Tag Archives for " Training "

17 To gel or not to gel?

buy ivermectin 6 mg I’ve been reading a new book my wife got me for Christmas…Healthy Intelligent Training: The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard by Dr. Keith Livingstone. I’ve always been a fan of Lydiard’s methods and think he was way ahead of his time. I also think many folks dabble in Lydiard and don’t truly understand him. This book puts his methods in perspective and also has the benefit of our current understanding of physiology, training response, etc. It’s a geeky training book, but really good.

buy Lyrica online Anyway, point of the post…

It has an interesting section on carb intake (e.g. gel, energy drink, etc.) on long runs in training—not racing. It says we should not use ANY carbs during long training runs of up to 3-3 1/2 hours (anything over that, supplementing carbs is recommended). Also, keep in mind these are aerobic steady state runs, not hard pace. They do recommend water and electrolytes (especially if it’s hot), but no carbs in order to train our systems to conserve glycogen and burn fat.

The basic physiological premise is this…

While running slowly increases fat burning for fuel, another way to really increase fat burning is to run when the blood glycogen (carb) stores are lowered. When muscle glycogen stores are lowered, fat burning really goes up since there is little carbohydrate available to utilize. Carb stores are lowered after 1 to 2 hours of running so you want to do 30-90 minutes of running AFTER this to maximize fat burning and to help stimulate the body to store more muscle glycogen for future runs (and races). When running (and racing) for this long, the blood glucose level also lowers. Ingesting carbohydrates, either through a sports drink or energy gels, before and during the run, maintains your blood glucose level. This no carb approach challenges the body to run with a lowered blood glucose level (and over time) adapt to better handle this state of lowered blood glucose.

The long, steady state runs must be at least two hours. The longer the better. If you’re used to gels during long runs, you’ll have to ween yourself, as your body is adapted to the constant supply of blood glucose and not the lowered state. But, as you reduce, the body will adapt and you’ll eventually be able to run up to 3 1/2 hours without any carbs (Which could take up to 8 weeks to adapt fully, depending on the individual). They also recommend not having any right before the workout either. Have normal breakfast (several hours before), then go train. This is for training only, then, in a race, you give yourself the normal dose and your body feels pampered. Interesting stuff.

NOTE: The book does say, that when you do this in training, you need to be ready to ingest carbs, protein and fat immediately afterward, or at a minimum within that 30 minute window after run completion. You’ll be low and need to get your glycogen levels back up for recovery and next day training. It’s just for during the long run.

Question…have any of you tried this? I know the Skaggs brothers practice this and so does Tony Krupicka. I’ve been thinking about it for a while (the weening off completely for 2-3 hour runs). And, over the past season, have actually started ingesting less gel on long training runs than I would in a race and not taking any up to 2 hours or so…occasionally, but not consistently. However, this takes it to a different level and has a few studies to back it up. Anyway, found it interesting and thought I’d share it. Giddyup!

3 15 runs, 6 days, and 57 miles—the bumpy road to Ozark Trail 100

I just completed 15 runs for a total of 57 miles in 6 days (Monday through Sunday with Thursday off). Why is that so great? As any runner out there knows, any time you get tendonitis…especially tendonitis in your knee…well, it goes with all the normal freak-outs…

What’s causing it? Why? Did I start running too soon after the 100? Should I be running on it? Can I run on it without pain? Ice? Rest? Crosstrain? WHY THE HECK NOW when I have a 100 miler in a month???!!!!

Yeah, you get the picture. So, what’s so great about 57 miles? No pain. One week ago…limping home from a training run…one week later…tempo run completed with no pain and a 57 mile training week done. I’m psyched, as my runs just a week ago were only 17 minutes or less (when I would start to feel the hint of pressure in my knee). How?

Mini-runs. I started doing this a few years ago with an IT band tendonitis after Miwok 100k and I had Bighorn 100 coming up shortly after. Two to four mini-runs per day and make sure you stop before you aggravate the issue. So, I made sure I stopped running before any pain would arise. Sometimes that means walking home.

