alamedarunners.com

You may have noticed a guest blog written by Yoon recently posted on Alameda Runners, and I wanted to share some more information. Trails Edge is a new blog I recently started writing for, and I wanted to highlight my first three posts for the site.

My first article for the Trails Edge blog featured some of my favorite fitness energy supplements, and can be found here.

If you’re looking for hydration pack advice, I recently wrote a quick story about different choices for trail runners and regular hikers. You can find the story here.

For people still debating whether or not they need a heart rate monitor, I also put together a basic story about the topic. (We already know that readers here seem to love gadgets and technology, so we’re sure you all have high-tech gizmos already.)

I’m writing for Trails Edge every week and look forward to contributing new and exciting stories that I will also share here. More importantly, Alameda Runners now has a new resource for enthusiasts, as I look forward to publishing more guest blogs.

The weather is warming up and more of us are getting out into state and national parks … a fun experience for people running and cycling, or spending more time with the family. There are some basic guidelines that should be followed to ensure safety, and Alameda Runners will be reaching out to a few different companies and experts to help contribute.

In an interview about South Lake Tahoe (coming soon), we were given this advice about Mother Nature:

The basics are pack-in and pack-out your trash while on the trails, camping, hiking, boating. We treasure where we live and ask locals and visitors to be conscience of their own efforts to trash and recycling around the lake. Also, visitors should be aware of what to do if you were to run into a bear while on the trails and don’t feed the animals. Other concern is the wildfire danger, cigarettes left near trees/pine needles that aren’t extinguished may result in a fire.

The trails and parks are hard to maintain, so definitely use the “pack-in” and “pack-out” rule to make sure everything you take with you also leaves with you.  This is true for all parks, including the East Bay Regional Parks.  When you are out in the park, pick up a wrapper that blows across your feet.  If trash gets picked up as soon as it is noticed, it will not wind up in one of those hard to reach places where it is difficult to pick up.

The Lake Tahoe region has bears, but you should be familiar with different wildlife in your local geographic area. For example, it’s very possible some of your trail runs take you into the domain controlled by coyotes, wolves, or other big cats you don’t want to snuggle with. Even smaller animals (raccoons or possums) can easily throw a wrench into your plans if you’re not aware and careful.

We’re putting together a collection of basic tips and tricks for casual hikers and backpackers looking to get away for day trips away from the suburbs.

Athletes looking for every advantage can help themselves reach their physical VO2 and lactate threshold, an Active.com article (re-published from VeloNews) reveals. Casual athletes typically focus more on actual training and basic diets, but serious athletes also want a physiological advantage.

A couple of tidbits from the article, which I fully recommend reading (it has some science stuff):

VO2 max is defined as the maximal rate of oxygen consumed by an exercising individual. An excellent resource for understanding this topic is Bassett and Howley’s paper “Limiting factors for maximum oxygen uptake and determinants of endurance performance” (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise volume 33, 2000). This paper outlines that VO2 max is limited by oxygen delivery to the muscles and not the muscles’ ability to utilize oxygen.

Additional details about lactate threshold:

A contributor to fatigue is the increased reliance on the anaerobic metabolic system, not the lactate molecule itself. Lactate threshold, loosely defined, is the workload which elicits substantial and unsustainable levels of lactate production relative to lactate clearance from the blood (anaerobic contribution).

If you’re ever in doubt, athletes have a wide variety of peer support and expert help from qualified professionals. I normally just reach out to one of my Twitter followers (@alamedarunners) for help, because someone usually can help me whenever necessary.  Also, feel free to look up your local chiropractor, sports nutritionist, or physiologist if you need additional help.

Kudos to the medical volunteers from the Alameda County Medical Center, as they were a great asset for anyone needing medical attention. Immediately after finishing the half marathon yesterday, I started to feel a rather uneasy feeling in my stomach … an unexpected, miserable feeling most athletes have occasionally suffered through.

