SmarterFitter Blog Less diet, more brain

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This last year I’ve been swimming regularly and cycling every day. More recently, I began running. I’ve thought about doing a triathlon, but I’m a little worried. I should feel great from all this exercise, but often I feel sluggish and stiff. Am I not stretching enough? Sleeping enough? Eating enough? (Wouldn’t that be a wonderful problem to have?!) Sometimes I’ll have a great swim one day, and a lethargic run the next. Yesterday I took a brisk one-hour walk with Tim after swimming the day before - the walk totally conked me out. How embarrassing. I should be perfectly capable of walking!

It turns out that multi-sport training in tough, and it’s basically impossible to excel in more than one sport at a time. The New York Times explains that the body responds to different sports in different ways. Changes that help you be a kick-ass runner may screw your swimming. And if you think about musculature, it makes sense:

Swimmers need large muscles in their backs and shoulders. Runners and cyclists want small, light upper bodies. Cyclists need large quadriceps muscles. Runners don’t, and in fact they don’t want any extra muscle weight on their legs.

It’s just as well that I don’t hope to win any races; I just wanna have fun and be fit. In fact, training for a triathlon should be good for a recreational athlete like myself. Or so says the physiologists:

Cross training — cycling one day and swimming the next, for example — lets you maintain your energy and enthusiasm and avoid injuries that come from doing the same activity day after day. That’s also part of the appeal of being a triathlete, [triathlon coach Joe Friel] said.

“It’s fun to train,” said Kelly Couch, a 30-year-old triathlete from San Mateo, Calif. “Just being a runner, just being a cyclist, can get a little stagnant.”

Agreed: doing multiple sports is appealing, if only for the variety. But what about my energy? Are there any triathletes out there who’ve experienced this? I’m not even training for real, yet, and need a little reassurance that a triathlon won’t totally wear me out for all the other good things in life, like strolling in the park and throwing frisbees and playing pool.

For Peak Performance, 3 Is Not Better Than 1 [New York Times]

“Grrrrrrr… half the price.”

That was Tim’s response when I told him the lowest price on a pair of Mizuno Wave Alchemy Running Shoes according to ransacker.co.uk, “the running shoes comparison website that save you time, money and benefits charity.”

Ransacker’s lowest price was £39.99, half of what he spent in New Zealand in February at a running shop. True, did get his foot analyzed by a “pro”, but he didn’t get that nice warm feeling of knowing he got a good deal. In fact he emailed me later that he “felt sick” by the purchase. A happy consumer he was not!

If only he knew about Ransacker, recommended to us by Carl who runs the site. Racksacker makes runners happy by saving them money on shoes, but also makes the charities happy by donating 50% of its commission to the charity of the shoe-buyer’s choice. Tim and I both agree that this is very cool. We wish we thought of this idea! But we were too busy making chains and planning meetings. So thanks to Carl for building this site! I will use it when my current Salomon XA Pro trail running shoes lose their steam.

Do you have a website you’d like to recommend? Then click here to send us a link. If we like it, we’ll post it! And we usually do like it, so why not, eh?

ransacker.co.uk

Speaking of running, a belated congrats to our friend, Stu, who finished his first marathon last Sunday at the Flora London Marathon. He ran it in 4 hours, 11 minutes and 57 seconds, an awesome time, but not as awesome as the experience must have been. I can only imagine.

He wrote a great post about it on his blog, The Damp Cad.

It was without doubt, one of the best days of my life. Big emotions experienced from beginning to end. Pride, happiness, elation, and with so many people out supporting the runners in this city you know so well, humble too.

What you hear from other people about running 26 miles really is true. Yes it’s tiring, yes you get your doubts, but if you’ve prepared properly and you’re in the right frame of mind, you will do it and you will get a decent time.

Read the rest of Marathon Finish

Yesterday’s New York Times article about competitive middle-distance runner Sara Hall is packed with useful training tips for the recreational runner. For example, Sara’s coach, Terrence Mahon, explains that many runners make the mistake of running the same pace all the time, but the real way to get faster is through interval training, which stresses the body to get it to adapt to running faster.

