Author Archives: crossn81

A Controversy of Stretching

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I recently reported that I signed up to be included in a USATF sponsored Stretch Study, which is looking at a broad cross section of regular runners to determine if stretching before running (and warming up) helps prevent or causes injuries. A recent New York Times article actually looks into some of the current research around athletes and stretching and comes up with a conclusive answer that isn’t very conclusive!

That doesn’t make any sense does it? Well it seems that the body of current research is very mixed about the importance of stretching and is actually beginning to lean towards the idea that stretching doesn’t actually help an athlete perform better. But when the reporter asked the various researchers if they stretched or not – all of them did!

It has been bantered about in the running community for awhile and more people are beginning to shy away from so called “static stretching” where you hold a stretch for 10 seconds and leaning towards something called “active or dynamic stretching” where you take you muscles through a range of motion and hold any one position for at most 3 seconds.

If your goal is to prevent injury, Dr. Gilchrist said, stretching does not seem to be enough. Warming up, though, can help. If you start out by moving through a range of motions that you’ll use during activity, you are less likely to be injured.

Runners often think that flexibility is important, even to the point of spending hours stretching and doing yoga. One quoted study actually found that…

…distance runners do not benefit from being flexible, he found. The most efficient runners, those who exerted the least effort to maintain a pace, were the stiffest.

A private practice orthopediest went so far to say “If stretching was a drug, it would be recalled,” Dr. Kenny said. He claims that stretching actually weakens performance and increases risk of injury.

So what does all of this really mean? Who knows! I think as with much in this life moderation is the key. If you spend lots of time focusing on stretching – it might be better spent somewhere else. You need to find what works best for your body but the extremes probably don’t work for anyone!

Do you stretch? When do you stretch? Take the poll (on the right) and let us know!

[tags] Stretching, Stretch, Training, Research, Running [/tags]

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ONE Campaign Wins 3000 Meter

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I am a strong supporter of the ONE Campaign and its efforts to “Make Poverty History” here in the US and around the world. I signed the declaration several years ago and have been active off and on since then. You may have seen celebrities and Presidential candidates wearing the little white bands and wondered what it was all about – this is it!

Here is the ONE Declaration:

“WE BELIEVE that in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves, now is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty.

WE RECOGNIZE that a pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing additional resources for basic needs – education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans – would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries, at a cost equal to just one percent more of the US budget.

WE COMMIT ourselves – one person, one voice, one vote at a time – to make a better, safer world for all.”

I am a subscriber to the ONE blog, so I was a little surprised when I saw this headline: White Band Storms 3000 Meter. There aren’t a lot of 3,000 meters out there so I was pretty sure it was a running story and sure enough there is a picture of World champion Ethiopian runner Meseret Defar who continued her 5-year undefeated streak by winning the 3000 meter at the World Indoor Championships on March8th.

Defar won the race while wearing a little white ONE Campaign arm band. (Image from Getty Images)

I think that is a great statement and is most certainly in the Olympic Spirit of unity and brotherhood.

[tags] Mesert Defar, ONE, IAAF, One Campaign [/tags]

Shay’s Autopsy Released

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Ryan Shay, 28, who died tragically last fall during the Men’s Olympic Marathon Trials, died of natural causes.

From the New York Times:

More than four months after Shay’s death, the medical examiner completed the autopsy and toxicology reports, describing his condition as “cardiac arrhythmia due to cardiac hypertrophy with patchy fibrosis of undetermined etiology.”

All of his toxicology reports came back negative. He had previously been diagnosed with an enlarged heart, which may have been a factor in his death. Shay was an accomplished marathoner with a 2:14 PR.

My wife an RN said this:

His heart had a bad rhythm because his heart was enlarged due to an unknown tissue or something.

I am not a doctor but here are definitions from around the web for each phrase of the report:

Cardiac Arrhthmia – a term for any of a large and heterogenous group of conditions in which there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart. The heart beat may be too fast or too slow, and may be regular or irregular.

Cardiac Hypertrophy – is a thickening of the heart muscle (myocardium) which results in a decrease in size of the chamber of the heart, including the left and right ventricles. A common cause of cardiac hypertrophy is high blood pressure (hypertension) and heart valve stenosis.

