Cool places to run...

In this post, I will start to share stories about some of my favorite cool places to run. This list is on a sidebar with links to further information on each site. The first cool run is Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence Kansas. This is the home cross country course for the Kansas Jayhawks. My daughter and I did a early December road trip between Midwestern ice storms for the Jr. Olympic National Cross Country Championships. Race day it was 22 degrees with a below zero wind chill. I'm sure on a nice fall day it would be beautiful and a much quicker course. Despite the cold, I enjoyed running the course with my daughter the day before her big race and treasure the time we got to spend together.

Our first In Motion guest blogger is my daughter. She will share her summary of the race course and her experiences.

Rim Rock Farm Lawrence, Kansas

I'll never forget that road trip. We had a big adventure driving to the race. We went through a snowstorm so bad that you couldn't see the road. Dad and I had to stop at Wendy's and wait for my teammate. We weren't sure if we could make it in one night. Well, luckily we did! The next day was really fun hanging out with my teammates and going to the expo. It was cool to hear where everyone was from and their times. Everyone was really excited for the race.
Rim Rock Farm is a really cool place to run. I remember it looking similar to Antarctica, but I’m sure if you went in the spring, summer, or fall it would be fun. For a course in Kansas I thought it would be flat, but this course has some challenging hills. I wouldn‘t expect to be running PR‘s. It is a few miles off the highway, and you have to drive down a dirt road. The day of the meet the dirt road had so much traffic some kids had to get out of the car and run to their race! We took a “shortcut”. Dad drove out of the line of cars and drove up to another random dirt road and started driving down it. We had a GPS, but it didn't show all the roads because they were to small. We were just about to turn around when we saw this huge hill! Dad didn't think our car could make it up. It was quite an adventure, but his fabulous shortcut worked. (Yes, for the first time in his life a shortcut actually worked!) (Sorry, Dad)
The starting line is huge! It was so cold that my feet were frozen before we started. My team hung out in a tent, but you couldn't ignore how cold it was. The course starts out on a slight uphill, but there’s plenty of space. It takes a little while, but you loop back around and go in the woods. You go up a few monster hills, then you get to a brown covered bridge. A minute later you go over the prettiest part of the course, a bright red covered bridge that goes over a pond. You go up another large hill called “Billy Mills Hill”. (I also got to hear him the night before at the opening ceremony) It was very steep and long. Then you run up along a ridge where you can see the arch where you finish. The finishing stretch is downhill. (Thank goodness!)
We had to get in the car less than 15 minutes after my finish to drive home because another storm was threatening to keep us there until the following week. My feet were freezing until Kansas City! You could tell who had come from the race because all of the cars had a deep red mud on them from the dirt road! Overall this course is very cool and I would recommend it to anyone. I had a really good experience here and I hope you will too!

Simple injury prevention--Tip 3

Learn how to read!

This week's topic in the Runner's lounge: "Take It and Run Thursday" we were asked to share the "best" of our blog. I don't know if this is my best, but I feel it is one of the most important simple injury prevention tips for all of us to learn. I also like the picture, which I took in Whitehall Michigan.

This is a re-post from March 11, 2008.

My input this week involves learning how to read your body. As the weather finally warms up and the spring races draw nearer, most of us are adding to our training. We are either adding some miles and or introducing some quality (speed). During any change in our training which requires an increase in effort, it is important to determine how our bodies are responding to this change in stress levels. We must learn to read our bodies / to be able to determine what we can ignore versus what is trouble brewing.

Here is a common scenario:

Fred ran 4-8 X's 400 in the first week and that this is the first time he has done any up tempo workouts this season. He wore the same shoes that he has been wearing all winter (250 miles) and they are showing some wear. On this workout, he felt really good and went quicker than scheduled. The next day was an easy run and he felt just a little tight. The next time he ran, his legs felt great so he pushed a little, but toward the end of the run he noticed a slight tightness or pinch in his distal Achilles. After the run, he gave it a good stretch. The next day he felt slight soreness during the day but a mile into his scheduled 10 miler it went away. At 3 miles it comes back and by the end of the run it is more of an aching pain. After he stopped, it goes away so he stretches it out some more. The next AM, Fred can barely walk as his Achilles is very sore and tight.

