most about your “experiment of one” you must be consistent. Consistency also allows you to reap the subtle benefits that come from gradual training load increases. We shoot for 10% increases or less and the 10 minute technique works great and need not go to infinity to work – but one long run weekly makes all of your runs easier – trust me.)
Dr. Philip Maffetone discusses the idea that I posted a while back of being able to run the same distance, over each successive month, at a slightly faster or more efficient pace as your cardiac capacity improves. Even if your speed never significantly increases – your ease in performing this effort will improve and this, as well as how fast you return to your baseline heart rate – are good indicators of adaptation. Running by time is a great way to do this and is very low key. If you still worry about how many miles you run or what to tell someone – just don’t tell them. Keep it a secret and they’ll just think you are training for London in 2012.
How will I find time to race, because I want a few big goals? Folks that have a regular mileage program find that they can sharpen their speed and endurance for a particular race in just 5-8 weeks depending on their physical state. Most runners plan to take a break from running one or two times a year to stay fresh and let the body rest & see no adverse affects from doing so. Build that into your schedule too so you can gear up for the events you’d like to run and can clear that time to maybe add a day to training for the big event.
When you see that race you have always wanted to try – and I want to break my record! I simply work backwards from that race day. So I want to run on April 1st and I know that I have been really steady on my program this year. So I need 8 weeks where I can run 4 days a week instead of three. Cool, so I’ll count backwards eight weeks from April 1st to Feb 1st or so, and then see how can I shuffle my schedule for that one extra day of running and I’ll call Carl for a few new stretches and a route that resembles my race course. All set - and you should do that once in a while to mix it up and because it is fun.
Likewise enjoy a week (or two) of no running. Laying around or not having that extra schedule item is great because it frees you for something else, and you need not feel guilty or despondent because you know when you are coming back. Each time you do this you’ll come back to running renewed and ready to run. I hope that is what happens for any reader is that they build a habit, that they then find enriches them so much that they wish to do it every week, forever. To do that you really have to build it in and use the tricks you have to make that work. I used to work in an ivory tower – a university recreation facility so amazing it was like Las Vegas and it was all free to student use. Yet there were times that we joked that we needed to actually pay the students to exercise and recreate and enjoy themselves physically. Professionally the “tipping point” that we always spoke of was six months. If you can retain a person for six months in some fitness or wellness activity they’ll stick with it. After that amount of personal investment you have them in a habit, they have carved out a space for this in their lives and they are really seeing the benefits that we all know exist. The kicker is that many reading this have just finished a 5 month program that began in May - so you just have to stick with it a few more weeks and then as the days get darker – you’ll be successfully inoculated for your fitness habit and cookie season will not infect you! Neither will a host of other possible ailments and while we always have dark days sometimes the running will be there for you. It is one of the things that we were designed to do.
If you have not read enough on sacrificing something urgent, in order to dream and aspire to something important, then I have a good interview for you. The female winner of this year’s Western States 100 miler is a full time Mom of four kids and works full time as a teacher at 45 years old and NOT slowing down. I wanted to see if she had any new tricks that I did not mention above and she did mention a few - some extreme – as you might imagine. But she said that she seldom cleans house and her kids have learned to do a lot of their own chores, and yet they still sit down to a family meal every night (runners are all about a square meal, right). Read her story here at Runners World. Then get away from the computer and lace up your shoes…
“Good habits are worth being fanatical about.” John Irving
Friday, September 24, 2010
What's next?
This is it -our final class post of the session and our final group run this week and we head into fall race season. This class is always a huge treat for me as I watch and learn, and am continually inspired by student s and their progress as athletes. It is a rare privilege to facilitate this group and I thank you for the opportunity. You also helped (via your tuition) to raise a lot of great support for Girls On the Run and I hope you'll consider running one of their great 5K races in the future and/or the new upcoming Elkins half Marathon details TBD - but it is in the works.
I'll leave this site up for your reference and who knows - I may have time to contribute to it between now and our next class... sometime in the summer of 2011. Meanwhile feel free to share and post on the FB site to keep in touch and keep up on other's discoveries in the running world - we want to keep you on the road ad this is one more tool to do just that.
What’s next?
“What we call results are beginnings-” Ralph Waldo Emerson
The bad news is that this training program is nearing its end but the good news is that you all are real runners now – so what do you do with that?
Stanford and Tufts Universities have each studied the long term effects of running on physiology and have found that vigorous exercise is associated with living longer and in better health – irregardless of the age at which participants began their exercise program. Stanford’s 21 year study showed that runners age 50-72 experienced 40% reduced risk of disability, cancer, Alzheimer’s and just plain lived longer. In the same study, runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including joint injury.
Use it or loose it, you are a runner now and you can enjoy these benefits too if you keep with a program that works for you.
Re-establish a routine: While we have a good routine already you’ll need a few more calendar pages or a training log to keep planning your progress (www.personallogs.com) and you’ll want to modify and repeat your current plan or build a new one based upon your goals. A free online training log is at www.buckeyeoutdoors.com and they have some training plans you can overlay onto your race targets too.
