Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Oct 15th Run (Week 26, Day 19)

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Oct 15th Run (Week 26, Day 19)

Click the link above to see my run from this morning.

Not much to say about this morning, other than it was a new moon, so it was VERY dark this morning.

Additionally, it was 23 degrees when I started my run... even though I am in Europe, I mean it was 23 degrees Farenheit, not Celcius! Yes, it was cold. I think the sweat on the bill of my cap had ice chunks on it!

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Getting Armoured Up to Run

I've been talking a lot lately about how the Base Exchange(BX) (our version of a department store that is located on most military installations, also called AAFES) hasn't had what I have needed for my running gear since they opened this new, multi-million dollar store.  When they had 2 stores, they always seemed to have what I needed.  Now that they are down to one store, they have yet to have some gear that I need for my cold weather runs.  So, I guess I will cover a little bit of my gear.

I am an Under Armour kind of guy.  A lot of runners give Under Armour mixed reviews.

I think it's some of the best stuff ever made, but then again, my experience as a runner is limited here.  For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past several years, Under Armour is a brand name for a form fitting, moisture wicking, apparel company.  Their gear was originally designed to be worn under football shoulder pads to help regulate the players body temperature, as shoulder pad don't breathe very well.  The material carries moisture, sweat, from the body, to the outer surface of the garment, allowing for speedy evaporation & body cooling.

Under Armour comes in 3 varieties, Heat Gear, All Season, & Cold Gear.  Pretty simple, Heat Gear for when it's hot, Cold Gear for when it's cold & All Season for the in between times.  You can also choose Compression or Loose.  Compression is designed to be very form fitting.  By very form fitting, I mean you can count someone stretch marks through the stuff if they don't have anything on top of the compression item.  Compression has some extra benefits too.  It helps hold heat to the body to keep the muscles warm, which reduces the chances of muscle pulls & strains.  Additionally, it adds a slight bit of extra support, though not much, to the muscles.

I like Under Armour because they cater to the military.  They have a dedicated line called Under Armour Tactical, that was designed to meet military specs, so we can wear it with our uniforms, even while in the desert war zones.

Currently, I run in Heat Gear Compression shorts & short sleeve shirt.  These work great as a base layer as they can be hand washed and dry over night hanging in my shower... really helps keep the stink down, which I'm sure my wife appreciates!

Over this I wear a pair of Heat Gear Loose Shorts & an All Season Transit 1/4 Zip in Yellow.  It's a nice bright color so cars can see me & it was the only long sleeve they had at the BX!

Finally, I top it all off with the Escape Runners Hat to reduce the heat lost through my scalp & to catch my head sweat!

I will be adding to my kit shortly, with some Cold Gear tights, Cold Gear Compression Mock Turtle Neck & Cold Gear Gloves... maybe even a Cold Gear hat of some sort.  I think I am going to need is since the tempeartures are plummeting over here!

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Oct 14th Run (Week 26, Day 18)

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Oct 14th Run (Week 26, Day 18)

Click the link above for my run from this morning.

It's amazing that even though God knows all the things I have done in the past, he still chooses to amaze & bless me!

Thanks to Maria, I realized I had to work a different shift today. So, I had to get up at 0400 to go run. I did not want to get up or go run this morning. It was around 31 degrees out when I went out to stretch. I was dreading this.

Out of Queidersbach I ran. Making pretty good time too for a mid week run, which seem to be my slower runs of the week. I get out on to the running trail that goes through the woods. It's dark and COLD! Then I look up.

Star dust! I can't tell you how long it's been since I have seen star dust. For those city folk who don't have any idea what I am refering to, it's when it's so dark that your eyes get the light from so many stars that it looks like the dark areas of the sky between the brighter stars are filed with a powdery white dust... hence, star dust! It's an amazing creation by God!

My run wasn't too bad either, though I was on the ragged edge of cold the entire time... I sure hope the BX gets some Under Armour Cold Gear soon!

Get out there & take the time to see the wonderous creation God has made! You may even see the one thing he put out there today, just for you, like I did this morning!

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Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Oct 13th Run (Week 26, Day 17)

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Oct 13th Run (Week 26, Day 17)

Click the link above to see my run from this morning.

So, usually, after making my round through Linden, my route back in to Queidersbach mirrors the route I took out. This morning, I decided to continue on the running trial through the backside of Queidersbach.

I knew it was going to be longer than I had planned on running, but I felt pretty good on my run this morning, besides having to stop because I thought I was going to vomit from not being able to clear my throat... yes, snot tried to go down the wrong pipe & almost choked me out! I have to figure out how I did this as a kid!

