Adjusting to Summer Running

Adjusting to Summer Running

by | May 31, 2022 | Article, List, Reflection, Science

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

Since the majority of my readers and trainees are in the Northern Hemisphere and the weather is warming up rapidly despite being three weeks away from the Summer Solstice, the time has come to remind all athletes that running during the hottest times of the year requires purposeful and intentional adjustments. These modifications are not optional. If you don’t alter your habits, you will not only be unable to maintain or increase your fitness, but you could get seriously hurt.

Heat related injuries won’t break your bones, but they could have lasting effects on your body, and thus, on the future of running.

So, here are 5 tips to adjust to summer running.

1 – Understand what is happening – There are two basic things that happen when you run in a hot and/or humid environment. They just are, so there is no use in fighting them.

1A – The first one is basic physics: Humid air is denser than dry air, so it takes more effort to displace a heavier mass of air, thus enhancing the effort it takes to run at the same speed.

1B – The second one is basic biology: The human body cools off by sweating and the blood contains about 92% water. The more you sweat without replenishing fluids, the more water gets sucked out of your bloodstream and the ticker blood becomes, making it more difficult to circulate. That alone, spells deep trouble.

Summer Running

If you can’t adjust the time of your tun, you may end up on the dreaded treadmill (Julia Larson, Pexels)

2 – Adjust the time of your running – If you live in places like Florida, Texas or similar, your two options are adjusting to run in the heat/humidity or not running at all. If you want to continue running, you must do it at the coolest time possible, when it is gentler to the body. Before sunrise or after sunset are the basic choices. Wake up earlier or wait until later. If you can’t then the dreaded treadmill seems like your option, but that comes with its own set of particularities that you will have to deal with.

A good hack is to keep your running shirt and hat in the freezer and put them on right before you hit the road. This will cool off your core and provide you with a few comfortable initial miles before the inevitable sets in.

3 – Slow your race – There is a reason most mainstream races take place in the fall or the spring. Who wants their goal race in the thick of the scorching summer? So, since summer is usually the time to get ready for the upcoming season, it is the perfect time to take care of the feared strength training and to build up your aerobic engine, which is done by running slower than usual. Your fall and spring PRs are built during the summer. Take advantage of it. Don’t worry about what the fast people in your running group may say or what your Instagram followers may think.

Summer Running


Hydration during the summer months is key, but overhydration can be a life threatening condition (Ketut Subiyanto, Pexels)

4 – Careful about overhydration: Hydration is key during the summer, but hydration is not only what you consume as you run. Hydration should be a 24/7 habit that will put you as close to fully hydrated when you start your GPS watch. Your body is designed to lose fluids and run without replenishing every single drop of water you lose. Don’t fall into the temptation of overindulging on water or sports drinks or you could experience hyponatremia, a condition in which the sodium levels are so diluted that it could cause seizures, coma and even death. For more on hyponatremia, I invite you to read what the Cleveland Clinic website has to say about this serious condition.

5 – Beware of the signs – Running during the summer has challenges that go beyond having to run earlier, later or slower. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are two of the most serious perils from running in inhospitable climates. It is important to know and recognize the symptoms of each one, so you can adjust properly and avoid a mishap that with luck, it will only keep you out for a few weeks, without it, it could kill you. I wrote an earlier post on heat exhaustion vs. heat stroke. I invite you to revisit it by clicking here.

Running in the heat and humidity is no joke. Please be careful out there. Never lose sight that you need to live to run another day. The line between toughness and doing something stupid is very thin and if you cross it, you can get seriously hurt.

There are no medals or podiums during training, so, be smart out there and remember you are only getting ready for next season.

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Become the CEO of Your Running

Become the CEO of Your Running

by | May 17, 2022 | Article, List, Reflection

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

A good friend of mine shared a post in LinkedIn, last week, where 10 tips for CEO success were listed. The further I read, the more I felt this advice could perfectly translate into our running lives. After all, everybody should the CEO of their own running.

CEO of Your Running

Obstacles are inevitable whether in business or in running. You better be prepared to face them (Photo: Ann-H, Pexels)

It is important to note that my friend specified he could not find the source of these tips, so neither him nor I are claiming ownership of them.

Below, I am duplicating the tips for CEOs as I got them (though translated from Spanish) and then sharing how they apply to taking charge of your running life. Let’s get started.

