Overcome Running Obstacles at Runner's World

As you can see I have been traveling a lot lately and generally when I travel my days are very long. I generally meet with clients or sales offices and can be out and about for 10-12 hours a day. I have also found that nutrition has been a bit tough as well. Not so much eating bad food, which I do do a bit of while traveling, but having a diet of more feast and famine. For example I always try and have a big breakfast but then often, especially in Europe I would eat until 1pm-2pm, then not have supper until after 9pm. For a few days in while in Spain I ate around 11pm each night, plus it has been difficult to get used to the time changes. Not so much the jet-lag but I am very used to running in the evening and now I run when I can and with the time changes that is rarely the same time as normal.

Well, enough complaining from me. Yes, last week I did slack quite a bit towards the end of the week, but I think now that I will be in one country for more than 3 days I'll be able to get a bit more of a routine going. Those of you who are not living out of a suite case for the next month, here is a good article about finding some motivation to get out there and get those miles in.

Enjoy!

Overcome Running Obstacles at Runner's World

Running Abroad: Portugal

Campo Pequeno

Unfortunately I have not been able to do a whole lot of running outside in either Spain or Portugal. So far while in Portugal I have only got to run on the hotel treadmill, which was not too much fun and it was quite hot.

Lisbon is a great city, it is a bit similar to Madrid and Spain, but still very unique. It actually reminds me a lot San Francisco, CA it is located on a very large river Tagus near the Atlantic.

It is very hilling has a lot of great sites, there is a fair amount of historic sites but a lot of them were ruined on an earthquake in 1755.

Above are some of the photos that I took, traveling alone has its advantages but not when it comes to taking photos with you in them. Though I didn't get to run much in Lisbon the city and people were great, I got to see a lot of the sites and even took in a Sporting Futbol (Soccer) game.

Traveling, working and trying to run is a challenge and often times something does have to give, but for me it is often a great opportunity to see a lot of the city while getting a workout in. All in all I have had a great time and Lisbon has been a lot of fun and hopefully if I get to come back I will be able to get some site seeing in and running.

Running Abroad: Spain

Now don't worry I have not taken part in this sort of running while in Spain, but it would provide plenty of motivation to keep that pace up.

I have not been in Spain for three days and I have been able to run everyday and do my scheduled workouts. The hotel that I am staying at has a nice room with two treadmills so I am able to run there. I would like to run outside possibly in Parque Retiro (It is similar to Central Park in NY, but in Madrid) or Casa de Campo (a very large park that was formally the royal hunting ground of the King and Queen of Spain). Unfortunately the weather has been cold and rainy and I do not have proper clothing to stay dry, so I have been forced to the treadmill. Perhaps tomorrow it will be nicer out and I will be able to get outside for a nice run.

One thing that is difficult is not only the time change but the culture here is Spain is a lot different, obviously, than in the US. For example, I went out with a friend for "Tapas" (similar to appetizers, but they are often given for free when you order a beer or glass of wine) and we were out until 12:00am which is somewhat normal in Spain, they eat dinner much later but get up a bit later too so I have been trying to get over my jet lag and some of the difference in culture.

Being in Spain again has brought back a lot of great memories from when I studied abroad here. Though it is interesting to see the city now that I am not a student. Though I have had several Doner Kebabs while I have been here, which was a staple of my diet while studying abroad, I figure that the company likes it too because they are only 4 euros so quite a bit less to charge. Unfortunately I only have one more day here and I will be off to Portugal and it will be adios to Spain again.

Motivational Speeches:

One of the great moments in sport history was when the US Hockey team defeated the Soviet team in the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York. Dubbed the "Miracle on Ice" legendary hockey coach Herb Brook take a bunch of college hockey players and does the impossible.

Being the 2010 Olympics are going on now I thought it only fitting to provide a little motivation via one of the great moments in sports.

Enjoy!

Video of Speech

Quote of the Day:

"Sometimes the moments that challenge us the most...define us"

-Spirit of the Marathon

Innovations in Treadmills:

I just wanted to quickly post that I have recently discover a few innovations in treadmill that, in my opinion, greatly increase the running experience.

1. Touch Screen multi-media screen built into the treadmill. Fairly easy to use even when running at higher speeds.

2. ipod friendly- I recently got an itouch and it hooks right into the touch screen of the treadmill and I can access and control all the music and videos on my ipod.