Pretty uneventful run today, other than being cold most of the time... I wish our brand new, state o the art, multi million dollar Base Exchange would ralize that thier primary customers are male (sorry ladies... it's still a man dominated military) and carry more Under Armour. They had, literally, tons of the stuff when they were split into 2 BX's. Now that they are 1, it's all short sleeved stuff, but the ladies Under Armour section grew 3 fold! Crazy!

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Be Seen or Be Dead

Inherantly, when you are running the distances that are required for marathon training, you will be running in the dark.  Not to mention, running laps around a 1/4 mile track is not my idea of fun.  I get sick on rides that go around in tight circles!  So, I am looking at the challenge of running in both daylight & darkness, on roads and sidewalks.  These are not my areas.  Well, at least the road is not my area.  That belongs to the cars; therefore, I leave it to them as much as I possibly can.  I have come up with a few simple rules... no, I didn't come up with them all on my own, but if you are going to be street running, you might want to consider these:

- Always run against the flow traffic... you want to see what is coming at you so you can jump out of the way if needed

- Just cause you are on the sidewalk, doesn't mean you're safe... keep your head on a swivel

- Face planting into the mud diving out of the way of a car is better than death... it's bigger than you, so the law of gross tonage applies

- If you wear an iPod, and must wear it while on the road, the traffic side ear bud must come out... you can't avoid what you cannot hear (Just read an article about hybrid cars being the runners silent killer)

- Be seen... if you can do anything to be seen, do it!  This includes waving, wearing bright colors, reflective clothing

- Always tell someone where you are running... leave a note or something describing the route & time expected to return, that way, in case the horrible happens, people know where to find you

- Wear your allergies, name & contact number... the emergency service folks don't know what you do if you are unconscious.  Help them, help you!

That was painless, hopefully.  I want to expound on a couple of these though.

Clothing choice is pivitol when running, not only for body temperature regulation, but for safety.  Here is how I look when I run during the day.  I choose colors that drivers can't help but see.  This is an Under Armour Steeltown Gold long sleeve (sleeves are pulled up right now) shirt.  You can almost HEAR me coming when I wear this thing! 

I will still wave at vehicles, bicycleists, etc when they are coming toward me while I am running.  I want to make sure they see me & avoid me.  It's not the runner who should have to be avoiding a vehicle, it SHOULD be the vehicle avoiding the runner in my opinion.  I do my best about not running on the road, unless I encounter one of the elderly folks walking around our village on the sidewalk.  I will immediately get out of their way... it's not only respectful, it's also for their safety.  I don't want them to try to move out of my way and slip & fall.  I would feel horrible if I caused an elderly person to break a hip or something!

This is how I want to look when I run before daylight.  Yeah, I know, it's not a runner, but I want to look just like this when I run!  My typical kit when I run at night is not much different than what I wear during the day right now.  My hat has reflective material on it.  My shirt & shorts have reflective material on them.  My shoes have reflective material on them.  The biggest change right now, is I wear a 3M reflective safety belt.  This is basically just a reflective strip of plastic that wraps around my waist & velcros.  I really need to order a runners headlight.  I also have seen a flashing red safety light that clips to your back or fastens to your hat band in the back so vehicles approaching from behind see you.  One of the tools I use right now is my iPod. 

I have the iPod touch that I run with.  I downloaded an application for it called iFlashlight.  It was free and just displays a white screen on the iPod.  If I am being approached by a car, I will unlock my iPod and shine the "flashlight" at them.  It seems to get their attention, but it doesn't do much for me by helping me see the uneven German roads!  LOL!

The last one I want to touch on is the identification.  There are several ideas for making sure EMS workers have vital information about you.  I am allergic to penecillin, which is one of the most common antibiotics.  To avoid them giving me this antibiotic, I had a set of dogtags made.  I laced one into my shoe and the other I carry in my iPod armband.  It shows the EMS my name, emergency contact phone number, and allergies.  I found a company in the last copy of Runners World magazine called Road ID.  Click HERE for their website.  This is a nice form factor for an ID band.  They also have one that has a code on it that the EMS workers can access via the Road ID website and get even more info about you.  I think my dogtags work fine though and were only $5.

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Oct 10th Run (Week 27, Day 16)

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Oct 10th Run (Week 27, Day 16)

Click the link above for my run from this morning.

I awoke to the rain pounding on the beroom window. I guess these will probably be some of my harder runs. I literally had to make myself go out the door. I am glad I did though, as it was a beautiful run, even got to see some deer feeding in an area along my route that I call the Deep Field. It's was cool as I was running, seeing the deer, listening to some Casting Crowns & feeling the rain on my face.

Note to self, running through mud puddles is not as fun as it was when I was a kid though!

