The Running Gods.

     As with anything you do in life there is always a higher power watching over you, or guiding you in the right direction. Some easy examples being teachers at school, a boss at a job. That's simple to understand, with religion it becomes more different, wars have started because of it. All because someone thinks the higher power is a fat guy sitting cross legged with a weird moustache versus a white dude with a beard in a bath robe. All and all maybe a crazy for the heavy church goers here, because of course your religion is correct. But for those of us out there on the road every day, hammering miles and what not, who should we look up to? Who are the runner gods?

     Let me try to explain some of them.

Pheidippides: Obviously a legend, runs from the battlefield of Marathon all the way to Athens without stopping to deliver the message of victory, and then dies. He surely knew what a suicide pace was.

The Ancient Greeks: For creating the Olympics games, which started as a sole footrace every four years which was enough to stop wars for the time of the games.

Skjegg: The running god of cross country and base training, from his beard comes the strength to face the coming of the cold, wet, and windy season ahead.

Arthur Newton: Not to be mistaken with Isaac Newton but maybe more important, this man is the godfather of high mileage, he won the Comrades Marathon 5 times in his career and set records in races from 60-100 miles.

The Flying Finns: The Finnish runners competed throughout the early 20th century doing impossible things lead by the great Paavo Nurmi. The inventors of the Fartlek, which happened to inspire the next name on this list.

Emil Zatopek: The only human to win the 5'000, 10'000 and Marathon at the same Olympics. The inventor of interval training. He gains special recognition on this list due to the turmoil that took places years later when he was stripped of his status of legend and forced to work in uranium mines because he was a communist, but it did not break him.

Arthur Lydiard and Percy Cerutty: From New Zealand and Australia respectively, not runners themselves but philosophers of the sport, their athletes were some of the best in the world. They coached athletes to World Records without any science to back up what they were doing. To commit to their teachings is to commit to success in running and in life.

Finally I give you Steve Prefontiane: Maybe the Jesus of the running world, he died for us and died for the sins of the heal strikers, the head bobbers, and the race walkers. He made the sport appealing and more importantly put focus on two things that we all care for: winning and drinking beer.

     An important thing to remember is this list does not include all of them, just some of the ones I believe in. The list extends to anyone who has made you believe you could accomplish something greater than yourself. I close this post with a prayer, I started praying to these guys when I was in grade 12, and most importantly when praying to these gods, its important to not only be serious, but also to let the humour in life come out as well.

     Dear runner gods,

     We thank you for the good weather you have given us, and the high mileage you have aloud me to run.  I pray to you to allow me a healthy and happy season, allow me to run fast and run strong. On a side not, I wish not to have to poop mid race again..

Thats all folks.

     rj

Don't Forget Folks, That's What You Get Folks....

     I usually am not one who cannot make up his mind, but for the last couple months, I have been quite torn. I signed up for the Ottawa Race Weekend 10km this year, moving up from the 5km which I ran last two years. Both times just ran for fun, nothing serious. This year some of the guys decided to buck up and sign up too. So I have been sitting in my room staring at my wall trying to decided whether or not to go after it or slowly build through the summer. After careful consideration, I have decided to have a crack at it. Training will be pretty simple, but hopefully it will go well. It should be a fast race and hopefully I can get a PB out of it. Now just have to decide what singlet to wear... Decisions, decisions...

     In other news, the little town I currently reside in is a big fan of winter, it seems each day we get another foot of the fluffy white stuff. The snow doesn't usually angry me to much, but running on the same 4 roads every day has taken a toll on me mentally, and the worst part is, last week we got a glimmer of hope as it was warm enough to strip down to shorts. What makes this even worse is the fact that I care enough about the damn weather to rant about it on the internet! Absolutely pathetic.

     Thanks for listening, now if you let me finish, 

... For Playing Whoopee. 

rj

Season Ender, Season Opener

Wrapped up early after a few races because indoors. Why prolong the torture. Raced a couple of times, in a couple of cool places, faded hard from the front at least once. The season was a get-in-pb-get-out-with-the-fewest-injuries-possible situation. As soon as things began getting sore, it's time to call it.

