The British version of runners world recently did an expose on the benefits of hill running. They suggest that hill running strengthens tendons and ligaments, reduces the risk of injury and improves overall running form. Most of us these days will incorporate some kind of strength training when we go to the gym and lift weights. The problem is that while these exercises do increase strength and muscular power, they do it in isolation of your running, focusing on individual joints and small sets of muscles.

Hill sessions, in contrast, force the muscles in your hips, legs, ankles and feet to contract in a coordinated fashion while supporting your full body weight, just as they have to during normal running. In addition, on uphill sections your muscles contract more powerfully than usual because they are forced to overcome gravity to move you up the hill. The result is more power, which in turn leads to longer, faster running strides.

Are you still not sold on running hills? The Karolinska Institute in Sweden carried out a study to see what the benefits of hill running were. One major study carried out on marathon runners discovered that after 12 weeks of twice-weekly hill sessions, the athletes’ running economy had improved by three per cent. Although the subjects were trained runners, that improvement would still have helped them clip as much as two minutes off a 10-mile time or six minutes off a marathon.

Other research, carried out by Dr Bengt Saltin, discovered that runners who trained on hills have much higher concentrations of aerobic enzymes – the chemicals which allow your muscles to function at high intensity for long periods without fatigue – in their quadriceps muscles than those who did all their running on flat terrain. Heightened aerobic power in your quads gives you improved knee lift while running and also accelerates each leg forward more quickly as you run, which improves your speed.

Those who run on hills have also been shown to be less likely to lose fitness when they take time off from training. And many scientists believe that hill training can improve the elasticity of muscles, tendons and ligaments, allowing these tissues to carry out more work with less effort and fatigue.

The following are three types of hill exercises that can be added to any running workout.

1.    The Basic Hill Interval. Add a set of hill running intervals (anywhere from 3-7 repetitions, ranging from 50 to 800 meters in distance), at a slow to moderate pace. This can be done as part of any run. During your run, you simply run up some hills. The pace is not a sprint or hard effort at all, and the point of doing such a set of intervals is to develop specific upper leg strength that develops the muscle used to lift the knees. Additionally, keep your hips forward and drive off of the back of your leg as your opposite knee is lifted high. There is sometimes a tendency to slouch or hunch forward the shoulders. This happens particularly if you are feeling fatigue, either in general or from the workout itself. Be sure to keep this from happening by maintaining a ‘proud’ form throughout the intervals.

2.    Hill Sprints. These are short but intense efforts on steep hills. Start with a few intervals of 8 to 10 seconds each, then very gradually increase repetitions and durations. When executing hill sprints, each stride should be strong. Focus on a powerful movement that brings your knees up as you drive hard off of the back of your opposite leg. The key here is to straighten the leg that is doing the driving. This movement translates into one thing: Power. If you find yourself slowing considerably or feeling quite fatigued, you have done enough repetitions.

3.    Hill Bounding. On a gentle hill, using your body as resistance by bounding as high as possible. There is little forward momentum needed here, as the point is to gain vertically more than horizontally. By landing on the ball of one’s foot, this action in turn forces the runner’s ankle to increase in flexibility and power, both up and down. It also strengthens leg muscles similarly to plyometric exercises. The number of repetitions, like the hill sprints, can be determined by performance during the intervals: If you begin to feel tired or your execution of the action begins to wain, it is most likely time to move on to a cool down in your workout.

All I can say is I hope to see some of you out on the hills in the coming weeks before the USA’s biggest 15km, the Gate River Run.

Happy Running! 

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/general/everything-you-need-to-know-about-hill-training/159.html

Phys Ed: How Exercising Keeps Your Cells Young

Chev Wilkinson/Getty Images  

Recently, scientists in Germany gathered several groups of men and women to look at their cells’ life spans. Some of them were young and sedentary, others middle-aged and sedentary. Two other groups were, to put it mildly, active. The first of these consisted of professional runners in their 20s, most of them on the national track-and-field team, training about 45 miles per week. The last were serious, middle-aged longtime runners, with an average age of 51 and a typical training regimen of 50 miles per week, putting those young 45-mile-per-week sluggards to shame.