I ran out of running road (aka sidewalk or bike trail) on the way toward Krickenbach, so looks like I won't be turning there anymore. Will be traveling straight through Linden now. I may run toward Krikenbach when I want to do some hill training, cause it's a steady uphill jaunt of about 1/4 mile!

Maria took a few shots of me as I was running out & again running back into Queidersbach this morning & I will post those in an upcoming blog.

This was my LRD of the week. For all you data hounds out there, here is the stats thus far in my training:

Scheduled for Week 4 - 10.5 miles
Actual for Week 4 - 18.28 miles @ 3:01:20 for time.

Overall Through 4 Weeks
Scheduled - 38 miles
Actual - 65.91 miles @ 10:47:34 for time.

AWESOME!

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Of Gu, Glycogen & You

Yeah, yeah, I know, weird title. I will clarify if you just keep reading, and it may actually benefit some of you one day.

I’m a science freak. I loved it all throughout school, and if you put science into a subject that I think is useless & boring, I will get totally into it! I guess that’s why I love the show Good Eats with Alton Brown.  The way he mixes science into cooking keeps me intrigued, even if Maria can’t stand it! I think she’d like the show if Alton Brown wasn’t the star of it, but that’s another story.

Good Eats, for those who have not had the opportunity, nay the honor, of seeing it, not only teaches you how to cook certain foods or dishes, but it mixes in some history of the item, some science about why you should use one pan or the other, or why you should use egg whites as opposed to whole eggs, etc. It’s not just TV shows that draw me in with science though… have you not been following my blog thus far?

This marathon training has really got me looking into the science of the human body. More so than ever before, science is playing a huge role in distance running. Take a look at how shoes have changed. We’ve seen air filled shoes, shoes with pumps, bungee cord strings, round strings, flat strings, gel inserts, lighter shoes, mesh, “hydrophobic” materials, and the list goes on & on. I mean, did you read my blog about a $50 pair of socks! And the technological advancements with GPS’s, heart rate monitors, winter training gear, it’s easy to see that great strides are being made in the sport. Even strides aimed at the insides of our bodies are being made.

Glycogen is a molecule that is made by the liver & muscles from the carbohydrates we take in. It is the fuel for our muscles. The glycogen is stored in the muscles & in the liver, though the glycogen in the muscles is what we are going to be focusing on.

Glycogen is like throwing gasoline on a fire. It burns very rapidly, but pretty efficiently. It’s right there at the muscles, so the muscles use these stores first. Fat, on the other hand, is like throwing wet wood on a fire. The fire will eventually dry the wood, and it will burn, but it takes awhile for it to really get going. For runners, and other active sports, the body will burn the glycogen, then revert to trying to burn fat.

A runner can store about 2000 calories worth of glycogen in their bodies. Depending on the rate of burn, the glycogen stores of said runner will be depleted around 18-20 miles. If you’ve read anything about marathon running before, 18-20 miles is what is known as the wall. This is the point that the runner reaches where it feels like their muscles just cannot go on. This is the body running out of glycogen & reverting to burning fat for energy. For this reason, marathons have used oranges, bananas, candy, sugar cubes, and tons of other items stationed throughout the course, to help the runner replenish glycogen during their run to avoid, or at least minimize, the effects created by a lack of glycogen. Here comes science to the runners rescue!

Several companies over the past few years have introduced energy gels to the market. Two of the more well known are Gu & Powerbar.  These energy gels provide complex carbohydrates that the body can quickly process into more glycogen. They may also contain caffeine, amino acids, electrolytes, or some other bonus supplement. Their proper use is essential during a marathon. With the gels, it’s advised that you take one about an hour before the marathon, and then every 45 minutes during the run. You wash it down with 4-5 ounces of WATER… no sports drinks. Sports drinks can cause delayed gel absorption & stomach upset, which are not good for a marathon. If your muscles don’t get the glycogen they need, the wall will get you. If your stomach is upset… 26.2 miles is a long way to run, but even longer when the porta-potties are spaced 3 miles apart! It’s recommended that you use moderation when mixing sports drinks & energy gels during a workout, long run or marathon. Adequate water intake is also key to help in the transport of the gel through the small intestines where it is absorbed.

I am in the process of trying some of these. I have three items that I will be trying. Gu, Powerbar Gel, and Jelly Belly Sport Beans. Yeah, I know, it’s not an energy gel, but a friend of mine swears by them.  Not to mention, I love me some Jelly Belly’s! I will let you know how the trials go on these items. I have decided to wait until I am running over an hour before I start testing these items to see how they fare on my stomach, which is my major concern.  Oh yeah, & Jelly Belly's are Good Eats!