New Shoes

I’m very satisfied with my training for the past week – I was able to get everything in plus a little more (started up training some boxing again). My Sunday run was a bit short, 5 miles instead of 6, but at a faster pace (about 10:40 miles). If anyone else is following Galloway’s training program you might be wondering why I didn’t run 14 miles this past weekend. Well, aggravating my foot a few weeks ago forced me to change the program for a few weeks and as a result I’ll be running 14 miles next weekend (soon to be my personal record).

Due to my foot (Morton’s Neuroma in right foot) I decided to go for it and get some better shoes. Before my Sunday run I headed over to downtown Naperville to the Naperville Running Company, the best store in this area for running shoes and attire. I knew I’d be paying a bit more for shoes but I also knew that they would be better shoes and more specific for my feet and my unique problems. The clerk who helped me asked about the kind of training I was doing as well as the problems I was having and how long I was having them. He then proceeded to look at my current shoes for wear patterns. From this information he picked out about 5 different shoes to have me try on and walk around the store to determine which fit best and gave the best support. All and all I was probably there for about 30 minutes but the shoes I left with felt considerably better with last nights run (even with the faster than usual pace).

I will post some helpful hints on choosing your own running shoes Tuesday or Wednesday this week.

Hydration

Staying hydrated

If you want your runs to be more enjoyable (easier) and perform at your best you will need to stay hydrated. A loss of just 5% of your body weight in sweat is enough to significantly decrease your performance (that works out to 7.5 lbs for a 150 pound person). Even a loss of 2% (4lbs for a 150 pound person) can result in a reduction in your performance, as well as placing greater stress on your heart. In addition, all of us remember the Gatorade advertisements stating that thirst is a poor guide for hydration

Maintaining hydration is especially important when engaging in long duration endurance exercise (greater than an hour) or even moderately long exercise (greater than half an hour) in hot weather.

The first step in staying hydrated during exercise is to stay hydrated during the rest of the day. As a minimum you should be drinking a half-gallon of water (or at least total fluid – not counting alcohol) over the course of the day. If needed, you can flavor water with sugar free drink mixes or mix juice half and half with water. Drinking flavored water has repeatedly been found to increase fluid intake (most of us can down a glass of juice or other beverage faster and with greater ease than the same volume of plain water). Chilling the water you drink also helps increase consumption, especially on hot days.

It is actually better to drink small amounts over the whole day instead of drinking all your water in just a few sittings – this is because too much water at once just results in more of it being lost in urination.

I make it a practice to keep 32oz refillable bottles of water in my refrigerator at home and the office. Anything larger than that becomes warm before I can drink the whole thing (some people I know use 16 or 8 oz bottles).

Hydration during the long runs:

Prior to your run

• When to eat – any meal should be eaten at least 2 hours before your long run, to soon before your run and you could end up with cramps or nausea or worse vomiting. What you eat is something you’ll have to experiment with, as a general rule eat something light and easy to digest. – you will want to experiment with what you can eat before your runs to find out what you can tolerate.


• About 2 hours before your run drink 17oz of water or sports drink.
  Weigh your self and record it!

During your run

• Aim for about 8 ounces every 20 minutes. You may need to adjust this depending on weight lost during previous runs as well as your opportunity to drink during your run (most of us don’t have access to drinks every 20 minutes). Personally I place 32ounce bottles every 2-3 miles along my course. I go back later to pick up the empty bottles (I try and go by the naturalist adage “Take only pictures and leave only footprints” – in this case meaning don’t leave your garbage behind).
  


• On runs longer than one hour you need to pay attention to electrolytes and carbohydrate.
  


• Sports drink guidelines:
  Max of 15g of carbohydrates per 8 ounces
  70mg Sodium per 8 ounces

After your run

• Weigh yourself and compare to pre run weight.


• If you have maintained hydration you should weigh the same, if you weigh less after a long run you didn’t drink enough to keep up with fluid loss. To replace fluid loss you will need to drink 23 ounces of water for each pound lost (eat some salty snacks with the water or consume a sports drink with sodium).