In four short weeks I will be travelling approximately 1 hour south to an undisclosed location for a beermile classic. Given the field assembled, my goal is to place top 5 and/or sub 5:40. These are very aggressive goals I realize, but this is not an average casual beermile. With multiple worlds competitors, and numerous up and comers, it is arguably one of the deepest group of beermilers to race in Ontario within recent years. Actually kind of hoping they make heats, as the participation is looking to top out at around 50+ competitors. That's a lot of people to get around on the track, not to mention the associated difficulty of locating your brew within 200 other beers.

Following in the path of consumption athletics, the annual H2MC will precede the beermile by one week and hopefully prove to be a good prep race. The goal here is to take back my title and course record. Last year consisted of gross over training in the eating/route planning category and undertraining in the running position (read: 3 days off before the event). Things will be different this time.

As the worst of winter comes to a close, it's time to prepare for a higher mileage phase and run some road races, maybe some long track racing too.

Get sum in all things college,

D.C.

With Two Feet and a Heart Beat I Can Do Anything.

     Not everything has necessarily went according to plan over the last couple years. From being burnt to a f***ing crisp, to never wanting to run again, to a 5 month injury, to seasons of mediocre results and sub par performances. Now here I am starting to build for the summer and ultimately my final university season. I am putting the past behind me and looking only towards the future. And the future looks pretty good as long as this snow melts; I'm already feeling imprisoned in February. So to get right down to it the plan is fairly simple: be consistent, be patient, learn from past mistakes, listen to the body, recover, and finally pursue excellence.

     I understand that this plan is fairly abstract, but for past 2 years I have spent days formulating a 4 month plan for the summer and although it has been successful, I don't want to feel tied down to something right now. I want to run unattached to words on paper.  When looking at a predetermined schedule I always notice that I can already tell how the week is going to feel and how I will react to the stress. Although this is a nice way to train, I want to leave my comfort zone.

     With that in mind, I have to admit I have given my brain to much power in the decision making dealing with my running career. Therefore from this point foreword I will attempt to let both my body and my heart do the decision making. Not god, sorry Ryan Hall that plan hasn't really worked out for you. In which I have one lofty goal for the next 365 days. And it is to break all of my current personal bests from the half marathon down to the 400m and also break my personal best from a 28km trail race that I like to do and the beer mile too and chase the course record at the Deep River 6x1mile relay.



Cheers,

 rj.


p.s. if you want in on the deep river 6x1mile course record attempt contact me, free beer if we get the record.

Time to be Real with Myself

Ok, lets be straight up about realistic goals here. What am I in this for?

As I was practicing my water can chug, stalling at 8 mid or 7 high night after night, I came to realize - it's time to stop fooling around. Let's be honest. I am never going to be able to actually chug frothy carbonated, sting-the-back-of-your-throat beer in world class time.

However, from that low I find a reassuring high point. I need to focus on STRENGTHS. Sure, my chug isn't the fastest in the world. So I make up with volume and capacity handling, as well as running ability. In the future you can BET I'll be doing more training using what I call Sequentials (where the aim is to average high chug speed for a number of cans, as well as overall time for the sequence).

This usefulness of this volume-focused exercise gets reinforced when you look at the fact that a can can't really be completely poured any faster than 6.5 seconds without being altered. Therefore, the gap between the very best chugger and yourself is limited to no more than your chug time subtract 6.5 seconds (give or take). After all, how can a beermiler chug faster than the speed at which the liquid can flow from the can? This is reassuring indeed.

But back to sequences. Sequences can be anywhere from 2 to 6 or more cans. Will I ever attempt a session of sequences to failure? Who knows. The session involves chugging each can repetitively, one after another, using water, or in rare race simulation environments, actual brew. The exercise can be considered a success if each can chug time is within a second of the others. The key here is consistency. Volume handling.

When it comes down to it, if I can some day manage sub-10 second chugs and sub 13 second total transition times within race environments consistently, I will be a happy camper.

So in answer to my original question, I am in this to push the limits of my abilities that contribute to a fast beermile, whether they are naturally high-level or not. Whether the combination of these will some day qualify me for the fast heat of BMWC is yet to be seen., but make no mistake: that is the goal.

