Video – Season 2 – Episode 18 – Marathons and Young Runners

running advice bug Video   Season 2   Episode 18   Marathons and Young RunnersWelcome once again runners. It’s time for another episode with Coaches Joe and Dean. This one goes out to the youngsters out there that might be thinking about running a marathon. Our topic this week is young runners and the marathon.

On this week’s episode:
— How old should you be to run a marathon or half-marathon?
— What distances should high-schoolers be racing?
— How long should the longest runs be for younger runners?

http://www.vimeo.com/10079093

To visit our video pages with links to all of the episodes in the series, go to:
Season 1 Video Page

Season 2 Video Page

Running Advice and News
www.running-advice.com

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Cross-country — DiCrescenzo, King lead team USA at 2010 NACAC Cross Country Championships

running advice bug Cross country    DiCrescenzo, King lead team USA at 2010 NACAC Cross Country ChampionshipsTOBAGO – Delilah DiCrescenzo (New York, N.Y.) and Max King (Bend, Ore.) each won the individual open women’s and men’s titles to lead Team USA to the respective open team titles Saturday at the sixth annual North America, Central America and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC) Cross Country Championships at the Mt. Irvine Resort in Tobago.

The NACAC Championships contested races for the open men’s 8 km, open women’s 6 km, junior men’s 6 km and junior women’s 4 km.

King took charge early to win the open men’s 8 km in 23 minutes, 49 seconds, leading the U.S. squad to a perfect score of 10 points. Michael Spence (Ogden, Utah) finished 17 seconds behind King for the runner-up position while Bobby Mack (Raleigh, N.C.) and Thomas Kloos (San Francisco, Calif.) rounded out the scoring places for Team USA, running 24:26 and 24:34 for third and fourth-place respectively. Stephen Furst (Raleigh, N.C.) ran 24:46 for sixth-place overall. Mexico took the runner-up team position with 34 points.
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Racing — Wardian takes 50KM National Title

running advice bug Racing    Wardian takes 50KM National TitleMichael Wardian (Arlington, Va.), won his third straight USA 50 km Championships on Sunday, running 2:55:50 at the Caumsett State Park 50K in Huntington N.Y, according to the USA Track and Field organization. Yolanda Flamino (Hancock, N.H.) won the overall women’s title in 3:34:26.

Annette Bednosky, (Jefferson, N.C.), finished second overall in the women’s race as she captured the masters women’s title in 3:43:48, while Scott Jaime (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) took the masters men’s crown in 3:13:25.

This year’s event was hosted by USATF Long Island and was held for the fifth consecutive year in Caumsett State Historic Park, the fourth largest of Long Island’s 25 state parks. The park boasts 1,500 acres and is located 35 miles from New York City. The USA 50 km Championship will be held at Caumsett for the next two years.

Running Advice and News
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Question — How many miles to make a marathon ‘just another run’?

Coach Joe English

Coach Joe English

Here’s a question that came in from a reader named Bridgette:

“How many miles do you have to run each week to make a marathon ‘just another run’?”

Well Bridgette, good question. Let me start by interpreting the phrase ‘just another run’ to mean not needing much recovery from the marathon. So I think what you’re asking is how many miles you need to run to be able to have a quick recovery from a marathon.

Let’s approach this first by saying that the number of miles that you run each week isn’t going to be the determining factor here. The issue that will dictate how quickly you recover from the marathon is the intensity that you run the miles and then the effort level at which the marathon is run.
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News — Elevate Running Camp at NAU in Flagstaff Arizona

running advice bug News    Elevate Running Camp at NAU in Flagstaff ArizonaCoach Dean Hebert, my colleague and friend proudly announces his second year of summer running camps. Read on for more details. Coach Joe

Due to the success and demand of last summer’s camp, Elevate Running Camp will be offered three times this summer… and one is specifically for adults!

This year Elevate Running Camp for the high school level is reserved for the weeks 6/21-26/2010 and a second high school camp 7/5-10/2010. Camp is an extra day longer than last year thanks to the input of last year’s campers!

So time to mark your calendars. Arrive on Monday morning we start in earnest @ noon! We will pack workouts, lectures, games, inside jokes that live on all year, and yes… daily movies (but I promise I’ll keep the documentaries to a minimum… maybe). We are not camping out! We stay in the dorms @ Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona; and eat in their dining facilities on campus.
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News — Bekele, Isinbayeva, Gay, Richards headline Prefontaine Classic

running advice bug News    Bekele, Isinbayeva, Gay, Richards headline Prefontaine ClassicEUGENE, OR — Four of the superstars in the sport of track & field–Kenenisa Bekele, Yelena Isinbayeva, Tyson Gay, and Sanya Richards–will compete in the 36th annual Prefontaine Classic on Saturday, July 3rd at historic Hayward Field.

Bekele and Isinbayeva, in particular, have dominated their events during the first decade of the new millennium, and each was recently named Athlete of the Decade by Track & Field News magazine.

