Run to Win

In my article about what to do in the week leading up to your marathon, Heather asked if overindulging a little the weekend before a marathon is going to be a problem.

She’s a little worried that she might be dehydrated and might have a little trouble re-hydrating before the race.

I don’t think that there’s really that much to worry about, as I talk about in today’s video:
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How can you teach yourself how to pick up your feet while trail running so that you don’t trip over rocks and roots?

There are two basic methods that I think are the easiest way to get used to the sort of running form you need while trail running.

The first method is to just to get out and do more trail running. The more time that you spend time out there, the more your body is going to learn what it is that you need to do and that you’ll get used to doing it.

The second method, which is especially relevant if you’re a road runner that’s new to trails, is to actually try and practice it while you are on the roads.

Try to count every time that you pick your foot up off of the ground. Instead of concentrating on having a very short footfall you want to just be thinking about lifting your feet up.

Another way that you can do that is by listening for the scuffing of your feet. When you hit the ground, if you’re not lifting your feet enough you might actually hear the bottom of your shoe rubbing against the pavement as you’re running. So just concentrate on just listening and making sure that you have a quiet footfall and that you don’t hear that prolonged scraping of your shoe along the road.

(Download: MP4 -- Photo Credit: Sean Dreilinger)

Billy Mills was born in 1938 to the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Tribe and was the second Native American to win an Olympic gold medal. He’s also the only American to get a gold medal at 10,000 meters.

The last lap of that race was tremendous. Billy Mills got to the Olympics after qualifying for both the 10k and the marathon and was in the Marine Corps Reserves when he competed.

Ron Clarke was the overwhelming favorite in the race and was the current world record holder. He put in a strong surge every other lap to whittle down the field until only 4 runners were still chasing, which quickly became a 3 man race at the start of the final lap when Clarke pushed Billy Mills out of his way on the first turn only to have Mohammed Gammoudi return the favor a few seconds later. Both of them managed to separate from Mills until the final turn.

That push from Ron Clarke may have actually helped Mills win, as he mentioned after the race that he was able to get much better traction from his track spikes out in lanes 2 and 3 than he’d been getting in lane 1.

Here’s a video of the race:
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What is your favorite race day gel?

I was asked this recently by one of my runners who’s getting ready for her first marathon. I’ve tried quite a few different products such as Gus, Power Gels, Shot Blocks. My favorite products for training and ultramarathons tend to be more towards actual foods, such as pretzels or bananas or gummy bears, things like that.

But when I’m actually in a marathon, I like a specific gel product made by Crank Sports. There are 2 reasons that I like them better than anything else and that is because they tend to have more calories and none of their products have any caffeine in them, which is something I tend to avoid.

Here’s a video that shows what I just got in my latest order of Crank:
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What is involved in the stretching regimen that was used in the recent USATF study?

There were 3 different stretches that they used (technically 4 since the last stretch had 2 parts.) The subjects that were going to be stretching were supplied with a detailed stretch protocol that included the photographs of the stretch, as well as images of what they were supposed to be doing.

This video demonstrates how to do the full stretching regimen:
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The USATF wanted to find the answer to that very question, so they recently did a 3 month long study of 3000 runners to find out exactly what factors do and don’t play a part in preventing injuries and in getting injured.

The results of their summary can answer that question in two words:

Not really.

Here’s a video explaining the results:
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Can elite marathon runners listen to music when their running in marathons?

The quick and easy answer to this is no they can’t. Some elite marathoners will train with their iPods, and some of them won’t.

However, you’ll never see them actually racing with an iPod during a marathon, at least not here in the United States.

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Once upon a time, Justin Gatlin broke the 100 meter world record by 1/100th of a second. It was then determined that his time was actually 9.766 seconds, which meant that his officially recorded time was equal to the world record of 9.77 seconds at that time.

His time was later annulled when he received a 4 year ban from track and field for using performance enhancing drugs.

This was Justin’s second ban, as he hadn’t paid enough attention to the rules when he was in college when it was discovered that medication he’d been taking since childhood was not allowed.

Due to the extenuating cirumstances of that first ban, he received a 4 year ban from the sport that started in 2006 rather than receiving a lifetime ban.

Now, he’s back.

He isn’t quite as fast as he was 4 years ago, but after 3 races he’s now notched 3 wins. He began his racing in Estonia, where he won in 10.24 seconds on August 3rd and in 10.17 seconds on August 8th.

Now, he has moved on to Finland, where his qualifying heat time of 10.19 seconds was a precursor to his winning time of 10.28 into a 2 meter per second headwind, winning the race by 0.12 seconds over Rubin Williams.

It will be interesting to see how well he can improve now that he is 4 years older, although from the looks of things he doesn’t seem to have lost much from his competitive edge.