Educated Runner

Seven Questions to Ask for Powerful Hill Workouts

educatedrunner — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:52:00 GMT

This is the first installment of a two-part series on hill training.

Most runners include hill workouts in their schedules, and hill sessions can represent one of the most-productive forms of training for endurance athletes. There’s only one problem: Many runners don’t know how to construct hill workouts properly. Poorly planned hill sessions produce sub-optimal gains in overall fitness.

A collection of great hill workouts is like a key chapter in your overall training book, the volume which ends on the last page with a nice PR. To put together that essential chapter, it’s important to ask seven key questions:

(1) For hill training, what is the optimal hill inclination?

(2) How many hill reps should be performed per workout?

(3) How fast should you run on your uphills?

(4) How should you run the downhills?

(5) How much recovery is needed between uphill surges?

(6) Are hill drills important?

(7) Should you strengthen yourself in any systematic before embarking on a series of hill workouts?

Here are detailed answers to each of the seven questions:

(1) What is the optimal hill inclination?

At a given running speed, more work must be done per step on a steep hill, compared to a gently inclined knoll (because the body must be lifted a greater vertical distance per ground contact on the more-severe monticle). That means that precipitous hills should produce higher heart rates, greater oxygen-consumption taxes, and loftier blood-lactate levels.

There’s a catch, however, and it resides within that introductory phrase – “At a given running speed.” The truth is that running speed is seldom constant as hill inclination changes; many runners move very quickly on mild hills (~ 2 to 3 percent) and slow down appreciably when assaulting a more-challenging upslope (~ 8 to 10 percent).

For this reason, it’s a great idea to use a mix of different hills (either in separate workouts or within individual sessions). On mild hills, it’s possible to run at close to 5- or 10-K race speeds, while performing the additional work of lifting the body vertically. This enhances strength while continuing to “teach” the nervous system to operate at high intensities. Steep hills slow down velocity and yet challenge the neuromuscular system to produce more work per step (augmenting raw leg strength greatly). The resulting combination of speed plus strength (which comes from training on both tame and rugged hills) will make you a much-more powerful runner.

(2) How many hill reps should be completed per workout?

This question is important: Too few reps can produce a mediocre day of training, instead of a great one, while too many climbs can increase the risk of injury and staleness. The 5-percent rule provides a good start. If you are running 30 miles per week, your initial max amount of hill climbing per workout (using the 5-percent rule) is (.05 X 30) = 1.5 miles. On a 400-meter hill, this would amount to six 400-meter climbs, of course.

While this might seem overly conservative, it minimizes the chance of malady, especially since you will be running back down the hill for recovery (please see question # 4). As long as everything is going well, you can gradually advance the amount of uphill running you complete per session as you progress through the hill-training phase of your overall program.

For a general approach to the problem of how to progress with workout duration and training volume over time, please read our article on the dubious value of the 10-percent rule here.

(3) How fast should you run on the uphills?

Two strategies are reasonable. First, you can simply run your hills with race effort. If you have a hilly 10K coming up, for example, you could hit your hills with the kind of intensity you want to maintain in that 10-K competition. Your exertion will be very difficult, yet controlled – and specific to the demands of your racing. This mode of conducting a hill session can be very confidence-building and will provide great specific preparation for a race. Also, the intensity is certainly high enough to move oxygen-consumption tariffs and blood-lactate levels into fitness-advancing territories.

But, especially on shorter hills (gentle or steep), it can be quite productive for you to employ max effort, getting to the top just as quickly as you possibly can. While this can increase the risk of injury, especially of the hamstring nature, it maximizes O₂ employment and blood lactate and can have a dramatic impact on your power (by enhancing force production by your leg muscles and the rate at which that augmented force is applied to the ground). A reasonable strategy is to mix some max climbs and race-specific climbs together within a single workout to produce a beautiful “recipe” for running-capacity advancement.

(4) How should you run the downhills?

Like a basketball. On your downhills, you should run lightly, so that you can recover from your just-completed uphill assaults, and it’s very important to learn how to run downhill correctly (fast and economically), so that you will fare well during hilly competitions. From a form standpoint, the proper thing to do is to lean forward slightly as you run downhill, as scary as that might be. Land on your midfeet, not your heels, and bounce from foot to foot like an elastic ball, letting gravity take care of most of the work.

Avoid the temptations to lean back and to land on your heels, which would produce a braking effect and tarnish gravity’s gift to you. The key is to relax and bounce, bounce, bounce down the hill, like a basketball. Each ground contact will be minimal, just long enough to control body position. Practice this on gentle hills before you take the strategy to your local version of Mount Everest or K2, of course. Eventually, you will be able to run extremely quickly on downhills – with very little oxygen cost (since gravity is doing so much of the work).

If you are doing hill reps, you should begin your next uphill run as soon as you have reached the bottom of the hill, if possible. If you do need a few seconds of additional recovery before you initiate your next climb, simply jog around at the bottom of the hill; don’t stand in place with your hands on your knees. If you keep ascending and descending without significant break, your oxygen-consumption wharfage and blood-lactate appearances will be maximized, which are very good things.

Bear in mind that downhill running can be quite damaging to the quads if you have never done it before. This is one reason for the 5-percent rule (question # 2). If you are worried about your quad health, it is OK to walk back down a few of your hills, and even walk back down a few of your hills backwards, for a few of your workouts. But, a much-better strategy would be to strengthen your quads and whole legs thoroughly before embarking on your hill phase of training (question # 7).

(5) How much recovery is needed between uphill surges?

See question # 4. In general, the amount of time it takes to let gravity bounce you back down the hill is the optimal recovery time. However, if you are employing a really long hill, perhaps a mile in length, implying a mountain, the jog back down will take too long, and it is important to have someone available to drive you back to the bottom. This may seem a little strange, but it is the way to get the most benefit from sessions carried out on very prolonged climbs.

(6) Should you perform drills on hills?

Although a hill is little more than a large lump of earth, it is actually an extremely valuable training tool. Doing nothing but running on your favorite knob means that you will miss an opportunity to complete the hill drills which have a unique impact on your running capacity.

Such drills include hill bounding (running up the acclivity with extra-long steps, while maintaining excellent speed), hill accelerations (maintaining a step rate of > 200 as you climb while reducing step length), one-leg sprint hopping (moving up the hill as fast as possible by hopping on one foot only – this actually advances the oxygen-consumption tariff incurred by the hopping leg, compared with sprinting up the hill on both legs, and thus promotes a higher oxidative capacity in the leg muscles), reverse hill climbing (running up the hill backwards, a great strengthener for the quads), and downhill heel jogging (ambling down the hill on the heels with the ankles dorsi-flexed – a great strengthener for the shins, but progress carefully).

About 10 to 12 minutes of drills, carried out during the first half of a hill workout, can have a profound effect on strength, endurance, speed, and overall running ability.

(7) Should you strengthen yourself before embarking on a series of hill workouts?

This is critically important: Pre-hill-training strengthening will reduce the risk of ham blow-outs, protect the quads and knees during downhill running, and foster higher-quality hill sessions.

The right progression is X weeks of general strengthening (using circuits which work the whole body), Y weeks of running-specific strengthening (with movements which mimic the mechanics of running), and then Z weeks of hill work. See what comes after hill training in our upcoming series on How to Get Faster. Understand how long X, Y, and Z should be in our forthcoming epic on training periodization..

Recovering from Increases in Running Mileage

educatedrunner — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:25:00 GMT

My first daughter, Cori, was born when I was still an undergraduate at the University of Rhode Island. She was a smiling beauty, so precious and dear to me. I loved her deeply from the first second I saw her (and still do).

When I arrived home from URI each day, I would help with her feeding and bathing, read to her, and make sure she was tucked in safely for the night - or at least for a few hours, in those frequent cases when hunger collaborated directly with the operation of her vocal cords.

After Cori’s birth, my schedule changed dramatically. I was loaded down with embryology, anatomy, genetics, ecology, and inorganic chemistry, and – prior to Cori’s arrival – would often study until midnight. With Cori making studying impossible during the early parts of evenings, I began staying up until 2 or 3 A. M. and yet could still be found at the corner of Elmwood and Sumter at 6:15 each morning, ready to take the bus to downtown Providence and then catch the 7:05 to South Kingstown. My work load increased, my sleep diminished, and my feelings of fatigue advanced steadily, but I assumed I would simply adjust and get through it all.

I didn’t. After four months of the new schedule, Cori and my course grades were fine, but I developed a serious inflammatory disorder, from which several weeks of recovery were required. I had forgotten that increases in work load, even when the work is wonderfully fulfilling and meaningful, require corresponding expansions of recovery. Recovery (which in my case was the recuperation produced by sleep) can not be ignored or discarded without a significant cost to health.

Many serious runners create an imbalance between training and recovery, and the result can be an unexpected fall-off in performance which is often called staleness. Increases in training volume (mileage or kilometrage) are a principal cause of staleness, because the new, higher amount of work being performed often exceeds the capacity of a runner’s body to recover from the augmented training stress and then adapt physiologically (just as the added challenges of fatherhood wiped me out physically). Each added mile places an additional stress on the body, and yet runners often blithely increase mileage without making corresponding and necessary changes in the ways they are preparing for and recovering from their workouts.

One key problem is that runners often advance volume without having the intrinsic running-specific strength to do so successfully (i. e., to do so without causing staleness and/or injury). Runners tend to believe that higher volume would be a good thing from the standpoint of aerobic-capacity expansion and thus pursue greater volume avidly, without taking into account the wear and tear on the muscular and connective-tissue systems which such running produces.

That destructive action, the lysis of myofibers and myofibrils in response to the thousands of additional running steps taken each week, has to be counteracted in some way, either by first expanding running-specific strength (prior to the mileage build-up) to protect the muscles or else by enhancing recovery processes in appropriate correspondence with the volume augmentation (actually both steps, upgraded strength and enhanced recovery, are recommended).

A firm bottom line is that a runner can’t simply proceed as usual when he/she ramps up mileage. The strength preparation must match the increase in work load, and the recovery processes must be enhanced in order to allow the body to adapt and re-build adequately despite the bruising blows of the longer-duration training.

Many different recovery modes can be effective. Certainly, if a runner’s weight has been at a desirable level, he/she can not increase mileage without also stepping up intakes of total calories and carbohydrate. Without adequate calories to fuel the additional miles, internal energy stores will run low. In the absence of copious carbohydrate intake, muscle-glycogen levels will drop, energy and endurance will dip, and overall performances will fall (yes, staleness can occur in this way). When volume expands, taking in more calories and carbs is a key part of recovery.

Sleep is an often-overlooked but amazingly effective recovery mode, as I learned after Cori’s birth. Many runners believe that they can advance from 30 to 45 miles per week without any change at all in sleep patterns, but such a strategy is extremely ill-advised. Sleep encompasses a variety of different recovery processes, not the least of which is a night-time surge in the pituitary production of human growth hormone, which in turn repairs bone and muscle tissues while enhancing the breakdown of fat. The relationship has not been carefully worked out in scientific settings, but it is clear that higher mileage creates a demand for more time in the sack, and – yes – even the occasional use of kindergarten-style afternoon naps, if possible – to restore the body and promote adaptation (I should have been napping on the South-Kingstown bus, instead of poring over chem. notes and talking with fellow riders).

Enhanced fluid intakes will also be optimal (because higher training volume means more sweat flowing out onto the skin), and it is impossible to over-estimate the value of “down time” – periods during the day when a runner relaxes totally and does something he/she truly enjoys. Such respites are absolutely without parallel for nervous-system recovery. For a runner who likes to read, a period of significant volume expansion represents the one time in his/her career when reading the collected stories of Isaac Babel will be the best thing for enhancing running economy – far better than kicking out extra reps on a steep hill.

A key thing to remember is that neural recovery is highly individualized. For one runner, talking with a girl/boy friend might be the best recovery of all, while for another reading or getting a massage would be the right recovery ticket. Fortunately, each runner knows exactly what produces the maximal amount of mental relaxation and comfort (and thus unifies body and mind and increases the tolerance of hard work during subsequent training sessions).

It is only natural for an endurance runner to answer a period of staleness with an increase in total work. Most serious endurance runners believe that nothing in running can be attained without hard work, and the upswing in volume is viewed as a way to kick fitness back up again, as a way to reverse the downward fitness slide of staleness. The truth is that more hard work is exactly the wrong way to treat staleness; it may in fact push staleness “over the cliff” into the murky swamp we call the over-trained state.

While the human body is sometimes viewed as a kind of machine, the truth is that the body is dissimilar from a piece of machinery: For example, it can not be driven for increasingly long distances each day and yet be ready every morning for intense, hard work. The human body requires food and water, just as a machine needs fuel and oil. However, the body’s motor – the muscular system – is torn apart by extended training, while the engine of a machine remains intact for thousands of hours. The reality is that each longer-distance “drive” in your body needs to be accompanied by enhancements of your most-effective recovery strategies.

Top Three Reasons for Coming to One of Owen’s Running Camps

(1) Location, location, location: Owen has camps for you in some of the most beautiful and interesting places in the world, including the Snowy Mountains of Australia, Malibu Canyon in California, Track-Town USA (Eugene, Oregon), the Flatirons of Boulder, Colorado, Brigham Young University in Hawaii, the Green Mountains of Vermont, and yes – even little Oscoda County in northern Michigan. As a result, when you attend one of Owen’s camps you’ll get a transforming running week and a great vacation at the same time. Sign up for your week in running paradise right here.

(2) Running Form Improvement: Have you ever wondered whether tweaking your running form might decrease your risk of injury, enhance your economy, and/or upgrade your performances? Wonder no more! At camp, Owen will shoot video of you running at different speeds and sit down with you to analyze your form. He will then work with you individually to optimize the four key elements of great running form – cadence, mid-foot strike pattern, posture, and body angle. When you leave camp, you will be a transformed runner, with more-powerful strides, augmented economy, and greater fatigue-resistance. For your personal running-form makeover and the chance to dramatically increase your running speed, sign up here now.

(3) vVO₂max Training: When you come to camp, Owen will measure your vVO₂max and then show you exactly how to put together a training program which sends your vVO₂max through the roof. vVO₂max is a key predictor of running fitness and performance, so your vVO₂max advancement will help you carve significant chunks of time from your 5Ks, 10Ks, half-marathons, and marathons (and any other distances which you run). You will finally achieve those dream running goals which have been so elusive in the past. To push your vVO₂max and running capacity to the highest-possible levels, sign up right here.

Bear in mind that these three great features just touch the surface of what actually happens at Owen’s camps. For example, you will also learn an easy-to-carry-out, full progression of running-specific strength training which will shield you from the sharp arrows of staleness and overuse injury. You will make great new running friends and conduct workouts in unforgettable locations, for example Lake Jindabyne in Australia, Spencer’s Butte in Oregon, or the Appalachian Trail in Vermont. And you will enjoy getting to know Owen and appreciate his commitment to you and eagerness to help you, even after camp ends. To be part of an experience which changes your running life in so many positive ways, sign up right here.

Educated Runner Announces Its First-Ever Australian Running Camp

educatedrunner — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:10:00 GMT

Educated Runner is very excited to announce the establishment of its first-ever running camp down under – the Snowy Mountains Running Camp in beautiful Australia. This camp totally transforms attendees’ running – and provides a fabulous vacation on top of the running make-over.

The camp is coordinated by Owen Anderson, Ph. D., the founder of Educated Runner, and Kyle Williams, an experienced Australian trekker, runner, and guide who hails from Canberra. Owen and Kyle have put together an amazing camp experience, one which provides state-of-the-art, scientifically based training, along with the opportunity to enjoy one of the most-spectacular areas in all of Australia.

Campers will stay from May 23-28, 2010 in the Athlete’s Village at the Lake Jindabyne Sport and Recreation Centre, right in the heart of the ruggedly beautiful Snowy Mountains. This is alpine country, with over 87 hectares of picturesque running trails and scenic beauty, close by Mount Kosciuszko (at 2228 metres in height, Australia’s tallest peak).

But when you attend you will be doing much more than trail running and taking in the splendor of the Snowies. On the Jindabyne track, we’ll conduct careful vVO₂max testing, and then Owen and Kyle will show you exactly how to set up a progression of workouts which will optimize your vVO₂max, a key predictor of performance.

Very importantly, Owen and Kyle will also shoot video of you while you are running at different quality speeds. We will then analyze your form and help you make the four key transformations in running technique which enhance your economy, upgrade your speed, and reduce your risk of overuse injury.

There’s even more: Our Snowy Mountains camp is the only running get-together in the world which features a full progression of running-specific strength training, consisting of movements which mimic the mechanics of running and thus have the most-potent impact on your fatigue-resistance and raw running speed. We’ll show you how to put everything together, from general strengthening through running-specific drills and then on to hill training and explosive work. When you leave the camp (regretfully after six great days), you’ll know exactly how to plan and periodize your training in order to reach your true potential as a runner.

Have injuries plagued you from time to time? That’s no problem: Owen and Kyle will show you exactly what you need to do to strengthen your plantar fasciae, Achilles tendons, shins, knees, hamstrings, ilio-tibial bands, or whatever other anatomical structures have given you the blues in the past. You’ll leave our camp with an insurance policy against future overuse injury.

Owen brings a very relaxed style of interacting with people and a wealth of running knowledge to the camp. He has written three books on running (Lactate Lift-Off, Great Workouts for Popular Races, and Aurora), and he is currently working on a fourth volume, The Science of Running, for Human Kinetics Press. Owen has enjoyed much coaching success: One of his athletes, Diane Palmason, won the Fifth Avenue Mile in New York City and has held four world records as a masters runner. Another, Catherine Dugdale, won the Welsh Cross-Country Championship seven consecutive times and represented Great Britain in the Commonwealth Games.

The Snowies are Kyle Williams’ back yard: He has led many treks through these mountains and will always choose the best locations for our workouts. Each session will be conducted at 1000 to 2228 metres of altitude in a pristine environment, far from the hustle and bustle of the city.

