Run to Win

This week last year covered a range of topics.

• A common question that I get asked is a variant along the lines of “Why do my feet go numb?” There are quite a few reasons that you might get a numb foot while you are running, and I go over what they are could be as well as how to prevent the problem.
• Finishing up a month about the media, Scott discussed Usain Bolt was still beatable as the USA did well in the men’s sprints.
• This website got hacked by some script kiddies after I waited too long to update the software I use to run the site. Let this be a lesson: Update regularly. There are much worse security vulnerabilities around for outdated versions of Wordpress these days.
• This week two years ago I was thinking a lot about marathons.
  • I explained 50 Marathons in 50 Days is impressive.
  • I discovered that it took 5 weeks of low mileage to decondition, and that I was able to regain that level of fitness in about two months. I also began lifting weights with a wedding ring on, which remains a surprisingly popular article.
  • The B.A.A. published a press release that they were going to move up the start of the Boston Marathon by 2 hours to 10:00 a.m. I predicted that there was going to be a blizzard due to the earlier starting time, and I was not too far off of the mark. A Nor’Easter blew through right before the race, which made it difficult for me to get home as the train tracks were washed out and the roads were all flooded and blocked.

This week last year centered around two topics, the world championships in Osaka and trail running basics for beginners.

Ian Parlin and Jamie Anderson gave an excellent Trail Running 101 clinic at a local shoe store, introducing the basic concepts and rules of trail running to the crowd. You can read my notes on the presentation as well as download the original powerpoint slides.

The world championships had a fair bit of media coverage, with constant radio broadcasts and daily television broadcasts on the Versus network and on NBC.

The IAAF coupled the increased media coverage with the first incarnation of their fantasy athletics game.

The heat and humidity was good preparation for this year’s Olympics, but led to quite slow times as Luke Kibet won the men’s marathon in a “pedestrian” 2:15:59.

In other racing news, the L/A Bridge Run was exactly a year ago. I managed to run (slightly) faster and place higher despite not being in as good of 5k shape as I am this year.

This week two years ago, I gave some reasons that running takes practice just like any other sport. I also found the “Athletes Against Doping” website, which contains a lot of information about what substances are banned in each sport and who the governing bodies are.

This week three years ago, I also talked about doping by explaining what EPO was after the furor with Lance Armstrong brought it to attention. Kenenisa Bekele also set the 10k world record with a time of 26:17.53.

• This week last year, I wrote about the first annual Maine Coach and Athlete Cross Country Clinic, which I split into two parts. The first half covered topics such as progression, stretching and goal setting, while the second half covered topics such as intervals, recovery, mental preparation and teams.
• Scott tossed around some ideas about how the media impacts fringe sports and what we can do to increase their popularity.
• In an effort to explain why he bans them, Dave McGillivray discussed his opinions on iPods and racing. Dave is the race director for the Boston Marathon and the Beach to Beacon.
• This week two years ago I was still on my honeymoon, but I did discuss when it is appropriate to eat a midnight snack. I also finished the second half of my shoe maintenance series continued with a discussion on rotating your shoes, which can make it necessary to label your shoes. I suggested that you seek help when first choosing shoes, offered some advice on making sure your shoes fit when you purchase them, and recommended that when you find shoes that you like, stick with them! I described the differences between the eight categories of running shoes and suggested the circumstances under which you might want to replace the insoles of your shoes. The series ended after I got home from my honeymoon with a summary of all of the articles that I had published over the previous week.
• I also reviewed a movie called The Long Run two years ago, which is about a coach that tries to live vicariously through his athletes. The movie centers around the Comrades ultra marathon in South Africa.
• Three years ago this week, I predicted the record chase between Asafa Powell and Justin Gatlin.

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about training and media influences throughout the month of August. Scott writes about infomercials this week to finish the series.

Informercials are big business. There needs to be a very high sales ratio with an average cost of $500,000 to produce a product on top of marketing expenses. As such, there are often some less than ideal advertising claims that are made that are pretty ridiculous and which are not validated by any central authority. Scott includes a snippet from one such advertisement in the article.

