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Photo courtesy of Full Send Media. Race by Go Beyond Racing.
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I just got back from a visit with my grandmother who recently turned 99. Imagine seeing this past decade and all that has changed. My niece asked her what her favorite era in fashion has been and she said it was the miniskirts of the late 60s and early 70s. Love that! She thinks she is losing memory but I think it is fair to assume you won't remember all the things that happened when they are 40, 60 and 80 years ago. She is sharp as a tack but cannot understand my career, am I an adult gym teacher? She also can't understand how I get paid through the TV. (I don't but thank you Venmo)
Her mother lived to 99 and now here she is at the same milestone. It makes me wonder if I will see the age of 99 in 2074. Genetics seem to be strong here, I just might and the year 2074 feels like science fiction. I am guessing super shoe mid-soles will be about four inches high, we will have seen a women break the 2-hour marathon barrier and I don't even want to know how many grams of carbs per hour we will be up to by then. Long races will be weeks long and I will be messing up and calling it a 50k. I do hope if I live to 99 that it includes quality time outside, friends (better start making much younger friends!) and something that gives me as much purpose as running. Stay tuned, maybe I will still be sending Tuesday emails. STEEPER IS CHEAPER "A steep slope will have a shorter course distance but be harder to run up. A gentle slope will be easier to run up but cover a longer total distance. For a given finishing time, what’s the sweet spot?" The article in Outside Magazine, Why Steeper Is Cheaper for Climbing Hills, by Alex Hutchinson answers the question how to choose a trail up a hillside for maximum speed, the longer but less steep way or right up. "If you’re choosing between two routes, remember this: If one route is twice as steep as the other, you’d have to walk twice as fast up the gentler route to reach the top in the same time. Counterintuitive though it may sound, that data shows that under most circumstances, twice as steep is easier than twice as fast." A FEW GOOD READS
Change out of your work pajamas and into your workout pajamas tomorrow night for Strength Training for Runners. Live to your screen on Wednesdays, stay home, get strong. Information here.
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Do you have friends that can make a hill less steep? If you run with a supportive longtime friend, this study says you do!
"It is important that friendship duration moderated hill slope perception. The longer participants knew their friends, the less steep they estimated the hill to be" The simple presence of a supportive person can change how difficult something feels, so maybe the hill isn't smaller, but it will feel that way. Knowing this we need to both watch out for bad route information from our most social of running pals and keep our friends on our same running plan. I have definitely been guilty of sending people on routes I ran with friends telling athletes they weren't so bad and hearing otherwise. And I have been sent up the side of a mountain by friends remembering routes 'that will only be a little longer' on solo runs feeling like death marches needing at least three emotional support treats to keep from having a tantrum. Time to get in touch with some running friends to join you on your next tough run. (or text a laugh to someone who sent you up something too difficult!) Also, time to mark your calendar for Strength Training for Runners on Wednesday nights. Is it easier if you have been joining me for years and we are friends? Not sure I can make that kettlebell lighter but why not come and find out. Information on the always free class is here. MOOD AND ENERGY If the study linked above has you curious to dive in more, there are lots of studies regarding "geographical slant", HILLS. Here is one study that notes, "observers in a sad mood reported hills to be steeper" and here is another in which "two experiments demonstrate that participants who had consumed a glucose-containing drink perceived the slant of a hill to be less steep than did participants who had consumed a drink containing non-caloric sweetener." Sounds like you need friends, good mood and calories for best results, but you could have guessed that! RAISE THE BAR If you want to watch women's sports, here is a new resource for finding a sports bar that pledges to show women’s college games on at least 50% of their televisions throughout the tournament and to ensure a safe, inclusive space where fans can gather for March Madness. GRAPE FLAVOR IS TRENDING Tailwind Endurance fuel just announced its grape flavor is no longer seasonal but part of its core lineup. Skratch just announced grape chews. What's next? Are we going to start seeing Grape Crush at ultramarathon aid stations? I just learned it does come in a drink mix (which has zero sugar, so I would avoid during a race!) But if you need your nostalgia hit pre-race, you can get it with grape Pop Tarts, which according to their own marketing are back by popular demand. Five years ago, I was home from the gym where I had been teaching Wednesday night Strength Training for Runners. I was supposed to be teaching class, but I had just returned home from Finland and having traveled from Europe was a risk factor for this Covid 19 thing going around. I thought I would be home for two weeks but in reality, as you know, it was a lot longer. At the urging of another trainer, I hesitantly figured out the newfangled thing called Zoom and taught class from my home office. I figured I would do it for a couple times and head on back to the gym. Five years on, you can still find me, different home gym, same time and place, on Zoom live to your screen on Wednesday nights.