The price for this amazing experience is just $895 (AUS) or $805 (US), including transportation from Canberra to the camp, five nights of overnight lodging, educational materials, and all meals. Sign up for this incredible “down-under” experience which transforms your running and provides an unforgettable vacation at the same time right here.

Elite Kenyan Runners Are a Lot Like Norwegian Olympians

educatedrunner — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:38:00 GMT

The Winter Olympics are over, and somehow the US media missed a key story coming out of the Games. In the rush to check on the day-to-day condition of Lindsey Vonn’s shins, the exploits of athletes from the little kingdom of Norway were ignored.

Such ignorance was a mistake. Norway did astonishingly well at the Games, capturing 23 of the 86 medals awarded (27 percent). That’s a rather shocking development when one realizes that Norway’s population is 4.8 million, just .07 percent of the world’s total of 6.8 billion folks. Only one out of 1417 persons walking this earth is a Norwegian citizen, and yet Norskies captured more than one out of every four medals given out at the Games.

Norway’s gold-medal count was nine, the same tally achieved by the United States, a country with 64 times as many people. Norway’s population size is very close to Colorado’s total of five million people, and Norway’s geographical area of 385,000 square kilometers is close to Montana’s overall wing span. If Coloradoans had brought home 23 badges of honor, the unique glory of such athletic achievement would certainly have been trumpeted on the pages of USA Today and Sports Illustrated. If Montanans had been bringing back such a collection of gold, silver, and bronze, wouldn’t we have heard about it, big time? Instead, our Viking athletic friends flew back to their little country with very little fanfare.

The Norwegian exploits bear a remarkable resemblance to what Kenyan male runners accomplished at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. If we throw out the relays and examine all other running events (from 100 meters up to the marathon), Kenyan men took home nine of the 33 medals awarded in Beijing. Yes, that’s 27 percent – the same as the Norlanders’ share of medallions in all sports at the 2010 Winter Games.

But of course a key difference is that when Kenyan athletes fare extremely well the tabloid press erupts with the news that Kenyans probably possess the right genes for performance, that they are genetically superior to runners from the rest of the world. The remarkable sprinter from Jamaica, Usain Bolt, shares a similar fate. When he blows away the field and sets world records at 100 and 200 meters, the talk immediately turns to genetics - and (even more condescendingly) to steroids.

The Norwegians, of course, are a different story altogether. When they out-compete big-brother Russia to the east, garnering 50-percent more medals than their Russian counterparts (despite Russia’s population of 142 million), the lofty Norwegian performances are simply the result of discipline, hard work, scientific training, culture, and the unique Norse environment. While Russian heads roll, not a whisper is heard about Norwegian DNA.

It must certainly be true that culture and environment play key roles in the Norwegian successes. If you strap skis and skates onto the feet of young people, encourage their participation in skiing and skating, provide the perfect physical environments for skiing and skating, make skiing and skating your national sports, treat your best skiers and skaters as national heroes and reward them with scads of the world’s strongest currency, doesn’t it stand to reason that you will end up with highly competitive skiers and skaters? No rocket science (or foray into the genetics of performance) is required to understand this.

And yet the genetic rationale is reached for immediately whenever Kenyans excel. This is despite the fact that the Kenyan athletic culture and environment bear strong resemblances to cultural and environmental factors in Norway (without the snow, skis, and skates, of course). Kenyan kids are sent off to school barefooted, and they run, run, run, fast and hard, to school and back, to their friends’ farms and back, over rugged terrain with uneven footing, in the process building up tremendous strength, endurance, and coordination. Thanks to the unshod condition of their running, young Kenyans’ arches and ankles become powerful springs which move the runners forward explosively with the most-minimal of ground-contact times.

The other Norwegian factors are there, too. Kenyan kids are encouraged to become runners, the Kenyan environment is perfect for running (temperate and dry, with lots of hills to build strength), running is the national sport of Kenya, the top Kenyan runners become national heroes, and the internationally successful Kenyan runners bring home what are king’s ransoms in Kenya (although not in the world’s strongest currency). Sound familiar?

Scientific studies have been performed on elite Kenyan runners to “discover” the genetic basis for their high achievements (of course, no such inquiries have been conducted on Norwegian Olympic performers). So far such inquiries have borne little fruit. And why should they? Just as the “secret” of Norwegian Olympic success can be found on the ski paths and ice rinks of Norway, the “mystery” of Kenyan endurance-running dominance is actually just a logical tale of intense training, environment, and culture.

The Geranium in Your Running Program Might Need Some Water

educatedrunner — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:02:00 GMT

There is a geranium in your running program, and it needs to be nurtured.

I came to this realization yesterday after reading Flannery O’Connor’s wonderful and aptly named story, “The Geranium.” By the way, even though Flannery O’Connor never ran a step in her life, few writers have more to say to runners. I’ll explain why in a moment.

The story progression in The Geranium focuses on a troubled fellow named Old Dudley. Now that “Geranium” has appeared four times in the first five sentences of this essay, can you imagine how many geranium Googlers will end up reading this narrative about running? SEO-copywriting experts would give me a huge pat on the back – if I were actually writing about Geranium sanguineum.

But back to old Dudley, who is very well-named – he is old, and he’s a bit of a dud, too. He lives with his daughter’s family in a large, nondescript apartment building in New York City, with long dog-run hallways and stairways which open like gaping wounds onto the floors below. The adjacent apartment structures are replete with rasp-faced individuals hanging out of their windows and look so similar to Old Dudley’s apartment complex that he gets lost whenever he ventures out onto the street. Dudley’s relationship with his daughter is tense and empty, his grandson doesn’t speak to him (even though they share a room), and Dudley’s son-in-law appears only on weekends and uses the word “nah” to keep conversations rolling along. The “golden days” are actually pretty rough for Old Dudley.

The star of the story, the geranium, sits in a window in a neighboring apartment building, about 15 feet away from Old Dudley’s window. The plant is on a tight schedule, appearing at 10 each morning and disappearing at 5:30 in the afternoon, and Dudley likes to gaze at the plant as the day progresses. That cranesbill in a pot reminds him of his life “back home” in Georgia, when times were much better. Down south, Dudley had lived in the upstairs corner room of a boarding house, and he was the king of the domicile, the cool guy who protected the old ladies with jiggling heads who gossiped in the parlor each evening. For fun, he fished and hunted with Rabie, who could steal cleaner than a weasel and who knew where all the fish in Coa County could be found.

The geranium, with everything it represents, becomes the organizing principle in Old Dudley’s life. He counts on it being in the window every day; he needs to see it to remind him that times were better, that he once had a happy life which was complete and made sense. The geranium’s appearance at 10 each morning is reassuring and allows Dudley to make it through each troubling day.

Of course, the day comes when the geranium does not take its place in the window (if Flannery had been writing with the commercial or personal-growth communities in mind, she might have called her story “Who Moved the Geranium?”). The non-appearance of the potted plant occurs at a particularly bad time for Old Dudley, at a moment when he is extremely lost and disoriented.

The surly geranium owner is in the window instead of the actual cranesbill, and he is a very poor replacement for the potted plant. Mr. Geranium tells Dudley that he doesn’t like folks looking in his apartment window, and that he “only tells people once” (presumably before geranium-related violence will occur). He also tells Dudley that the geranium has plummeted six floors, and Dudley’s downward glance reveals a mangle of pot shards, black dirt, up-thrust white roots, and crinkled pink petals.

Dudley vows to retrieve the geranium, but his trip down the tape-measure hallway and into the cavernous stairwell does not go smoothly. Old Dudley returns to his apartment, geranium-free and defeated.

What does Dudley’s tale have to do with your running? If you are like most runners, you have a geranium in your running – something which helps you organize your training program, something which makes you feel good about what you are doing. Sometimes the geranium is in your window, right where you want it, but at other times that geranium gets a few wilted leaves or falls away from you a long ways. When that happens, it’s your job to retrieve the geranium and repair it.

You have probably never thought about it in this way, but the troubled geranium might actually be your performances. You might be going through a period during which you are not running your 5Ks as fast as you used to, during which your marathons are troubled or your workouts are not going smoothly at all. Your performance geranium has fallen a long way, and you are feeling bad about it.

Or your wilting geranium might simply be the way you feel about your running. Perhaps you have lost some enthusiasm for training, perhaps you are no longer getting the satisfaction you once obtained from conducting quality workouts. Maybe you don’t look forward to your sessions with energy and zeal any more.

When your geranium has fallen apart, it’s not a time for despair. Geraniums tumble and get broken frequently; almost every runner experiences a geranium loss at some point.

An essential part of running is realizing that a fallen geranium is not gone forever, it can be retrieved. That geranium simply needs a little water, perhaps some glue for its pot, and maybe a little more dark soil for its roots.

Replanting the geranium might involve getting up early one morning and going out for a beautiful, rhythmic, steady run, not worrying about pace at all but just flowing along, with no one else around, and then returning to your house just when the cardinals and robins are preparing their morning matins and that wondrous aurora is beginning to appear in the east.

The following day, packing in rich soil around your geranium could involve hitting some one-minute intervals, anywhere, at a brisk pace like mile or 5-K running, flowing along powerfully, with enough recovery in between, and no worries about anything other than enjoying the fast movement, the warmth of your muscles, and the sweat flowing out onto the surface of your skin.

Each day thereafter, replenishing your geranium would be the same as nurturing yourself, doing things with your running that are really satisfying and fun. And a funny thing – when you do that, when you take the time to cultivate your running and fertilize it with joy, the petals on your geranium will burn with the brightest-possible colors, and your running will be very unlikely to fall six stories again.

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To understand more about Flannery O’Connor’s impact on your running, to enjoy a fantastic time, and to make perfect those geraniums which are called running form, running-specific strength and vVO₂max, please sign up for one of Owen-Anderson’s summer running camps at http://www.educatedrunner.com/Camps.aspx Runners of all ages and ability levels are welcome (and nurtured) at these highly educational, very “vacational” camps.

BAREFOOT RUNNING: WHAT THE HARVARD STUDY REALLY SAID

educatedrunner — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:20:00 GMT

The running pot is simmering in the popular press these days, and the heady vapor which is emerging proclaims that barefoot running provides the pathway to salvation for a large fraction of the running population.

You’re familiar with the claims by now: That barefoot running erases existing running injuries. That barefoot running reduces the risk of future running maladies. That barefoot running is healthier and more natural than shod running. That barefoot running diminishes impact forces and the rate at which those collision forces are transmitted up the legs. That barefoot running can even improve performances.

Soon we will hear that barefoot running lowers the risk of some forms of cancer.

The acute hubbub surrounding barefoot running is the result of the publication of both Christopher McDougall’s New-York-Times-bestselling book, Born to Run, and a paper entitled “Foot Strike Patterns and Collision Forces in Habitually Barefoot versus Shod Runners,” which debuted in the prestigious journal Nature on January 28 of this year. Aided by seven colleagues from a variety of institutions, Daniel Lieberman of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University was the principal investigator in the Nature study. Lieberman et al looked at the kinematics and kinetics of running in five different groups: (1) Habitually shod athletes from the USA, (2) Currently shod runners from the Rift Valley in Kenya who grew up running barefooted, (3) Runners from the USA who began running in the shod condition but have now adopted a barefoot-running lifestyle, (4) Adolescent Kenyan harriers who have never worn shoes, and (5) Adolescent Kenyan runners who have run shod for most of their lives.

Ironically, the popular press has been using the Harvard study as a launching pad for the idea that barefoot running is healthier than shod ambling, even though Lieberman’s paper provided no data at all to test the idea that barefoot running lowers the risk of running injuries!

Here’s what Lieberman et al actually found:

(A) Habitually shod runners (groups 1 and 5 from above) who grew up wearing shoes are usually rear-foot strikers (RFS), meaning that their heels make the first impacts with the ground during running, right at the beginning of the stance phase of gait. This is not new information. The strong link between running in shoes and heel-striking has been known for many years.

(B) Runners who grew up running barefooted or who switched to running barefooted (groups 2, 3, and 4) are generally fore-foot strikers (FFS), meaning that they tend to land initially on the balls of their feet while running, after which their heels drop down to make contact with the ground. Again, this is nothing new – the tight connection between barefoot running and FFS (and also MFS, mid-foot striking) has been general knowledge for years.

(C) Impact forces transmitted through the foot, ankle, and leg immediately after impact with the ground are about three times greater in shod runners using RFS, compared with barefoot runners with FFS. Some – but not all - previous studies have shown this same relationship, with RFS producing greater impact force during the first portion of stance, compared with MFS and FFS. The sudden rise in force with RFS, immediately after ground contact, is known as the “impact transient.” The disparity in impact transient between barefoot and shod running represents a “foundation” for the belief that barefoot running is “safer” and less injury producing. While this appears to be logical thinking, it is important to know that no study has ever shown that greater impact forces during the first portion of stance magnify the risk of running injury.

(D) Rates of loading of impact force are actually quite similar between shod RFS runners and barefoot FFS athletes (Figure 2b from the Nature paper). The rate at which impact force is loaded into the leg has also been suggested to be a risk factor for injury, although convincing proof of this notion does not exist.

(E) During the early stance phase of barefoot FFS running, there is greater knee flexion, greater dorsi-flexion at the ankle, and a 74-percent-greater drop in the center of mass, compared with shod RFS running. “Vertical compliance” is defined as the drop in the runner’s center of mass relative to the vertical force during the impact period of stance, and it is obviously greater in barefoot FFS running, compared with shod RFS. Vertical compliance varies as a function of running-surface hardness, and this is why force-loading rates are similar for barefoot FFS runners over a wide array of running surfaces (the runners adjust compliance according to surface). This is not novel information, however.

(F) During barefoot FFS ambling, the ground reaction force torques the foot around the ankle (and therefore increases the amount of work carried out by the ankle, compared with shod RFS running). With shod RFS running, the ankle converts little impact energy into rotational energy. Potentially, this could spike the rate of ankle-area injuries (for example in the Achilles tendon and calf) for barefoot runners, although this hypothesis has not been tested.

And that was pretty much it! The Nature investigation did disclose some interesting information about the effective mass of the foot and shank (which we won’t discuss here), but it offered no other information about the potential links between barefoot running and either injury or performance.

And that’s why it’s too early for you to consider changing from shod to barefoot running, unless such a shift would be a lot of fun for you. There’s just no proof that barefoot running will reduce your risk of injury or make you faster.

In fact, it’s important to remember that most injuries in running are caused by an imbalance between the strain and micro-damage experienced by a muscle or connective tissue during training and the tissue’s ability to recover from such stress. This imbalance can occur when training is conducted shod – or barefooted! A weak or overly tight hamstring muscle which has been undone by excessive mileage won’t care if its owner was running barefooted or wearing shoes – it will still feel the pain.

Now it is certainly true that barefoot and shod running are different from kinematic and kinetic standpoints, and this may have a bearing on injury rates. Shod running, at least shod running in big-heeled modern running shoes, almost automatically means RFS. With RFS, the ankle plantar-flexes immediately after impact as the bottom surface of the foot moves downward to make contact with the pavement. This places the shin muscles under strain immediately after heel impact, as they have to control this significant plantar flexion. In contrast, during barefoot (FFS or MFS) running the ankle immediately dorsi-flexes after impact, placing eccentric strain on the Achilles tendon and calf muscles as they attempt to control dorsi-flexion. Thus, it’s possible that shod RFS might be linked with a higher risk of shin injuries, while barefoot FFS and MFS could be connected with a greater rate of Achilles and calf maladies. This notion has not been tested yet, however.

One thing is for certain: If you throw your running shoes in the trash bin and embark on your usual training program in the barefoot condition, you will probably soon be calling your sports-medicine physician (and perhaps looking for that trash bin). This is because if you have been running in shoes you are probably a RFS runner, and when you change to the naked-foot condition you will most likely become MFS or FFS. This will change the forces applied to various parts of your lower limbs, and – specifically – your Achilles and calf will come under pressures which they have not encountered before in your lifetime as a runner. So, please proceed cautiously if you decide to let the skin hit the road.

What does EducatedRunner recommend? The use of very comfortable, relatively minimal running shoes which permit actual proprioception, protect the bottoms of the feet from rough surfaces, and are conducive to mid-foot striking (MFS). From a performance standpoint, this overall strategy should eliminate the braking action commonly associated with RFS (the foot tends to land out in front of the center of mass, creating a slowing effect with RFS) and thus should upgrade speed and enhance economy. A shift from RFS to MFS will also eliminate the “impact transient” which might be a cause of running injury, and it will heighten the compliance of the leg, fostering the ability to run on surfaces of increased hardness without amplifying the impact forces experienced by the legs. MFS also tends to lead to an increased cadence while running (> 180 steps per minute), which EducatedRunner believes is a good thing.

When you make this shift from RFS to MFS, however, be sure to do it gradually. Abruptly changing from 40 miles per week of RFS to the same volume with MFS is a sure way to find the Achilles heel in your running program.

RIADHA - AND WHY ELITE KENYAN RUNNERS ARE BAD AT OTHER ENDURANCE SPORTS

educatedrunner — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:04:00 GMT

Sport began as a religious cult – as a way of controlling and changing the world.

Living in the most-arid regions of Mexico, the Zunis played games which they thought would increase the probability of rain. To ensure a good whaling season, Makah Indians of the Pacific Northwest played the first known hockey contests, using whale bones as both “pucks” and “sticks.” Some of the original tribes of India arranged tug-of-war contests to expel demons and encourage the sun to shine (contestants at one end of the rope were “evil,” while those at the other end were “good,” and victory by one side was thought to indicate dire troubles ahead – or a year of prosperity).

The earliest Eskimos varied their competitions according to the season. In the early spring, Eskimo players used a kind of cup and ball to “catch the sun” and bring it northward; in the fall, they employed a “cat’s cradle” of seal intestine which was designed to ensnare the sun and prevent it from journeying too far toward the bottom of the earth. For the Eskimos, sport was a way of uniting earth and sky, a method of bringing people together for a common cause.

The ancient Greeks believed in the divine aspect of sport. The original Olympic Games were designed to honor gods; according to some historical accounts, the very earliest Olympics took place next to the temple of Zeus at Olympia – and were undertaken in the great-god’s honor.