And stretching. I also stretched every run (before and after) and at least 3 or 4 other times during the day. Being a fan of natural remedies, I took NO ibuprofen and only used ice to control any swelling, which ended up being only a handful of times…the first few days and once after a 4.5 mile attempted run that had me walking home the last half mile. Again, no pain—I stopped when I felt pressure.

I finally started seeing a light at the end of the tunnel late this week as I went from (ugh) three runs per day (ranging from 2.4 to 3.2 miles) to finally working up to 4.2 miles—yeah, when you’re running short that .2 matters. Once I got over 4 miles, I went to 2 runs per day. However, Saturday was the breakthrough day, as my last run (night run) was 5.5 miles and I came home telling my wife…”I ran five and a half miles, high five, baby! No pain, no pressure!” (Can you believe she puts up with such a weirdo?!)

Process of Elimination. One of the key factors was narrowing down through elimination the root cause of the maltracking. You HAVE to find the culprit. I knew it was tightness, but I was focusing on my quad when the problem was left hip and hamstring. On Wednesday, I had finally targeted the issue after talking to a yoga instructor (Thanks Tami), but it took 3 days to get on top of it with consistent stretching (I use a combo of active stretching techniques and modified yoga stretching, which I do before and after the run). I like yoga, but never have the time to sit down for an hour to do it (with training, business, wife and 2 kids). Once I started getting the hip to loosen up…BAM! Knee pain gone. I ran 7.2 miles this morning on trail and a 5.5 mile tempo on gravel this evening with no pain.

I’m pumped. I still have to be conservative for another 4 or 5 days on it and can’t slack on the stretching routines, but I’m hopeful I’m over the hump. Overall, my legs feel good, considering Iroquois 100 was 3 weeks ago. So, I’m looking forward to some good quality training coming up the next few weeks before the final taper for Ozark Trail 100. Giddyup!

2 Triple Bypass: 116-mile Killer Road Ride

Justin and I nearing the Chinook Pass summit, nearly a 5,000 foot climb.

Me on the long climb up Cayuse Pass, mile 62.

Justin on the last grunt before summit of Chinook Pass. Nice snow melt stream on the right.

Yes, yes another cycling post. Awesome route. One of my Patagonia teammates, Justin Angle and I finally were able to schedule a training road ride near Mt. Rainier. Since we both have been battling running injuries this season…it was nice to hook up for a ride. Not only could we talk about cycling, but ultrarunning too. We have been trying to mesh our schedule for a while and finally nailed down a time that worked. We met up at the intersection of Hwy 12 and WA-410, east of Mt. Rainier for the Triple Bypass loop on Friday, July 3rd at 8am.

Justin suggested it and it was a great loop. The route we did heads west up Hwy 12 to White Pass, then down to 123, which we took north up to Cayuse Pass and the intersection of WA-410. Then climb WA-410 up to Chinook Pass and finally the descent back to where we started. 116 miles, 7100 feet of climbing. Great loop and the weather was nice and warm and sunny. It was a little toasty the last 20 miles heading back down toward Yakima Valley with a hot, dry headwind. Justin and I quit chatting and worked together in a pace line to get through the final miles in the heat and head wind. My car thermometer read 101 when we got back. Hot.

All in all, great day. I highly recommend the route. We did it on Fourth of July weekend (Friday) and probably would have been a bit better, traffic-wise, if it were a “normal” Friday. Lots of people on the road. Most cars were pretty courteous…got buzzed by a few idiots. Always a bit scary when that happens, but we got through unscathed thankfully.

We ended up gettin’er done in 6 hours and 19 minutes (18.5 mph average). We had some great views and climbs and the 123 section was stellar. Giddyup!

4 Fresh Veggies and 65 miles in the saddle

Halfway up the climb on Farewell trail above Tumalo Falls (Broken Top in the background).

Tomorrow is 2 weeks out from TOE 50 Mile MTB race. So, I thought I should go do a really long ride on Friday. I got up early and ended up spending nearly 6 hours in the saddle—64.8 miles with only 12 miles paved…10 miles double track…the rest sweet Central Oregon singletrack. We just got 3 days of rain, some of which was pretty hard. The trails were primo. Tacky, hard packed.