1 – Focus on the important issues – There are way too many diversions fighting for your attention. Too many goals, too many races, too many social media platforms competing for your likes, etc. If you are to take charge of your running life, you need to pick your direction and your goals, so you know what you are working towards. Setting up PRs in all the distances, every race, every season, is unfeasible. So, choose where you’re going and start focusing on it, now!

2 – Make quick decisions and apply them as soon as possible – Just as in running a company, there are multiple options to choose from, but you must stop procrastinating and pick the one you’ll pursue. You can’t wait for the stars to align before you define if you are changing your season goal to a marathon when you’ve been training for a 5K PR.

3 – Use few rules, as too many rules prevent flexibility, change and innovation – A training plan must be dynamic and everchanging. Don’t overthink every single aspect of your training to the point that you’d rather get injured than adjust. Focus on the main parameters, not on the minutiae. Be openminded enough to realize when your plan needs adjustment.

4 – Learn to say No – When you decide to go for a running goal, you are to be 100% focused. So, to continue your progress you may have to skip certain parties, happy hours or comfort foods for a while. Nobody expects you to miss your best friend’s wedding because you have a long run, but you should not get drunk out of your mind at the party if your goal marathon is in two weeks. Focus now, party later!

5 – Keep a goal in mind, even if it is difficult to achieve. Have a long-term vision –Running is a journey, not a quick weekend road trip. Your goal may take more than a race or a season to achieve. Some runners have worked 10+ years towards their BQ. Accept that there will be bumps along the road, learn from them, and keep running towards that goal.

CEO of Your Running

Your goal may take more than one race and more than one season, but if you keep focused, you may achieve it (Photo: Iconcom, Pexels)

6 – You should be willing to spend many hours at work – Hard work require long hours. It is that simple. There are no shortcuts, simply hard work.

7 – Study, learn, update your knowledge – You won’t be able to improve if you keep doing the same thing over and over. There’s new science being published every month, there are books, articles, podcasts and magazines to guide you through your journey. And, if you don’t feel like doing this part of the job, hire a coach who will do it for you.

8 – Be courageous when facing adversity because you will find obstacles – It won’t be easy. Face it and accept it. It will require sweat, pain, funds and sacrifice. Sometimes, even injury. Be ready to work through it because these obstacles are coming fast at you, so you better be ready to confront them.

9 – Put passion into your work – You can’t run a marathon or train year-round just to please someone else. You must enjoy it and be willing to invest the time and sweat this requires. If you are not passionate about it, do yourself a favor and find another hobby.

10 – Develop communicational skills – Even though ours is not a team sport, running in a group or a team can ad so much to your running life. Sharing your journey with friends, or through social media groups specifically created for this purpose, can boost your confidence, knowledge and experience. Don’t go solo in your running life, especially in the 21st Century.

Take charge of your running in the same fashion as you would take charge of your own business. If you visualize it, focus and work hard towards your goals, there is a good chance you will achieve them. Nobody will do it on your behalf.

Any thoughts?

 
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Book Review – Good to Go

Book Review – Good to Go

by | May 10, 2022 | Article, Book Review, Science

Written by Christie Aschwanden
Reviewed by Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

I heard of Christie Aschwanden a few months ago when she was as a guest on a running podcast that I follow. She was talking about recovery and she seemed very well versed in the subject. Not only that, but her experience in high-performance athletics as well as her background as an award-winning science journalist at The Washington Post and The New York Times, made me feel she was legit. The host also mentioned she had written a book on recovery, so I immediately ordered it.

Good to Go

A good book worth the money and time investment for anyone wanting to know more about athletic recovery.

As weekend warriors we tend to forget that our hard workouts, our weightlifting sessions, or our long runs will do nothing for us unless we allow our bodies to recover and adapt to what we just put them through. There will be no adaptation if we don’t rest and fuel ourselves properly. “Good to Go. What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery” will help you gauge the different elements of recovery and put them in the right perspective.

The book is a tour through the many aspects of athletic recovery. It covers the things “everybody knows” through the ones that seem kind of way out there in the “snake oil” category. You can discern her journalistic and scientific background in her writing as she explored the many angles of each aspect of the science of recovery. I am not going to say that I read the papers she quotes to make up my mind on any aspect of what she presents, but if you start from the premise she is a solid researcher, as she seems to be, and an honest journalist, you will be impressed with what she presents in her book.

“Good to Go” is divided into 11 chapters. Each one goes in depth about an aspect of recovery. Nutrition, hydration, rest, compression, ice therapy, sleep, etc. They are individually treated and from several angles. With pros and cons, science research to back everything up, and the author’s personal experience trying many of the techniques and fads. Because the book was published in 2019, the author had access to the latest science and updates available, so you can learn a lot of new things.