Over time, however, sport began to symbolize the daily strivings of humanity. In his Epistle to the Corinthians (in the New Testament), Paul noted that athletic contests symbolized the “Christian fight.” He wrote about wrestling against the powers of darkness, fighting the important battles, and finishing the race. Describing his mission in life, Paul wrote “I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air ……..”

Sport also developed utilitarian, political functions. The not-quite-so-ancient Greeks viewed sport as a way of curbing war, as a method of improving relationships between people who ordinarily would be in conflict. One story suggests that King Iphitus of Elis became so concerned about the slaughters taking place between the various city states of Hellas (in the ninth century B. C.) that he consulted with the oracle at Delphi to find a solution. The oracle allegedly told Iphitus that sport was the only way to stop war – and thus that the Olympics, which had fallen into disfavor, needed to be re-established. With the resulting revival came a “sacred truce” between previously warring states, along with guarantees of safe conduct to all contestants going to the Games. Eventually, the Olympics took place within a “holy month” during which war was prohibited and in fact the carrying of any weapon was proscribed.

Thus, the modern-English word “sport” does poor justice to the origins of competitive activity. “Sport” has evolved from the Latin word desporto, which means “to carry away” or “to make merry.” In human history, sport has rarely been simply a diversion, however. A better term would be the Swahili word for sport – riadha – which is very likely to be derived from another Swahili word, radhi, meaning “agreement” or “unification.”

Philip Boit is certainly aware that sport involves much more than merriment and entertainment. The Kenyan (who is the brother of Mike Boit, the 800-meter bronze medalist at the 1972 Olympics) participated in the 10-K, cross-country ski race at the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano – and in doing so became the first African to ever compete in the Winter Olympics.

His entry in the 10-K ski competition at the Games sparked controversy. Boit had been an excellent runner in his home country (as a young athlete, he had dreamed of one day running in the Olympics), and some observers predicted that his lofty aerobic capacity and excellent endurance would automatically lead to outstanding long-distance skiing performances. Skeptics, however, noted that Boit’s skiing economy might be poor, and that in fact his skiing-specific strength would be modest, compared with the force outputs displayed by Scandinavian skiers who had been participating in the sport since childhood. One American newspaper went so far as to say (in reference to Philip and another Kenyan cross-country skier named Henry Bitok), “These are not athletes clearing hurdles to reach their Olympic dreams. These are marketing pawns financed by well-heeled publicity seekers.”

Such verbal and written contestations came to an end when Boit’s first Olympic race did not proceed according to plan. He finished in last place, in 92^nd position, with a clocking of about 48 minutes, about twice the amount of time required by the winner, Bjorn Daehlie of Norway, to traverse 10 kilometers of snowy paths. Philip’s troubles in this race stemmed mainly from the fact that he was not yet supremely coordinated and forceful during the actual movements required for cross-country skiing. He was an outstanding endurance athlete with a huge heart and muscles bursting with mitochondria and oxidative capacity, but he was rather mediocre at optimizing propulsive force and coordinating the specific motions required to skim a body over snow on thin, rail-like structures. He could wax Bjorn Daehlie in a 10-K road race, but Bjorn would always return the favor in any event taking place on waxed skis. Nike, which had financed Philip’s build-up to Nagano, dropped its sponsorship. Clearly, Boit was not able to “just do it.”

Boit’s initial difficulties with cross-country skiing, occurring in spite of his great aerobic prowess, sparked EducatedRunner’s interest in developing a “neural system” of endurance training for runners which revolves around very high-quality, race-pace-type running, along with a form of resistance training which has the aim of maximally strengthening and stabilizing each and every part of the gait cycle of running (as opposed to more-general and less-specific strengthening exertions which don’t focus closely on running’s true biomechanics). Over time, this system of training, inspired by Philip, has worked very well for both elite and mortal runners. It’s clear, though, that EducatedRunner missed the “big picture” associated with Philip’s sporting pursuits.

The most-important story was that after Bjorn won the 10K at Nagano, it would have been very easy for him – in this age of the “we’re-number-one” Olympics – to take his urine test and then quickly move into the press tent to bask in the limelight provided by Scandinavian journalists, honoring him for yet another gold medal. He could have crowed that Norway was the best, waved a flag, maybe even held up a single finger as a sign of superiority.

But Bjorn didn’t do that. In fact, he returned to the finish line he had crossed many minutes earlier.

To wait for the marketing pawn.

Said Philip later, “It gave me a lot of morale to see the world’s-best skier waiting for me …… It made me feel that I was actually considered.”

When Daehlie finally reached the press tent, he told reporters that he was extremely impressed to see Boit coming across the finish line. Daehlie and Boit became close friends, and Philip later named his first-born son Bjorn Boit.

Bjorn and Philip were not skiing aimlessly, they were not competing to be number one. They were bringing people together, uniting earth and sky. They were engaged in the ancient practice of Riadha.

This essay is taken, with permission, from Owen Anderson’s inspirational e-book, Aurora. To purchase a copy of Aurora, simply go to http://www.educatedrunner.com/Store.aspx and scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Striking Point

educatedrunner — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:47:00 GMT

A runner’s choice of foot-strike pattern is likely to have an effect on running economy, competitive performance, and the likelihood of overuse injury. The foot is the only body part which directly supplies propulsive force to the ground during running, and it is also a part of the lower limb which is highly susceptible to injury.

The two most commonly used foot-strike techniques are the rear-foot strike (RFS), in which the heel of the running shoe is the first structure which makes impact with the ground during gait, and the mid-foot strike (MFS), in which the middle portion of the running-shoe sole makes initial contact. In a recent, elite-level half-marathon, about 75 percent of participants were using the RFS pattern at the 15-K point of the race, with 24 percent utilizing MFS and 1 percent engaged in fore-foot strike (FFS).

Many exercise scientists and coaches recommend the more-popular RFS pattern as the optimal ground-contact strategy; one theory is that RFS reduces the jarring, possibly higher-impact forces associated with MFS. Compared with MFS, RFS has been linked in one investigation with superior running economy, a key predictor of competitive performance. The mechanism for this effect on economy is unknown, although it has been suggested that RFS allows the running shoe and skeletal system to absorb ground-impact forces more effectively, thus reducing required muscular forces and lowering oxygen-consumption rate.

While experienced runners tend to favor RFS over MFS by at least a three-to-one margin, motion analysis of Olympic-Games competitors has suggested that Olympic medalists and are more likely to employ MFS. In addition, video analysis of world-champion and world-record-holding runners, including Paul Tergat, Haile Gebrselassie, and Paula Radcliffe, has indicated that such competitors employ MFS and occasionally FFS, not RFS, both while training and competing.

Research has also shown that the frequency of the MFS pattern increases with competitive ability; in one study carried out with elite- and near-elite-level runners, 36 percent of the male, top-50 finishers employed MFS in a race, vs. just 20 percent of the 51^st to 200^th-place runners in the same competition. In this investigation, MFS was utilized by three of the first seven female finishers (43 percent) but by only four of the other 28, slower women in the race (14 percent).

Compared with RFS, performance may be enhanced with MFS because ground-contact time is shorter (by about 17 milliseconds at a running velocity of approximately 5 to 5.5 meters per second and by approximately 10 milliseconds at slower speeds). As a consequence of the more-abridged contact time, stride rate is also higher for MFS at any specific speed. Improvements (decreases) in ground-contact time and increases in stride rate have been linked with enhanced running economy and faster 5-K performances. In addition, a key difference between the top competitors in an elite road race and the slower elite performers in the same competition is the shorter average ground-contact time of the faster finishers. Such findings suggest that MFS may be the superior foot-strike pattern from a competitive standpoint.

Although the world’s-best endurance runners prefer MFS over RFS, the effects of MFS and RFS on running economy have yet to be determined. As mentioned, one study has detected enhanced economy with RFS, compared with MFS. Research has also revealed that runners tend to adopt the most-economical running style possible for their individual anatomical and physiological characteristics. At least 75 percent of experienced runners favor RFS over MFS, suggesting that rear-foot striking may be the most-economical pattern.

It is highly likely that the world’s-best endurance runners have optimized most aspects of their running mechanics, however. Given that running economy is such a strong predictor of performance, the ubiquity of MFS among super-elite runners suggests that MFS may produce highly economical running. Compared with MFS, it is also clear that RFS leads to a more-extended leg at foot strike and a longer time of maximum knee flexion during the support phase of gait. This suggests that RFS produces a longer period of muscle activation per running step, which might increase the oxygen cost of running and lead to poorer economy with the RFS pattern.

There is very little scientific information available to assess whether MFS and RFS have differing effects on the likelihood of running injury. Ground-reaction force (GRF) is thought to be an important predictor of running injury; runners with higher vertical maximal forces tend to experience greater lower-extremity pain, and elite runners with elevated ground-reaction forces tend to have an increased risk of stress fracture. The extent of motion around the ankle and knee joints during gait is also believed to be a predictive factor for injury.

It is clear that MFS and RFS produce different patterns of ground-reaction force. Runners who employ RFS generally demonstrate a pronounced, initial spike in GRF during the first few moments of stance which is usually absent when MFS is the ground-contact strategy. In contrast, average peak-to-peak amplitude for medio-lateral GRF can often be three times greater in MFS runners, compared with RFS competitors.

Research reveals that MFS and RFS are associated with differing patterns of muscular work, force production and power absorption in various parts of the leg during running. Compared with RFS, MFS has been linked with higher peak power absorption and eccentric work at the ankle during gait. It is possible that these effects may lead to an overworking of the lower-leg muscle groups and increase the risk of Achilles-tendon injury for MFS runners. Other research has suggested that runners who attempt to “convert” from RFS to MFS experience significant muscle fatigue and severe delayed-onset muscle soreness (although these factors may merely be the result of a change in running style and thus motor-recruitment patterns, rather than a reflection of the negative characteristics of MFS).

Although RFS may reduce the forces placed on the ankle during running, research suggests that it tends to increase the power absorption and total work performed at the knee, compared with MFS. Thus, it is possible that RFS could be connected with a higher rate of knee injury, compared with MFS.

Accelerometers attached to the skin or embedded in the tibia have been utilized to gauge loads placed on the lower extremity during running. Accelerometer studies demonstrate that peak acceleration measures are greater at slower stride rates (and thus longer stride lengths) for any specific running speed. Such data suggest that the loading rate for impact forces would be lessened by a shift from RFS to MFS, since the latter is strongly linked with higher stride rates and shorter strides.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the differing effects of MFS and RFS on ground-reaction forces, rotational forces, and muscle and tendon strain in various parts of the leg during running are not yet well-understood.

The bottom lines? Although scientific research has not exactly sung the praises of MFS over RFS, EducatedRunner believes that this is one area in which scientific investigating has been rather deficient. EducatedRunner strongly endorses the use of the MFS pattern during running and believes that it enhances economy, promotes performance, and lessens the likelihood of injury, compared with RFS. EducatedRunner is now involved in a research project to compare the merits of MFS and RFS and will write much more about this topic in coming months.

Barefoot, Nearly Barefoot, and Bearfoot Running

educatedrunner — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:59:00 GMT

Barefoot running is taking off! One reason for this is the increasingly popular story which is being spun about the nature of a barefoot run: According to some “experts” (and of course many non-experts), unshod running decreases impact forces with the ground, reduces the likelihood of injury, and also enhances running economy, a key predictor of performance. Compared with stuffing one’s feet in 800-gram brogans with mattress-like mid-soles, barefoot running also appears to be particularly natural and “free,” making it attractive to many runners.

A beautiful romance, overall, but one small, thorny point is that scientific research on barefoot running (and the difference between shod and unshod harrying) is still a bit limited, especially from performance and injury standpoints.

Nonetheless, the barefoot bandwagon is surging forward, carrying along with it expensive products which allow runners to mimic barefoot running. The Nike Free shoes introduced to the market a few years ago represented an attempt to reproduce the patterns and forces of barefoot running without the trouble of actually putting one’s soles on the line.

And one current form of naked-foot imitating is to run clad in Vibram Five Fingers light-weight “shoes.” The Vibrams are thought to allow the bare-skin experience without abrasive experiences between the corpus callosum of the plantar surfaces of runners’ feet and the road or trail.

In a study carried out at the Institute of Sport Medicine and Sport Science in Rome, eight experienced barefoot runners ran with the Vibrams, with regular running shoes, and with nothing at all on their feet. When running barefooted, the athletes made contact with the ground in a more plantar-flexed position at the ankle, compared with shod hurrying (i. e., they tended to be mid-foot strikers without their shoes). When unshod, the runners had shorter contact times with the ground, more-abbreviated stride lengths, lower impact forces with the ground, and higher stride rates.

How did Five Fingers check out? Well, the Vibrams were linked with lower oxygen-consumption rates and diminished peak impact forces, compared with wearing shoes. As was the case with barefoot running, Five-Fingers pacing produced potent plantar-flexion for ground contact.

So, this Roman research rang a positive bell for barefoot running, since impact forces were lower and economy was enhanced. Five Fingers seemed to win, too, but wait: There was nothing necessarily special about the Vibrams, no unique characteristics which produced the plantar-flexed landings, lower peak impact forces, and drop-offs in oxygen consumption. It’s just that the Vibrams were much lighter and thinner than regular running shoes, allowing the barefoot mimicry to go on.

And since that’s the case, there’s really no reason to shell out $80 for a set of Vibrams which probably cost no more than five dollars to make. A pair of good-old fashion bedroom slippers will protect the soles of the feet from rocks and glass on one’s favorite running route, and they will also be associated with more-plantar-flexed landings, smaller impact forces, and nicer economy. Plus, the darned things are inexpensive. You can get seven pairs of them, one for each day of the week, for the price of a single set of Five Fingers.

THE CLOUDS IN THE BACKGROUND

educatedrunner — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:56:00 GMT

On a magnificent Sunday in early September, I took my 12-year-old daughter to the Michigan State Fair in Detroit, and it was one of those times when it is easy to think, "We'll never have a day quite like this again."

And when you also think, just below the surface, that time is passing way too quickly, after all I was just walking my daughter, one-day-old, down the street in her carriage, just home from the hospital, it can’t really be 12 years ago, and now I barely see her and she is six years away from leaving for college.

It was sunny, dry, and beautiful at the Fair, the light cleansed and pure, the temp at 77, the crowd exhilarated and screaming on the scary rides, laughing and talking, walking down the midway and taking in huge quantities of home-made lemonade and sugar-coated elephant ears. No one cared that the day was going by too quickly, everyone was having too much fun to notice that my daughter and her friend were going on ride after ride, including some that they had no business being on, huge steel contraptions which threw them high in the air with wild spins and then jerked them downward with violent accelerations.

I was the guardian, the one keeping track of time, watching the clock because of our necessary six-o-clock departure, feeling those 12 years gone by, and the day was so beautiful and fragile that it was also filled with extremely intense pain. Instead of enjoying the moments, the succession of rides, the smiles and shrieks of delight, I was focused on how soon the day would be over – on how quickly cherished things can pass away.

When I sent my friend Dave an account of what had happened at the Fair, he replied that I was failing to look for and appreciate “moments of perfection.” As he pointed out quite wisely, many, many beautiful things had happened at the fair, but I had filtered them through my preoccupation with the transitory nature of life and thus had failed to receive and enjoy them.

Thanks to Dave, things went much, much better two weeks later when my daughter and I traveled to an old country mill and discovered two moments of near perfection, one when I steered her away from the graveled path on the edge of the apple orchard into the interior, where we found a dark, grassy alleyway with trees brimming with Galas on either side. She was entranced with her apple picker, although it was nothing more than a long broom stick with a lacrosse-like trapper at the end, with protruding wire fingers to strip branches of the reddest and juiciest orbs. I taught her how to reach the highest fruit with her picker and how to taste the most-promising apples with no feeling of stealing - and to throw the left-over cores on the ground without the guilt of polluting or littering. Each bite of gorgeous Gala produced a mix of sugar and juice on the apple's edge, causing nearby bees to behave like cockatiels and walk along our hands to get to the line between white and red, the luscious border. The bees were so engrossed in their task and drunk with fermented sugar that it never occurred to them to sting, and we filled our sack merrily, until it was half-full, when my daughter announced that it was time to feed the fish in a nearby pond.

We rushed back to the apple barn with our too-sparsely populated sack, coaxed a bag of fish food out of a reluctant, wanting-to-go-home vendeuse, and walked hurriedly to the pond, which we found to be perfect, devoid of afternoon pickers and humanity of any sort, with thin lines sketched on the glassy green surface by hurrying water striders. At first the pond seemed empty of fish, too, but a few despairing throws of pellets into the water suddenly produced a collection of catfish mouths, gaping and swallowing, moved along by the swirling and splashing bodies of the gigantic fish. Albino carp tried to sneak past the thrusting barbels and slapping caudal fins, but the catfish were far too aggressive, keeping the beautiful white streaks at bay and away from the prizes, the tiny nuggets which my daughter was tossing so happily into the water.

The fish were so tame that they followed my daughter right along the shore, moving in rhythm with her walking; the purplish cats had no fear and rolled somersaults in the water under my daughter’s relentless shower of food. She talked to the fish, saying “Here” with each sprinkling and “Come on little fella” to a small, bold cat which nearly came out of the water to get the choicest grains. Clouds edged over the sun as we finished the catfish dinner, and so our walk back through the appled woods was especially dark and particularly moody and happy. There was no need to talk in the car as we returned to Lansing.

And so it goes with our training. When we focus on nothing more than what we are doing - those small moments of perfection within our workouts, that’s when we train most effectively and thus become much-better runners.

If we are thinking, “I should be doing this much better, I should be hitting my splits, I should be running a lot faster,” that’s when we relinquish control of what we are doing. That’s when our running economy goes south, and that’s when we lose our so-necessary moments of perfection. Those perfect moments are present when we abandon our dark thoughts and begin moving our muscles and joints in smooth and efficient ways – and thus enjoy the thrill of movement. That exhilaration can be there, suddenly, even when our splits have been bad or the pace of our long run has been too slow.

