Losing the Battle Winning the War

It's been a very hard month for Northern New Jersey Team In Training and our battle against Blood Cancers.

Christopher Barron


On July 23rd, 9 year old Christopher Barron, of Glen Rock, NJ, nephew of our running coach Melissa, passed away. He had a passion and zest for life and just wanted to be an ordinary kid. He loved to ski, play baseball, swim at the Glen Rock pool and do tae kwon do. Christopher was an avid Mets fan and loved spiderman. He also liked to paint and write comic books. He couldn't wait to go to fourth grade and be with his friends again.

Although he lost his fight, he truly fought with everything he had until the bitter end. He was, and continues to be, an inspiration to many including his dear family. Thankfully he was only in pain near the end and now his suffering his over.

Joey Cialkowski

Joey with Coach David in Spring 2003

Joey has been with the TNT family for the last 9 years. At 5 years old he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and battled that for 3 years from 1998 to 2000. As a result of the radiation needed to save his life, he suffered 2 subsequent brain tumors in 2005 and again in February this year 2007.

Joey has always been strong for his family and friends, and two weeks ago decided that he would end his chemotherapy. He said to his parents that it is almost time for him to go to heaven, and then on Saturday morning, he slipped into a coma.

Joey is at home, and in no pain. He is surrounded by his beloved family and friends, and a hospice team who are the best.

Pat Beck said that Tuesday morning, Joey woke up, told his family, Arlene and Frank and Michael that he loved them, and that heaven was beautiful. He then slipped back into a coma. How amazing and what a wonderful gift to his family, that he was able to awaken to be able to do this.

Joey has touched so many lives in the last 9 years, anyone who came to know Joey is a better person for having known him. Joey was the honored patient for our Spring 2003 season, and again in Spring 2006, when his Dad, Frank, walked the Alaska marathon.

We ask that you keep Joey and his family in your thoughts and prayers as his time draws near, and keep the wonderful story of how this amazing 14 year old young man has bravely fought blood cancers for over 9 years.

Reach out and tell your own friends and family how much you love them and how important they are to you.

We may lose a battle every now and again, but with your help, we can win the war against blood cancers.

Coach David

Celebrity Marathoners

It's always fun to compare yourself to celebrities, whether actors, politicians or athletes. Now that you guys are athletes, why not compare yourself to those athletes amongst the celebrities who have taken on the marathon?

In a fun article I found today, Mark Iocchelli researched those celebs that have run 26.2. Wikipedia has done an even more extensive review which you can check here.

Amongst the famous are:
Will Ferrell Boston Marathon 2003 (3:56:12)
Oprah Winfrey Marine Corps Marathon 1994 (4:29:20)
William Baldwin, New York City Marathon 1992 (3:24:29)
Freddie Prinze, Jr. Los Angeles Marathon 2006 (5:50:49)
Sean Combs New York City Marathon 2002 (4:14:54)
David Lee Roth New York City Marathon 1987 (6:04:43)
Pat Tillman Arizona Cardinals Avenue of the Giants_Marathon 2000(3:48)
Lance Armstrong New York City Marathon 2006 (2:59:36)
Michael Waltrip Las Vegas Marathon 2005, Kiawah Island 1999 and Boston 2000
Kyle Petty Las Vegas Marathon 2005 (4:18:34)
George W. Bush Houston Marathon 1993(3:44:52)
John Edwards Marine Corps 1983 (3:30:18)
Al Gore Marine Corps Marathon 1997 (4:58:25)
Mike Huckabee Little Rock Marathon 2005 (4:39:04)

Michael Watson, a former boxer from the UK, ran/walked the London Marathon in 2003. Michael suffered a serious brain injury in a fight with Chris Eubank and went into a coma for 40 days. Over a period of two years he finally began to recover the ability to walk, and finished his marathon in 6 days.

Also Danny Wallace, former Manchester Utd and England International Footballer did the London Marathon in 2006. Danny now suffers from Mutiple Sclerosis and also took 6 days to complete the event.

Tune In, Turn Off, Don't Drop Out

As I ran my regular 3mile loop around Prospect Park in Brooklyn today, I did a count of the number of those wearing headphones against those without. Of the 82 runners I came across, 67 of them wear wearing headphones. Over 80%.

