Run to Win

2009 has come and gone, and 2010 is about to start.

This year didn’t quite go as planned. I was off to a great start, but my training was thrown a bit off between breaking my foot in July, totaling my car in November, and getting a nasty case of bronchitis in December.

This year I ran 339 times for a total distance of 2002.3 miles in 14 days, 6 hours and 43 minutes. That is over 600 miles fewer than I ran in 2008, although total time on my feet was about the same, and was far short of the 3000 to 3500 miles I had planned on running this year. It was still over 100 miles further than I ran in 2007 and over 600 miles further than I ran in 2006.
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Just saw this video by fellow Dirigo runner Scott Douglas over at Running Times, where he details how and why to do a Diagonals Workout at least a few times per week:

Diagonals are a relatively low key type of exercise that are focused on leg turnover.

You just need to find a field, kick off your shoes, and do a combination of running and jogging for a set duration of time. Generally speaking, you will jog along one edge of the field, run diagonally across to the opposite corner, jog along another edge of the field, and then make another dash to the opposite corner once you’ve reached the end of that edge, as shown here:

Try working them into your regular routine and then come back and comment on your results!

(Video Source: Running Times)

I was looking through the USATF website for next year’s grand prix race schedule, which hasn’t been updated yet on the grand prix page. Scrolling through last month’s news posts, though, I did find the schedule so now I can plan around that a little:

GRAND PRIX SERIES VOTED FOR 2010
November 20

The 2010 USATF-NE Grand Prix Series has been selected by an online vote of the membership. A total of 440 votes were cast during the one-week period from November 11 through 18. The results of the vote have been verified by the LDR Chairs and the winning schedule is Slate “C”, as follows:

* Jones Group Realtors 10 Mile, 10M, Amherst MA, Sun, Feb. 28
* New Bedford Half Marathon, 13.1M, New Bedford MA, Sun., Mar 21
* Bedford Rotary Memorial 12K,12K , Bedford NH, Sat., May 22
* Rhody 5K (MEN ONLY) ,5K ,Lincoln RI , Sun., June 6
* Stowe 8 Miler, 8M, Stowe VT, Sun., July 18
* Bridge of Flowers 10K , 10K , Shelburne Falls MA, Sat., August 14
* Providence Ronald McDonald House Women’s Classic (WOMEN ONLY) 5K, Providence, Sun, Oct. 3

In a separate vote, the Marathon selected is the Bay State Marathon, Lowell MA, Sun., Oct. 17, 8:00 AM

The vote was the final step in new process in which a selection committee consisting of the Long Distance Running Chairs and representatives from the clubs created a ballot from the 17 bidding races with 4 slates of non-marathon distance races, a separate ballot question for the marathon distance and a survey question on a post-series awards banquet. The Survey Question for a banquet was 54% in favor.

I’m looking forward to a return to regional competition this year; hopefully my running club can field a team at some or even most of these events this year.

(Source: USATF NE)

When you are running at the edge of a road (or along a grassy hill or on a beach, for that matter) you may sometimes notice that the road isn’t exactly flat. The reason for that is because most roads have a camber to them that helps water drain off of them rather than pooling up in the center of the road.

The camber is any curve on a surface, and in this case refers to upward curve from the edge of a road towards the center.

The more severe the camber to the road, the easier it is to roll an ankle or to develop a muscle imbalance.

When a road is steeply cambered, you may find that one leg is at a slightly lower elevation than your other leg, which can throw your stride off.

The leg that is closer to the center of the road will feel like it is a “longer” leg than the other to your body, so your body will compensate through the way that it bends at the knee, how much your foot flattens on impact, and how much your leg rotates inward as you are running. This can lead to knee or hip soreness.

If you do find yourself running on steeply cambered terrain, try running on different terrain or different routes if you can. If you have to run on the same streets, try running them in the other direction (if local laws allow) or by running at the edge of the road on the shoulder rather than on the road itself. Icing and self massage will also help the soreness go away.

(Photo Source: Alistair Croll)

You may recall a couple years ago when Oscar Pistorius was banned by the IAAF from competing because they felt that his prosthetics gave him an unfair advantage over people that still had both of their legs.