The hydration chapter is fascinating. It goes through the history of the development of hydration as a science and how the sports drinks industry has taken over to popularize many myths that have become gospel in the endurance sports world. It is not that Gatorade doesn’t work, but it is not what it is marketed out to be either. You need to adapt your body to use its fluid resources wisely and then assist it with hydration while it works. A certain level of dehydration is perfectly normal. You don’t need to replenish every drop you sweat.

Good to Go

The author is an award-winning science journalist at The Washington Post and The New York Times.

As for fueling, I found was very interested in her debunking of the myth that there is a window of opportunity to feed your body after you wrap up your training. We’ve all heard that the magic window is the first hour, or even 30 minutes. She explains the science behind this and concludes that there is no “window of opportunity” but a “barn door of opportunity”. Your body is not going to reject the nutrient it needs just because they were offered too late for them to be absorbed. She concludes that unless you are to work out or compete again in a short period of time, there is no necessity to start refueling right away.

When it comes to sleep, there is one paragraph that blew my mind: “The benefits of sleep cannot be overstated. It is hands-down the most powerful recovery tool known to science. Nothing else comes close to sleep’s enhancing-recovery powers. You could add together every other recovery aid ever discovered, and they wouldn’t stack up. Going to sleep is like taking your body to the repair shop. While you doze, your body’s recovery processes ramp up to fix the damage you did during the day and get you ready to perform again”. Do you need to know anything else?

Of course I am synopsizing in one paragraph what I liked the most about entire chapters of about 20+ pages, with scientific quotations, personal experiences and field studies. What I am stating here is by no means the entire book, just a few comments to whet your appetite if you would like to learn more about these subjects.

The author also goes into detail on issues such as nutritional supplements, overtraining syndrome, and the placebo effect, providing you with scientific based information from several angles. These subjects, in conjunction with the other ones, will make you question some pre-conceived concepts you may have, and make you wonder if you’ve been approaching your recovery all wrong.

By the way, the book’s conclusion is that good sleep trumps every other aspect of recovery, so focus on that first. The rest is just icing on the cake.

“Good to Go. What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery” is not only a good book, worth the money and time invested in it. It is also well written, very entertaining, and will leave you with valuable lessons that will make you a better athlete.

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Adjusting Running to Your Reality

Adjusting Running to Your Reality

by | Apr 26, 2022 | Article, Coaching

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

In our training, it is not if life will get on the way but when. It has happened to all of us regardless of how committed we may be. Whether to alter an entire training plan or to screw up a single run, if life events haven’t gotten in your way yet, keep running and they will. Being confronted with a constant barrage of personal challenges is part of the human experience. Adjusting ourselves to such reality is what keeps us moving forward.

It is important to note that just because life got in the way, quitting your goal-race, or even running altogether, is unnecessary. If we wait for perfect circumstances, we would still be waiting to start our running journey. The key is being smart enough to adapt to the reality you are confronted with so you can make sure you enjoy the benefits of whatever work you were able to stitch together during these grim times.

Adjusting Running

A well adjusted training plan and a smartly executed race, earned my trainee his coveted unicorn medal.

Let’s keep things in perspective here. If you undergo emergency triple-bypass surgery in the middle of your marathon training or if you split your femur in two, you are not running that race, period.

I started thinking of this concept because I had a trainee in last week’s Boston Marathon who was forced to make such adjustments. And despite running 14 minutes over his PR, he had a spectacular experience in the premier world marathon. His journey was worth a few tears at the finish line. A result to be proud of.

This runner worked on his BQ for a couple of years and finally got it last year. As the training was about to start, he found himself moving to another state to start a new business. Settling in a new area, changing schools for the kids, finding a home, adjusting his family to a new routine and working longer hours became the priorities. As they should have. No one expected him not to provide for his family because he had to train for Boston. Early in the training cycle it became evident that the marathon training was becoming a challenge. What to do?

Well, runner and coach had lengthy phone conversations in which matters were put into the right perspective. The runner realized that the BQ was taken care of, and he was already in the Boston Marathon. So, instead of feeling annoyed because he wouldn’t be able to run at his top capacity, we shifted the focus into finishing the race and enjoying the experience. Completing as many sessions as possible, focusing on distance instead of speed, and working towards a race to remember.

And that is exactly what happened. A well-executed race plan allowed him to finish strong, happy, smiling, with a unicorn medal around his neck and, most importantly, uninjured.