If you want more detailed information on hydration during exercise I encourage you to follow the links below:

American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand: Exercise and Fluid Replacement
http://www.acsm-msse.org/pt/pt-core/template-journal/msse/media/0196.htm

National Athletic Trainers Position Statement: Fluid Replacement for Athletes
http://www.nata.org/statements/position/fluidreplacement.pdf

Gatorade Sports Science Institute
http://www.gssiweb.com/

12 Miles

Made it through my 12 mile run. Kept it slow and ended up averaging 12:30 min/miles. I was quite happy that my foot held up through the whole run, only a little tingling in my toe but no actual pain. From now on I’ll be breaking my record for longest run (my longest run ever was 12.4 miles for a 20k race back in high school).

Training for the week was pretty much as I scheduled it, with the exception of Thursday and Friday. Thursday I worked out with some competitive Powerlifter’s I know – an hour and a half on Bench Press. I made it through the workout but knew I wouldn’t be running that day. Friday I ran for 30 minutes in the morning after a shorter Deadlift workout. By Friday afternoon I was really feeling the after effects of the Bench Press workout – extreme soreness in my left pec muscle. By Friday night I noticed that my left pec wasn’t only sore but it was swollen – so I began icing it about once an hour along with applying DMSO to the area. I was a bit worried that my pec soreness might interfere with my run on Sunday since any movement seemed to increase the pain. By Sunday afternoon the swelling was down a bit and the pain was less and it didn’t interfere with my run and the run seemed to actually help it.

A short note on hydration (I’ll post a more complete guide on Tuesday or Wednesday this week) – prior to my run I weighed myself, 167.5lbs. To prepare for this run I placed frozen bottles of Gatorade at strategic spots along the course. After my run I weighed myself again and I was down to 166.5lbs, despite having consumed close to a half gallon of Gatorade during my run (1/2 gallon = 4 lbs). You can see even with a relatively cool night fluid loses were pretty high. For every pound of weight lost from sweat you should consume about 23 ounces of water. I advise anyone performing long runs to always weight them self before and after to determine if you are in water deficit.

Foot pain

It’s been a few weeks since I last posted. Training has been progressing fairly well though I have encountered a few snags. My long runs have been great and I’ve progressed to a 4:1 (jog:walk) interval. The area that I’ve had some snags is my runs during the week – some I’ve missed and others have been over short.

Run for this past Sunday was supposed to be 12 miles but had to cut it short due to my Morton’s Neuroma in my right foot acting up. I have had this neuroma for about 8 years now, it’s only painful when it gets irritated and inflamed and then it can feel like I’m constantly stepping on a sharp rock. I had it treated last summer with injections aimed at killing that section of the nerve but found out in December that it had grown back, up until this Sunday I hadn’t had a trouble with it since it flared up in December. This Sunday morning I went to the pet store with my daughter to buy some pet food. While I was at the store I turned to reach for something with my foot planted on the ground and suddenly it felt like some one had stabbed me in my right foot. As soon as a got home I began icing my foot, and iced it 2 times before I went out for my run, scheduled to be 12 miles. I played it smart and only did a short run followed by more icing. As of today my foot feels about back to normal so we’ll see how it feels after tonight’s run. Now I only need to take care of it until the marathon.
For some basic information on Morton’s Neuroma: http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/sma/sma_mortons_sma.htm

Since my last post I have switched to a low carb diet during the week (under 60g carbs/day), I do eat carbs on Sunday to help out with the demands of the long run. This has resulted in my losing 8 pounds. I have remained vigilant about my hydration and have continued to drink a minimum of half a gallon of water every day.