Scott would like some changes made to make informercials a little more honest. He would like to see kids better educated about fitness at the primary school level so that they can better ascertain between a worthless product and one that will actually be worth using, he would like to see an end to payment plans for cheap products (which can increase the price that you pay by 30% or more) and he would like to see some sort of support for any medical claims made in the infomercials.

Of course, most infomercials that I have watched have a small disclaimer that states that the product works well when combined with diet and exercise. Just about anything that is not self-destructive will work well with diet and exercise no matter what your goals are, since you need the diet and exercise to reach those goals.

If you have any other suggestions for how to improve infomercials so that they are actually worth something, then leave a comment on the original article over at Straight to the Bar.

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about training and media influences throughout the month of August. This week, the IAAF World Championships begin in Osaka, Japan, and there will be some decent coverage of the events.

The event kicks off with the Men’s Marathon on August 25^th, and continues through September 2^nd when the Women’s Marathon and the relays are run. There will be 2 sessions each day, running roughly from 10:00 in the morning until noon, and from 7:00 in the evening until 10:30. (Being in Japan, those times are GMT + 9.)

The IAAF website will have the most up to date results available. They list a schedule of events for each day, and have a handy little clock that tells you what time it is in Osaka; Japan is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time and 16 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time.

The IAAF also offers daily radio broadcasts of the events, and will feature video highlights twice a day of the various races.

There are already a few podcasts and interviews available for download, and there will be many more once competition officially begins.

In a partnership with Nikon, the IAAF will also provide a full photo gallery of every event.

Outside of the IAAF website, there will also be numerous blogs covering the event, as well as the websites for the governing bodies of each countries athletics. You can expect that the USATF will provide frequent updates through each day.

For television coverage, Americans can get their fill if they have a cable or satellite television package that offers the Versus channel. Versus will have daily coverage of the events.

I do not currently have access to the Versus channel, but NBC has also come on board to broadcast coverage at the beginning and at the end of the Championships.

For those who live in the middle of the Pacific, there is going to be some great coverage on Sky TV. Looking at the schedule, it appears as though there will be coverage for the majority of the day almost every day of the event.

All television and radio listings above are subject to change, so be sure to check your local listings before assuming that what I wrote is correct.

I hope that you all get an opportunity to watch at least one or two events, whether you do it on your local television station or on the IAAF website or one of the numerous blogs or other sites covering the event. I also hope that there are some good records set, and that the newspapers jump on board to provide some front page coverage. That may be asking for a little too much, though.

Update: The World Champion Sports Network will also be covering the event, and has a $5/month service available for live feeds.

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about training and media influences throughout the month of August. This week, Scott discusses the influence that the media exerts based upon what sports they are willing to cover.

Power lifting and strong man competitions get very little media coverage, whether they take place in their own competitions or on the Olympic Stage. Instead, you see sports such as cricket, rugby, and motor racing (in Australia) or baseball, football, and basketball (here in the United States). Golf and hockey are also fairly popular to watch over here.

There are some larger running events that get local or national television coverage, such as the Boston or New York marathons. Track meets and the Olympics are also kind to running. I would still like to see more of it, though. Bowling tends to get more coverage.

Scott recommends that we get our children actively involved in the sports that we would like to see more of. He also recommends that, in the case of lifting, that the athletes lift things that look heavy, and not just the standard weight plates. There are some “World’s Strongest Man” competitions that air over here on ESPN on a pretty regular basis, and they often carry atlas balls or drag cars or trains around. Perhaps that is the start that he is looking for.

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about training and media influences throughout the month of August. I would like to start the discussion about how much the media colors our perceptions of athletes, specifically referencing Dean Karnazes.

Dean Karnazes is almost a household name.

He has inspired hundreds if not thousands of people to change their lives and become more fit. He wrote a humorous look at how an ordinary person can train himself to do extraordinary things in his book, Ultramarathon Man. He has raised a lot of money for various charities through his extreme feats of endurance. He is very personable, and a master at promoting both himself and his causes.

He also rubs a lot of people in the ultramarathon community the wrong way. His often blatant self-promotion gets on a lot of people’s nerves, and even Karnazes himself will be the first to admit that there are people out there that are much better than him at some (or even most) of the events that he competes in or stages.
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