In Canada, we are not often exposed to consistently hot weather.

However, we are often exposed to dramatic temperature changes. These fluctuations present us with the challenge of being sure that we are properly prepared for hot-weather running.

     Heat is the one of the endurance athlete’s greatest enemies. Heat stress does not need to progress very far before it becomes a medical emergency. It may be unpleasant to contemplate, but heat works on the protein in the body in much the same way as it does on any other protein—it starts to cook!

     Luckily we have defense mechanisms that protect us. Distance athletes may not like the slowing down that these mechanisms produce, but they are there for our protection. At the first sign of any symptoms of heat stress, stop, cool off and seek help. Your cooling mechanism operates on water. In hot conditions, you need to drink frequently before, during and after exercise.

If you feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated. For the length of normal fitness activities, plain water is your most effective drink. Sports drinks work best immediately after you have finished.

Symptoms

Symptoms come in degrees of severity. Heat stress is followed by heat exhaustion, which is followed by heatstroke, a life-threatening condition. These conditions happen as your cooling mechanisms reach and go beyond their capacity.

Heat Stress

Under heat stress, your cooling system is working at the upper limit of its capacity. You will not be able to exercise as vigorously as you can under cooler conditions (but, if you’re in a race, neither will any of your competitors). You will be sweating profusely, and you will likely not be enjoying the effort as much as you otherwise might. You will likely feel muscle cramps.

Heat Exhaustion

Heat exhaustion means that your cooling system is overloaded. It is still working, but it is not able to keep up with the cooling demands.

Danger is mounting. _e body defends you by slowing you down even more, actually trying to make you stop, so that the production of body heat does not continue. Your pulse grows weak, you look pale and you may actually feel chills. You begin to feel dizzy and disoriented; speech slurs and muscle control is lost.

With rest, fluids and external cooling, the heat-exhausted athlete will recover quite quickly. But the body keeps up its protection as you recover. It doesn’t want you to exert yourself for a while. You become very tired and will doze off, your rest often interrupted by bouts of vomiting. Finally, you will be able to sleep off your experience, likely waking with a wicked headache as a reminder of the stress you were under.

Heatstroke

Heatstroke is when your cooling system simply gives up. If you get heatstroke, you won’t remember much about it. You will wake in a hospital bed some time afterwards with an IV in your arm to put fluids directly back into your body. After a short rest, you will be able to go home. You may wonder what all the fuss was about.

In the meantime, people worked furiously to keep you alive. You stopped sweating. You collapsed and remained unconscious. You were rushed to the hospital and packed in ice, because your body no longer had a way to cool itself.

Your body temperature was so elevated that your brain was in danger of being permanently damaged. You were lucky to wake up at all.

Hot-Weather Running Precautions

There are some precautions you can take that will make your hot weather running safer.

1. Drink at least two cups of water before and a cup for every 15 to 20 minutes during your run.

2. Water is the best drink for exercise lasting less than three hours; over three hours we suggest a sports drink because it will replace lost electrolytes and provide some fuel for exercise.

3. Wear a vented cap, sun visor, sunglasses and protective sunscreen. If you are sun-sensitive or concerned about sun exposure, wear some of the new long-sleeve Fit-Wear shirts.

4.  Lubricate your underarms and inner thighs. Gentlemen, Bodyglide your nipples and ladies, the bra line. This will reduce chafing, a common problem in the summer months.

5. Avoid the use of alcoholic beverages. They will only make you feel warmer because the calories are burned quickly, raising your metabolic rate and body temperature. Alcohol is a diuretic, bringing a risk of dehydration.

6. Adjust your intensity to the temperature. In extreme conditions, slow down your pace.

7. Increase your intake of vitamin C. It is a natural and effective defense against heat stroke, cramps, prickly heat rash and exhaustion.

8. Let someone know your route if you are running alone. Better still, run with a buddy.

9. If you plan to race on a hot-weather holiday, give yourself a few days to adjust to the heat.

10. Early mornings are the best time to run.

11. Water running can be very social and a cool, high-quality workout.

12. Include lots of fruit in your diet. Watermelon, oranges, bananas and strawberries are a good way to take in vitamin C and potassium, two nutrients that are lost when we sweat.

13.   Take a fresh change of clothes with you if you are running out of a park, so you don’t get chilled after the run.

14.  Savor the odd low-fat frozen treat to reward yourself for keeping the daily workout fun!

15.   Skim milk is also a great cool drink. It has very low fat.

Warm-Weather Clothing

This is the time when all you want to do is take it off, but putting something on may keep you cooler and protect you from the sun’s harmful rays.

What to wear when the temperature rises:

Despite what you have been told, cotton is not the best. Cotton holds moisture, and a lot of it.  Exercising in a sweat soaked cotton shirt on a hot day reduces the ability of water to evaporate from your body, which reduces cooling, particularly in a humid environment.

Cotton loses its soft texture when wet, which can often cause chafing inplaces where it comes into contact with the skin.

What to look for:

Look for garments made of synthetics, such as polyester or nylon, CoolMax and Supplex. These are special weaves that repel moisture and enhance evaporation. The more evaporation, the greater the cooling effect on the body.

Remember:

Light colored garments absorb less light and therefore keep you cooler. 

On a bright day, covering up reduces heat accumulation brought on by direct sunlight.

Wearing fabrics such as CoolMax and Supplex keeps you cooler and dryer and may help reduce summer chafing.

Wear a hat. Protect your head from heat and direct sunlight.

 Published in Running Room Magazine July/August 2008

Injury Prevention & Rehab (from: http://run-down.com/tips/tips3.php)

Shin Splints

Shin splints, the plague of many a high school runner. I suffered through them for three years, myself. I did all the recommended exercises like walking on your heels, tapping your toes, spelling out the alphabet with your feet; I iced and took advil several times daily, and I often rode the stationary bike the day after races (it hurt too much at times to run). Many of the recommendations seemed to actually make them worse. Finally, a coach recommended I try a very simple exercise to see if it would help.

There are two basic types of shin splints, although the symptoms can be further broken down into any of several varieties. The first type, and the one I suffered from, is medial, or the inside of the shin. The second is lateral/anterior, or front/outside of the shin.

The exercise that was recommended is, as I tend to refer to it, best described as figure-eights. Although, that description confuses some people ... maybe just calling it circles in both directions is clearer. Find yourself an old bicycle tube (bike shops will usually give you a punctured tube for free) or some surgical tubing, and tie a loop at one end to put your foot through. Position your foot so that the ball of the foot is making contact with the tubing so that you have good leverage. This is best done seated. Pull back on the other end with as much resistance as feels comfortable, and rotate your foot in circles (point your toe, rotate clockwise toward you, then away from you, etc.). Vary how hard you pull so that the resistance stays fairly even as the foot comes closer and moves further away. Change directions from time to time, making slow, controlled movements. After five to ten minutes a day of this, my shin splints were gone for good within a mere week or two. Had I only known about this three years earlier...

After 6 years of coaching college and high school athletes, both sprinters and distance runners, I've found the above exercise to be amazingly effective, bordering on a miracle cure. Darn near 100% of athletes are better within 2 weeks, and most show marked improvement within a week, even after suffering regularly from medial shin splints for a year or more.

I have not seen this exact exercise recommended anywhere else, and it's rare to find a good description of the underlying physiological principles. Here is the way I understand the process to work: There is a long, slender muscle (anterior tibialis) that runs vertically along the front of your shin. Being a very small muscle, it can easily become weak in relation to the opposing calf muscle (muscles can only exhert force while contracting, so they always work in opposing groups). The result is muscle being pulled away from the bone and causing the un-scientific and very generic term, shin splints. It is surprisingly easy to counter this affect by strengthening the muscle as described above.

Furthermore, I have learned through experience that running on pavement does not cause shin splints. The pavement may aggravate the shin splints, but it does not cause them. Be careful to separate the symptom and the illness. When I had shin splints, running on hard surfaces was excruciating. As soon as they were gone (and I mean a mere week after they were gone) running on pavement never again caused me shin pain.

Important 2005 Update: As mentioned above, there are two basic varieties of shin splints. I have had exceptional success curing medial (inside) shin splints with myself and my athletes, but I've been frustrated in my inability to come up with an effective treatment for lateral/anterior (front/outside) ones. The tubing exercises help a bit, but they are rather hit or miss. Conventional and medical wisdom says both types are effectively the same thing, stem from the same issues, result in the same symptoms, and are "treated" (I say so in quotes because conventional wisdom is that they can't really be treated, only avoided or partially alleviated) the same. Originally, I thought this to be untrue, because the two types respond so differently to treatment, with the treatment being something geared toward correcting a muscle imbalance. However, through a collaborative effort with a former teammate (coach, personal trainer, and exercise sports science masters degree), I now believe the solution to be much simpler than previously feared.

