These programs start March 27th, 2010.

Bronze Training Package $150.00

• 11 week program to prepare for 5k
• Specific training plans for all levels/abilities
• Weekly supervised speed and distance sessions
• Expert coaching
• A friendly and motivational network of runners
• Jacksonville Running Company Singlet

Silver Training Package $300.00

Includes Bronze package plus choice of:

• Strength training with Timed Exercise, meets 2 times per week
• Or, 2 massage sessions with Jenny Lindley, BS, LMT

Gold Training Package $500.00

• Basic Running Program
• Strength Training with Timed Exercise
• 2 massage sessions with Jenny Lindley, BS, LMT
• $100 Gift Certificate to Jacksonville Running Company

Choose Training Package

Bronze Training Package $150.00 Silver Training Package $300.00 Gold Training Package $500.00

For more information about these programs visit www.jaxrun.com or contact Jacksonville Running Company at 379-7170.

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.

Free to Breathe 5km:
Linda K. broke her 5km PR and ran sub 30mins for the first time                29:33
Maryfrances broke her 5km PR and came close to breaking 3omins        30:03
Jessica R. dipped under 21mins smashing her previous best by 1min       20:57

Mandarin 10km:
Shannon R.            44:32
Jessica R.                 43:34
Raysa V.                    54:58
Judy R.                      58:07
Lauren F.                 58:00
Maryfrances C.    1:01:23
Linda K.                    1:03:27

Maryfrances (left) and Linda after the Free to Breathe 5km

River Run Training Group

For more info click here: http://personalrunningsolutions.com/gate-river-run-training-program/

Have you stared to think about the Gate River Run?  How about a new years resolution?  Well now you can take care of both with the Jacksonville Running Company and Personal Running Solutions’ River Run Racers training program.  Just print out the form below and follow one of the three easy payment methods and be ready to achieve your goals. Go on take the first step.

Payment:

1) Drop registration form and check or pay by credit card at the Jacksonville Running Company 9823 Tapestry Park Circle, Jacksonville, Florida 32246.  

2) Call the Jacksonville Running Company at Phone: 904-379-7170, and mail registration form to the Jacksonville Running Company c/o River Run Racers, 9823 Tapestry Park Circle, Jacksonville, Florida 32246

3) Or pay on line below and mail registration form to Jacksonville Running Company c/o River Run Racers, 9823 Tapestry Park Circle, Jacksonville, Florida 32246

River Run Racers options:

15week new members $155.00 15week alumni members $135.00 9week new members $105.00 9week alumni members $85.00

 

Post-Run Nosh Necessities

Eat right today to train better tomorrow

“Recovery nutrition” has become a bit of a buzz phrase of late, but with all the ads and claims, it can be hard to determine whether it’s important for you. How serious of a runner do you have to be before you focus on executing your own recovery-nutrition practices?
 
In short, all runners can benefit from recovery-nutrition practices. The important things to know are what to eat when. Let’s take a look at some common scenarios.

Eight-Hour Rule

One of the easiest ways to decide if a post-stressor snack is to your advantage is if you’ll be working out again within the next eight hours. This is most obviously the case if you’re running twice a day. But it’s also important to account for other types of calorie-draining activities, from a weightlifting session or swim to a long hike or even an hour of vigorous yard work.

At the very least, try consuming some type of carbohydrate snack that includes a little protein within 30 minutes after your first workout. By eating something in this “recovery window,” you’ll help reduce muscle damage, you’ll get the process of glycogen replacement going at a high rate, and you’ll be more likely to go into your next run feeling physically fresh and mentally engaged.

Eat Enough Carbohydrates

Say you almost never work out more than once a day and that you almost always have a 24-hour recovery window between workouts. Does this mean recovery nutrition doesn’t apply to you?

No; your body still has a carbohydrate requirement to meet within that 24 hour timeframe to effectively recover. If your preference is a slightly lower-carbohydrate lifestyle, you may find a post-workout, carbohydrate-rich snack is essential.

For example, a lunch consisting of a large salad topped with grilled chicken and vinaigrette dressing, although a healthy choice, is unlikely to meet your carbohydrate goals, particularly after a good stressor workout. On the days you run long or hard, consider either altering your meal and/or consuming a carbohydrate-rich snack soon after you’re done working out. In altering the meal, consider having a smaller salad topped with grilled chicken, dried or fresh fruit, and dressing served with a dinner roll or two and a cup of yogurt. This previously very low-carbohydrate meal has been shifted to providing that carbohydrate punch you’ll need to lessen muscle damage and restore your glycogen supply.

Late Run

It happens to the best of us—schedules make it hard to fit a run in at an otherwise normal hour. So that stressor workout or even a late race didn’t wrap up until 10:00 p.m. Although you may have already eaten dinner and you’re ready to hit the sack, this isn’t the time to go to bed with a stomach half empty.

That long overnight fast will only slow the recovery process. Instead, try to structure the day such that you can still get in adequate carbohydrate and a little protein after the workout. Something as simple as a peanut-butter-topped bagel, glass of chocolate milk, or bowl of cereal would work great. This will help you feel recharged for another day of running, especially if you’re planning to run the next morning.

Ward off Indulgences

Maybe that stressor workout happens to fit into a regular time of day and there’s a nice long recovery window between workouts filled with a sufficient carbohydrate diet. Even so, a light snack or small meal after a workout can still be beneficial. It can help ward off the urge to cave in to the cookie monster in light of a growling stomach leading to overindulgence.

This type of post-workout snacking can be useful in maintaining better control of your diet. It can also still fit into your day without adding unwanted calories. Simply take a side item, such as yogurt you packed for lunch, and save it as a post-workout snack. Even better, structure your day such that the next main meal follows soon after any hard run.

Basic Rule of Thumb: How Much?

First and most important, something is better than nothing. Eat some sort of snack that contains carbohydrates. A general rule of thumb is to aim for half your body weight in grams of carbohydrate and 10-20 grams of protein to be eaten within 30 minutes of a hard workout. Even more specifically, a 4:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein is ideal.

There’s more than one way to look at recovery nutrition. Structuring the day such that good nutrition follows those stressor workouts will help in reducing potential muscle damage. It will facilitate the replacement of a depleted glycogen supply and provide the necessary fuel to repair damaged muscle. Who doesn’t want an overall faster recovery in pressing on with training?

http://bostonorbust330.wordpress.com/

Pumpkin Run 10 Miler: Back in the Saddle at Last!