When I was encouraged to teach online, I was not only hesitant, I thought it was dumb, no one would join and I didn't have interest in learning how to do it. If you would have told me that five years on, I would still be offering this class, I really would never have started. A FIVE year commitment to something EVERY week sounds like a no to me. There are some good lessons in there, about continual learning, being open to new ideas and not being afraid to start, BUT I am not going there. Instead, I want to express my gratitude for those of you who were a part of the five amazing years of Strength Training for Runners at the gym and these last five amazing years of Strength Training for Runners online. If you want in on this super happy fun crew lifting heavy weights and sometimes detergent bottles or Corgis, then JOIN US TOMORROW. Class is always free and the tip jar for snacks is always open. GET UP, RUN FAST, STAY WARM Here are some athletes at the TOP of their game.
KRISPY TREATS VALIDATED If you are one of my coached athletes, you know I am an advocate of the Rice Krispy Treat as fuel for ultras (not exclusively, I am not a savage!). Most people are able to stomach rice-based fuels, they are never super dry and don't melt in the heat. Skratch Labs attempted to make a healthy/sportified version that included quinoa (NO! BAD! STOP!) and it was discontinued because hard chunks of quinoa do not belong in your life. Maurten has a solid bar product in addition to their more popular gels and it is basically an extremely expensive Rice Krispy Treat. And now, the message board Let's Run is incredulous that a track runner has credited the marshmallow treats (and other sugar snacks) with some of his success. I think the evidence is in, the treats have been validated! My go to home recipe for the treats. If you are more a salty type and want to make the treats with potato chips get cooking. One of the key indicators of success for my coached athletes is having a person or people supporting their running goals. I have seen seasons ruined by unsupportive spouses or friend groups that just didn't seem to care. On the flip side, I have seen athletes rise to their potential on audacious goals bolstered by friends who help find good routes and join for part, partners who do pick up from a one way run with snacks and parents who go to races despite having no clue on the distance of a 50k.
Here's the thing, it isn't just luck that these athletes have a supportive circle. All those seemingly lucky people have something in common, which is, they all are part of another person's supportive circle. These athletes lead group runs, sweep races, put on training run events for the fun of it, bake treats for friends after hard races and are actively part of another person's cheer squad. Can you say this for yourself? Good thing is trying out for this cheer squad is free, you already have the uniform and being a small part of someone's success will fuel your own. BE STRONG Time to give this a try! Strength Training for Runners is live to your screen, Wednesday nights. Get the scoop here. STRATEGIC SWEARING "A variety of dosages of swearing (i.e., word used, intensity, frequency, quantity) have been reported to improve physical performance." You read that right, this study says you can let it rip! The effect of swearing on physical performance summary states, "swearing represents a low-risk, effective, and inexpensive intervention that has the potential to acutely improve physical performance although the taboo nature of swearing may limit its utility in real-world situations." Great news! You can swear during Wednesday night Strength Training for Runners since you are on mute! FOR YOUR EARS
"So, what is joy, if not a feeling? Thomas Aquinas defines it as a “consequence of love.” Joy involves a kind of happy alignment with one’s good purpose that provides internal stability. It is this aspect of joy — that it is rooted in an internal condition, rather than external circumstances — that makes it valuable during setbacks. A joyful runner has an internal anchor, or buoyant fixity, on her purpose, that helps carry her through the difficult miles."