What we determined is that lateral/anterior shin splints are effectively the same as medial shin splints, but they are a more extreme case and thus do not respond as well to the basic tubing exercise. (As an aside, lateral/anterior shin splints seem to be most common in more powerfully built athletes, especially females. This probably has something to do with more muscle increasing the likelihood of imbalances in small muscle groups like the anterior tibialis.) An exercise that I've found to be effective is a partner drill, with the 2nd person acting as an aid to carefully control resistance. The patient (for lack of a better term) is seated on the ground with one leg extended in front of them, toes pointed up. The aid is facing the patient and grabs the foot -- probably best done with shoes on for grip -- and gives steady resistance while the patient pulls the toes toward their body. Start with the toes pointed, pull to 90°, release, pull, etc. The aid should keep the resistance just below the point where the foot starts trembling. Do as many as possible, right to the point where it feels like there's no strength left in the leg (an attentive aid will know it when you feel it coming), then switch to the other leg. Do each leg twice. Two to three times per week of this exercise seems to work well.

Knee Problems, i.e. "Growing Pains"

I've long been critical of many aspects of conventional wisdom. That shouldn't come as any great surprise if you've read my previous ramblings. I believe it is now time to go even further and blow a major myth out of the water: Knee/Growing pains are not a structural (i.e. joint / growth plate) issue! As such, they actually can be treated, despite what most professionals would have you believe. It's too early for me to say so definitively, but my experience thus far with treating athletes has led me to the conclusion that such issues actually stem from tendon tension in the lower leg. Relieving that tension makes for a fairly dramatic recovery. Stretching helps, but the major aid is careful massage work, working cross-wise (as opposed to length-wise) along the affected tendon. My guess is that the pain is actually due to tendons falling behind the growth curve and being under a great deal of tension until they catch up. Regular massage work greatly relieves that tension and eliminates most of the discomfort.

Achilles

The most difficult aspect of rehabbing from an achilles tendon injury is how darn long it takes! This is largely due to the limited blood flow in that area. Also, the achilles rarely ever gets a rest. Be it walking, running, standing, or even sleeping, there is always pressure on it. Sleeping, you ask?! You doubt me? If you sleep on your back, the weight of the blankets pushes your foot down and interrupts the achilles' healing process.

The solution is a rather simple one, although rather annoying at the same time. Go to your local craft store and get some casting cloth (plaster cloth or several other names), then find some knee-high socks you don't mind making a mess of. You will need someone to help you with the next step. Lie on your stomach, with your feet hanging comfortably off the end of a table, couch, etc. Put the sock on the injured leg, and with your foot perpendicular to your leg (straight down), have your assistant create a cast of your lower leg. You only want to cast the back of your leg and the bottom of your foot, wrapping around the sides slightly and to the ball of your foot for stability. Remember, you want to be able to get it off! Once it has dried, take it off and cut it down to about mid-calf level. When you put it on at night, wrap it with an ace bandage to hold it in place.

Remember I said something about it being annoying? Well, if you get up at night to go to the bathroom, you'll understand... Especially if you have the cast on both feet!

IT Band

Like achilles problems, the IT Band can flare up with very little warning and take quite a while to go away. I was fortunate -- once I discovered the cause of the problem and how to stretch the tendon, the pain disappeared rather quickly.

The IT Band runs down the outside of your upper leg, from your hip down to your knee. It tends to be most troublesome closer to the knee. Because of the area it is located in, it is pretty difficult to stretch. Here's what worked for me: If you're trying to stretch your right IT, stand sideways on a step with your left leg dangling. Drop your left hip and push your right hip to the right. Keep pushing gently and you should feel a good, deep stretch throughout the IT Band. Like most stretches, hold it for 30 seconds, relax, and repeat. The other stretch that works fairly well is performed on flat ground. Again, if you are working on your right IT Band, cross your left leg in front of your right and bend over as if touching your toes. Instead of trying to stretch the back of your legs, lean to your left and push your hips to the right, similar to the first method. Lastly, you might have some success continually massaging the area that is overly tight. You will need your leg straightened for this to be possible, and relaxed. If you're sitting in class or at work and have nothing better to do, find something to put your leg up on and dig in!

Biking

This could equally be included under the training tips, but I like to look at it as a way to prevent injuries and recover from them should you be unfortunate enough to get hurt. It is often stated that bicycling in a standing position, specifically hill sprints, is the closest exercise to running. This is probably true, although the similarities do not seem all that great. At any rate, it can be an excellent way of maintaining conditioning while undergoing rehab -- I am unable to make the same claim regarding pool running.

*Please note: All exercise, training, health, and nutritional information on this page and throughout Run-Down should be treated as educational in nature. Unless explicitly stated as otherwise, all advice contained within Run-Down's pages is non-medical opinion. Please consult a doctor before embarking on any exercise or training regimen. Run-Down and Dan Kaplan do not assume responsibility for any physical harm that may be caused as a result of advice given on these pages.

The Metamorphosis

I wasn't always a penguin. I wasn't always as slow as I am now. I used to be much slower! It took 40 years to become so overweight and out of shape that running a mile and running a marathon were equally unthinkable.

For most of those 40 years, I looked at runners as if they were some mutant sub-species of the human race. I looked not with awe nor with envy as runners in my neighborhood trudged through rain, heat, cold and wind. I looked at them with suspicion. What motivated them? What was missing in their lives that they had to punish themselves on a regular basis?

And then it happened. It wasn't the epiphany that some folks describe. It was simply a matter of looking down at a body that was becoming my enemy and deciding that enough was enough.

Those early days and weeks were a time of awakening. I bought a pair of running shoes, tied them on much too tightly and headed for the streets. Remembering the last time I had run, in high school gym class, I bolted down the driveway and into the future. That lasted about 20 steps.

It was at that instant that I realized I had the legs of an old person. Those youthful appendages that had served me well in Little League and at the Prom were now unwilling to run longer than 30 seconds. So I walked.

My guess is that my first humble attempt at running/walking/shuffling/panting lasted not even 600 yards and took nearly 5 minutes. I turned back, convinced that I had covered so much ground I would have a hard time finding my way home—only to discover that I'd barely made it down the block. But I had started.

The next step toward penguinhood was one of blissful naivete. I was amazed that my body was actually beginning to cooperate. That first "run" turned into a half-mile, a mile, then more. I was shocked at how quickly my body adapted to the new stresses. I was ready, or so I thought, for any challenge. Time to race!

Standing at the start of my first race, a local 5-K, I barely noticed the other runners. Filled with the confidence that only abject ignorance can produce, I wondered how many of them had noticed me and if they were worried about my presence. After all, I knew how slow I had been and how much I had improved.

At the start command, everybody bolted as if they had been blasted from a howitzer. I stood there like I was tied to a tree. Oh, I was running; I was running as hard as I had ever run. It was just that I was running very, very slowly.

I watched in stunned amazement as men and women, young and old, short and tall, ran away from me as though I had some medieval plague. The 70-year old man I had been chatting with before the start dropped me like a bad habit. The woman behind me nearly knocked me over. It was my moment of enlightenment.

I began laughing out loud at them and at myself. Off I ran, shaking my head. By the first mile marker, I was running nearly alone. I had run the fastest mile (a 10:30) of my life, and I could barely see the person ahead of me! But the smile on my face never faded.

I knew then that running was going to be something I did mostly for the joy it brought me. Watching the other runners move away, I realized that I could not undo the physical effects of 40 years of indulgence in a matter of weeks or months. It had taken all my life to get to where I was; it was going to take the rest of my life to get to where I wanted to be.

I went on to finish…and to keep a promise to myself. By finishing that first race, I began undoing four decades of unkept promises and doomed diets and quitting in general. Crossing the finish line, I knew that in my running, and in my life, the difference between success and failure would sometimes come down to a single step.

Waddle on, friends.

A CHANGE OF COURSE

Sometimes we need to rethink what it means to succeed.

By John "The Penguin" Bingham

THE IDLE TRUTH

by Bob Schwartz

My recent revelation might be aptly titled "The Laziness of the Long Distance Runner." I have finally given in to the truth that I am a couch potato hiding within a runner's body, an indolent who does intervals, a laggard who does long distance. I am a runner and I am lazy. I know that sounds like an oxymoron but it's accurate. To borrow from the philosopher Descartes, "I run, therefore I sit." I suppose this puts me into quite a small and select group of runners. I'm one of the few, the not terribly proud, the slothful.

The fact is I've tried to deny the depth of my languor for as long as I've been a runner. I know all the many positive effects that running can bring - better health, more self-confidence, enjoyment of the outdoors etc. I had initially honed into the philosophy I ran so I would have this incredible reservoir of energy throughout the day. However, as I sat glued to my comfortable chair after a Sunday morning twenty miler, there came a point in which it did no good to deny the obvious. Once the euphoria and adrenaline rush of a good run was over, I returned to my roots of habitual inactivity. I could compete with the best the non-runners could offer in the area of lethargy. However, in my mind, it was clearly better to have run and been languid than to have never run at all.

I've convinced myself that the best method of run recovery is to remain immobile for as long as humanly possible. Suspended animation before and after a run is the key to my enjoyment of running. Everyone has their particular area of specialty and I believe I've brought post run idleness to new heights of expertise. The 1970's brought us the training benefits of LSD (Long Slow Distance) while I bring the 1990's PSR (Prolonged Supine Recovery).

I've further convinced myself one of the reasons for my laziness is that it is a sacrifice I must make for the benefit of my running. My training log accumulates only miles. It has no space for how much time I was on my feet cleaning out the garage or pruning the shrubs; nor does it have an entry for how long I played basketball on Saturday afternoon or how many times I used the stairs instead of the elevator.

