February: National Abs Month
Not sure how well known (or official) this “national” holiday is, but thought it would be a good idea to promote the benefits of a strong core. Sit-ups and crunches are one of the basic and most common exercises for the human body. In conjunction with a balanced diet, sit-ups will help build a strong and well-balanced mid-section which is instrumental in practically all sports and physical performance. Not only that, a strong core helps in maintaining good posture and preventing injury.
If you’re running a spring marathon, a strong core will definitely help you in the latter miles when the going gets tough. According to running bio-mechanics expert Michael Fredericson, Ph.D, roughly 90 percent of runners have weak abs which leads to faulty running patterns and bad form. Having weak abs can easily translate into taking too long or too short of steps, or a pelvis that swings from side to side. So, what are you waiting for?
If you’re not already following the popular 200 Sit-Ups challenge, now would be a great time to jump on board and strengthen those abs. The six-week progressive program will help take you from your current fitness level right up to a couple of hundred consecutive sit-ups in a matter of weeks. You can either follow the plan online or download the hugely popular iPhone App from the iTunes App Store. The App currently costs just $1.99, but word on the street is that the price will soon be reduced to $0.99 for a limited time period to celebrate National Abs Month.
Big Clearance Sale At All New Hammer Nutrition Web Site
Hammer Nutrition have started 2010 with a bang and launched a brand new web site with improved navigation, enhanced graphics, revamped knowledge section and brand new community section. They obviously made great use of their holiday shut down period in December/January!
I just received my first order for 2010 — another box of Espresso Gels, Tissue Rejuvenators and 32 serving container of HEED — but will soon be ordering again to try out some of their new flavors. Chocolate Recoverite sounds like an interesting addition, as does the Montana Huckleberry Gels.
While I’m on the site, I may even take advantage of their great clearance offers on the 2009 range of clothing: the Coolmax Singlet is now $12.65 instead of $29.95 (this is the same singlet I wore in my 2009 Cayman Islands Marathon victory!), hooded sweatshirt $24.88 down from $29.95 and men’s tri shorts down to $25.30 from $34.95. There are many other great offers listed too, but you’d better hurry as all are in limited quantities. Just go to the Hammer Nutrition web site and look for the “Clearance” link at the bottom of the left side navigation.
Note: You can use my referral code [29178] to receive 15% off your first order with Hammer Nutrition, but the discount will not be applied to clearance items. Also, all sales are final for clearance items.
If you’d like to find out more about Hammer Nutrition, feel free to request one of their comprehensive catalogs or sign up for their informative newsletter. You can even follow them on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
Weekly Review 1/25/10 – 1/31/10
Started the week at 200 miles for the month of January, and hopeful of getting close to my all-time monthly high of 266 miles. With a 25k race lined up for Saturday 30th and another long run opportunity on Sunday 31st, I felt pretty confident I’d get there. Here’s how the week went:
Monday: Nice gentle eight mile recovery run that took about one hour. I’m trying to get my feet used to a fairly new pair of Adidas Supernova Glide, but they felt clunky and very stiff. Wondering if brand name shoes purchased at Outlet Malls (in this case the Adidas Outlet Mall in Williamsburg, VA) would be any different to the same model shoe that specialty running stores carry? Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Tuesday: Runervals Up, Up & Up Hill Climber DVD — here we go again. Not getting any easier and I struggled a bit with the 10, 11 and 12% at the end. Still a great workout though, and I’m hoping all this quad burn will pay dividends at the HAT Run 50k on March 20th.
Wednesday: News starting to break about a possible/probably snow storm heading our way for the weekend, so decided to go semi-long in the hope of banking a few extra miles. So, my planned ten miler turned into a thirteen miler but it actually went very well. Legs were initially a bit tired from Tuesday’s hill workout, but thankfully they soon warmed up to the task.
Splits: 8:00 7:20 7:22 7:22 7:18 7:12 7:18 7:07 7:04 7:00 6:54 6:44 6:30
Nice to have temps in high 30s with little to no wind. Perfect for a shorts, long sleeve & gloves run.
Thursday: Just an easy eight miles. Not a very exciting treadmill run, but always good to watch some old Tour de France classics on DVD.
Friday: Started the day with a hurried five miles before work. It was very cold and windy out, so nice to get back inside to warm up. Highlight of the day, however, was probably picking up my new Brooks Green Silence from Running Etc.
This brand new model from Brooks is unique in that each and every part of the shoe has a sustainable element, including soy-based inks and recycled materials. The color may not be green, but you’ll definitely make an eco-statement with the Brooks Green Silence racing flat! At just under 7 ounces for my men’s size 9.5, it should be pretty speedy too.
As you can imagine, I couldn’t wait to finish work to try out the Green Silence, and managed to sneak in a quick four miles before darkness set in.
Splits: 6:42, 6:32, 6:31, 6:06
Initial impressions are great. The shoe is light, springy and responsive and feels a lot like a minimalistic Brooks Launch (another favorite of mine). The off center lacing is a bit funky, but I didn’t have any issues with keeping them snug. Looking forward to seeing how these work out for me.