Hi all, The above paragraph is from an article by Sabrina Little, philosopher and runner in which she writes on the "Virtues of Despair Resistance". She covers joy, hope and resilience and I encourage you to give it a read. Joy doesn't need to mean you need a smile on your run through slush or inches of mud. Hope doesn't mean toxic positivity and resilience doesn't mean we forget our setbacks. Yesterday I was looking at race data from a race I did in 2017. I thought I would find despair at no longer being able to hold paces anything close to the paces I ran then, but instead I felt proud (joy even?) that I once did that. HOLD THE PHONE, this is a huge win and I am telling you about it not to brag but to say, we CAN get past comparing ourselves to our former selves. It feels like a miracle and maybe this will be the only time this ever happens for me, but HECK YEAH, small win for the week! YOU CAN HAVE A SMALL WIN TOO You have won a free Strength Training for Runners class! And you have won and you have won. OK, it is always free and no one wins, BUT I hope to see you on Wednesday nights. Check it out. Free as always, live to your screen. FLAVORLESS I have been asked multiple times in the last month for fueling options that are flavorless. It is a boom time for fuel and electrolytes without strong flavors, so if you get the ICK from too many sugary flavors, maybe some of these will work. All are sold in single servings by The Feed, so you can test them out. HIGH CARB DRINKS: Tailwind Naked. Maurten Drink Mix. UCAN Energy. ELECTROLYTES: Skratch Labs Clear, Capsules from Precision Hydration or LMNT Raw GELS: UCAN Edge, Precision Original, or just buy this 6 pack of neutral gels and test a bunch of options. SPEAKING OF ELECTROLYTES Electrolytes can be confusing. There are electrolyte drinks sold with concentrations from 300mg of sodium in products like Nuun Sport or products that have the number 500 huge on the package but contain 250mg of sodium. Confused yet? There are products like LMNT that have 1,000mg of sodium, want more salty goodness? Here's one with 1,500. The recommended doses are from almost nothing to the whole salt shaker which is because athletes have different sweat rates. Take a group of runners and one will have a drenched ponytail and one may not even have a glisten. That is normal so the first thing is knowing yourself. If you are soaked with sweat and ringed with white salt marks after a run even when it isn't super-hot, you may be a salty sweater. There are tests for this if you feel like you need some guidance. In the end, you may need something wildly different than your training partner, so start experimenting with what works so summer doesn't have you staring down GI problems, bonks and no fun long run zombie marches. RED-S BONKS If you have suffered from RED-S (or relative energy deficiency in sport) you may be bonking sooner or harder than people who have been consistently fueling and do not suffer from disordered eating. Here is a story from Jenny Tough that may resonate, "Because understanding that you need to fuel is not the same as believing you need to, it takes a long time to work out exactly why and where you’re denying the science" Happy trails! This weekend Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo ran a blistering 4:19 pace at the Barcelona half marathon finishing the race in 56:42, 48 seconds faster than the previous men's world record mark.
I ran the numbers on the mile splits three times because it feels like a joke, both on us everyday runners and on numbers really. 13.1 miles that fast just feels a deep fake. In 1967 the men's half marathon record was just over 1:03. Twenty-six years later, in 1993, the record dipped under one hour for the first time. Twenty-six years of people chipping away, at THREE MINUTES! And the sub-57? We are looking at fifty-eight years to take off those six minutes. All of this is to say, hang in there. Believe. Keep working at it. Double down in your belief. Keep learning. Believe a little more. Buy the news shoes, eat the carbs and run the runs. And of course, get as strong as you can. Need to start on strength training but unsure how? I KNOW! Join me for Strength Training for Runners on Wednesday nights. SHOULD YOU RUN BY MILES OR TIME? I plan all my athlete's training by time. One reason is an athlete can pick a run that is eight miles and three hours on steep stuff, or eight miles can take under 90 minutes on the road. A three-hour run is often not what I am asking, especially on a weekday, so giving time and effort makes it so athletes can let mileage fall where it will. "When you run for time, you avoid the pressure to hit a certain pace and distance, allowing you to execute the workout’s intended purpose." SLEEP DEPRIVATION SCIENCE If you are prepping for a long run this summer, like a big FKT, a mountain 100 miler or a 200+ miler, check this out. A small study points to use of "small, controlled caffeine hits (2mg/kg) every 3 hours through a sleepless night" to improve endurance performance. Other non-caffeinated tips offered as well! THESE PHOTOS! These are the most incredible photos of women in Afghanistan, who have been banned from playing sports, modeling with their sports gear. If you are moved by these photos or the thought of women being banned from a sporting life altogether, Free to Run is an organization doing work to change things. GOOGLE? This week I have seen the following auto populate searches and I have so many questions.