My philosophy is if I'm going to break my 1OK PR in the near future, I've got to be sedentary as much as I can during my non running time. I must look for every possible edge I can get. If that means buying a ranch house so I can avoid the toll on my legs of walking up and down stairs a couple of times a day, then so be it. If it means driving around for fifteen minutes looking for that parking spot a little closer to my destination, I can do it. I may not have the most natural speed or endurance as my running competitors, but I have the ability to put my post running time to the greatest benefit. I can make the most of any chance for idling.

They say the lazy always want to do something. Well, once my run is complete I'm not looking to do anything. I've already done it. Running provides me the opportunity to enjoy my inaction without guilt. If I didn't run then I would have to admit to being somewhat embarrassed to be as lazy as I am. However, since I run, I show no remorse for my fits of inactivity. I have, without any contrition, divided my day into two periods - running and dormancy.

Now, as I lay supine on my family room floor - a little too indolent to even contemplate mowing the lawn - I know that I am in much different company than most couch potatoes in America. I am a runner first, lazy second. For me, these are not mutually exclusive terms. Without one, I couldn't enjoy the other. Before my friends and neighbors pass judgement on me, I always say, run eight miles of fartlecks in my shoes. In the meantime, could you please pass me the remote?

This story and more in Bob Schwartz's New book: I Run, Therefore I Am - NUTS!

Although this is written for new marathoners, I think it works well for everyone training for the ATM!   

Rules to Run By (Heh, Heh, Heh)

by Bob Schwartz

I've about had it up to my Cool Max hat. Everywhere I turn there's another Marathon Training program designed to assist one in easily completing a marathon. Standing. In one piece. Well, it's just not fair to us veteran marathoners whose running history began with not only hitting the legendary wall but also becoming encased in it and staggering to the finish.

When we began running marathons the concepts of lactate threshold levels, VO2 max, energy bars etc. weren't even around. We proudly wore the battle scars earned from running the last ten miles of the marathon with mind-altering glycogen depletion producing a lovely hallucinogenic state. That was a true runner's high.

We overtrained, inadequately tapered and didn't drink or eat enough. Through sheer ignorance we carefully violated every present-day cardinal rule of marathon running and went bonk big time.

I'm tired of now watching people cross the finish line with a big smile - - having done everything correctly from pacing to fueling. They don't properly display my initial marathon look of having had a tryst with a fast moving steamroller while pulling a tank stuck in quicksand. No, they look tired but not exhausted, thirsty but not dehydrated, sore but not spaghetti legs. It's just not fair!

We more seasoned runners need to stick together. We must give new marathoners the opportunity to experience the lovely agony we encountered. The complete enervation, the nausea, the cramps, the crater size blisters. Neitsche said, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." We'll help them get stronger than ever if they'd only follow our veteran words of advice:

1. Taper Schmaper - Taper? You've got to be kidding? You want to lose that finely tuned conditioning you worked so hard for? That rapid leg turnover? Cut back? No way. Keep that consistent training going right up until a day before the race and to gain that psychological edge that you can go the distance - - it's always a great idea to do your last long run a few days before the marathon. This just reinforces that you've got what it takes. Don't worry about "dead legs" come race day, as adrenaline and fan support will overcome that.

2. Speedy Start - The key to a successful start is to place yourself as near to the front as possible. You want to get caught up in the faster pace of the elite runners and make certain you eclipse your planned pace per mile by a minute or so in those first few miles. This way you'll already be well ahead of your goal target and the mental boost you'll receive is immeasurable. Don't even think about negative splits. Just get as far ahead as quick as you can and the stimulus of the race will keep you going.

3. Bathroom Discipline - Let's talk anatomy. You drink fluids; you eventually have to expel. Do you want to have to stop for a port-a-potty at mile 18? I think not. The best way to avoid this is to forego all fluid offered at the various aid stations. You won't waste valuable time by slowing down to grab a drink and if you're really thirsty they'll be plenty of fluids available at the finish line. That's incentive to get going.

4. Coffee Combustion - Give yourself a great big kick-start. If you're a regular drinker then simply quadruple your normal intake. If you're new to the caffeine connection then three cups will do you just fine. Don't worry about upsetting your stomach as that's a small trade off for a good opening mile time.

5. Try Something Exciting - You've worked hard in preparation for the marathon and should reward yourself with something new and special for the race. Best thing would be a brand new pair of shoes or try a different make of socks or even a new breakfast cereal. Maybe Bran Buds! Mix things up a little for the big day.

6. Uphill, Downhill - If you encounter any hills you need to attack them vigorously. Get into some oxygen debt. Sprint up them as fast as humanly possible and then jog leisurely on the downhills. This way you'll get the hill out of the way faster and be able to enjoy the slow pace on the backside

7. Goo Riddance - Do you think Frank Shorter won a gold medal downing gels or other goo's over the last ten miles? I think not as the only goo Frank was familiar with in the 70's was Shoe Goo and you wouldn't want to ingest that. Don't rely on a shot of strawberry banana flavored pudding like food to get you through the light headed feeling of mile 20. Just close your eyes and plow ahead.

8. Post Run Recovery - Once you cross that finish line you deserve to simply lay down. Don't expend any further energy and stop the strain train right there. Just take a seat and let those lactic acid pools build right up in your legs where they belong. You may be sore tommorrow but let's just think about today.

If new marathoners would adhere to the above Rules to Run By, they'd bring a depraved little smile to the face of some old time marathoners. Heh, heh, heh!

After last week's physiology lecture, I thought we should visit the lighter side of running this week.  Here's an essay by Bob Schwartz, a comedian and long-distance runner.  He spoke at the pasta dinner when I did the Indy Mini, and he was great.

NEOPHYTE RUNNER, HEAR MY WORDS

by Bob Schwartz

"A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary." Thomas Carruthers
"Act like a horse. Be dumb. Just run." Jumbo Elliot, legendary Villanova University Track and Field coach

I recall many years ago when I decided it was time to leave the solitary one-with-your thoughts aspect of running. A time to venture beyond the borders of my routine running courses. A time to sign one of those waivers and send in a race application.

It was also the time to experience the lovely togetherness and camaraderie of standing side by side with 20,000 strangers all of whom were nervously waiting for the start and contemplating whether one last trip to the port-a-john was feasible. Of course it's a monumental task to move six inches in any direction at that moment and I soon learned I'd be testing the endurance of my bladder as well as my legs on that race day.

As I moved from runner to racer, I first discovered I needed to learn certain racing wisdom, etiquette, and knowledge. It became time to receive The Ten Commandments of Racing. I found out that the commandments of racing were best presented through the omniscient words of the local running store marathon coach. The story unfold as follows:

In the fifth month of training, neophyte runners and local running store coach venture out to the wonderful, exciting world of mega entrant marathon. As their bus drops them off near the starting line of the 26.2-mile event, neophyte runners anxiously stretch on the grass while running store coach calls to them from the sidewalk.

Running store coach speaks, "I can only assume everyone has listened well to me these last five months. I have guided you, instructed you, brought you along from yes; I can say it, walkers and joggers to runners.

"Now, you are all embarking on a world that cannot be adequately described in words, but only through experience. You will be entering a land filled with new and enticing sports drinks and aid stations with enchanting treats. A land with a multitude of runners running a faster pace as well as a slight downhill grade for the first nine miles of the course.

"It will all be seen as the land of attraction. A land of easily bettering the goal time we have presently set for each of you. You must not be led into this straightaway of temptation. You must adhere to our strategy to achieve the best result possible. I am here to provide your foundation, to keep you true to our game plan."

The running coach went on, "If, within the marathon race, you stay true to your planned pace, if you replenish yourself with familiar liquids at the appropriate aid stations, if you take in the energy gels at the designated miles and stay focused on our agreed upon approach, then you shall enjoy this potentially grand experience. You will have pleased me and pleased yourself.

"However, if you do otherwise you will undoubtedly find yourself wandering mindlessly in the rigorous land of Marathon Mania at the painful Wall of Depletion. It will not be enjoyable."

The running store coach placed his hand upon my shoulder and then spoke, "These will be the final and most important words of guidance. For these will be the Ten Commandments of Racing. Observe my remarks, my athletes."

1. You shall have no coaches besides me. Do not be tempted by what others may tell you of rest walks, of combating blisters, of negative splits, of eliminating side stitches or new and tantalizing energy bars. I am your tutor in running shoes and you shall follow and observe only what I have taught you so that you may live to comfortably run today and on days to come.

2. You shall not look around you and covet another racer's multi-colored wick away moisture singlet, matching shorts, racing shoes, polycarbonate non slip nose piece sunglasses, running watch with ergonomically designed buttons, blister-free socks, nor perspiration wicking running hat.

3. You shall not wrongfully assume a place or position in the starting line area that is not reflective of your estimated and appropriate pace per mile. To do so would be to take a spot from your fellow runners, which they have rightfully earned, and literally place you in a position of failure.

4. You shall try to dispose of your drink cups, food wrappers, band-aid packaging and anti-inflammatory pill containers in the appropriate garbage can and do your best to avoid having to create an impromptu restroom.

