Archive for February, 2011
Calling all runners in Winchester!
Just in case you’re reading this and you live in or around Winchester, you might be interested in this.
I’m an endurance running coach at Winchester & District AC (WADAC) and we’re about to make a real effort to attract a broader range of runners to the club. We want to make sure everyone feels they have a place there - whether they’re beginners or if running for 30 mins is their limit.
The great thing about being part of a club is the camaraderie (and WADAC’s very good at camaraderie!). It’s wonderful having someone to run with around the dark streets in the winter or over the downs on a balmy summer evening. If you enter races it’s lovely to travel there with friends or at least see some friendly faces on the start line. And if you’re wavering about whether to go out for a run at all, knowing that you’ll see your friends there or not wanting to let any of your friends down, is a great motivator. And we all feel better after a run however rubbish we felt before!
We have some amazing runners that help us to win local cross country and road running leagues. We’ve got national and international team members. But there’s lots of room for ‘normal’ runners who just want some company or new routes to run… and if they eventually decide they’d like to train more seriously or do a 10k or half marathon… or a marathon… they’ll be in the right place for lots of help along the way.
So - if you know anyone who runs a bit and who you suspect might like to run a bit more … tell them to email me. We’ll make sure they’re looked after.
Tags: club membership, joining a club, running, Winchester & District AC
More on caffeine… it’s not all bad
Actually, now that I can see that last post about caffeine, the headline makes it all look a bit scary, when in fact caffeine is not all bad for endurance athletes.
One of the reasons I’ve weaned myself off fully-leaded coffee is to make the effects of caffeine more marked when I do have it. I can’t cite the many research papers here, but it’s well-known that caffeine can boost endurance considerably - or certainly by an amount that makes a difference on a long effort. That’s why you can buy gels and sports drinks with caffeine added.
The obvious benefit is the mental stimulus/lift that it can give when the going gets tough. But what lots of people don’t realise is that it seems to mobilise free fatty acids, making them more easily available for use for muscle contraction and general energy production. This would preserve your precious glycogen stores. And the longer your glycogen stores last in an endurance event, the better!
There’s more to it than that, but if you want more, google ‘caffeine endurance performance’ and there’ll be plenty for you to read.
Beware of the caffeine
Last week I’d been looking forward to rewarding my arrival at the end of my training week with a frothy coffee at Cafe Nero. It was Friday morning, I’d done a good, long swim and had the luxury of a rest day on Saturday before a race on Sunday.
The coffee was nectar and, well, I had a second one. (I really know how to live, don’t I?) Hmmmm. I didn’t quite finish the second one, but I must have been caffeined up good and proper because that night I couldn’t get to sleep. At all. I even decamped to the spare room for total silence, but really didn’t drop off until about 2.30am. And then I kept waking up.
So I probably ruined my rarer-than-hens’-teeth, longed-for, deep, post-training sleep and lie in combination by having a second coffee.
I’ve weaned myself off caffeine a bit over the last few months. I’ve found some good decaff (Lavazza blue label) which still gives that glorious coffee hit and feel but without the shakes and sleep probs. Silly me for not ordering de-caff at Nero…
Train, recover. Train, recover. Repeat.
Well, I’m well and truly back into ironman training. This is week 6 of a 30-week programme. At this stage it’s all low intensity endurance work, building up the ability over 10 weeks or so, to swim and bike the full ironman distance (swim 2.4 miles and bike 112 miles). Running, for me, takes a bit of a back seat. In fact to do an ironman at my level, full marathon training just isn’t necessary.
This has been brought home to me this week. I did a 10 mile running race at the weekend because it’s a great club outing and a hilly, challenging course. I didn’t race it, but used it as a training run, running to a heart rate that kept me firmly aerobic. At no time was I working hard and I had a lovely time. But that evening the tell-tale hammered legs syndrome kicked in and today, two days later, they’re still feeling heavy.
And that’s why you don’t do too much insane run training for ironman! It takes so much out of you that it can impede the rest of your training.
So the focus is fully on getting in the miles at the moment, recovering and resting well between efforts, eating well, then doing it all over again. It’s a long haul to get to the start line unscathed and fighting fit - so it’s best not to blow it early on.
Tags: heart rate, ironman, nutrition, recovery, rest days, running, training to heart rate, Winchester & District AC