Racing and Eating

 One of the things that is confusing for adult athletes, that are training to do their first long distance event, is what to eat and drink before during and after the race.  There are a lot of different opinions.

Some people will tell you that if you eat anything before a race it needs to be very light and at least an hour before. Other people can be seen chugging a sports drink to wash down a bagel just a few minutes before the race starts. Other people look like they are going on a grand adventure with their belt filled with special foods and drinks that are "Scientifically developed", for optimal performance.

During a race it's the same thing, some people have special fluids, gels, Goos and food to eat along the way. I've seen everything from peanut butter sandwiches to beef jerky being eaten on the move.

I'm going to give you my take on this subject. I was a competitive runner for over 30 years and a race walker after that. In addition I worked with a lot of military personnel, helping them get in shape to pass their required fitness tests and athletes training for competition. So I have some opinions derived from experience and trial and error.

My personal pre competition meal is a cereal like Special K or Cheerios, with a banana cut up on top and skim milk, I add a glass of water and a cup of coffee. I'll eat this about 2 hours before start time. I eat and drink that far ahead for a couple of reasons. 1. I want the meal digested and not sitting in my stomach. A meal eaten shortly before you start will still be pretty much there when you finish your race, so it really didn't do you any good because your body had to channel blood to your stomach for digestion of that meal and that means some of the blood that would have gone to your muscles has gone to digestion instead.

A runner because of the bouncing has more problem with stomach distress than a walker so it's even more important for a runner not to have a belly full of undigested food. My number 2. reason is that I don't want to have extra potty breaks. Your body uses the water and other fluids for a lot of purposes. One important use is to clean out the waste from the cells and then send that "Sewer water" out. This is important since your body is removing lactic acid from the exercise effort. But starting the race with your stomach full of water will just cause you to have to make a pit stop soon after you start when the potties along the way are the most crowded.

During the race you use an average of 100 calories per mile. In a half marathon you really don't need to eat anything. You have more than 1300 calories already stored in your body for use. Just drinking the sports drinks will supply you with plenty of extra calories along the way. Sports drinks are a good idea because they have the salts and sugars to replace what your using. The food in your stomach from a pre race meal, eaten just before the start, is just going to sit there and make you uncomfortable.

In a marathon you do need to keep your calories coming in but not always with food, once again you need the sports drinks for fluid replacement and the salts and sugars. But it doesn't hurt to use a gel or Goo if you have used then in training and they sit well with you. I will eat several banana halves, or orange slices, during a marathon, if they are offered and toward the end I'll have a couple of gels and maybe a bag of sports beans. When you don't eat a little along the way during the marathon you start really running out of energy somewhere between miles 18 and 22. A cup of sports drink at every water stop is a good idea and if you want to add a sugary product like a gel or Goo it's ok. But you don't need to eat a gel every mile! And once again real food will not be digested and supply energy unless your body sends that blood needed for muscle performance to digestion instead. A sugar product like a gel or a piece of fruit, is for all intents and purposes pre digested, so it is quickly useable by your body.

Of course you want to drink a little water or sports drink at every water station. Dehydration will get you during the race long before you will starve to death. A good way to gauge your hydration level is to look at the color of your urine. If its dark yellow your getting dehydrated and if it's clear your ok. You want to go to the race with clear urine not dark yellow. You start a marathon dehydrated and your going to be in trouble before it's over and you probably won't finish.

After the race eating is pretty much up to you. But remember your body has just been challenged to a difficult task and it's weak. Avoiding strong drink and very spicy food is a good idea unless you want to be very uncomfortable. I like a cold beer and something like baked fish or a pasta and chicken dish. Of course when you finish you want to drink a few bottles of water and or sports drink, your biggest challenge is rehydrating.

Thank you for reading.