5. You shall not lose your poise nor sight of your expected pace due to the excitement and adrenaline rush of the race nor the faster speed of other participants. For to do so, would be assure you a rendezvous in the unforgiving zone of depletion where darkness and discomfort will accompany you.

6. You shall never become overly discouraged by the feelings of your body at any particular point in time. You may experience a second wind and/or you may meet the wall, but do try and enthusiastically proceed with forward movement at all times.

7. You shall applaud and courage your fellow runners for they are your companions in commitment. Share your drink at the aid station, your space on the road, your post race refreshments - - and do not lie about your finish time.

8. You shall not elbow, push, poke, trip, cut in front of, jostle, run too close behind, shove or step on the foot of any other runner you encounter in the land of racing. Nor shall you spit, hurl, blow, throw up or toss any bodily product to anyplace other than a trash can or the side of the road.

9. You shall not use excuses for a race performance beneath your expectations including too much wind, the temperature, limited rest room facilities, hills on the course, chafing, inadequate carbo-loading, aid station lines or inaccurate split times. Most importantly, you will never, ever, ever, blame your coach.

10. You shall indeed finally cross the finish line in your land of racing. You will slowly move forward on shaky legs as you perform the lactic acid shuffle. At that moment do not be lost within yourself and forget to give appreciation to the race director, volunteers and sponsors for they are also your providers. Without them we are alone and without a t-shirt collection.

We neophyte runners, in unison, enthusiastically raised our water bottles in assent. We were acknowledging that we'd heard everything and would try to obey the commandments of racing.

And with that agreement neophyte runners and running coach walked slowly together to the starting line and into the exciting, thrilling and exhilarating land of racing.

From the MarathonGuide.com Website - there's hope for us all!!!

Fuel on Fat For the Long Run

By Deborah Schulman, Ph.D

It Is More Efficient To Tap Into Your Unlimited Fat Supply

© 2000 42K(+) Press, Inc.

MIGRATORY BIRDS and whales rely on stored fat to fuel their long, strenuous journeys. Developing your fat engine will increase the amount of energy you can generate, reduce the amount of carbohydrates you use, and stretch out the glycogen supply during long runs. Added together, you have a more stable and enduring energy supply, better endurance, and faster finish times.

To illustrate, let's consider Shane. Shane is a computer engineer in his late 30s who has stayed active over the years with yard work, occasional football games with his kids, and sporadic attempts to weight train. In short, he was not aerobically fit. Inspired by the fortitude and tenacity of his wife, who just ran her first marathon, he decided to train for a marathon.

He was determined to be informed and methodical about the process. Many of the books he read recommended training with a heart rate monitor. The books said that most people run marathons at 75 to 80 percent of maximum heart rate, so he decided to do a test. He consulted a chart to find his heart rate at a more manageable effort of 65 percent and set off running. After only 90 minutes on the road, he felt nauseated and fatigued. His legs felt like bricks, and finally he was forced to stop. In other words, he bonked well short of the distance he would need to cover to finish the marathon.

Due to his low level of fitness, most of Shane's energy was coming from the limited carbohydrate stores in his liver and muscles. He simply ran to the end of his carbohydrate supply. Carbohydrates are necessary to maintain exercise at any intensity. An excessively high rate of usage combined with low carbohydrate stores reduced his endurance, even at relatively easy running speeds. Had he eaten GU or drunk Gatorade, he still would not have been able to continue for much longer. A training program that focused on switching to fat for fuel would change that.

PUMP UP THE VOLUME

Arthur Lydiard contended that the most important aspect of conditioning is volume. In the 1960s his training concepts were revolutionary. Even the track athletes whom he coached followed a marathon-based aerobic conditioning program in the initial phases of their training cycles. Considering the phenomenal success of athletes who trained under Lydiard's tutelage, such as Peter Snell, John Davies, and Lorraine Moller, and other athletes who have followed his program principles, his theories were insightful. Subsequent research has shown that they also possess a sound physiological basis.

While many of America's marathoners switched focus to quality (and reduced mileage) rather than quantity, coaches from Japan, Italy, Mexico, Germany, and China were incorporating Lydiard's principles into highly successful training programs. Naoko Takahashi reportedly ran up to 80K (50 miles) per day in preparation to become the first woman marathoner in the world to dip under 2:20. Catherine Ndereba ran comparatively modest 100-mile weeks in the buildup to her world record of 2:18:47 at Chicago in 2001. Jerry Lawson, imitating the high-mileage successes of Bill Rodgers, Alberto Salazar, and Frank Shorter, ran up to 250 miles per week en route to his then American record of 2:09.

Metabolically, high-volume training makes sense. There are two main sources of fuel for exercise: carbohydrates and fats. The energy supply from carbohydrate and fat is inversely related. High rates of carbohydrate use reduce combustion of fat. Carbohydrates are used preferentially at very high efforts, such as a 5K race, or at low fitness levels when fat metabolism is underdeveloped.

Conversely, when you teach your body to rely on fat for fuel, your combustion of carbohydrates goes down, thus "sparing" carbohydrates. This benefits performance in endurance events. You become very fatigued when you run too low on carbohydrates. We store only a very limited amount of carbohydrate (glycogen) in our bodies. Compare this with a relatively unlimited supply of fat. Even an athlete with only 6 percent body fat will have enough fat to fuel exercise lasting for many hours. When you use more fat, you generate more energy and your carbohydrate supply lasts longer.

Follow the principle of specificity. If you want to teach your body to use more fat for fuel, then create training conditions that generate high fat metabolism. Your body will eventually learn to prefer fat.

Research conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden during the 1980s showed that, within the leg muscles of highly trained endurance men, the activity of enzymes that break down fats was 100 percent higher than in the untrained subjects. As a result, during exercise they had a much higher ability to regenerate the ATP that fuels muscular contraction than those who had a greater reliance on carbohydrates.

These researchers found that the maximal oxygen consumption (or V.O2max) was 50 percent greater in the trained men. Maximal oxygen consumption measures aerobic capacity: the efficiency of the lungs to transfer oxygen to the blood, the capacity of the blood to carry oxygen, the power of the heart and blood vessels to deliver large quantities of blood to the muscles, and the ability of the muscles to use the oxygen. Fats cannot be burned without oxygen. Not only did these men have more enzymes to combust the fat, but they also had more oxygen to feed the fire.

Researchers have since demonstrated that, after a 12-week six-day-per-week program of 45 minutes of running and cycling at a high intensity, fat combustion increased by 41 percent. This was accompanied by reduced reliance on carbohydrates.

MILES MAKE MITOCHONDRIA

The enzymes of fat metabolism are located in structures within the muscle cells called mitochondria. Fats are transported into the mitochondria where, in the presence of oxygen, they are broken down to generate energy. More mitochondria means more fat metabolism, more ATP, and more energy.

High-volume training increases the amount and size of mitochondria. Longer exercise bouts produce the greatest gains in mitochondrial content. A 90-minute run provides a better stimulus than a 60-minute run. It is common for runners to do "two-a-day" workouts to get in the necessary mileage. However, this research indicates that a runner will receive much more benefit from running one 90-minute workout than two 45-minute workouts. There is, however, a point of diminishing returns. A three-hour run is better at nudging the mitochondria content upward than a 90-minute run, but the gains are offset by the necessity of a longer recovery time between workouts.

During the base phase of building miles, it is the daily consistency of training over a period of weeks and months that will boost fat metabolism.

After the base phase and basic fat metabolism have been established, training time should be shifted into very prolonged runs of three or more hours, depending on your event. Very long runs are important in preparation for the marathon and longer events. After two to three hours of running, the leg muscles run low on glycogen. Hormonal adjustments to the low glycogen levels shift fat metabolism into an even higher gear.

Miles may make champions, but those miles should be carefully developed, monitored, and arranged to get the maximum effect. In his buildup program, Lydiard recommends alternating longer 90-minute to two-hour runs with 60-minute runs on other days, aiming for a total of 10 to 11 hours of weekly running.

Give yourself plenty of time to build up to these levels. Jon Sinclair, former world-class runner turned coach, cautions that it is not practical or even possible for most people with full-time jobs and families to build up to running 10 hours per week in a mere three months. The amount of mileage you will be able to run depends on your lifestyle, physical capabilities, and prior training history. He advises his less-experienced athletes to build up mileage over a period of many months or even years. His associate, Kent Oglesby, took four years to prepare a 3:15 marathoner for the rigors of running 100 miles per week. The result was a 2:46 marathon, which earned her a spot at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

TRAIN AT THE TOP OF YOUR FAT-BURNING ZONE

My speed in long races had been declining since I had become a masters runner. For a number of years I had been running LSD (long, slow distance) type training. In the process of researching and writing about fat metabolism, I read Lydiard's book Running the Lydiard Way. Lydiard's formula advocates not just high-volume training but high volume at speeds near the "maximum steady state."

In other words, most training should be conducted close to the highest speed that you can run without going anaerobic. This is the speed where fat metabolism is at its highest. For experienced runners, the maximum steady state equals an intensity of 70 to 75 percent of maximum heart rate. For those just launching their running careers, it will be closer to 60 to 65 percent of maximum heart rate. Studies have confirmed his theories. Volume and intensity interact to produce even greater gains in mitochondria development. Daily runs of 90 minutes at 70 percent max will boost mitochondria 30 percent higher than equivalent time spent at an easier 50 percent effort.

