Congratulations on your new heart rate monitor!  Adding a form of tracking to your training helps you to increase the accuracy and consistency of your efforts.  While using a heart rate monitor in your training, there are two things to consider.

HR is a Response

When using Heart rate as a training tool, it is important to realize that heart rate (HR) is the response to the work that you have done.  This is crucial in the effectiveness of your training because what your heart rate is currently telling you is symbolic of the workload that you completed 20-60 seconds prior.

Cardiac Drift

Cardiac drift is the upward trend in heart rate during longer sustained efforts.  It is an increase in heart rate that is caused by a more highly activated Sympathetic Nervous System (think fight or flight response), increased core temperature and total body water losses.

With this new knowledge in mind, it is important to pair your workouts with perceived exertion. In other words, how hard do you feel you’re working? This will provide you with a system of checks and balances that will keep you from beginning workouts too hard and ending them too easy as you would if you were to maintain a flat heart rate for the entirety of your efforts.

Take your training to a new level with one of our Static Training plans!  These low cost, high output training plans will produce amazing results when paired with your new knowledge of heart rate training.

Noassatall is not selective.  It impacts men and women of all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds.  This is common among many Americans and, most surprisingly, among many endurance runners.  What is Noassatall? It is where someone turns sideways and, looking at the back side of their profile, you question whether you are staring down a wall or a human body.  Let’s be honest, we are supposed to have curves back there and many individuals do not.

The predominant muscle in our butt, the gluteus maximus, is in charge of many things including sitting/standing, climbing stairs, giving you some junk in the trunk and even maintaining an upright posture.  A weak gluteus maximus muscle can lead to poor posture and over compensation for many of the complimenting muscles potentially resulting in injury.

Looking to help fight against Noassatall?  Try this exercise to improve your glute strength, better balance your body and even improve your run.

Single Leg Romanian Deadlift:

1. Hold one dumbbell or kettlebell in your hand.
2. On the opposite side that you hold the kettlebell/dumbbell, stand on one leg.
3. Keeping your standing leg knee slightly bent, perform a stiff-legged deadlift by bending at the hip, extending your free leg behind you for balance.
4. Continue lowering the kettlebell/dumbbell until your back is parallel to the ground, and then return to the upright position. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions. Need to increase the intensity? Increase your weight or number of repetitions.

If you are an endurance athlete who feels lost in a weight room, you’re not alone — but you are at a disadvantage. Strength training could be the key to unlocking your next improvement on the race course. Join us at the Endurance Training Club for our strength training class to build your butt and all your other key muscle groups. Have no fear — this won’t be a power lifting session. All of your ETC classes are designed for endurance athletes, by endurance athletes and are built to be accessible to you. We look forward to seeing you — book your class now.

Event day nutrition is something that can be confusing for those who are new to endurance sports.  Outside of athletics, we are accustomed to eating three balanced meals and watching what we eat so that we are not constantly fight the battle of the bulge.  On top of that, the quality of the food we eat is stressed. Is it non-gmo, free range, organic, gluten free? Does it provide you with the macro and micro nutrients that you need to sustain healthy body function?

With all of this detail paid to our daily nutrition, training nutrition is very easy to overthink.  If you find yourself stressing, it is time to reassess your training and racing nutrition.

It is important to preface the follow statements with the fact that these recommendations are geared to athletes who are just beginning their nutritional journey and are doing events that take 4 hours or less.

Whether in an event or training for an event, three key elements need to be considered.

Pre-event: The goal of pre-event nutrition is to provide the energy necessary to top off your body’s fuel tank (glycogen stores.)  Caloric intake will vary from 200-600 calories, dependent upon time since last eating, the intensity of the event and your ability to handle food prior to physical activity.  The timing typically varies from 15 minutes to 2 hours prior to activity.

During: Nutrition while training or racing will vary heavily upon the duration, intensity of the event and athlete size/stature.  Your #1 goal is to fuel your performance. Because of this, your primary calorie consumption should be carbohydrates. Caloric intake can vary from 100-350 calories per hour.

Post-event: Unlike pre-event and during-event nutrition, your goal shifts from performance generation to physical recovery.

These are just some things to consider when building your training and racing nutrition plan. If you’re interested in how to fuel yourself for best results, our Science of Speed coaches will be happy to provide guidance based on their personal racing and training experiences. As well, SoS can connect you with a nutritionist that understands the athlete’s body.

The brain is a miraculously powerful organ.  It is capable of deep thought and incredible ingenuity that has brought civilization amazing literary works, the ability for humans to fly, the Pythagorean Theorem and the Snuggy.  Unfortunately, the brain can also be a powerful device for evil, too. It has lead to the destruction of many civilizations, hurtful words and the creation of Crystal Pepsi.

Over the past years, I have seen the power of the mind be nearly debilitating for many endurance athletes.  It has created sub standard results, levels of frustration and, for some, it even creates stress that is great enough to cause vomiting.

Why is this? In an age of cell phones, emails, TPS reports and board meetings, our “fight or flight” responses have taken a bit of a turn in what they respond to.  It no longer takes a saber tooth tiger lurking in the bushes to trigger our sympathetic response. It is now these new stressors that create our “fight or flight,” and, for athletes, a big race is the reason for the dump of norepinepherine and epinepherine getting both our bodies and minds jacked and ready to go for broke in an all out fight to the death.

Variables such as upbringing, personality, life experiences and even ethnicity and gender can change our reaction. The important thing is how can we counteract these high levels of anxiety and stress, and turn what would be a negative into a positive, performance enhancing result.  Here are several steps we recommend you try to start and then fine tune to your specific needs:

Acknowledge the Stress – Remember: this is your body’s way of preparing for battle! These chemicals that have been released are preparing you for your best performance yet and your interpretation of this stress has an impact on the final outcome.

Refocus the Stress – Your heart rate is elevated and you have a pit in your stomach, but you can still take control.  The key is to turn this negative impacting force into something positive and you can do that by:

• Positive self talk- It doesn’t have to be complex, something as simple as, “I am ready for this race and I will do great!” on repeat in your head, or even out loud, could be enough to recenter you and get you under control.
• Developing Self Confidence – Rely on your past experiences to solidify your confidence in your ability to compete/complete the event.  You can draw on previous positive race experiences or even amazing training workouts that drove home the fact you are physically prepared.
• Distraction – This can be a bit more difficult to accomplish because setting, people and scenarios change but if you have a person (spouse, significant other or friend) that you often travel with to events they can provided a nice added distraction.  Getting lost in music on your headphones can be a helpful options and with the right play list it can help to get you excited to race.
• Focus on the details within your control – There are many factors on event day that you have no ability to control.  Events starting on time, weather, traffic or other people’s actions are far from your control, but you can own so many other key variables.  These include things like the time you leave for the event, the food you eat, your clothing selection and the condition of your equipment. Some of these may take preparation leading up to the event, but you will know that you have your details under control.

Have a plan – For many athletes, battling pre-race anxiety it is not a one time occurrence.  It has happened over and over again. It reduces expected performance, causes a lack of confidence in ability and, in worst cases, it is event ending.  If this is you, it is important to create a plan prior to race day. You know what you are likely to experience on event day, so it is time to create a plan for your day.  Keep in mind things such as: Food, travel, equipment, clothing, meditation, warm-up and hydration. The plans for each person can be very different, much like training, but it is important to create and then fine tune a plan for yourself.

Are you struggling to find a way to conquer your pre-event anxiety?  Let one of our coaches help you build both the physical and mental strength you need to succeed.