D.C.

The Rhythm.

     The whole concept of time is beginning to confuse me, a fact that we know is that time can both slow down and speed up depending on certain factors. Examples being how enjoyable is this moment right now. For those reading this, probably not very enjoyable. But does this mean it is possible to have a 27 hour day or maybe even a 22 hour day? The unit of 60 min being 1 hour and how there are 24 hours in 1 day is very structured. But then again, life itself for a student-athlete is even more structured. 

     

     I mean true freedom is seldom an option while attending university, and I'm guessing also when one enters the real world as well. Lucky for me I guess, the art of putting one foot in front of the other repeatedly until either utter exhaustion or when the 60 min is up, is the most free I feel during the day. But it is also the part of my day, when time itself seems to not exist. Yes I may be wearing a watch(rarely) but the numbers that appear are meaningless. 

     I try to live in the present, without thinking to much about the "good ol days" or about whats down the road for me. By all means I a not saying that I don't think ahead, but more so I think ahead knowing that a couple curve balls will be thrown my way. The key is to overcome this adversity and maintain your own rhythm.   

     I guess to loop this all back to running as I should because we all love that sport, run because you love it, and run because it slows down time, run because it is the most natural art a human can take part in, and run because the beating of your heart, the soft foot strikes against the pavement, and your gentle breath create a rhythm that is yours. So ya better rock out to it!

rj.

Does this exist?

Picked up Lore the other day and was reading about the indoor distance races held in Europe in the 19th century. These would be held in small, smoke-filled arenas and men would bet on the races that could last upwards of 2 or more hours. One-on-one racing wasn't uncommon either, with small compensation for the athletes.

Now imagine a running movie in the "amateur boxer" theme, like The Fighter, or early Rocky movies. Set in the winter, with the protagonist moving through the ranks of the grimy indoor circuit. Cut the distances down to 3 or 5 kilometers, or whatever (for the sake of drama). Maybe inflate the whole indoor running scene more than is historically accurate, and get into the underground betting rings and the dirt that goes with them. Maybe the antagonist is the "better" runner, and wants to fix a race but our main character is faster than expected, and throws a wrench into the plans. Maybe it could be a USA vs Europe situation (Americans would love that).

You could do a lot with this. With creative writing and directing, and a believable set of characters, you could appease both the running and non running crowd, a problem most modern running related movies haven't been able to solve. This is one of the only contexts that the ridiculous training methods seen in modern running films would actually fit. 

Has there already been a movie made similar to what I am describing? 

-D.C.

Cross Country 365

Sometimes I hate running. Wait, that's a lie. Sometimes I hate racing, not that it makes me nervous, or I'm scared of competition or anything like that. I picked up the sport of cross-country because of two things.

1. The classic: Not good at other sports.
2.  Wanted to see more of the world.

Me running has never been solely about winning a certain race, or running a certain time. That is just the bonus. I run because I like to explore, I like to push my body to its limits going farther and farther eventually breaking through stronger on the other side. Back in grade 8, our XC program was simple, go out and run said loop. if you get back before practise is over, do another loop. Not that I was a child protege in grade 8, but I was running 5 or 6km faster than most of the team could run 1.5km. I just figured if I was faster, I could go further and explore more.

Four years later, my love for exploration continued, but I was never a good runner in High School, I made one OFSAA XC and that was in grade 12. That only occurred because during that summer my girlfriend broke up with me and to get back at her I thought I would just run really fast. But to do that I had to run more and explore more.

I really have no idea where this is going, and lawlz if ex-girlfriend reads this. I think what I'm getting at is, I need to take a step back and start loving the sport again, forget about competition.

That's where the title Cross-Country 365 comes into play, there is about a year till the next CIS XC championship, and the last three years I have put a lot of pressure on myself to preform a certain way. So next year it is going to be simple. I have one plan: enjoy it.

Have a nice day.

rj.

Guessing Game.

    "hey, what are you being for halloween?"

     "I'm a guy wearing a t-shirt with a pumpkin on it." 