After purchasing a heart rate monitor and calculating my target heart rates, I was surprised to find that my LSD training intensity had been substantially below my target training intensity of 70 percent. Initially I had a hard time running more than 60 minutes at that effort. However, after only six weeks of faster training, I was easily able to maintain that pace for a full two hours. Although LSD training will increase fat metabolism and endurance, it will limit your endurance at marathon paces. Long, slow running will only teach you to run slowly for long periods.

On the other hand, you can run too fast on your daily runs. At faster paces, oxygen demand exceeds supply. You are now anaerobic. Fuel reliance switches predominantly to carbohydrates, and the result is the accumulation of lactic acid. Lactic acid inhibits the enzymes that break down fat and therefore reduces fat metabolism. If you go out for a 45-minute run at 10K race pace, you will be burning less fat and generating more waste products than if you ran those 45 minutes at only a 60 percent effort. Daily hard efforts will result in accumulation of waste products and decreased recovery, and lead to declining performances. It's better to run a little too slow than a little too fast.

RAISE THE LACTATE THRESHOLD

Let's return to Shane after 24 weeks on his Lydiard-based training program. His fat metabolism is augmented, there is a substantially reduced reliance on glycogen, and his glycogen stores are larger. He again decides to test his ability to run at 65 percent of his maximum. Before the test he makes sure to get plenty of carbohydrates in his diet so that his leg muscles and liver are loaded with glycogen. This time he was able to continue for three hours.

His skeletal, connective, and muscle tissues; his metabolism; and his cardiovascular, nervous, and endocrine systems are now prepared for some faster training. His next step is to focus on increasing his endurance running speed and reducing his lactate production.

Endurance races are aerobic races. Marathons tend to be run at just below the level where you start to accumulate lactic acid, which is known as the anaerobic threshold (AT). How many times have you started a race too fast and gone anaerobic, only to suffer later and run slower than you planned or even had to drop out?

With a higher AT, you will be able to sustain faster marathon and ultramarathon paces. Elite world-class marathoners often have such a highly developed fat-burning engine that they can run marathons at 85 percent or higher of their maximum. For the rest of us, 75 to 80 percent is a realistic goal.

Anaerobic threshold training augments the basic fat metabolism you have spent so much time developing. The result is faster running speeds over the long haul. A measured dose of faster, anaerobic training will teach your muscles and blood to metabolize and buffer lactic acid. The goal is to generate a manageable quantity of lactic acid that your muscles can dispose of easily and permit a sufficiently long training session and quick recovery. Venturing too far into the anaerobic zone will generate too much lactic acid, reduce the amount of work you can do within your training session, and risk lasting fatigue and overreaching. Marathoners don't derive much benefit from 400-meter repeats.

Faster, sustained running at 80 to 85 percent and mile repeats are good methods to increase lactate tolerance. Oglesby recommends tempo runs of 10 to 12 miles at 15 to 30 seconds per mile faster than goal marathon race pace. An added benefit of these tempo runs is that the marathon pace feels easier and more manageable.

A recent study examined the effect of high-intensity interval sessions on fat and carbohydrate metabolism and lactate concentrations in cyclists who had been training two to three hours per day for years. They replaced some of their endurance miles with two weekly sessions of 6-9 x 5-minute intervals with 1 minute of recovery between. After six weeks, the percentage of energy coming from fat during a one-hour trial had increased from 6 percent to 13 percent. How well this applies to a race lasting more than two hours is unclear.

Because of the results from studies on interval training such as these, many runners have opted out of the extended base-building phase citing "quality over quantity" as the rationale. I would like to emphasize that high-intensity training builds on the increased strength, resilience, and fat metabolism developed during those long, high-quality aerobic miles. Jumping into AT training before your body is sufficiently prepared will not produce the desired results: fast marathons.

SHOULD YOU EAT AND RUN?

It is best to start an exercise session with stable, fasting blood glucose levels and higher blood fat levels. Glucose is a powerful regulator of fat metabolism. The higher the glucose content of the blood, the lower the fat metabolism. High blood glucose levels are generated from dietary carbohydrates.

This effect is associated with insulin. High blood glucose stimulates the hormone insulin to be released from the pancreas. Insulin is a storage and growth hormone. Its main job is to reduce blood glucose but it also acts to store fat and protein. In the process, insulin directly blocks removal of fat from fat deposits. These deposits are an important source of fat for exercising muscle. Insulin also reduces fat burning within the muscle. Therefore, increased insulin is considered to be antagonistic to fat combustion during exercise.

In an interesting piece of research, investigators at the University of Limburg in the Netherlands and at the University of Texas collaborated to determine whether high blood glucose and high insulin levels reduce the amount of fat burned during moderate-level exercise. A group of endurance-trained men cycled for 40 minutes at an aerobic 50 percent of maximum after an overnight fast. On another day, they ingested a drink containing 100 grams of glucose at 60 minutes before and then again at 10 minutes prior to the exercise test. This is a carbohydrate equivalent of drinking one and one-half liters of Gatorade an hour before a race and again 10 minutes before the start. While this may not mimic real-life situations, what the researchers found was telling. Fat metabolism was substantially reduced for the full 40 minutes of the exercise after the carbohydrate load.

While most people would not eat that much carbohydrate before a run, it is common for people to eat a sports bar, bagel, or banana in the hour prior to training. Try to avoid eating for at least two hours before a run.

It takes as little as 20 grams of ingested carbohydrate to raise insulin and reduce fat as fuel. If you have nutrition awareness or read the nutrition labels on foods, you will know that a couple of slices of bread, a banana, a sports bar, or a soda each delivers more than 20 grams of carbohydrate.

Fasting increases blood fat levels. Running after your overnight fast will increase fat burning. A cup of coffee beforehand may boost it even higher. Once exercise has started, eating carbohydrates does not generate a substantive insulin response. If you are starting a long run lasting two hours or more on an empty stomach, you may want to eat a sports gel or bar after 20 to 30 minutes throughout the run. Otherwise you will be faced with the nausea and fatigue of low blood sugar and have a poor training session. If you tend toward hypoglycemia when you get up in the morning, you may want to eat something in the minutes immediately before you head out the door. It takes 30 minutes for insulin levels to peak.

However, before a long race or run you will have more endurance and perform better if you eat a meal containing carbohydrate two to three hours before. Early in the morning, your liver glycogen stores, which supply blood glucose, have been depleted by the overnight fast. The brain and nervous system rely on blood glucose for energy. If you start a marathon without replenishing these stores, you will bonk. The two-hour time interval is sufficient to reduce blood glucose levels back to normal and restore fat metabolism.

WHICH DIET IS BETTER: HIGH FAT OR HIGH CARBOHYDRATE?

There has been considerable research in the past decade on the effect of diet composition on endurance. Prior to now, endurance athletes usually followed a high-carbohydrate diet with the rationale that enhanced glycogen stores are known to fuel superior training and marathon race performances.

Most sports nutritionists recommend a diet that supplies 6 to 8 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight. These levels of dietary carbohydrate can easily reach 400 to 600 grams per day. This adds up to 1,600 to 2,400 calories of carbohydrate per day. This type of diet doesn't leave room for adequate amounts of fat or protein.

The downside of a high-carbohydrate diet, especially a diet loaded with sugar, is reduced fat metabolism and fatigue. This is largely due to chronically stimulated insulin levels. The effects of insulin can last up to eight hours, especially after a big dose of carbohydrates, such as you might get from a big plate of spaghetti and rolls followed by a bowl of sorbet.

Initially, studies found that high-fat diets, where fats supply 60 percent or more of the calories, showed promise as a means to better endurance. Fat burning is increased on high-fat diets, even at rest. Exercise tests showed higher endurance in subjects who had been eating high-fat diets in comparison with high-carbohydrate diets.

At issue, however, was the intensity of exercise used for the tests. High-fat diets improved endurance at relatively low-intensity levels. When the intensity was increased to mirror race situations, the advantage disappeared. The higher- intensity exercise required more carbohydrate, and the subjects simply lacked adequate glycogen to continue for extended periods. The lesson is that you can reduce your reliance on carbohydrate, but you can't eliminate it.

We now know that both high-carbohydrate and high-fat diets cause fatigue and poor performances. The best diet is probably somewhere in between: one that supplies enough fat to stimulate fat metabolism and maintain production of testosterone and estrogen and also supplies enough carbohydrate to keep the brain and nervous system happy and the glycogen stores filled. Many sports scientists are recommending a basic diet that supplies 50 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent fat, and 20 percent protein, with additional carbohydrates after hard or long-duration training.

MORE QUESTIONS

There are still many unanswered questions regarding nutrition and endurance sports performance. Before a marathon or longer race, will fat loading in combination with glycogen loading boost performance? After hard or long training, should you also concentrate on replenishment of fat stores in the muscles? What type of fat, saturated or unsaturated, is burned for fuel? Will eating fat during races that last four hours or more benefit performance outcomes?

What profile of fats in the basic diet is best for an athlete? The skeletal muscle membrane is made of fat. The composition of this membrane directly reflects the profile of fats in the diet. A diet high in saturated fats will generate a more solid, less fluid membrane. A membrane that incorporates more unsaturated fats is more fluid, allowing a more efficient flux of oxygen, water, fat, and glucose. New theories hold that these membranes are more leaky and require more energy to maintain. Conceivably then, a diet too high in either saturated or unsaturated fats could be detrimental to endurance performance.