Oakland Running Officials had medical stations at the start line, and at miles 4, 6, 11, 15.5, 19, and 23, along with a medical tent at the finish line. The course also had EMTs on bikes to offer needed assistance throughout the course.

The staff I encountered at the finish line tent were extremely courteous and efficient, and were quick to help any runners that needed help.

I ate a banana and some type of delicious brownie pastry during the run, which proved to be a relatively bad idea. I conveniently got sick next to the medical tent — which was located just a few feet away from the finish line — and was given some water and Gatorade. The added fluids and electrolytes helped perk me up and I felt fine just a couple of minutes later, and was able to slip out the door.

I took a few seconds to drink the added fluids and let my legs relax after what was supposed to be an easy, relaxing 13.1 miles. After reassuring the EMT that I was sick from my own foolish behavior, and just needed to rest, he moved on to help others looking in significantly more dire shape.

The Kaiser Half marathon gained media attention for all of the wrong reasons — a runner collapsed and died before EMTs were able to get to the helpless runner. It was an unfortunate incident that continually shows the importance of event planning, which is something CSE obviously took into consideration.

The need to find runners to train with can help push us towards new PRs and added camaraderie in a usually independent sport.

A basic idea behind Alameda Runners is to help share information among casual athletes looking to learn and push themselves. As such, we have a special request from a SF East Bay runner looking ahead to the 2011 California International Marathon (CIM).

@Chris_in_cal is looking for training partners while he wants a sub-3:00 hour marathon — and needs a few running buddies to train with. If you think you can help out, or know someone who runs at a similar pace, feel free to Tweet him. (Or post here and we can make sure you get in touch with him.)

The second Oakland Running Festival event will take place this weekend, and Alameda Runners decided it was time to chat with race organizers, Corrigan Sports Enterprises (CSE). We ran the Oakland Half last year — and will lead the official (but still unofficial) 2:15 half marathon pace group — and had a couple of questions.

Last year’s event had around 6,400 participants, with event organizers expecting more than 7,000 runners this year, race organizers told Alameda Runners.

SF Bay Area runners really had no idea what to expect leading into the event last year, and there were good and bad things about the event. Athletes were brutally honest and CSE took the criticism as motivation to make changes.

“Runners really loved the crowd support, bands, the Crucible Fire Arch, the organization and the course. The one area they were concerned about was the expo and we have done our best to make the experience better for 2011.”

I enjoyed the Crucible Fire Arch and the taiko drummers, and can’t wait to see what’s lining the course this year. It was great to see Oakland and the East Bay turn out in great numbers last year, but this weekend’s poor weather forecast may only bring out the diehards.

There have been some slight course changes made that CSE wants runners to be familiar with.

“The full marathon has some changes in the Montclair and Fruitvale areas to alleviate some of the traffic concerns we heard after last year’s event. Runners this year will run along Trafalgar and Monterey before Lincoln instead of Mountain Blvd. Also, participants will make a left onto Nicol before turning onto Coolidge as opposed to making a right and going down Fruitvale. The other major change is that runners will traverse the path around Lake Merritt this year instead of going down Bellevue avenue.”

Outside of the actual race and what runners will experience, other changes have been made as well.

“We have streamlined the expo process where runners can print out their confirmation card before arriving at the expo. We will have more signage and made the post-race area longer to accommodate more people. Residents will see that we have put together a detour map to show how they can get to each one of the Freeways that surround Oakland.”

Waiting in line is never fun, so it’s great that they’ve made it easier for us to get the packet pickup faster and more efficient. In addition, I saw a few complaints on Twitter and in local media about the unexpected traffic issues in and around Oakland on race day… good to see it’s getting fixed.

The inaugural ORF expo was a bit sparse, and runners told CSE about it, and changes are being made for 2011. Organizers decided to expand into a larger hall and expect more than 40 vendors to show their wares — and we’ll be there to check out the good stuff.