     Pretty eventful couple of weeks, we finally booked our tickets to the rock with a pretty stellar set of results at our conference champs. I would say I ran decent, but I don't think I did. I mean, I ran the perfect race to obtain a medal, but I didn't run to win. It's over now, can't change anything. But it is nice to have a 10km in the legs, especially on a tough course. Is it ever going to be nice to get on a grass course in awful conditions. 

     So just for fun, I am going to post my personal predictions depending on certain conditions:

 Option 1. Temperature 4 degrees, 2 feet of snow on ground, 50km/hr winds, thunderstorm occurring, each step legs sink 2 feet into snow and 6inches into mud, with 7mm spikes on.

prediction: 35:23 good for 8th place. 

Option 2. Temperature 11 degrees, has rained heavily for passed week, girls run before, anywhere from 1-3 feet of mud, slight wind, huge rainfall occurring, with 9mm spikes on.

prediction: 34:14 good for 11th place. "his mother was a mudder, and his father was a mudder"

if you don't get the quote get outa here!

Option 3.  Temperature  9 degrees, 30 km/h winds, rained on and off all week, slight rain, low areas of the course a lil muddy, with 7mm spikes in. aka normal NFL conditions.

Prediction: 31:54 good for 25th.

     Hey, do I know what I'm talking about? Naww I haven't raced ya'll since last november, I don't even know if I'm in good shape, guess I'll find out. But seriously, running is all about having fun. Just give it your all, and get a mullet.

get the cut, get the confidence.

rj.

p.s. stop by after the race, there is a slight chance we might be trashing a hotel room.

The Sock Hop.

   
       I don't know why, but for the strangest of reasons races are called dances, and the more important the race, the more formal the dance. I'm guessing this is due to the fact that as a team we participate in a "loose" sober october, and need to find a way to make races seem like fun. So naturally inter-lock gets named the Sock Hop. You know, its a good time, people from the french land join us, we kick off our shoes and hit the d-floor for a good time, not to serious. AUS now, its the Semi-Formal, I mean, its a big deal, need to win that to go to the big city on the rock. Finally CIS is simply known as THE BIG DANCE. I don't think an explanation is necessary.


      Alright, because they other two haven't happened I'll start with Inter-lock. I don't really know how to describe the race, our goal as a team was to keep up and possibly beat Laval. My goal for myself was to stay in contact with the leaders and make a push with 3km to go. Our team has had some injury problems putting a guy out that could have helped us, but being 5 points back from Laval is a good start. More importantly the positive comments we received from everyone including our competition at how surprised they were of us competing so well. Individually after the first lap, I gave the leaders 50-75m. I can't say why I did this, possibly to gain control over my race and not run someone else's and possibly to pick up the pieces of guys who went out a lil hard. In which I can say I defiantly did. Overall a good sign of the road to come.

     As I type this out for everyone, I am also half asleep on my desk, it has been one gruelling week for us in our lil university town, many miles and some final prep work for the weeks to come. The question on my mind... Nap, or Study?

I heard napping increases HGH. Hmm, I think I could use some of that.

rj.


   

Appendix 2: Racers.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately of how XC races tend to be run, and this past weekend I got the rare chance to watch one of the meets. I noticed 3 different types of racers.

1. The FFTF
     The classic "fade from the front" made famous by everyones favourite marathoner Rob Watson, but surprisingly enough after how much he has told everyone it sucks people still go out way to hard and pay for it in the final few km's. It doesn't surprise me that this tactic is often used in collegiate racing, but still, come on guys! Know your place.

2.  The Confidence Booster
     I must say that I myself am a big fan of this style mainly because of the benefits of boosting the confidence. It's simple start the race at tempo pace and keep the place you wanna finish in your sights and slowly creep up through the pack and boom, you feel great and you just passed a ton of people. But the downside always is you wish you either did more during the race, or just ran a workout instead.

3.  The Winner.
     Pretty self explanatory here, the winner of the race, the guy who often did everything right, usually the right mix of guts and blood gets this one. But not always the winner, even 5th place could race like a winner, if they didn't execute either of the 2 other types of racers above, if they ran the perfect race for themselves. That's winning too.  