The Elkins Road Runners group and the West Virginia Mountain Trail Runners (www.wvmtr.org) are always taking new members and are nearly free to join. They have group runs regularly and race events as well as social gatherings. Runners are a tribe; while they may not run at your pace or the same events – they will always encourage you to run and will welcome you. Some are too busy to wave and do not take it personally – real runners are folks who get out there, stay out there, share the knowledge and encourage other runners. There are many real runners in Elkins and the bigger your community the greater chance you’ll keep running – so find these folks in your tribe. Several of these folks you have already met at seminar and there are many more out there that will happily run with you or answer questions.
Keep building: Goals for a new runner usually revolve around faster or further. Training for further distance may hinge upon the amount of free time that you can devote to training. Remember in all training; for distance or training volume - to start slowly and use the “no greater than 10% increase (per week) rule”. Faster training techniques can be incorporated after 3-4 months of base mileage for the runner. So soon after your race, you can ease back into our training plan and start thinking about techniques for increasing your pace if you wish or begin adding a long run - not to exceed 10% further than your last long run.
If you are interested in building different types of runs and calculating what would be the correct pace for each type of run – you can use the McMillian Running calculator. He also offers online coaching.
Mix it up: Running events in your calendar allow you some mid-term training goals and are a fun way to get a t-shirt. Events are a great place to meet new runners too. Remember that folks who are running pretty hard 3-5 days a week should still seek to only race 13 or fewer miles per month. So if you want to support the local event & you are over quota then just run slow – like, long run slow.
Using techniques like track and speed workouts, hill work, long runs, foot strengthening drills, trail running, balance and flexibility drills and cross training are all ways to keep your running interesting and build your skill sets as a runner. New things in running involve greater strength training, balance drills, Pilates for core strength, yoga for flexibility and focus, and barefoot running. Runners use a lot of specificity training for moving in one plane – so taking up an activity that strengthens other areas of the body is very helpful for balance, the kind that keep you upright and balance; the kind that keeps versatile and well rounded.
A good yoga site with slideshows and podcasts
She also has a new book out called The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga. Working with the FIRST program recommendations, I like cycling, rowing and swimming (or aqua-jogging) for cross training as they do not incur load bearing stress to running muscles. Visit here for their program. The text I like and use in class is called Run Less, Run Faster and details the entire FIRST Program, including drills and training progressions – this program is grueling but it’ll get you to Boston if you so desire and will improve your running significantly.
Look down the road: Long runs allow you to think about the human potential and what you might want to do next. Bart Yasso is famous for saying “Never limit where your running can take you.”
Consider that Jeff Galloway offers a run-walk method that is proven for longer distances, making any length of event achievable if you desire.
20K (12.4 miles) this is a little used but fun distance
13.1 Half Marathon There are many great local and regional half marathons and this is a very attainable distance for runners to work towards. All of the challenge with less intense training cycles than a marathon. Sounds like a fit for nearly everybody in some ways.
Marathon (26.2) Very fun and attainable with one years running experience plus 16 weeks of marathon specific training. Tom Holland’s book got me through my first one in 2008 and I had a great day using his methods, so do not give that book away just yet!
Ultra-Marathon any distance beyond 26.2 includes 50K, 40 mile, 50 mile, 70 mile and 100+ mile events. While events are getting longer and more races are being created - attendance in these events is also growing quickly and allows runners to see some of the most fantastic locales on earth. You will want to have completed several 26.2 events before moving up to this distance.
Relay events: think about the Ultra style distances but sharing the load with 6-20 of your friends in an event that is road trip meets relay race. These are becoming very popular and combine a charity fundraising element with zany fun. The Hood-to-Coast relay in Oregon, Reach the Beach in New Hampshire, THE RELAY in Northern California, and the Ragnar Relay series of events all give you the chance run short legs of the total route and trade running stretches with team mates to complete the entire event.
Travel running: You can use a travel specialist and tour companies to book running excursions nearly anywhere on earth. Some folks try to get a run or race in all 50 states, other want a marathon on each continent (yes, they run one in Antarctica just for these people). Regardless of your goals, never take a trip without your running shoes, because while you need the exercise you will also find that a run is a great way to see a new town or even meet other runners.
There are running clubs online, online coaching and contacts for a running club where ever you may visit so that you can connect, stay motivated, and learn from what others are doing.
Find new events to run
A quick tour of iplayoutside.com will allow you to find nearly all road running events within the mid-Atlantic region. You can search by distance, type of race or proximity to you. A great tool - Runners World has a good race finder as well and remember that many times a marathon race will also have several shorter distance events planned around it (half marathon and 5K or 10k)
www.Coolrunning.com has a race finder
www.marathonguide.com has a great race finder
www.race360.com is also a race/event finder
Again, a great local resource is www.iplayoutside.com and most are there
I'll leave this site up for your reference and who knows - I may have time to contribute to it between now and our next class... sometime in the summer of 2011. Meanwhile feel free to share and post on the FB site to keep in touch and keep up on other's discoveries in the running world - we want to keep you on the road ad this is one more tool to do just that.
What’s next?
“What we call results are beginnings-” Ralph Waldo Emerson
The bad news is that this training program is nearing its end but the good news is that you all are real runners now – so what do you do with that?
Stanford and Tufts Universities have each studied the long term effects of running on physiology and have found that vigorous exercise is associated with living longer and in better health – irregardless of the age at which participants began their exercise program. Stanford’s 21 year study showed that runners age 50-72 experienced 40% reduced risk of disability, cancer, Alzheimer’s and just plain lived longer. In the same study, runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including joint injury.