Adjusting Running

If you are about to start today’s run and you feel like the person in this image by Engin Ekyurt, from Pexels, you better adjust your expectations, or skip it altogether.

But life not only gets in the way when training for a Marathon Major. Sometimes it is the petty things that can screw up training on any given day. And we better adjust, too.

Last week, one of my trainees had a 6-mile run scheduled but got to the start with indigestion. He had eaten a hotdog about 5 hours earlier and it was giving him stomach trouble. Like the trooper he is, he went for it but at Mile 3, everything unraveled. He felt tired, dizzy and started walking.

As I always preach, we need to take the inevitable bad days as an opportunity. If we don’t learn from them, we’ll never accumulate the experience needed to confront a similar challenge the next time it is facing us. And it is a matter of when, not if.

On a bad day, you must adapt to the reality of what your body has available at that given moment. Regardless of the reason this is happening. You ate bad food, you didn’t eat at all, you just had a rift with your spouse, stressful day at work, you just got bad news, or fill in the blank. It doesn’t matter why. Accept that you just don’t have it today. If you decide to take the macho route and decide to push through when your body is not ready, you are in for trouble.

You are better off downgrading those 6 miles to 3, intervals to an easy trot, a long run to a mid-distance effort or a tempo to a comfortable walk; than forcing yourself and ending up exerting yourself beyond your limit, thus requiring extra days of recovery. Or even worse, getting injured. That will set you further behind than cutting short one day, or even skipping it.

Remember: It is all about training smarter, not necessarily training harder. Harder is important, but smarter will keep you running.

Live to run another day.

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Alcohol and Running

Alcohol and Running

by | Apr 5, 2022 | Article, Reflection

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

As adults with a full life, alcohol is a ubiquitous part of most of our lives. Some of us enjoy the occasional drink in a social setting, some have one every day, some can’t stop consuming it, and some finally overcame alcoholism.

As far as I have read, there’s no proof that the occasional post-run beer will wreck your recovery, nor that it will help it either. Yet, alcohol has undeniable social benefits associated with consuming responsibly it with your buddies, like after a run. I am not a scientist or a wine drinker, but I’ve read about the benefits of a glass of wine when it comes to HDL cholesterol and antioxidants. I’ve also read how more is not necessarily better. You should not be having 3 or 4 glasses because it the positive effects don’t necessarily compound.

Alchohol and Running

A post-run beer has many social benefits and won’t ruin your recovery. The operating word here is “A”, meaning “one”.

I am not here to proselytize on alcohol consumption, which is a personal choice. But as athletes wanting to improve on our fitness and/or racing times, we need to be aware what are the negative effects that too much alcohol can have on our recovery, which is half of our training (Work + Recovery = Training).

For starters, alcohol is a diuretic. A diuretic is a substance that promotes the increased production of urine. This means that it produces dehydration, a big problem for runners. The consequences of moderate dehydration are, among others, cramps and fatigue. Severe dehydration, which can occur after combining drinking and running, include urinary and kidney complications, low blood volume, heat-related injuries and even seizures. As if that weren’t enough, I am sure that running with a hungover must suck all the joy we could get of the sport.

As I was researching this topic, I googled “alcohol and running” and, among the 812 million results I got, the very first one was this paragraph, which resumes most of what I wanted to say: Alcohol is a powerful diuretic, and dehydration is never a runner\’s friend. The risk for muscle cramps, muscle pulls, muscle strains and general fatigue increases when dehydrated, so drinking extra water after a night of hitting the bars is more than necessary to regulate your body for your next run.”

As we have mentioned in this blog, many times before, the number one recovery tool in your arsenal is sleep, which is the time your body uses to repair itself from the pounding of your training and the stress of your day. Alcohol consumption affects and impairs your sleep. Don’t let anyone fool you by telling you that drinking makes them sleepy like a baby, so it doesn’t affect them. Even if you are asleep, drinking in excess will affect your REM sleep, which restores your brain and is good for your memory and learning. Sounds kind of important to me.

Alchohol and Running

Wine has plenty of documented benefits, but they do not compound the more your drink.

Consuming alcohol in excess, also affects your fitness, which is the capacity of your body to recover so you can do it again. If your liver is too busy processing the excess alcohol you consumed, it would not be able to assist repairing of your body, which is needed after every training session, regardless of how easy it was.

The definition of “excess” is personal and individual. What is suitable for a fit, 200-pound male, may not be suitable for a 115-pound female recovering from Covid. Each runner must understand what is good for their lifestyle and make sure they can live with their decisions.