In a Championship race on the other hand, everything goes out the window. Everyone leaves a little blood on the course.

rj

Running Sucks.

I bet if I didn't run as much as I do my grades would be better.

September 22
Mon: PM: 65min
Tue: AM: 25min + strides
         PM: 20 WU-12x400m hill @ 75-69sec-20KD + strides
Wed: AM:25min + strides
          PM:65min
Thu: AM: 25min+ strides
         PM: 20min WU-8x3min(90sec rest) (950-1050m)- 20KD + strides
Fri: off
Sat: AM: 20WU-Alternating 1mile tempo (avg 5:55)-1mile race pace(avg 5:04) for 8 miles- 20KD
        PM: 25min + strides
Sun: AM: 105min.

total mileage: 87 miles

September 29                  
Mon: PM: 65min
Tue: AM: 25min + strides
         PM: 20 WU-12x400m hill @ 75-69sec-20KD + strides
Wed: AM:25min + strides
          PM:65min
Thu: PM: 20min- 5x1400m loop progression from 4:28-4:12 (3min rest)- 20KD + strides
Fri: AM: 25min
Sat: AM: 20WU- 20min tempo (5min rest) 10x 1 min on (3km pace)-1 min off (easy)
        PM: 30min + strides
Sun: AM: 90min

total mileage: 84 miles

Onward
rj

Peiche

I just want to points something out. There was this guy that worked for the Japanese air force that could predict with 80% accuracy which new pilots would become successful - by looking at their faces.

Check wikipedia. Its a thing. Maybe not to the scientific community. But its still a thing.

Based on your facial features, old greek people used to think they could tell alot about your personality. So I analyzed my face.

Judging by the best [worst] picture of me I could find, I have a "square-round face". So, this gives me the following charming characteristics:

"They are known as water-shaped faced people. They have plump and fleshy face. They are known to be sensitive and caring. They are thought to have strong sexual fantasies. If you are looking forward for a long-term, stable relationship, these people will prove to be the right choice."

I think I did it wrong. My lack of long term, stable relationship history coupled with my insensitive and uncaring nature makes me wonder if this pseudoscience is nothing more than a cousin of the horoscope.

But the real question is, if I put on lots of weight, and get a rounder, and plumper face, will I become more sensitive and caring, and will I get strong sexual fantasies???


D.C.

Chapter 2: the fight for survival.

    In the past, the weeks immediately after training camp are pretty crucial in the grand scheme of things, although they are relatively easy weeks, they just build a foundation for bigger and harder weeks in the future. That wasn't the case this year, the reigns were loosened just enough to allow for some changes in the workouts, aka, we made the easy workouts just a lil harder. Pretty good news for me as I often feel pretty flat until the bigger workouts.

     Now some not so great news was that I have class random thursdays throughout the year during our practice time. Pretty stupid if you ask me, but I must endure, and that sometimes this means getting up at 6:30am to grind away while the rest of the team sleeps. Not gunna lie, I did feel pretty hardcore. And it did give me an extra 12 hours recovery before the race...

     First meet of the year, the simple thought is, "its gunna be a tempo, no one wants to play just yet, lets have some fun lads". But just as easy as that thought popped into the head, it got blown out. Apparently that was the day we needed to push from the gun. Turned out to be a pretty damn good idea too. Bunch of us under 26min, and even a couple of us beat the AUS champ from last year. Let us roll baby, roll! 

    Now of course it is XC and the nose hasn't won a battle since at least grade 8, but with a constant supply of kleenex and tylenol and of course water we toed the line for a second saturday with a different strategy. 600m(@ 10km effort)-1km(@tempo). It took a while, like 7km to finally break everyone, but it worked, a solid finish, a solid workout, nothing to do but look ahead. My body on the other hand, wasn't a true friend and cramped up in the last mile, and I dropped 5sec in the final km. 

     I do have a handle on this cold, I'll be fine. (Some guys on the team are starting to chat a bit about maybe taking me down, I think they keep forgetting that the real races are 10km, giddy up)

     The fight: not only to stay on this all-star team but to built this all-star team to what it can be, to prove ourselves as one of the best in the nation, or even something as simple as to prove the nation that we do belong and that we aren't scared. The fight is on! Hail and Hell!


cough cough sniffle sniffle.

rj

Appendix 1: food for thought.