To prevent me from missing any training this week I’m posting my plan for the week:
Mon –
Kettlebells
3 sets of 10 swings followed by 10 sumo squats
1 min rest
3 sets of 5 Getup situps per side followed by 20 Russian twists 1 minute rest after each set
1 ladder of 1-3 reps clean and press followed by 5 high pulls to snatch on each side
20 minute walk

Tues – 30 minute jog

Wed –
Kettlebells
3 sets of 10 swings followed by 10 sumo squats
1 min rest
3 sets of 5 Getup situps per side followed by 20 Russian twists 1 minute rest after each set
2 ladder of 1-3 reps clean and press each ladder followed by 5 high pulls to snatch on each side (1 minute rest after each circuit)
20 minute walk

Thu – 30 minute jog

Fri –
Kettlebells
3 sets of 10 swings followed by 10 sumo squats
1 min rest
3 sets of 5 Getup situps per side followed by 20 Russian twists 1 minute rest after each set
3 ladders of 1-3 reps clean and press each ladder followed by 5 high pulls to snatch on each side (1 minute rest after each circuit)
20 minute walk

Sat – Rest

Sun – 12 mile run using 4:1 ratio

A very cold run

Last Sunday was an easy 3 miles so I don’t have much to report on that one (it was sort of a vacation from my long runs). This past Sunday was my 8 miler, now we’re talking real distance. I started out with my 3:30/1:00 jog/walk but had some trouble due to the weather. The distance and the run itself actually seemed fairly easy; it was the cold and wind that was difficult to deal with.

Before I went out Sunday I checked the weather and sunset time (the temperature has been dropping significantly here around sunset) to be sure I’d dress appropriately. Well, I miscalculated badly and suffered for it. I went out at 5:45 in shorts and a short sleeve shirt, after placing frozen water bottles at the 2, 4 and 6 mile marks. The run began well, even though I was a little cool I thought as soon as I got warmed up I’d be fine. At the 2 mile mark I was still cool with the sun behind a cloud and the wind picking up. By the time I made it home my fingers were very stiff from the cold and when I looked at the temp I saw it was 55 degrees (by far my most unpleasant run this year).

A good tip is to always have bring an extra cover up if you have any doubts about the weather (I didn’t and I paid for it).

Keep it slow when you go long

I made it through my 7 miler on Sunday in great shape (3:30/1:00 jog/walk ratio) and actually felt better than I did for my 5 miler 2 weeks ago. This time I actually followed Galloway’s advice to run slow – something that can be very hard for me to do. I am always tempted to get the long runs done quick, an hour pushing it seems easier than trudging it out for an hour and a half. In addition, I feel competitive when I run – whenever I see other people running ahead of me I want to “reel them in” and get past them. This time I fought these feelings and had a more enjoyable run and felt great today (compared to the heavy fatigue I felt on Monday two weeks ago).

Returning to the subject of hydration and electrolytes – I am continuing to research this issue to gain more complete understanding of it before I make recommendations. At this point I will say maintaining hydration on a daily basis is a must and the bare minimum for fluid intake is 64 ounces a day (half gallon). Personally, I accomplish this by filling a half gallon pitcher in the morning and placing it in the refrigerator. I make it a goal to finish half the pitcher by the time I finish lunch. In addition to this I also take 500mg magnesium in the morning and have substituted using table salt in cooking with using salt substitute (potassium chloride). My rational behind these steps is that magnesium deficiency is the most common mineral deficiency in the US and potassium is frequently deficient in endurance athletes. I hope this helps until I complete my review of the research literature.

Upcoming posts:

• How to start running
• Buying shoes
• Kettlebell training
• And – Hydration and electrolytes (of course)

Calf cramps

I’m a little late getting this posted – actually had it written yesterday but forgot to post it.

Training over this past week has gone extremely well, especially considering that my daughter had her tonsils taken out in the middle of the week (I have to thank my wife for letting me take the time to get my runs in). This next long run will be a real test for me (7-8 miles next Sunday).

I had the importance of hydration and electrolytes reinforced yesterday morning when I was woken up by a severe cramp in my calf. Muscle cramps are a common complaint with running, especially during warmer weather, and can even occur while you are running. To avoid this very painful problem you need to maintain hydration and electrolyte balance.

I’ll post the recommended electrolyte and fluid replacement levels by the end of this week.