Fibrosis – is the formation or development of excess fibrous connective tissue in an organ or tissue as a reparative or reactive process, as opposed to a formation of fibrous tissue as a normal constituent of an organ or tissue.

Patchy Fibrosis just means that there was excess tissue growing in patches around the organ – in this case the heart.

Eitiology – is the study of causes

Undetermined Eitiology would just mean of an unknown cause.

It is good to finally know what happened to Shay.  Our thoughts and prayers are still with the entire family and the elite running community as they mourn his loss.

HT: The Final Sprint

Race Review: Human Race 8K

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Awhile back I registered for my first Minnesota race – the Human Race 8K, which is part of the USATF Series. The race was also featured at Down the Backstretch – which is a well-known and respected running blog in Minnesota. Here is DtB’s recap and a link to photos.

The race was efficiently run from the beginning. There was a variety of options for registration and I chose using active.com which allowed me to enter my USATF # (and receive the discount) and get everything done pretty quickly. The event was put on by TSL Events (The Sporting Life Events) and hosted at the University of St Thomas in Saint Paul which is a pretty campus.

Packet pick-up was pretty smooth for me – pick up your chip and number and then go get your shirt. You had a variety of options when you registered and could actually choose not to get a shirt – which I kinda wish I hadn’t. I selected a short-sleeve wicking shirt – hoping for a really nice technical shirt. Instead I got a nicely designed “wicking” shirt that almost feels like a t-shirt. It claims to be 100% polyester, but definitely doesn’t feel like my other technical shirts. Oh well, its bright green!

I warmed up with Team MDRA and had a good warm-up and got some advice for running the course. It was a nice course along Summit Ave in St. Paul. You may have heard of Summit Ave because it is also the last stretch of the Twin Cities Marathon and maybe the hardest because of its long uphill. Since this was an out-and-back course the uphill was fine on the return when it was actually a downhill! The course is actually an overall negative course with the finish line actually below the starting line. My Garmin said we lost 29 feet of elevation throughout the course.

The race was won in 24:06 (4:50). My overall time was 31:27, my watch said 31:24 but it was chip-timed so I’ll go with that! My goal was 32 minutes – which I extrapolated from my 10K goal of breaking 40 minutes.

I tried to start out at a decently easy pace since the first mile was mostly uphill. We gained about 50 feet of elevation within the mile. It was hard to let people go by me, but I also knew that I needed to be smart. I saw a couple of the MDRA guys within striking distance and just hung on with them. I thought I crossed the first mile in 6:30, but my watch actually said 6:20. I think if I had known that I might have freaked a little so it was ok! We basically just ran along tree lined streets for the whole race. We ran out did a little loop and ran straight back. Nothing too exciting in the second mile, I tried to stay focused on the MDRA runners ahead of me and maintaining an even pace. I actually passed one of the MDRA guys somewhere near here and I just kept pushing on. My second mile was 6:12, thanks in part to some downhill! I tried to keep it even since I knew we’d have the hill coming back up!

During the third mile we made the loop around a law school and headed for home. We did have some uphill here but I kept forging ahead. I grabbed a quick sip of water at the water stop and still ran a 6:25 mile. For the next mile I could have sworn I ran a lot slower, I was doing mental math trying to figure out what I needed to run the next mile to stay under 6:30 overall pace. I was way off!! I think, that I thought I had just run a 7 minute mile because I came through 4 miles at 25:30 and somehow I thought that was back at 6:30 pace but I was actually still 30 seconds ahead. Or something like that… I don’t know – I’m confusing myself trying to remember what was happening out there!

From about 2.5 to 4 was almost all uphill not very steep but just enough to make you dig in and work a little bit. I came through the 4th mile at 6:34. With the downhill finish I tried to give it everything I had… I worked hard running it out and with about a quarter to go I dropped the hammer. My final .99 miles was 5:51 which is a 5:54 pace. Looking at my Garmin’s pace chart I dropped from a 6:03 pace to a 4:31 pace in the final quarter of the race. Going geeky with the Garmin that is a 76 second last quarter!

The finish was great because we lost about 100 feet of elevation during the last mile which really helped me run a 5:51 0.99 which is a 5:54 actual mile pace. I also laid out a killer kick knocking off at least 5 guys in the last hundred meters or so.

