SportsGeezer

The Triathlete's Trilemma: Which Sport to Invest In

Let's say, for the sake of the argument presented in this piece in the Times by Gina Kolata, that it really is not possible to excel in running, swimming and biking, the three legs of most triathlons. Let's say that most amateur athletes have to pick one sport to rock in, one to perform well in, and one to get by in. What would you do? Kolata gives us the wisdom of  Joe Friel, a coach and author of  10 books, including “The Triathlete’s Training Bible” (VeloPress, 2004), who warns that if you want to run faster you have to give up swimming and cycling. And then there's Gary S. Krahenbuhl, an exercise physiologist and emeritus professor at Arizona State, who tells Kolata that the physical and biochemical changes in muscle cells and in nerve-firing patterns required for improvement are very sport-specific. Kolata reminds us that there are benefits to doing more than one sport, and she quotes physiologists who advocate cross training for all recreational athletes, and especially middle-age athletes who are more easily injured and slower to recover than younger people. Know anyone like that?
Read more about the triathlete's trilemma from Gina Kolata.

How to Buy a Recreational Bike

For those of us who are not ready for the Tour de France, and by that Geezer means not ready to watch news reports of the Tour de France on TV, there are bicycles that cost less than used cars. How to find them? This piece in the Boston Globe offers some basic and practical advice, explaining for example, the differences between a road bike, mountain bike, and a hybrid. One great suggestion: ask the bike shop if you can borrow the bike before buying. Many of  the better merchants will have no problem with that.
Read more on how to buy a recreational bike in the Boston Globe.

GPS Devices Are Everywhere

How long will it be before the hills are alive with hikers, runners and cyclists sharing the details of their heart rate, pace, and arguing over where the hell they are? The Washington Post reports on the growing popularity (read--great holiday gift) of GPS devices (still, curiously, sold as "watches") that monitor pace, heart rate, distance and speed. Much of the market growth, the Post reports, stems from the creation of Web sites where all this information is being uploaded and compared, including SportsTrack, Garmin Ltd.'s MotionBased.com and Nikeplus.com.
Read more in the Washington Post.

What Cycling Isn't Good For: Bone Density

As Jeannine Stein points out in this piece in the L.A. Times, cycling is great cardio, and it's excellent for building muscles. But one thing that cycling is not excellent for is building bone-strength.  Stein directs us to a recent study conducted by Pam Hinton, associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The study, which looked at the bone mineral density of 27 cyclists and 16 runners ages 20 to 59, showed that 63 percent of cyclists had lower-thana-normal bone density of the spine or hip, compared with 19 percent of the runners. What to do? Hinton recommends that cyclists add a little variety to their workouts to help increase bone density: running, playing basketball, jumping rope or doing plyometrics a couple of times a week.
Read more in the L.A. Times.

Two Words on Matching Body Type to Sport: Forget It

If you're small, you should run, and if you're tall, you should swim. So goes the common wisdom about what kind of bodies perform better at what kind of sports. In this somewhat conflicted piece in the New York Times, Gina Kolata explains the physiological and physical reasons why tall swimmers do generally swim faster than short swimmers and why small, thin runners generally run faster than tall, heavily-built runners.
She points out that, among other things, tall swimmers also have an advantage because when bodies are horizontal in the water, long bodies have an automatic edge. Distance running, says Kolata, prefers another kind of body. Because running requires that you lift your body off the ground with each step, propelling yourself forward, the lighter you are, the easier the lift, and the faster you go.
Having said all that, Kolata reminds us that unless we plan to compete in the next Olympics, and Geezer does not, it matters less what we excel at than what we enjoy.
Read more in the New York Times.

G2 Is the New Pedialyte, which Was the New Gatorade

Serious endurance athletes will not be surprised to read that Pedialyte, a liquid whose ostensible purpose is the rapid rehydration of diarrhea-stricken babies, is the preferred beverage of many professional athletes and die-hard triathletes. As the New York Times reports, long-distance runners started exploiting the powers of the neon-tinted concoction of sodium, potassium and glucose back in the 1980s. Now, the paper tells us, from the beverage cart on the Anaheim Ducks’ team flights during the 2007 Stanley Cup playoffs to the training camps of the National Football League, Pedialyte has found its place in the kit bag of professional athletes. In fact, according to this report, Pedialyte's popularity was the main reason that in 2005 Gatorade launched Gatorade Endurance, a mass market drink with nearly twice as much sodium per serving as traditional Gatorade. On Friday, the Times reports, Gatorade introduced G2, which, like Pedialyte, has far fewer calories than regular Gatorade and can ensure athletes arrive on the field with enough salts in their system without delivering a dose of carbohydrates too high for muscles at rest.
Read more in the New York Times.

Confessions of an Endurance Junkie

Writing for the New York Times'  Play magazine, Stuart Stevens admits to being one of those twisted people for whom endurance events get better as they get worse. And Stevens, the author of "The Big Enchilada" and "Feeding Frenzy," has been addicted to many endurance sports, from cross country skiing to cycling. Here, he describes the hellish delights of La Marmotte, a swooping, looped bicyle course that coves almost 17,000 feet of climbing over some of the most notorious ascents of the Alps, and is billed as the toughest one-day amateur cycling event in the world.
Read more in Play magazine.

The Beginners' Guide to Beginning Triathlons

It's still true that triathlons are not for everyone, but according to this piece in the Boston Globe, the mini-versions at least, are attracting more amateur athletes each year.  In fact, one marathon trainer tells the Globe that the sheer number of contestants can be the one of the most intimidating aspects of the race, particularly the swimming leg of the competition. Read this short piece, with a few tips on mini-triathlon training, in the Boston Globe.
For more advice--actually, a lot more advice, check out Triathanewbie.com.

How Hard Is the Tour de France, Really?

Despite one reader's complaint of too many links to the New York Times, Geezer believes it would be negligent to deny other faithful readers a link to Gina Kolata's revealing exploration of the Tour de France, from the inside out. The Times' health writer talks to cyclists who are on the tour, and they says things like this:"It hurt to walk, it hurt to lie in bed and do nothing, When we were not racing, we were sitting down or lying down if we could. It’s funny to see these 20- and 30-year-old superathletes never standing up. Even when we would sit on the edge of a bed, we would slump down to a horizontal position as quickly as possible.”
Get the picture. For anyone who has ever wondered what was the big deal-- 2,205 miles in 23 days, a few Alps, a few Pyrenees, whatev--the answer is here.

For Cyclists, Thinner Doesn't Mean Better

In some sports, shape matters.Thin runners, for example, have an advantage over heavier runners, because when a runner runs, the entire weight of her body moves up and down with every step. But cyclists don't move up and down. They don't step. They cruise along, powered by legs that are very often attached to fairly chunky bodies. Gina Kolata noticed that, and she writes about that phenomenon, which she calls The Bicycling Paradox.  Turns out the bicyclists can sometimes be too thin, but it still holds true that they can never be too rich.