Hey Guys!! How is everyone doing with this winter that just won't seem to end? Has everyone signed up for some sort of race to get them motivated in cold times like these? Let's be honest here for a moment, in a few months you're going to go "oh shit, it's almost summer and I'm out of shape". Don't go killing yourself to get back in shape because you let things slip during the winter; be proactive about it and sign up for a race like I told you; you'll thank me later hehe.
Anyway, to the heart of the matter; TRAINING!!! This past week I ran about 51-52 miles (sorry I don't track mileage to the tenth or anything lol). On Sunday I ran 17 miles although it wasn't a great run, but I finished and on some long runs that's all you can hope for. I thought today's run was going to be awful after the long run yesterday, but I ran 6.5 miles today and it was probably the easiest time I've ever had running that distance and I feel great. So you can thank the runner's high for the post; and if you don't know what a runner's high is you're missing one of the best parts of running. Basically when you run a distance of some length (different for each person) your body crosses an endurance threshhold upon which your body begins to produce endorphins which your body does to help you because it senses you may be in danger and gives you a heightened state of emotion. Many runners will feel extra speed and once they end the run feel overly happy. WARNING: You will not always be happy because although it's typical, you'll more specifically have more heightened emotions. I've been all over the spectrum and would suggest not watching any chick flicks or soppy movies or you will be a wreck; not that it's happened to me...
But no matter what emotions you feel with the runner's high, it's a free high and almost 30,000 will be experiencing it on 4/20 legally (the date of the marathon). The rest of the people that day are paying lol; sorry couldn't help but make the joke.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Water - Helper and Hinderer
I mentioned in my last post that I would talk about hyponatremia. Hyponatremia is an electrolyte disturbance in which the sodium concentration in the plasma is too low. In severe cases, it can lead to swelling in the brain and cause fatalities. In 2002, "A 22 year-old man died after completing his first London Marathon because he drank too much water. David Rodgers collapsed at the end of the race and died yesterday in Charing Cross Hospital" read the newspaper. Hyponatremia, also called water intoxication, was to blame. When there is too much water in your body it dilutes vital minerals like sodium to dangerously low levels. The condition leads to headaches, confusions, and a fatal swelling of the brain.
OK... let's break that down a bit. As you run you become dehydrated as you sweat, losing both water and sodium. Therefore we often drink water or a sports drink to replenish what we've lost. But how much do you actually need to drink??? Well let's start by saying that the old 8 cups of water a day line has no scientific backing. In terms of exercise you shouldn't drink too much water if you are exercising for under 1 hour and you suffer little loss in sodium levels/other vital minerals. For over an hour, you should reach for some Gatorade, not powerade. Gatorade contains twice the sodium (electrolytes) that Powerade does, so grab the good stuff. As you sweat more and more during a long run, such a marathon (the only time hyponatremia is really a plausible and likely danger) it's rather easy to replace the water component of sweat, but much more likely that you won't replenish the sodium content. And as you continue to replace more water than salt as the miles pile up, it leads to dangerous dilution of minerals like sodium. Excess water sloshing around without sodium to catch up with is bad for your kidneys and leads to swelling in the brain which causes the headaches, confusion, and possible fatality.
NOTE: Don't worry about this unless you're doing extreme physical activity for over 3 hours. It's just something to keep in mind for those of you doing very long bike races, or considering a marathon. It's safer to NOT recharge at every mile water station than to drink at each one is all I'm saying. Personally I don't drink too much water when I'm running at all. My half marathon in October I had one small cup of water at mile 11 and it may have been just because I was feeling tired an hitting a wall. Of course it's also bad not to have any water either as it can lead to dehydration. The key of course is balance, but keep a focus on sodium if you can.
I ran 15 miles yesterday in terms of my own training and it felt ok; about a 7:45 pace but my body wasn't feeling great during the run. But sometimes you just push through and make sure you finish strong. Today was hilarious running though because I was so tight and tired; but I'm kind of demented in a way and love a next-day sore run. To give you a sense of the feeling think back to your days at the beach as a kid when you made a simple sand castle with a bucket. The sand is packed together and is tight, but if you kind of shoved your hand in there you could feel it kind of give under the pressure and smooth back out into what it was before. Similarly I feel that in my legs. The next day they're all tight but after you get on the treadmills and start things up they begin to smooth back out and loosen. The thing to take away is to not be afraid of going the next day after a hard workout because "my legs hurt" or "I put in a good enough one yesterday". I'm saying not to take rest days, but if you push your body once in a while to make a quick recovery it'll just become easier in the future and help you put in more miles and better workouts.
