The International Association of Women Runners provides women runners the opportunity to participate in a unique worldwide organization linking women runners to an international women’s running community.
The International Association of Women Runners provides a valuable resource of information on training, nutrition, injury prevention and issues particular to women runners. Our articles and practical tips will help you achieve your objectives for running, racing and a healthy lifestyle – regardless of your age, experience and ability.
Did you know that in 2010, the majority of runners are women? There are women’s running magazines, women’s races and women’s running groups. Don’t you think that an International Association of Woman Runners is long overdue?
Click here for more information →
We are pleased to announce that Jeff Galloway has joined the IAWR as a Guest Expert. Jeff has been a visionary and a leader in running for over thirty years. He is a former world-class athlete (1972 Olympian). He has written over a dozen books on running, including North America’s best selling running book “Galloway’s Book on Running”. Through his running schools, retreats, training programs, coaching and books, Jeff Galloway has coached over 1 million runners and walkers to their goals”.
Several of Jeff’s books are in our running library at home. Bennett had the pleasure of hearing Jeff speak in 1984 in Calgary. Jeff has had a tremendous impact on our commitment to helping runners achieve their objectives.
His first article for IAWR will appear in the Wednesday September 8th newsletter.
Each issue of our newsletter contains practical information that you can easily apply to get more from your running, racing and a healthy lifestyle. To start receiving our weekly email newsletter, click on info@iawr-connect.com and put your first name and email address in the Subject line.
Running and racing long distances can be as much a mental challenge as a physical one. At critical junctures of a tough workout or race, many runners experience negative self-defeating thoughts. They begin to doubt themselves, telling themselves that the endeavour is too difficult. They compare themselves to other runners who look fitter or are running faster. They begin to question if they will achieve their goal. Effectively managing these counterproductive thoughts is as critical to your success in running as is proper physical preparation.
While Resting
Practice visualizing completing your goal. Involve as many senses as possible: see and hear the cheering crowd at the finish line, see the time on the overhead clock, see and feel the finish line volunteer putting the medal around your neck and feel the exhilaration of achieving your objective.
Read more »
Undesired Sideliners: Side Stitches and Runner’s Trots
Copyright: Nancy Clark MS RD CSSD August 2010
“I’m afraid to eat before I exercise … I might get a side stitch.”
“I always carry toilet paper with me when I go on a long run.”
“How can I change my sports diet to so I don’t need pit stops..???”
Little is more frustrating to a competitive athlete than to be well trained for an event and then get sidelined with a side stitch or diarrhea. Yes, the sports diet that’s intended to enhance your performance can also bring you to a screeching halt! Sound familiar?
Read more »
Running a long run every weekend is a common error that many runners commit. It can take several days to recover from the pounding that your legs endure during a long run. This has a negative impact on performing high quality workouts in the subsequent week and increases the risk of injury, especially for marathoners.
Read more »
By Nicola Joyce
Can I tell you a story?
Once upon a time, there was a black and white dog with very big ears.
He was a very good dog.
His name was XT, because he liked to run alongside my husband and his friends when they went mountain biking (and XT is a type of mountain bike component).
He had a bad start in life, but made up for it later on. He liked running.
And playing rope.
And going for long walks.
One day, when he was about 10 years old, he felt a bit funny in the head. He ate his dinner, played a game of rope and then lay down for a sleep.
He didn’t wake up again.
Read more »
Conventional wisdom among runners is that dehydration is to be avoided at all costs. After all, doesn’t dehydration cause overheating? Doesn’t dehydration often result in heat distress? Doesn’t dehydration severely impair performance? Aren’t runners who collapse near or at the end of a race severely dehydrated and should be treated with rapid hydration?
Most of the running community will answer these questions with a resounding “yes”. This all seems very logical and commonsense……….but it is not true!
Over the past several years, the “dehydration is evil” theory has been disproved by Dr. Tim Noakes, one of the most eminent exercise physiologists. (Incidentally, Dr. Noakes is probably the only researcher in his field to have his own Wikipedia entry).
Read more »
We regularly point out how women runners differ from their male counterparts. We’ve seen that women runners have different caloric requirements, carbohydrate needs and frequently require greater recovery periods from hard training.
In the June 30th New York Times article What Exercise Science Does Not Know About Women, author Gretchen Reynolds writes how exercise physiology research conducted using male subjects sometimes yields different results when repeated on female subjects. Therefore,
Conclusions drawn from studies conducted exclusively on male athletes
often do not apply to women
For example:
Research repeatedly shows that male endurance athletes can enhance recovery from training and increase subsequent performance by ingesting protein along with their carbohydrates after hard exercise. Including protein seems to increase the amount of glycogen that muscles can store as fuel for future training. Eating carbs and protein post-run has become a generally accepted training principle.
Read more »
By Ginny Megin
I’ve been a runner since about 1972 or ’73, when “jogging” (as it was called back then) was considered a fad. I’ve run about a dozen marathons. I ran my 3:27 PB in Vancouver in the early 1980′s, thanks to altitude training in a small town outside of Prince George (British Columbia), way up north in the mountains. But that’s another story.
This one’s about my birthday, August 6, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. In the early 1990′s, I thought a lot about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the bombing. On my birthday, I ran for just over 2 hours. As I ran, I decided to dedicate each footstep to someone who was killed during the bombing. My decision and action that day had a very deep emotional and spiritual impact on me.
Read more »
This story is more weird than funny. In 1984, while living in Calgary, I got up at the crack of dawn for an early morning run on some trails through a heavily wooded area south of the Glenmore Reservoir. Running in the fresh, still, cool air was exhilarating. I quickly found myself in a running groove, motoring along the gently rolling trails.
Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a bed sheet being shaken out. I looked up to see a large owl flapping its wings in the tree above me. Its wingspan seemed enormous, at least 5 feet in length. The bird then stared at me. But instead of turning its head 90 degrees to the left, it turned its head 270 degrees to the right. The owl was clearly sizing me up as a potential breakfast! I stared back. This was a standoff.
Read more »
