|
The Runner's Web Digest is a FREE weekly digest of information on running, triathlons and multisport activities.
[The links for all Digests posted are available: here]
We have the following three domain names for sale: TrackandFieldWeb.com, TriathletesWeb.com and National CapitalMarathon.com.
Contact the Runner's Web
Runner's Web Digest INDEX
1.Where Dr. Sin & Team Need To Repent On A Line Crossed: Women + Unfair Play = Health Crisis
2. Health Promotion - Facts on fluids: How to stay hydrated
3. Female distance runners improve health — and speed — with better diet
4. Atreyu Race Model Review: Tex-Swiss Army Knife
5. My Running Club, My Everything
6. Super shoes: do you need them?
7. Adidas Has a New “Illegal” Shoe. But Who Is It For?
8. Avoiding the ‘REDs Card’. We all have a role in the mitigation of REDs in athletes
9. Take to the trails
10. How Your Menstrual Cycle Affects Recovery from Training
11. Drug that mimics exercise triggers weight loss and builds lean muscle
12. Variability in Running Economy of Kenyan World-Class and European Amateur Male Runners with Advanced Footwear Running Technology: Experimental and Meta-analysis Results
13. How to Effectively Modify Your Training and Racing as You Age, with Rebecca Rusch
14. 7 Key Rules for Proper Recovery from a Hard Run
15. It’s the Best Time of the Year to Run. Try a 5K or 10K.
THIS WEEK'S POLL:
What accounts for the recent fast performances and world records, especially among women runners?
* Super shoes
* Improved scientific training
* Drugs
* Natural progression
Vote here
PREVIOUS POLL RESULTS:
What factors do you consider before entering a race?
1 Race distance 191 (17%)
2 Course terrain 141 (13%)
3 Prize money 115 (10%)
4 Charity involved 109 (10%)
5 Location 176 (16%)
6 Weather 186 (17%)
7 Entry fee 178 (16%)
Total Votes: 1096
FIVE STAR SITE OF THE MONTH FOR SEPTEMBER 2023: MARATHON HANDBOOK:
The Story Of Marathon Handbook
We Help You Run Far.
Marathon Handbook was founded back in 2016, with the mission from day one of helping other people run far.
At our heart, we are runners and athletes ourselves – every person on our team is a running coach, distance runner, or certified health and fitness trainer.
Everything we do focuses on helping our readers run, and achieve their health and fitness goals.
All our articles and guides are written by a qualified expert, and checked over by at least one more expert. Meet them below!
Over 150,000 runners have signed up for one of our free training plans.
Our weekly newsletter, the Monday Morning Mailer, goes out to over 125,000 readers.
We’re a team of dedicated practitioners: we’re all running coaches, distance runners, and health and fitness trainers dedicated to providing the best resources to all our readers!
Visit the website at: Marathon Handbook
BOOK/VIDEO/MOVIE OF THE MONTH FOR SEPTEMBER 2023: RUN HEALTHY
The Runner's Guide to Injury Prevention and Treatment
Author:Emmi Aguillard Jonathan Cane Allison L. Goldstein
If you are a serious runner, you are well aware of the aches and pains associated with the sport. Run Healthy: The Runner’s Guide to Injury Prevention and Treatment was written to help you distinguish discomfort from injury. It provides the latest science-based and practical guidance for identifying, treating, and minimizing the most common injuries in track, road, and trail running.
Gain a better understanding of how the musculoskeletal system functions and responds to training. Develop a practical and effective training plan to address the regions where injuries most often occur: feet and toes, ankles, knees, hips, and low back. Learn how a combination of targeted strength training, mobility exercises, and running drills can improve running form, economy, and performance.
When injuries inevitably happen, you’ll know how to identify them, treat them, and recover from them. Get targeted recommendations for some of the most common issues runners face, such as plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, shin splints, hamstring tendinitis and tendinopathy, and IT band syndrome.
Throughout, you’ll hear from 17 runners on how the techniques in this book helped them overcome their injuries and got them quickly and safely back to training and racing. You’ll also find an in-depth discussion of alternative therapies such as acupuncture, cupping, CBD, cryotherapy, and cleanses to help you separate fact from fiction and decide for yourself which, if any, of these therapies to pursue.