Use it or loose it, you are a runner now and you can enjoy these benefits too if you keep with a program that works for you.
Re-establish a routine: While we have a good routine already you’ll need a few more calendar pages or a training log to keep planning your progress (www.personallogs.com) and you’ll want to modify and repeat your current plan or build a new one based upon your goals. A free online training log is at www.buckeyeoutdoors.com and they have some training plans you can overlay onto your race targets too.
The Elkins Road Runners group and the West Virginia Mountain Trail Runners (www.wvmtr.org) are always taking new members and are nearly free to join. They have group runs regularly and race events as well as social gatherings. Runners are a tribe; while they may not run at your pace or the same events – they will always encourage you to run and will welcome you. Some are too busy to wave and do not take it personally – real runners are folks who get out there, stay out there, share the knowledge and encourage other runners. There are many real runners in Elkins and the bigger your community the greater chance you’ll keep running – so find these folks in your tribe. Several of these folks you have already met at seminar and there are many more out there that will happily run with you or answer questions.
Keep building: Goals for a new runner usually revolve around faster or further. Training for further distance may hinge upon the amount of free time that you can devote to training. Remember in all training; for distance or training volume - to start slowly and use the “no greater than 10% increase (per week) rule”. Faster training techniques can be incorporated after 3-4 months of base mileage for the runner. So soon after your race, you can ease back into our training plan and start thinking about techniques for increasing your pace if you wish or begin adding a long run - not to exceed 10% further than your last long run.
If you are interested in building different types of runs and calculating what would be the correct pace for each type of run – you can use the McMillian Running calculator. He also offers online coaching.
Mix it up: Running events in your calendar allow you some mid-term training goals and are a fun way to get a t-shirt. Events are a great place to meet new runners too. Remember that folks who are running pretty hard 3-5 days a week should still seek to only race 13 or fewer miles per month. So if you want to support the local event & you are over quota then just run slow – like, long run slow.
Using techniques like track and speed workouts, hill work, long runs, foot strengthening drills, trail running, balance and flexibility drills and cross training are all ways to keep your running interesting and build your skill sets as a runner. New things in running involve greater strength training, balance drills, Pilates for core strength, yoga for flexibility and focus, and barefoot running. Runners use a lot of specificity training for moving in one plane – so taking up an activity that strengthens other areas of the body is very helpful for balance, the kind that keep you upright and balance; the kind that keeps versatile and well rounded.
A good yoga site with slideshows and podcasts
She also has a new book out called The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga. Working with the FIRST program recommendations, I like cycling, rowing and swimming (or aqua-jogging) for cross training as they do not incur load bearing stress to running muscles. Visit here for their program. The text I like and use in class is called Run Less, Run Faster and details the entire FIRST Program, including drills and training progressions – this program is grueling but it’ll get you to Boston if you so desire and will improve your running significantly.
Look down the road: Long runs allow you to think about the human potential and what you might want to do next. Bart Yasso is famous for saying “Never limit where your running can take you.”
Consider that Jeff Galloway offers a run-walk method that is proven for longer distances, making any length of event achievable if you desire.
20K (12.4 miles) this is a little used but fun distance
13.1 Half Marathon There are many great local and regional half marathons and this is a very attainable distance for runners to work towards. All of the challenge with less intense training cycles than a marathon. Sounds like a fit for nearly everybody in some ways.
Marathon (26.2) Very fun and attainable with one years running experience plus 16 weeks of marathon specific training. Tom Holland’s book got me through my first one in 2008 and I had a great day using his methods, so do not give that book away just yet!
Ultra-Marathon any distance beyond 26.2 includes 50K, 40 mile, 50 mile, 70 mile and 100+ mile events. While events are getting longer and more races are being created - attendance in these events is also growing quickly and allows runners to see some of the most fantastic locales on earth. You will want to have completed several 26.2 events before moving up to this distance.
Relay events: think about the Ultra style distances but sharing the load with 6-20 of your friends in an event that is road trip meets relay race. These are becoming very popular and combine a charity fundraising element with zany fun. The Hood-to-Coast relay in Oregon, Reach the Beach in New Hampshire, THE RELAY in Northern California, and the Ragnar Relay series of events all give you the chance run short legs of the total route and trade running stretches with team mates to complete the entire event.
Travel running: You can use a travel specialist and tour companies to book running excursions nearly anywhere on earth. Some folks try to get a run or race in all 50 states, other want a marathon on each continent (yes, they run one in Antarctica just for these people). Regardless of your goals, never take a trip without your running shoes, because while you need the exercise you will also find that a run is a great way to see a new town or even meet other runners.
There are running clubs online, online coaching and contacts for a running club where ever you may visit so that you can connect, stay motivated, and learn from what others are doing.
Find new events to run
A quick tour of iplayoutside.com will allow you to find nearly all road running events within the mid-Atlantic region. You can search by distance, type of race or proximity to you. A great tool - Runners World has a good race finder as well and remember that many times a marathon race will also have several shorter distance events planned around it (half marathon and 5K or 10k)
www.Coolrunning.com has a race finder
www.marathonguide.com has a great race finder
www.race360.com is also a race/event finder
Again, a great local resource is www.iplayoutside.com and most are there
Friday, September 17, 2010
Barefooting – what and why?
