Hooked on Running | Hooked on Running

Mindless Running

There’s a lot to be said for running mindlessly. There are times when you want to be able to put your shoes on, get out the door and just run, without having to think about anything in particular. There’s definitely a place for mindless running in your training program.

I had a mindless run the other morning. Didn’t really want to do it, but I knew twenty minutes wasn’t going to kill me, so I laced up the running shoes. It certainly wasn’t the day to be thinking about and experimenting with form though. It was a day to just let thoughts float in and out of my head, until I got into a space where my mind was clear. And that’s exactly how it went. After 18 minutes, I forgot how much I didn’t want to do it and started enjoying my run. So, I got a whole two minutes of enjoyment, but a whole day’s satisfaction for having done it, and a far more productive day to boot.

But….. if this is the way you run all the time, you’re missing out on the opportunity to maximise your training time. Whether your goal is to run faster, run further, run injury free, or some combination of those, you can’t spend all your time in la-la land and hope to improve to your full potential.

Tips For Running Mindfully

Pick one thing about your running which you would like to improve – it might be running up hill or running down hill, it might be trying not to overstride, it might be running at an even pace for your whole run, negative splitting your run, running at a very slow pace over a longer distance. There are heaps of things you can pick to concentrate on, but make sure you choose only one for that run, and be sure on what you want to achieve. Work on that one thing for a few weeks, until you feel you’ve nailed it.
Be patient. You’re not going to change your running overnight, but with frequent attention to detail, it will happen.
Experiment a little. Drawing on the knowledge and experience of others is a great starting point, but you need to work from this starting point to develop a technique that suits you. Only you can know what it feels like to be running in your shoes. Yes, take my ideas on board (and those of others) but check it all out for yourself.
Focus for short periods of time during your run. Don’t try to think about what you’re doing every single stride, or you’ll be mentally fatigued by the end of it. The exception here is when you’re pace is the focus –either racing, time trialling, or being sure you’re running easy.
Try running without gadgets. Run on how you feel from time to time, and when you do use a gadget, for pacing for example, be mindful of how you feel at that pace. Make a note of that in your training diary, so you can compare different training runs. Your records will be far more meaningful if you can compare how you felt on your runs. You might run a 55 min 10 km in a training run and feel like you could go on forever, whereas you might do the same run 6 weeks later in the same time, but feel like you’ve been hit by a bus at the end of it. This can give much more info about the effectiveness of your training program than your times alone.
Throw mindless running into the mix. Don’t be hell bent on always fixing and improving. Take some time to just get out there and let your thoughts drift off. Afterall, part of why we run is for the sheer joy of movement, and the mental lift we get as a result.

I’d love to hear about the types of things you focus on when you’re running, or whether you do at all.

Burn Fat For Fuel During Marathon Training

One of the most important, yet often neglected, part of marathon training, is teaching your body to burn fat for fuel.

Teaching your body to burn fat for fuel during marathon training means you are able to spare glycogen, and will be less likely to ‘hit the wall” or “bonk” during the latter half of the race.

Here are a few marathon training tips to rev up your fat burning engine:

Long, slow runs. These will help to burn fat for fuel during marathon training as your body relies more heavily on fat for energy during long duration, low intensity exercise.

Run in a fasting state. By that I don’t mean starve yourself for days and then run, but a pre-breakfast run should be part of your training at least once a week. Your glycogen stores are slightly depleted when you wake in the morning, so if you run pre breakfast, your body will turn to fat for fuel. Try having a light evening meal the day before a pre-breakfast run for greater effect. If you’re not used to doing this, you may struggle at first, so start with some shorter runs, and build up to longer runs in a fasted state. I find low to medium intensity training is fine pre-breakfast, but I personally struggle too much with higher intensity workouts. I don’t feel the quality is there if I’m not fueled.

Burn fat by eating fat. Your body is actually more likely to burn fat for fuel during marathon training if you have a small amount of fatty acids in your bloodstream, so eating a small amount of fat before your workout will help to initiate fat burning. Perhaps just a few nuts and seeds, or some avocado, about an hour before you set off on your run.

I’d love to hear how you go with pre-breakfast runs. They can take a bit of getting used to.