While there are new training methods being developed to enhance marathon performance, you will find substantial success with theories that are now 40 years old. In contrast, the field of sports nutrition research is currently experiencing great strides. In the early 1990s, the accepted dogma of a high-carbohydrate diet came under fire and was dismantled. Until we have more definitive information, it is wise to follow a moderate, low-sugar, common-sense diet with high nutritional quality.

With a training and nutrition regimen that coerces you to tap into your fat supplies, you can teach your body to use more fat during your migration through the marathon, and beyond.

This article originally appeared in the September/October 2002 issue of Marathon & Beyond.

Beginner's Guide to the Army Ten Miler

http://www.armytenmiler.com/Raceinfo/Beginners.cfm

I would also like to highlight a website Kevin brought to my attention on the guestbook.  America's Running Routes is a great website for accurately mapping distances so you can run on the roads in your own neighborhoods.

Two essays from George Sheehan (first runner over 50 to run a sub 5-minute mile)

Why Do I Run?

Why do I run? I have written over the years of the benefits I receive from running. Enumerated the physical and mental changes. Listed the emotional and spiritual gains. Charted the improvement that has taken place in my person and my life. What I have not emphasized is how transient these values and virtues are.

Basic Exercise Principles (from the Runner's Handbook)

Training methods are based on established principles.  Some are determined by physiological research, while others come rom the personal experiences of runners and coaches.  Each runner 'borrows' hints from this person or that person and processes them through trial and error.  The result is different applications of the same basic knowledge.  We are greatly indebted to those pioneer coaches, runners, and scientists who contributed to the resource bank we draw on. 

Other books or other coaches may tell you to train differently - they are neither right nor wrong.  They have simply interpreted the basic exercise principles in a different way.  The following ten principles of exercise will serve as the backbone of your running program: 

Principle 1:  Overload Gently  To improve your level of fitness, you must increase the amount of work your cardiorespiratory and musculoskeletal systems have to do and allow them to adapt.  This is sometimes incorrectly translated by runners and coaches as "no pain, no gain".  You do need to increase your exercise level as you gain in fitness.  Increase the stress load on the body, but not by excessive amounts, in order to bring about a training effect. 

This means that during aerobic exercise, you will need to work your heart and lungs harder by increasing pace or distance - but not necessarily both.  During strength training, you increase the resistance or the number of repetitions performed.  For flexibility exercises, you gently increase, over time, the amount of stretch placed on you muscles and connective tissues.  Overload gently following the progressive training principle below and your body will adapt and be prepared for the next over load as you run down the road to fitness.

Principle 2:  Progressive Stress - Train, Don't Strain  Slow, steady progression will result in increased fitness.  For example, the beginner's running program starts with alternating running with walking.  Week by week, the amount of time spent running is increased and the walking time is decreased.  As you adapt, you will walk less and run more until you don't need to walk at all - you will run the ENTIRE 20 minute period even though at the beginning you only ran a minute at a time!

As your fitness improves, you will be able to handle a greater training load with the same effort.  You may wish to gradually increase the frequency, intensity, and time of your exercise program, but make sure you only increase one variable at a time.  A good rule of thumb is to never increase how much you exercise by more than 10 percent from one week to the next, or one month to the next. 

Principle 3:  Recovery - The Hard/Easy Method  It is essential to alternate your stress and recovery periods, what is called the "hard-easy method".  In your day-to-day schedule, you should alternate your hard days (if you even need any) and easy ones.  Hard days are runs that are faster or longer than usual.  Easy days are short or medium runs over not too difficult courses at a coumfortable, conversational pace.  What is easy for one runner may be difficult for another.  For beginners, an easy day is a day off from running.  The older we get, the longer it takes us to recover. 

Sometimes your body tricks you.  You may feel very strong the day after a hard workout or race, and pumped up from the excitement of doing well, you may be tempted to run hard again.  Don't!  You will pay for it the next day!  Beware of the "two-day lag", where two days after an intense run that leaves you feeling high and proud, your body finally crashes as the principles of physiology finally catch up to you.  The basic rule here is listen to your body and recognize its warning signs - sore muscles, aches and pain, and fatigue. 

Principle 4:  Specificity  You have to do specific exercises to get specific fitness benefits.  To improve your aerobic fitness you need exercises such as running, biking, swimming, etc.  You will benefit from these and other exercises, but to train for the ATM you need to run.  No matter how many hours you spend swimming, biking, or lifting weights, you still won't be using the same muscles the same way as you do in running. 

You will also benefit by training for special situations.  For example, you need to train in the heat, running up hill, and in the rain if these are potential factors for the ATM.  You also need to train with long runs to prepare for the experience of running 10 miles at once (but you already knew that!)

Principle 5:  Regularity  To maintain basic levels of fitness, you should work out at least three times a week, year-round.  If you take too much time off between workouts, you will lose some of the fitness you have worked so hard to gain.  In general, your body builds fitness slowly and loses it rapidly:  It takes three times as long to gain aerobic endurance as it does to lose it.  With complete inactivity, aerobic fitness may decline almost 10 percent per week.  Strength and flexibility decline more slowly. 

Challenge yourself to be consistent because regularity is the key to fitness.  But it requires discipline.  Make that appointment with yourself - and KEEP IT!  By planning your fitness routine, and following it, you will come to understand the three rules to living well (according to John Quincy Adams, our 6th president) 1. regularity  2. regularity  3. regularity!  Be prepared to adapt to weather conditions, available facilities, your health, and family obligations.  Be stubborn, but practical.

Principle 6:  Individuality  Not everyone has the same capacity to adapt to a training program.  To a large extent heredity determines how well your body adjusts to training, and how good you can be as a runner.  Find out what exercise routines work best for you.  Find out too, which motivational tips help you. 

We are all different.  Yet the basic training principles discussed here apply to all of us.  We just need to determine how to best adapt them for our individual needs.  Some runners, for example, may find that the beginner's training schedule is too slow for them and they should move ahead by a few weeks.  Others may find that they can't keep up and should stick to the level they can handle before moving ahead. 

Principle 7:  Patience  Fitness will not come overnight.  But then you didn't get out of shape overnight either.  Success in reaching your fitness goals should be measured in weeks and months, not days.  Generally an adult needs 8 - 10 weeks to get into fairly good shape after being sedentary.  Beyond that, each day you put more miles in the bank and build for the future.  Every day that you exercise means that you are moving one more day away from the old you and toward a newer and better-fit you.  In fitness, the tortoise beats the hare.  Regularity, adaptability, and patience pay off.  Take your time, enjoy your running and life, and steadily get into better shape and stay there!

Principle 8:  Moderation  Too much of anything - food, drink, work, exercise - isn't good.  Balancing the major stresses with exercise is as important as balancing the individual parts of your exercise program.

Principle 9:  Reversibility  You need to keep working at a certain level to maintain your fitness level, and work at an even higher level to improve it.  But if for some reason you stop exercising, your fitness will go into reverse and slip away.  If you stop exercising completely, most or all of your conditioning will be lost in five to ten weeks.  Use it or lose it!

Principle 10:  Share the Flowers  Six months from now, when you can feel and see the difference in yourself, pause.  Remember the 85 year old woman who said if she had her life to live over she would take the time to smell more flowers and walk barefoot earlier in the spring.  Take that time to smell the flowers when you run.  In addition, look around and find someone else - child, spouse, parent, friend - who is not exercising and would benefit from it.  Gently bring that person into your runner's world.  Share the flowers. 

Also, remember who started us all on this path to fitness - Collin!  We are all honoring his spirit and memory with each workout, and what a fitting tribute to an incredible hero and soldier who always pushed himself and never gave up. 

100 Beginner Running Tips from http://www.completerunning.com/

Apparel Tips

1. Wear spandex shorts under your regular running shorts so you don’t chafe “down there.”
2. Cotton socks will only lead to blisters; invest in socks designed for running.
3. Ladies, do not skimp on a bra. Even if it costs more than your shoes it’s still a bargain.
4. Buy running clothes you look good in and that will motivate you to run.
5. Buy new running clothes at the end of the season when stores dump the old season’s line. Think clearance!

   Community

6. Join your local running club—check with your local running store fitness center and/or recreation department to find one.
7. Volunteer at a local race—meet runners support runners and connect with your Community.

   Manners

8. Remember to say “Thank You!” to race volunteers (e.g. when you get that cup of water at the aid station) and family and friends who support you.
9. Conscientiously share the trail with walkers, bikers and other runners.
10. Always try to balance running with the people you love by making a schedule that involves and is considerate of everyone.
11. Don’t carry loose change. It will annoy those who are running with you.
12. Don’t neglect and irritate your family and friends by spending all your time running and talking about running.