So, wanna spice up your running routine and cut a few seconds off your 5k at the same time? Here’s what Mahon suggests:

First figure out what your ideal pace for the 5k is by going to a track and running a mile flat-out. Your ideal 5k pace is about 95% as fast per mile. Then do what Mahon calls “over-speed and under-speed training”:

In over-speed, you sprint through quarter-miles, 800 meters and other intervals at a speed faster than your 5K pace (close to your top mile time). Don’t run more than two fast miles.

For under-speed work, time your interval splits to be a little slower than your 5K pace, with shorter rest periods than those within the over-speed intervals. Total mileage can be four to six miles. Cool down with a gentle jog of about half your total interval distance.

The article also has some drills you can do to improve your form.

Read Changing Speeds to Go the Distance

An article in today’s NY Times discusses the various pros and cons of heart rate monitor training. In my experience, heart rate monitors only work if you know your own maximum and minimum heart rate. There’s a pretty good book that explains how to do this called (and you’ll forgive the title) Heart Rate Training for the Compleat (sic) Idiot.

Here’s something from the article that I didn’t know: swimmers have lower heart rates when they swim than when they run. Why?

The reason, Dr. O’Connor explained, is that during running, your heart has to push blood against gravity to bring it to your head. During swimming, your heart does not have to exert that extra force.

The Flutter Over Heart Rate

Last Sunday, I went on my first run since the injection. I’m taking it slow: about 2.5 km and 20 minutes of running. My ankle was fine, my knees were mildly creaky, and my pride was only mildly offended by my absurdly slow pace. I wish I could say I was thrilled to be running again, but really I felt paranoid. “Am I hurting myself?” I wondered with every step. At the same time, I missed the care-free days of 5 milers down Town Lake on sunny Austin Sundays. But things change.

Today I went for run #2. This time, I alternated running with walking for 5km and about 40 minutes. The run-walk was, without a doubt, the way forward. I was able to cover more distance while keeping my heart rate up, plus it alleviated most of my paranoia around injury. I also felt great. Gone were the creaky legs and stiff joints of last weekend. I could almost recall what it feels like to run. If you’ve done much running, you know what I mean - it’s that feeling of lightness, where the run feels completely natural, the legs are fluid, and it’s easy to breath - to me, that’s running.

But for now, run-walking will do. Though he hesitates to admit it, Jeff Galloway agrees. From his Book on Running:

Our bodies weren’t designed to run continuously for long distances… Sure we can adapt, but there is a better way to increase endurance than by running continously. By alternating walking and running, from the start, there’s virtually no limit to the distance you can cover… Once we find the ideal ratio for a given distance, walk breaks allow us to feel strong to the end and recover fast, while building up the same levels of stamina and conditioning that we would have reached if we had run continuously.

Link to Jeff Galloway’s website
Link to Galloway’s Book on Running 2 Ed

The sinus tarsi is “the eye of the foot”, an opening on the outside of the foot between the ankle and heel bone. This canal contains ligaments which can become inflamed if put under undo stress such as high-impact running, jumping, or simply running with bad form. The pain associated with this is called “sinus tarsi syndrome”.

I know all this because I went to have my left ankle looked at by my GP who diagnosed me with sinus tarsi syndrome, apparently very common among sporty people (like me? hah!). Last night he injected some steroids into my sinus tarsal to calm down the inflammation. The procedure was painless, until he said “I’m very deep in the sinus cavity now”, at which point I became a little nauseous. I recovered quickly after a short rest on the couch and a large glass of red wine.

If all goes well I should be able to run again in 10 days time. Here’s to hoping…

Link to Sinus Tarsi Syndrome on Orthoteers

Most of us have heard of (and the lucky few have even experienced) a “runner’s high”, the state of blissful euphoria that occurs after a period of prolonged running. For the first time, scientists have proven that runner’s high is real, and it’s cause by the increased release of endorphins that accompanies long spurts of exercise.

Researchers at the Technische Universität München and the University of Bonn used brain imaging to study the release of endorphins during running. Says head researcher Professor Henning Boecker:

It’s interesting to see that the affected brain areas were preferentially located in prefrontal and limbic brain regions which are known to play a key role in emotional processing. Moreover, we observed a significant increase of the euphoria and happiness ratings compared to the ratings before the running exercise.

Read on in Runners’ High Demonstrated: Brain Imaging Shows Release Of Endorphins In Brain in Science Daily