This installment comes with a handout you can pick up at the YMCA desk until Oct 1st...
While the book Born To Run and the recently published research of Dr. Dan Leiberman seems to have energized the term barefooting and made it into almost a household word – running barefoot did not start in 2009 or even in this century. While I would encourage you to read the work of both of these guys – I’ll take a minute to point out some highlights of how we got to running shoes in the 20th century. I hope to also spark a bit of thought about what things looked like before shoes and how that factors into where we are at today. I will refer you to a great article in Ultrarunning magazine as well, which is a great summary of why you should or should not dump the nice running shoes I asked you to buy in the first place. I kept my shoes but I think that every runner should look at the history of our sport and can take a lesson from what shoeless or minimal shoes can do for your running.
26 bones, 33 joints, 12 tendons, 18 muscles; each foot is an amazing piece of machinery and while it has many things it does not have others – so why it is made this way and what was it for in the first place?
Science has made a great case for a theory that the current form of humans evolved and succeeded as a species due to 26 different, running specific, adaptations. These adaptations allowed us to pursue quarry on the move, at a rate just fast enough to tire that animal out, while we have the innate endurance to finish the hunt and gain groceries. Again, Dr. Dan Leiberman offers a much more through explanation of this theory and it is solidly based in the science of biology and comparative biology. We were able to travel, pretty fast, and fast enough to win food and cross great distances. Clearly, we did this without shoes and anthropologists have not found any evidence of Nikes from this critical time period.
Until Bill Bowerman, the famous University of Oregon track coach, created the running shoe in America in 1972, just 38 years ago, we all ran in very thin light shoes that offered little in the way of a heel cushion or padding from the ground. I have read that he designed the shoe to accommodate what he felt would be a longer and more competitive stride for his athletes. He could teach them to lead with the heel and the longer stride length would out run the competition.
Currently in Africa and many parts of the developing world, children are raised without transportation and also without footwear. It is estimated that the average Kenyan child has about 1,800 miles on their legs and feet by the time they graduate from primary school and all of these miles, for the majority of kids, are without shoes of any kind. It has been argued that this contributes to the number of victories for great Kenyan runners at the international level and on the Olympic podium. Early leg development and natural foot strength (at altitude, Kenya is a mountainous region with an altitude similar to Flagstaff, AZ) allow these kids to develop all the capabilities of their legs before serious training ever begins for competition.
Many cultures are able to train and run well without shoes or with minimal shoes. The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico are featured in Born To Run for their great ability and running in very simple sandals – a slab of rubber strapped to their feet for protection from sharp objects. This is a similar style of shoe to many early Nations of the American Southwest and the pre Spanish cultures in South America such as the Maya and Inca who had thousands of miles of roads and very little in the way of shoes to traverse them. In those days a severe running injury would cause you to drop lower on the food chain – a deadly prospect. So it might be safe (or humorous) to assume that if running injuries did occur in Inca runners – these runners did not pass on the genes for any fragile lower legs and knees.
According to Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run, Alan Webb’s feet where flat and three sizes larger when he started working with his high school coach to become America’s new top miler. In 2007 Alan set the world’s best 1,500 meter time and broke Jim Ryun’s American record for the mile. But his quest began with flat, weak, de-conditioned feet that were in need of rebuilding. McDougall writes about an interview with Alan Webb on page 175 of his book and Webb says “ I had injury problems early on, … so we did foot strengthening drills and special walks in bare feet” McDougall writes that Alan’s feet changed and his arches became higher as muscles strengthened – his shoe size decreased and his injuries abated.
McDougall writes of an Irish Ph.D, Gerard Hartman who is considered an expert in physical therapy and works with professional runners from around the globe to improve their running. He has been a proponent of barefoot running for many years and cites that “the deconditioned musculature of the foot is the greatest issue leading to running injury, and we’ve allowed our feet to become badly deconditioned over the past twenty-five years”. Many folks have advocated that slowly and gently strengthening our feet over time will allow us to run better and with less injury. We may even find that we can run in lighter footwear. Lighter footwear means less effort and perhaps faster or the sensation of faster as the weight on the end of your leg from a heavy shoe creates a pendulum that takes effort to keep moving.
What do shoes do for me? While all seem to agree that having a sole cover your tender skin provides some protection – many experts are currently reexamining what shoes do well and do not do so well. The good news about this controversy is that in the past 38 years, very little substantive research has been done on how shoes truly affect feet and that is beginning to change now. The United States Military is greatly invested in physical conditioning of its personnel and in the past has seen very high rates of injury in basic training and its share of running related injuries. A recent study on determining the appropriate footwear has shown that the type of running shoe had no correlation on injury prevention for the military personnel in the study. This leads us to “well what can I use to control the movement of my foot, for the least chance of injury?” Your gait, how your foot hits the ground and your running technique becomes more important than the type of running shoe that you might wear according to this study. Manufacturers have succeeded in creating footwear that controls movements of the foot and offers important padding from the ground as you begin running. However, seeking to control the movement of the foot by using a shoe will not be successful in the long run according to new studies. Technique will carry the day and great technique; sensitive feet that are aware of what they hit (and strong feet) may lead to using a much lighter shoe down the road.