Saturday: Well, the predicted snow storm arrived and the 25k Distance Series race was cancelled. Good call by the race director — it would have been virtually impossible to get to Fort Story, let alone run 25k on the roads now covered by 6-9 inches of snow. I did, however, venture out for a few miles and slogged through five of them for about 43 minutes. Not used to this type of running though and it was a bit of a struggle and a lot of work for the quads and hamstrings.
It was a good opportunity to try out a test pair of La Sportiva Wildcat GTX Trail Shoes though. To be honest, I’d worn these on a few muddy trail runs in the past and hadn’t been that impressed with the feel — quite bulky, stiff and heavy and not my type of shoe at all. Of course, the shoe is designed for far more rigorous terrain than you’ll find in Virginia Beach, so my opinions are probably not 100% fair to La Sportiva. However, today in the snow, the shoe performed like a champ — the traction was great and thanks to the excellent Gore-Tex membrane, my feet stayed totally dry and warm! Maybe I could get to like these after all?
Sunday: Decided to take a day off. It snowed a bit more overnight and although I *could* have gone out to run, I figured a rest day would probably do me more good in the long term. A rare wise decision by the bulldog, eh?
So, I closed out January with 252 miles and about 51 for the week. Not a bad effort, and the best thing is my legs feel fresh and ready to take on another month.
Happy Miles!
Motivating Music: What’s Your Top Tune?
You either love it, or hate it. Running with music that is. If you are one of the millions that love running to music, you may be interested to hear that the Virgin London Marathon has teamed up with running music experts AudioFuel to create a “Runner’s Top Ten Favorite Tracks”. The soundtrack, created by the runner, for the runner, will then be made available as an iMix that you can buy.
Head over to the Music and Motivation web site where you can nominate the track that you find particularly motivating when you run.
You may also be interested in their Celebrity Playlists, Athlete Playlists and excellent Mental Fitness information.
AudioFuel is running music designed to increase your performance. If you’d like to sample their stuff, they’ve rather generously made available a free fuel sampler for you to download.
They also have an Audiofuel Shop featuring three different AudioFuel products, all designed to increase running performance by up to 20%.
Of course, if you’re not 100% satisfied with any of their products, they also offer a full money back guarantee.
Happy Miles and Happy Tunes!
[Note: this is not a paid post.]
Recovery Week
After three consecutive “build” weeks (52, 57 and 61 miles), it was nice to have an easier week. Sunday’s 20 miler really took a lot out of me, so the timing of the reduction in miles was pretty much perfect.
Monday: First day off since Christmas Day. Tempted to run a couple of easy miles to maintain my mini-streak, but thought better of it in the end.
Tuesday: Runervals Up, Up & Up Hill Climber DVD — lowered my base pace but still covered about 8 miles in an hour on some tortuous hills. Good fun, but still not feeling 100%.
Wednesday: An easy five miles before work, followed by four more in the mud after work. Wanted to try out a trail shoe I’ve been asked to review — the La Sportiva Wildcat GTX. Don’t think I’ll find anywhere in Virginia Beach to fully test the Wildcat, so tonight I just chose the wettest, muddiest, uneven terrain within a couple of miles. The Gore-tex membrane certainly kept my feet dry, but at 13oz the shoe is way too heavy and cumbersome for me. I do like the grippy sole though, so maybe they’ll get another outing some time in the next week or so.
Legs feeling much better than they did earlier in the week. Good news…
Thursday: An easy 4.32 miles to complete the DailyMile Ward Challenge.
Friday: Just ran an easy 5.5 miles before dinner. Looking forward to the 6k cross country race in the morning.
Saturday: Ran the Mud In Your Eye 6k and had a great time. Very muddy conditions made for a fun race at one of my favorite cross country venues. Finished 4th overall in the race and moved up from 6th to 3rd overall in the Series Standings.
Sunday: Another 20 miler to end the week (my third in January so far). Nice to run on the trails at First Landing again and although muddy, it was nothing like the conditions we had for the Seashore Nature Trail 50k last month. Ended up at the same pace as last week’s 20 miler which was pretty good considering the terrain.
Finished off the week at 52 miles. Looking to get back to the 60s this week. The Distance Series 25k on Saturday should help the cause!
1 More Mile for Sunshine
Quick shout out to Blaine Moore of the informative Run to Win web site, who is currently on Day 25 of his 1 More Mile for Sunshine Challenge. Blaine’s goal is to raise money for Camp Sunshine by running at least 500 miles throughout the month of January.
The challenge started on January 1st with Blaine running at least 1 mile, followed by at least 2 miles on the 2nd, all the way up through 31 miles on the 31st! Last week Blaine logged over 148 miles which leaves about about 196 miles to cover in the final seven days of the challenge. What makes the task even more difficult is the adverse weather conditions at this time of year in Portland, Maine where Blaine lives. I honestly don’t envy the job in hand, but if anyone can pull it off, I’m sure Blaine can.
You can read more about the 1 More Mile for Sunshine Challenge here, and if you feel like making a donation, I’m certain Blaine will be VERY appreciative.
Good luck Blaine!
Camp Sunshine supports children with life threatening illnesses and their families. The camp has the distinction of being the only program in the nation whose mission is to address the impact of a life threatening illness on every member of the immediate family—the ill child, the parents, and the siblings. Since its inception, Camp Sunshine has provided a haven for over 30,000 individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds.