From the first, the scientists noted one aspect of their older runners. It ‘‘was striking,’’ recalls Dr. Christian Werner, an internal-medicine resident at Saarland University Clinic in Homburg, ‘‘to see in our study that many of the middle-aged athletes looked much younger than sedentary control subjects of the same age.’’  

Even more striking was what was going on beneath those deceptively youthful surfaces. When the scientists examined white blood cells from each of their subjects, they found that the cells in both the active and slothful young adults had similar-size telomeres. Telomeres are tiny caps on the end of DNA strands — the discovery of their function won several scientists the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine. When cells divide and replicate these long strands of DNA, the telomere cap is snipped, a process that is believed to protect the rest of the DNA but leaves an increasingly abbreviated telomere. Eventually, if a cell’s telomeres become too short, the cell ‘‘either dies or enters a kind of suspended state,’’ says Stephen Roth, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Maryland who is studying exercise and telomeres. Most researchers now accept telomere length as a reliable marker of cell age. In general, the shorter the telomere, the functionally older and more tired the cell.

It’s not surprising, then, that the young subjects’ telomeres were about the same length, whether they ran exhaustively or sat around all day. None of them had been on earth long enough for multiple cell divisions to have snipped away at their telomeres. The young never appreciate robust telomere length until they’ve lost it.

There are plenty of reasons to exercise — in this column, I’ve pointed out more than a few — but the effect that regular activity may have on cellular aging could turn out to be the most profound. ‘‘It’s pretty exciting stuff,’’ says Thomas LaRocca, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, who has just completed a new study echoing Werner’s findings. In Mr. LaRocca’s work, people were tested both for their V02max — or maximum aerobic capacity, a widely accepted measure of physical fitness — and their white blood cells’ telomere length. In subjects 55 to 72, a higher V02max correlated closely with longer telomeres. The fitter a person was in middle age or onward, the younger their cells.

There are countless unanswered questions about how and why activity affects the DNA. For instance, Dr. Werner found that his older runners had more activity in their telomerase, a cellular enzyme thought to aid in lengthening and protecting telomeres. Exercise may be affecting telomerase activity and not telomeres directly. In addition, Stephen Roth has been measuring telomeres and telomerase activity in a wide variety of tissues in mice and has found, he says, the protective effects from exercise only in some tissues.

Another question is whether we must run 50 miles a week to benefit. The answer ‘‘can only be speculative at the moment,’’ Dr. Werner says, although since he jogs much less than that, he probably joins the rest of us in hoping not. Given his and his colleagues’ data, ‘‘one could speculate,’’ he concludes, ‘‘that any form of intense exercise that is regularly performed over a long period of time’’ will improve ‘‘telomere biology,’’ meaning that with enough activity, each of us could outpace the passing years.

An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that the Saarland University Clinic is located in Hamburg.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/phys-ed-how-exercising-keeps-your-cells-young/?ref=magazine

Bail and Trail

Randy A. is on a quest to qualify for Boston. This is his latest blog posting. Check it out below or go to his blog page at : http://bostonorbust330.wordpress.com/

Just like the catchy song from the ‘80s band called “Europe” (insert drum roll here):  “It’s the final countdown!” in my marathon training.  Only 34 days remain until my date with destiny at the Tallahassee Marathon on Feb. 7.   I am in the midst of the most important weeks of my training program and everything is going disturbingly well.

Why do I say “disturbingly” well?  Because it all seems too easy.  I’m following Coach Paul McRae’s carefully crafted training plan, I’ve remained injury-free and illness-free for months even after significantly increasing my mileage (Did I just jinx myself?), and I’m seeing dramatic improvement in my performance.  After 30 years as a competitive runner, it’s about time that I achieved this “Duh!” moment – train properly, race smart, eat sensibly, and see the desired results – go figure!  It’s not rocket science and yet somehow I did it every way BUT that way for my entire competitive running career – relying on the invincibility of youth (for as long as it lasted up to my early 30’s), then relying on cross training (swimming, tennis, and rowing) as a substitute for proper running training through my 30’s and into my early 40’s, and then just plain struggling for the past few years with the challenge of aging, recurring job transitions, weight gain, high stress, low mileage, and little cross training.  Something had to give, so I figured I would do it the “right way” this time just to “see how the other side lives,” and now I wish I could reclaim those 30 misguided years and start from scratch.