"Our environment invites action. What is your environment inviting?" -Win the Inside Game, by Steve Magness
I am seeing even the most motivated of athletes starting to not love the slush, get sick of the dark and lose motivation for another cold run. I really want to believe the "bloom where you are planted" thrive in any environment, go mental toughness argument, but as people, we MOVE! I can't rule out "these boots are made for walking" in some scenarios. I think the boots are made for walking thinking does assume a certain level of privilege BUT, you don't need to take a training vacation to invite a better environment to shake things up. You can still walk your boots into a better run if you take a little time and some gas. I use this app to check for spots that might have better weather. Just click on the map and it tells you the weather for that area. Why not bloom in the sun, even if just for a few hours! If you are in Portland some trails within two hours to check out that often have sun when Portland has gray are the Deschutes River Canyon, Klickitat River Trail and the trails in Cottonwood Canyon State Park. Let your environment invite the action. And invite a friend, maybe they can drive! And speaking of invites, you are invited to Strength Training for Runners on Wednesday nights. Live to your screen. Always free. Join us! FKT FOR PARA ATHLETES Shawn Chesire ran the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in just under 11 hours to set the first FKT for a para-athlete now that Fastest Known Time has updated their guidelines to include a category for para atheltes. Shawn is blind and ran without a guide. VALENTINES IS FOR THE BIRDS With a donation of $10.00, Alaska's Bird Treatment and Learning center will feed a mealworm named after your ex to one of the birds they are rehabbing. "Need to go bigger for full closure? Donate $100.00, and we'll feed a rat named after your ex to one of our raptors!" RUN WITH A MAP If you want to try your hand at orienteering, the first event of the season for the Columbia River Orienteering Club, CROC, is set for March 1 in Portland and it is a night run. You can get there by bus, these events are great to do with kids, and there is pizza after. The best thing is that it is just $12 per person. Shake up your running with some map reading! More information here. THIS IS A LONG TRAIL The Trans Canada Trail is 14,900 miles long. The trail requires a serious time commitment, some canoeing and a real desire to be alone. Notes from the first person to do the entire trail. "We never saw another canoe in that time, but we heard that there was a man behind us kayaking and a couple in a canoe ahead of us... The man eventually drowned five miles behind us, and Julien from the couple was eaten by a bear." The marketing could be better, HA! SHINGLES If you are 50 or over, you are eligible to get the Shingles vaccine. Here is a well balanced argument in favor of why you should go get it despite it potentially ruining your day post vaccination. Shingles will really ruin some runs if you get it, I turn 50 this year and will be marching down to get the shot for sure. SAYING YES TO THIS Keeping men out of women's sports. "Women’s sports do not exist to make people comfortable, to reinforce gender stereotypes, or to give political points to the patriarchy. They exist to disrupt the status quo. And that’s why, beyond their dehumanization of trans people, which is reason enough to oppose them, trans bans in women’s sports are so upsetting; because they rely on the notion that femininity, above all else, is fragile. And, as someone who actually watches women’s sports on a daily basis and sees what these athletes are capable of, I vehemently disagree." I have been noticing a trend that many afternoon exercisers seem to be more exhausted than usual and more depleted, having to push themselves out the door for runs.
