Run to Win

This week last year touched on a whole range of subjects, from weight lifting to drugs to accidental cheaters and how purposefully bonk during a workout.

• I shared my experience of lifting weights after breaking my ring finger. It had had a week to heal, and while there were no rings that were going to fit on it at that point, I managed to lift and control the bars all right. In other weight lifting news, I found a new animated push-up demonstration.
• Continuing on the sleep theme, I suggested that you never go to bed hungry. You won’t sleep well, and you’ll have trouble getting up and being useful in the morning.
• I also wondered why they only make belts sized for people larger than myself? I still have to spend way too much time finding a belt that isn’t at least 3 inches too long.
• Brian Morrison unfortunately had a little help maintaining forward motion in his last quarter mile of his Western States 100 Mile win. Even more unfortunately, he was disqualified for it and the win was given to Graham Cooper. A race of 99.75 miles was lost due to just a little too much trouble in that last 0.25 miles. That has to be rough. In other large sports event news, Jan Ullrich was barred from the Tour de France following suspicions in the Spanish doping scandal.
• In the performance side, I discussed research about whether or not bonking during training was a worthwhile pursuit or not. Bonking is the process of running out of fuel during a workout.
• I pondered whether or not to pony up the $100 after the Endurance 50 registration opened. I wound up getting hurt and being unable to run, so I’m glad that I decided that it wasn’t worth it for me.
• Two years ago was centered on marathoning, such as a book review and a website review, my list of marathon candidates for Autumn, and my discovery that I was near meeting the requirements to join the 50 States Marathon Club. I also won the Literacy 5k, which I believe has since folded.

This week there were a few sports stories that were worth mentioning but that didn’t need a whole lot written about them, so I am linking them up here.

• NFL Europe has folded after 16 years. I think that this is a bad move if the NFL thinks that they are going to expand popularity for American Football overseas. A couple of regular season games is not going to make up for a bunch of fans that they had managed to cultivate being so let down. (Source: ESPN.com)
• The UK firm Sports Direct has managed to outbid Hidary for the Everlast company for $30/share (cash). Everlast is one of the largest manufacturers of boxing equipment in the United States. (Source: BBC.com)
• Ray Allen is now playing for the Boston Celtics. I was a big fan of Ray Allen when he played at UConn, and it has been a few years since I have made my way down to watch the Celtics play. I will definately have to make the effort again this coming season. (Source: Boston Globe)

click here for video

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an ad for trails.com on a website that I was visiting. I investigated, and I thought that the site was pretty neat and had a lot of potential, so I played around with it for a little while. I really liked it, so I decided that I would promote them and thought that I would share what you can do with their website. I also happened to have recently purchased a neat program that allows me to capture what I am doing on screen and I am teaching myself how to use it, so you can click on the image to the right to watch a video of how to use the website.

Trails.com is a site meant for scouting out trails, be it for your hometown and surrounding area or for someplace that you plan on visiting. They offer topography maps and trail guides, and make it fairly easy to search for specific locations or for what is available throughout a region. They also cater to quite a few different sports and activities, ranging from skiing, hiking, and mountain biking to fly fishing or bird watching. You can also search on natural landmarks such as waterfalls or hot springs, not that I would find many hot springs here in Maine.
(Click here to continue reading…)

John Berardi at Precision Nutrition has come up with a new promotion to get people in shape. He is hosting the Body Transformation Challenge for folks who are willing to take some measurements and before and after photos of themselves.

There are three prizes:

• Grand Prize: Free groceries & supplements for 1yr
• 1st Runner Up Prize: Free meal delivery for 3 months
• 2nd Runner Up Prize: Free camera & Results Tracker

There are a few catches to the contest, though. First, you need to own Precision Nutrition to take part. Second, you have to want to change your body. That singles me out; I am happy with my body and have no desire to transform it into anything else. My interest in his site is all about performance and not about fat or weight loss.

The contest starts next week and registration for it is open through mid-July. Head over to Body Transformation Challenge home page for full details, and a slew of before and after pictures of people that have already succeeded with the program.

A month ago, I asked whether prosthetics should be banned from international competition in the wake of a proposed rule change by the IAAF. I then fleshed out my own thoughts after being accused of supporting the ban and deciding that I did in fact support the ban on prosthetics.

The IAAF has since changed their stance and decided to allow Oscar Pistorius to compete until they have had a chance to decide whether or not he does have an advantage.

IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said the organisation was going to take it upon itself to work with Pistorius to conduct scientific research and tests on the runner and his prosthetics. Davies said one of the aims was developing criteria on prosthetics and other aides.
[...]
Pistorius [...] is adamant his blades give him no advantage or extra energy and that his stride is no longer than anyone else’s. “They are passive devices,” he said. “If anything I am at more of a disadvantage. I have no ankles. There is less blood flowing through my body. I have no calf muscles so I have to use more muscles to do what they would. These exact feet have been used for 14 years and there has never been a paralympic sprinter to run my times.”

I think that the IAAF has found a very fair and equitable middle ground that should appease everybody. I hope that Oscar does manage to run some times fast enough to qualify for the Olympics and forces this issue to remain at the fore front. I hope that they determine that he is not aided, and that he does qualify and is allowed to run. If they determine that he is aided and don’t allow him to run, it will be that much more cruel, but if he doesn’t qualify then this issue will probably get swept up under the rug and forgotten for another 10 or 15 years. That would be a shame.

(Sources: Optimal Training - BBC)

I am glad that I am not a professional cyclist right now. The sport has a rediculous amount of negative publicity heaped upon it on an annual basis because there are not only a (seemingly) large number of cheaters in the sport, but the governing body that is supposed to catch the cheaters is either corrupt or incompetent. With the sport’s largest stage beginning in a few weeks, the directors of the Tour de France have decided that they need to do something to make their event less of a mockery. They have decided to only let riders into their event who sign the UCI’s anti-doping charter.

On the surface, I think that this is a great idea. The problem that I have with it, though, is that nobody in their right mind would sign it. Signing the charter states the athlete… (Click here to continue reading…)

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about alternative exercises throughout the month of June. Cross training can easily be expanded outside of the realms of running, weight lifting, bicycling and swimming.

This week I would like to talk about dancing.
(Click here to continue reading…)

Yesterday at the U.S. Track & Field Championships, Tyson Gay ran away from Wallace Spearmon to run 200 meters in 19.62 seconds, a meet record and second only to the world record 19.32 that Michael Johnson set in 1996.

“The time was excellent. The race was excellent, too,” Gay said. “I wasn’t thinking about any time. I was trying to get away from Wallace Spearmon as fast as I could.”

Tyson Gay ran about 22.8 miles per hour in his win. I hope that his season continues to go so well and that we see a new mark set some time in the near future. Hopefully, the entire field of the fastest sprinters will be healthy at the next competition.

(Source: ESPN.com)