Run to Win

This week starts early, with three Thanksgiving Day games. Do not forget to get your picks in in time, and to set your fantasy lineups.

I did not think a lot about this week’s picks. Miami is going to have a strong late season, same as last year. I hate to do it, but I have to pick Chicago over my Patriots. Last time I picked against them on a game I thought they would struggle with they wound up winning. Hopefully I can be wrong again this week.

The Giants will bounce back from their abysmal performance in week 11. NBC is probably kicking themselves right now for taking the Philly and Indy game; even with Donovan McNabb that was not going to be close.

My toughest choice was between Houston and the Jets. I tend to lean towards Houston, but at home I had to go with the Jets.
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I have used the start of Winter as a time to recover from a long racing season. My racing season usually starts in late winter, peters out a bit after my Spring marathon, and then goes full bore through the Summer and until my Autumn marathon. After the Autumn marathon I give my legs a break.

When I originally thought about writing this article, it was because it was a beautiful day outside and I knew that I’d be spending most of the day inside. After I got home from the store, the only natural light I got was a tiny bit coming out of the soffits as I did work in my attic. I hate wasting good weather, but I want to keep my running to a bare minimum for at least 3 weeks so I told myself to stop fantasizing about going out for a run and to get home and get to work.

After the weekend was over, though, I realized that taking time off is not only hard, but it is hard work. I spent the weekend reinsulating my attic. Spending 2 days in the dark on your knees with all that crap in the air and banging your head constantly is not the easiest way to get rest.

I am not sure if there is really a lesson here, other than to try to use your rest months to get this sort of project out of the way. Manual labor the day before a race probably will not lead to your best performance.

In a collaborative effort with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we we will be writing all about injuries for the month of November. You can expect a new article on the matter every week.

This week, Scott discusses common weight lifting injuries and provides links to places you can go to determine the best way to treat them.

Next week we will conclude the series with a run down of common running injuries.

The Hannaford Turkey Trot was this morning. Unfortunately, I was not able to get there this year to take pictures. Dirigo had a very good showing, taking the top three positions in the men’s race and the top two positions in the women’s race. Ethan Hemphill won with a time of 15:39, over a minute faster than last year’s winning time, and was followed 19 seconds later by Mike Payson. 12^th over all was Sheri Piers, leading the women by over a minute to win in 17:59. Marjorie Graff followed her in 19:08.

(Full Results - Awards - Photos - 2005)

This week last year was focused predominantly upon sports news. I wrote a very popular article about heart rate monitors and determining your maximum heart rate. If you are interested in that sort of thing, then a couple of weeks ago Complete Running had a series of articles on training with your heart rate.

• I wrote a very popular article about heart rate monitors and how to determine maximum heart rate.
• In running news, Kevin Collins won a 15 kilometer race off of casual training. I also went out and photographed the Hannaford Turkey Trot, which was won by my teammate, Devin Shaw. I didn’t know him last year, though, since I had not yet joined Dirigo. The teenagers had a great showing at that race after Devin came in.
• An ex-NFL player who often spoke out against steroid use, Steve Courson died. His reasons for speaking out on doping was because of a heart condition he came down with from his own use of steroids, but that is not what killed him. A tree fell on him.
• In baseball news, Bud Selig announced a new doping policy for MLB and A-Rod won the AL MVP. I thought that Ortiz was more important to the Red Sox than that A-Rod was to the Yankees, personally.
• A referree went to jail for fixing Germon soccer matches. In other soccer news, George Best was put on life support following a lung infection.
• I used a crunch machine for the first time last year. I never use it anymore, though.

Week 11 of the NFL season approaches.

I do not really have a lot to say this week, other than that I think that Dallas is going to give Indianapolis their first loss. I think that New England needs to win this game against Green Bay, and I picked them because I just do not see it as likely that they will lose three weeks in a row. I think that it is going to be a tough one this week, though.
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Jeanne wrote an article about running with headphones over at Complete Running that I wanted to respond to. She is trying to understand some local running clubs that are mounting campaigns against the process. One of the the things that she brings up is how it relates to deaf runners:

What do deaf runners do? If part of the argument against wearing headphones is that you can’t hear well enough while wearing them — not even with only one earpiece in, turned low — to be cognizant of what’s around you, well, it seems to me that deaf runners face a real dilemma.

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Which activity leaves you more sore, running a marathon or doing a workout consisting of a lot of squats and lunges? In general, I would say that the marathon will leave you more sore. A full workout of squats, lunges, rows, pushups, and swiss ball crunches can be accomplished in a mere 20 minutes; 30 minutes, if you count the warm up ahead of time. A marathon workout will take at least 2 hours and in most case more than 3 or 4 hours. In my experience, and I imagine in the experience of most of the people who run marathons who might also have done a workout involving squats and lunges, the marathon will hurt more.

What about when the workout with squats and lunges comes shortly after your marathon, though? What if the marathon did not hurt at all, and you were only mildly sore afterwards? Would the weight workout hurt more? How would it compare to the exact same workout done before the marathon?

In my (recent) experience, the squats and lunges left me a lot more sore than the marathon did. The weights before the marathon were merely enough to keep my conditioning in place and did not really stress my body very much. Doing the exact same workout (including the same weights) a bit after the marathon, though, was much tougher. The workout began with squats, followed by a superset of lunges and rows. Between the first and second set of the lunges and rows, my hamstrings were extremely tight and starting the next set of lunges was very difficult. After the first few lunges, though, my hamstrings had stretched out again and I was not too bad off for the rest of the workout. I was a bit sore that evening and the next day though; more so than after the marathon itself.

So let this be a lesson. I have talked about it before (marathon recovery is not instantaneous), but an illustration of the fact never hurts. It is sort of like a public service announcement, but with a lot more rambling.