Monthly Archives: March 2008

Half Training: Week Eight

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Image provided by stock.xchng.

Well this is another crazy week here. The race last Sunday is still playing havoc with the training schedule as well as a quick trip south for Easter.

Here’s what I got for the week:

Monday – Run 2 miles at 10K pace, then slow down to goal half marathon pace for 5 miles. After the 5 miles at goal pace, speed up to 5K pace for 800 meters. Cool down with 800 meters at an easy pace. I actually did 4 easy miles in fluffy white snow with the temperatures right around freezing. It felt good to just go for an easy run and loosen up after Sunday’s race. I ran it in 33:30.

Tuesday – Run 6 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. I ran Monday’s workout on Tuesday for a grand total of 9.14 miles in 1:13:59. It was way off pace for each segment mostly attributed to the 2-4 inches of fresh, wet snow covering the trails the entire 9 miles! I’ll report my actual times but not the goal times: 2 miles in 14:57, 5 miles in 40:37 and 1/2 mile in 3:33. You can do the math and realize that these were all way off track, but the difference between each segment was approximately the same as the pace goals.

Wednesday – Run 30 minutes alternating between 30 seconds at 20 seconds per mile faster than 5K pace and 30 seconds at an easy pace. Cool down with 5 minutes at an easy pace. I just did an easy 5.5 miles along the Greenway. It was a little cooler this morning at 28 but not very icy which was a nice change! I took it very easy and ran it in 46:28. No reason to push too hard. Overall I’m feeling a little sluggish and tired since Sunday’s race. It might be partly due to bad eating habits lately. I don’t know.

Thursday – Run 6 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. You guessed it I ran 30 minutes alternating 30 seconds all out and 30 seconds easy. This was a nice run with the temps hovering around 30 with no significant wind factor. I ran out and back along the Greenway. I’m sure I ticked off one runner as I went flying by him, only to slow way down for 30 seconds right in front of him. Then when he almost caught back up, I went flying off again! The joys of being controlled by a beeping device on your wrist! I almost caught him again on the way back but he turned off before I did. Nothing too exciting to report – the overall run was 6.05 miles in 45 minutes.

Friday – Run 4 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. I probably should have run since it was sunny and almost 40 in Indianapolis, but after driving and sleeping in a car all night I’m not overly rested – and I usually cross-train once a week anyways. We don’t have any YWCA Fitness Centers around here so I can’t use a reciprocal membership to my advantage.

Saturday – Run a 10K race or a 10K time trial. Run the race or time trial in your best possible time. That’s what I did last week at the Human Race 8K. I was planning to go long today, but our schedule didn’t really make it possible without getting up at 4am Minneapolis time. So I got 2 days off in a row!

Sunday – Rest Day! Happy Easter! I was hoping to rest today but the travel schedule made today a lot easier to run. It turned out being wonderful! It was like 28 without any wind in Indianapolis. I took off under a full-moon or at least near full moon and ran around the neighborhood before heading towards Fort Harrison State Park. I ran along part of the course for the Indianapolis Half and Full Marathon in the fall. I snuck into the park through a side gate to avoid having to pay the entrance fee. It is a pretty hilly course, which I’m not really used to. I ran around the park and ran around on some of their trails which felt great. Everything was fairly muddy, but it was a crisp morning with lots of birds chirping and my first spring run! I ran a total of 14 miles in 1:57:33 which wasn’t too bad with all the hills and running solitary.

Weekly Totals: 38.7 miles in 5:16:26. I guess it was good I took 2 days off, this was the highest mileage week of the year!

[tags] Half-Marathon, Training [/tags]

A Controversy of Stretching

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I recently reported that I signed up to be included in a USATF sponsored Stretch Study, which is looking at a broad cross section of regular runners to determine if stretching before running (and warming up) helps prevent or causes injuries. A recent New York Times article actually looks into some of the current research around athletes and stretching and comes up with a conclusive answer that isn’t very conclusive!

That doesn’t make any sense does it? Well it seems that the body of current research is very mixed about the importance of stretching and is actually beginning to lean towards the idea that stretching doesn’t actually help an athlete perform better. But when the reporter asked the various researchers if they stretched or not – all of them did!