Where did Fred go wrong in this scenario? How could he have avoided this injury?

The biggest issue here, was his inability too read and listen to his symptoms. When he felt the tightness the first time, he should have used ice on his Achilles and avoided the aggressive stretching. But the biggest mistake was continuing to run during the long run when his symptoms got worse. I advise that when symptoms are felt during a run and they don't go away or they worsen, STOP! At least slow down and shorten the work out. ICE and avoid aggressive stretching. If the symptoms had gone away and not returned, he could have finished the work out. It still would have been prudent to shorten the run and ice. If symptoms are felt during the day just walking around, it is better to not run. REST and ICE! No running until pain-free during everyday activities. Then the return to running needs to be a short and easy, followed by a rest day. This will allow Fred to evaluate how the Achilles is handling the return to running with less of a chance for re-injury.
Learn to read your body!

Other contributing factors:
Stick to the scheduled pace especially on the first quality run of the season.
Never a bad idea to break out a newer pair of shoes when doing quality runs or long runs.

I hope this is helpful!

Functional Strengthening/Mobility

I decided that it would be beneficial to provide an occasional link to our previous posts/ video regarding functional strengthening and mobility exercises.
the why...
Got Strength?
You don't have squat?
Be Hip
the video...
Squat
Lunge
Step downs
Step overs

Note to readers: Always consult a physician before starting any exercise program. The posts on this blog are purely for educational purposes only. The information written in the posts is the opinion of the authors and should not be taken as medical advice.

Hit the water!

At The Runner's Lounge, this week's "take and run Thursday" topic involves cross training.

As I begin to share my thoughts on cross training, I feel the need to remind everybody that cross training is NOT a REST day. We get quite a few victims in our PT clinic who forget this small fact. Many victims of overuse injuries like to sell themselves that a day without running equals a rest day. Face it, we've all done it. Remember that just as cross training is a great adjunct to your sport so is true rest.


Over the years I have done a variety of cross training activities. I would have to say that off road biking and swimming are my favorites. I picked these up after a hamstring injury put my running on hold. I couldn't believe the total body work out that off roading gave me. The thrill of zipping through woods on a single track trail and getting airborne reminded me of snow skiing. I was hooked! The next season, I upgraded my bike and actually entered an off road race. I would ride after work 2 or 3 days a week and really felt that this helped my running. My riding came to a sudden end with a fairly bad end over in which I fracture my clavicle. This made working at my job difficult. I realized that I was lucky that this was all I injured. Because I am a father of three and can't afford to miss days from work, I decided that I better stick to safer cross training.

Thus, I returned to swimming. This has been a great way to help my running. I don't enjoy swimming nearly as much as biking but, I do like the strength changes in my upper body & core. I have found that swimming with a pull buoy is a great way to decrease the load on my legs. I get a great cardio workout by increasing my strokes per breath. The pull buoy eliminates the need to kick and it helps to keep my legs up in the water. As a result, I don't need to swim very far to get a good cardio workout. I work my core my contracting my abdominals as I pull down into the stroke. I was swimming 2 times per week but have gotten away from this over the last year. Hopefully with warmer weather and writing about this, I will find the motivation to hit the water again.

Simple injury prevention--Tip 2

More on deloading.
I thought I would help to make deloading easier to follow with a quick glance chart.

Deloading
Miles per week	Deload week
50	37
45	33
40	30
35	26
30	22
25	18
20	15
15	11

For example: If I have been training 2 weeks at 40 miles per week with 6 miles of quality, I would "deload" my third week to 30 miles with 3-4 miles of quality and I would probably add a rest day. Deloading is a great way to allow the body recover & remodel itself. This format of 2 weeks up and 1 week down will allow an athlete to become stronger for what is next.

