Alameda Runners – Get After It!

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.

Now that I am training for more than five hours just about every Saturday, my nutritional needs have changed. I am all about carrying food that contains a lot of calories that is easily digestible. Many thanks to the nutritionists at Clif and GU for their patience and understanding in helping us with our nutritional needs. I am trying to write an article on nutrition but I keep complicating things and not making any progress. I am making progress in a lot of areas which I will share with you now.

I know that my body can only process (or convert to glycogen) between 200-400 calories per hour while it is burning between 500-1500 calories per hour. I also know that my consumes calories glycogen stores very quickly when I am working hard. The trick is to train your body to burn calories from fat on these long workouts. To do this, you must slow down. The trainers say slow to 70-75% of your max heart rate. I don’t know what that is, so I say slow to 60-80% of max heart rate.

What has been working for me is packing the calories into my sports drink. My current favorite is Clif Lemonade flavor electrolyte drink. I make it about 50% stronger than the instructions say.

I have two 28 ounce bottles on my bike. Each bottle has 6 scoops of electrolyte powder. That gives me close to 500 calories per bottle. I also like to eat a clif bar, marathon bar or energy gel while riding the bike or running.

My stomach is more forgiving on the bike than when I am out running. Practice consuming the calories on the long,  slow workout days.

The better you get at staying well nourished, the lower your chances of crashing when you over do it. Bonking is a bad thing, you want to avoid it, if possible. I have a couple of baskets of training goodies. Variety is best. I favor Clif for a variety of reasons, such as they try to stay as natural as possible, they care about their customers, the stuff tastes good enough to eat and they are local to me.

GU is another small company that is local to me with quality products and they care about their customers too. Of course the top product in my picture is a Snickers Marathon bar but it does taste good and it is loaded with good calories.

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.

I love to review products aimed more towards sports nutrition, because it opens up the door for us to try so many unique products. Today we’re going to keep it rather simple, and chat about an emerging flavor of GU Chomps: watermelon.

I’m a big fan of electrolyte blocks that I can chew on, and it’s always a great time to test these products out. I’ve reviewed the GU Blueberry Pomegranate Chomps in the past, so I’m relatively familiar.

My 2011 Oakland Running Festival (ORF) goodie bag included a sample size of the GU Watermelon Chomps energy chews for athletes. I saved the sample blocks to try during a light bike ride around Alameda on an unusually warm day (above 70F in late March/early April).

As expected from sports nutrition, GU Chomps have a nice combination of both simple and complex carbs to fuel us. The Watermelon flavor (four pieces) has 90 calories, 50mg sodium, 40mg potassium, 23g total carbs, and 11g of sugar.

The taste of the GU Watermelon electrolyte blocks have a juicy watermelon flavor that should help athletes with a sweet tooth. The taste is good and it’s less sweet than some type of watermelon flavor candy, and should be easy to get down with a bit of water.

I normally just drink water on shorter bike rides, but the Chomps about 45 minutes into the ride properly fueled me for the rest of the 90 minutes spent out and about. They taste good and are effective — give them a try if you see them at your local running or cycling store.

Just like many of you, I have a choice between wearing my regular prescription eyeglasses or wearing normal sunglasses. I usually run wearing my sunglasses and will go for long bike rides with my prescription glasses (higher speeds, longer distances) to ensure I don’t end up in too much trouble.

Lately, I have become interested in picking up a pair of prescription sunglasses that will be able to protect my eyes and allow me to see normally. I remember it wasn’t too long ago when prescription sunglasses either were much too for average customers.

More manufacturers now offer “RX” sunglasses that are custom designed for athletes.  Cyclist-friendly Rudy Project has its “Rx-able sunglasses”, while Oakley has a strong catalog of Authentic Prescription Lenses. Ray-Ban also has some models that are Rx-compatible, with the trend only to continue this year.

Alameda Runners recently caught up with sunglasses maker Revo (full interview to be posted soon), but the company had this to say about its prescription sunglasses effort:

“Revo Rx is an important part of the Revo line. Revo has a state-of-the-art, in-house optical lab to be able to provide and fill prescriptions of unsurpassed quality and exceptional clarity. Since every athlete’s eyes are different, the need for custom eye-wear is crucial and without that customization, it can lead to eye fatigue and headaches. Almost every model in Revo’s collection can be customized for each person’s prescription, whether that is single-vision or progressive lenses.”

If you’re an athlete looking for prescription sunglasses, there are a growing number of choices for you to check out. Your local sunglasses store will probably have prescription sunglasses models you can try on. Options are available, so you just have to browse around and see what’s best for you.

As expected, the 2011 Oakland Running Festival helped the City of Oakland generate around $3 million in revenue from the 1300+ out of town athletes.
Athletes from outside the Bay Area spent around $445 to stay, eat and race in Oakland during festival weekend.

Here is a tidbit from the Oakland Tribune story:

While the economic windfall for Oakland was positive, the races also showcased the city to many who otherwise might not come to Oakland. The field represented people from 39 states and six other countries, and so far the feedback has been top-notch, said race spokesman Dave Gell.

“The financial impact is accountable, but the public relations impact should be assessed as well,” said Greenlight spokesman Ryan Chamberlain. “I’m not sure how you quantify the goodwill generated by several thousand people from all over the world going on a 26.2-mile street-level tour of the city and then reporting back nothing but good stories. This event makes Oakland look really good.”