Yummy Christmas Biscuits

Thanks to Monday night runner (and domestic goddess) Michelle Thornton, for this great Cheese and Paprika Biscuit recipe. Michelle brought these to our post session Christmas drinks. I can vouch for them being yummy!

Paprika and Parmesan Biscuits

Train Faster Run Faster: Progressive Tempo Runs

Also known as threshold runs, lactate threshold runs, and a few other terms as well, the temp run has been an important part of the distance runners’ training program for a long time now. Traditionally, tempo runs have been done under the lactate threshold, but the modern day runner is using progressive tempo runs to train the body to be able to handle what happens in race conditions, when you tip over that point at which the body is able to clear the lactic acid out of the blood quickly.

Lactate threshold pace is the pace where you are just in control of everything, and to go any faster would mean you would have to slow down through exhaustion pretty soon. You’re puffing hard, but not out of control, the amount of lactic acid in your blood is just about to tip over to that point where your body can’t clear lactic acid from the body quickly enough, so you have to slow down so that oxygen can be used to convert lactic acid back to pyruvic acid at the cellular level which will then be converted to water and carbon dioxide and expelled from the body as breath, sweat and urine.

Your muscles are feeling it, but can keep going powerfully, but if you go any faster, you’ve had it. This is how you feel when you’re running at threshold pace.

You can train at or around threshold pace using interval training – running at threshold or just above for up to 6 mins, then dropping your pace dramatically for a few minutes of recovery. You can also utilise the tempo run, a longer run where you stay just under the threshold pace.

The long standing advice on temp runs is to be sure not to cross the lactate threshold, or else you won’t be training the right energy system. Theoretically, this is true-once you cross the lactate threshold, you aren’t providing the right stress to increase your lactate threshold as much as you would if you stayed under the threshold.

However, most of us are not training to increase our lactate threshold. Most of us are training to run faster. To perform at our best in a certain goal race. By performing some of your training at race pace when you are already buggered (that’s the layman’s term for fatigued), you’re providing the right stress to your body to improve your race performance. You’re also working on some good mental toughening up as well!

If you’re racing a 5k for example, if you haven’t gone out too hard, you’ll feel ok up to about the 3km mark. Around about that point, your body will have to begin to deal with high levels of lactic acid accumulation, and if you haven’t trained your body to do this, it’s not going to do it very efficiently.

To train under similar conditions to those you’ll experience in a race, progressive tempo runs are very important. You need to train your body to deal with lactic acid after a relatively long sustained hard effort. Run most of your run, be it anything from 5k -15km (or more, depending on your experience) under your lactate threshold. It should feel hard, but not too hard. You should know you’re working, but feel like you could keep going. In the final 10-20% of your run, lift your effort and cross over the lactate threshold, bringing it home just like you would in a race. This will give your body practice at dealing with higher levels of lactic acid at a time when you are already fatigued. It’s simple. Train faster run faster.

Start out gradually with progressive tempo runs. Include maybe 1km at the end of a tempo run when you lift your effort a bit. Don’t do more than once a week. Play around with it a bit, and see your PB drop!

Image: rajcreationzs freedigitalphotos.net

How Alcohol Impacts Your Training and Your Weight

Don’t you just love this time of year? Here in Sydney, we are lucky enough to have summer and Christmas fall at the same time. That means warm sunny days, more time to fit in your exercise in daylight, lots of partying, and not much clothing to hide behind! (I could be thinking about my misspent youth here, but let’s run with it).

[mantra-multi][mantra-column width=”3/4″]

Yes, it’s the silly season, when most of us let go, sometimes just a little too much. Ever wonder how someone’s weight (perhaps yours) manages to creep up on them in a slow ambush until “BANG” one day they are 5-10 kgs heavier than they were a few years ago?

Could be, they over indulge around this time of year, put on an extra kg or two, then don’t take it off again. For most of us, it’s easy to hide a kg somewhere on your body. The jeans just fit a bit more snugly, your belt probably won’t even need to go out a notch – not this year anyway.

The holiday season can also have a profound impact on your training. You may feel you have less time for exercising, (which actually just means you’re giving something else priority), or you may have had one too many champagnes at the office Christmas party, so it’s just that little bit harder to get out of bed. And if you do get out of bed to go for your early morning run, you might be feeling a little shabby.