To finish up the interview, CSE — which also hosts a successful half marathon and running weekend in Baltimore — is glad that the event is able to have such a positive impact on the City.

“Last year’s event brought high praise to the City of Oakland and changed a lot of misconceptions. We hope your readers understand that our goal is to put on a top-flight race each year that will rival some of the other races around the Bay Area. Last year’s event brought in nearly $2 million for the city and CSE paid for all the city services.”

If you’re looking for a race this weekend, on-site registration is still taking place, with a limited number of spots available for the full marathon, half marathon, 5K and kids fun run.

I went from a long injury layoff of 6 months right into a hard half marathon in the hills. I injured myself again by over doing it. I seem to excel at injuring myself from excess. I took three weeks off, now I am right into training for a half ironman distance triathlon. All of this has put me a bit out of sorts for writing. I am going to post a few blogs to help me get back into the swing of things.

First of all, I need to apologize to Fluid. We reviewed some fluid sports drink last year and gave it a bit of a poor review. I tried it again this year and it is much better. I ran out of sports drink and decided to give Fluid another try. This time, I paid attention to the instructions and stuck with the product for a month. The taste is okay. It goes down well and I do not feel ill effects after my runs. I put them back into the buy category.

I was out for a run with the guys from Clif about a month ago. As you can guess, our conversations all revolved around Clif. It is nice to see them out running and using the products they sell. They sent me a care package full of their new products. I tried Mojo bar between an hour run and 90 minute bike ride and felt fine after the ride. I felt no need for gel or anything else while riding. I will really put the products to the test when my mileage increases. The bars taste good enough to eat after a morning swim.

In my next post, I will try to string together some coherent thoughts.

On January 29, 2011, Brazen Racing came to our home course in Newark, California.  It was fun doing a run on our local trails.  The half marathon was two loops with an out and back leg.  The Brazen events always have hills and single track trails, or at least it seems that way.  Most of us are used to the trails but the single tracks can be a challenge for track runners starting out on trail runs.  This was a great event with a unique start line that was on the hump of a small hill.

A lot of us have a few key events that we are training for and do other races as social events or advanced training events to gauge our fitness.  This was a social training run for me.  I was out with the Mission Peak Striders, Daily Mile members and plenty of Alameda Runners.  Thank you all for showing up in such great numbers.  It is nice to get all of the local runners together for an event.  Oddly enough, I wound up running with Ron the Punk Rock Runner who is in his own group.

I am training for a triathlon in July.  This week was a rest week in my training cycle so I took it easy on my run.  The Punk Rock Runner is training for an Ironman distance triathlon so he was cruising along too.  The way I see it, if you can run 13 miles on a rest day, you are doing well.  When you do these events as social events, it is fun to meet new people and talk to them in the back of the pack.

My new best friend Ron, started running 3 years ago after he heard a coworker talking about marathon training.  He weighed over 280 pounds when he decided to run a marathon.  He told his friends at work he was going to run a marathon.  He said they had an office pool to see how far he would go before he crashed and burned.  He finished, now he does Ironman distance triathlons.  He still has trouble with his weight but he does no let that stop him.

Get out and do some events, it is a lot of fun and you meet a lot of people just like you.  It is great to compare notes and have a new friend to encourage you along.  We were comparing notes on our strengths and weaknesses thinking “if only…”.

This was a great event for me.  It was like a family reunion with so many friends and conversations.   we all had something in common.  We just finished something hard.  Doing a rest run of 13 miles is still hard.  It was still fun.

This turkey is too fast to be eaten

What is Thanksgiving without the traditional turkey trot?  I enjoy getting out and doing a run on Thanksgiving morning.  Turkey trots are always social events which make them fun.  I want to run today but I got out there early to take pictures.  The people from the food bank were out early collecting food and helping out with race logistics.  I did not know about the food bank because I didn’t read any of the pre-race instructions like I should have.  Not only did I show up at an event for sharing and did not have anything to share, I was interacting with the wonderful volunteers from the food bank.  You can bet that I won’t miss the next bin for a food bank.