In the current day there is an entire tribe of folks dedicated to running entirely without shoes. They have run marathons, ultra marathons and farther in bare feet, and carry flip-flops with them to get into Wal-Mart or a restaurant. You can read their websites and their ideas about what shoes do and do not do for the wearer and how they feel more free with naked feet.
These “barefoot guys” read a bit like they are off the deep end – “foot yogi-mysticism” or something. However, take a good look at the number of people from the medical community that advocate the sale of moccasins to children and preach “barefoot is best” for toddlers. The reason for this, they advocate, is that kids walk sooner when they learn to interpret the ground with their feet (proprioception) and build foot strength naturally. They do not want kids to cut their feet and thus sell a light flexible protective moc- type shoe to achieve this. Many parents have subscribed to this idea with the pediatricians blessing and I’ve seen it work for my own kids. (As I was buying lots of shoes for my running, at $80/pair…)
Arthur Lydiard was a cobbler and made shoes before he was a coach. A coach who was very focused on the success of his athletes. He had his runners in the most basic of footwear and preached against anything “more” for his entire career, which extended well into the era of modern shoes. Internationally sought after coach and physician, Dr. Phil Maffetone was suggesting more than a decade ago that minimal footwear was preferable for similar reasons.
Even Stanford University’s world class track and cross country coach (the program gets Nike’s for free) has had his athletes running barefoot in the grass, two afternoons a week, for decades. He said to Nike that his guys got hurt less when they subscribed to this method. (This is what drove Nike to work with Dr. Gerard Hartman to create the Nike Free.) Long before the birth of the very popular Vibram Five Fingers shoe – many companies across the country have made a living manufacturing simple moccasins and unstructured footwear that allow the foot to move and muscles to work. Inuit people, north of the Arctic Circle knew that this is what kept their feet warm in winter – that the boot would flex and allow better circulation.
While this is all good for some; I am most concerned with my runners being injury free, using the best technique and enjoying their running forever. Many will need something on their feet, at least in winter, to do this and barefooting may be something to try and work into their training program along with foot strengthening and conditioning.
Simply walking around without shoes at home is a good place to start and walking farther progressively is another. You may choose to try the new Vibram Five Fingers Shoes as well, which offer that slight amount of protection for your tender skin and not much else for padding. I have started using theses on very short runs (by time) and adding minutes each week very slowly. I spent a year reworking my stride before I ran with these shoes so that I am not landing on my heel much at all but using the mid-foot and most of my foot to absorb the impact of each step. Further you can practice this technique while walking – you need not run in order to learn how to walk more gently and with a light step.
So this year’s Outdoor Retailer Trade show saw scores of outdoor footwear manufacturers gunning for a piece of the barefoot pie, gearing up to make “thneeds”, or feather weight running shoes for everyone who wants to run barefoot. Get ready to see dozens of these models in the marketplace next year – like Crocs a few years ago, but sillier looking. You may choose to try them or go barefoot, grab some moccasins, run in cheaper “race flats” or just try your old Chuck Taylor’s like Lydiard ran in for decades. But think about a deliberate program of gentle foot strengthening for yourself as a possible next step in your program and add it gradually, just like you started running. Feet that “know the ground” and are sensitive, are less likely to sprain an ankle, will run trails better and may run slower at first but that is OK, you’re in shape and will not “detrain” as a part of this process. Your lower legs will continue to develop in a way that may reduce your injuries over time and your stride will adapt to something that is more powerful in the long run. That is what I want for your running – long running for the long run. So run gently out there.
Read an article about shoeless study here
The NIH article on the Army study here
Danny Dryers list of preferred light weight shoes
Interesting article on shoes from a rehab perspective
While the book Born To Run and the recently published research of Dr. Dan Leiberman seems to have energized the term barefooting and made it into almost a household word – running barefoot did not start in 2009 or even in this century. While I would encourage you to read the work of both of these guys – I’ll take a minute to point out some highlights of how we got to running shoes in the 20th century. I hope to also spark a bit of thought about what things looked like before shoes and how that factors into where we are at today. I will refer you to a great article in Ultrarunning magazine as well, which is a great summary of why you should or should not dump the nice running shoes I asked you to buy in the first place. I kept my shoes but I think that every runner should look at the history of our sport and can take a lesson from what shoeless or minimal shoes can do for your running.
26 bones, 33 joints, 12 tendons, 18 muscles; each foot is an amazing piece of machinery and while it has many things it does not have others – so why it is made this way and what was it for in the first place?
Science has made a great case for a theory that the current form of humans evolved and succeeded as a species due to 26 different, running specific, adaptations. These adaptations allowed us to pursue quarry on the move, at a rate just fast enough to tire that animal out, while we have the innate endurance to finish the hunt and gain groceries. Again, Dr. Dan Leiberman offers a much more through explanation of this theory and it is solidly based in the science of biology and comparative biology. We were able to travel, pretty fast, and fast enough to win food and cross great distances. Clearly, we did this without shoes and anthropologists have not found any evidence of Nikes from this critical time period.
Until Bill Bowerman, the famous University of Oregon track coach, created the running shoe in America in 1972, just 38 years ago, we all ran in very thin light shoes that offered little in the way of a heel cushion or padding from the ground. I have read that he designed the shoe to accommodate what he felt would be a longer and more competitive stride for his athletes. He could teach them to lead with the heel and the longer stride length would out run the competition.