Sorry for the long-winded post; as always please think about donating to my fundraising effort for Dana Farber by following the link below. Your generosity is gladly appreciated:
http://www.runDFMC.org/ryanmeehan2009
OK... let's break that down a bit. As you run you become dehydrated as you sweat, losing both water and sodium. Therefore we often drink water or a sports drink to replenish what we've lost. But how much do you actually need to drink??? Well let's start by saying that the old 8 cups of water a day line has no scientific backing. In terms of exercise you shouldn't drink too much water if you are exercising for under 1 hour and you suffer little loss in sodium levels/other vital minerals. For over an hour, you should reach for some Gatorade, not powerade. Gatorade contains twice the sodium (electrolytes) that Powerade does, so grab the good stuff. As you sweat more and more during a long run, such a marathon (the only time hyponatremia is really a plausible and likely danger) it's rather easy to replace the water component of sweat, but much more likely that you won't replenish the sodium content. And as you continue to replace more water than salt as the miles pile up, it leads to dangerous dilution of minerals like sodium. Excess water sloshing around without sodium to catch up with is bad for your kidneys and leads to swelling in the brain which causes the headaches, confusion, and possible fatality.
NOTE: Don't worry about this unless you're doing extreme physical activity for over 3 hours. It's just something to keep in mind for those of you doing very long bike races, or considering a marathon. It's safer to NOT recharge at every mile water station than to drink at each one is all I'm saying. Personally I don't drink too much water when I'm running at all. My half marathon in October I had one small cup of water at mile 11 and it may have been just because I was feeling tired an hitting a wall. Of course it's also bad not to have any water either as it can lead to dehydration. The key of course is balance, but keep a focus on sodium if you can.
I ran 15 miles yesterday in terms of my own training and it felt ok; about a 7:45 pace but my body wasn't feeling great during the run. But sometimes you just push through and make sure you finish strong. Today was hilarious running though because I was so tight and tired; but I'm kind of demented in a way and love a next-day sore run. To give you a sense of the feeling think back to your days at the beach as a kid when you made a simple sand castle with a bucket. The sand is packed together and is tight, but if you kind of shoved your hand in there you could feel it kind of give under the pressure and smooth back out into what it was before. Similarly I feel that in my legs. The next day they're all tight but after you get on the treadmills and start things up they begin to smooth back out and loosen. The thing to take away is to not be afraid of going the next day after a hard workout because "my legs hurt" or "I put in a good enough one yesterday". I'm saying not to take rest days, but if you push your body once in a while to make a quick recovery it'll just become easier in the future and help you put in more miles and better workouts.
Sorry for the long-winded post; as always please think about donating to my fundraising effort for Dana Farber by following the link below. Your generosity is gladly appreciated:
http://www.runDFMC.org/ryanmeehan2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Long runs + no posts = sad blog fans
Ok, I'm sorry I've neglected you blog readers like an plant that hasn't been watered for weeks. But here goes.
On Thursday night, I went on my first "Crossroads" run. Every thursday, a decent size group of marathon trainers will meet up at the corner of mass ave and beacon st in downtown boston; at an irish bar called Crossroads. Yes, unfortunately the name of the run is not very original. Anyway, we get on the T and take the D line out to Woodland, the second to last stop. It's a little over 9 miles to the finish line from here and from where the T drops you off you basically complete the final 9 miles of the marathon course. The last 9 miles also happen to be where the Boston Marathon course stops it's descent and begins a grueling series of a hills that culminates in one large incline known as "heartbreak hill". It is the most difficult finish to any marathon and is one of the major reasons Boston is regarded as one of the most difficult marathons to complete.
Getting back to the run though, I needed to get some hill workouts in and decided I would go this past Thursday. Of course Thursday happened to be the coldest day of the year and the temperature was somewhere around 0 degrees not including wind chill by the time we got out to the starting point. And there I am on the T wearing shorts, a long sleeve running shirt, a light running jacket, running gloves, and a face mask (I was the only one in shorts; go figure). Needless there an increased impetus to make it back into Boston in as short a time as possible.