Geist Half Marathon

I ran the Geist Half Marathon yesterday. This is a new race and I wasn't sure if it was going to go smoothly as it was a point to point race. They did a good job with the shuttles to the start line and from the finish line back to the parking area. There was a minimal wait to catch a ride.

The course was surprisingly hilly, scenic and fun. There is good shade until about 6 miles. The hills return at 7 miles. The support crowds were few and far between but I enjoyed the bands. The finish area was great, with a slight Jimmy Buffett party feel in the air. Too bad that one hour after I finished it clouded up, the wind picked up even more and actually got colder. I think finishers would have stuck around longer if the weather had stayed nice.

How did I do? It took me a long time to feel like I should be running (woke up tired) but I felt better at about 9 miles. I ran a strong last 5 K to finish in the top 10 and win my age group in 1:21:44. I think the hills & wind slowed us all down, but it was a nice day for this inaugural race.

Next up!

Just 2 days until the Inaugural Geist Half Marathon & 5K!

Weather report
The latest weather forecast for Saturday from the National Weather Service calls for an overnight low on Friday of 51 and a chance of showers on Saturday with a high of 68.

Just Do It

Just Do It. With all credit going to the fine people at Nike for making this little saying known worldwide, I start my "it's so obvious" essay for "Take It and Run Thursday" at the Runner's Lounge.

About 8 years ago I graduated from college and started to be an adult. Job, car payment, no afternoon naps, etc. Note that I started 8 years ago and still not sure if I've accomplished that goal yet;) I found myself without sports that i had played and trained for throughout high school and college. I didn't have an outlet for stress. I didn't have an outlet for the many calories that I love to consume throughout the day. I remember sitting on my couch one saturday morning in May and watching the Indy Mini Marathon on a local channel. I couldn't believe that 40,000 people got up on Saturday morning to run?! Run 13.1 miles! As I continued to watch and the reporters did various reports on inspirational stories and interviewed several "ordinary" runners that just did it. I wonder if I could do that? I contemplated this question for several weeks and ironically, it was a good friend of mine that was not a runner who gave me this obvious advice: Just do it. Just sign up and see what happens. What's the harm in that?

A couple weeks later, not quite ready to take that leap yet, I signed up for a local 5k. I was still really wondering what possibly could be the point of getting up so early to run. I can understand getting up early to hit the football field or take batting practice, but just to run? I'll start small and see what happens. I didn't even train for that first 5k, but when I started the race I felt that competitive spirit start to flow again. I knew i wasn't fast enough to win, but i could compete with the people around me. Awesome! I felt revived and new again. When I finished I wanted to go again! I wanted to beat that guy who caught me at the line. Let's go again buddy! I started training daily and yes, I got up early on Saturday morning to do a "long" run. Even though a long run in those days was 3-4 miles. A week later I sent in my registration for the mini. I didn't know if I could do it. I didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't know a bit about running. I had a pair of old Nike shoes, some workout shorts, a ratty t-shirt, and my hat. I just wanted to run. And all I had to do was sign up and see what happens.

Many things in this life happen because people are willing to face the unknown and just do it. Taking this little, in the grand scheme of things not really huge, risk I have found many interesting places, friends, accomplishments, and memories that I will always cherish. I have taken my body to limits that i didn't really think were possible. I have learned many things about life and living through this little thing called running.

Now I'm training for a marathon.....i still have questions in my mind. Can I do that? I would really like to do a triathlon. Can I do that?

Can I do that? The answer is so obvious: sign up, just do it, and see what happens.