Currently in Africa and many parts of the developing world, children are raised without transportation and also without footwear. It is estimated that the average Kenyan child has about 1,800 miles on their legs and feet by the time they graduate from primary school and all of these miles, for the majority of kids, are without shoes of any kind. It has been argued that this contributes to the number of victories for great Kenyan runners at the international level and on the Olympic podium. Early leg development and natural foot strength (at altitude, Kenya is a mountainous region with an altitude similar to Flagstaff, AZ) allow these kids to develop all the capabilities of their legs before serious training ever begins for competition.
Many cultures are able to train and run well without shoes or with minimal shoes. The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico are featured in Born To Run for their great ability and running in very simple sandals – a slab of rubber strapped to their feet for protection from sharp objects. This is a similar style of shoe to many early Nations of the American Southwest and the pre Spanish cultures in South America such as the Maya and Inca who had thousands of miles of roads and very little in the way of shoes to traverse them. In those days a severe running injury would cause you to drop lower on the food chain – a deadly prospect. So it might be safe (or humorous) to assume that if running injuries did occur in Inca runners – these runners did not pass on the genes for any fragile lower legs and knees.
According to Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run, Alan Webb’s feet where flat and three sizes larger when he started working with his high school coach to become America’s new top miler. In 2007 Alan set the world’s best 1,500 meter time and broke Jim Ryun’s American record for the mile. But his quest began with flat, weak, de-conditioned feet that were in need of rebuilding. McDougall writes about an interview with Alan Webb on page 175 of his book and Webb says “ I had injury problems early on, … so we did foot strengthening drills and special walks in bare feet” McDougall writes that Alan’s feet changed and his arches became higher as muscles strengthened – his shoe size decreased and his injuries abated.
McDougall writes of an Irish Ph.D, Gerard Hartman who is considered an expert in physical therapy and works with professional runners from around the globe to improve their running. He has been a proponent of barefoot running for many years and cites that “the deconditioned musculature of the foot is the greatest issue leading to running injury, and we’ve allowed our feet to become badly deconditioned over the past twenty-five years”. Many folks have advocated that slowly and gently strengthening our feet over time will allow us to run better and with less injury. We may even find that we can run in lighter footwear. Lighter footwear means less effort and perhaps faster or the sensation of faster as the weight on the end of your leg from a heavy shoe creates a pendulum that takes effort to keep moving.
What do shoes do for me? While all seem to agree that having a sole cover your tender skin provides some protection – many experts are currently reexamining what shoes do well and do not do so well. The good news about this controversy is that in the past 38 years, very little substantive research has been done on how shoes truly affect feet and that is beginning to change now. The United States Military is greatly invested in physical conditioning of its personnel and in the past has seen very high rates of injury in basic training and its share of running related injuries. A recent study on determining the appropriate footwear has shown that the type of running shoe had no correlation on injury prevention for the military personnel in the study. This leads us to “well what can I use to control the movement of my foot, for the least chance of injury?” Your gait, how your foot hits the ground and your running technique becomes more important than the type of running shoe that you might wear according to this study. Manufacturers have succeeded in creating footwear that controls movements of the foot and offers important padding from the ground as you begin running. However, seeking to control the movement of the foot by using a shoe will not be successful in the long run according to new studies. Technique will carry the day and great technique; sensitive feet that are aware of what they hit (and strong feet) may lead to using a much lighter shoe down the road.
In the current day there is an entire tribe of folks dedicated to running entirely without shoes. They have run marathons, ultra marathons and farther in bare feet, and carry flip-flops with them to get into Wal-Mart or a restaurant. You can read their websites and their ideas about what shoes do and do not do for the wearer and how they feel more free with naked feet.
These “barefoot guys” read a bit like they are off the deep end – “foot yogi-mysticism” or something. However, take a good look at the number of people from the medical community that advocate the sale of moccasins to children and preach “barefoot is best” for toddlers. The reason for this, they advocate, is that kids walk sooner when they learn to interpret the ground with their feet (proprioception) and build foot strength naturally. They do not want kids to cut their feet and thus sell a light flexible protective moc- type shoe to achieve this. Many parents have subscribed to this idea with the pediatricians blessing and I’ve seen it work for my own kids. (As I was buying lots of shoes for my running, at $80/pair…)
Arthur Lydiard was a cobbler and made shoes before he was a coach. A coach who was very focused on the success of his athletes. He had his runners in the most basic of footwear and preached against anything “more” for his entire career, which extended well into the era of modern shoes. Internationally sought after coach and physician, Dr. Phil Maffetone was suggesting more than a decade ago that minimal footwear was preferable for similar reasons.
Even Stanford University’s world class track and cross country coach (the program gets Nike’s for free) has had his athletes running barefoot in the grass, two afternoons a week, for decades. He said to Nike that his guys got hurt less when they subscribed to this method. (This is what drove Nike to work with Dr. Gerard Hartman to create the Nike Free.) Long before the birth of the very popular Vibram Five Fingers shoe – many companies across the country have made a living manufacturing simple moccasins and unstructured footwear that allow the foot to move and muscles to work. Inuit people, north of the Arctic Circle knew that this is what kept their feet warm in winter – that the boot would flex and allow better circulation.
