Training

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

I’m sure we’ve all heard about beet juice as a performance enhancing supplement. Well, we may now have a more tasty (in my opinion) alternative.

Watermelon juice appears to have similar benefits:

The increase in time-to-exhaustion in a test that lasted about 10 minutes was 12 percent, which might correspond to a time-trial improvement of a bit less than 1 percent. There are many, many unanswered questions, such as whether trained athletes would get similar benefits.

I’m left wondering a few things that I suspect future studies will answer:

1) Is this real? Will future studies corroborate this result?

2) How does the benefit compare to beet juice?

3) Will taking both increase the benefit of taking either separately?

Obviously, more research is needed in this area and I’m sure it will be coming. The initial results, though, seem very interesting.

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

Last year, I listened to a TED Radio Hour podcast episode titled Champions. I wanted to write about it at the time but never got around to it. That episode ran again last week and I’m not going to let it slip by again.

In the podcast, the host interviewed three speakers, two athletes and a sports journalist. All had some interesting comments on what makes a champion. I highly recommend listening to the whole episode but I’d like to highlight a few points raised.

From Diana Nyad (first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage) on what makes a champion:

The fear of failure is stronger, more motivating, than any other fear they’ve got.

What a great answer! They don’t let anything stand in their way because their biggest fear is not accomplishing the goal.

What can we take from this? Well, we may have fears that are greater than our fear of failure. Not everyone is trying to swim from Cuba to Florida or become an Olympic champion and that’s fine. However, I always think of the Michael Jordan quote here:

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

If we put ourselves out there, we’re going to fail. Fearing that failure will hold you back from taking the chance at success. Sometimes you have to take risks. Of course we need to consider the pros and cons. I’m not telling you to show up at the Boston Marathon next year and run with the elites because you no longer fear failure. However, be willing to take a chance. Push the pace a little harder than you normally would at your next race. Challenge someone you always seem to finish right behind. You can’t succeed without risking failure.

From David Epstein (sports journalist and a great speaker and writer – I highly recommend his talk and reading some of his other work) there were several interesting topics but I’d like to focus on this one:

Actionable goals: Set more proximate goals that tell you what you need to do today.

There were other parts but I’m going to focus on this. Listen to his whole talk because there is a lot of good material in there.

What can we take from this? We all (hopefully) have goals for our next race. Those are great and we need to have those goals. However, we also need to have more immediate goals. What are you going to do today to get to that longer term goal? Think about that every day when you wake up.

Also good advice for other parts of your life.

From Amy Purdy (amputee snowboarder, Paralympic medalist):

Instead of looking at our challenges and our limitations as something negative or bad, we can begin to look at them as blessings. Magnificent gifts that can be used to ignite our imaginations and help us go further than we ever knew we could go. It’s not about breaking down borders. It’s about pushing off of them and seeing what amazing places they might bring us.

Another great line! I love this!

What can we take from this? I know it may seem a little cliche but try reframing "obstacles" as "opportunities". At the very least, don’t let an obstacle block you. Find your way around. If possible, catapult off that obstacle and find a way to use it as a positive.

For example, you can’t run in the evening because you have to practice soccer with your child. Why not turn this into a training opportunity? Get some running in. Practice some agility drills that will improve your strength and neuromuscular coordination, making you a better runner. Maybe the run can happen in the morning and the evening soccer session with your child becomes a second training session.

We can’t all be Olympians or do amazing feats that seem impossible to the normal person. However, we can take ideas from the people who are doing these things or have achieved those levels of greatness and apply them to our lives. Above are just a few things we can take from this episode to make ourselves better, in and out of running. Listen to the episode and you might get even more ideas. I know I did.

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

Hey,

I have been very consistent with my trainig, but my diet is terrible, i am 192 pounds and when I ran my best times I was about 155-160 pounds, so I think the only way that I ll run that fast again is in that weight.

Could you please put an example of the food and snacks that you eat on a daily basis, do you eat junk food here and there?

Thanks a lot

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

Just one link this week but I think it’s a very good one.

We’ve probably all heard by now about the importance of keeping a training log. I hope we all are keeping a training log.

In addition, have you considered writing before a race about not just your training but also your upcoming race? Especially if you’re nervous about the race, it could be helpful.

This article about writing about your running makes a good case for writing more about your running.

It covers the training log aspects. The idea of reviewing your training to gain confidence in the work you have done, seeing where your strengths and weaknesses lie and so on.

In addition, it puts a real focus on writing about your race ahead of time. By getting your aspirations, apprehensions and other feelings about a race down on paper (or, I suppose, pixels) before the race, I believe that allows you to deal with your emotions ahead of time. As mentioned in the article, it also allows you to remember what your goals are, why you set those goals in the first place and plan out the best strategy, including backup plans in case something doesn’t go as originally planned, to accomplish those goals.

Writing out your plans and reviewing your logs also allows you to ensure your goals truly fall in line with where you are in your training. Maybe you find that your original goal was too aggressive and you can back off it a little. Or it was a little too conservative and you can bump it up a little.

So, if you’re not keeping a training log right now, what are you waiting for? Get started! If you are, great but are you doing more? Try writing down your goals and your plan to accomplish those goals before your next race.

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

"If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself." – Albert Einstein

We all know the person who knows it all. This person has no trouble talking your ear off with big words and scientific names. You’re blown away by this person’s knowledge. You can’t keep up with all the terminology. Unfortunately, a lot of what this person has to say is lost on you because you simply can’t follow along.

However, here’s something to think about. Does the person really know what he or she is talking about? How are you to know? All you know is you don’t know what he or she is talking about.

It’s easy to memorize and use a few big words. For certain personality types, it can also be quite fun. It makes them feel smart, even if they aren’t totally sure of what they are talking about.

In my experience, the bigger the words and more inaccessible the language the person uses, the less the person actually knows about what he or she is talking about. The better one’s ability to explain things in plain, everyday language, the better grasp of the topic that individual has. The Einstein quote above articulates this phenomenon quite well. If a person can’t explain what he or she is talking about in plain language that anyone can understand, how well does that person really understand what he or she is talking about?

More important, if you don’t understand what that person is talking about and that person can’t or won’t use plain language, what are you getting out of the discussion? Frustration? Confusion? Certainly not useful, actionable knowledge.

Next time you encounter someone using big words, don’t hesitate to ask them to explain in more plain language. If they are truly knowledgeable on the topic, they will appreciate your request and gladly do so. If they don’t, they probably don’t know the topic as well as they would claim and you’re not going to get anything out of the conversation anyway so you’ll know all you need to know to end the conversation with the confidence that you’re not losing anything by doing so.