I have long attributed this to running after a long day of life. Studies have shown a connection between mental fatigue and increased perceived exertion from exercise and decline in endurance performance, which makes workouts after a tough day at work feel harder. But now I know there is more to it than being tired from your job. After listening to the Fresh Air episode, "The trouble with 'donating our dopamine' to our phones, not our friends" I realize scrolling through social media is also contributing to our sense of exhaustion and feeling like we need to isolate ourselves under the covers to recharge. "We pull out our phones and we're on TikTok or Instagram, or we're on Twitter and we're flipping, flipping, flipping with our thumbs. And while externally it looks like nothing is happening internally, the dopamine is flowing and we are just thinking, my God, we're feeling outrage, we're feeling excitement, we're feeling humor, we're feeling all sorts of things. We put our phone away and our dopamine levels fall and we feel kind of exhausted by that, which was supposed to be our leisure time." I highly recommend listening to the full episode. It has made me realize that the "break" I was taking from work to look at Instagram was counterproductive and in fact robbing me of the energy I can put in to real life interactions and runs, skis or dinners with friends. If you are seeing yourself in this and want to work on how to make a change, get in touch. I am trying to change my own habits by taking away unlimited social media breaks and limiting use to only a few times a day and on a schedule. I want to have as much energy as possible for my in person interactions INCLUDING afternoon workouts, like Strength Training for Runners, to which you are invited. If you want to join Strength Training for Runners, don't scroll on your phone before it starts, instead, pet your dog, send a friend a quick hello message and then join us, every Wednesday night, information here. HOW FAR WOULD YOU RUN FOR A FREE BURRITO? 700 miles? If you weren't riveted to the Strava X Chipotle Challenge, that went down in January, check it out now, it is a real feel good story. Basically, two runners in Tempe, Arizona ran a 0.3 mile stretch in front of the local Chipotle to log as many segments as possible for the month to win a year of free burritos. The outcome was that Portland's own Kevin Russ and Aravaipa Running's Jamil Coury went head-to-head with almost equivalent mileage going into the final days. Coury finished with a 41-hour continuous effort on the segment for a total of 700 miles on a 3-block stretch for the month. The prize is mostly bragging rights since a burrito a week for a year is valued at just over $700. Story here. YouTube videos of how it went down here. STREAK World’s longest running streak ends after 20,309 days. That is nearly 55 years, WHAT!!! This article also taught me there is a thing called Streak Runners International. They don't accept streaks unless they are over one year long in case you want to register your own streak. SPORTY THINGS I THOUGHT WERE EARLY APRIL FOOLS JOKES
Should Runners Take Creatine? Of course, the answer is maybe. Downsides are potential GI issues that will interfere with your running. Upside is giant muscles and never getting injured. (haha, just kidding, it is never that easy) If you are considering this supplement, read up and decide if it is for you. Happy trails! Everything is on fire,
but everyone I love is doing beautiful things and trying to make life worth living, and I know I don’t have to believe in everything, but I believe in that. - Nikita Gill and reposted by everyone, including the Oatmeal The news is feeling like a hard rain right now. This week's email is good news only as an attempt to bring rays of joy to your inbox. And if you get joy through movement, join in tomorrow for Strength Training for Runners. Class is Wednesday night, live to your screen. Find out more. Best news yet, it is free. HULA HOOPING What makes a hula hoop stay up? Researchers at NYU looked into the science of hooping, including what body types make the best hoopers. You can read all about it here, but basically, bring the hips! Also, it must take guts to be a researcher at NYU and declare, I am studying hula hooping, for real. PROTEIN SOURCES RANKED I like this chart on protein sources. "This is a chart for if:
Plogging. Thanks again to you dear readers for sending me these stories. Originating in Sweden, when Erik Ahlström began picking up litter while jogging in Stockholm, the term is a combination of the Swedish word plocka, which means “to pick up”, and the English word “jogging”. So now we have Plogging! And there is a world championship! And they carry the trash in a bag on a stick, WOW. SUMMER DREAMS If you are over winter, watch this video from last summer of a mountain bike/trail run FKT on Broken Top in Bend. This one is a good reminder to not forget the snacks, bring a friend for safety and chase those dreams! Happy trails! I am back from Norway and if a perfect place exists, it may be there. Excellent public transportation, groomed cross country ski trails between towns, every grocery store with gummy candy bulk bins and a focus on natural products. I have never seen so little plastic junk in my life. In Norway you can camp anywhere as long as you are further than 250 meters from a house. And they have fjords. And cardamom buns.