Alek and I did some great training while we were on our family vacation on a Caribbean cruise during the last week of December.  We did all of our mileage on treadmills, but it felt great to run every day at or close to marathon race pace (and I didn’t feel worn down at all – catching up on my sleep definitely helped).  I ran a respectable 40 miles during our 8-day trip (Alek ran 68!), but I also felt a little apprehensive about what was in store at the end of the week:  my first 20-mile training run – ever!  But before I describe that training milestone, I should mention two other training milestones.  My mileage for 2009 was 1080 miles, which is my first 1000-mile year since moving to Florida in 2006 and, more significantly, my highest annual mileage since 1999 (which was the year I ran Boston).  In addition, my mileage for December was 133, which was my highest monthly mileage since 1999.  Unlike 1999, however, these miles weren’t largely “junk” miles – they were all run below, at, or slightly above marathon race pace, which really seems to have made a difference in my speed and endurance.

As for the “Big 2-0” (the 20-mile training run), I never dreamed of doing such a training run until joining this program (my previous long run was 16 miles several years ago and I hurt like hell during and after that run).  Even when I coached a charity marathon team five years ago, I supervised my runners’ 20-mile training run as part of their marathon training but still never dreamed of doing that distance myself (unless it was en route to completing a marathon race).  To add more challenge to my ambitious 20-mile undertaking on Sunday, the weather was incredibly cold – the thermometer was pinned at 33 degrees for the entire run, with a wind chill that put things in the not-so-toasty mid-20’s.  The only other time in my life that I had run close to that distance under those conditions was the Philadelphia Marathon in 2000 (it was 38 degrees and I dropped out at mile 14).

But wait – there’s more.  I ran the first 15 miles of this 20-mile training run by myself, which raised the challenge bar a little more.  My trusty Garmin watch was great company, though, as I was relieved to see how I was nailing almost all of the middle miles of the run at an 8:40 pace and it felt very comfortable (earlier this year, an 8:40 pace was a challenging pace for me for a 7-mile training run).  Even after starting slowly in this 20-miler to allow myself time to warm up in the frigid weather, and slowing down slightly with good conversation during the last 5 miles, I still managed a 2:58 for the 20 miles (8:57 pace), which put me on track to run about a 3:58 marathon that day, which is faster than 4 of my 21 marathon RACES in the past 20 years.  And this was merely a training run, without the crowds of fellow runners and spectators, and without sucking down a gel or other energy aid regularly throughout the run.  I went light on hydration and energy refueling during this training run to see how I would feel and I felt really good.  Of course, it will hurt much more to hold an 8:00 pace on race day for that distance, but that’s where the “race-day intangibles” come into play:  getting propelled by a healthy dose of good old-fashioned adrenaline from the electric “game day” atmosphere on marathon morning, ingesting copious amounts of high-octane energy drinks, gels, and chews throughout the race, and enjoying the pacing services of my relentless coach for the day, Alek (who will shout in my ear incessantly that I’m a slow, cowardly sloth while he runs next to me effortlessly for the entire second half of the race). With all that good karma on my side, the elusive Boston-qualifying time of 3:30 should be within my grasp.

Perhaps most encouraging in the wake of my 20-miler was that my legs weren’t sore later that day, or the next day, or the day after that.  Huh?  Can you say that again in my good ear?  I had to pinch myself to make sure that my muscles and nerves were still working.  How could I have run that obscene distance at that respectable pace under those nasty conditions and not feel like I had been beaten to a pulp with baseball bats by a gang of hoodlums?  To drive home my point, on the day after my 20-miler, I ran a two-mile shake-out run at an 8:26 pace and it felt great.  I could have danced all night.  So, above all else, the quality and quantity of training that I have done since August has produced one extremely valuable quality in me – the ability to recover quickly, both during and after a race, which is something that I have never experienced in my competitive running career.  Prior to this year, I always paid dearly during and after my races as a pupil of the “wing it” school of moronic distance running training.  But those 30 years of ultimate human suffering (like the torture Wesley endured on the life suction pump in the classic movie, “Princess Bride”) helped build my character, and almost killed me in the process.  If I had a dollar for every minute that I spent as a patient in a medical tent after a marathon, I would be filthy rich.