What a stellar ride. It was my first time up to Swede Ridge this season (only a handful of small snow piles left), down South Fork and up Farewell to Mrazek and back to town. The weather was in the 70s and sunny. Perfect. I felt pretty good all day. Ran out of water about 20 minutes from town, stopped into FootZone, refilled, downed two gels, grabbed a turkey wrap from Strictly Organic drive-thru and pedaled home for the 8-mile cooldown to my house. What’s that have to do with veggies? Recovery.

Well, my recovery meal today consisted of my own home-grown veggies out of the garden, first harvest of the season. The kids and I harvested fresh spinach and radishes from the garden this evening.

Side Note: After fighting my first really large outside garden last season and losing a bunch of stuff to our climate’s anytime-frost-potential, I decided early this year to invest in a 12’x 20′ commercial hoop house for my garden. It has 8-4’x 4′ raised beds, utilizing the highly-intensive square foot gardening method. It’s been awesome (picture below). If you’ve never grown a garden, I highly recommend this method and start with one 4’x 4′ raised bed—easy and low-maintenance.

We had organic steak on the grill, fresh home-grown organic spinach salad with fresh broccoli, mung bean, lentil, and alfalfa sprouts on the top (my wife has really got into sprouting stuff lately). If you haven’t tried sprouting, you should try it. Great article in Mother Earth News on sprouting.

It’s a great way to add some serious nutritional variety to salads, as sprouts are highly digestible and once something sprouts, the nutritional value goes through the roof. Sprouts also contain an abundance of highly active antioxidants that prevent DNA destruction and protect us from free radicals. If you’re an endurance athlete…that means you recover faster…better than some highly processed powder concoction. Money, y’all.

And, as any of you out there that grow a garden…there is nothing mo’betta than eating something 5 minutes after its cut. Mmmm, it was tasty and I had two large salads. Giddyup!

View into my greenhouse (the only way to grow properly in Central Oregon’s 61-day growing season). We live at almost 4,000 feet, lots of cold nights. So, most of my veggies are in here. The cat loves the “micro-climate” of the greenhouse, she hangs in here a lot. The spinach (after cutting a bowl full), is the largest green patch on the far right of the frame. I have 16+ varieties of veggies growing in there right now. I also grow squash, zucchini, and wax bean outside in another garden area…but those are cold tolerant and do okay outside in our climate.

2 Flip a coin

I wish it was that easy. I’ve been toying with still running Bighorn 100 until today, as I really wanted to race Karl on that course, but today’s run insisted that my SI Joint isn’t ready for 1oo miles of pounding yet. I wish I could just flip a coin and choose according to luck…but, my SI Joint is a bit irritated after a hard 4 day block of running.

It was feeling really good the past couple of weeks and I went for a run with Chris and Darla Askew and Krissy on Sunday at Smith Rock with 2,250 feet of climbing after running hard at Duel in the Desert Duathlon on Saturday. It was encouraging and made me think about running Bighorn…but, today on a tempo run, it got a little irritated…no 100 miler yet, my body told me it’s not ready for running really hard yet. So, I’m back to cycling and still running every other day with no super long runs or hammering it back to back days…except on the bike…at least I have that outlet or I’d drive my wife nuts!

So, I’m definitely racing Test of Endurance 50 Mile MTB race near Corvallis, OR on June 21. I’m looking forward to racing my bike. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a XC mtb race, but will be a good tester for gear and nutrition for the inagural High Cascade 100 MTB race held here in Bend in my own backyard in August. Sweet.

I have to say, I’m still feeling a little like a newbie with regard to gear for this type of event. After 40 ultramarathons, including 7 hundreds, I’ve got my ultramarathon gear and nutrition dialed, but the bike regimen is different for sure. I’m playing with liquid nutrition in a bottle and water in a minimalist camelbak. Only a true race will prove how it works. I’m heading out for a 5-hour ride on Friday morning on my mountain bike to test out race specific stuff.