    Motivation Tips

13. Sign up for a race as soon as you feel up to it.
14. Find a committed running partner. It is much harder to skip a run when you have someone else depending on you.
15. Remember that you will have plateaus in your progress and tough days along the way.
16. It gets easier.
17. Accept and appreciate the fact that not every single run can be a good one.
18. Be prepared to remove the words “can’t” and “never” from your vocabulary.
19. “Do not compare yourself to others. Run within yourself and for yourself first.
20. Don’t expect every run to be better than the last one; some of them will hurt.
21. Don’t think too much about it or you won’t do it.
22. Even a bad run is better then no run at all.
23. If you normally run with music try skipping it and listening to your feet to hear your pace and your gait.
24. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t experience weight loss immediately.
25. Start a running blog and read other running blogs regularly.
26. Running is not an excuse to triple your intake of doughnuts because runners gain weight too.

    Nutrition Tips

27. Buy the powdered sports drink mix instead of premixed. It’s cheaper and more similar to race drink mixes.
28. Each pound you lose makes running a little easier.
29. Hydrate. Make it a habit to drink water throughout the day.
30. If you are running very long distance drink enough electrolytes (e.g. Gatorade).
31. On long runs eat something every hour—whether you feel like it or not.
32. During longer runs if you don’t like to carry water take some cash in your pocket pouch or a shoe wallet. Run a route where there’s a corner store that you can use as a pit stop to pick up your water and maybe use the bathroom.
33. Avoid eating spicy foods before running and the night before your long runs.
34. To aid recovery the most crucial time to eat and drink is in the hour immediately after you run.

    Prevention Tips

35. Use Vaseline or BodyGlide wherever things rub. They will help prevent blisters and chafing (guys don’t forget the nipples).
36. Do not increase your mileage more than 10 percent per week.
37. Guys: Band-Aids before the long runs. Your nipples will thank you in the shower afterwards.
38. Log your mileage for your legs and your Shoes. Too much on either will cause you injury.
39. If you are prone to shin splints and lower leg pain try running soft trails for your Training runs and save the asphalt for race day.
40. Do not run two hard days back-to-back.
41. Ice aches and pains immediately.
42. Pay attention to your form. Try to run lightly to minimize impact that could lead to injury.
43. Cut your Training by at least 30 percent to 50 percent every 4th or 5th week for recovery.
44. When trail running don’t forget the bug spray.
45. Neosporin (or another antibiotic cream) is good for chafed areas (if you didn’t use your BodyGlide!).
46. Make sure you cut your toenails short enough so they don’t jam into your Shoes!
47. Put some BodyGlide between your toes on long runs.
48. Be careful about running on paths that force you to run consistently on a slant. It’s hard on the hips knees and IT bands.
49. Don’t stretch before a run. Warm up by walking briskly or jogging slowly for several minutes.
50. Do not ice for more than 20 minutes at a time.
51. Do not use the hot tub after a race. It will increase inflammation and hinder healing.
52. Frozen peas make a great ice pack for aches and pains. A thin towel wrapped around them makes the cold more comfortable.

    Racing Tips

53. Race day is not the day to try new shoes, eat new foods, or wear brand new clothing.
54. Do not try a marathon as your first race.
55. For races longer than 5k start out slower than you think you should.
56. If you conserve your energy during the first half of a race, you can finish strong.
57. When you pick up drinking cups at aid stations, squeeze gently so it folds slightly and is easier to drink from it while you are moving.
58. A plastic garbage on race day is a very fashionable cheap disposable raincoat.

    Safety Tips

59. Be aware of cyclists approaching you from behind and try to keep to the right. Try to pay special attention when running with music.
60. Run facing traffic.
61. Never assume a car sees you.
62. Give horses wide berths on trails and walk as you pass them unless you enjoy a hoof to the melon.
63. Always carry I.D. because you just never know.

    Shoe Tips

64. Try shoes on in the afternoon when your feet are bigger.
65. Doubleknot your shoe laces so they will not come undone when you run.
66. Buy yourself some actual running shoes from an actual running store because running in junk “sneakers” will destroy your feet and your legs.
67. Get assessed for the right kind of running shoes.

    Training Tips

68. In the immortal words of Walt Stack famed senior-citizen distance runner “Start slow … and taper.”
69. At first keep your runs short and slow to avoid injury and soreness so you do not quit.
70. If you are breathing too hard slow down or walk a bit until you feel comfortable again.
71. Pick your route close to home (out your front door)—the more convenient it is the better chance you will have sticking with it.
72. Find a beginner training plan for your first race.
73. Set realistic short term and long term goals.
74. Keep a training diary.
75. Soreness one to two days after a run is normal (delayed onset muscle soreness).
76. No amount of money spent on gadget training programs or funny food can substitute for minutes, hours, days and weeks on the road.
77. There’s no shame in walking.
78. Subscribe to a running magazine or pick up a book or two on running.
79. Four laps around the local the high school track equals one mile.
80. Lift weights.
81. It’s okay to take walk breaks (run 1 minute walk 1 minute then progress to run 10 minutes walk 1 minute etc.).
82. Vary your training routes. This will prevent boredom and prevent your body from getting acclimated.
83. Speed work doesn’t have to be scientific. Try racing to one light post and then jogging to the next.
84. Push through rough spots by focusing on the sounds of your breath and feet touching the ground.
85. Do speedwork after you develop an endurance base.
86. Practice running harder in the last half of your runs.
87. Do abdominal breathing to get rid of side cramps or “stitches.”
88. If you can’t find the time to run, take your running gear to work.
89. Run on trails if at all possible. It will be easier on your body and you’ll love it.
90. Build rest into your schedule. Rest is just as important of an element as exercise in your fitness plan.
91. Forgive yourself. Over-ambitious goals usually lead to frustration and giving up on your fitness plan. If you miss a goal or milestone let it go and focus on the next opportunity to get it.
92. Mix-up your training plan. Make sure your training plan is not too heavily focused on one thing. No matter what level of runner you are your training plan should include four essential elements: endurance speed rest cross-training.

    Weather Tips

93. Dress as if it is 10 degrees warmer than the temperature on the thermometer.
94. Wear sunscreen and a hat when the sun is beating down—even in winter.
95. Run early in the morning or later in evening to avoid mid-day heat.
96. Pick up a pair of Yaktrax when running in icey conditions.
97. In the winter dress in layers (coolmax or other technical clothing) and wear a headband over your running hat to cover your ears.
98. For colder climates invest in socks rated to 40 below (usually found in sport/ski shops).
99. To keep cool in hot weather soak a bandana in cold water wring it out a bit and tie it loosely around your neck.
100. For hot weather fill your water bottle about half way lay it at an angle in the freezer and just before you head out for your run top it off with more water.

Coach Bob Glover's Motivational Tips (from The Runner's Handbook)

The key to staying with a running program is the three "F" philosophy:  Keep it Fun, provide Fellowship, and Fitness will follow. 

Have fun:  If you don't enjoy running (at least on some level), you won't stay with it.  True, some people run regularly and hate it.  They do it because they know it's good for them, like brushing their teeth.  Not many of us work that way.  Running may not necessarily be fun for you at the start. 

Persist.  Your body may scream, "Why did I let Clif talk me into this?"  But once you're beyond that, your body will adjust to the work and you will begin to feel the physical and psychological benefits and increased energy.

If you hang in there for a few weeks you will start developing that feeling of "I want to run."  You'll begin to truly enjoy it.  At this stage you might get hooked for life.

Run at a relaxed pace and enjoy life around you.  Or just tune out and escape from the pressures.  Maybe you'll even enjoy that euphoric state called a runner's high (believe me, I've felt it and I'm addicted!  I miss running now)

Don't make running another stress in your life.  Don't overtrain.  If you do, you'll burn out or get injured and running won't be fun.  So train, don't strain.  Smile, don't frown.  Instead of thinking "no pain, no gain," think "no run, no fun".

Fellowship:  Most of you will improve not just your fitness but also your enjoyment of running by teaming up with others.  Even though it requires some planning and searching to find someone at your pace, it's well worth the effort considering all the benefits you can derive from it.

A class within a local running club is a good place to start.  The fact that you have to show up once or twice a week to run with your classmates is enough to encourage you to run at least two more times during the week for 'homework' runs in order to be able to keep up with the others' progress. 

The experienced, faster runners can benefit from the camaraderie of a running group, and the beginners can learn lots of invaluable tips from the veteran runners.  If you can't find a beginner's (or any) class in your area, then try to encourage a friend to start with you.  The two of you (the more the merrier) will support each other when the weather turns bad or when excuses blow like the wind.

You don't have to be part of an official team to enjoy running with a group.  Many towns and cities have running clubs, informal running groups, or classes at the local YMCA.  Finding someone or a group to run with is especially important for those mind- and body-taxing long runs in preparation for the ATM or a marathon. 

Many people find the perfect training companion has four legs.  Run with your dog for fun and safety.  Your dog needs exercise too, just like you, but also remember that Fido or Fluffy must ease into training.  Don't forget water breaks for each of you!

Set fitness goals:  Goals are fundamental to improvement.  They mark your progress, the motivate you - in short, they keep you going - and nowhere is that more true than in running.  The value of setting goals is cumulative, too.  As you reach your first ones, you gain confidence and become inspired to challenge yourself further and work toward higher ambitions. 

Through short-term goals, you can move step by step toward seemingly unreachable long-term objectives.  Goals should be challenging but realistic.  In planning your goals, it's a good idea to choose both short-term and long-term objectives. 