I went to see if ski expeditions were going to be my new pursuit as I am looking for my next big challenge. I learned so much at the ski expedition course and in the end of the day, it may not be for me. I LOVED pulling the sled, that is my jam. Anything where you work hard and don't have to be fast is awesome. I could have done that all day (and into the night). I love being outside all day, again, give me some work and the outdoors and I am sold. BUT, the nights. Wow it was tedious setting up a tent, boiling water and getting myself warm at negative degrees where you are burning your fingers on anything you touch. And once the tedious work is through, it is a long night being in your sleeping bag waiting to play again. And it could have been way colder, aka scarier. As someone who sleeps extra poorly, the nights really drag when it is so cold you can't even have your face out of the sleeping bag so it is just hours of suffocation and waiting. Here's the thing. Saying I don't want to pursue a ski expedition makes me want to do it. I hate saying no, backing down, and not taking on a challenge. I also have already forgotten how scary it is when your feet are frozen from the 30 minutes it took to prep the tent site. It also seems like, yeah, it is uncomfortable and the time dragged on like it was standing still, but I CAN and did do it. I took videos and videos capturing thoughts during the course for just this reason as I knew I would quickly forget. SO I am asking myself the question, just because I can do something, do I want to? LIFE'S BIG QUESTIONS Here are the rest of the questions from all of you answered, the resources passed along and again, thanks for sending. I love hearing from you and SEEING YOU! I have an idea, come see me TOMORROW on Zoom and let's work out! First Wednesday night Strength Training for Runners of the new year! Get information here and hope to see you. DEXA SCANS Q: I have a friend who gets DEXA scans to monitor progress as a bodybuilder. What are DEXA scans and are they worth it? A: A DEXA scan is a medical imaging test that measures bone mineral density. It can diagnose osteoporosis or osteopenia. DEXA scans for bone density can be covered if you're postmenopausal and older than 65 years or have a condition that leads to a prescription, but otherwise, you will be paying for this imaging out of pocket. Athletes may find other data that can be collected during a DEXA scan relevant, including body composition measurements. A DEXA scan can pinpoint areas of muscle imbalance and track healing of injuries. As for the question of if they are worth it, this Runners World article recommends, "runners who have a poor relationship with food or a history of an eating disorder, multiple or unexplained bone stress injuries or other bone-related medical conditions may find a scan especially useful." HR ZONES AND WARM UPS DO HR ZONES CHANGE THROUGHOUT LIFE? Yes, HR zones will change. In general, HR zone numbers will stay similar unless there are major health or fitness changes like serious illness, major weight fluctuations or long time away from exercise. What will change more is pace at the HR zones. Hopefully with training you will keep getting faster at the same HR. IT SEEMS LIKE MY PACE AT THE SAME HR IS FASTER, IS THIS FITNESS? Yes, this is fitness! Zone 2 training is something you may be hearing about in popular media. Zone 2 training is lower HR work that is aerobic which means while performing workouts at this intensity you can sing and chat, you don't finish famished and done over time, will make you faster. When you hear about athletes building their aerobic base, this is athletes working to get faster by going aerobic and bringing down their pace at the same HR effort. WHY DOES IT TAKE LONGER TO WARM UP THAN BEFORE? As you get older it takes longer to warm up. As we age muscles can get tighter and connective tissue gets less elastic. A good warm up makes the blood flow to muscles and synovial fluids move in the joints. IDEAS AND ARTICLES YOU SENT
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All images and posts © UltraU, 2022. Photos by Runnerteri Photography.