3. The ability to hide information on the screen. Up until now I really never cared too much about not being able to see how many miles I ran or how long. However, since I have been doing a lot of miles on the treadmill lately I find that it does help to not have that mileage counter square in your face. This touch screen allows you to hide time, mileage, calories or even change and display different information.

Well that is my plug for the treadmills they have at the gym now and for some reason most people prefer the other ones, so they are alway open. Good news for me.

No that is not actually the picture of the ones they have at the gym.

Product Reviews:

I should mention that I don't recommend racing flats to most runners because if you have not trained properly they will greatly increase your chance of injury. The marginal benefits from a lighter shoe are not worth the increased rick of injury.

Here are a few links to more information about the

Brooks Green Silence

Skins Travel and Recovery Tights

I will do a follow up post when I have had a chance to use these products a bit more and provide a more thorough review.

Inspirational Video:

Hear is a very cool video of Paul Ereng's 800m indoor World Record(at the time).

Enjoy!

Video

The Barefoot Running Debate at Runner's World

The debate on barefoot running goes on. I am far more in the barefoot benefits team, but here is an interesting interview with two people on both ends of the argument.

Enjoy!

The Barefoot Running Debate at Runner's World

Lactic Threshold Workout:

Here is my workout for the lactic threshold run I did on Tuesday so you can get an idea of were my heart rate is.

Garmin Connect -
Activity Details for 9 miles total 4 miles LT

New Gear!!

I am generally not the type to go out and spend too much money on the latest gear, running gadgets or apparel but I did just pony up some cash for running tights. Yes running tights...but not just any tights, these compression recovery tights from Skins are supposed to have similar effects to icing when recovering for a race, hard workout or long flights stuck on an airplane.

So how do they work, well full discloser that I have yet to receive them yet so I will want to post a review until I have had a chance to try them out. The general concept behind compression tights or any compression apparel is that it provides pressure on certain muscle areas to prevent swelling and help promote blood flow. While there is a lot of great studies and information on the benefits of compression wear for recover reason, which is what my new tights will be for, evidence on the benefits of wearing compression apparel during a race or activity is spotty at best.

So I shelled out $120 in hopes that these new tights will aid in my recovery, reduce the effects of jet lag on your body and reduce the amount of times I have to sit in a tub of ice. I did do some research and read some reviews on the different tights and these seemed to be the best. Skins Travel & Recovery compression tights, others that I considered were from Zoot and 2XU but Skins seemed to fit my needs the best.

Training Day #2

Yesterday was my first hard day of training, I did 9 miles total and 4 of the 9 at my lactic threshold (LT). Generally that is about 85%-90% of your max heart rate. Since I don't know exactly what my max heart rate is the general rule is 220 minus your ages which puts me at 195, but I think mine is a bit higher than that. So I cruised along at about 185 which was challenging but seemed about right, for me on a treadmill at about 1.5%-2.0% incline is about 10.0-10.5 mph or a 6:00-5:43 minute mile pace, not too bad.

Ok, enough numbers all in all I felt pretty good for only my 2nd day of official training and I also discovered something worse than icing my legs, which involves me filling my tub with icy water and sitting in it for 5-10 minutes. It is icy during the winter, yes it is exponentially worse to get in a tub of ice when you just came in from 10 degree weather, but you can't deny the benefits of icing.

For those of you wondering why I would subject myself to this and what benefits could justify such an act...I'll tell you. Icing your legs helps to prevent swelling and promote blood flow to muscles which have just been broken down by your workout. This helps them recover more quickly and greatly reduces soreness the next day.

There is a silver lining to icing in the dead of a Minnesota winter, there is plenty of snow outside to grab and through in the tub or freeze a few milk jugs outside without taking up freezer space.

Sad that for at least a few weeks if not months out of the year it is warmer in my freezer than it is outside.

First Day of Training

(That's not me by the way)

It is the first day of my official marathon training program for 2010. Yes, I did manage to find a training program that hopefully will help me break into the 2:30's and beyond. It is definitely a challenging program and peaks in weekly mileage of around 85 miles but is consistently up in the 70's and 80's for weekly totals.

Today was an easy 6 mile run, which I used as a recover run from my fairly hard 11mile run on Sunday and my week of inactivity while in Mexico city last week. The program is from the book Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas. I have only read about 1/3 of it but it provides a lot of great info for serious marathoners and is very specific to marathoning and is a very scientific approach to training. I will post a review once I have finished reading it.