So that we’ve all got it straight in our heads how alcohol impacts your training and your weight, here are a few facts, because having an unbalanced approach to partying could be what gets in the way of all your hard work paying off.

Alcohol dehydrates you, as it is a diuretic. It makes the kidneys produce more urine. Exercising soon after drinking can make the dehydration worse, especially in hot weather, as you’ll be sweating. For optimum circulation of oxygen and nutrients to your muscles, you need to be well hydrated. Your training and performance will be sub maximal if you are dehydrated. Alternating alcoholic drinks with mineral water will not only mean you consume less alcohol, it will help you to stay hydrated.
When your system is breaking down alcohol, the liver can’t produce as much glucose, which means you have low blood sugar levels. This can account for cravings of sweetened soft drinks such as Coke after a big night out. Blood sugars give you energy when you are exercising, so if your body is busy metabolising alcohol, you’ll have less energy for exercise, and your performance will drop. Your co-ordination and concentration can be affected as well.
Not only does your body need to break down the alcohol, it also needs to clear itself of the by-products of alcohol metabolism, so you won’t be able to clear out the lactic acid produced in exercise as efficiently as you normally do.
As alcohol is a toxin, the body prioritises getting it out of your system over burning fats or carbohydrates. So, not only do you get a whopping 7 cals per gram of alcohol (compared to 4 cals per gram of proteins and carbs), you won’t be burning the extra carbs you eat at the office Christmas party, or burn much stored fat, till all the alcohol is out of your system.
Alcohol breaks down amino acids (stored in muscles) and stores them as fat. This is more pronounced around the thighs and bum. Long term alcohol use reduces protein synthesis, resulting in a decrease in muscle growth.
Over the top drinking also increases levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which also encourages fat storage, particularly around the belly.
Alcohol negatively affects your sleep patterns. This can result in you being tired the day after a couple of drinks and may cause you to go for instant energy hits of sugar, piling on more calories. The lack of sleep will also inhibit the production of Human Growth Hormone, (HGH) which plays an important role in the building and repairing of muscles-very important for recovering after a hard speed session or gym workout. Alcohol can inhibit HGH secretion by as much as 70%.
Alcohol limits your body’s ability to absorb key micronutrients from your food, particularly Vit B1 (Thiamine), B12, Folic Acid and Zinc. B1 is important for protein and fat metabolism, as well as for forming haemoglobin (necessary for oxygen transport in your blood). It also plays a role in metabolising carbohydrates. B12 helps maintain healthy red blood and nerve cells. Folic acid is important in the formation of new cells, and a deficiency can result in a lower oxygen carrying capacity, affecting your endurance. Zinc is important for energy production, and a deficiency will impair your endurance.

So, in a nutshell, alcohol will impair your reaction time, wreck your sleep and recovery, give you a whopping 7 cals per gram, help you stack on weight around your mid section whilst depleting muscle mass around the thighs and gluteal muscles, and quite possibly make you eat more than you otherwise normally would have.

What’s the solution? Don’t over indulge. Make sure you know what the safe levels of drinking are, and plan your quality training sessions to be at least 24 hours after alcohol. Eat well (and a little less) when you are not partying, so the effect of any excesses is counteracted by your general good eating habits.

If you do overindulge -don’t stress about it. Get quickly back on the straight and narrow and put it down to experience!

[/mantra-column] [mantra-column width=”1/4″]

How Many Calories Do You Drink?

[calc id=3589]

[/mantra-column] [/mantra-multi]

Hooked on Running

Burn an extra 160 calories a day and lose weight

foods to boost your metabolism and lose weight

Don’t obsess about what not to eat. Here are eight foods which could actually help you to lose weight by eating them! You could also take a look at other ways to boost your metabolism and lose weight.

Green Tea

Green tea will really get your metabolism firing. Chose it over black tea or coffee for it’s flavinoids and antioxidants, as well as for it’s thermogenic properties. Simply put, it will boost your metabolism. The amount of extra calories you burn isn’t huge – one cup will help you burn up to an extra 60 calories, but every little bit helps to lose weight.