Dave

Finding You

Wouldn't it be an amazing and refreshing world, if everyone was comfortable in their own skin?  But unfortunately it's human nature to look down at others, to make us feel better about ourselves.  We tend to spend our entire lives in a continuous state of "Yea for my side"!  My school, my church, my country, my state, my team, my child, heck we even get down to my stuff.  We feel that we have to have something or belong to a group that defines us.  I'm worthy because I'm a..... or I own.... or I'm a ....you can fill in the blanks.  Or even worse I'm better because I'm not a.....and you are.  But does it have to be this way?

Most people can tell you what's wrong with somebody else, or what "they" need to change.  But when you ask that same person who they are then they will start telling you which groups they identify with.  I'm an American, I'm a Christian, I'm an accountant, I'm a Republican.  Now there is nothing wrong with being any of those things but those are groups to which we belong they are not who we are.  Most of us just have never put effort into self discovery.

All can never truly be right with our world until we do solve that riddle.  We have to strip off those layers to find the person inside.  This country used to have a military draft law.  When you reached the age of 18 you were subject to being called to serve in the army.  It didn't matter if you believed in the current war or not, if you were called then you were going to war unless you could prove a good reason why you shouldn't.  I'm not going to dwell on debating whether that was a good or a bad idea but it did change the people that were affected by it.

What if we had another type of draft, a requirement that you had to go somewhere and train to do a marathon.  Not just any marathon but one where people from all over the world would be serving their requirement as well.  A marathon where there were no awards but a finisher's medal that was your right of passage into adult hood.  You had to produce your medal to get a job, a marriage license or any of the other adult stuff.  During the training and then the marathon, you would learn a lot about who you are and about how much all of us on this planet are more alike than different.

Those that have done long distance events will tell you that there comes a point where you have to meet 'you' and find out what you are capable of.  You discover the courage that is in you, courage that you may not have known about.  You will find that you can put one foot in front of the other even after you think you have nothing left.  You will also see that everyone around you is locked in their own battle with the distance.

When you start your own journey, to better health, self discovery is a part of that path.  You will never know true health and fitness until you learn who you are and become at peace with who you are.  I applied for a position in the Air Force and one of the requirements was an evaluation by a psychologist.  One of the questions I was asked was how comfortable I was with being alone for long periods of time.  I explained that I was a long distance runner and an endurance athlete.  It seems that most people can't handle being cut off from their identity groups.  Being alone, for long periods of time, with just your own thoughts and company, is stressful for most people.

Becoming acquainted with yourself is one of the biggest steps you can take to better health.  Learn, your strengths and weaknesses.  Learn what your morals are, your limits, learn what is really important to you.  Only through self discovery can you come to know that you are more than the money you have in the bank, the size of your waist line or the groups you belong to.  Next time you go for your long slow distance training strip off the layers and see who you find, you might just come away with a whole new respect for the unique and amazing person you are.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

Like a Boss

You hear all the time things like, "You have only one life, this is not a dress rehearsal, you are not practicing, this is all you get".  Or you hear. "Be thankful for what you have and stop stressing over what you don't have".  Good advice and both very true but we tend to tune out advice like that.  One of my favorites is, "Be glad for having to get up in the morning and going to work because it means you have a job", that is more true now than ever.  Most people are not happy with their life and that is a tragedy because we do truly have only one go at it.

It would be nice if we had a remote control for our lives so we could change the channel if we didn't like what was on.  Or fast forward through the rough times but rewind and replay the good stuff.  But we don't have a life remote control, so like with the old style TVs we have to get up and change what we don't like.  Hum, get up and do something if you want to change 'you', what a novel concept.  Bet you have heard that one before as well.

Take a good look at that person that looks back at you from the mirror.  Do you really know them?  Do you know their strengths, weaknesses, their limitations and their talents?  We, every last one of us have a weakness, we put off making the changes that would make us happy.  Most of the time it's because we don't really know what that is, that magic place called happiness.  Well here is a news flash, happy is not a place you can go to, it's how you perceive the life you have and how in control of it you are.