Bekele, the 27-year-old from Ethiopia, has won three Olympic and five outdoor World Championships gold medals, 11 IAAF Cross Country Championships, and perhaps most significantly, currently holds the world records in the outdoor 5,000 and 10,000 meters. In 2008, Bekele ran the 4th fastest 10,000 of all-time (26:25.97) at the Pre Classic; he will race in the 5k at this year’s meet.
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Video — Season 2 – Episode 17 — Marathon Pace Groups, good or bad?

running advice bug Video    Season 2   Episode 17    Marathon Pace Groups, good or bad?Runners we’re back with another episode of our weekly video series. Coaches Joe and Dean are together again talking about all things that have to do with marathon running.

On this week’s episode we tackle a vexing topic for many runners: marathon pace groups – are they good or bad?

This week:
— What are marathon pace groups?
— Are they useful or not?
— How should you decide if you’re going to run in a pace group?
— Are they likely to help or hurt your marathon performance?

And Coach Joe gives some input directly to pace group leaders as well.

Season 2 – Episode 17 — Marathon Pace Groups from Joe English on Vimeo.

To visit our video pages with links to all of the episodes in the series, go to:
Season 1 Video Page

Season 2 Video Page

Running Advice and News
www.running-advice.com

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Commentary — Embracing the Isolation of running and racing

Coach Joe English

Coach Joe English

It’s Sunday morning and you’re running in a local road-race. The race officials go through the pre-race announcements. Someone sings the national anthem. The gun sounds and suddenly you’re off. You’re running alongside hundreds — or perhaps thousands — of people. You’re in the midst of a big, moving mass of people. You feel the exhilaration of being a part of something bigger than yourself. You are part of a roiling sea of runners and walkers making their respective ways along the race route.

As the race goes along you notice something. You’re doing your thing and the people around you are doing their thing. Some people even have headphones on to tune out the people around them. But mostly you notice that the people around you are totally focused on getting from point-a to point-b. You might have a conversation with one or two people along the way, but you really don’t engage with very many of those people in that massive sea of people.

Late in the race, as you start to become fatigued, you start to feel a little isolated. In fact, you start to feel totally alone. As you struggle, you wonder if you can keep going. The fact that people are around you totally fades away. It’s as if you are doing this all by yourself.

Isolation in running
Isolation among runners is a very interesting phenomenon. While one of the selling points of running in a big race might be to tackle the challenge alongside other people, in reality most of the runners as quite literally doing their own thing. Other than pace group leaders, coaches or friends that you’ve engaged to the task, no one is likely to help you get from point-a to point-b in a road race. And this fact, when you’ve come to grips with it, can be a very powerful tool in your training.
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Track and Field — Team USA showing well at World Indoor Masters

running advice bug Track and Field    Team USA showing well at World Indoor MastersKAMLOOPS, B.C., CANADA – Led by a paid of world age-group records from Christel Donley and Christopher Bates, Team USA paced the gold-medal race after Day 2 of the 4th World Masters Indoor Athletics Championships in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada.

The American team, boasting 290 athletes age 35 to 92, collected 30 gold medals and 71 total, compared with host Canada’s 24 gold and 71 total. Germany was third with 11 golds and 29 total.

Donley, a Masters Hall of Famer from Colorado Springs, won the W75 pentathlon Monday and set a world record in the event’s 60-meter hurdles. Her 14.22-second clocking erased the listed 14.68 worldbest by Sweden’s Asta Larsson in 2008. On Tuesday, Bates of Portland, Ore., scored 4,110 points to win the M45 pentathlon, bettering the listed World Masters Athletics record of 4,062 jointly held by Jean-Luc Duez of France and American Gregory Foster. Bates’ marks were 9.28 in the 60m hurdles, 6.08m/19-11.50 in the long jump, 11.99m/39-4 in the shot, 1.82m/5-11.50 in the high jump and 3:09.49 in the 1,000m run.
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Training — Do I need to wear socks when I run?

Coach Joe English

Coach Joe English

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the question of wearing under-wear when running. That post spawned a lot of e-mails asking a lot of very interesting questions, some of which do not need to be repeated on this family friendly running blog. But one question that a number of people raised had to do with socks: do you need to wear them when running?

So, do you need to wear socks while running? This question I can dispose of with two simple words: it depends.

The role of the sock is, generally speaking, to protect the foot from rubbing against the inside of the shoe. Rubbing is a source of blistering, especially when there is moisture present. As I often say, “moisture+motion=blisters”. But here’s the thing: if there is no friction or rubbing or moisture in the shoe, then socks aren’t always a necessity. In fact, for many people, the wrong sock can even contribute to the motion and or moisture problems.

And to make things more interesting, this question is totally dependent on the fit of your shoes on your feet, so it may not be the same answer from shoe to show. In other words, some people may be required to wear socks with some of their shoes and may not need them with others.
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