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.