Although it is a difficult concept for many runners, it is actually OK to throw away all negative thinking during training and racing. And it is even better than OK to throw oneself into the excitement of the moment, the powerful bounding from one leg to the other, the sensation of flying along the ground.

When we think, darkly, “Oh, I’m tired and I’ve still got five more intervals to complete (or five more miles to run),” that’s when we shut out a wondrous moment of perfection, and that’s when our running becomes much, much less than it can be.

When running a workout or race, it is not the time to think about the hostility of the universe, the unjustness of life, or a previous failure as a runner. It is a time to be perfect.

THE BEST TRAINING AFTER YOUR VVO2MAX TEST

educatedrunner — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:10:00 GMT

The six weeks after a vVO₂max test are often the busiest time in a runner’s life. Shocking that a simple six-minute exam could create such a productive frenzy, but the vVO₂max effort can do everything – evaluate fitness, set up stunning workouts, and even establish goal pace for an important race.

The test is straightforward. After a warm-up which fires up your nervous system, on a day when you are recovered and feeling great, run as far as you can on the track in just six minutes. Measure your distance covered by counting laps and eyeballing lengths from familiar track marks or using a hardware-store’s measuring wheel (if you have a GPS device, simply run on any flat surface with your contraption in play). Cool down in either case, and you are ready for six remarkable weeks of training.

Once you have your six-minute distance, it’s easy to calculate vVO₂max. Let’s say that you run 1537 meters in six minutes, for example (bear in mind that the following math will work for any distance). 1537 divided by 360 seconds (the total time of the test in seconds) = 4.27 meters per second. That’s your vVO₂max.

Now, 4.27 meters per second does not exactly produce much harmony when we are out for a run. Most of us wouldn’t know whether we were hitting 4.27 meters per second during a session or not. Not good, since the goal of vVO₂max workouts is to run precisely at vVO₂max.

So, let’s always convert vVO₂max into a 400-meter tempo - that will make things much-more manageable. 400 meters divided by 4.27 meters per second = 93.7 seconds per 400 meters. For convenience, let’s call it 94 seconds per 400 meters. We’re now ready to set up some brilliant, high-intensity workouts.

For example, a few days after your test, you could run 10 X 200 meters in 47 seconds each (that’s 94 seconds per 400 tempo). Warm up well before a workout like this, and of course cool down and stretch afterward (we’ll deal with optimal warm-ups, cool-downs, and stretching in future blogs).

By dictates of the Billat Convention, recovery intervals inside a vVO₂max session are always equal in time duration to the work intervals and consist of easy running, not walking. So, in our 10 X 200 meters in 47-seconds-each example, you would jog for 47 seconds after every 47-second work interval. There’s not much science behind this, but – anecdotally – making the recovery intervals longer can harm the blood-lactate and oxygen-consumption characteristics of the workout (which you don’t want to do), and trimming the recovery intervals can make it difficult to hit all of your work intervals in the sweet bull’s eye.

Progressing with your vVO₂max workouts is important, so during week two you could perform something like 6 X 400 in 94 seconds each. Progression with vVO₂max training involves lengthening the work intervals and the total time spent at vVO₂max per session.

As long as the 400 workout has gone well, week three could see 8 X 400 in 94 each, with 94 recoveries.

Week four would then have 6 X 600 in (94 + 47) = 141 seconds (2:21) each, with 2:21 jog recoveries.

Weeks five and six would then be set up for 5 X 800 in 3:08 each, with 3:08 restorations.

A few rules to remember: Conduct one vVO₂max session per week, not two. Carry out vVO₂max training on days when you are well-rested. Don’t fall into a depression if you miss a few splits here and there – just relax and keep working; the results will come. And don’t use work intervals which are more than a few seconds longer than three minutes.

After six weeks, you’ll enjoy a shiny new lactate-threshold speed and enhanced economy, things which vVO₂max training improves. And of course you’ll probably have a faster vVO₂max, too. Which means it will be time for a six-minute vVO₂max re-test! And then – most likely – a subsequent, well-deserved upgrade in your training intensity for your next six-week training period. After all, you’ll be a better runner.

In an upcoming blog, we’ll look at using your little vVO₂max test to create goal paces for races, even long competitions like half-marathons and marathons.

SCHEDULE FOR OWEN'S VERMONT GET-AWAY ANNOUNCED

educatedrunner — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:00:00 GMT

The full schedule for Owen’s August Running Get-Away in Vermont is now available:

OWEN’S RUNNING GET-AWAY

AT THE GOVE HILL RETREAT

THETFORD, VERMONT

AUGUST 15-20, 2009

“The top performances of the future will, increasingly, result from ‘spirit’ and high intelligence. All things will be found to be possible – when we understand truly the principles, fundamentals, and mysteries of training.” – Percy Cerutty, How to Become a Champion

SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEK

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15

3:00-5:30 P. M. - Meet Owen at Manor House, check in to room (if you are not a commuter), unpack, tour Gove Hill Retreat, relax by Gove Lake, rest

5:30-7:00 P. M. – Sumptuous evening meal in Manor House dining hall

7:00-9:00 P. M. - First “class-room” session: Introduction to the camp, ice-breaking activities

SUNDAY, AUGUST 16 (General-Strengthening Day) (aka “Woodstock: One Rocking Place to Run”)

Schedule for the day

6:30 A. M. – First run of camp: From Prosper Road in Woodstock to the Taftsville Covered Bridge by way of the carriage trails of Marsh Billings National Park

8:00 A. M. – Bread-breaking in always-friendly dining area

9:30-11:00 A. M. – Class-room session: Training Theory I

11:15 A. M. – 12:30 P. M. - Demo session: How to warm up and cool down in optimal ways (aka “Runners Have Nervous Systems, too”)

12:30-1:30 P. M. – Lunch, with bounties of the season, at Manor House

1:30-3:45 P. M. - Free time

3:45-5:30 P. M. - Workout: General strengthening, using bars, bells, and balls, at Gove Hill Retreat soccer field

5:30-6:45 P. M. – Another inspiring meal prepared by our hosts, Bernice and Bill

7:00-9:00 P. M. – Class-room session: Tales of Old Kenya, plus Training Theory II

Quote for the Day: “Always remember that the goal of your training is not to knock yourself out with hard workouts and then hope for the best; your goal is to gradually work your way up to higher and higher levels of fitness.” – Sammy Lelei (59:24 PR for half-marathon)

MONDAY, AUGUST 17 (Running-Specific-Strengthening Day) (aka “The Appalachian-Trail Sampler”)

Schedule for the day

7:00 A. M - vVO₂max testing at Dartmouth College track in Hanover, New Hampshire

8:30 A. M. - Breakfast

9:30-11:00 A. M. – Class-room session: Understanding vVO₂max and vVO₂max training, plus the value of running-specific strength training

11:15 A. M.-12:45 P. M. - Demo workout: Running-specific-strengthening movements (at Gove-Hill athletic field, with majestic views of the Green Mountains in the background)

12:45-1:30 P. M. – Lunch (another inspired meal from Bill and Bernice)

1:30-3:45 P. M. - Free time

3:45 P. M. - Incredible Kenyan-style run on the Appalachian Trail, with bogs, meadows, beaver ponds, and stately trees

5:30-6:45 P. M. - Evening meal

7:00-9:00 P. M. – Class-room session: Running-specific-strengthening follow-up, analysis of Horwill’s Law of Running, plus putting together a logical training program, with all proper progressions

Quote for the Day: “When you get really tired while you are running, simply speed up! You will feel much better if you do.” – Sammy Lelei

TUESDAY, AUGUST 18 (Hill-Training Day) (aka The Mount Etna Eruption)

Schedule for the day

6:30 A. M. – Getting fired up: A run to the Gile Mountain Fire Tower (and back, of course)

8:00 A. M. - Breakfast

9:30-11:00 A. M. – We travel to Etna, New Hampshire for our class-room session, which involves speed secrets - what you need to do to get faster, plus introductions to hill and lactate-threshold training, and continuation of work on overall training program

11:15 A. M. - 12:45 P. M. – Running like royalty on Etna’s King Hill, introduction to hill drills and different kinds of hill running

12:45-1:30 P. M. – Mid-day picnic lunch in Etna

1:30-3:45 P. M. - Free time (possible trip to Dartmouth College and Hood Museum in Hanover – or King Arthur Flour in Norwich)

3:45-5:30 P. M. – Fun workout (location TBD), followed by a cool-off in the crystal-clear Gove Lake

5:30-6:45 P. M. – Seafood Night: Bill works his magic with sea-food recipes and delicacies from New England

7:00-9:00 P. M. – Class-room session: How they do it – secrets of the elite Kenyan runners

Quote for the Day: “It is OK not to train for three or four days in a row, or even longer, if you feel you need the recovery. The person who works out every day is usually as well-prepared for his/her races as a donkey.” - Sammy Lelei

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19 (Explosive-Training Day) (aka Unlocking the Speed Which Has Been Lurking, Hidden, in Our Legs

Schedule for the day

6:30 A. M. - Introduction to explosive training (location TBD)

8:00 A. M. - Breakfast

9:30-11 A. M. – Class-room session: Explosive training, sports nutrition, specific race preparations, principles of cross training, building your program

11:15 A. M. - 12:30 P. M. - Demo session: Finish explosive and running-specific drills

12:30-1:30 P. M - Lunch

1:30-3:45 P. M. - Free time

3:45-5:30 P. M. – Running with the dogs: “Lactate stackers” on Dogford Road

5:30 P. M. – Cajun Night: Bill offers up the special, incredibly tasty Cajun dishes he learned to prepare as a top chef in New Orleans

7:00 P. M. – Fun activities, with a trip to the historic Norwich Inn

Quote for the Day: “Never enter races in France. At the awards ceremonies following the races, it is very difficult to tell whether you are headed for the guillotine or for the presentation of a medal and an actual paycheck. Plus, when you get back home, it is very difficult to convince Kenyan banks that French francs have any value.” – Sammy Lelei

THURSDAY, AUGUST 20 (The Synthesis)

Schedule for the day

6:30 A. M. – Apocalyptic graduation run on the incredible Cloudland Road

8:00 A. M. – Festive breakfast

9:30 A. M. – Class-room session: Summary of week, putting all the elements of great training together into a cohesive and productive plan

10:45 A. M. – Final general-strengthening session

12:30 P. M. – Bill’s special farewell lunch

1:30 P. M. – Camp ends

Quote for the Day: “When we say good-bye in Kenya, we always say ‘Kwa heri,’ which means ‘Go in peace and blessedness.’” – Sammy Lelei

Educated's Excellent Ekstrand: His Fitness Is Up in Uppland

educatedrunner — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:04:00 GMT

The runners coached by EducatedRunner.com have been doing extremely well. A case in point is Ingmar Ekstrand, an intelligent, tough-minded, 63-year-old runner who hails from the beautiful university city of Uppsala, Sweden. Ingmar has life-time PR of 3:10 for the marathon and in the past year has hit 20:43 during a club-run 5K and 3:34:00 for the 26.2-mile event. Before coming to EducatedRunner, he was a confirmed Lydiardite, with weeks filled with 17- to 18-kilometer runs and a nearly mandatory 25- to 30-K, LSD workout each Sunday. He arrived at EducatedRunner’s door step wanting to be faster in shorter races and more-confident in competitions.

At the beginning of this month, coach Owen placed Ingmar on a lower-volume, higher-quality training plan, dropping his weekly Ks from 100 to about 60, boosting Ingmar’s workout intensity, and adding strength training to his program (the combination of quality running and resistance work is a cornerstone of the EducatedRunner philosophy).

Over the past three weeks, Ingmar has completed some notable workouts, including the following:

(1) 7 X 400 in 87 seconds each, with 87-second jog recoveries (a session which EducatedRunner.com would term a vVO₂max-plus workout),

(2) 3 X 1000 in 3:50-3:55 each, with four-minute jog recoveries (the projected split for this one was 4:18, but Ingmar felt so good with his reduced volume that he took off and felt great at the faster speeds!),

(3) A marathon-prep session, with 6K easily, 12K at marathon tempo, and 6K easily,

(4) Three circuit sessions with series of 10 different exercises interspersed with high-quality running segments ranging in length from 400 to 800 meters, and finally

(5) A vVO₂max test, which involved running all-out for six minutes continuously. This was a shock to Ingmar’s system: After a winter of running at tempos of 11 to 12 km/hour, his neuromuscular system was jolted by the update to 16 km/hour! Ingmar covered 1610 meters during the exam, for an average of 4.5 meters per second (89.5 seconds per 400 meters). Completion of the vVO₂max test provides a benchmark which can be used to chart gains in running capacity in the months ahead. vVO₂max can also be employed to create a variety of high-intensity workouts, including the vVO₂max-plus session described above (# 1).

This kind of training pushed Ingmar’s fitness up so high that Saturday he won the Regional (Uppland) Cross Country Championship (4K) in his division, completed over a very tough and hilly course. The key period of the race was the second lap, when Ingmar overtook his opponents during a challenging uphill segment and then charged steadily toward the finish (the photo at the top of this story shows Ingmar, in second place, getting ready to make his decisive move). He is looking forward to a series of upcoming races and of course to toeing the starting line for the Stockholm Marathon on May 30.

As Ingmar himself points out, moving his six-minute, vVO₂max-test distance up to 1700 meters, a reasonable goal, would represent a close-to-6-percent upgrade in vVO₂max and thus in all of his race times. Before too long, he will be in sub-20-minute territory for the 5K, for example, and he will knock about 13 minutes off his marathon time. Stay tuned to this blog for further reports on Ingmar’s progress. He’ll be transitioning soon from general strengthening (as represented by the circuit workouts) to running-specific strength training and then on to hill and explosive work.

What Seneca Would Say about Marathon Frustrations

educatedrunner — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:05:00 GMT

Running a marathon can be an extremely frustrating experience. Frustration occurs during this great race when there is a gap between actual performance on race day and expected performance.

One “solution” could be to eliminate expectations and simply focus on the actual effort during the race. A key problem with this is that expectations can be great motivators during pre-marathon training. In addition, having a goal pace for the marathon (an expectation) improves the quality of pre-race training, because portions of long runs can be carried out at goal tempo (thus enhancing goal-tempo economy and fatigue-resistance, not to mention confidence with one’s goal).

If frustration is permitted to mount on race day (because race pace is slower than expected), it usually hurts performance severely. As my friend Angelos Vetsis points out, frustration produces stress and a loss of focus and mental control. One feels a bit disgraced out on the course, and a feeling that pre-marathon training has been a waste of time is allowed to burgeon. The overall race performance becomes much worse than it should be – finishing time moves even farther away from the goal.

So frustration should be handled successfully during races which do not meet expectations, but what is the key to such success? Part of the answer may come from the Stoics of ancient Greece.

One of the key tenets of the stoic philosophy was that one should not worry excessively about situations over which one has no control. What might Stoicism mean – from a practical standpoint – in a race? In the case of a marathon, expected pace might be 4:00 per K, but actual pace could turn out to be 4:20 per K, as an example. The runner hitting the 4:20 Ks feels that nothing can be done – it is simply impossible to ramp up to 4:00 per K, for whatever reasons. The legs simply won’t go any faster.

Frustration over this 4:00 to 4:20 gap can completely ruin the rest of the race. Seneca, a founding Stoic (not the noted American-Indian chief, although he might have similar thoughts), would say that one should completely forget about the 20-second gap, since nothing can be done about it. All attempts to close the gap have failed. Thus, the task remaining in the race is to maintain the 4:20 pace without letting frustration tear it apart. Accomplishing this “maintenance job” would be a major victory on a very tough day. It would be easy to let the whole race come crashing down into dejected plodding and mental self-abuse, out of frustration associated with not hitting what appeared to be an achievable goal. In this common situation, frustration is dealt with and a crash is avoided through stoic thinking, an adjustment of goals, and within-race focus on the new goal.

The Stoics also believed that one should focus more intently on constructive actions rather than thoughts (especially repetitively negative cogitations). Putting this belief into practice, a frustrated runner would “cancel” negative thoughts about performance during the race and would consciously refuse to dwell on the gap between goal and reality. Such a thought (about the inability to sustain goal speed) could occur once and only once, and then the runner would move on with actions, employing all the strategies needed to keep on running in a quality way (such strategies are covered in our marathon blog).

Part of the answer, too, may lie in the realization that every day is different from a performance standpoint, and every day has its own specific, top level of possible performance (which is different from the tops on other days). As a mature runner, one can realize that a certain day, perhaps even race day, simply can not be a day for best-possible performance, for a variety of different physiological and psychological reasons. When a race goes bad, one can thus proceed in different directions: (1) Beating oneself up for not reaching the goal and letting frustration mount, with all of its negative consequences, or (2) Deciding that one is going to perform at one’s best on that day, even though it is not a goal performance. The accomplishment of the latter can actually be quite heroic and satisfying. On a day when a goal can’t be reached, there is no mental elation associated with flying along at one’s very top capacity, and thus the effort can be very hard psychologically. The race then becomes a matter of toughness, self-control, gutting it out, and employing Stoic philosophy. On a bad day, succeeding in this way is even more difficult than achieving one’s goal on a perfect day – and thus it can be even more satisfying. As the Stoics often pointed out, you should strive to locate happiness in things you can control.