Pilates vs. Yoga

Photo credit: Chris Fanning, www.fitnessmagazine.com







Pilates and Yoga have gained significant popularity over the last 10 years with athletes of all sports, genders, and ages. Many studios are now offering pilates and yoga for kids. They have both become the cross-training choice of many endurance athletes. I have taken a series of classes in both basic yoga and pilates. Yoga, the older of the two disciplines (originated in India over 26,000 years ago), literally means "union". This union is between the mind, body, and spirit. There are several different branches of yoga (8), but the one we mostly identify with is described as Hatha Yoga, which refers to the practice of physical postures and poses (asana). Depending on the tradition of the instructor, classes can combine these postures and poses with relaxion and meditation to acheive a therapeutic healing of the mind, body, and spirit. Pilates, originally developed and taught by Joseph Pilates 80 years ago, is a series of exercises that are performed with the goal of elongating the muscles of the spine, developing core strength (the powerhouse: abdominals, postural muscles, gluteals), muscular control, and balance. Both disciplines are very concerned with quality of movement and being connected with your body in order to control movement. A meditative state of body awareness can be acheived with both disciplines in order to have a therapeutic stress relieving component.


All of that being said, I find that there are great benefits to both. As with all types of fitness and strength activities, I believe one has to identify their own goals when beginning a program whether it be going to the gym for a workout or starting a yoga class. The word that comes to my mind is balance. In my experience, yoga poses tend to focus more on flexibility. This is not to say that the poses don't require strength, because I can tell you that this is far from the truth. There are several poses that I couldn't even start because i didn't have the strength to hold the position. On the other hand, Pilates classes seem to focus on strength and control. To be honest though, some of the movements in the class I had trouble performing because, you guessed it, I wasn't flexible enough. To solve these dilemmas, I found that many of the pilates and yoga instructors would incorporate movements from both disciplines to supplement those deficits. I'm by no means an expert in either of the disciplines, so I don't know to what extent they overlap, but I did find that many of the movements overlapped each other i.e. flexibility movements in pilates and core strength movements in yoga.


Balance is the key. In my field, I see muscle imbalances everyday. I can see a muscle imbalance from a mile away when i'm watching a track meet. There's millions of opinions out there as to the cause of these imbalances. Is one muscle too tight? Is one muscle weak? Is the joint or joints hypermobile (too flexible)? Why are they in this state? Do they have a faulty postural habit (sitting on feet)? Do they have a faulty movement pattern (squatting or bending)? Have they had an injury or surgery that caused this compensation? Do they have a genetic trait (true leg length difference)? The list goes on and on. I believe that in most cases the cause of muscle imbalance is a combination of two or more of these.


Too often, I see athletes that have chosen to focus on only one part of the puzzle. For example, a runner who runs 50-60 miles a week and does yoga twice a week comes into the clinic with hip pain. In this situation the person was focusing on flexibility and neglecting stability. Their hamstrings, glutes, piriformis, and lower back muscles were above average for range of motion and flexibility, but their hip strength (buttock muscles and abdominals) were weak leaving muscles that were being overworked in order to control the hip and pelvis while running. Correcting the muscle imbalance with functional hip and core strength allowed them to return to running. This is just one example of many.


I am not saying that everyone who does either yoga and pilates and is a runner is going to end up injured or with a muscle imbalance. I know many athletes who do both, just one, or neither and never have a problem. My goal is to make people more aware of balance between strength and flexibility in order to perform better. I did both at separate times and felt stronger while running. I felt like my body was more stable and was able to be more efficient during workouts. Yoga definitely made me more fluid and relaxed while pilates made me feel longer and more powerful.


If you are injured or question whether you might have a muscle imbalance that might be hindering your performance there are many good (and some, not so good;) articles on the internet. Consult a sports medicine physician, physical therapist, or athletic trainer for a postural analysis or movement screen to identify problem areas.


Both pilates and yoga are great options for cross-training. Just remember to keep balance.

Deloading!

Here is a link to a fantastic post on deloading. Elitetrack
This could be my new favorite link.
I may not need to write another word; these guys just plain get it.

Simple Injury Prevention--Tip 1

At The Runner's Lounge, this week's "take and run Thursday" we are to share the obvious. We will call these topics simple injury prevention. Lou & I will share these tips over the following weeks. Here is tip 1.

