Run to Win

Dozens of cyclists have been barred from participating in the Tour de France after being linked to a Spanish doctor charged with illegal doping. Among those being barred are Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. The suspensions came down from the individual teams themselves.

“There are clear guidelines arranged with the riders, which leave no room for interpretation. This was also clear to Jan Ullrich, Oscar Sevilla and Rudy Pevenage,” says Ludwig. Against this background, the sponsor as well as the team management repeatedly questioned the riders and the sporting director. “At first we had no reason to doubt the riders’ statements. Therefore, we couldn’t make any decision merely based on speculations, rumours and guesses, says Frommert. This situation has now changed profoundly. “Accordingly, we will now live up to our responsibility towards making cycling a clean sport.”

This is going to be a big shakeup for the race, which begins this weekend. It seems as though Jan Ullrich is never going to have his chance to prove himself against the Discovery Team. First he had the Lance Armstrong monkey on his back, and now he won’t even be able to prove he can beat the team without Armstrong.

(Sources: ESPN.com and T-Mobile)

Okolo has decided to have his own set of animated exercises on his website (much like I have done), and he has begun with how to do pushups.

He has an animation of himself doing a pushup, along with instructions of how to do them. He also explains how to do handstand pushups.

Along with my own animated version of how to do pushups, you can also see how to do assisted pushups for those that are not yet comfortable doing regular pushups.

Dr. Bente Klarlund Pederse of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, believes that we should spend some of our time training in a glycogen-depleted state in order to maximize our training benefits to increase production of the immune system agent Interleukin-6.

In other words, do some workouts underfueled and make yourself bonk in training.

Pedersen provided some validation for this hypothesis through a clever study in which she had subjects exercise one leg once daily and the other leg twice every other day. The total amount of training was equal for both legs, but the leg that was trained twice every other day was forced to train in a glycogen-depleted state in that afternoon workout. After several weeks of this, subjects engaged in an endurance test with both legs. Pedersen found that the leg trained twice every other day increased its endurance 90 percent more than the other leg.

(Click here to continue reading…)

I do not buy belts very often. Tonight, I threw out a belt that I have had for at least 8 years. Three or four days ago the end of the belt finally fell away from the rest of the belt past the notch that I use, which had been hanging on by less and less over the last few months.

My dilemma is this: I have been trying to purchase a new belt for two weeks now. It should not take me two weeks to find a belt. There are many possible reasons why I could not find one. One could be that I am cheap and belts cost too much. Another reason could be that I am very fashionable and could not find one trendy enough. However, these are not the reasons. I am cheap, but I am not at all fashionable. I just wanted a plain black belt.

The reason that I could not find a belt was because only fat people can buy belts. The smallest size that I could find was 2 inches larger than I would ideally get, and it took me two weeks to find it. Everything else was at least 6 inches too large, which I wouldn’t buy even if they had a hole far enough in that I could use it without it sticking out 3 inches from my waist. I understand that in Maine some people may be a little larger than average, but shouldn’t slender men in the mid-20s and high school students be able to buy belts too?

Brian Morrison of Seattle was disqualified after winning the Western States 100 Miler because he received help maintaining forward motion in the last quarter mile of the race. Graham Cooper of Oakland was then awarded the first place accolodes.

The Western States 100-mile Endurance Run Board of Trustees released the following statement regarding the disqualification: “In his last quarter mile in the stadium, runner number 320 (Brian Morrison), consistently staggered and fell on the high school track. Several times he was lifted, carried, and thereby assisted to maintain forward momentum. It was not a single episode of helping a runner to his feet, but instead a series of material forms of assistance. The actions of runner 320’s crew and others was not given for bad motive; indeed by facilitating his arrival in the medical area, their action likely prevented a life-threatening seizure.”

Congratulations, Graham Cooper. Probably not the way that he wanted to win, and I would hate to be in Brian Morrison’s shoes right now, but it is still a win. Of course, I would not want to be in any of their shoes right now, because (a) I am not in the sort of shape I’d need to be in to run a 100 mile race and (b) the just over 50% finisher rate due to the high heat made for one hell of a brutal race this year.

(Source: Tahoe Daily Tribune via Trail Running Blog)

Most people will not eat before going to sleep. Two common reasons for this is because the person may not sleep as well, or because they are trying to lose weight and do not want to eat something and not have an opportunity to burn off some calories before going to sleep. You do not really need a lot of calories to sleep, after all.

For active people, though, you do want something in your stomach when you go to sleep. Not a full course meal, obviously; there’s no need for that. But a light snack such as a piece of bread or an apple an hour or 30 minutes before going to sleep can lead to better sleep and can make it easier to get up in the morning. If I do not eat before going to bed, I tend to wake up with stomach cramps in the middle of the night. If I try to run in the morning without eating first, I won’t get a mile before I will be completely exhausted.

Your mileage may vary with this tip. Everybody’s body is different, and your body may not like eating right before you go to sleep. There is only one way to find out, though, and it is a good thing to know.

A week ago, I broke my ring finger. On my way out the door the next day to go do my Monday morning weight lifting workout, I realized that that probably was not a very good idea. As such, I took the last week off from lifting and just did a lot of running. Which I would have done anyway.

I went back to the gym this morning. My finger is mostly recovered; it is still sore and aches, but most of the swelling and just about all of the visible bruising is gone already. Granted, I probably did not really break the finger, or if I did it was really minor. But it was nice to be able to lift and not worry about dropping a heavy barbell because of the finger.
(Click here to continue reading…)

The latest USATF-New England grand prix race was this morning in Methuen, Mass. The Whirlaway 10k had some better weather this year than they did last year, and they had enough water at the finish line for everybody this time. The course takes a quick trip up over the first few miles, and is predominantly downhill for the last few miles. There are a few rolling hills mixed in throughout. The starting line was not marked, as they use a crack in the road to determine where it is. As such, they had to pull the crowd forward about 200 feet since nobody knew where they were supposed to be and everybody was too far down the road.

The race was won handily by Ben Ndaya in 31:41. Jeff Caron and Ethan Hemphill were up front for Dirigo R.C., finishing in 3^rd and 5^th, respectively. Jennifer Busse was the first woman in 37:09.

I ran about what I expected at the race, (barely) breaking 36 minutes. I was trying to catch one of my teammates, but didn’t have enough time. Officially, he beat me by 1 second, but realistically it was more like 2 or 3 seconds.

There was a great spread after the race, but the awards structure left something to be desired. I had thought that this was a cash race that paid out 5 places, but the winner got a gift certificate and everything else was age group awards. Dirigo got 5^th place in the open division and 2^nd place in the master’s division, which were both won by the Whirlaway club.