Being in control, that is where a lot of people fall off the happy wagon, they just don't feel in control. They feel like life is just pushing them along and they are hanging on.  Life is indeed a journey and you can be pushed along or you can choose the path.  You do that by having dreams and goals that you want to accomplish and then make good solid plans to achieve them.  Be the boss of your life, you decide where you are headed and then, like the boss, you make it happen.  If health and fitness is your goal then go to the store and buy some good shoes, fitted for you, and let your feet start taking you where you want to be.  The secret to being healthy and fit is to start scheduling the time to let your feet take care of business.

Losing weight is a biggie for a lot of us.  That becomes easier when you decide to take control as well.  Again be the boss of that person in the mirror.  You have absolute direct supervision over what and how much you eat.  You do the shopping, the preparing and if your eating out the ordering.  So you do have absolute control.  If it's not in the house then you can't eat it, a good boss plans things like that.  If you take responsibility for what, when and how much you eat then you are in control and you can achieve your weight goals.

Being unhappy with work is often an issue as well.  Most of us spend about a quarter to a third of our life each day at work, so we need to address that as well.  This is of course an area where we don't have as much control as we do over our health and fitness, but there are still ways to make changes.  The first step is to think about exactly what it is you don't like, about what you do.  This is a topic that has no one real answer so I'm just going to use an example from my own life.  When I retired from the Air Force I took a job at an automotive group, I was the systems coordinator, trainer, Internet sales consultant and even direct sales consultant.  It wasn't a bad job, but it was 8am to 8pm 5 days a week.  I was to tired to exercise and took my comfort in food, usually fast food.  When I got a day off I had endless chores to catch up on.  I felt trapped and not in control of my life.  Since I was retired from the military and had a college degree I was eligible to teach high school classes, in my degree field, if I passed all the teacher exams.  So I spent a year, every free moment studying, History, Economics, Geography, Psychology and Social Studies.  I took my exams and passed them, but as fate often does, when I was getting ready to start looking for a teacher position I was offered the job I have now and it filled all my requirements for what I wanted out of work.  Mainly job satisfaction and more "Me", time. 

When you make a decision to take control, changes happen, sometimes not in the way you plan but they happen.  Because when you do start taking control, you begin to change right then and both you and the rest of the world see you differently.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

Decisions Decisions!

There is a term in military aviation 'Decision Height', that refers to that point in your decent where you have to make the decision to go on and land or to pour on the jet fuel and go around for another attempt.  Our lives are a long series of decisions and like that pilot you have to make those decisions.

Our life is a journey but the path is never straight.  It's the decisions that we make at each cross roads that determine how successful our lives will be.  Some of those decisions are the most important things we will ever do because they directly affect us from that instant forward.  There are some decisions that when you look back over your life were clear turning points.  The decision to go to collage, to get married, have children the list goes on, each of those were decisions that changed you forever.

As adult athletes we have even more decisions.  To start with, the decision to be an adult athlete and follow the path of a healthy lifestyle is an extremely important decision.  We have no idea how important it really is except for the affects it has on our health and fitness.  That decision can have the effect of you being a positive example to people you don't even know.  Someone who has been on the edge of making the decision, to start getting into better shape, might see you out on the road doing your miles and make their on decision, right then and there.  Or your children, co workers, friends, anyone might look at you as the positive role model that helped them to lead healthier lives.

We also make countless little decisions every day most of which aren't, in them selves, life changing but they do add up.  We need to strive for the good decisions to vastly out weigh the poor ones.  I'm going to give you a weapon, for you to use, to strengthen your 'will power', remind yourself that you are making a decision when you are making one.  When you are hungry, remind yourself that you are about to make a decision, don't just reach for or order whatever.  These smaller decisions can add up and eventually cause major changes in your life.  Enough poor decisions can increase your body fat, decrease your stamina and impede your progress.  But enough healthy decisions can do just the opposite and speed you along on your chosen path.