The race started out with a kids run and the Nitro Turkey.  It was fun to see how popular the Nitro Turkey was.  I was taking pictures of the kids run and was totally overwhelmed.  There were so many kids and proud parents in the race that the winners crossed the finish line before everyone crossed the start line.  I tried to take pictures but I was confused and could not handle the mayhem.

Point Pinole is not very big but it is fun to run there.  The views are excellent and the course is pretty flat.  It is a strange feeling to run with the 5K runners and you can see there finish line when you have to turn the other way because you are only half way done.  Getting out for an early run is a great way to start Thanksgiving.

A big shout out to Sam, Jasmine and Marie over at Brazen racing for a job well done.

After careful deliberation, I bought the Timex Ironman GPS Trainer because a $50 rebate and 15% off coupon made it $100 cheaper than the Garmin.  I also thought it would be easier to use.  I should know better than to think, it only gets me into trouble.  It is not easy to use.  It was a brick strapped to my wrist.  I figured since I went to the trouble of buying the thing I should at least give it a fair try before I took it back.  Maybe the ladies will think I look sexy with a brick strapped to my wrist.

I spent about 3 hours reading the instructions and trying to get the thing to tell me what time it was.  I did not realize that satellite reception is hard to get in the San Francisco area.  My Garmin never had a problem.  I got the time to show the correct time and told the watch my age and weight.

I took it for a practice walk and the watch told me I was going for a swim.    I did get it to switch to run mode and there are a lot of options for configuring the watch face.  I could go from 1-4 items on the face and they are easily configurable without reading instructions.  I decided to give the brick a fair trial starting with a swim.

Off to the pool I went to put my swimming toy through the paces.  The watch failed miserably.  Actually, I was the miserable one.  I managed to get it into swim mode in less than 5 minutes which is a respectable time for something high tech and no instructions in hand.  Happy with my progress, I pushed start and jumped into the pool to start my swim.  I did not mention how the chest strap is hard to adjust and uncomfortable when tight.  I feel it is worth mentioning now because it went to my waist as soon as I kicked off the wall.

I put the strap on the wall and started swimming again.  I swam for about 4 minutes consciously aware of the brick on my arm.  It was uncomfortable and heavy.  I checked the distance and found I went more than 400 meters in 4 minutes, including the time I spent taking the strap off.  For you non-swimmers, that is world class speed.  The GPS did not consider arm rotations as part of swimming.  Since I really wanted the GPS to succeed in the water, I switched from brick mode to anchor mode and put the thing on my leg.  I only found it a bit odd that it fit my leg better than my arm.  Apparently the watch did not like being on my leg and it stopped doing its GPS thing and went to watch mode.

I did not cry when it failed the swim test because I did not really expect success.  I really did hope it had some cool math algorithms going so the distance would be close.  It showed a distance that was greater than twice the distance traveled.  I might have kept the watch if the GPS worked in the water.

Getting to the desired mode is aggravating.  Like most people, I wear the HRM GPS when running more than anything else.  The watch should default to run mode.  It defaults to triathlon mode.  In all fairness, it is not very hard to switch to run mode.  I don’t like the idea of changing modes every time I run.

After reading the instructions, the watch is really powerful and relatively easy to use.  The chest strap is very well constructed with very nice pickups.  It does have snaps which are terrible for us open water swimmers.  The dual adjustment strap is hard to get right.  The watch is big and fits small wrists very poorly.  It fit my leg pretty well but it is hard to read on my ankle.

The GPS watch is so big, heavy and inconvenient to use, I took it back before I got out for a run with it.  Sorry Timex, you have the makings of a great product here but size, weight, GPS performance and triathlon first setup sunk this one for me.  The buckle has a little too much metal that cuts into the arm because the strap has to be tight to keep it from bouncing and it seems like the watch is not designed to be worn.