Injuries can and do happen, but with Run Healthy you’ll be running strong for many years to come.
Buy the book from Human Kinetics.
| For more books on Running and Triathlon visit:
HumanKinectics.com,
Amazon.com,
VeloPress.com, and
SkyHorse.com
|
1. Where Dr. Sin & Team Need To Repent On A Line Crossed: Women + Unfair Play = Health Crisis:
The mental wellbeing and interests of half the planet, namely women, have been, well … kicked to the curb by researchers at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, who concluded that biological males who identify as trans women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports at school and college level to protect their health.
In a stunning conclusion and headline that may shock and rock humanity to it core, assuming we all still think the Earth is flat, the researchers say that sports have many benefits, like the boost exercise gives to mental health, self-esteem, physical health, and a reduction in risk of obesity and related chronic diseases.
I don’t think they mention it but sport has also been linked with good grades at school. They don’t mention this either: no trans woman is banned from sport.
If it’s a fun run with no competitive element, for example, they can run in whatever spirit and guise they wish, without harming anyone else, while if there is a competitive element, they can and should compete in the category of their biological sex, for the sake of safety, fair play and integrity (yes, wilfully harming others by demanding unfair inclusion raises matters of integrity).
However, they used this decades-old discovery to advocate for trans people to be allowed to compete in the gender of their choice not biology at all levels of school and college, covering pre-puberty years through to adulthood.
More...from State of Swimming.
>2. Health Promotion - Facts on fluids: How to stay hydrated:
Nothing satisfies thirst better than a tall glass of cold water.
During the summer you may be more aware of drinking enough fluids to prevent dehydration. Staying well hydrated when it's hot is definitely a must; however, hydration is important to your health year round. Read on to learn about how much fluid you need to stay healthy and which fluids you should choose most often.
Why fluids matter
Fluid is essential! It has many important roles. Fluids help to:
Move nutrients and waste through your body
Keep your blood pressure normal
Protect and cushion your joints and organs
Control your body temperature and
Lower your risk of dehydration and heat stroke
More...from Government of Canada.
3. Female distance runners improve health — and speed — with better diet:
The idea that a leaner body makes for a faster stride is common among distance runners. But it's inaccurate and sets a dangerous ideal, according to Megan RocheOpens in a new window, MD, PhD, an ultrarunner and researcher at Stanford Medicine.
Runners who are excessively lean are prone to injuries, infectious diseases, mental health problems and loss in bone density, said Michael FredericsonOpens in a new window, MD, a professor of orthopaedic surgery who has served for decades as the Stanford University track team head physician. Female runners are more likely to suffer these effects, he noted.
During his career as the head team physician, Fredericson has seen so many athletes with problems related to low body weight -- including bone stress injuries, menstrual irregularity and osteoporosis, or loss of bone density -- he decided to study ways to prevent it.
Collaborating with researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, another NCAA Division I school, they studied female distance runners before and after they received counseling on eating habits and maintaining a healthy weight. Post-counseling, athletes at Stanford University saw a 50% reduction in the number of bone stress injuries while the number of athletes who had regular menstruation -- a harbinger of stable health -- doubled.
More...from Stanford Medecine.
4. Atreyu Race Model Review: Tex-Swiss Army Knife:
Part carnival barker, part sincere empath, Atreyu founder Michael Krajicek sometimes comes off as accessible yet elusive. What you come to realize is he isn’t a mystery. He’s a straight shooter to a fault. You never have to guess what Atreyu is thinking. Between Michael’s updates on Instagram, behind-the-shoe/brand/man looks on YouTube, and writing messages on the actual running shoes, Atreyu may be the most transparent running shoe company out there.
As a small and scrappy brand based out of Austin, Texas, Atreyu does all it can with what it’s got. Kenyans aren’t providing feedback on the trainers, they don’t have VO2 labs and compression machines putting the foams through rigorous, repetitive trials. Atreyu doesn’t have a dedicated department that meets to review designs and plan market launches. It’s basically Mike and a handful of employees/friends trying stuff out and tweaking things to produce a shoe they like running in.
I’m curious if Mike’s approach makes the teams at major running companies seem bloated or if Atreyu could benefit from a more systematic approach to building running shoes. Atreyu makes shoes that are good enough to pay attention to at a price point that reflects the streamlined process of R&D.