We tell our runners with Team In Training to not run with headphones. But we are all adults. And as our runs lengthen, we often end up running on our own, and having headphones is understandable.

There are the obvious safety reasons for not wearing headphones. You cannot hear safety instructions from officials or police during races, cannot hear people coming up behind you, whether other athletes or potential assailants.

There are the obvious reasons to wear headphones.... I do myself on my midweek recovery runs... it is wonderfully motivating to hear upbeat or favorite music while you are working out.

However, if you are an avid headphone wearer, obvious stuff aside, there are two major reasons to at least run some of the time without headphones. This can be either whole runs, or just portions of runs.
i) In April this year, the US Track and Field association (USATF) upgraded their ruling from recommending, to explicitly banning headphones from their accredited races:
USATF Rule 144.3(b):
The visible possession or use by athletes of video or audio cassette recorders or players, TVs, CD or DVD players, radio transmitters or receivers, mobile phones, computers, or any similar devices in the competition area shall not be permitted.

Numerous races have already adopted the rule, including Grandma's Marathon. Previously, race directors had been reluctant to adopt the USATF recommendation, but since it has now been upgraded to a mandatory ruling, you will find many more races adopting it. The Chicago marathon have ruled that headphones are prohibited on the course.
So.... get used to running without headphones.

ii) Association: It is important to 'check in with yourself' every now and again during a run. Listen to how your breathing is going, listen to your body, concentrate on how your arms are swinging, concentrate on your cadence, concentrate on how it changes uphill and downhill. This is called association, internalizing how you are running. Concentrating on your body as you run, can really help you improve your performance, since your body is your very best feedback. Disassociation, where you pay more attention to your surroundings or to the beat of the music tends to dictate your run pace and upset your rhythm. I personally find it extremely difficult to breath steady and keep the same pace from one upbeat song to the next.

So.... during your training, please put at least some of your training miles in without headphones... or perhaps just 'check in with yourself' every mile or so, to listen to how you are doing. And expect to not have your headphones during your race event itself.

regards,
Coach David.

RRCA Coaching Class

Our Northern New Jersey Head Running Coach Bill Gahwyler and myself recently took a Coaching Class with the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA). It was a pretty intensive two day class down in Maryland.

The coach was taught by Mike Broderick and Janet Hamilton of Running Strong. Mike is a coach and personal trainer with the National Strength & Conditioning Association, a member of the American College of Sports Medicine and National Strength Professionals Association. While Janet is a Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist (RCEP) with American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS)
with the National Strength and Conditioning Association as well. So they both had lots to offer.

We went through a lot of the regular information on sports science, the basics of overloading and specificity, physiology, nutrition, injury prevention and psychology. The second day was spent putting training programs together for athletes preparing for marathons.

There were many pearls of wisdom I learned from the weekend, which I'd love to share on this blog over the next few weeks, but in summary:

• muscle, circulatory, pulmonary, skeletal and neurological systems are all trainable, but at different rates.
• you will get faster without running faster due to adaptation (at least for the first few years of your running career).
• look for the perpetrator of the injury, not the victim - e.g. IT Band trouble often caused by tight hamstrings or gluts, not by the IT band itself.
• the value of association while you are running - turn off the iPod and listen to your body every now and again.
  
• train at your current fitness level, not your target level - adaptation will help you get there.
• be wary of drugs that effect energy systems - benedryl, insulin, NSAIDs, Acetaminaphine.
  
  "Do not believe in anything simply because YOU have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason... then accept it and live up to it" - The Buddha
  
  Blogging again soon.
  Coach David.

Marathoning Physiology

I was out running with a number of people in Liberty State Park today, and one of the runners said to me that her breathing had gotten a little easier over the last few weeks. This makes common sense, but actually makes a good introduction to the two major principles of endurance training.

