Race Weekend

I am finishing up my taper for the Akron Marathon this weekend.  One more run, and then the race.  It's so exciting.  Also, some clients will be running the Great Race here in Pittsburgh on Sunday.  Everyone is ready to go.  All the training is complete, and now we get to enjoy the experience and see how fast we can run.  

Food as Friend

This NYT article discusses a "new trend" in dieting. I agree mostly with its premise. If people know what to eat, as opposed to what not to eat, they will make better choices, have a better diet, feel better, and be able to maintain a normal weight. Eating well is not about removing all the pleasures from our food, but its about weighing the value of the foods you eat. If we can add more healthy, whole foods to our diet, we will have less desire/capacity for the foods that are not as good for us.

Don't get me wrong. Those who know me, understand that I have a real soft spot for sweets. Anytime I am at an event where there are cookies around, they always catch my eye and I am tempted. I have learned about the quality and pleasure of food though. If its one of those ooey, gooey, melty, soft, to-die-for chocolate chip cookies I will definitely partake (I try to resist eating so many that I get sick). I have learned to say no to the 1 million to a box, cardboard looking and tasting chocolate chip cookies that frequent such functions. Its not worth it to me to try and satisfy my sweet craving with something that won't come close to satisfying it.

Also, it is easier to eat good foods if I prepare it before hand. At work, I eat quite well, and that is mainly because I bring all my food and know what I am going to eat at what time of the day. This eliminates the "what do I feel like right now?" portion of selecting food.

Overtraining

This overtraining article in NYT provided some much needed insight on the problem that occurs when athletes train too hard for too long. With overtraining, athletes feel sluggish, irritable, and notice performance decreases. The article discusses that it cannot happen with people who are running 20 miles a week, and that it only occurs when training with high mileage (or training) over long periods of time. This may be true, but I would argue then, that you can feel the effects of overtraining in a short period of time, no matter what your fitness. If you are feeling tired and sluggish and maintain a high volume, you may want to evaluate your training.

Something that is neglected in the article is the importance of recovery. When training with high mileage, you need more sleep, to eat more, and be able to recover better. If you decrease your recovery time, it has the same effect as increasing your training. Sometimes rest and sleep is more important than some of the training runs.

Running in the dark and hills and marathon training

As I prepare for the Akron Marathon I am determined not to be burned by the hills from mile 15-22, and my training has mirrored this. I am incorporating much more hill running, and today to simulate the race I ran a 6 mile tempo run and then hit the hills fatigued to get used to the pain. It worked wonderfully, and I will probably do it again. The most exciting part of the run came at the beginning. I was running down a significant hill near my house. It is such a hill, that the sidewalk has stairs to help people go up and down. I usually don't run down the stairs, but try to stay with the steep slope of the road. I wear a red flashing light when I run in the dark as to be seen by all the oncoming traffic.

I was headed down such hill in the wee hours of the morning and noticed that a car was coming up, and of course it had its headlights on because it was dark. I moved from the road to the stairs to avoid the possibility of a head on collision with the vehicle (a battle that I would surely lose) and continued on my merry way. As the car passed me (again, with its headlights on) the passenger leaned out his window and yelled "Booo!"

Seriously.

Who passes a runner running in the opposite direction of their vehicle at 5 am and offer commentary that is appropriate for a sneak attack. Personally, I would have felt better if he said something derogatory towards me or my family than this. I could understand if they were passing me from behind with their lights off and the engine off in stealth mode, but head on? Give me a break.

Kinesio-tape

While watching the Olympics over the past weeks, I have noticed a little bit of kinesio-tape on some of the athletes in the events.  To begin with, I do not use it, nor do I know too much about it.  Do I believe it "works?" Probably, almost everything does a little bit.  While in chiropractic college we had a little seminar/presentation about kinesio-tape.  This presentation was given to chiropractic students and chiropractors (a population that has a greater than average understanding of human physiology and biomechanics), and the presenter focused on the fact that professional teams and athletes use the tape.  In fact, she had a handout with pictures of prominent athletes who use the tape.  For me, I would rather know the science, theory, and thought behind a therapy than who uses it.  As long as the idea is logical and reasonable, I don't have any issues with the procedure and consider the validity of it.  That particular presentation just turned me off to the idea because it was presented to me as if I would be impressed by the individuals receiving it.

Pittsburgh Training

As we continue to prepare for the Great Race. I am amazed by the great places to train here in Pittsburgh. North Park, Riverview Park, and Schenley Park are all wonderful and I am sure the others are just as good. What's most exciting is the diversity in training that we are able to do right here in downtown Pittsburgh. We are able to walk right out of our office downtown and train on a variety of terrains and surfaces all within a 5 minute warm-up jog. Some of my favorites are running around PNC Park and Heinz Field, both of which are less than a 4 mile loop from the office. We also do speed work on the jail trail and the trail on the North Shore. The many bridges offer an effective substitute for small inclined hills. If we want a more substantial incline, that's easy...it's Pittsburgh.

10k training

Our customized training is usually performed in our training studio in downtown Pittsburgh. We have some clients though, that aren't only training for strength, but also want to run and use running as a mechanism to get healthy. We encourage this. We are working with a client who decided he wanted to run a 10k later this year. We have been working on getting in mileage so he can run a quality race. His last race was in 1982, that was also his first, so we started from scratch. He has progressed quite well, and is noticing changes in how he looks and feels. Also, he has received comments from others. We recently set up a mock race for him (5k), and he exceeded our expectations. With a little more training he will be ready for his big race.