Dealing with frustrating aspects of training and racing – and much more – will be fully developed at my running camps this summer. Three camps are available for you – June 20-25 in Vermont, July 4-9 at the University of Oregon, and July 18-23 in Los Angeles (at beautiful Loyola Marymount University). Attending one of these camps will make you fitter, faster, and more injury free. I’ll personally help you develop a training program which is just right for you. To sign up and work with me on making your running better than it has ever been before, please go to http://www.educatedrunner.com/Camps.aspx

I also have a special offer running from now until April 15 (no fooling). The offer is one month of personal coaching for $19.99, no strings attached. You don’t have to provide a credit card – just information about yourself and your running goals. After the month, you can continue to work with me at my usual rate or simply say “No – it’s not what I expected,” with no hard feelings at all, and of course no pressure at any time. To begin your month of training at the astonishing rate of just 67 cents per day, please go to http://www.educatedrunner.com/Coaching.aspx

Fatigue-Defying Strategies for the Marathon

educatedrunner — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:20:00 GMT

The spring marathon season is kicking into full-swing, which reminds me that this race depends on mental strategizing (for success) more than any other popular race distance. You can burn a 5K without thinking, but in the marathon pensiveness is always going to come to the fore at some point, and it can hurt you or help you as you negotiate those 26.2 miles. The right mental mind-set for the marathon revolves around what I like to call FFRR & DSD – Focus, Fatigue-Relief, Relaxation, and Doing Something Different.

Focus: There are times during the race when fatigue seems overwhelming and thoughts are turning negative. At these points, total

VAK Training Helps You Reach Your Goals

educatedrunner — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:39:00 GMT

VAK training can transform your running. VAK refers to the practice of stating your running goal verbally – and then experiencing the achievement of the goal Visually, in an Auditory fashion, and Kinesthetically.

For example, your goal might be the achievement of a certain finishing time in a marathon. To begin a VAK training session for this goal, you would simply make yourself very comfortable, relax, close your eyes, and say, “I am going to finish the Boston Marathon in 2:59 (or any relevant race and time).”

Follow up your statement by experiencing the finish of the race Visually. Think how you will look as you run the final 800 meters to the finish line, your legs striding forward powerfully, your arms moving rhythmically and in synch with your legs, your shoulders back, your head up, and with a broad smile on your face. Visualize how it will look to take that final stride across the finish line, to accept the congratulations of the race-support crew, to walk toward the recovery area with a feeling of great fulfillment and accomplishment. Focus on such visual images for a few minutes, relaxing and enjoying them completely.

Then, experience the final moments of the marathon in an Auditory fashion. Hear the cheering for you as you approach the finish line, the clapping from bystanders and the strong words of support from the crowd. Hear the announcer calling out your name. Hear the sound of your feet bounding along the ground and the sound of your very rhythmic breathing. Hear the heartfelt congratulations you will receive after you cross the finish line. Hear your friends shouting to you, “You did it!”

Finally, experience the finish of the race kinesthetically. Imagine how great it will feel to see the finish line ahead. Think how exhilarated you will be as you make your final charge toward the finish line. Feel your nervous system and leg muscles waking up for that final surge. Think how the ground will feel as you stride across those last few meters. And feel how great it will be to relax totally after you cross the finish line. Your whole body will be warm, and your spirit will be joyful; your mind and body will be unified.

The Law of Attraction says that we make things happen by thinking about them in advance. It says that we make our goals real for the first time and begin to believe and trust that we can attain them by thinking about them deeply, by thinking about what they really are and how much we really want them, and by experiencing them in the VAK ways. I know that VAK works. I never truly realized that I could attain my goals until I began using VAK. Regular practice of VAK also brings great internal peace; it is a form of meditation.

VAK is also the perfect antidote to negative or doubting thoughts. If you think “I might be able to achieve this goal,” then that doubting thought becomes ingrained in your mind, forms a groove right across your cerebral cortex, takes on a life of its own and “lights up” on race day, and – sure enough – on your day of competition you might be able to attain your goal, but then again you might not. It is important to use VAK immediately whenever the doubtful voice shows up, during your preparations for a key race or within the race itself. VAK is the perfect anti-venom for the crippling fatigue and I-can’t-go-on syndrome which can strike during competitions. When exhaustion strikes, you can call up your VAK images, sounds, and feelings instantly – and say “I am going to do this!!”

VAK is also extremely forward-thinking. When you employ VAK, you focus on future successes, not past disappointments and mistakes. VAK is an extreme confidence-builder: As you see, hear, and feel yourself succeeding, you come to believe that you indeed have the power to reach your most-important goal.

Let’s face it: You want to reach your running goal very badly. VAK puts your whole mind and body to work on the task of achieving your goal, and hitting your target time becomes very real and absolutely possible. Using VAK can be a very emotional process, helping you see just how important your goals are to you – and why they are important. You’ll understand yourself better when you employ VAK regularly. Systematic use of VAK will boost your self-esteem and create the mental state which is necessary for optimal performance. When that mental approach is combined with the physical prowess you have achieved through challenging training, your previous limits will be broken, and you will soar far above your previous performances.

Is The 10-Percent Rule Worth Even 10 Cents?

educatedrunner — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:59:00 GMT

About 65 percent of endurance runners get injured during an average training year, and research reveals that the injury rate may be even higher in individuals training for a marathon.

Some running advocates say that 65 percent may not be so bad, because the lower-limb damage rate for sedentary individuals is probably even higher (hypothetically due to a lack of coordination and muscular strength among sofa spuds). If 80 percent of couch potatoes are hurt during an average 12-month period, running might seem rather protective.

That debate has not yet been settled. I’m doing a survey of local running clubs and non-exercising residents from the community and will let you know soon about who has the worst knees, most-painful plantar fasciae, and greatest level of discomfort in their gluteus-maximum muscles. It’s not pitfall-free research, because one can always argue that runners are pre-selected: That is, individuals who are already less-prone to injury take up running and continue running because they know that their legs will be basically OK. Meanwhile, individuals who are more-prone to injury avoid running because they know it might flare up sensitive knees. In the end, the non-runners might have lower malady rates – but not because of the strengthening effect of running.

But let’s move on and think about what can be done to lower that distressing 65 number. As we ponder this, a key thing to remember is that training is the key cause of injury in runners. Yes, it’s not shoes, a lack of flexibility, poor warm-up practices, or a too-low frequency of massage therapy. Training is the culprit.

For each runner on this planet of ours, there is a level of training beyond which injury will occur and below which workouts will proceed trouble-free. This “injury threshold” varies dramatically between runners. An elite Kenyan runner might surpass his/her staying-healthy limit with a weekly load of 25 quality miles and 100 total miles, while a novice American runner could cross over the injury threshold with just 10 total miles and one quality mile per week (a “quality mile” is one which is completed at 10-K pace or faster; for a marathon trainer a mile which is conducted at goal marathon pace can also be considered to be “quality”).

Traditionally, we have thought about the injury threshold in terms of training volume (number of miles run per week), but intensity is the often-forgotten wild card. An endurance runner who can log 40 miles per week at a moderate pace without trouble might find herself injured within a few weeks if she adjusts her training so that six to eight of those miles are quality in nature. Both intensity and volume of training have an effect on the likelihood of injury.

The good news is that the injury threshold tends to rise for each runner as strength and fitness improve. Runners should look for ways to lift the limit as high as possible, and of course they should attempt to avoid crossing over the threshold. In general, the educated runner works to keep training stresses from out-pacing adaptive processes in muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and bones.

One of the most-popular strategies for preventing injury is the use of the “10-percent rule,” which states that running volume should not increase by more than 10 percent from one week to the next. The 10-percenter has always seemed pretty reasonable to runners, since it recognizes that an injury threshold exists and that runners should be careful about moving beyond this important borderline, which has successful adaptation on the near side and injury on the far side. 10 percent would appear to be a prudent “governor” of the rate at which training volume is expanded.

But no scientific research has ever documented the benefits of the 10-percent dictum. The 10-percent rule also has a few injuries of its own. First, it focuses only on mileage, without taking training intensity (average running speed or percent VO₂max or the number of quality miles) into account. Advancing volume by 10 percent from one week to the next while reducing intensity or holding it constant should place a quite-different total stress on the leg muscles and connective tissues, compared with augmenting volume by 10 percent and boosting intensity by 7 percent, for example. From an injury prevention standpoint, it is possible that intensity should be temporarily decreased whenever volume increases, although there has been little research in this area.

A second problem is that the 10-percent rule can be too conservative in many cases. For example, an athlete who runs six miles per workout, three times a week, without a hint of injury, could probably boost volume by 20 percent (from 18 to 21.6 mpw) without significantly expanding injury risk by adding in a fourth workout of 3.6 miles on another day of the week.

A third failing is that the 10-percent scheme ignores workout duration. Let’s take our athlete from the preceding paragraph. If he/she boosts volume by 10 percent, moving from 18 to 19.8 miles, he/she could run into trouble if the schedule changes to two workouts per week of 9.9 miles instead of 3 X 6.6. The nine-mile runs should have a more-damaging effect on the legs (because of the number of miles run in a state of significant fatigue), compared with the combination of 6.6-mile sessions.

Another factor that should be considered is that expanding from 20 to 22 miles per week probably is much easier to do without raising injury risk, compared with augmenting training from 70 to 77 miles per week, even though both moves involve a 10-percent change. The latter transformation would add seven miles per week – and thus more than 7000 additional impacts with the ground per week - to legs already fairly heavily stressed by training (although it could also be argued that the 70-mile per week legs would be stronger and would thus be more prepared for the advancement, compared with lower limbs which can handle “only” 20 weekly miles).

Experience suggests that a too-rapid advance in training can increase the risk of injury dramatically. However, the strategy designed to prevent overly quick advancements - the 10-percent rule - appears to be too general and unscientific to be used dependably. The rate at which a runner can increase his/her level of training is highly individualized, and it is up to each runner to recognize his/her limits. “Listening to one’s body” and reducing volume and/or intensity at the first sign of lower-limb discomfort (often with a complete rest day) is an un-scientific yet sound principle to follow. When a runner carries out a workout on sore, stressed-out legs, he/she becomes a risk-taker, not an educated trainer.

Carrying out running-specific strength training (rsst) is the most-fundamental way to lift the injury threshold. We’ll cover rsst in detail in the coming months. Educated Runner offers seminars on running-specific strength training. To sign up for one, please click on the Seminars flag at the top of this page or go to http://www.educatedrunner.com/Seminars.aspx

Why Have a Coach?

educatedrunner — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:03:00 GMT

Endurance runners sometimes ask why it is beneficial to go to the trouble and expense of having a coach. They’re thinking that it might be just as good (or maybe even better) to forgo the weekly or monthly tutoring of a real-live human mentor and to follow a high-quality “canned program” instead. After all (the thinking goes), if you’ve got a great schedule to follow, isn’t that enough, especially if you are the kind of runner who doesn’t need or like “hand-holding?”

What is forgotten during such cognitions is that working with a good coach is like having a 10-year-old checking out your training, a check-out which can lead to some notable PRs.

In one of his memorable films, the great runner Groucho Marx, portraying a soldier-like commander of some sort who was examining a chart of military movements, uttered the famous line, “A child of three could understand this map.” After a moment of reflection, he followed up with, “So bring me a child of three, as soon as possible.”

Groucho was admitting his cartographic shortcomings, but he was also acknowledging the fact that a set of innocent, naïve eyes, unaccustomed to looking at things in the usual way, can often understand complicated situations and produce important insights.

That’s certainly one reason why I like to take my 10-year-old daughter grocery shopping with me: She locates important things in the store that I would never see. Just the other day she found “pinwheel picks” in a spot within the store which I had walked by scores of times over the last few years, without ever detecting the presence of these unique items.

In case you are not a regular pinwheel-pick user, pinwheel picks are simply extra-long toothpicks with brightly colored pinwheels at their ends, and they automatically help kids reach PRs in the fruit-consumption segments of their meals. Put a fork or spoon next to a bowl of fruit, and your child might eat about half of what’s in the bowl, if you are fortunate. Stick a pinwheel pick in one of the pieces of fruit, and all of the fruit will soon be gone. It’s just a lot more fun eating fruit with something which has a colorful pinwheel at one end, compared with stabbing the stuff with the same implement used to ingest chicken.

My daughter could see something in the store which would instantly double her fruit consumption - but which I would never see, because I didn’t know how to look. I knew how to search for high-quality fruit but not how to seek the key to the achievement of my goal – greater consumption of that fruit. In effect, I was walking through the store with blinders on.

A good coach knows how to find things which you can’t see. That’s why I say it’s like having a 10-year-old take a close look at your training. A helpful coach can “see” counter-productive self-talk during races, self-talk which might seem completely normal to you. An involved coach can also detect other problems which you might not think about (or might not know how to assess), including low carbohydrate intake and an overall mental approach to training which precludes major improvement. These are difficulties that a “canned program” can’t address.

A good coach also knows how to define the problem at hand correctly. In the case of the fruit-eating, I had defined the overall process as: Go to store, acquire high-quality fruit, drive fruit home, present fruit to daughter, daughter eats fruit. The most-important part of the process for me was the acquisition of the “high-intensity” fruit: If that were achieved, “daughter eats” should become reality, I thought.

My daughter (the actual fruit-eater) had defined the process correctly, that is, in a way which would help her actually improve her fruit stamina. Her conception was simpler, too: Make fruit-eating fun, daughter eats fruit. It contained the key element – make fruit-eating fun, the factor that I was too blind to find.

A great coach can make training simpler and more fun (and therefore lower in anxiety) and can define the improvement process correctly for you. He/she can identify the key elements of training which will optimize your improvements in performance. And, he/she can guide you through the correct progressions of training, so that you’ll not only acquire high-quality “fruit” (training sessions) but will also arrange the various mangoes, apples, and oranges in exactly the right way for you.

With my coaching program, you’ll get a set of eyes which will look at you and your running in a completely new way. I’ll help you find the things which have been missing in your training and guide you carefully toward some very exciting running performances. It will be an exhilarating experience for you as you feel your running capacity soaring, and it will be a great thrill for me to see you transform your running.

To sign up for the program, click here

The Fundamentals of Usain's Insane 100-Meter Bolt

educatedrunner — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Usain Bolt’s gold-medal-winning and world-record-setting 9.69-second performance over 100 meters at the Beijing Olympics was an astonishing surge of “running lightning.” Let’s take a look at how he accomplished it.

In contrast to the other sprinters in the race, who took about 44 steps to cover the 100-meter distance, Usain required only 41 steps. His step length averaged 100/41 = 2.44 meters per step. Everyone else hovered around 100/44 = 2.27 meters per step, a 7-percent diminishment (compared to Usain). It’s tempting to say that Usain won the race because of his long strides.

But hold on a minute: Step length is a function of the force placed on the ground during each contact, but it is also a variable which depends on height – longer limbs naturally lead to more-expansive strides. Usain stands 6’ 5”, according to media reports, or about 1.96 meters. The third-place finisher in the Beijing 100, Walter Dix, is only 5’ 9”, or 1.75 meters.

Among well-trained distance runners who are competing in a 5- or 10-K race, step length averages about 1.03 times height. You can readily see that things are quite different in the world of elite sprinting. During the Olympic-final 100, Usain’s relative step length was 2.44/1.96 = 1.24 times height. Walter’s relative step length was 2.27/1.75 = 1.30 times height.

Oops! We can see that Usain did not win the race because of his extraordinarily long strides. In fact, his steps were relatively shorter than Walter Dix’s, when expressed in relation to height.

What else might have accounted for Usain’s astounding speed? Actual velocity in a race is a function of just two things – step length and step rate, so let’s compared the step rates of Walter and Usain (we already know that Usain had a longer absolute step length and a shorter relative step length). Walter finished the race in 9.91 seconds to get his bronze medal, and so his step rate was 44/9.91 = 4.44 steps per second. Step rate is usually expressed in steps per minute, even when a race lasts less than one-sixth of a minute (like this Olympic final), so let’s figure Walter’s step rate that way: 4.44 steps per second X 60 seconds per minute = 266.4 steps per minute. That’s putting them down on the ground!

Usain’s step rate was 41/9.69 = 4.23 steps per second. Bringing that figure up to standard, we have 4.23 X 60 = 254 steps per minute. He was laying them down, too, but his step rate was actually 4.7-percent lower than Walter’s.

And thus we can see the fundamental nature of the competition between the two men. Usain covered more absolute ground with each step, so Walter had to try to make up for that by making more steps per second. He worked valiantly – and ran so explosively that Usain’s step rate was 4.7-percent smaller than his.

If step length had been equal – or in fact if Usain had managed less than a 4.7-percent advantage in step length over Walter, the race would have gone to the little fellow. Walter’s problem was that Usain’s step lengths were 7-percent broader. From elementary school math, we know that 7 minus 4.7 = 2.3 (here, we are simply subtracting 4.7, Walter’s advantage in step rate, from 7, Usain’s edge in step length). And 2.3 percent was almost the exact margin of difference between Walter and Usain (.023 X 9.91 = .228 seconds, just a whisker above the actual .22-second disparity).

If Walter had boosted his step length by “just” 2.4 percent (greater than the 2.3-percent difference between the two men), he would have won the race. However, bear in mind that an elongation of step length might have hurt Walter’s step rate (because more time would have been needed on the ground to generate the force necessary to fly farther between steps). Most importantly, during very high-speed running a runner reaches his/her limit on step length before reaching his/her limit on step rate. In other words, beyond a certain point (as a runner gets closer and closer to max speed), further increases in velocity can only be accomplished by upping step rate, not by boosting step length. Thus, it’s very likely that Walter could not have augmented step length by even .1 percent and maintained his 10.09 meters per second velocity (100/9.91).

The bottom line? Usain won the race not because of his extraordinarily long steps, which were actually less impressive than Walter’s, taking height into account. He won despite having a lower relative step length and a slower step rate. The key was that the difference in absolute step lengths between Usain and Walter (a “plus” for Usain) was greater than the disparity in step rates (a “minus” for the gold-medal winner). Putting it another way, Usain had optimized his combination of step length and rate, producing a lightning-Bolt of astonishing running.

This begs the questions: How can endurance runners optimize step length and step rate and thus become intrinsically faster runners? This is important not just for “kicking” at the ends of races: Scientific research has revealed that 50- and 300-meter sprint times do a better job of predicting 10-K performance than VO₂max (maximal aerobic capacity). In an upcoming series of articles on this blog, we’ll cover the training strategies which are best for upgrading stride length and rate – and thus for making you a much-more-successful (and “better-educated” runner).

Why Hip Kidnaps Can't Stop ITBS

educatedrunner — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:13:00 GMT

Iliotibial band syndrome is the most-common cause of lateral knee pain in endurance runners, and the troublesome condition can account for up to 12 percent of all running injuries.