Mike creates his products by being a student of the running shoe industry. He knows his foams, geometries, and materials. The shoes he designs are to his taste, and he hopes you will like them too. The Atreyu Race Model is priced at $120, making it $130 less than the godfather Nike Vaporfly. Would you rather have two pairs of the Race Model or one pair of mainstream plated racers?
More...from Believe in the Run.
5. My Running Club, My Everything:
Group running has exploded in New York City. As friendships, marriages and even rivalries emerge, the benefits are proving as social as they are physical.
On a Thursday evening in early September, the Upper West Side Run Club met on the steps of the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. It was 6:30 p.m., and temperatures were hovering in the low 90s. But despite the extreme heat, over 25 people, ranging in age from teens to late 60s, showed up to run a four-mile loop around Central Park.
They made frequent stops at the water fountains. They also played a game called “Liars” to keep their minds off the brutal conditions.
Usually the group heads somewhere after to wind down with a coffee or beer. It was the women’s semifinals of the U.S. Open, so about three-fourths of them went to Gin Mill, a gastro pub on Amsterdam Avenue, to cheer on the American players Coco Gauff and Madison Keys. Still in their running clothes, the crew, high on endorphins, drank beers and ate burgers, some staying until the matches ended after midnight.
More...from the New York Times.
6. Super shoes: do you need them?
At the Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, athletes in the standing jump event (a likely early predecessor to what we now know as the long jump) realised they could gain more distance by holding a weight in each hand (known as ‘Halteres’). The race for performance enhancing aids had officially begun.
Since those early days, we've seen numerous sports chase technological advantages. Even running, with its relative lack of complexity, hasn’t been immune to performance-enhancing developments, although it was arguably a little slow to join the party.
For decades, running’s technological ‘arms race’ had involved little more than wearing the skimpiest clothing, whilst the biggest innovations involved stopwatches, better track surfaces and training methods.
There had been flirtations with alternative approaches, such as barefoot running (Lierberman, 2012), but the running shoe design hadn't made a great deal of progress since rubber had been incorporated into the sole. The main design emphasis had been on racing in the most minimalist shoes, which were as light as possible and supported the runner’s particular gait or running style
More...from Precision Hydration.
7. Adidas Has a New “Illegal” Shoe. But Who Is It For?
Due to stack height regulations, pros can’t race in the new Adizero Prime X. But it’s fair game for amateur runners—we asked a few of them how they’d feel about competing in it.
Two years ago, the Ethiopian distance runner Derara Hurisa had his victory in the Vienna City Marathon annulled because he was wearing shoes that were one centimeter too thick. By all accounts it was an innocent mistake; Hurisa had been using Adidas’s “Adizero Prime X” shoe in training and wasn’t aware that its 50-millimeter stack height rendered it ineligible for professional competition. (World Athletics shoe regulations have set the limit at 40 millimeters for road races.) At the time, there was some discussion in running forums about whether or not this mini scandal would play out in Adidas’s favor. On the one hand, an athlete had been disqualified for using their product. But the incident also gave the Prime X worldwide publicity and, arguably, a certain illicit allure. Whether Adidas would attempt to cash in on the shoe’s notoriety remained to be seen.
That question now appears to have been answered. This week, Adidas is launching the second iteration of the Prime X. The press release for the Adizero Prime X 2 Strung, which will retail for $300, touts the shoe as “illegally fast” and notes that the shoe’s designers were able to “unleash their full creative capabilities” since they didn’t have to worry about regulatory constraints. As a result, the Prime X has not one, but two carbon fiber plates—another feature prohibited by World Athletics rules. (The stack height is still 50 millimeters.) But who is this shoe intended for? According to the press release, the new Prime X, while illegal for elites, “is permitted for ambitious runners aiming to smash their personal bests.”
More...from Women's Running.
8. Avoiding the ‘REDs Card’. We all have a role in the mitigation of REDs in athletes:
In many sports, a player or coach receiving a ‘red card’ is immediately dismissed from the field of play and cannot return to the competition: an event to be avoided! Another red card to be avoided occurs across all sports and levels of participation: the Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) card.
