Thursday! We're so close to the Olympics, I can taste it. Get ready for some serious running action. Unless, perhaps, you're Josh Ross...
Josh Ross threatens Olympic walkout
Sprinter Josh Ross is warning the Australian Olympic Committee he will abandon the London Games if he does not receive a legitimate explanation for the reason behind his federation failing to nominate him to race in the 100 metres individual event.
More after the jump.
I had a really bad run last Sunday -- the kind of lumbering, dead-legged affair that started out miserable and steadily got worse. The previous week's heat was mostly gone but the humidity remained, resulting in my arms covered by globs of sweat that rolled back and forth on my forearms, surface tension overcoming gravity. As physically uncomfortable as that run was, the reality of my failed attempt is even more uncomfortable.
That single bad run is now in my head, telling me that there's no way that I'm going to be able to come anywhere near running 50 miles in four months (and really, this might be true; not being able to run 16 miles isn't a good sign). Three weeks ago I was on an upswing, my training going well and my confidence high. Now I'm second-guessing everything: maybe I should cross-train on my days off. Maybe I should slow my pace even further than I have. Maybe I should eat less. Maybe I should stop being a baby. Maybe I'm just in a fugue state and I'm actually fine.
This uncertainty has dissipated somewhat in the last few days, after getting two runs in the past tow mornings that went off without any real issues. A few more of those and I'll have a bit of confidence back.
It's frustrating knowing that one little slip up can undermine so much work, but none of this is supposed to be easy. At least my runs the past two days have provided two fun sightings. That helps a bit.
Sure, God Made The Universe. But Can He Coach An American Marathoner To Olympic Gold?
March 29 was a busy day for Ryan Hall, the fastest American marathoner ever. He was 137 days and roughly 2,100 miles of road training away from representing the country in the London Olympics. He had to be up early for drug testing. "Luckily," he wrote on Twitter, "my coach and I had a meeting from 3-5 am. Not a lot of sleep going on."
Of course, Ryan Hall's coach is God.
Deadspin has a very interesting look at Hall's training plans and strategies since he split with long-time coach Terrence Mahon in 2010 and turned over everything to the Man Upstairs.
Hall is set to run in the marathon at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Two somewhat related links to start the week off:
"Rebooting," Platelet-Rich Plasma, and Minimalist Running | Sweat Science
[Injections are] like rebooting your computer or whacking the side of an old TV set, he suggests: you haven't necessarily figured out exactly what's wrong or exactly how to fix it, but sometimes resetting the system will do the trick.
Runners and Superstitions: Do They Work? | dailymile community blog
In an indirect way, those silly things that we do are actually helping us run our best. So long as your superstition doesn’t actually cause you or anyone else any harm (I wouldn’t advocate adopting eating a package of bacon as a good luck ritual, which I have seen done in high school to very negative consequences…), go right ahead and do what you need to do so that when you toe the line, you’re confident and ready to rock.
So what do these two posts have in common? The general unknown sense of what's going on with remedies or good luck charms is fairly common amongst our kind, and saying 'X works because it works' is often good enough reasoning for most. As inquisitive and curious as I tend to be, sometimes things just work and they can't be fully explained.
Example: some runners (I have no idea how many, to be honest -- and data verification is a big part of he problem) have alleviated chronic leg injuries by switching to more minimalist shoes. But some people get injured in them! So while the arguments of biomechanics and physiology and evolution all make sense to me in fundamentally explaining the benefits of those types of shoes, I'm more prone to accept the 'minimal shoes work for me because they work for me' argument than many others. Because if they work, they work.
This overarching idea of sticking with what works was touched on yesterday by Pete at Runblogger as well. His post was, in turn, predicated on a post at RunningPhysio.
Perhaps this is something to keep in mind when looking at last week's reports on water intake and the like.
Sometimes a week of training starts out great, then the temperatures drop and are wonderfully mild -- and then training inexplicably becomes awful. This was one of those weeks.
That's the thesis of noted sports medicine expert Dr. Tim Noakes' new book Waterlogged, according to a review by Joe Uhan at the excellent I Run Far. Noakes, uh, credits the sports drink industry with convincing runners that they have to drink consistently while out on the roads and trails. (Fancy that!) He also produces a heavy amount of research suggesting that hyponatremia (decreased sodium concentration in the bloodstream) has become a far greater danger than dehydration because of runners' increased fluid intake and makes the case that our bodies are fantastic at telling us when we need water and otherwise regulating our sodium levels. When we drink past thirst, on some rigid schedule, we flirt with danger ... especially on very long runs.
Hydration is something I struggle with. I drink a lot of water on most days (even when I haven't run), like 10+ glasses in addition to a pot of coffee and other fluids with something called an ABV%. But I don't like to drink a whole lot right before or during a run. I hate the sloshing feeling and sound to the point of near-queasiness, and I'm hilariously bad at the whole Dixie cup-to-mouth thing during races. More water ends up in my rose than in my stomach. I do carry an Amphipod on all runs longer than 10 miles (including during races) or whenever it's high 80s or so. But I would say I underhydrate compared to normal before and during runs. I certainly don't have multiple bottles necessitating a belt, and the idea of taking water at all 37 aid stations at a marathon makes me dizzy.
But because hydration is so championed by ... well, everyone, I always fear I'm not getting enough, and that it results in worse performance or recovery.
This morning, I came across an interesting link while perusing the Internet (thanks for the link, Ken). On his site Weighty Matters, Yoni Freedhoff summarized seven journal articles in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The over-arching theme of these articles? That there is little to no credible evidence demonstrating any real or tangible benefits of taking sports drinks in preparation for or during exercise. So marketing people are full of shit -- probably not ground-breaking news, right?
Well, the fact that there were seven peer-reviewed journal articles published on the subject at hand is pretty astounding -- in a journal that consistently ranks in the world's top ten general medical journals (measured by Impact Factor) no less. There's gotta be some meat there for this much to be written on the topic -- and there is.
For an early summary, I'll defer to Freedhoff's conclusion (he's a medical doctor, which I am not. Also, as an assistant obesity professor at the University of Ottawa, he certainly knows far, far more about these topics than I do. It's clear that Freedhoff has his own opinions on food, marketing, and health that are very aligned with these articles, but that's certainly not a large issue):
These articles are all unbelievably important, both in regard to the recommendations we give ourselves and our children, as well as in regard to just how unwise it is to let Big Food push an agenda. They are not our friend.
Huge props to the BMJ and to their investigative partner BBC Panorama for this groundbreaking series.
I'm going to need to digest the articles individually and make notes on them to get a better sense of what's going on, but I thought the studies are worth everyone's attention for a number of reasons, especially because the authors of the articles very clearly did their homework. Standard caveat: I'm not a medical doctor, nor am I giving any advice based on these articles. The authors very clearly state in many cases that much more data is needed before anything definitive can be said -- and that's the big takeaway, I think. (That, and never trust a marketer and their pseudo-scientific BS.)
Ok, so what did the authors find that is so interesting?
Did you sign up for the Boston Half Marathon? If not, it's too late!
Though charity spots still remain through the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
