Ryan

2015 at HillRunner.com

/ HillRunner.com Admin / 3 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I wanted to give a quick update on HillRunner.com as 2015 starts.

I wanted to do a recap of 2014 but that didn’t get done. Here’s a quick one in its place. 2014 was an amazing year. I never could have imagined where the year would take HillRunner.com a year ago at this time. The biggest headline would have to be the partnership with the Seattle Marathon. It’s been an incredible opportunity on many fronts and I’ll be eternally grateful to the people in Seattle for placing their trust in myself and HillRunner.com. I hope 2014 was just the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial relationship.

In addition to the Seattle Marathon partnership, many other things happened at HillRunner.com in 2014. Most visibly, the new format. While small changes are always happening, this was the first ground-up redesign of the site in its 15 year history. Gone is the left sidebar and here is the more efficient and modern top menu. More importantly, here is a mobile-friendly design that makes HillRunner.com as easy to read on your phone as it is on your desktop computer.

So what will 2015 bring? Well, as the Seattle Marathon partnership proved in 2014, it’s hard to say for sure what is coming. What I can tell you are my priorities for 2015 and here they are:

1) Keep my eyes and ears open for new opportunities. I always want to be ready for the next opportunity. Whether it’s a race partnership, another kind of partnership or something completely different, I will do my best to be ready to capitalize on whatever opportunity may present itself.

2) Keep building out the blogs. They will be undergoing constant evolution for years I’m sure.

3) Bring back the podcast. Time permitting, this is something I definitely would like to work on.

4) Videos. The runners I coach already have access to one video. I will be shooting more videos and sharing them with the runners I coach and, with their approval, with a more broad audience. I am still working through the details myself but there may be a nominal fee that will allow access to the videos as well as potentially other resources.

5) Other changes. HillRunner.com is always evolving. I have a task list with changes primarily for the blogs and training log but also for almost anything you could imagine.

In closing, let me ask you. What would you most like to see at HillRunner.com in 2015? Did I mention something above that especially excites you? Is there something you would love to see here that I didn’t mention? I want to make your wishes my priorities but I can only do so if you share your wishes. Feel free to do so with a comment here or by using the contact form.

Mental fatigue and running performance

/ Roundups / 2 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Just one topic this week but I think it’s an important one.

Have you ever had a rough day, maybe a tough day at work, then gone out for a run? Sometimes, just the release of the stress helps us run better. Sometimes, though, we feel physically drained from the day. Even if we didn’t do anything physical.

Do we actually feel this way or are we just imagining things? Well, we’re not just imagining things. Maybe it’s all in our heads but that doesn’t make it real.

Mental fatigue impairs intermittent running performance. This negative effect of mental fatigue appears to be mediated by higher perception of effort.

So what should we do about this? Well, we can’t completely avoid mental fatigue if it’s a part of our lives, as I’m sure it is for most of us. But maybe we can plan around it. Try to do less stressful, less mentally challenging things on the day before and the day of a race. As much as reasonable, also try to do less challenging things before your workouts or other hard days unless you’re intentionally trying to train to push through mental fatigue.

For what it’s worth, I also believe that the same can happen with emotional fatigue. All of these different kinds of stress and fatigue, to the body, are the same thing. So also try to stay away from emotionally stressful situations before a race or, when possible, hard workout.

Finally, remember that these things are happening. If you’re feeling physically worn down after a mentally or emotionally draining experience, don’t beat yourself up over it. Accept that you’re just worn out and give yourself a break.

Enjoy the holidays

/ Training / 2 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

As the runners I coach should know by now, I don’t have many hard rules but one of those I do have is family comes first. No matter how important running is to you, there is nothing more important than family. For many families spread far and wide, the holiday season is the one time a year when they still get together. No matter how important your running is to you, during this time, don’t put your running ahead of your family.

This doesn’t mean you don’t run during the holidays. For many of us, running is more than just the sport we choose to compete in. It’s a coping mechanism, a stress relief and simply a great way to center ourselves. Especially when spending a lot of time in close proximity to people who you may have grown away from in some ways, it’s important to have those exact things. In order to avoid family feuds, it may be necessary to slip out for a run to destress and get yourself recentered.

Maybe you can even keep your training largely intact. If so, great. If not, don’t fight it. Do what you can and you’ll have January to get your training rhythm back. Just be sure to keep your priorities in mind. Don’t let a handful of training runs get in the way of quality family time.

On a related note, I’ll be attempting to make my usual Monday posts for the next two weeks but don’t count on the usual Thursday posts. I will very likely be too busy enjoying the holidays and time with family.

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Fitness and sweating, muscles support the arch

/ Roundups / 2 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

A lot of interesting things to read this week but I’m going to focus on an old myth that I bought into myself and another old myth that I never truly understood.

Fitness and sweating

First, the one I believed. I remember a long time ago being told that out of shape people sweat more than someone of average fitness but then the trend turns as you gain higher levels of fitness. One of the adaptations of becoming more fit is that you sweat more to moderate body heat.

Well, maybe not…

Essentially, fitter runners sweat more because they run faster and burn more energy, creating more heat. They produce more heat through burning more energy so they sweat more to regulate that heat. Put people of different fitness levels on a treadmill at the same pace and, as a whole, they sweat the same amount.

The catch is that efficiency matters. If you’re less efficient, you burn more energy, produce more heat and sweat more. Not real surprising.

I’m not sure how much we can take away from this other than correcting a myth and appreciating another benefit of improving our efficiency.

Muscles support the arch

For as long as I can remember, the talking point on the feet was that ligaments do the bulk of the work in the foot. They support the arch to act in a spring-like manner. That always left me wondering, why do we even have muscles in the foot? They aren’t big muscles that can be used in propelling us forward. So what are they doing? It only made sense to me that they work with the ligaments to support the arch and other structures of the foot.

Now, we have some evidence that this is the case.

In this article, the discussion is on how this knowledge might affect running shoe design. Maybe because I’m mostly interested in training, though, I instantly began thinking about what this means to training paradigms. We shouldn’t be ignoring the muscles of the foot. We should be strengthening them right along with the muscles of the leg. I would love to see some research but my gut says maybe doing so would reduce the risk of foot injuries that plague too many runners.

Ask me anything

/ HillRunner.com Admin / 2 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

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About 6 months ago, I posted an "Ask me anything" topic and said I would do so on occasion. So here it is again, an open invitation to you to ask me anything.

If you want to ask publicly, you can do so in the comments*, on Facebook or you can tweet at HillRunner.com (or tweet at my personal account). If you want to ask more privately, you can use the contact form or, if you’re friends with me on Facebook or you know my email address, you can reach me through those options.

Within reason, nothing is off limits. Ask about training, racing, my thoughts on any news in the sport. Ask about the site, the coaching service or anything else that’s going on.

So, please let me know, what have you been thinking about and wanting to ask?

Let me start, though, with a question to you. What would you most be interested in seeing in 2015 at HillRunner.com? There are several initiatives I have in mind but I’d be curious if there’s something I may not be thinking of or that I should prioritize.

* Note: Guests can now post comments! So, if you really don’t want to register but you do want to ask a question, you can do so.

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