Elite athletes often push the boundaries of activity considered to be healthy in the quest to maximise their athletic potential for success. For many athletes, the fine line between maintaining health while maximising sports performance is elusive when energy requirements are not met, sometimes resulting in reversible health consequences (eg, impaired reproductive function, impaired gastrointestinal function), irreversible health consequences such as permanent bone mineral density loss and failure to reach their athletic potential. Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, an Olympic Cross Country Skiing Gold Medallist, summarises the dichotomy between maintaining health and the motivation to improve performance from the athlete perspective:
More...from the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
9. Take to the trails:
As the cross-country season beckons, many runners are venturing off-road and here we take a look at some of the latest trail offerings from leading shoe brands.
The shoe that Kilian Jornet won the 2022 UTMB race in, the Kjerag is actually a shoe he developed and a brand he created.
It’s very much a trail racer, although Kilian says his UTMB-winning shoes have covered over 1500km, so it’s built to go the distance. Being durable was one of the considerations in creating the shoes, a factor to help with sustainability.
The shoe features a relatively low-profile midsole cushioning with a 23.5mm of stack in the heel and a 6mm drop in the EExpure foam, a foam they say was developed specifically for trail shoes. It has a familiar feel and ride, similar to that of many Pebax-based marathon racing shoes.
More...from Athletics Weekly.
10. How Your Menstrual Cycle Affects Recovery from Training:
A rigorous new study finds small changes in heart rate and subjective feelings of recovery. Do they matter?
Earlier this year, I wrote an article arguing that there’s insufficient evidence to justify broad statements about how to adjust your training around your menstrual cycle. A big part of the problem, according to a major review of the existing research, was that much of it relied on self-reporting to determine what menstrual phase its subjects were in, which is notoriously unreliable. How can you claim that training is worse during the luteal phase if you’re not sure when the luteal phase starts?
The conclusion of that review was, as you might guess, that more and better research is needed. So here’s a start: new data from the Female Endurance Athlete Project, a Norwegian initiative to fill some of the gaps in knowledge about female-specific aspects of exercise and athletic performance. A team led by Virginia De Martin Topranin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology assessed recovery status in 41 female endurance athletes as a function of their objectively monitored menstrual cycle. The results, published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, suggest there are indeed statistically significant differences in recovery at different times in the cycle—but that these differences, at least on a group level, are “negligible to small.”
More...from Sweat Science on Outside Online.
11. Drug that mimics exercise triggers weight loss and builds lean muscle:
As a new age of weight-loss therapeutics dawns, heralded by the likes of semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), scientists are one step closer to creating a drug that can coax muscles into behaving as if they’ve just been put through a vigorous workout. Known as exercise mimetics, this proposed class of drugs essentially ‘mimics’ the benefits of exercise, triggering a mechanism that supercharges fat metabolism and encourages lean muscle mass.
"This compound is basically telling skeletal muscle to make the same changes you see during endurance training," said lead author Thomas Burris, professor of pharmacy at the University of Florida.
While exercise mimetics have been in the works for some time, the UF researchers found that a compound known as SLU-PP-332 was able to target a specific estrogen-related receptor (ERR), which boosted skeletal fat oxidation, therefore increasing energy expenditure.
More...from New Atlas.
12. Variability in Running Economy of Kenyan World-Class and European Amateur Male Runners with Advanced Footwear Running Technology: Experimental and Meta-analysis Results:
Background
Advanced footwear technology improves average running economy compared with racing flats in sub-elite athletes. However, not all athletes benefit as performance changes vary from a 10% drawback to a 14% improvement. The main beneficiaries from such technologies, world-class athletes, have only been analyzed using race times.
Objective
The aim of this study was to measure running economy on a laboratory treadmill in advanced footwear technology compared to a traditional racing flat in world-class Kenyan (mean half-marathon time: 59:30 min:s) versus European amateur runners.
Methods
Seven world-class Kenyan and seven amateur European male runners completed a maximal oxygen uptake assessment and submaximal steady-state running economy trials in three different models of advanced footwear technology and a racing flat. To confirm our results and better understand the overall effect of new technology in running shoes, we conducted a systematic search and meta-analysis.
More...from Springer Link.
13. How to Effectively Modify Your Training and Racing as You Age, with Rebecca Rusch:
Age is just a number. Few athletes know that better than Rebecca Rusch, who joins us to discuss how to adapt and perform at the highest levels of sport as you age.