Alright, so first off I'd like to say as a runner, an endurance athlete, our diet needs well organized. It needs to have lots of the 3 main food groups: carbs, water and meat. A fair amount of the 3 middle food groups: fruits, vegetables and peanut butter. And a little bit of the bottom 3 food groups: beer, pizza and salad dressing. Now when to eat certain things and how much to eat of each is of course the hardest question. So, I will break down how my diet works while competing, and its a pretty simple guide. It can be used for anyone who wants to drop 10, 15, 25 pounds****.

Monday: easy run. basically eat whatever i want, its Monday.

Tuesday: workout + morning run. Need to recover from workout, eat whatever i want.

Wednesday: easy run + morning run. need to fuel up for tomorrow's workout, eat whatever i want.

Thursday: workout + morning run. need to recover from workout, eat whatever i want.

Friday: easy run. carbo load day, basically eat all carbs in house. and i shall call it mount pasta.

Saturday: workout or Race. come on, its race day, eat good before race, eat everything after.

Sunday: LSD(not the drug). yeah, must not do any moving other than eating.


**** for best results run 70-95 miles per week. otherwise you might get fat.

eat up, because you know what they say about big bananas.

rj

Chapter 1: Get Hydrated and Stay Regular.

     I guess we are doing this, some questions were answered, and for now the running gods are in my favour. Training Camp and Frosh Week happen to mingle pretty good, and 7:30 am runs are pretty killer... But not for this guy! I got to sleep early! Oh ya I'm the man! Seriously though, finally getting back to the team, and all the craziness of XC is exactly what I needed. If the coaches or media crew is reading this, the rookie party didn't happen and it wasn't awesome.

     Of course as the week progressed, the long days started to get to me, and once school started it was worse, I will admit I was kinda blessed and I had a class during one of our practice times so I had to partake in a solo venture. And not only did it recharge the batteries, but gave me the confidence I needed to realize that although my summer wasn't perfect, it was enough so that in the next 2 months I can still become the runner I had dreamed of being before CIS last year.

     Finally Saturday rolls around, the day of our TT, and some of the guys are a lil nervous, and being the person I am, can't let people get to worked up with the TT. My sister had got me a pair of FLASH boxers with a cape on them for X-mass. I figured what would lift some spirits and calm some nervous??

     Yeah, I ran the race in Boxer shorts!

     Now a team TT is always suppose to be pretty chill, but as always it never really turns out that way, for some reason, I put myself in a chase pack behind a lead group of 3. with about 1.5 km to go, I mad a decision to enter "no mans land" and try to move on the lead group. Now I know you people know of "no mans land" and there are two options, 1. Just keep slowing down, 2. Catch the group ahead. everyone knows the latter is very rare. So I put myself in a position to fail and kept working until I finally bridged the gap! The race ended shortly after.

You know what they say eh?
Not bad for a beer belly.

onward and upward from here my friends.

rj



ECA

THE PREFACE.

     The nerves I feel every XC season are always so different, it's a combination of excited, scared, fired up, anxious and this year worried. Only worried because I must pray to the running gods to let the knee hold out, I have been doing a fair amount of maintenance work to stay out of danger but knowing that I am no longer invincible frightens me. Can I handle the 140km weeks? Can I handle the intense workouts? Can I manage with minimal R&R? Questions I do not know the answer too and am very eager to find out.

     As per the rest of the summer, I managed to average about 8-9 hours a week, ranging from 110-125km for 12 weeks, mainly singles as well. For the first time in my life I convinced myself to take a down week, which felt very weird, and I am not sure how I feel about it.

     On the flip side to that, found my way back to school, after a brief solo training camp very similar to what I believe life at Percy Cerutty's Camp would be like. Good food, and 10 miles of beautiful beach to run on. Many say beach running is over rated, I could spend hours running on that beach. Never wore shoes for all 3 days. Was wonderful. 