Low Fat Yoghurt

Good quality, unsweetened, plain yoghurt is packed full of live bacteria called probiotics, which help your gut process food more efficiently. Yoghurt is also a good source of protein and calcium. Seemingly inexplicably, a 2005 study showed that including low fat yoghurt in a reduced calorie diet had a greater effect in helping people to lose weight, than a reduced calorie diet which did not include yoghurt. Over a 12 week period, people who were in the group which ate yoghurt lost about 1.8kg more weight than the other group, and also lost 81% more fat around the stomach than the non-yoghurt eaters.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon has been shown to control the spike in blood sugar experienced after eating a high sugar meal. It seems the cinnamon slows down gastric emptying, releasing the sugars into the blood more gradually. This can make you fell full for longer, helping you to lose weight. Think of it along the same lines as the difference between eating oats for breakfast vs coco pops!

Garlic

Well-known as a broad spectrum anti-microbial (kills all sorts of little germs and bugs), Korean researchers found that rats given a high calorie diet as well as a garlic supplement did not gain as much weight as rats who weren’t given the garlic supplement. When exercise was thrown into the mix, the garlic was even more effective in preventing weight gain.

To get the most out of your garlic, crush the fresh bulb and leave it to sit for 10 minutes before adding it to your cooking. This helps it to retain about 70% more of its beneficial compounds. Crushing the garlic releases the beneficial enzymes trapped in the cells of the plant. The enzymes boost the levels of the healthy compounds in garlic, which peak about 10 mins after crushing.

For best results, add the garlic in at the last minute, so it is cooked only lightly.

Hot Peppers

Researchers testing a compound related to capsaicin, found in chili and other hot peppers, showed the compound could boost your metabolism. The study found an increase in calories burned after a test meal.

The extra boost in metabolism amounted to about 100cals for a 50kg women, to about 200 cals for a 90 kg man. Not insignificant. That’s about 25% of the calorie deficit you need to find (500cals) each day if you want to lose 500gms in weight a week. I’ll take that.

Ginger

Similar to the capsaicin in chili peppers, ginger can boost your metabolism after you’ve eaten it, as well as aid digestion and decrease appetite. Add some grated fresh ginger to your stir fry, or make a yummy ginger tea by infusing in sliced fresh ginger in hot water. You can also add it to your favourite baking recipes.

Vinegar

Recent studies suggest that the acetic acid in vinegar may switch on genes that release proteins that break down fat. Participants in a Japanese study who drank 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar daily for 12 weeks, were able to lose weight, and lower their visceral fat (fat surrounding organs) and waist circumference significantly.

Dark Chocolate

No article on the magical properties of foods would be complete without the mention of dark chocolate! Someone can always come up with some reason for eating chocolate. Here’s a study by Nestle researchers which shows that dark chocolate can aid in weight loss by reducing stress hormones.

What do you think?

Running For Healthy Skin

How is it that some women have glowing, healthy, smooth looking skin?

Many of them can thank their parents for blessing them with good genes. But even if you weren’t so lucky, there’s a few things you can do to improve the look of your skin – without spending a fortune.

You can run, and you can exfoliate.

Running for healthy skin

Running helps nourish skin cells by improving circulation and increasing blood flow to them. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the skin cells, and it helps carry away waste products. By increasing blood flow, you’re giving your cells a flush out.

Running can also decrease stress, which will help to ease conditions exacerbated by stress, such as acne and eczema. The reduction in stress will help to smooth out some of those tension lines and worried looks on your face as well!

Exfoliate for healthy skin

Exfoliating helps to remove the outer layer of dead skin cells. It reveals to the world the brighter skin beneath this layer of dead cells. And you don’t need to buy expensive lotions and potions for exfoliating to be effective.

Here’s a simple recipe you can throw together from ingredients in your own kitchen.

Olive Oil Exfoliant

3 tablespoons rock salt
1.5 tablespoons olive oil

Mix together, then rub into your body in circular motion. Best done in the bath or shower as it can get quite messy.

You can try adding herbs to the mixture such as sage or basil.

For a face scrub, you should use salt that has been partially ground.

Picture: Stuart Miles: freedigitalphotos.net