With summer approaching, flip flops suddenly become one of the most popular shoe choices. I see them everywhere. My wife & daughters like them because they are convenient and stylish. But unfortunately flip flops are not good for the runner's foot. Runners as well as non-runners, should avoid wearing them for long periods of time (shopping, school, anytime with long-term standing or walking). Why? Next time you are at the mall, take some time and watch people walking in flip flops. Notice how the heel slides off to the inside and sometimes even off the sole. If you look up from the foot at the ankle, you will see an increase in pronation (rolling inward). The toe flexor muscles have to contract more to help keep the flip flop on the foot. The combination of these actions will cumulatively increase the stress to the soft tissue of the foot and leg. This choice of shoe combined with your running and training will lead to a higher probability of injury. These injuries may include: Plantar fasciitis (heel pain), Posterior Tibialis tendonitis (shin Splints), Achilles tendonitis, knee and hip pain. So try to avoid wearing flip flops for a long periods time; it will help you in the long run!

Goals

At The Runner's Lounge, this week's "take and run Thursday" we are to share our wisdom and experiences. I decided to tackle marathon goals and to share a story about one of my races in which my goal planning was challenged by the weather.

I just read a great article in the June edition of the Running Times on the Two-Plan Rule of Racing (page 18) by Greg McMillian. A group of USATF coaches suggest setting 2 goals rather than 3 goals produce better results. They recommend going into each race with 2 realistic but attainable goals. Goal 1 would be a goal that you would achieve with a perfect day with your best effort. This goal must be supported by your previous training and racing.

The second goal (Goal 2) is the goal that you set which would be the "minimum achievement" for you to be satisfied with the your race. In other words, this is a "must have goal with no excuses".
If you don't attain this goal, you absolutely had a bad race and should learn from your choices during the race.

If all systems are go, meaning your fitness level, the race course and the weather are favorable then, goal 1 is the one you go for. On the other hand if any of these are off then, goal 2 is the one to shoot for.

I feel that this is a great approach to do for the upcoming marathon season. In the marathon you must have a second goal. There are so many variables that can ruin your original race plans.

In the 1998 Detroit Free Press Marathon I definitely used this goal system to my advantage. In the days before the race I determined that as a result of my training & race I was in shape to run below 2:45. This was goal 1. The night before the race, I was watching the Notre Dame at Northwestern Football game on ESPN. It was absolutely pouring down rain and was very windy. This weather system was heading straight for Detroit and I knew goal 1 was in jeopardy! Race morning the weather was actually perfect 50 & no wind or rain. The guys that I had planned to race with took off at our original goal pace. I was very tempted to go with them. It was painful to watch them leave me. The night before I had decided that based on the weather forecast & high winds my goal 2 was to run under 2:55. I knew that the in the first half of the race we would have a tail wind and the second half coming back south toward downtown we would be facing a heavy head wind. The rain came first at around the 9 mile mark. I caught my first friend at the 14 mile mark. On Belle Isle, the wind hit hard at 19 with gusts up to 35 mph. The next 4 miles were brutal! Each mile got slower / from 6:30 to 7:50. The tail wind and the early pace claimed another victim as I past my other friend near 23. At 24 the course turn out of the wind and I was able to pick it back up to 7:10 pace to finish at 2:52:42. Goal 2 MET! Despite the slower time, I still feel that this was one of my best races. If I had gone with my original goal pace, I 'm sure I would have ended up in the medical tent with hypothermia. Having a realistic goal 2 and sticking to the slower pace allowed me to make a positive out of rough weather day.

It is my hope that this helps somebody out there to set some good goals and have the courage to achieve them. Good Luck and may the wind be at your back!

Last week we asked the question, In your typical training week, how may rest days do you take?
The results (20 votes): NO rest days 5% / 1 rest day 25%/ 2 rest days 30% / 3 rest days 15%/ 1 rest day with 1 cross training day 25%