They say age is just a number. That’s exactly it: Age is nothing more than digits, and certainly shouldn’t be seen as a barrier or a dirty word. We can age successfully, but it requires changes to how we train and perhaps to the types of races we target.
Of course, there are some physiological changes—you might call them declines—that come with age. Yet, there are also things that improve as athletes get older. Sometimes they are truly physiological and psychological adaptations, and at other times they are a matter of perspective, mentality, or choice.
This episode begins with a deep dive by Trevor into some recent research on the effects of age and performance. Then we jump into a great conversation with the timeless Rebecca Rusch, a seven-time world champion, mountain bike Hall of Famer, and ever-evolving, age-defying cyclist and adventurer.
In that conversation, we touch upon everything from training changes to nutrition tips, from off-the-bike work to the work it takes inside the mind to stay motivated, energized, and ready to push.
More...from Fast Talk Laboratories.
14. 7 Key Rules for Proper Recovery from a Hard Run:
After a long run, hard trail days or training sessions, your body needs more time to recover. Here are 7 rules to follow to get rid of soreness.
The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB for short) is an ultramarathon trail race that covers 106 miles through France, Italy, and Switzerland and has a total elevation gain of around 32,940 feet. It’s known as one of the toughest races in the world—and for good reason. An average of 39 percent of runners don’t even finish, and those who do experience fatigue levels of up to 40 percent in their legs post-race, according to research published in PLOS One. It can take runners up to nine days to fully recover.
You don’t need to run Mont-Blanc to know that trails take alot out of your legs; that the uneven surfaces demand more from the small stabilizer muscles in your lower limbs, and inclines call for increased cardiac effort. Plus, “anytime there’s a downhill running component, that’s going to cause more muscle damage, inflammation, and soreness,” says Shona Halson, Ph.D., a recovery expert and senior physiologist at the Australian Institute of Sport.
The same principles apply to marathon training long runs, hard training sessions and the top end of training for any race, whether it be on the road or trail. Pushing your body and muscles to the limit can lead to inflammation and result in muscle soreness.
More...from Women's Running.
15. It’s the Best Time of the Year to Run. Try a 5K or 10K:
ou don’t need to run 26.2 miles to enjoy marathon season. Here’s how to prepare for shorter distances.
There’s nothing better than fall running — the leaves, the crisp air. This is your reward for slogging through summer’s heat and humidity. Race directors know it, too, which is why there are so many fall races on the calendar. Whether it’s for a 5K or a half-marathon, now is a good time to register for a short or medium-length race and start preparing.
Training for these distances is a more manageable commitment than getting ready for a marathon. You’re less likely to get hurt, and you can often run the race and return home with energy left over. That may be why the half marathon is runners’ favorite distance event, followed by the 5K and the 10K, according to Running USA’s 2023 Race Trends survey.
You’ll still want to arrive at the starting line prepared. Here are all the pieces you need to make an upcoming race not just achievable, but enjoyable.
More...frpm th New York Times.
|
FEATURED EVENTS:
*Please verify event dates with the event websites available from our FrontPage.
Upcoming Races, Marathons, Races, and Triathlons
September 29, 2023:
Michelob Ultra Nigh Run - Toronto, ON
September 29 - October 1, 2023:
Beneva Quebec City Marathon - Quebec City, QC
Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon Weekend- Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
September 30 - October 1, 2023:
World Athletics Road Running Championships - Riga, Latvia
October 1, 2023:
New York City Triathlon - New York, NY
World Road Running Championships - Riga, Latvia
October 6-8, 2023:
Royal Victoria Marathon Weekedn - Victoira, BC
October 8, 2023:
Bank of America Chicago Marathon - Chicago, IL
October 14, 2023:
9RunRun - Stittsville, ON
October 15, 2023:
TCS Amsterdam Marathon - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Toronto, ON
October 29, 2023:
Irish Life Dublin Marathon - Dublin, Ireland
Mainova Frnkfurt Marathon - Frankfurt, Germamy
Run the 119 - South Pasadena, CA
Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon - Nairobi, Kenya
For more complete race listings check out our Upcoming Races, and Calendars.
Have a good week of training and/or racing.
Ken
Email: webmaster@runnersweb.com
|
Know someone else who's interested in running and triathlon?
