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.

Does Running Outdoors Burn More Calories?

New York Times health answer man Anahad O'Connor seeks an answer the ancient conundrum: does running outdoors burn more calories than running indoors? And the answer is....:it's hard to say. O'Connor reports that running indoors (on a treadmill) is less likely to result in injury, and research suggests that running outdoors encourages more vigorous exercise, perhaps because other people may be watching. O'Connor's bottom line? Yes. Probably. Maybe. Some.
Read more from Anahad O'Connor in the New York Times.

NYT Video: Working Out With Runner Sara Hall

The three drills (A-skip, B skip, and straight-leg scissor) seen on this video may look silly, and readers who can beat Olympic hopeful Sara Hall (who on Saturdays takes a 14-mile run at a pace of 5 minutes 45 seconds per mile) a have every right to snicker. The rest of us should pay close atttention.  Watch the video.

Four Exercises Every Runner Should Do

Sara Hall, a Stanford runner who is hoping for a shot at the 1,500 meter contest in the upcoming Olympics,
shares her thoughts about running in this inspiring piece in the New York Times.  Perhaps more importantly, Hall's coach, Terence Mahon, shares his thought about training for running. Geezer likes the printable graphic, "Coach's Corner," which is impossible to link to directly, illustrating four exercises that every runner should do. Find it here.

How to Train for a Half-Marathon in 12 Weeks

Nine and a half weeks works for some things, but not training for a half-marathon. For that, Outside magazine warns, you need a full 12 weeks. In fact, the magazine has recruited Terence Mahon, who trained American half-marathon record holder Ryan Hall, to prescribe the perfect training regimen for a half-marathon. If you're half ready, click here.

Is Runners' High For Real?

Readers who have not had time to pick up the latest issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex will be delighted to learn that the relatively inexpensive feeling of euphoria known as runners' high is now officially real. New York Times' health guru Gina Kolata writes about the research, reported in Cerebral Cortex and conducted at the University of Bonn. Researchers at the German school gave PET scans to the brains of athletes before and after a two-hour run, hoping to spot evidence that endorphins produced during the run were attaching themselves to areas of the brain involved with mood. And the answer is...YES. Dr. Henning Boecker, who led the study, told the Times that endorphins could be detected in the limbic and prefrontal areas of the brain. Those are the areas, Boecker said, that are activated when people are involved in romantic love affairs or, “when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.”  When researchers also asked the runners to describe any post-run euphoria, they found that the greater the euphoria the runners reported, the more endorphins in their brain.
Read more in the New York Times.

How to Buy Running Shoes

This three-part series in the Washington Post may do what decades of encouragement from Mrs. Geezer failed to do: persuade Geezer to spend more than $60 on his next pair of running shoes. The piece offers a new understanding of the influence of pronation on foot comfort and health, explains another meaning of the word "last," and tells us how to know when it's time to retire a pair of running shoes (at the 500 mile mark). Helpful stuff. Read more in the Washington Post.

What to Do When You Hit the Wall

What really happens when you hit the wall? Biochemically speaking, you run out of glycogen, a form of glucose that's kept in the liver and muscles. As Jeannine Stein tells us in this piece in the L.A. Times, glycogen is the main fuel used during sustained exercise and largely comes from carbohydrates such as pasta, bread, fruits and vegetables. Stein talks to Dr. Robert Sallis, director of sports medicine at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana and president of the American College of Sports Medicine, who says low blood sugar doesn't just distress muscles, it confuses the brain. In fact, the brain is actually more sensitive to low sugar than the muscles are. In a marathon, that depletion can happen at any time -- often around mile 20, sometimes at about two hours. The telltale signs can develop slowly or quickly; many runners describe it as a switch being flipped.
What to do? When hitting the wall, says Sallis, runners should slow their pace and immediately take in carbs in the form of sports drinks, gels, energy bars or fruit. He suggests taking in carbs every 45 minutes or so during the race and being aware of any major drop in energy or feelings of wooziness.
Read more about what to do when hitting the wall in the L.A. Times.

Alberto Salazar's Ten Golden Rules of Running, from Outside Magazine

Outside magazine, locked in battle with Men's Health to come up with more and better packages, has launched its latest effort: the Master Plan series. Master Plan number one is the Master Plan to Running, and it's a seriously well-done, eight-part series. Geezer's favorite piece is Alberto Salazar's Ten Golden Rules of Running.
Here they are:
1. BE CONSISTENT Find a training plan that you can stick to long-term.
2. TAKE RECOVERY DAYS SERIOUSLY  You need a recovery day after a hard day. No exceptions.
3. INCREASE MILEAGE GRADUALLY  You won't know until it's too late that you're overdoing it.
4. STAY ON THE TRAIL Pavement damages joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles.
5. RUN FASTER Run some shorter intervals—what we call speed work—at least that fast.
6. STRENGTHEN YOUR WHOLE BODY  Stay away from machine weights and stick to Pilates, climbing, and dynamic flexibility work like yoga.
7. WEAR THE RIGHT SHOES  The more you run, the more support your foot needs.
8. PERFECT YOUR FORM Every motion your body makes should propel you directly forward.
9. TACKLE DOUBT HEAD-ON Push through it. Never think you are mentally weak.
10. EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY With the Internet, GPS phones, advanced heart-rate monitors, and even your iPod, you now can be coached individually, even while you run.

Read more about running in Outside.

How to Relieve a Side-stitch

A gentle reader of the L.A. Times asks the paper's fitness-answer-man what to do about a side-stitch. Sometimes, the reader says, the stitch that comes on when he runs goes away of its own volition. Other times, he's not so lucky.
Answer-man Jay Blahnik has some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that no one really knows what causes a side-stitch, so no one really knows how to make the pain go away. The good news is that there are a half-dozen things that sometimes work. Over to you:
* Take a deep breath and then slowly exhale through pursed lips.
* Contract the abdominals while flexing the body toward the area of pain.
* Mix up your breathing pattern and stride pattern.
* Slow down and reduce your exercise intensity until the pain subsides.
* Jog in place and take a few moments to bend, twist and stretch the torso.
* You can also try extending your warmup period and taking more time to work up to your steady walking or running speed. This can be especially important in colder weather, when side-stitches may occur more frequently.
* Finally, Blahnik suggests that when you drink water before, during and after exercise, you try sipping your water rather than taking big gulps at less frequent intervals.
Read more from Jay Blahnik in the L.A. Times.