The iliotibial band, a slab of muscle and connective tissue which runs down the outside of the leg from the hip to just below the knee, tends to impinge on a lateral projection of the femur at the knee just after foot strike occurs. Repetitive rubbing of the iliotibial band on the femoral projection can produce a painful, chronic inflammation which we call iliotibial-band syndrome (ITBS). An old-fashioned case of ITBS can set your training back for six weeks or more, putting the damper on your hopes for a PR in a 5K or success in an upcoming marathon.

So what steps should you take if you already have ITBS, and how can you prevent ITBS from occurring in the future?

When an injury like ITBS occurs, taking anti-inflammatory medications and cutting back on training can ease the pain, but they are not the solution to the problem. A runner who ingests anti-inflammatories, runs fewer miles than usual, and enjoys a relief from ITBS symptoms after a few weeks has not solved his/her difficulties. He/she will be at increased risk of more ITBS trouble in the future.

That’s because the appearance of ITBS was not a random event, a lightning bolt out of the blue which struck for no apparent reason. The development of ITB means that the ITB has been too weak to stand up to the training which has been conducted. The real solution, then, is to reduce training on a permanent basis, usually not a very desirable strategy, or to strengthen the ITB. But how in the world can you strengthen the ITB so as to block future injury to the tissue?

Human-anatomy texts tell us that the function of the ITB is to abduct the leg at the hip, i. e., to move the leg laterally, away from the midline of the body. This definition strikes many runners as odd, since they can’t recall any workout or race in which they were running by moving their legs to the sides instead of straight forward. If the function of the ITB is to abduct the leg, how does it get hurt during endurance running, an activity which appears to call for no abduction?

The answer is that the writers of human-anatomy books are generally not overly concerned about the functions of muscles during running. If they were, they would write that the role of the ITB is to control adduction of the hip during ambling. The ITB works eccentrically to prevent the thigh from moving inward when the foot is on the ground during the stance phase of gait. When it does so, the ITB is stretched out, because some adduction must inevitably occur. The ITB is also active, because it must try to limit adduction. And so the action is eccentric – the poor ITB is trying to contract but is stretched out nonetheless.

What about the connection between that rubbing action of the ITB on the femoral projection and this eccentric activity? If the ITB is weak, it permits greater adduction (inward movement of the thigh) during stance. That stretches the ITB, puts it under greater tension, and presses it down on the femoral projection. Weakness of the ITB is thus the key risk factor for ITBS.

To reverse this weakness, you can head to the gym and carry out hip-abduction exercises until you are blue in the face, but these hip kidnappings will not strengthen your ITB for running, because concentric hip abductions are not specific to the eccentric, control-of-adduction function of the ITB during running. What we have learned from a couple of decades of scientific research is that strengthening exercises must be specific to a particular movement, in terms of muscle-activation pattern, neural control, joint range of motion, and velocity, in order for that movement to be actually fortified. As many experts have pointed out, the desired goal is to strengthen movements, not individual muscles.

Karen Ward comes to our rescue here. The brilliant, creative, Atlanta personal trainer (see her web site at http://www.dynamicfitnessconcepts.com) has developed an excellent exercise for advancing ITB function and strength during running, an exertion which will keep ITBS at bay. Her routine is called Frankenstein Marching with a Band (Karen has a sense of humor, too).

The drill is straightforward to carry out. To perform Frankenstein Marching, stand on a stretch band, with the handles of the band in your hands and the middle portion of the band directly under the arches of your feet. Cross the band handles in front of you, so that your left hand is now holding the handle which was in your right hand and your right hand is holding the left’s. This will make an X in front of your legs with the band. Then rotate each arm out to the side, so that your thumbs are pointing laterally. Retract your shoulders, and keep your feet parallel, shoulder-width apart, pointing straight forward. Walk forward briskly with relatively straight legs while maintaining a standing-tall alignment. Keep your head up and pointed straight forward (don’t look at your feet). Avoid the common mistakes associated with Frankenstein Marching - feet turning out as you move forward, distance between feet too small, head directed downward, and shoulders falling forward.

After a few steps, you’ll begin to feel your ITBs zinging eccentrically, but that zinginess and resulting ITB fatigue will be far better for you than the six-week bout of ITBS which Frankenstein Marching can help prevent. Start with 2 X 15 meters of Frankenstein Marching as part of your warm-up or regular strengthening routine, carry it out a couple of times a week, and progress to 3 X 20 meters with a much-more-resistant stretch band. When you do, you’ll be keeping yourself out of future ITB peril. And while no scientific research has been conducted in this area, the increased control of adduction you’ll gain by strengthening your iliotibial bands should enhance your running economy, an important predictor of running fitness and performance.

Frankenstein Marching is one of the activities which will strengthen the iliotibial bands and prevent ITBS. Many other ITB-strengtheners will be presented at our Strength Training for Runners & Triathletes Conference in Atlanta on October 24-25, 2008.

Reference

“Iliotibial Band Syndrome in Runners: Innovations in Treatment,” Sports Medicine, Vol. 35 (5), pp. 451-459, 2005

The Americans Were Not Strong: By Owen Anderson

educatedrunner — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:45:00 GMT

Coming off the plane in Detroit, Meshack did not look like an elite runner. His David-Niven mustache suggested suavity rather than sinew, and his gentle gaze seemed to hold very little competitive fire. Shockingly, too, the lines on his face and the small hints of alopecia suggested that he was a vintage athlete, perhaps the kind of fellow who was nearing the 40 mark.

But he was my runner, the first Kenyan I had brought to the states for my budding business as an agent, and Meshack’s wizened appearance had not left me totally without hope. After all, another Kenyan athlete - Jackson Simatei - had called Meshack his equal, and Jackson was a 2:08 marathon man. Plus, Meshack had good credentials, or so it seemed. There were several wins in European races, plus a 61-minute half-marathon in Nairobi, although it was true that the latter had not been run on a certified course.

Yes, the non-certified competition worried me a bit, not to mention the fact that the results of the race had never been published anywhere. Another concern was Meshack’s occupation as a truck mechanic with the Kenyan army. When I thought about truck-repair personnel, I pictured guys in white T-shirts with bloated biceps, expansive girths, grease on their pants, and a right leg that was shorter than the left. I couldn’t quite picture myself, at an elite-level road race, saying to someone, “That’s my truck mechanic out there leading the pack.”

But I also found myself thinking, unexpectedly, about the Portuguese runner, Carlos Lopes, who had set a world record at the age of 37. As I hoisted Meshack’s bag into the trunk of my blue convertible, it was reassuring to think that Meshack did not need to establish any new world marks; all he had to do was win some carefully selected 10Ks, against moderate competition. If Carlos could be the best in the world at 37, surely Meshack could dominate Chicago and St. Louis, even if he really was 40. If all went well, he would return to Kenya triumphant, the news about my generosity and skill as an agent would spread throughout all of East Africa, and business would boom.

A good sign, too, was that Meshack exuded confidence, declaring himself ready for 5-K, 10-K, and even marathon racing, along with the toughest training I could design. As I edged the LeBaron onto the crowded freeway to Lansing, he said, “I want to work hard, man; the training in France was much too slow. My agent wanted me to run with her, and we were doing just five minutes per kilometer. That’s not training, man.” We took the first exit and pulled into a McDonald’s drive-through. Meshack began to open his door to get out, but I explained that Americans often ate in their cars. “We can’t go in, we’re late,” I said. “There’s a welcome party for you this afternoon at a running store owned by your sponsors. Then, we’re going to their house for dinner, and they’ll show you your room and help make you comfortable. I thought we would just stop for a soft drink and snack. Are you hungry?”

“Ah, a welcome party,” said Meshack. “Will they slaughter a goat?”

“No, they’re vegetarians. The party food will probably be lemonade and cake. It’s really a chance for local runners to meet you.” That was my first lie to Meshack: The reception was actually a way to promote the running store.

I also realized that I had just seriously offended my runner, the athlete on whom I had placed so many hopes. If I traveled all the way from Michigan to Kenya to visit an important running client, there would certainly be a goat waiting for me to eat at the end of the journey. Offering lemonade and cake to Meshack was akin to serving him spit and a lump of colored sugar.

The party, although well-attended, went badly. The runners in attendance shouted out “Jambo” to Meshack as they shook his hand, as though they were meeting him for the first time on the African veld. Smiling and friendly, Meshack replied with the stock phrase, “Ah, so you know Swahili,” but he left the impression to all that what he wanted most was to lie down and sleep. He took one sip of the lemonade in his cup, puckered, and poured the rest back into the punch bowl.

As we drove to the Johansson’s house, I briefed Meshack on the family with whom he would be spending the next five months. Knut was a friendly man who liked to laugh a lot, and his wife, Patti, was also gregarious, although in a guarded and somewhat nervous way. The two children, Sarah, 10, and Joseph, 7, were lively and pleasant, and the dog, Viking, growled at newcomers but did not appear to be overly vicious. “Ha-ha, no problem, man,” Meshack reassured me. “I am very comfortable around dogs.”

The Johanssons stood in a neat row in their living room, as though they had just been roused from sleep for a military operation. Their smiles were broad but anxious and forced, as though tight strings ran from the corners of their muzzles back to anchor points at the backs of their heads. There was handshaking all around, and then the second bad insult: There was no “Caribu chakula,” nor even a simple “Caribu” for Meshack from the assembled cohort.

In Kenya, entering another-person’s home is not something which is treated lightly. There is a formula for doing it properly, a recipe that involves the right words, tone, and body posture. You don’t knock, for one thing, but call out “Hodi, hodi” in a calm, submissive voice from just outside the house portal. When you enter, the host is supposed to say “Caribu” (welcome) or - if you are going to eat - “Caribu chakula” (welcome to have food). A Kenyan entertaining a visiting America would say, in English, “Welcome to my home,” or else “Welcome to my home for a meal” to make the visitor feel comfortable. The Johanssons’ “Hi Meshack - how was your trip?” - uttered with strained cheerfulness – was as welcoming to my Kenyan as a hard slap across his face.

But Meshack remained calm. He talked of his plane travel, about how he had placed a pillow against the window of the 747 and slept part of the way. When we ran out of things to say, Patti and the children gave him a tour of the house while Knut wrestled Meshack’s duffle bag up to his room.

We sat for dinner, and Meshack became expansive. Looking directly at Sarah and Joseph, he said, “In Kenya, we have a saying, ‘Kergei lagoi ak kayak.’ This means ‘Children are like cattle.’”

Noticing the embarrassment and confusion on the kids’ faces, Meshack continued, “No, it’s not a bad thing. We simply mean that cattle do very stupid things; they wander onto neighbors’ land and destroy property, for example. Likewise, children make many mistakes.”

Knut’s shoulders tightened a bit, and Patti stared down into her soup, as though if she looked up she might see a naked man. Meshack’s confidence was growing, though; he seemed glad to have our attention. Continuing with his bovine theme, he said, “Yes, we also like to say ‘Kerkei kiyaki ak kororibo met.’”

There was an awkward silence, as Meshack paused to see if we were still with him. After Patti’s spoon tolled three times on the edge of her bowl, I finally stuttered

“What does that one mean, Meshack?”

“This means that cattle are like hair.” Knut glanced toward the ceiling, as though grasping for the connection between hair, children, and cattle, and Patti shifted uneasily in her seat. It was up to Sarah to say, “Why are cattle like hair? That sounds like a riddle.” “No, no, it’s no riddle. What we mean is that our cattle can be swept away instantly - by a bad disease, for example, just like a person’s hair can be completely shaved off his head in no time at all.”

Sarah and Joseph pictured themselves being ravaged by an unstoppable pathological condition as Knut asked “What distances will you be racing this year, Meshack?”

“It doesn’t matter, man. 15K, 20K, half-marathon, marathon – I am strong for all of them. My training has been good; I’m ready to go.”

We seemed to be back on course. The children were dipping their spoons into their soup bowls again, and Patti appeared to be glad to focus on the upcoming roadracing season.

Knut, however, seemed to be unaware of Patti’s desire for safe verbal ground. “Meshack, how have things been going for you in Kenya? Tell us a little about your life there.”

“Terrible, man. You know, when I grew up I was one of 12 children. We were like rats living in a hole, scrambling over each other to get food and water. I vowed to myself that I would some day get my own land, have enough food to feed my children. And now, I do have a small property, but the drought has been terrible, man. I lost mostof my corn, and last week my dog killed a neighbor who had wandered onto my shamba.”

Patti’s spoon dropped into her bowl, rocketing out big splotches of yellow broth. It dawned on Knut, Patti, and me that we were sitting at the table with a felon. Sarah and Joseph eyed Viking uneasily.

Knut tried to recover: “You don’t really mean killed the neighbor, do you, Meshack?”

“Yes, yes, yes, man, this is what I am trying to tell you. I had to go before the tribal court.”

The word “tribal” did not serve to ease the tension at the table. As Patti excused herself, Joseph said, “Cool – do you have Indians over there in Kenya?”

“Yes, yes, we have many. They have come down from Bombay; they are merchants, mainly, who live in Mombasa and Malindi, but there are also many in Nairobi and even some in Eldoret.”

“What happened in the tribal court, then?” Knut was now trying hard to keep things on an acceptable course. The random contortions of his facial muscles suggested that he was hoping for – and indeed needed - a palatable ending to the tale.

“You know, the chief understood my position completely. In my part of Kenya, we have many wawezi – thieves. You have to have a dog on your farm for protection – and to kill the many rats which come to take your corn. But the family of the man was angry, and so the chief said that I would have to give them a cow.”

Knut laughed at the sudden surprise, the unexpected exchange of a cow for a life, then checked himself quickly. “No, really, Meshack – that’s all that happened?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes – you know that cattle are extremely valuable to us. It was very hard for me to lose this animal. But, as I said before, cattle are just like hair.”

We made it the rest of the way, had our vegetable casserole, even said yes to dessert, despite the tight grimace from Patti which suggested that a prolongation of the meal would not be desirable. The children seemed lost, perhaps contemplating what they would have to give up if Viking attacked the mail man one day, perhaps wondering, too, about the unusual man sitting at their table.

The phone call I expected to get from Knut came three days later. The Johanssons were tolerant folk in principle; they worked very hard on their acceptance of cultural diversity. But Meshack liked to lounge around the house in only his running shorts after training sessions, and one afternoon Patti had discovered Meshack in his postworkout state, sitting with Sarah on the couch, watching pro wrestling.

“Patti’s parents are paying us a surprise visit this weekend, and it looks as though they are going to be staying for a couple of months. We love Meshack, but we really need his bedroom for Patti’s folks. Can you think of anyone who would be willing to take him?”

I found a new home for Meshack with a retired university professor, who seemed fascinated by Meshack’s life and his running pursuits. I never found out whether Patti’s parents actually arrived, but the business owned by Knut and Patti prospered – to such an extent that they decided to open a larger running store that summer. Meshack ran fairly well for a few races and then won a major competition in Chicago on Labor Day against some top Americans.

After Meshack’s Chicago victory, we drove the convertible north along the eastern edge of Lake Michigan, crossed the Mackinac bridge, passed through the Hiawatha forest, and arrived, late in the afternoon, at our camping destination on the shores of Muskallonge Lake, just a few strides from Lake Superior. It was a brilliant September afternoon, with the kind of azure sky which can be found only in that time of the year. The air held a dry warmth which was both comforting and disconcerting, relaxing our movements but reminding us that there were precious few such days left before winter. We pitched our tent quickly and decided to hike along the shore of Superior toward the Pictured Rocks.

Despite the rigors of the morning’s 10-mile race, Meshack bounded nimbly over the rocks at the water’s edge. He was amazed by the colors of the shoreline stones; their various shades of gray and blue were streaked with copper-green and gold accents. The surf pounded the sand next to our feet relentlessly, sending up cold white showers of foam and water which dampened our faces.

After an hour or so of walking, we decided to turn back. “I’m getting hungry,” I said. “When we get to the tent, let’s build a fire and cook up some grub.” Meshack grinned and nodded his head in agreement. I had brought along some corn meal for ugali, as well as various ingredients for a hearty stew. We were looking forward to a Kenyan feast after our long day.

But on the return we quickly became engrossed in our conversation. Turning away from the water, which gleamed with sparkling sapphires in the slanting rays of the descending sun, I asked Meshack what lay ahead, what he wanted to accomplish as an athlete.

“Only God knows this; it is entirely in God’s hands now.”

This didn’t sound like the strategy of an Olympic medal-winner, but – against the backdrop of an immense indigo lake and a sun which was turning the western sky into a canvas of aureate magnificence, it was not the time to discuss optimal psychological strategies for athletic performance.

“You sound like this Russian fellow named Turgenev, who said that we are always guided and controlled by fate, and that there is nothing that we can do about it. When we are young, we don’t think about it, don’t believe in it, but as we grow older and more mature we see that fate is pulling us along without remorse.”

“Yes, yes, the Russian runners – they are very strong,” Meshack replied. “There is a rumor that they are taking drugs – is it true?”

“I’m not sure about the drugs,” I said. “Turgenev was a sportsman, but he wasn’t actually a runner.”

“This man that you mention, Turgenev, knew what he was talking about. When I was in Paris this summer for a race, I became very depressed one afternoon, worrying about my family back in Kenya. I couldn’t stay in my hotel room any longer – I had to get outside and walk along the famous river, the one that goes by the very old church. And there, sitting on a bench, right before my eyes, was Jackson Simatei, my old running partner from Kenya. I had no idea that he was in France, and if it had not been for my< despair I never would have encountered him. And he, Jackson, told me about you, about what a good manager and agent you would be. So I called you, and now I am here in this beautiful place and have won a race for my family today.”

“But the training you have been doing, all of the hard workouts, surely that is what is responsible for your victory this morning? It is not fate that has brought you success but rather your own actions.”

“No, no, this was all in God’s hands. It was my day, but only because the American runners were not very strong. I had nothing at all to do with their lack of strength.”