While this is all good for some; I am most concerned with my runners being injury free, using the best technique and enjoying their running forever. Many will need something on their feet, at least in winter, to do this and barefooting may be something to try and work into their training program along with foot strengthening and conditioning.
Simply walking around without shoes at home is a good place to start and walking farther progressively is another. You may choose to try the new Vibram Five Fingers Shoes as well, which offer that slight amount of protection for your tender skin and not much else for padding. I have started using theses on very short runs (by time) and adding minutes each week very slowly. I spent a year reworking my stride before I ran with these shoes so that I am not landing on my heel much at all but using the mid-foot and most of my foot to absorb the impact of each step. Further you can practice this technique while walking – you need not run in order to learn how to walk more gently and with a light step.
So this year’s Outdoor Retailer Trade show saw scores of outdoor footwear manufacturers gunning for a piece of the barefoot pie, gearing up to make “thneeds”, or feather weight running shoes for everyone who wants to run barefoot. Get ready to see dozens of these models in the marketplace next year – like Crocs a few years ago, but sillier looking. You may choose to try them or go barefoot, grab some moccasins, run in cheaper “race flats” or just try your old Chuck Taylor’s like Lydiard ran in for decades. But think about a deliberate program of gentle foot strengthening for yourself as a possible next step in your program and add it gradually, just like you started running. Feet that “know the ground” and are sensitive, are less likely to sprain an ankle, will run trails better and may run slower at first but that is OK, you’re in shape and will not “detrain” as a part of this process. Your lower legs will continue to develop in a way that may reduce your injuries over time and your stride will adapt to something that is more powerful in the long run. That is what I want for your running – long running for the long run. So run gently out there.
Read an article about shoeless study here
The NIH article on the Army study here
Danny Dryers list of preferred light weight shoes
Interesting article on shoes from a rehab perspective
Running On the Cheap
Running on the Cheap –
Save your money for shoes or running shorts and let’s talk about tricks for getting more miles out of your recreation budget.
Some of the best tips from our friends at Runners World include:
Local races are cheaper, sometimes offer food and are a great way to meet new running partners. The side benefits – you may be the fastest one there or for your division and this can be a prize category along with bragging rights. Always plan ahead for your race and pre-register. For big races this can save you $25 on the entry fee. If you travel to run then plan to carpool and room share with running buddies to trim costs. Pack a lunch to share and carbo load together.
Always support your local running store when you can. No shipping and the immediate gratification of having what you need and keeping a shop open near you. Ask if they’ll meet whatever catalog price you saw too – it never hurts to ask and a good business person can always find a polite way to state what they cannot do.
Volunteer at a race – often you can still run it and maybe at a reduced fee in exchange for your time. It is a fun and different way to be involved and it is what keeps area races going.
Fall is a key time for shoe models to change and whenever you see the new shoe guides hit the newsstand that means it is time to pick up whatever model you were running in for a better price as it goes off of the shelf. If you are a very common size you may need to jump on this a bit sooner to get your shoes but the pay off is worth it. They do not go bad in the box and most folks do not see a shoe size change annually. Roadrunner, REI, and zappos are all good sites for shoe sales when the style season ends.
Buying multiple pairs of shoes that work well for you does a few things. You are not pressured by style change when they phase out something that is working well for you. Secondly when you rotate shoes they last longer on account of the fact that the supportive foam (the only thing that really wears out sometimes on a shoe) has 48 hours to rebound every time you run your shoes. Getting them an air-out time and allowing foam to recover allows me to run two pair at a time, possibly 50-100 miles further than I could otherwise. Many runners benefit from this practice and it adds up over the cost of several pairs.
There is an increase in folks who run to work or run home after work and anyone who has an HR department at their workplace they should ask about any incentive that is offered for employee wellness or carbon savings. You are saving on gas or parking fees, gym membership and keeping your workplace insurance bills low so anything you can gain in reimbursement would be gravy.
Several folks have gotten a spouse, relative or buddy to run and this replaces their time at the bar or coffee stop with a cheap and healthy habit they do together.
Switch to real food. Better for you and less money too. Often times an easy grocery store substitute can replace expensive energy gels and Gatorade. Diluted fruit juice works for some folks and others just use less powder than the mix calls for (and Gatorade powder is far better and cheaper than paying for water and high fructose corn syrup) fruit leather, pretzels, honey, or any road tested thing you like is less money than a Powerbar. I am a big fan of PB&J on wheat.
Our area running clubs; Elkins Roadrunners and WV Mountain Trail Runners are very affordable ways to meet folks and their events are low budget and very fun affairs. Sometimes there will be apparel available that is great for running in and some clubs do get discounts from retailers – it pays to ask.
Your loved ones now know you are a runner so be specific when your birthday or Christmas comes and give them your shoe size and model; for what is the most costly and most often purchased item on your list.
Remember that big races are now often giving out technical fabric race shirts and these are your "two for one" deals on running apparel. When it comes to outerwear, shorts and shoes: this often remains an expensive spot in the starting runner’s budget. Remember that in days of old, wool was the original technical fiber and it still works great for everything but summer running. It is also already in the closet or at the secondhand store. I have always been a deal hound at the army/navy store for this kind of technical clothing for being outside. A funny and informative recent column sent Runners World staffers to the big box stores to shop out any clothing that looked like it would get them through weekly mileage and they only had $100 to spend for a complete outfit. Sports Authority and Amazon came up as the best bets for this shopping challenge. Two stores had brand name shoes and the shoes were similar to the manufacturer’s regular shoes with technology that was just several year older than new – yet good. Clothing from Starter, Champion, and Nike all turned out have some items that were acceptable to the testers, just simply did not last as long as what they were accustomed to. (Understand that the RW magazine editors all run in the newest free stuff to product test every month so they set the bar unfairly high.)