I had a great race, it was fun and a nice atmosphere. It is a different league up here though than running around Anderson. Especially races in the USATF Circuit are going to be hard to pick up any hardware, but I might have to try and find some obscure races in the middle of nowhere to even place in my age group!

It was a beautiful day for racing! The full results are posted here. I finished 139th overall out of 1,033. I got 32 out of 83 in my age division!

UPDATE: Team MDRA placed 6th out of 10 Male USATF Teams and our female counterparts Team Unattached placed 5th out of 8.

[tags] 8k, Road Race, Human Race [/tags]

Half Training: Week Seven

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This is an interesting week – the weather definitely warmed up which continued to create its own unqiue problems and I had a race on Sunday which changed my scheduling a bit. In Indiana there were very few Sunday races so it was never a problem for me to add a race into a training schedule, it usually just replaced or was added into Saturday’s long run. This “dilemma” created some unique problems. I want to be able to race well and see where I am fitness-wise and actually next weekend the schedule called for a 10K time trial. The race is 8K so it is close enough in my opinion. The only problem is that this week had some intense workouts which didn’t necessarily provide a good opportunity to have a mini-taper! As you’ll see the only changes I made were reducing the mileage of one of my easy runs and taking Saturday off.

Monday – Run 7 x 1600 meter repeats at 10K pace or 15 seconds per mile slower than 5K pace. Jog for 800 meters between repeats. Jog for 800 meters to cool down. It was 10 above at 6:40 when I began this workout. I really would like a track for interval work, but the only one I know of is still covered in snow! So I ran these along the Greenway, around Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun before heading home. The plan was to run each repeat around 6:26-6:30. I probably sound like a broken record but there is still a significant amount of ice on the trails and some of the sidewalks I ran on. One of these days I won’t have that reason (excuse?) for poor performance! My splits were 6:55, 6:47, 6:39, 6:56, 6:42, 7:12, and 6:35. The 7:12 was almost all on ice covered sidewalks. Only the last one was in a decent range of my goal splits, which means I probably should have taken each one a little harder! Overall I ran 12.34 miles in 1:35:53.

Tuesday – Run 6 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. Per my plan to “taper” into the race I ran 4 miles in 34:38 along the Greenway. It was 33 and sunny at 6:55 when I went running. It was pretty dark actually when I started thanks to Daylight Savings Time!

Wednesday – Run 2 x 400/800/2400 meter supersets. Run 400 meters at 20 seconds per mile faster than 5K pace, 800 meters at 5K pace and 2400 meters at goal half marathon pace. Do not rest between the distances. Recover between the sets with 800 meters at an easy pace. Cool down with 800 meters at an easy pace. Ah, another superset! I’m going to be honest – these sucked, my times sucked. A lot of ice on the Greenway still, the warmer weather felt good but the run just stunk. The goal times were 1:20, 2:53, 10:14 (6:52 pace). Here are my intervals: 1:22, 3:29, 11:36 and 1:40, 3:57, 11:33. HORRIBLE! The total mileage was 6.6 miles in 54:57.

Thursday – Run 4 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. This was my cross-training day. I did 7 miles on the bike again in 28:30. No lifting this week.

Friday – Run 4 miles easy. Run 5 acceleration strides. I ran around noon and did an odd – almost touristy route downtown and along the river for a little bit. It was 4.68 miles in 37:02. It was almost 40 with bright shiny sun!!

Saturday – Run 14 miles. Run the first 10 miles at an easy pace. Run the last 4 miles at goal half marathon pace. As planned I took this as a rest day instead of Sunday, when I’ll race.

Sunday – Rest Day! After some frustrating days running this week I was excited and nervous to see how I would race. I was quite pleased with my first race in Minnesota. I ran the Human Race 8K at 1:20pm in 40 degree weather. I must report that I am very excited about my time! My overall time was 31:27 (officially) which was 33 seconds faster than my goal time! My mile splits were 6:20, 6:12, 6:25, 6:34, and 5:51 (.99 miles). That is all I’ll say for now, so be sure to check back tomorrow for a full race report!

Weekly Totals: 35.5 miles of running for 4:11:52 and 7 miles of biking in 28:30.

[tags] Half Marathon, Training [/tags]