Actually, a little luck was on my side today…or a perk at least. After dealing with the true reality of not being able to run Bighorn, I started to focus mentally on the bike and getting ready for TOE 50. The perk? Teague at FootZone just got shop bike kits. I got the opportunity to design them for him and will soon post a pic of the kit design. It will be fun to sport the shop stuff and support Teague, he’s been such a HUGE supporter over the years of my ultra races and my graphic design business, Goodeye. Off to spin circles in my sleep. Giddyup.

2 For the love of cycling

This is my first week back on the dirt after 5 weeks off (2 weeks for broken pinky toe, last 3 weeks from a strained pes anserinus tendon in my knee) and it has me thinking how much we as ultrarunners get “blinders” and only run. I know a few of you out there (Angle and Wolfe to name two) that share my love of cycling. When I got banged up, I could only bike and pool run. I only only could spin on my indoor trainer for the first week of the tendon strain, then alternated biking and pool running for two weeks. The last week back running (every other day) while biking on the other alternating days has been a nice change from the pool for sure.

I have to say, the pool, even though it IS boring…works. You can really get a high heart rate workout in the pool while using all your running specific muscles. And, besides having sore quads this first week back running (from the pounding), my LT runs have been pretty darn good. I could jump right back into quality 20 minutes at LT tempo pace and seem to have only lost some of what I had built up before the injuries. By my 4th run back, I was up to 10 mile runs again. So, good sign that the pool running/long biking was a good mix of keeping fitness.

Plus, these “trials and tribulations” of injury can be a blessing in disguise…they are good for me in the early season because I fall in love with my bikes again. I love cycling—cross, road, mountain—doesn’t matter. I am a little partial to mountain biking ’cause I’m a dirt bag, but with my custom steel road frame just back from the powder-coater and almost built up (hopefully this week…I’ll post pics when it’s done), I’m looking forward to not having to spin long road rides on my heavy cross bike anymore.

But, for the love of cycling…well, it’s what I was into before I found ultrarunning. I was a total bike geek before and I still am at heart. It’s such a good mix with ultrarunning training. I’m heading out in the morning to jump into FootZone’s annual Horse Butte 10 miler SE of town…it’s my regular winter haunts for biking and running and the recent cycling time has me thinking how to “mix it up.” So, I’m going to bike about 12 miles to the race tomorrow for extra credit and the added warm-up and then run 10 miles in the desert. It’s always a fun social time with the local running folks. I think they have almost 150 entries! Over and out and Giddyup.

2 Wishing I was Cool

Well, I’m reflecting on the amount of fun I would have this weekend if I could run Way to Cool 50k. I had to back out or the race this coming weekend due to two injuries. Man, I love Cool. Good competition, fast times…spring in the American River Canyon. Dang!

And, missing Georgetown Hotel on Saturday night—a bunch of tired ultrarunners descending on the locals like some kind of freak show to take over their karaoke. You haven’t experienced Cool until you’ve witnessed AJW belting out Born to Run with a pitcher of beer in his hand, Jurek singing Painted Black by the Stones (pretty darn good I might add), or the old hard-nosed lady bartender kickin’ a local out. Run hard at Cool, then sing karaoke in Georgetown with a bunch of drunk ultrarunners—what could be better?

Every spring I get some kind of random injury. Dang. I’ve now officially been injured for 27 days. I broke my pinky toe on my left foot 27 days ago when I dropped an extension ladder on it. I was only able to bike or tele ski. So, fine, I’ll do that. Then what happens? I strain my pes anserinus tendon at the insertion point 12 days ago, tele skiing in an icy section at Mt. Bachelor (caught my rear tip). Can I get a break here??

I have spent the last 12 days on my bike trainer watching Tour de France YouTube videos and pool running at Juniper Fitness Center. Sure, I’ll be back…there’s always next year at Cool…I’m just bummed to miss Cool this year and feeling a little sorry for myself after a 22 ounce oatmeal stout tonight while reading all the hype on blogs before Cool.