Runners World polled folks on their spending habits and found that 3% folks spent less than $100/year on running. The largest group 28% spent $250-499/year on running and an almost equally large number spent more than $1000/year ( I would guess that this accounts for travel to destination events) Recent polling shows that runners spending has held pretty constant in the current climate as well. Folks have a good habit that they cannot give up and they will continue to run even if they downsize a bit.
I hope some of these ideas and tips will help get you further this year. If you have others please post them to the facebook site.
Save your money for shoes or running shorts and let’s talk about tricks for getting more miles out of your recreation budget.
Some of the best tips from our friends at Runners World include:
Local races are cheaper, sometimes offer food and are a great way to meet new running partners. The side benefits – you may be the fastest one there or for your division and this can be a prize category along with bragging rights. Always plan ahead for your race and pre-register. For big races this can save you $25 on the entry fee. If you travel to run then plan to carpool and room share with running buddies to trim costs. Pack a lunch to share and carbo load together.
Always support your local running store when you can. No shipping and the immediate gratification of having what you need and keeping a shop open near you. Ask if they’ll meet whatever catalog price you saw too – it never hurts to ask and a good business person can always find a polite way to state what they cannot do.
Volunteer at a race – often you can still run it and maybe at a reduced fee in exchange for your time. It is a fun and different way to be involved and it is what keeps area races going.
Fall is a key time for shoe models to change and whenever you see the new shoe guides hit the newsstand that means it is time to pick up whatever model you were running in for a better price as it goes off of the shelf. If you are a very common size you may need to jump on this a bit sooner to get your shoes but the pay off is worth it. They do not go bad in the box and most folks do not see a shoe size change annually. Roadrunner, REI, and zappos are all good sites for shoe sales when the style season ends.
Buying multiple pairs of shoes that work well for you does a few things. You are not pressured by style change when they phase out something that is working well for you. Secondly when you rotate shoes they last longer on account of the fact that the supportive foam (the only thing that really wears out sometimes on a shoe) has 48 hours to rebound every time you run your shoes. Getting them an air-out time and allowing foam to recover allows me to run two pair at a time, possibly 50-100 miles further than I could otherwise. Many runners benefit from this practice and it adds up over the cost of several pairs.
There is an increase in folks who run to work or run home after work and anyone who has an HR department at their workplace they should ask about any incentive that is offered for employee wellness or carbon savings. You are saving on gas or parking fees, gym membership and keeping your workplace insurance bills low so anything you can gain in reimbursement would be gravy.
Several folks have gotten a spouse, relative or buddy to run and this replaces their time at the bar or coffee stop with a cheap and healthy habit they do together.
Switch to real food. Better for you and less money too. Often times an easy grocery store substitute can replace expensive energy gels and Gatorade. Diluted fruit juice works for some folks and others just use less powder than the mix calls for (and Gatorade powder is far better and cheaper than paying for water and high fructose corn syrup) fruit leather, pretzels, honey, or any road tested thing you like is less money than a Powerbar. I am a big fan of PB&J on wheat.
Our area running clubs; Elkins Roadrunners and WV Mountain Trail Runners are very affordable ways to meet folks and their events are low budget and very fun affairs. Sometimes there will be apparel available that is great for running in and some clubs do get discounts from retailers – it pays to ask.
Your loved ones now know you are a runner so be specific when your birthday or Christmas comes and give them your shoe size and model; for what is the most costly and most often purchased item on your list.
Remember that big races are now often giving out technical fabric race shirts and these are your "two for one" deals on running apparel. When it comes to outerwear, shorts and shoes: this often remains an expensive spot in the starting runner’s budget. Remember that in days of old, wool was the original technical fiber and it still works great for everything but summer running. It is also already in the closet or at the secondhand store. I have always been a deal hound at the army/navy store for this kind of technical clothing for being outside. A funny and informative recent column sent Runners World staffers to the big box stores to shop out any clothing that looked like it would get them through weekly mileage and they only had $100 to spend for a complete outfit. Sports Authority and Amazon came up as the best bets for this shopping challenge. Two stores had brand name shoes and the shoes were similar to the manufacturer’s regular shoes with technology that was just several year older than new – yet good. Clothing from Starter, Champion, and Nike all turned out have some items that were acceptable to the testers, just simply did not last as long as what they were accustomed to. (Understand that the RW magazine editors all run in the newest free stuff to product test every month so they set the bar unfairly high.)
Runners World polled folks on their spending habits and found that 3% folks spent less than $100/year on running. The largest group 28% spent $250-499/year on running and an almost equally large number spent more than $1000/year ( I would guess that this accounts for travel to destination events) Recent polling shows that runners spending has held pretty constant in the current climate as well. Folks have a good habit that they cannot give up and they will continue to run even if they downsize a bit.
I hope some of these ideas and tips will help get you further this year. If you have others please post them to the facebook site.
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