This news was quite a sensation, since there seemed (at the time) to be a very good chance that Oscar would qualify for the Olympics were he given the opportunity to race. The Court of Arbitration for Sport decided that there wasn’t enough hard evidence to rule one way or another and forced the IAAF to allow him to compete.

The real question about what to do should he make it to the Olympics and medal unfortunately never came up, since Oscar’s PR of 46.25 in the 400m was 0.3 seconds too slow to allow him to go to Beijing.

There had been some evidence he had an unfair advantage but the Court of Arbitration for Sport felt that the research had been rushed and that it was biased against Oscar and wouldn’t allow it to be considered for banning him.

Two of the researchers who helped the CAS come to that conclusion were Peter Weyand and Matthew Bundle, who have continued to analyze the research data since then and have now reversed their position about whether Oscar has an advantage or not.

Because each of Pistorius’s limbs — which include the stump, the socket and the blade — are more than six pounds lighter than a biological leg would be for someone his size, it is easier for him to churn them at top speed.

Using a high-speed force treadmill, Weyand and Bundle also determined that Pistorius could keep the blade on the track longer than an able-bodied athlete keeps his foot on the track, giving Pistorius a longer push-off with each stride.

“As soon as Dr. Bundle and I analyzed those data from a year and a half ago,” Weyand said, “we immediately concluded that there was a clear and major advantage.”

My gut feeling when all this originally broke was that the prosthetics probably do give him an advantage, but my gut feeling is also that that advantage does not outweigh the disadvantages he suffers from not having any legs and having a lower blood volume than an able bodied runner.

There is no word yet on whether he is going to be banned again from competition, but I hope not. I think that most of the research is rather limited since the sample size is of one individual, and I don’t think that anybody could show the sort of speed that he has without good training and (in his case) a lifetime to adapt to not having his legs.

(More Info: NY Times)

Most Saturday mornings, I am awake and ready to run the trails nice and early. This weekend, I was a bit tired but got up anyway so that I could hang out with a friend that was staying with us for a few nights.

By the time he left for a class he was taking, I felt wide awake and decided to ignore my desire to go back to bed and instead left the house to meet up with the Trail Monsters at Pineland Farms.

Unfortunately, about a mile and a half later, I’d discovered just what an engineering marvel modern cars are.

10 years ago, I’d have had an engine in my lap. Instead, my 17 month old car just dropped half the front end on the street and the rest of it crumpled up in front of the car. The windshield, tires and cab weren’t damaged at all, so I was able to steer the car off the road after the impact.

I did need the emergency brake to stop the car since the brake lines were gone, but I got out of the car without having been hurt. The airbag felt like a good punch in the face and is certainly something I hope to never have to repeat, though.

This just needs to be a reminder, if you are running or driving, to be sure that you pay attention to your surroundings. The intersection where the accident happened is a pretty common place for cars to hit one another according the officer and the guys from the fire department that responded to the accident.

In fact, damage to a nearby telephone pole was originally called in as part of my accident until the officer realized that there was no way that either car could have hit it.

This is just one more reminder about why it is important to be mindful of your surroundings when you are out running. Thankfully, there were no pedestrians near that intersection during the accident, but there easily could have been. I’ve run through there dozens of times over the past few years.

I’ve been hit by a car while running before, and it only takes a moment of distraction on either the runner or the driver’s part for their to be a problem.

As for this past weekend, nobody got hurt. Despite all the damage to the front end of the vehicle, I walked away uninjured. I am so impressed by the car that I am probably going to replace it with a newer model of the same car.

(More Photos: Flickr)

I knew that the Boston Marathon was going to close early this year. In fact, I expected it to close between Christmas and the New Year and no longer allow entrants in the same year as the race for the first time in race history.

I was only partially right, however. Registration for the marathon closed yesterday, November 13^th. It is the first time I have ever seen it close earlier than late January.

So, if you are registered for the race, congratulations! If you delayed registering, then what race are you going to run?

(More Info: Press Release)

Interested in hiring a coach for the winter to get you through to the Boston Marathon?

I’ve just opened up my coaching program. Head over here for a quick 4 minute video that explains how the program is going to work:

http://www.runtowin.com/coaching/signup.html