It has been bantered about in the running community for awhile and more people are beginning to shy away from so called “static stretching” where you hold a stretch for 10 seconds and leaning towards something called “active or dynamic stretching” where you take you muscles through a range of motion and hold any one position for at most 3 seconds.

If your goal is to prevent injury, Dr. Gilchrist said, stretching does not seem to be enough. Warming up, though, can help. If you start out by moving through a range of motions that you’ll use during activity, you are less likely to be injured.

Runners often think that flexibility is important, even to the point of spending hours stretching and doing yoga. One quoted study actually found that…

…distance runners do not benefit from being flexible, he found. The most efficient runners, those who exerted the least effort to maintain a pace, were the stiffest.

A private practice orthopediest went so far to say “If stretching was a drug, it would be recalled,” Dr. Kenny said. He claims that stretching actually weakens performance and increases risk of injury.

So what does all of this really mean? Who knows! I think as with much in this life moderation is the key. If you spend lots of time focusing on stretching – it might be better spent somewhere else. You need to find what works best for your body but the extremes probably don’t work for anyone!

Do you stretch? When do you stretch? Take the poll (on the right) and let us know!

[tags] Stretching, Stretch, Training, Research, Running [/tags]

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ONE Campaign Wins 3000 Meter

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I am a strong supporter of the ONE Campaign and its efforts to “Make Poverty History” here in the US and around the world. I signed the declaration several years ago and have been active off and on since then. You may have seen celebrities and Presidential candidates wearing the little white bands and wondered what it was all about – this is it!

Here is the ONE Declaration:

“WE BELIEVE that in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves, now is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty.

WE RECOGNIZE that a pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing additional resources for basic needs – education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans – would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries, at a cost equal to just one percent more of the US budget.

WE COMMIT ourselves – one person, one voice, one vote at a time – to make a better, safer world for all.”

I am a subscriber to the ONE blog, so I was a little surprised when I saw this headline: White Band Storms 3000 Meter. There aren’t a lot of 3,000 meters out there so I was pretty sure it was a running story and sure enough there is a picture of World champion Ethiopian runner Meseret Defar who continued her 5-year undefeated streak by winning the 3000 meter at the World Indoor Championships on March8th.

Defar won the race while wearing a little white ONE Campaign arm band. (Image from Getty Images)

I think that is a great statement and is most certainly in the Olympic Spirit of unity and brotherhood.

[tags] Mesert Defar, ONE, IAAF, One Campaign [/tags]

Shay’s Autopsy Released

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Ryan Shay, 28, who died tragically last fall during the Men’s Olympic Marathon Trials, died of natural causes.

From the New York Times:

More than four months after Shay’s death, the medical examiner completed the autopsy and toxicology reports, describing his condition as “cardiac arrhythmia due to cardiac hypertrophy with patchy fibrosis of undetermined etiology.”

All of his toxicology reports came back negative. He had previously been diagnosed with an enlarged heart, which may have been a factor in his death. Shay was an accomplished marathoner with a 2:14 PR.

My wife an RN said this:

His heart had a bad rhythm because his heart was enlarged due to an unknown tissue or something.

I am not a doctor but here are definitions from around the web for each phrase of the report:

Cardiac Arrhthmia – a term for any of a large and heterogenous group of conditions in which there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart. The heart beat may be too fast or too slow, and may be regular or irregular.

Cardiac Hypertrophy – is a thickening of the heart muscle (myocardium) which results in a decrease in size of the chamber of the heart, including the left and right ventricles. A common cause of cardiac hypertrophy is high blood pressure (hypertension) and heart valve stenosis.

Fibrosis – is the formation or development of excess fibrous connective tissue in an organ or tissue as a reparative or reactive process, as opposed to a formation of fibrous tissue as a normal constituent of an organ or tissue.

Patchy Fibrosis just means that there was excess tissue growing in patches around the organ – in this case the heart.

Eitiology – is the study of causes

Undetermined Eitiology would just mean of an unknown cause.

It is good to finally know what happened to Shay.  Our thoughts and prayers are still with the entire family and the elite running community as they mourn his loss.

HT: The Final Sprint