Have fun out there guys, run hard, sing Sweet Home Alabama…I won’t be there to do my version. Okay, back to recovery…I have to ride my cross bike for a LONG time tomorrow morning to drown out the karaoke playing in my head. I wish I was Cool this weekend.

14 How to Screw Your Shoes

Krissy Moehl and I enjoying Bend’s winter wonderland on the Footzone Noon Run (held every Wednesday, rain, snow, or shine). And yes, we both have studded shoes in this picture.

My buddy Scott Wolfe just emailed me about how to “stud” his shoes, so I thought I’d post a How To. Normally he doesn’t need such a set up in Eugene, but with this recent Arctic surge from the north, Old Man Winter gave them an ice storm and Central Oregon our first dump of snow. So, Wolfman, this post is dedicated to you, buddy.

I just got back from an hour tempo run on hard packed snow with the set-up pictured below. It’s easy and way better than Yak Traks and they work fine on dry pavement if it gets patchy…just like spikes on an asphalt track (for you former track runners out there).

Please be warned that NOTHING is great on sheer ice. If you hit a sheet of ice, be careful. But, you’ll be surprised how well this works. Happy winter running…giddyup!

How To Stud Your Running Shoes:

Supplies:
1) Drill with quick attachment (the attachment acts as a mini-socket)
2) 3/8″ #6 hex head sheet metal screws
3) Running Shoes
4) Table and a C clamp is not necessary, but makes the job WAY easier

Hex Head Screw Type

Here’s the kind of sheet metal screw to use…

#6, 3/8″ hex head

I haven’t found 1/4″ in a hardware store as a standard stock item. So, this is the lightest and smallest I’ve found. Every hardware store will have them.

Drill with Quick Attachment

Any drill will do. I have DeWalt Quick Attachment for my Makita, but any will do. The standard Quick attachment acts as the socket and fits #6 hex heads just like a socket and bolt.

Screw ‘Em In

I usually use a clamp on a table, like a “C” clamp or a quick clamp of some sort to hold your shoe down, as you really need both hands to hold the tiny screw on the end of the quick attachment to get it started.

Pattern

Here’s the pattern I’ve found to be most minimalist while being still very effective. Place 3 in a triangle in the back, 5 in a horse shoe shape in the front. Screw them into the fatter lugs (if it’s a trail shoe).

Each shoe pattern is different, so you have to get creative, but this is the general placement. Don’t place any in the middle where the main contact weight of your foot strike will fall. I’m a mid-foot striker and only put one in the very back. However, if you are a hard heel striker, I would maybe place 2 in the very back of the heel vs. one for a little more grip. Make sure you check your pattern periodically, as you may loose one sometimes. We run a lot of trail, even in winter in Central Oregon and the rocks will catch and pull the screw out sometimes. But, not a big deal, get home and throw another in.

NOTE: They don’t hurt the shoe, so if you get them in and don’t like one or two, put your drill on reverse and take it out and put it in another spot. Also, after you get one done. Set it next to the 2nd one you’re working on to ensure your placing them in the exact spot as the opposite shoe.

Giddyup!

4 Bronco Billy Birthday Epic…37, baby!

Well, this was my 10th anniversary of doing something epic on my birthday. Rules are…these are self-imposed rules, mind you:

1) Must be within a week of actual birthday.
2) Must run or ride (or combination thereof) at least age in mileage.
3) First choice is to run
4) Second choice is to run and bike
5) Third choice is to bike

I’ve mostly run my age in the past 10 years, but if a race is very near (within a week or two), I usually do a combo of biking and running. This year, I decided to ride my cross bike from Willamette Pass Ski area around 18.5 miles to where the Waldo 100k course crosses the Road 4290, stash my bike in the woods, and run the last 25 miles of the Waldo course back to Willamette Pass. Drive around and pick up my bike on the way back to Bend. Sweet plan, I must say.

I drove up on Friday, August 1, crashed in my car, got up and was off before 8am on my bike. Check out the video of my epic below. Great day.

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