“You know,” Meshack continued, “these American runners are very funny people. They greet you before the race and act very friendly, saying they would like to come to Kenya to train. But then, in the race today, after five miles or so, this fellow John who finished second came up behind me and clipped me, stepping on my heel in hopes my shoe would come off. I knew at that moment that he could not win, and I thanked him for trying to hurt me. If he had been feeling very powerful, he would not have bothered to try something so stupid. If he comes to Kenya now, I can not welcome him into my home.”

We became absorbed in our conversation, so much so that I was only vaguely aware of the dimming light, the deep purple of the lake and sky that were encircling us. We came to a small brook, bubbling with pureness, darting here and there, coursing its way over the smooth stones and reddish sands into Superior itself. I realized that we had missed our turn-off, that we had somehow walked so far east that we were now standing at the mouth of the Two-Hearted River.

As we turned back, the night wrapped its inky curtain around us. The sun was completely gone, the western sky held only a small hint of light blue, and the majestic lake itself was now the color of slate. Meshack slipped and fell on an uneven rock, and I suddenly realized that we could not make it to our campground safely.

“Meshack, we are going to have to stay here for the night. We’ll be OK, the weather is not so bad, and I have some matches. We can build a fire.”

“Sawa-sawa.”

We stumbled about in the sand and rocks, gathering a variety of twigs, branches, and large hunks of driftwood. I layered our collection together with the biggest wood at the top, inserted my Great-Harvest bread card at the bottom, and lighted it. Before long, we had a roaring blaze which coated our faces with orange light, and we sat down on the sand under a spectacular canopy of stars.<br />
“It is just like Kenya here,” Meshack said. “I have spent many nights like this out in the bush, with the heavens opening up above me. It is good that we are spending the night here, better than covering ourself with a tent – where we could not see the glory of God’s hand in the night sky.”

I found myself admiring Meshack very much. He had come to this country by himself, had trained very intensely, won a major race, and was now perfectly happy to be sitting, unsheltered, by a fire at the edge of a lake, far from his home and family. He was a courageous man with an intense appreciation of his surroundings.

“Tell me, Meshack. It is not easy being an elite runner. The training is very hard, the races are extremely painful, the rewards are usually small. How are you able to do it?”

“I have told you before that when I was growing up in Kenya I had nothing. There was little to eat, my family did not have enough money to send me to school, and people told me that I would not amount to anything. When I was 14, I left my family’s little plot of land and went to Nairobi to seek work.”

“At first, I lived in a little cardboard shack in a shanty-town by Nairobi International Airport. Behind my shack was another shack, and behind that was another and then another – there were shacks as far as the eye could see. The police said that there were 200,000 of us living in this wretched slum, but there were many, many more, I am sure. At night, I would sleep by the fire, just like this one, in my little paper shed, fearful of the smallest noise outside. I was robbed several times, and the police would come through every couple of months and knock everything down. But I worked hard at small tasks and eventually got a job as a messenger in downtown Nairobi.”

“That’s when I met Simon. He wasn’t even the same tribe as me, but he said that I was a good worker, and he saw that I could move very quickly on my errands. One day, I had to carry a message 10 kilometers by running through the city, and it only took me 30 minutes.”

“Simon was the first person who ever took an interest in me. He said that I should join the Kenyan army, where the pay was secure and I could try out for a military running team, and that’s how I really started my career. Once again, you see how God’s hand has guided me. All of the problems you mention, the hard training, the pain of racing, the small payments - they are nothing to me, compared with what I have been through. I am ready for anything to happen now.”

“Meshack, will you still train after you retire from competitive running?” Meshack laughed aloud for the first time that day. “You know, we say in Kenya that the nungu, the porcupine, does not have to run fast because it has spines. Those sharp points protect it from nearly all predators, even the lion, so there is no need for it tomove quickly. I now have my own small spines, my money to buy more land, my wife and children to help me with the crops and animals. I will not have to run anymore.”

Suddenly, we heard a strange barking sound from the woods behind us, followed by the repeated “Who cooks … for you? Who cooks … for you?” call of a Barred Owl. We shivered involuntarily at the haunting sound, and Meshack said, “In Kenya it is considered a very bad omen to hear an owl calling in the middle of the night.”

“Don’t worry, Meshack, it is just the Barred Owl, a great bird, one of the few owls which can catch fish from lakes and streams. It is calling out to mark its territory – or perhaps simply to charm us with its strange lyric.”

We talked for several more hours at the edge of the sable sea, until drowsiness finally overcame us and we placed our heads on the fire-warmed sand for sleep.

When I opened my eyes again, the orange rim of the sun had appeared on the eastern edge of the lake, and the morning birds were calling from the dark-green woods. Meshack was still asleep, and I decided to let him continue with his slumbers. Walking along the beach, I shook the stiffness from my cold bones and felt the sun warming my neck and shoulders. Suddenly, I heard a rushing sound and noticed a slight pressure, as though an unseen spirit was disturbing the air at the water’s edge. I turned to see Meshack bounding along, moving from foot to foot with explosive strides. He stormed past me with an amazing surge of power – and was far down the beach within seconds. He had awoken shortly after I began walking and was now out for his usual early morning run.

After our camping trip, I sensed a sadness and lethargy in Meshack, perhaps driven by homesickness, which had not been there before, and his workouts and races began to go poorly. One day in early October he announced that he would have to return to Kenya. “I have exhausted myself with my training,” he said. “I’m sorry - I need to relax and recover for awhile.”

With sorrow, I must add that the poor fellow was killed, along with four other passengers, in a matatu accident on his way home, on the treacherous drive from Nairobi to Eldoret. A pity – Meshack was a very good man. I must report, too, that Meshack was carrying all of his winnings with him, but the Kenyan police report indicates that no money was found at the scene of the crash.

Biomechanics and Injury

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:17:00 GMT

If you are like many runners, you have probably wondered whether you could improve your biomechanics – and whether that improvement might upgrade your performances and decrease your risk of injury.

Before I address whether that is possible, let’s take note of the fact that biomechanics is the study of the forces which act on the body during running, especially with regards to the muscles and skeletal system. Kinetics is a branch of biomechanics which studies the forces and motions which are characteristic of the running gait. Kinematics focuses only on the motions of the body during running without worrying about the forces, including the positioning of the joints and the movements of the legs, arms, trunk, and head.

In theory, there is an optimal way to move while running, a best-possible way to position the joints and create propulsive forces as you scamper along. This could be viewed from a performance-improvement or injury prevention standpoint. In the former situation, this would mean positioning the joints and creating forces in ways which maximize speed. In the latter case, the idea would be that there is a specific way of running which minimizes stresses placed on the bones, connective tissues, and muscles of your legs and thus keeps running injuries at bay.

Exercise scientists have searched for such optima among elite runners, thinking that the very best runners would have naturally developed biomechanical patterns which promote the highest-possible running velocities and simultaneously block injuries. Instead of finding predictable kinetics among the elites, however, the scientists have discovered wide variation in biomechanical variables.

Take maximum knee flexion during the swing phase of the gait cycle, for example. Some elites flex their knees a lot during swing, reaching angles as great at 140 degrees, but others only flex to 109 degrees (the angle of the knee during running is defined as the angle between the actual position of the shin and an imaginary line drawn to indicate the position that the shin would occupy if the leg were perfectly straight; knee angle is zero when the leg is perfectly straight). This kind of variation is found when almost all other biomechanical variables are studied.

In other words, scientific research suggests that running biomechanics are highly personal and probably depend on such individual characteristics as skeletal structure, flexibility, joint stiffness, muscle length, overall muscular strength, and neural coordination of gait. There is not an optimal biomechanical pattern which can be applied to you – which can be used to change your individual biomechanics and thus alter your performances and risk of injury in a predictable way.

As a result, no coach or exercise scientist can make specific biomechanical recommendations to an individual runner with the assurance that the advised changes will work. There is no optimal thigh angle for the various stages of stance or swing, for example, which has been identified as being better for performance or injury prevention. There is no optimal degree of ankle dorsi-flexion during stance. There is no optimal duration of the stance phase. And so on.

What makes more sense is that increased activity and force production by the muscles of running, if they are produced at the correct times during the gait cycle, should improve running performances and might also provide a protective effect and lower the risk of injury. This is probably why strength training for running has been linked with improved performances and a reduced rate of injury. Thus, a sensible approach for runners to follow would be to strengthen the various movements involved in gait in a running-specific way, instead of artificially tinkering with movement patterns.

The perils of making recommendations about biomechanics are illustrated by a recent study from Belgium in which 84 individuals were monitored for knee (patello-femoral) pain during a six-week training period. Subjects who were most likely to develop knee discomfort tended to land more toward the outsides of their heels during gait, compared with injury free individuals – and to roll toward the outsides of their feet during stance.

Now, we could tell these people to change their biomechanics in hopes of eliminating the knee injuries. We could instruct them to land more toward the centers of their heels and to focus on not letting their feet roll toward the outside during stance. We could get them to run more like the pain-free runners.

But it probably wouldn’t work. The fundamental problem with these subjects was most likely a lack of running-specific strength, not the pronation per se. The strength inadequacy let the ankles pronate to a greater extent, and this pronation might have put extra stress “up the chain” in the knees. If we got these runners to land squarely on the middles of their heels and to focus on avoiding pronation, the lack of strength associated with their new biomechanical patterns might simply produce a new kind of injury.

But if you’re going to strengthen yourself, how should you do it? The key is to make sure your strengthening movement mimics some part of the gait cycle of running. Otherwise, the gains in strength will not transfer well to running, and you’ll end up stronger in the gym but not out on the roads.

Take hamstring strengthening, for example (a good thing to take, since hamstring injuries are so common among runners). Many runners think that the key function of the hamstrings during running is to contract and extend the hip while the foot is on the ground, thus providing forward propulsive force.

In reality, the hamstrings are most-active during the swing phase of gait, when the foot is off the ground and the leg is swinging forward, getting ready for the next contact with the ground.

This is an eccentric action of the hams, one in which these key muscles are being stretched out while they produce force to control the forward swing of the leg, preventing this forward swing from getting out of control.

So here’s the picture: The hams are most active during running when the foot is off the ground and the leg is swinging forward. Does this fact make it sound like hamstring curls, a very popular gym exercise, would be the best hamstring-strengthening drill? To perform hamstring curls, a runner usually lies prone on a bench and uses the hamstrings to contract concentrically and flex the knee, with resistance provided by a bar positioned against the ankle. Well, at least the foot is off the ground!

Even the classic exercise for the hamstrings – lunges - is not optimal, since it is performed in a way which puts most stress on the hams while the foot is in stance, not swing.

A much better hamstring-strengthening exercise for runners, one which includes hamstring activation towards the end of swing, would be bicycle leg swings. To carry these out properly, you stand with your usual running-tall alignment, with weight fully supported on your left leg (initially, the right hand may be placed on a wall or other support structure to maintain balance). You begin by flexing your right hip and raising the right knee up to waist height (the right thigh should be parallel with the ground); as this is done, the right knee should be flexed to 90 degrees or more. Once the thigh is parallel to the ground, you begin to extend the right knee (by swinging the lower part of the right leg forward, unflexing the knee) until the knee is nearly fully extended (the leg is nearly straight), with the right thigh still parallel to the ground.

As your right knee nears full extension, your right thigh drops downwards and backwards (scraping the right foot on the floor/ground as the leg moves back, something like rubbing mud off the bottom of the shoe) until the entire thigh and leg are extended behind the body (as if you were following through on a running stride). Your right knee should be near full extension (the leg should be basically straight) until it reaches the peak of the backswing. As your right hip nears full extension (as you approach the end of the backswing), you raise the right heel by bending your right knee; the heel should move closely towards the buttocks as this is done. As this happens, your right knee is moved forward until it returns to the appropriate position in front of the body, with the right thigh parallel to the ground again. This entire sequence of actions is repeated in a smooth manner so that the hip and leg move through a continuous arc without stopping or pausing.

Once you are able to coordinate the movement, the swings should be performed at a cadence of about 12 swings every 10 seconds or so (slightly faster than one swing per second). To enhance the effectiveness of the exercise, a stretch cord should be attached to the “swing” (non-support) ankle at one end and a firm post, table leg, fence, railing, or other structure (at roughly knee height) at the other end. You stand facing the post, table leg, fence, or railing, with enough distance between yourself and the structure so that the stretch cord significantly accelerates your leg forward during the forward-swing phase of the exercise (this forces the hamstrings to create a braking force during swing, exactly as they do during actual running). This enhanced forward acceleration created by the stretch cord puts the hamstrings under considerable stress (as they try to brake the frontward movement of the leg) and is ultimately be very strengthening for the hamstrings in a running-specific way.

The hips should be kept fairly level as the exercise is performed. Naturally, once you complete the required number of reps with the left leg as the support leg, you should change over to standing on the right foot while the left leg performs the swings. Important things to avoid include too little tension on the stretch band (creating a situation in which the band won’t accelerate the leg forward properly), not getting good hip extension on “back swing,” a lack of explosive forward thigh movement, and a wobbling of the body as the swings are performed. Begin with about 20 bicycle swings per leg, work up to three sets of 60, and gradually increase the resistance (and thus snap-back power) of the stretch cord.

It’s very likely that this exercise will help you avoid hamstring injuries far more than any biomechanical adjustments which could be suggested for you.

Limiting Fatigue When You Run

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:04:00 GMT

One of the great mysteries of running is why elite African endurance runners have greater fatigue-resistance, compared with runners from the rest of the world.

What do we mean by fatigue-resistance? It is simply the ability to sustain a high-quality pace.

If you tell an elite African runner to run as far as possible at an intensity of 90 percent of maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max), he/she will often be able to race a half-marathon at that level of effort. But, if you provide the same instructions for an elite American or European distance runner, he/she will be able to run for only six or seven miles before slowing down. The elite African has greater fatigue resistance - an enhanced capacity to perform at a high intensity for a sustained period of time without diminishing pace.

Traditionally, we have tried to explain differences in performance between endurance runners by invoking an “aerobic paradigm.” Superior performances were thought to be the result of higher aerobic capacities and therefore faster speeds.

However, the disparity in fatigue-resistance between African and white runners can not be due to differences in VO2max, because research shows that elite white and black runners have similar aerobic capacities. The truth is that runners who share the same VO2max can have great differences in fatigue-resistance – and that endurance runners with higher fatigue-resistance can beat runners with greater max aerobic capacities.

In a study carried out at the University of Cape Town, nine African and eight Caucasian distance runners with similar 10-K race times, VO2max values, and peak treadmill velocities were compared (peak treadmill velocity is simply the maximal speed reached on the treadmill during a VO2max test). Despite these similarities, the African runners possessed superior fatigue resistance: They could run for 21 percent longer at an intensity of 92 percent of peak treadmill velocity, compared with the whites.

Such research suggests that the physiological factors which determine VO2max and fatigue-resistance are quite different. VO2max is easy to figure out: Since the heart is an “oxygen pump,” VO2max depends on cardiac output – and the ability of the muscles to utilize the oxygen delivered by the cardiovascular system. In contrast, exercise scientists have struggled to explain the mechanisms responsible for superior fatigue resistance.

One theory is that differences in fatigue resistance might be explained by glycogen concentrations. Runners with superior fatigue resistance might have a higher capacity to store glycogen in their muscles and liver. If this were the case, they would run low on carbohydrate fuel less quickly during endurance competitions and thus would be able to sustain quality paces for longer periods of time.

Research does show that the appearance of fatigue during distance running often coincides with the development of low liver- and muscle-glycogen levels. Scientific research has been unable to verify this “energy depletion model” of fatigue resistance, however. Note, too, that the energy depletion hypothesis suggests that individuals with different degrees of fatigue resistance would begin their races at similar percentages of VO2max, with the lower-fatigue-resistance athletes gradually falling off the pace as glycogen depletion began to develop. In the real world, runners with greater fatigue-resistance seem to adopt faster paces at very early stages in their races, before glycogen depletion becomes a factor, compared with runners with lower fatigue-resistance.

A competing theory suggests that fatigue-resistance is closely related to an athlete’s ability to dissipate heat while running. A high rate of heat accumulation during running is directly related to fatigue: Race times during the marathon and also during the 3-K steeplechase and 10K worsen as the environmental heat load increases. Runners whose internal temperatures rise slowly during running tend to experience less fatigue, compared with individuals who heat up quickly. Small runners tend to dissipate heat more quickly and experience slower increases in body temperature as they run, compared with larger runners, thanks in part to the larger surface-to-mass ratio in the smaller individuals. Interestingly enough, elite black distance runners tend to be smaller than their elite white competitors. In one study, elite blacks weighed an average of 56 kilograms, compared with elite whites, and the blacks were only 169 centimeters in height, compared with 181 centimeters for the whites. Presumably, this would have allowed the blacks to get rid of heat more easily during prolonged efforts, compared with the whites. In some research, during the shorter events of 1.65 to 3K (when heat dissipation is not such an important factor because of the brevity of the running), the performances of elite blacks and whites have been equivalent.

However, it is unlikely that heat-dissipation capacity can completely account for differences in fatigue resistance. For one thing, black African runners with similar degrees of fatigue resistance can vary tremendously in height and weight. Their wide variations in body size should produce great differences in heat-dissipation ability and thus broad disparities in fatigue resistance, but they don’t.

Furthermore, the heat-dissipation theory suggests that elite African and elite white runners should begin competitions at very similar speeds, with whites falling off the pace as heat dissipation becomes a problem. Instead, elite Africans often compete at higher speeds from the opening seconds of a race, compared with whites, when body temperatures should be equivalent.

A better theory may be that fatigue-resistance is related to the way in which runners’ leg muscles function as “reverse springs” during running. The leg muscles are often referred to as springs, but in reality they function quite differently. When an automobile hits a bump in the road, its springs first compress to soak up the energy of impact and then expand, releasing that energy. When a runner’s foot hits the ground, his/her key leg muscles actually expand (lengthen) at impact instead of compressing and then shorten, the reverse of what happens with a mechanical spring.

