The Athlete’s Kitchen
Copyright: Nancy Clark MS RD CSSD Feb 2012
Water is a wonderful performance enhancer. When a star U Conn basketball player took the advice of his sports nutritionist Nancy Rodriguez RD and started drinking enough to consistently void a light-colored urine, he was amazed at how much better he felt all day. Unfortunately, too many athletes—including runners—overlook the power of this essential nutrient. Perhaps it’s your turn to give water a try? This article offers droplets of information to enhance your water IQ, optimize your water balance, and help you feel & perform better.
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Conventional wisdom holds that in order to run a good marathon or half-marathon, it is necessary to train 5 or 6 days a week. Traditional programs required running 40 to 60 miles (64 to 96 km) weekly. These were often scaled-down versions of elite runners’ programs.
Most of us juggle busy family lives, work commitments and social interests. Running 5-6 days per week, 40 to 60 miles weekly can easily add more stress to our already busy lives, as well as lead to overtraining and injury.
Now for the good news! It has been proven that for runners that are not racing at an elite level, this frequency and distance are not necessary for good or even personal best performance!
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by Sandie Orlando
Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. seemed to be the best opportunity to fit in my LSD (long, slow, distance) training run, and I had gone to bed early to be well rested. Despite the freezing rain, I was committed to getting this done. Dressed in every reflective piece of gear I owned and equipped with a headlamp and flashing lights behind me, I headed out into the dark and wind and steady, icy rain.
Taking the sidewalks through the suburban side streets seemed to be the safest choice of routes, but the condition of the sidewalks quickly undermined the wisdom of that decision. It seemed that every few squares offered a new kind of treachery – changing from wet concrete to icy concrete to slush fields to skating rinks to swimming pools. It all looked the same in the dark, so my only option was to relax enough to let my joints become shock-absorbers, engage the core for balance and just keep going over – or through – whatever lay ahead.
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The Athlete’s Kitchen
Copyright: Nancy Clark MS RD CSSD January 2012
What’s best to eat for recovery after a hard workout?
That’s what runners, triathletes, and body builders alike repeatedly ask. They read ads for commercial recovery foods that demand a 3 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein, tout the benefits of a proprietary formula, or emphasize immediate consumption the minute you stop exercising. While these ads offer an element of truth, consumers beware: engineered recovery foods are not more effective than standard foods. The purpose of this article is to educate you, a hungry runner, about how to choose an optimal recovery diet.
Which runners need to worry about a recovery diet?
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In last week’s Feature Article How Many Weeks Before Your Marathon Should You Run Your Last Long Run?, we concluded that it is best to conduct your last long run four weeks prior to your marathon.
Without a long run during the last four weeks, won’t you lose fitness, compromising your ability to run the marathon at your true potential?
Don’t worry! These four weeks provide the opportunity to continue high quality training. As you recover from your last long run, incorporate a variety of speed workouts (assuming they were part of your training program) that will result in improving other factors that will affect marathon performance, e.g. running economy, speed and VO2max (maximum capacity of an individual’s body to transport and use oxygen during exercise).
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One area where women runners differ from their male counterparts is caloric requirement. When running the same distance, men burn more calories than women due to their higher muscle mass and lower body fat.
A man training 40-45 kms (25-30 miles) per week requires 19-21 calories per pound of body weight. A 180 lb man training at this level should consume approximately 3600 calories daily. A woman running the same weekly mileage requires 17-19 calories per pound of body weight. Therefore, a 140 lb woman needs about 2500 calories daily to fuel her activity.
Carbohydrate requirement is another area of nutrition where women runners’ requirements differ from those of their male counterparts. Why? In addition to burning more calories when running, men utilize more carbs as fuel than women, even when running the same distance. Therefore, women runners need fewer carbs than men.
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THE ATHLETE’S KITCHEN
Copyright: Nancy Clark, MS, RD, CSSD December 2011
If you are a winter runner, you want to pay careful attention to your sports diet. Otherwise, lack of food and fluids can take the fun out of your outdoor activities. These tips can to help you fuel wisely for cold weather workouts.
Winter hydration
Cold blunts the thirst mechanism; you’ll feel less thirsty despite significant sweat loss and may not “think to drink.”
Winter runners (especially those at high altitude) need to consciously consume fluids to replace the water vapor that gets exhaled via breathing. When you breathe in cold dry air, your body warms and humidifies that air. As you exhale, you lose significant amounts of water. You can see this vapor (“steam”) when you breathe.
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(Central Governor Theory)
Conventional wisdom holds that during running and racing, muscular fatigue is caused by the buildup of toxic bi-products and/or muscles becoming depleted of glycogen (running out of fuel). It becomes impossible for muscles to exert the force necessary to sustain the desired speed. Therefore, the runner must slow down or even cease running.
The problem with this theory is that it doesn’t explain what many of us commonly experience:
- An ability to sprint to the finish at the end of a distance race
- Running the last repeat of a tough track workout faster than the two preceding ones.
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Consider the following scenario: Your training schedule includes a weekly track or hill workout. One week, you hit your workout targets right on. You are brimming with confidence. The following week, the identical workout is awful with no apparent reason why. You feel bewildered and discouraged.
Knowing where you are in your menstrual cycle can provide valuable insight into your performance. Let’s examine why and how to use this knowledge to your training and racing advantage.
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Any active adult over the age of 40 can attest to requiring more recovery time from training and injury.
Progressive training causes muscles to break down (on a microscopic level), repair and grow stronger. As we age, muscle fibres decrease in number and shrink in size. New muscle fibres are generated at a slower rate than in a younger person, resulting in a slower buildup and strengthening of muscle in response to the demands of training or the incidence of an injury.
I know this fact of life from personal experience. When I was 44 years old and my daughter was 12, we both suffered mild ankle sprains…………on the very same day. As our sprains were of similar severity, we both underwent identical treatment programs, consisting of physiotherapy and strengthening and balance exercises. Ten days after spraining our ankles, she was hopping and I was hobbling! Nothing beats experiential learning for driving home a fact of life.
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