In a podcast I recently listened, Coach Jonathan Marcus made a comparison between two separate issues. One of those fits perfectly in what the last paragraph was explaining: “You can down a whole bottle of wine in 45 minutes. You can do it. You can, physically, get the liquid into your stomach. But what is going to happen afterwards is not going to be pretty. Or, you can have half a glass of wine in an-hour period, sipping on it though dinner, multiple nights in a row and enjoy it as part of a meal. Your body can extract the nutrients, flavors, etc. from that, versus being overly consumed by the poison of the alcohol that then forces a harsh and severe, nasty metabolic response”.

This post is not for pointing fingers, preaching on lifestyle or proselytizing on the virtuosity of abstention. Just make sure you understand what the consequences of mixing running with alcohol are for both your body and your training, so you can make the right choices when the time comes.

 
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On Running While Holding your Phone

On Running While Holding your Phone

by | Mar 22, 2022 | Article, Reflection, Science

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

I live in South Florida, not too far from the beach. One of the projects I am currently working on has me driving through Ft. Lauderdale Beach on a regular basis at various times of the day.

One of the favorite pastimes during my commute, has become checking of the form of the many runners I see along the beachside. It started as something fun to do and now it has turned into an exercise to become more proficient at analyzing running form issues. Yes, I do understand there is no one-size-fits-all running form, but there are blunders that are blatantly wrong and if not corrected, they’ll lead to injury.

Running While Holding Your Phone

Holding the phone in your hand while you run, could lead to injury.

I’ve noticed that at least 75% of runners with bad arm mechanics are holding their cellphones in one of their hands. By now, when I spot form flaws from afar, I can bet who is holding a phone, and I rarely miss.

Phones have many advantages and functions and they’ve become ubiquitous. They provide music, tracking, feedback, safety and security, among many others. Yes, it is important to carry it while you run, but that doesn’t mean you must carry it in your hand. With so many options in the market, there are plenty of alternatives to clenching to it. And this is why:

In his book “Running to the Top”, legendary coach Arthur Lydiard states that “If we clench our fists – and I often see people running with weights clenched in the hand – we tighten the upper shoulder muscles and, consequently, start to get a shoulder roll. Something has to go back when you\’re running; it should be your hand, but put tension on those arms and the shoulder will begin to roll, and that\’s undesirable.”

Of course your phone is not as heavy as the lightest of weights, but it is a precious object, both in monetary and emotional value. So, regardless of how light your phone may be, you are holding in tightly. You don’t want to drop it. This means you are contracting the muscles in your hands, and thus, arms, shoulders and even chest, screwing with the counterbalancing your gait needs by compromising the flow of your kinetic chain. While this happens, your other arm is doing its own thing. A recipe for unbalances in your leg, hip and shoulder, and thus, injury.

This is not a new phenomenon. It has been touched upon in many magazines and websites for several year, now.

In a 2019 article from Cosmopolitan UK, by Caitriona Harvey-Jenner, professional running coach Alexa Duckworth-Briggs, urges runners to carry phones in a waist belt. \”When you hold something in our hands, there are subtle knock-on effects to your gait. It creates muscular imbalances, affects the distribution of weight across your body, and makes you a less efficient runner in general. By making one arm heavier, you’re altering the momentum of your limbs. And your body will attempt to compensate for the imbalance by working certain muscles harder than others. That’s where repetitive strain injuries will come into play.\”

Running While Holding Your Phone

Arm bands are a little bit better, since you don’t contract your muscles, but they are not the solution, either.

In another article, this one in Active.com, author Hunter Hewitt explains how “running with something in your hand causes you to use body parts differently than you normally would. Proper running form starts with muscle equilibrium and even distribution of weight across your body. Holding something creates asymmetry, as you use your hand and arm differently compared to when you\’re running hands-free. These asymmetrical effects lead to poor form and muscular imbalance, which make you a less efficient runner.”

Since we are touching on the subject, the same principles apply to water bottles, towels and any other artifacts you may want to bring with you while running. Carry them on you, sure, but don’t hold to them.

Although an arm phone carrier is better than holding it in your hand, it is not the solution, as it adds weight to one of your sides. And even though you may think it is negligible, and for one day or two it may be, running mile after mile, week over week, month over month, at the rate of about 1500-1700 steps per mile, the cumulative effect will eventually get to you.

Let’s get this bad habit fixed before we end up holding those phones to take pictures from the sidelines while our friends, those who carry them in their belts, finish their races.

 
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