I just hope that this surreal sense of invincibility lasts for the Tallahassee Marathon.  I keep expecting to wake up from this euphoric state and see these delusions of grandeur dissolve instantaneously, just as one loses the thread of a dream as soon as the alarm clock pierces the morning silence.  As far as I can tell, though, the “signpost up ahead” bears the name of the street where I live, and is not the detour exit ramp for “The Twilight Zone.”

Quite often I get asked why people need a coach. It is an interesting question and one that needs answering. Often as runners we are consumed by the next step, mile, and race that we lose sight of everything that stops us from training smart or listening to our body’s. I for one can attest to this. I often plan out my athletes training 2-3 months in advance with a goal race or races in mind. Then we break down the weeks and plan specific workouts and runs. Many of the athletes I coach often get caught up in the numbers I schedule rather than the way their body is feeling and how they are handling the training. For example, this past week I had an athlete complete a HARD workout of mile repeats on a weekday only to have them come back over the weekend and run a 13mile long run. In an email I recieved Monday this athlete wrote: “I ran an additional loop and a half and so I think I ran just over 13…. I was also worn out overall.  I’ve got a long way to go before I’m going to be able to run 26 miles! ” 

When I reminded this athlete of their HARD workout during the week and then their other mileage before the weekend it gave this athlete a bit of perspective. This is where a having a coach is a good thing. Many of us as athetes have the drive and determination to improve our performance. However, it is often this same drive and determination that ends up getting an athlete over tired or god forbid injured or hurt. It takes someone other than the athlete to see and know when an athletes needs to have an easy day, and/or to take a day off. 

So how do you pick a coach?

There was recently a great article in the National Masters News written by Eric Dixon (USATF Level II Sprints/ Hurdles/ Relays Coach). Even though this article was aritten for an athlete looking to hire a sprint coach some of his points do cross over into other running distance areas.

1) Does he or she have experience to handle a broad range of clients and issues? For example, this would entail the coach recognizing things in their athletes such as age, work schedule, fitness background, other time/life constraints such as family.

2) Does the coach possess the ability to foster a good coach-athlete relationship. Any good coach will eventuall become your training partner, your friend, your ally, and your mentor and this is how it should be. Do you feel that this coach will looking out for your best interests.

3) Does the coach work with you to identify short and long term goals. Did the coach ask for your goals upfront and then work with you to develop your training plan.

4) Is the coach a good communicator. If you have an issue does the coach listen and respond to your concerns and help solve this issue.

5) A good coach will individualize your program to meet your age and lifestyle. They need to be able to consider things such as, training volume, nutrition, recovery, and strenghtening exercises just to name a few.

6) Does the coach try to give everyone equal time and is accessible to all their athletes.

7) Does the coach recognize your strengths and weaknesses and if so has the coach a plan to make the weaknesses better.

Durbin Creek Peninsula Perserve Trail

Off St. Augustine Road in Bartram Park in South Jacksonville. One of the best off-road courses in the Jacksonville Area. Map shows a six mile course, but can be 7 miles with out and back section between 3 and 4 miles as shown on map. There is also a three mile loop that you can run if you go to the next right after the two mile mark.

Northbank River Walk 5K

This is a great little course along the Riverwalk starting and finishing at the Hyatt Hotel on Coastline Drive.

Festival of Lights 5K Course

In San Marco from the Baptist Eye Institute. This is one of Jacksonville most scenic 5Ks. The race is run at night, so the runners miss the true beauty of this certified 3.1 mile course.

Downtown Bridge Loop

Nice 5 mile run starting from the YMCA on Riverside Ave. Course incorporates the new Northbank Riverwalk.

Meandering 5 Mile

Starts at 1st Place Sports on Baymeadows. This is a nice loop around the San Jose Country Club.

Loop the Loop 5 mile

Starts at 1st Place Sports on Baymeadows. Nice course along Beauclerc Road and Forest Circle. Bascially an out and back with a loop in the middle section.

Canal 5 1/2 lake loop

Starts at 1st Place Sports on Baymeadows Road. This is a great run for adventure seekers. The course cuts through Tomahawk Park and then runs the canals to Skinner Park. You can also run 7 miles by entended the run north of Skinner Park along the canals.