Overload
Overload means exercising at a level which causes the body to adapt to function more efficiently. It doesn't mean overtraining. Think of a rubberband - as more pull is applied it stretches more and becomes easier to stretch, but too much pull can cause it to snap. To avoid breaking, i.e., becoming injured or ill, overload must always be used in conjunction with rest. Overload and rest form the basis for what is known as the "hard/easy" training approach. This technique uses variations in frequency, intensity and duration to achieve cycles of overload and rest. Frequency is how often you run, intensity is the pace at which the workout is conducted and duration is the time spent on any single run. In a program of increasing mileage or of building basic endurance, "hard" may be a long slow run while "easy" may be a shorter distance run at the same effort. For the experienced runner with an established mileage base, "hard" might be a shorter workout of increased intensity such as hill work, fartlek or some kind of interval training. After a hard workout, rest or an easy workout is important because it allows the muscles and other tissues a chance to rebuild and adapt to the stress. This is the basis of overload training.

Specificity
Specificity refers to adaptations of both metabolic and physiologic systems, depending on the type of overload used. Specific exercise brings about changes in those systems used in that particular exercise. Running is obviously the specific training for running. Different adaptations result from different kinds of running using variations of frequency, intensity, duration and terrain to utilize different sources of energy. This is where long term goal setting is so important: you need a running program designed for the specific type of races you want to run. This approach will assist you to maximize performance and eliminate wasted effort. Specific endurance training with its resultant physiologic adaptations is essential for marathons.

So much of your body is adaptable.... i.e. trainable.... but different systems adapt at different rates....... your circulatory system, pulmonary and neuromuscular systems may well start adapting in 4-6 weeks of training.... meaning you will be increasing your blood volume, strenghtening your heart muscle, lowering your heart rate, improving your lung volume, reducing fatigue and creating new muscle pathways.... but your skeletal system tends to lag behind in adaption, and improve only aftert 6-8 weeks of training.

As a result, we often find athletes feeling great and pushing themselves to new limits four weeks in, and then breaking down with stress fractures, and hurting joints midseason.

So..... the key is to increase your mileage slowly.... no more than 10% total miles increase each week, to allow your body to adapt fairly evenly.

"Jogging is very beneficial. It's good for your legs and your feet. It's also very good for the ground. It makes it feel needed." ~Charles Schulz, Peanuts

Have a great week.
Coach David

article thanks to Warren and Patti Finke @ Team Orgegan for the article.

Resting Heartrate

You can use your Resting Heart Rate as a good measure of your improvement and adapatation to your training.

Measure your Resting Heart Rate (RHR) every morning for a week, and take the average. It will give you a good starting fitness point.

Every four weeks or so, take it for a week again, measure the average. Hopefully, you'll find that your RHR is getting lower. This would indicate that you are getting fitter. Why? Because when you are unfit your heart has to work a lot harder which increases your heart rate. So the number of beats per minute will be higher. The best time to take your RHR is first thing in the morning when you wake up. Ideally, when you've woken without an alarm clock ( e.g. on a weekend), and you've got an empty stomach. If you've woken up with an alarm clock, wait a couple of minutes before you take the measurement.

If you find over time that you get a spike in your RHR, can be a good indication that you are overtraining, because your body is fighting too hard to adapt to the stress that you are putting on it. Or it may be a sign that you are getting a cold or stress, since an increase in Heart Rate is one of the first signs that your body is fighting off something.

Since so many factors can affect an individual reading, I recommend taking it as an average over a week. You can take an individual reading as your result if you think it is a good indication.

If anyone is getting a reading of less than 35, then give Lance Armstrong's team a call. His was 32-34!!
regards,
Coach David

Garmin Marathon

hey runners, Garmin are sponsoring a bunch of races in 2007, include Chicago and the Rock and Roll 1/2 in Virginia Beach.

Through MotionBased, they are giving runners in-depth analysis and mapping for each race. You can check out street maps, topological, elevation, finishing lines, where the cheering sections are, pot holes to watch out for, where dogs are most likely to come onto the course and chase you, how far in front of the sweeper truck you will be, when they will be running out of water, and far more completely useless, irrevelent info this far before race day.

http://www8.garmin.com/marathon/marathons/

I think it would be dead cool if somehow Garmin could get a feed from our chips during the race and post them on the website. People could then track you virtually through the city, even on webphones, know much better when you are coming around the bend.

have fun.
Coach David.