This muscular “stretch-shortening” cycle is quite useful to the distance runner. The rubber-band-like “snap-back” of the muscles after they have been lengthened from impact provides much of the propulsive force required to move forward. Once the muscles have been stretched during contact with the ground, the resulting shortening occurs without the need to expend energy (just as no further energy must be added to a rubber band once it is stretched to make it snap back powerfully). In effect, the energy stored in the leg muscles at impact is simply released. This is highly efficient, especially when compared with the alternative, which would require active, energy-consuming muscle contractions to get off the ground and stride forward.

This stretch-shortening cycle is not without its problems and perils, however. For one thing, research suggests that muscles become less willing to be stretched and less enthused about transferring energy in the stretched-to-shortened phase of the cycle during an extended running effort. This breakdown in muscle functioning during running has been called “stretch-shortening muscle fatigue.”

The intolerance of stretch and the slow-down in energy transfer create a situation in which both the braking and push-off components of the stance phase of gait may be elongated, leading to a slow-down in stride rate and thus running speed. The resistance to stretch which develops during a prolonged run could also reduce propulsive force, shortening stride length. These changes can not be explained by variations in oxygen utilization or upswings in body temperature: They are related to the quality of the muscles and their ability to stand up to the stresses of the stretch-shortening process. Runners with “higher-quality” muscles should achieve and sustain optimal stretch-shortening function longer during competitions and thus should have greater fatigue-resistance.

What actually causes the breakdown in stretch-shortening function? Stretch-shortening expert Paavo Komi of Finland notes that the stretch-shortening cycle actually damages muscle cells during prolonged running. Much of the damage probably occurs when muscles are stretched out at impact with the ground, and the muscular mayhem has a significant effect on muscle mechanics, as well as muscle and joint stiffness.

If all this is true, runners with the greatest fatigue resistance would be the ones with the greatest contravention of stretch-shortening muscle injury during running. The key question would then be: What training techniques optimize the limiting of stretch-shortening muscle injury? It would appear that training techniques which accentuate and exaggerate the stretch-shortening properties of muscles, for example very high-speed running and explosive, running-specific drills, would create the greatest advances in stretch-shortening function. On the other hand, high-mileage training might induce the greatest stretch-shortening damage, simply because of the very high volume of stretch-shortening cycles – and the lack of stimulus for improvement of stretch-shortening function (since the cycle is never pushed to its max).

There is also the possibility that increased neural drive in African runners might be responsible for their enhanced ability to sustain a high percentage of VO2max. If this is the case, it would have significant training consequences for non-African runners.

Neural drive is simply the extent to which the nervous system stimulates muscles during activity. High neural drive in runners means that the nervous system is sending lots of nerve impulses to motor units in the leg muscles (motor units are simply collections of muscle fibers which are controlled by a single motor nerve); low neural drive means that the nervous system is letting muscle cells hang like anserine slabs of beef between the bones to which they are connected. If African runners have greater neural drive, it could explain their ability to run for a longer distance at any percentage of VO2max. To put it simply, the nervous systems of African runners would be more willing to stimulate leg muscle cells at a high rate over long distances, compared with the nerve-command systems of white runners. When faced with the task of running as long as possible at an intensity of 90 percent of VO2max, white-runners’ nervous systems might be more apt to say, “Are you kidding me? I don’t want to work that hard for 13 miles. Seven or eight miles should be about right.”

The notion that neural drive is linked with the greater fatigue resistance of African runners is related to the Central-Governor Model (CGM) of fatigue. The CGM says that the nervous system decides, just before a particular effort is commenced, what level of effort can be sustained over the duration of the exertion. This subconscious decision is purportedly based on the nervous-system’s assessment of what intensity can be maintained for the distance at hand without incurring significant muscle damage. A level of effort is chosen which assures a decent running speed – without producing mayhem in the muscles or disturbances to the body’s necessary physiological systems. This chosen level of exertion might be higher in African runners, compared with whites. To put it another way, Africans’ Central Governors might be more tolerant of higher intensities.

If the theory is correct, neural drive should actually decrease when runners become fatigued. If runners slow down while neural drive remains the same, then the fatigue “problem” must reside in muscles, not in the nervous system. A reduction in running speed with the same neural drive would mean that the nervous system was trying just as hard as ever to keep the muscles going, but the poor sinews were simply not up to the task of sustaining pace.

The first part of the testing of the hypothesis – looking at whether drops in neural drive are linked with fatigue – was evaluated in a study carried out by Alf Thorstensson and his colleagues at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, and the Department of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute, also in Stockholm. Eight well-trained distance runners with an average VO2max of 69.3 ml.kg-1.min-1 participated in the research.

After a fatiguing, two-hour, 26.8-K run at 75 percent of VO2max (which corresponded with a pace of 13.4 kilometers per hour, or a tempo of 7:13 per mile), the runners’ leg muscles had not lost any of their ability to generate force (this was demonstrated via electrical stimulation of certain leg muscles). Nonetheless, muscular force production had dropped off by about 17 percent, and this was completely explained by an 18-percent reduction in neural drive. In other words, the muscles were not more tired, but the nervous system was! Alf showed that the fatigue associated with running can indeed be caused by reductions in neural drive.

What does this mean for your running? When your calves, hams, and quads begin to “tire” during your marathons or long runs, a significant part of this fatigue is likely to be caused by a reduction in neural drive.

But how do you prevent nervous-system fatigue – and how do you increase neural drive during running, so that you can move along more quickly and set PRs? Research on this subject is in its infancy – no, it is actually in its fertilization stage. But, one activity which has been linked with increased neural drive is strength training. Research suggests that relatively high intensities may be required to upgrade neural drive, employing resistances as great as 80 to 90 percent of the 1RM (one-repetition max). Running-specific strength training with pretty heavy weights may be a great way to boost neural drive (because it forces the nervous system to send mega-waves of impulses to the muscles during running-specific movements).

This is not surprising. What would be shocking would be a finding in which training which employed low levels of neural drive led to a major adaptation in which high levels of neural drive were suddenly utilized during competitions. The actual research has yet to be undertaken, but it seems likely that high-neural-drive running training, i. e., efforts which involve very high-speed running and scalding efforts over hilly terrain, will be the type of work which leads to an increased neural drive in competitive situations - and thus greater fatigue-resistance. Incidentally, this is exactly the kind of training which African runners, including the Kenyans, prefer.

Elite non-African runners who want to compete with the elite Kenyans might want to consider adopting this kind of training, along with intense running-specific strength training, in their efforts to develop Kenyan-like fatigue-resistance. The old, high-volume systems of training, ostensibly created to optimize VO2max, simply won’t get the necessary fatigue-resistance job done.

You and Your VO2max

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:56:00 GMT

VO₂max is not a German rocket or a type of hair treatment: It is your maximum rate of oxygen consumption. Even though it is actually a rate of oxygen use (often expressed in milliliters of oxygen consumed per kilogram of body weight per minute), it is popularly referred to as maximal aerobic capacity.

VO₂max has a bearing on your endurance-running performances, because oxygen acts as an electron catcher during energy producing metabolic processes which happen inside your cells. Without a continuous supply of oxygen to catch the electrons, the energy production grinds to a halt. Inside your muscle cells, the energy obtained as part of oxygen’s Yogi-Berra act is utilized to form ATP – a high-energy compound which is used to provide the direct energy for your muscle contractions. To put it simply, if your muscles have a high rate of oxygen utilization they can create lots of ATP while you are running your 5K or marathon, and you can usually run faster than the poor sap with a lower rate of oxygen utilization.

VO₂max responds directly to training (unless, of course, you are an experienced runner who has already maxed-out his/her aerobic capacity). A novice runner can expect a VO₂max upgrade of about 15 to 20 percent after 12 to 16 weeks of good endurance training, but the possible range of improvements is quite large. Some runners might get only a small VO₂max nudge of 2 to 3 percent, while others could possibly raise VO₂max by 80 percent or more.

Each percent improvement in VO₂max generally improves performance to a similar extent. For example, if you lift your VO₂max by 5 percent, you can expect a 3- to 6-percent enhancement of your 5-K time.

However, that is only true as long as your VO₂max-expanding training did not hurt some other variable which influences your performance. In one study, runners augmented VO₂max by 5 percent, but their 5-K performances did not improve at all because the training they carried out had hurt something called running economy, which is the actual oxygen cost of running at a certain speed. In other words, these runners had a higher max rate of oxygen consumption, but it was “costing” them more oxygen than before to run at their usual 5-K paces, and thus their performance times did not improve. As endurance runners, we ordinarily run our races at some specific, fixed percentage of VO2max. If VO₂max goes up but your oxygen cost of running a 5K stays the same, you’ll increase your 5-K pace to keep that fixed percentage constant. If your VO₂max and economy go up by similar amounts, the fixed percentage will not have changed, and your 5-K performances will stay the same.

“OK,” you’re saying, “I’d better get busy training in ways which optimize my VO₂max, but how do I do that?”

From an inside-your-body standpoint, you could hike VO₂max by boosting the size or strength of your heart, which would upgrade cardiac output (the amount of blood pumped by your heart per minute). Since your blood carries oxygen, this would increase the rate of oxygen delivery to your leg muscles. Provided the leg muscles could actually use that increased supply oxygen, your VO₂max would go up.

That’s a key point, because the leg muscles do have to get into the oxygen-utilization act. They do so through a process called mitochondrial biogenesis, during which the density of tiny structures inside muscle cells - called mitochondria – increases. The mitochondria are the stages upon which oxygen actually struts. Increase mitochondrial density, and you’ve automatically got more places where oxygen can work to create additional ATP for your running.

When you carry out good-quality, VO₂max-expanding training, your genes inside your muscle fibers which code for mitochondrial biogenesis are unlocked and “read” during the recovery period which follows, and this triggers a series of metabolic processes which cause new mitochondria to be formed. That’s a key adaptation to your training, one which you’ll want to maximize.

Another adaptation is the growth of new capillaries – tiny blood vessels – around your leg-muscle cells. As your leg muscles become more and more entwined with these capillaries, more oxygen can be “dropped off” per minute of running (remember that blood is the oxygen supplier), and thus VO₂max can increase.

What kind of training should you carry out to make all these things happen? In the old, dark days of endurance training, we believed that increased mileage was the key way to optimize VO₂max. Studies showed that increasing weekly mileage from 10 to 20 miles might produce a 10-percent spike in VO₂max – and that burgeoning from 20 to 40 miles might cause another big uptick, maybe about 6 to 7 percent or so.

However, the research also uncovered the workings of a familiar physiological principle – the law of diminishing returns. As mileage increased, VO₂max gains became more and more difficult to find. In fact, above about 60 to 70 miles per week it was impossible to measure VO₂max gains at all.

You might be quite curious about this, since elite American runners often log 100 to 120 miles of running per week, purportedly to build “aerobic endurance.” Why are they doing that?

That is actually a great question, since they are certainly not expanding VO₂max in the process. A common answer is that they are building strength and stamina, but research suggests that such training actually may weaken muscle fibers, and any strength gained might simply be the strength necessary to continue running 100-plus weeks, not the strength needed to run a 5K or marathon faster.

Research has actually shown that intense training is the most-potent producer of VO₂max upgrades. Here, “intense training” is defined as work which is carried out at speeds which cause oxygen-consumption rates to climb to 90 percent of max to VO₂max itself.

If you are a newcomer to the world of endurance running or consider yourself to be a slow runner, don’t be put off by the term “intense.” Intensity is completely relative, depending entirely on your own ability as a runner: You don’t have to run a sub-five-minute mile to carry out intense training. For many runners, for example, eight-minute per mile pace will be associated with 90 to 100 percent of VO₂max and will be great for pushing VO₂max upward.

But how can you figure where your individual VO₂max resides on the great VO₂max scale? You could go to an exercise-fizz lab and have the darned thing measured for $175 or so. But, it would be determined on a treadmill, and your oxygen consumption might be different out in the real world, on terra firma. The protocol might involve treadmill inclinations to get your oxygen consumption up pretty high, and thus your result might not reflect your VO₂max on a level surface. And – you would end up with a number, say 50 milliliters of oxygen consumed per kilogram of body weight per minute, for your VO₂max, and it would be hard to know exactly what to do with that number.

An easier and more-practical way to get a feeling for your VO₂max is to test yourself on a measured course, say a track, a measure roadway, or anywhere if you have a GPS device. On a day, when you are feeling great, simply warm up and then run as far as you can in six minutes, holding a hard, steady pace. Measure how far you have run, and then cool down with a couple of miles of light jogging.

You can then calculate a training pace which should be intense enough to push your VO2max upward. For example, if you covered 1600 meters during your six-minute test, that’s an average speed of 1600/meters divided by 360 seconds (six minutes), or 4.44 meters per second. As you are training, it’s hard to know whether you are actually hitting 4.44 meters per second or not, so it is best to convert this to a per 400-meter tempo. 400 meters divided by 4.44 meters per second yields 90 seconds per 400 meters. That’s nice! If you set up a workout which focuses on running 400s in 90 seconds each (with about the same amount of recovery time – 90 seconds – between the 400-meter work intervals), you would be assured that you were running fast enough to evoke any VO2max response which is physiologically possible for you.

If you cover 2000 meters during your six-minute test, the average speed would be 2000/360 = 5.56 meters per second, for a training tempo of 400/5.56 = 72 seconds per 400 meters (with 72-second jog recoveries).

If you complete 1200 meters during the six-minute affair, average velocity is 1200/360 = 3.33 meters per second, and desired training pace is 400/3.33 = 120 seconds per 400 meters (with 120-second recoveries).

You can see that the process of creating a VO₂max-expanding workout is really simple. If you use this kind of training session approximately every week or at least every other week, you’ll be well on your way to augmenting your VO₂max. Be sure to re-check yourself with the six-minute test every six weeks or so. Your six-minute performance should gradually increase over time (it doesn’t have to increase every time, though), and as it does it will upgrade your training paces in a natural, organic, and productive way for you.

Finally, it’s nice to know that running a 5-K race is one of the very best ways to stimulate VO₂max improvement. Most runners achieve an intensity of about 95 percent of VO₂max or so during their 5-K competitions, and that’s right in the desired zone for making the heart, mitochondria, and capillaries get into VO₂max-building mode.

Questions about this article? Someone is always minding the store at www.educatedrunner.com Contact Owen at owenanderson2006@comcast.net for a personal response.

Is Your Sports Bar Making You Bald?

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:49:00 GMT

If you are like me, you need quick energy from time to time – before a workout, when your tank is feeling a little low or perhaps after a session, when you’d like to take in some carbs for recovery.

Often, we turn to energy bars at such times. Expensive they may be, but they do often pack carbohydrate and protein wallops, and many of them throw in things we seem to need, like vitamins, minerals, and even healthy fats (omega-3s). Consuming an energy bar seems to be an easy way to fill up our glycogen tanks, boost blood glucose a little, and decrease the risk of vitamin/mineral deficiency.

There’s one problem, though: Sports bars are often mislabeled. In fact, one study carried out by the independent testing lab ConsumerLab.com found that 18 of the 30 nutrition bars examined had inaccurate information on their labels.

One major maker of very popular sports bars had to settle a class-action suit in the State of California because the labels falsely stated that the bars contained less sodium and fat than they really did – and more vitamins and minerals than they really had. As it turned out, the coconut bars produced by this company advertised 4 grams of fat and 35 milligrams of sodium but actually contained 16 grams of fat and 235 milligrams of sodium. The labels on the bars also failed to mention that sucrose (table sugar) was an important ingredient. The labels also hailed the presence of “healthy canola oil” as an ingredient, even though there was not even a micro-drop of the stuff in the bars. According to the excellent book Muscles, Speed, & Lies by David Lightsey, the company involved (Weider Nutrition Group, Inc.) agreed to pay $75,000 to reimburse individuals who bought its bars, paid attorney and court costs, and also donated $2 million of its product to a Southern-California food bank (apparently it is OK for food-bank clients to eat mislabeled products).

In 2001, another major sports-bar maker had to recall 1.5 million energy bars because they contained excessively high levels of vitamin A. These bars featured about 32,500 IUs of Vitamin A – enough to cause fatigue and a general sense of malaise. Near-daily consumption of the bar could have induced chronic vitamin-A toxicity, with symptoms ranging from baldness to bone and muscle pain, liver poisoning, hyperlipidemia, skin disorders, and visual impairment.

Sports bars are not the only products marketed to athletes that are being mislabeled: Sports supplements are in the same boat. Just two years ago, the liquid creatine supplement called Creatine Serum, which had a label stating that it contained pure creatine monohydrate, was found to contain just trace amounts of creatine – less than 1 percent of the quantity stated on the label. The remainder of Creatine Serum was actually a related but totally ineffective compound called creatinine.

The problem? We runners are pretty much dependent on the claims being made by companies which are selling their energy bars and sports supplements to us. It’s tough for us to check on the accuracy of the claims made by the companies – and whether the products contain their stated contents.

One solution is to rely on a great company like ConsumerLab.com, which does independent testing of various products of possible interest to runners. Incidentally, the “Council of Responsible Nutrition”, a trade group which represents dietary supplement distributors and manufacturers, recently denounced ConsumerLab for its “egregious form of consumer fraud and deception.” All ConsumerLab does is analyze the contents of over-the-counter nutritional products, so its easy to see why its activities would make the supplement and energy bar industries pretty anxious.

Another solution? Use real foods instead of sports bars and nutritional supplements. In place of a sports bar, you could eat something like a brown-rice cake: Two cakes provide about 15 grams of carbohydrate, a couple of grams of protein, and around 70 calories. Smear a little peanut butter on them (or an omega-3-rich spread of some kind), and you have a tremendous pick-me-up and wonderfully healthy food.

And remember that only three compounds – caffeine, sodium bicarbonate, and creatine monohydrate – have been linked with improved performances in high-quality, randomized, cross-over, double-blind scientific studies. All the other stuff, ranging from Arginine to Zynotol, appears to be worthless from a performance-enhancing standpoint and will put a dent in your pocketbook without taking a chunk out of your 10-K time.