Some decisions can seem insignificant at the time but they can start a chain reaction that you didn't see coming.  Calling in sick at work, because you have something else to do or you just don't feel like it, can seem harmless but that one time makes it easier to do it the next and the next after that.  Deciding to have one more drink, because you feel just fine and very much in control, can lead to life changing consequences that you never imagined.  Even if you don't go out and get in a car and try to drive, just walking you could injure yourself, or you just might show someone a side of yourself that you really wished you hadn't.

This week when you do the marketing, each time you chose an item, think of it as a small decision and not just blindly throw it in the cart.  You want that cart filled with smart decisions and not poor ones, they do add up.  When it's time to exercise and you really don't want to, or you are feeling super and want to push it, remember you are making a decision that can have a cumulative affect on your fitness.  Not working out when the weather is to bad or your not feeling well is a smart decision but not working out because you are just feeling lazy is a poor decision.  Each time you make the decision not to exercise, just like the calling into work sick, when you are not, it gets easier to make that poor decision the next time.  As the Tim McGraw song lyrics go, "You get stronger each time you don't give in".

Our life is a series of never ending decisions.  The best we can hope for is that we have to courage to make the right ones more often than the wrong ones.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

From all ends a new beginning

All things have a beginning and an end. No matter how good bad or indifferent that's the way of the universe and all that is, was and yet to be.  That is never more true than with those of us who choose to be athletes well into our senior years.  We go through many stages and when each stage comes to an end then, if we are going to successfully continue, we must recognize that end and prepare to begin again.  Sometimes a break is needed before restarting to let old injuries heal, and sometimes the change is seamless.

My personal journey is a patch work of starting anew and then seeing that new path come to a fork in the road, where a decision is required.  Sometimes I, like most of us, have made the wrong choice, but that is just a part of living.  We are always successful in that trial and error experimentation if we learn form the mistakes and capitalize on the right choices.  If all our choices were right then it would make it much less meaningful when we did get it spot on.

Sometimes our ends are not the result of injury or anything personal with us but a change of our environment.  When I was in high school I ran track.  When I left high school and went off to join the military, running track just wasn't an option unless I wanted to do it by myself, so I took up martial arts and racquetball.  Later on when I moved again, distance running became my sport of choice, and again a move to the right area made triathlon racing an option.  My latest change, from distance running to race walking, was injury related.  I have some good friends that because of knee replacements have switched from being marathoners to bikers.  Others who, because of loss of their legs, have become wheelchair racers.

The important thing is not the choice of sports we make but that we made the choice not to give up on ourselves.  I would like to hope that if I were to lose the use of my legs that as soon as I got out of rehab I'd be out shopping for a racing chair.  Sometimes age becomes a factor.  There is an old saying, "We don't grow to old to play, we grow old when we stop playing".  That is so very true for an adult athlete.  I'm a big fan of the senior Olympics concept.  How awesome to know that no matter how old you are there is competition.  To compete at the state and national levels, in your senior years, helps you keep focused on the future.

When you reach those forks in the road and you are forced to take a new path, look at it for what it is, not a reason to grieve over the past, but a reason to start a new adventure.  You never get very far if you are always looking back so when decision time comes for you embrace the new path and make it yours.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

Our Comfort Zone

The term 'Comfort Zone' gets a bad rap.  But it's a catch all term that's used to identify things that are not in our best interest to indulge in.  We hear, "To get the changes you need, you need to get out of your comfort zone".  It probably comes from the use of the term when describing food that isn't the best for us but we grew up calling, here in the south, good down home cooking.  Or turning off the computer or the TV and getting up off the comfortable couch.

Perhaps the way to think about it is not to think of it as getting out of our comfort zone, but changing what we view as our comfort zone.  A lot of us have hobbies, both active and inactive, that if we really thought about it, are our personal comfort zones.  As adult athletes we get pleasure form our motion.  We are the most 'comfortable' when we are moving at a relaxed pace, in beautiful, interesting surroundings.  For us it doesn't get better than that.  We have other hobbies that we are just as passionate about, reading, sewing, quilting, scrapbooking, or any of a thousand more.  These are the hobbies that exercise our minds while relaxing us.  For me it's my writing, I always feel much more refreshed after getting thoughts down on paper.  These are our healthy comfort zones.