Hills are like a fine wine; you do not chug it down like a busch light that we all enjoyed in our college years. Yes, hills are like a fine wine in that you must approach it carefully and understand that there are many layers that must be appreciated. The only difference is that if you chug the wine you've just wasted some expensive stuff; if you rush the hills you've wasted precious energy and are going to crash quickly. And after 16 miles of running, if you go rushing into the first hill on the Boston Marathon course you are not going to be running many more of those hills let alone make it to Heartbreak Hill. Hills require practice because you must be able to guage how much of your energy you can use and sustain given the extra work it takes to get up the hills.
Anyway, back to me being cold in the freezing weather and the idiot in shorts. All of the other "cool runners" in their tights and Garmin GPS watches (which I admit are cool) were commenting on my shorts, but the talking changed at the end of the run. I was careful during the hill staying behind some of the faster runners and in the first few miles got scared because I was losing feeling in my fingers. But I warmed up and so did my running; after hitting Heartbreak Hill which peaks at Boston College, I picked up my pace a bit and wound up blowing past all but one guy. I ran the 9+ miles in 66 minutes, which is about a 7:15/mile pace. This is an impressive split for typically, but considering these are the dreaded hills of the Boston Marathon this goes down as quite possibly my best run ever.
The girls who were commenting on my shorts and saying how they qualified for the Marathon were complimenting me on my running; it was nice to not be that slow idiot in the shorts and just remain the fast idiot in the shorts. Anyway, I figured I'd share the happy run with you all.
Anyway, as always please think about donating to my fundraising effort for Dana Farber by following the link below. Your generosity is gladly appreciated:
http://www.runDFMC.org/ryanmeehan2009
Tomorrow will come a discussion of hyponatremia, a danger for marathon runners, which will be part of a larger discussion of drinking and eating during exercise. Night all.
On Thursday night, I went on my first "Crossroads" run. Every thursday, a decent size group of marathon trainers will meet up at the corner of mass ave and beacon st in downtown boston; at an irish bar called Crossroads. Yes, unfortunately the name of the run is not very original. Anyway, we get on the T and take the D line out to Woodland, the second to last stop. It's a little over 9 miles to the finish line from here and from where the T drops you off you basically complete the final 9 miles of the marathon course. The last 9 miles also happen to be where the Boston Marathon course stops it's descent and begins a grueling series of a hills that culminates in one large incline known as "heartbreak hill". It is the most difficult finish to any marathon and is one of the major reasons Boston is regarded as one of the most difficult marathons to complete.
Getting back to the run though, I needed to get some hill workouts in and decided I would go this past Thursday. Of course Thursday happened to be the coldest day of the year and the temperature was somewhere around 0 degrees not including wind chill by the time we got out to the starting point. And there I am on the T wearing shorts, a long sleeve running shirt, a light running jacket, running gloves, and a face mask (I was the only one in shorts; go figure). Needless there an increased impetus to make it back into Boston in as short a time as possible.
Hills are like a fine wine; you do not chug it down like a busch light that we all enjoyed in our college years. Yes, hills are like a fine wine in that you must approach it carefully and understand that there are many layers that must be appreciated. The only difference is that if you chug the wine you've just wasted some expensive stuff; if you rush the hills you've wasted precious energy and are going to crash quickly. And after 16 miles of running, if you go rushing into the first hill on the Boston Marathon course you are not going to be running many more of those hills let alone make it to Heartbreak Hill. Hills require practice because you must be able to guage how much of your energy you can use and sustain given the extra work it takes to get up the hills.
Anyway, back to me being cold in the freezing weather and the idiot in shorts. All of the other "cool runners" in their tights and Garmin GPS watches (which I admit are cool) were commenting on my shorts, but the talking changed at the end of the run. I was careful during the hill staying behind some of the faster runners and in the first few miles got scared because I was losing feeling in my fingers. But I warmed up and so did my running; after hitting Heartbreak Hill which peaks at Boston College, I picked up my pace a bit and wound up blowing past all but one guy. I ran the 9+ miles in 66 minutes, which is about a 7:15/mile pace. This is an impressive split for typically, but considering these are the dreaded hills of the Boston Marathon this goes down as quite possibly my best run ever.
The girls who were commenting on my shorts and saying how they qualified for the Marathon were complimenting me on my running; it was nice to not be that slow idiot in the shorts and just remain the fast idiot in the shorts. Anyway, I figured I'd share the happy run with you all.
Anyway, as always please think about donating to my fundraising effort for Dana Farber by following the link below. Your generosity is gladly appreciated:
http://www.runDFMC.org/ryanmeehan2009
Tomorrow will come a discussion of hyponatremia, a danger for marathon runners, which will be part of a larger discussion of drinking and eating during exercise. Night all.
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