The most important goal for us is the ATM, but Glover says that most important goal you set is the one for a year from now.  It should be changed as you improve, but it should always be a year away - a carrot dangling just out of reach that guides you in the direction of improvement and enjoyment.  By reserving a goal for the future (such as completing a half or full marathon), you won't be in a rush to try to do too much too soon.

 Yes, Running Can Make You High (NY Times Article)

by Gina Kolata 

THE runner’s high: Every athlete has heard of it, most seem to believe in it and many say they have experienced it. But for years scientists have reserved judgment because no rigorous test confirmed its existence.

Some who said they had experienced a runner’s high said it was uncommon. They might feel relaxed or at peace after exercising, but only occasionally did they feel euphoric. Was the calmness itself a runner’s high?

Often, those who said they experienced an intense euphoria reported that it came after an endurance event.

My friend Marian Westley said her runner’s high came at the end of a marathon, and it was paired with such volatile emotions that the sight of a puppy had the power to make her weep.

Others said they experienced a high when pushing themselves almost to the point of collapse in a short, intense effort, such as running a five-kilometer race.

But then there are those like my friend Annie Hiniker, who says that when she finishes a 5-k race, the last thing she feels is euphoric. “I feel like I want to throw up,” she said.

The runner’s-high hypothesis proposed that there were real biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. Chemicals were released that could change an athlete’s mood, and those chemicals were endorphins, the brain’s naturally occurring opiates. Running was not the only way to get the feeling; it could also occur with most intense or endurance exercise.

The problem with the hypothesis was that it was not feasible to do a spinal tap before and after someone exercised to look for a flood of endorphins in the brain. Researchers could detect endorphins in people’s blood after a run, but those endorphins were part of the body’s stress response and could not travel from the blood to the brain. They were not responsible for elevating one’s mood. So for more than 30 years, the runner’s high remained an unproved hypothesis.

But now medical technology has caught up with exercise lore. Researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.

Leading endorphin researchers not associated with the study said they accepted its findings.

“Impressive,” said Dr. Solomon Snyder, a neuroscience professor at Johns Hopkins and a discoverer of endorphins in the 1970’s.

“I like it,” said Huda Akil, a professor of neurosciences at the University of Michigan. “This is the first time someone took this head on. It wasn’t that the idea was not the right idea. It was that the evidence was not there.”

For athletes, the study offers a sort of vindication that runner’s high is not just a New Agey excuse for their claims of feeling good after a hard workout.

For athletes and nonathletes alike, the results are opening a new chapter in exercise science. They show that it is possible to define and measure the runner’s high and that it should be possible to figure out what brings it on. They even offer hope for those who do not enjoy exercise but do it anyway. These exercisers might learn techniques to elicit a feeling that makes working out positively addictive.

The lead researcher for the new study, Dr. Henning Boecker of the University of Bonn, said he got the idea of testing the endorphin hypothesis when he realized that methods he and others were using to study pain were directly applicable.

The idea was to use PET scans combined with recently available chemicals that reveal endorphins in the brain, to compare runners’ brains before and after a long run. If the scans showed that endorphins were being produced and were attaching themselves to areas of the brain involved with mood, that would be direct evidence for the endorphin hypothesis. And if the runners, who were not told what the study was looking for, also reported mood changes whose intensity correlated with the amount of endorphins produced, that would be another clincher for the argument.

Dr. Boecker and colleagues recruited 10 distance runners and told them they were studying opioid receptors in the brain. But the runners did not realize that the investigators were studying the release of endorphins and the runner’s high. The athletes had a PET scan before and after a two-hour run. They also took a standard psychological test that indicated their mood before and after running.

The data showed that, indeed, endorphins were produced during running and were attaching themselves to areas of the brain associated with emotions, in particular the limbic and prefrontal areas.

The limbic and prefrontal areas, Dr. Boecker said, are activated when people are involved in romantic love affairs or, he said, “when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.” The greater the euphoria the runners reported, the more endorphins in their brain.

“Some people have these really extreme experiences with very long or intensive training,” said Dr. Boecker, a casual runner and cyclist, who said he feels completely relaxed and his head is clearer after a run.

That was also what happened to the study subjects, he said: “You could really see the difference after two hours of running. You could see it in their faces.”

In a follow-up study, Dr. Boecker is investigating if running affects pain perception. “There are studies that showed enhanced pain tolerance in runners,” he said. “You have to give higher pain stimuli before they say, ‘O.K., this hurts.’ ”

And, he said, there are stories of runners who had stress fractures, even heart attacks, and kept on running.

Dr. Boecker and his colleagues have recruited 20 marathon runners and a similar number of nonathletes and are studying the perception of pain after a run, and whether there are related changes in brain scans. He is also having the subjects walk to see whether the effects, if any, are because of the intensity of the exercise.

The nonathletes can help investigators assess whether untrained people experience the same effects. Maybe one reason some people love intense exercise and others do not is that some respond with a runner’s high or changed pain perception.

Annie might question that. She loves to run, but wonders why. But her husband tells her that the look on her face when she is running is just blissful. So maybe even she gets a runner’s high.

The Training Journal

Your training journal becomes a record of your journey and fitness program leading up to the ATM.  In it you can record your daily training workouts; weekly, monthly, and yearly mileage; best races and favorite running courses.  Over time, your training journal becomes a valuable tool and accurate record of your progress up (and down and back up) the training ladder. 

You'll soon get the hang of what is important to you, but typically it's good to start with recording the workout basics such as distance, time, and course.  I also found it helpful to make a note of my heart rate, shoes, weather, any injuries or just how I felt during the run, and a weekly weight (eek!).  When you make an entry, remember you will be looking back at what you're recording and you may be trying to figure out how you trained for a race, came back from an injury, or trying to regain your fitness levels.

If you're just beginning, the journal will be a great way to encourage yourself because you'll have proof of your progress!  The training records will show you; your weight will drop, your heart rate will fall, and your distance will increase.  Intermediate runners will find the training journal an excellent way of establishing a running base and how to build on it.  It will help you set new, achievable goals. 

Afterwards, you can review the journal to see what you did right (and wrong) in preparing for the ATM.  You can then repeat the training program and avoid past mistakes.  Here are some tips for keeping your training journal:

1.  Be consistent.  Fill it in shortly after each workout.  It only takes a minute or two and it is easier to motivate yourself to get the minimal mileage required if you record it each day.  Nobody likes to see too many unplanned zeros.  Don't become too wrapped up with recording mileage, but remember the ATM is the goal, not accumulating mileage in your journal.

2.  Use the journal as a training partner.  It should provide you with goals, feedback, and a sense of continuity and encouragement over the long haul.  Being well organized, planning and recording your runs is one of the secrets of success for most runners anyway.

3.  Include the basics that I mentioned above, but you can also expand the journal to become more of a diary.  My training journal for the Indy Mini a couple years ago reads almost like a novel.  I never liked to run with music (and it's not allowed during the ATM anyway), so I wrote what I thought about during my runs. 

Since the tragic turn of events that have taken dear Collin away from us, you'll probably find yourself thinking about Collin a lot during your runs and maybe even running through tears.  Keeping a training journal that reflects the emotions we're all dealing with can be therapeutic.  After time, the journal can give you perspective and in the end, it is a document of hope and success that will honor his spirit and memory through your training. 

How to Choose Your Shoes - A Summary Guide for Beginner Buyers from The Runner's Handbook

 Buying a good pair of running shoes is the one critical investment you should make for your training.  The best choice for you should include consideration of several factors including your weight, foot arch type, footstrike pattern, surface you normally run on, how much you run (or plan on running), past injuries, etc.  Here are some points to consider when shopping for a quality pair of running shoes:

1.  Decide on a budget range and stick with it.  You should be able to get a good pair of running shoes for around $100 (based on personal experience).

2. Go to a store that specializes in running shoes and carries a variety in your price range.  Some good stores around the Indianapolis area are:  The Running Company in Fishers and Broad Ripple, The Runners Forum in Carmel, The Athletic Annex in NW Indy, and Gray Goat Sports in Greenwood.

3.  Bring your old worn shoes so the salesperson can see your tread pattern and they can tell you the type of shoe you need.

4.  Make sure to get the right shoe size (I know, you're thinking, "duh Sarah"!!)  Different brands call for different sizes and your feet can expand GREATLY after running for a few minutes.  On the same note, make sure you try on both shoes of the pair with your running socks, ideally after you've been running or in the evening when your feet will be slightly larger from normal daily activity.

5.  Allow some room for expansion.  The typical rule of "thumb" is to have a thumb's width between the end of your longest toe and the end of the shoes.  You should be able to wiggle your toes, and think about trying on the next half size larger and smaller just to be sure you've got the right fit.

6.  Check for flexibility and bend the shoe, but remember flexibility will increase as you break in new running shoes.  It should flex under the ball of your foot and you should be able to push off with your toes at the end of your stride fairly easily. 

Running shoes will last between 200 and 400 miles, but they'll last forever if you don't wear them!!  To see if you need new running shoes, check the midsole.  This is sandwiched between the black outsole and the upper, and it usually looks like dense white foam.  If you look at your shoe from the back heel, and the white midsole looks squished, crushed, wrinkly, and doesn't bounce back very well when you press the outsole with your thumb, then it's time for new shoes.