Canal 7

Longer version of above run.

Meandering 7

Starts at 1st Place Sports on Baymeadows Road. This is a great run along San Jose Blvd. Route takes you around San Jose Country Club.

Gate River Run Course

This is the big one in Jacksonville. This course is used as the site of the 15K national championship. Course starts on Duval Street in front of the Jacksonville Faigrounds, runs from the sports complex area, through downtown, San Marco, and back over the Hart Bridge to finish.

Jacksonville Marathon Course

This is a great course. 26.2 miles of beauty. Large oak, magnolia and Maple trees line this very scenic and flat course. Starts and finishes at Bolles School.

Jacksonville Bank 1/2 Marathon Course

1/2 marathon runs with the Jacksonville Marathon course above.

Ortega River Run Course

This 5 mile course starts and finishers at St. Mark’s Episcopal on Ortega Blvd. This is a very scenic course along the banks of the Cedar River.

Perfect 10

This ten mile course starts and finishes at the Lakewood Shopping Center at the corner of San Jose Blvd and University Blvd. West. This is the site of the orginial 1st Place Sports. The Perfect 10 gots is name not for it’s beauty or terrain, but because it was measured several times. The legend goes that every time one of the 1st Place Sports team members lowered the course record in training the course would be remeasured. John Rogerson, Bill Fisher, Pete Gambel, Jerry Oldin, Bill McCormick, Doug Alred, Mike Wachholz, and George Burns ran this course at least twice a week for several years. Rogerson held the course record with a 49:35.

RITA CASH 5K Southpoint

5K two loop course from Seven Bridges Restaurant at Tinseltown.

Outback 1/2 Marathon Course

Starts at Outback Steakhouse on San Jose Blvd just south of Baymeadows Road. Great course through some of Mandarin’s most scenic roads.

Toughest 10k in Jacksonville

This trail run starts at the Roosevelt Area trail head (off of Mt Pleasant Rd.) and winds through three parks(Roosevelt Area, Spanish Pond, & Fort Caroline) and has the steepest hills, roughest trails and best natural views in Jax. You will not be able to follow it as mapped, you’ll probably get lost (temporarily), but you’ll have a great time if you enjoy this kind of running. Definitely a run for the cooler months in FL.

Loop to Loop 10 Mile

Great ten mile course from the corner of San Jose and Baymedows Road in front of Hooters. Route runs along the recreation paths on Beauclerc and Scott Mill Roads. The route does a loop around Forest Circle on the way out and then on the way back. The route also has a 1.3 mile loop on the bottom of the course. The course gots it’s name from the type of workout that 1st Place Sports teams members ran on this course. The three loops were ran at race pace while atempting to run tempo pace betweeen the loops.

Retro River Run 5K

This course starts at “The Runner” statue on Coastline Drive and follows a route through downtown that closely follows the original River Run course. The route crosses the Main and Acosta bridges and finishes at the Jacksonville Landing.

Exploration Run

5 mile loop over the Acosta and Main Street Bridge and then out and back along the Northbank Riverwalk.

Celebration 5K

Certified 5K loop starting and finishing at 1st Place Sports, 3931 Baymedows Road. This course is used for the Celebration 5K and the 5K with the Tour de Pain.

Super Sunday 5K

This is a nice training course from the JCA located at the corner of San Jose Blvd and San Clerc Roads in the Beaulcerc section of Jacksonville.

Link to all posted Jacksonville running routes:

http://www.usatf.org/routes/search/searchResults.asp?distance_from=&distance_to=&distanceUnits=mi&startType=&startName=&facility=&city=jacksonville&state=FL&rating=&show=25&page=4

Just wanted to let all of you know that after a lot of requests I am going to offer a TRUE beginners training group.  This group will meet Monday, Wednesday, and Wednesday mornings at 615am to be finished by 7am at the latest. The cost for these group session is set up a little different so people can come to one or more sessions a week as it fits into your schedule. The cost of each session will be $10.00 a session. You can purchase a package  and even buy a JRC/PRS technical shirt below or bring payment to each session. For more information call Paul at (904) 316-8122, paul@personalrunningsolutions.com.

Run/Walk Program

one session $12.00Three sessions $32.00Ten sessions $100.00Twenty sessions $180.00