Run to Win

I did not write every day this week last year, but I did write quite a bit. Local running news mixed with weight lifting tips and hob-nobbed with research on running and the brain. There was even a diet note for folks out in Illinois who like concept of hamburgers but would prefer to eat a donut.

• I continued the animated lifting series with a demonstration of how to do a triceps extension using a pulley. I also offered a great tip when doing this exercise, which is to flex at the lowest point of your pull. This will intensify the exercise and work your muscles harder.
• In local racing, Ethan Hemphill won the Kerryman Pub 5k. I much preferred the race when it was a four miler. On a sadder note, the local shoe store Running Dog Sports closed their doors for good. The location was probably what killed it.
• The Gateway Grizzlies decided to start offering their fans donut burgers, no doubt in an effort to improve their health.
• There was some research that pointed to the lack of brain benefits when running by yourself. Apparently, the absense of social interaction has a negative influence on us runners. I don’t really agree with the research and I think that their conclusions are flawed. A comment on this article spurred another one, this time about whether the time of day affects the clarity of your mind while running.
• The weekly series about the New Rules of Lifting continued, this time exploring the second rule (use more than 1 muscle at a time) and third rule (strength before size.)

Kathy Hepner is closing up shop at Running Dog Sports in Gorham, Maine. I spoke with her yesterday at Mary’s Walk, and she does not get enough traffic through the area. She is going to remain open throughout this month with limited hours, so be sure to call ahead if you had planned on stopping in. She will be working out of the Maine Running Company off of Forest Ave in Portland for the foreseeable future.

Running Dog Sports is a new running shoe specialty store located in Gorham, Maine that opened in May of 2005. I have seen the owner, Kathy Hepner, at many of the local races as both a participant and as a sponsor. She is very actively involved in the community.
(Click here to continue reading…)

Yesterday I left a note about the women’s 5k in Brunswick that a number of my teammates ran. After the race, they had the awards ceremony. They had some really big trophies for the overall winners and for the master’s winners and the like, and most of the folks that placed in their age divisions got a certificate.

The fun part came from the raffle though. I hate to think of all the work that went into going out and collecting all of the raffle prizes! There were quite a few, and some were quite good. One person got a $100 credit on their power bill, another person got a $50 gift certificate to Days Jeweler’s, a few people got $20 gift certificates to a new store that recently opened nearby (no website that I know of yet; Running Dog Sports in Gorham), there were gift bags, and bars of soap, and my girlfriend’s mother won a $60 gift certificate to a seafood restaurent. Quite a few choice items to be won, as it were!

The best raffle prize by far though has to have been the one that my girlfriend won. It the Morning Glory Natural Foods Hi Potency B-Stress nutritional support for stress dietary supplement (90 vegetarian tablets). Okay, fine and dandy, find something that doesn’t sell to well to donate to the local women’s gym to raffle at their race, maybe bring in some business. But wouldn’t you think that a gift certificate so that they could choose their own vitamins would be a better way to get somebody into your store?

Seriously, if somebody just randomly gave you a jar full of pills, would you even consider taking them? Erin and I certainly would not. Reading the label is fun, though. The serving size is two tablets daily, so you have a month and a half supply of this stuff per bottle (it sells for $12.60 according to the sticker on the bottom). Two tablets will get you:

• 5000% of your daily vitamin B6
• 3333% of your daily thiamin
• 2941% of your daily riboflavin
• 2083% of your daily B12
• 1250% of your daily Vitamin C

And that isn’t even the entire list! Of course, something that might be useful, like Calcium, you only get 10% of your daily recommended intake.

That just seems so silly. I could (almost) understand if they said to take a pill with breakfast and a pill with dinner; you might only piss out 3/4 of what your body can’t process. But no, they say to take 2 tablets daily, which to me means to take them at the same time. Which means that 95% of what you take in won’t be able to absorbed by your body before it gets to rub against your bowels. I have no idea why I find this so humorous.

At least the bottle says to keep it away from chidren. They got that part right.