I guess to finish this all off, 

CIS is in ten weeks,
The beard is beginning to emerge,
So let the battle begin.

rj

The Two French Idiots

Its that time of year again. Nope, not Christmas. Not Festivus. Cross Cuntry.

But I guess I overdid things and have been stuck on the elliptical for the last 3+ weeks. Which sucks cause training was going just swell. Best (read: second) build of my life. I did the strength work, I did the drills. I did the stretching, I ran the hills. Things don't always work out.

There's an idea among those who care to study injuries and running - as one's volume increases linearly, their risk of injury increases exponentially. While the actual values in this formula differ from person to person, the relationship nevertheless exists in everybody. I like to think it changes as we train from year to year, getting stronger/smarter we can handle more volume, but it is still up to every athlete to figure out what the optimal point of training is. Where can we reap the largest benefit at the most cost-effective risk?

This point for some is effectively limited by the mileage that they can handle mentally. I think for me, personally, I shouldn't run more than 7-8 hours per week until down the road when I can handle more without getting hurt physically. I'll follow that rule in the future and simply supplement with the e.t. I've said this in the past when injured, but if I don't stick with the plan this time, I'll get hurt again and no progress will ever be made.

Time to smarten up.

D.C.

Bring Sally Up.

     I forgot what it was like to start from scratch. Six weeks ago I was at ground zero. Basically no running for 5 months. And now after 6 weeks of running, I have no clue where I am at. I don't know if I am fast, slow, strong, fit, or any combination of what we runners use as adjectives to describe our fitness. The lads around me say that I am fit, but one workout can never really provide the knowledge needed to say: "yes, i can run fast" or "nope, i'm garbage". But when I start to think about it, last year at this time in the summer I also felt this way, and didn't start to feel fast until I started doing VO2MAX workouts. So I am hoping for a similar result this year. 

     As for mileage it is pretty similar to last year, but as for workouts I am trying a total different buildup. My standard 4 week base phase went well. Instead of doing a program where I hit each training system each week (a tempo, a VO2, a speed session) I have just been focusing on general speed, and tempo. Once back at school we tend to hit a lot of VO2 and its not important till then anyways, so I'll wait. This summer is about working on my weaknesses, speed, and increasing the pace in the last couple km of the race. 

     Thinking long term I would love to experiment a little more with both a Lydiard style and a Canova style build up, I have always ran out of time and could not get a proper build in. Stupid injures. But thats for next summer seeing as come September I no longer get to experiment. 

     I guess looking toward this season, I can't wait to get back at the in-season grind. Work is so depressing and sucks the energy right out of me. School is great. Having so many extra hours to train, to get in some precious morning runs, to do push-ups.

     Speaking of push-ups, ever do the Sally? Turn this song on and get into push-up position. When the lyric says "bring sally up" push up and "bring sally down" go down. don't let your stomach touch the floor. My PB is pretty weak at 1:40, but my first goal is to complete the song by the end of the season.

g'luck.

rj

Beer Mile Research

So much has happened in the world of beer mile in the last year. A new world record was set (4:57) by James Neilson and the inaugural beer mile world champs are being held in Austin TX this summer, hosted by flocasts.

For a previously hidden, niche, word-of-mouth sport coming into the mainstream, there ought to be some research done and training methodologies discussed. Until that happens, lets look at what we do know:

Look at what happens when carbonated soda is exposed to iodized table salt. Is it reasonable to assume that with enough salt in the stomach the beer would react in a similar way, becoming CO2 unsaturated? Would this amount of fizzing be beneficial? I would say yes, especially for those who have trouble burping. The more air volume that leaves the stomach the better. However, this might only be an advantage for the first beer, as the salt in the stomach would become diluted after the first beer.

Warm beer would also be easier to consume (if you are used to the taste) since the gas would increase in volume compared to when cold, exiting the can upon opening and thus reducing the total volume of beer/CO2 mixture consumed.

Enough of the chemistry, what about training? I fear all we have to go on at this point is that Neilson mentioned crushing a warm beer as fast as he could every day after work, along with maintaining high running fitness. Since it is so easy to die during these races, it makes sense to even split at a reasonable pace. See this table for calibration based on your individual chugging and running strengths/weaknesses.