If CSE (Corrigan Sports) wants to help ORF grow to the same size as the Baltimore Running Festival (25K+ runners, then economic success for Oakland is an important step. The feedback from the race was positive (again) as runners and visitors were able to look beyond the city’s sketchy public image.

Editor’s Note: It’s also worth noting that it’s excellent CSE pays the OPD overtime pay (roughly $100,000) so the City of Oakland doesn’t have to pick up the tab. It seems unlikely the community would be as willing to support the race if they had to pay for officers along the course.

Want to find new places to run? Looking for a way to revitalize your running workouts? It may be time to shake things up and find your way to some local trails for a bit of fun in the woods.

Trail running offers a unique, challenging way to explore new areas you may not even know existed in your neighborhood. As the weather warms up and much of the nation begins to slowly thaw out, state and federal parks will become thriving hubs of activity among hikers, campers and athletes looking to enjoy the great outdoors.

A few basic tips: start slowly and on flatter terrain, as your running stride will need to adjust to compensate for uneven running surfaces. Since rocks, roots and other debris are often located on the trails, you’ll have to lift your feet and find a new slightly-modified running stride.

Trail running can be a humbling experience, even for faster, more-experienced runners. If you’re tackling a steep uphill or treacherous downhill, don’t be afraid to slow down and walk down the hill. As your body becomes more familiar with trail running, you’ll be able to pick up speed.

The San Francisco Bay Area has a number of beautiful parks and well-maintained running trails you can explore. Since we live in the East Bay, we spend the majority of our time exploring parks operated by the EBRPD (EBRPD’s Twitter) — which does an exceptional job of maintaining trails.

Even if you don’t have trails nearby, you should still reach out and contact runners in your area. They will be able to locate running spots in your area — and we strongly recommend you avoid remote, secluded areas until you’re better familiar with the geography.

Here is some additional reading for you:

Backpacker Magazine tackles the benefits of trails
Trail running basics from Trails.com
I’d also recommend reading the trail running 101 document (PDF)

HAVE FUN!

Runners are posting race reports, sharing pictures and videos with friends while the City of Oakland enjoys the positive impact of the Oakland Running Festival (ORF).

Last year’s event attracted around 6,300 participants and left Corrigan Sports Enterprises (CSE) owing money from the inaugural event. However, the company’s efforts in Oakland will follow the same successful blue print as its Baltimore event that successfully expanded to more than 25,000 runners.

Both the half and full marathon courses showed beautiful scenery and parts of the City that many of us wouldn’t run through otherwise. For one weekend in late March, the City of Oakland will have one more event to look forward to that shows the support from the people.

C SE picked up the $775,000 tab — including around $100,000 for Oakland Police overtime — and the City of Oakland is expected to collect more than $2 million in revenue.

As someone who has seen the good and bad sides of Oakland, it was great to see the city come out in support of runners. I know visitors from outside the Bay Area think of Oakland only as a magnet for crime and violence, though for just one weekend all was forgiven. The two ladies on Mandela Parkway in West Oakland cheering for runners  “You are in West Oakland, West Oakland, Run, Run, Run…” and their local neighborhood was well-received among runners.

There were fans lining the street throughout most of the half marathon course, cheering and supporting us the entire run.

The Oakland Half Marathon last year was my first distance race, I had a lot of fun then and I had a great time again this year, so I look forward to the Oakland Running Festival 2012.

A big shout out to the Brown Sugar Cafe on Mandela Parkway for the excellent custom brownies made just for us runners.

Casual athletes understand that running, cycling and endurance sports can be extremely expensive, especially for higher-priced compression and tech clothing. I’ve worn compression shirts and shorts, but haven’t tried compression arm or leg products — which got me thinking, isn’t it time to reach out to a new company?

Alameda Runners recently chatted with Zensah, a compression apparel company popular with athletes. We wanted to hear about the company and some of its products — and why they matter.

Some people believe running should be a minimalist sport excluding compression clothing and similar products, but supporters clearly disagree. Zensah and other companies directly promote their products by listing benefits we can expect.

“If you don’t try it you will never know,” Zensah recently told Alameda Runners. If used properly, athletes will feel feel their legs feeling fresher, and see a reduction in recovery time after those long runs. For those that run with compression they will feel like they can go longer with less exertion.”

As for Zensah’s products specifically, the company has a few items it can be especially proud of in its store catalog.

“Zensah was the first to develop compression leg sleeves. We own our own technology. Some of the other companies just joined the compression market, they are still learning how to create compression clothing. At Zensah we have always been focused on compression.”

For runners hoping to keep their legs healthy during long training exercises and races, Zensah has compression socks, leg sleeves, and shin sleeves. The leg sleeves cost $39.99 and are designed more for health and usefulness more than general warmth and looks — but we were curious how they helped.

“Zensah leg sleeves are the only leg sleeves made with a physiological design to help support the calf and reduce the risk of shin splints. Leg sleeves will help in circulation which in turn helps getting oxygen to the muscles.”

Zensah products can be purchased online at REI or RoadRunners Sports, or check your local running store. If you’ve already used Twitter, feel free to interact with the company (good or bad) via Zensah’s Twitter or Facebook account.

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.