We may be doing a disservice to those we are trying to motivate by telling them to get out of their comfort zones.  We should instead say that to move forward and get the results we want out of life we need to change what we consider our comfort zones.  We are currently implying that you have to be uncomfortable and in pain to be progressing.  We know it doesn't have to be that way.  But we are implying that it does.  Yes pushing our limits can be tiring and we can be sore the next day, but we soon learn that is a sign that we did good not a reason to suffer.

When a person is beginning an exercise program it can be uncomfortable at first.  The first 20 minutes or so of motion, until we are warmed up, isn't very pleasant, but once we are warm and moving smoothly it is a lot better.  A beginner doesn't think of it that way.  They have heard they have to get out of their comfort zone.  They have also heard that 20 minutes 3 or 4 times a week is a good beginning.  So we can be sending a mixed message there without meaning to.

The right way to look at it is that we should change our unhealthy, Comfort Zones', to healthy and productive ones instead.  That way we are sending the right message.  Comfort zones can be a valuable part of a healthy lifestyle.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

Walking the line.

Volumes have been written about the simple sounding rule of performance, with endless personal variables.  Basically it goes like this:  In order to achieve your maximum performance you must train to that line between enough and to much and not cross that line.  Sounds simple, but that line is different for each of us.  That's why there is no best training plan to achieving your maximum potential.

The best person to advise you that you are getting too close, to crossing over that line, is your self.  You need to be ever vigilant, you need to be aware of those feelings that you are starting to over train and risk injury instead of increased performance.  That to would be a lot easier if you didn't have to factor in the constant changes that our body goes through with just living.  A professional athlete that makes their living with their body are more aware of this than most of us.  The equation includes how much sleep you get, how well you have stayed hydrated, did you get the proper amount of protein, even how stressed you were over something.  All these affect performance and how you react to a hard training session.

Having a training partner helps.  You don't always want to hear what they have to say but you should listen.  You are often feeling your best just before you get injured.  You have been training well and so every workout you try to better what you did last time.  It's not long, training with that attitude, before something goes wrong.  When your training partner points this out to you listen and believe it.

Another little quirk that most of us adult athletes share is the desire to show off a little bit when we are feeling bullet proof.  This has been my downfall more than a few times.  My training partner has pointed this out to me many times.  When we are in a half or full marathon and trucking along at our planned pace and another race walker over takes us I will speed up to keep them behind me, even though we are not in competition with anyone else, just doing the distance.  One time we were on a training walk and ended up in the middle of a local 5K race.  We weren't even in the race and I start seeing how many of the runners I can pass.  Even though I wasn't even aware of it, I was pushing the pace.  Stay focused on your training plan for the day, save the competitiveness for the races.

What are the symptoms that you are getting close to crossing the line?  Not feeling rested when I wake in the morning is a sure sign for me.  Lots of nagging little aches and pains that are getting worse rather than better.  A constant feeling of being tired instead of feeling energized all day after a workout.  Not sleeping well but waking up a lot during the night.  Any of these things could signal that you need to back off and rest.  We need time to recover after a workout and as we get older we need more time between workouts. 

Training by feel is often better than trying to stick to a training plan that is starting become to much.  Some easy to remember rules that will help are to adjust after any significant event.  If you just went faster than ever before, called getting a 'Personal Record' or PR, then the next day should be a rest day or an easy day, NOT an attempt to better that time!  If you didn't get much sleep then adjust your planned training.  Any high stress event in your life will affect your training session, adjust for it.  There are so many things that can affect your performance, be flexible and change your workout when you need to.

Getting the most out of our workouts is a priority for most of us, but sometimes to do that we need to back off or adjust and not try to stay on a strict training plan.

Thanks for reading.

Dave