Some interesting, surprising, fascinating, and mindane-but-important running learnings picked up from books, articles, coaches in recent months. If you want to try any of them, research some more and try it when you base build for the next season. Some of these topics are still under study. 1. Marathon Cramping may be a result of muscle weakness/stress rather than lack of salt. Strength training can help. Some studies have been undertaken globally and a Mumbai coach is also studying this topic. So look forward to that. 2. Breathing while running: In on 3 steps, out on 2 (or 4:3 if you are more advanced). The rationale is that there is maximum stress on the body on exhalation when the foot hits the ground. An even-odd combination ensure that on alternate exhalations, you land on alternate feet. This also helps prevent side stitches (I can vouch for this). The fact that most of us get stitches on the right side may not be coincidental. There are a few articles on the net. Also read the free Kindle sample of the book Running on Air by Budd Coates. Quite fascinating. 3. Fat Loading - Yes! That is correct 😊. Read about this in Matt Fitzgeralds book New Rules of Marathon and Half Marathon Nutrition. Of course it is the very healthy and natural fats like almonds, avocados and olives. The theory is this helps your body get used to burning fat. So you do a period of fat loading before you start carbo loading. Matt has successfully tried this and I plan to do it too on one of my races next year. 4. Training on empty - Something Coach Daniel Vaz also suggests this (runnersforlife/page/fueling-your-run-drinks-gels-and-more) When training, do some of your shorter easy/aerobic runs - not all! - on only water or nothing at all. This trains your body to burn more fat vis-a-vis glycogen. This reduces your chances of hitting the wall on race day. Of course you should be in good health and if you strongly feel the need for nutrition, have something. You can build up such sessions gradually to up to 2 hours. Of course on race day, go for the optimum nutrition plan you have worked for yourself thru practice. Your body is in an advantageous position when you have trained low and are racing high on fuel. 5. Never under-estimate strength and flexibility work. Too many runners are dealing with injuries like ITBS. Strong glutes, leg muscles and even the tiny ones around the ankle and feet must be strengthened. Post the Bangalore Ultra, my major muscles were fine. But the tiny ones around the feet felt the impact of the trail pounding for a week after. 6. It doesnt matter whether you land on the forefoot, mid foot or heel. Whats important is landing beneath your body. That way you minimize the impact. Meb Keflezighi is a heel striker and Haile Gebrselassie had to move to midfoot striking from forefoot as he moved to the marathon from shorter distances. 😊
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:23:19 +0000
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