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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Running Horror Stories – Part 1

Running Horror Stories – Part 1

by | Mar 8, 2022 | Article, Personal

Edited by Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

 As runners we have all experienced the ecstasy of triumph and the agony of defeat. It could be the thrill of a PR, a surprising podium, the misery of bonking when you started too fast or just hitting the wall. Maybe the unexpected happened and we had to resort to creative, unorthodox measures that in retrospective we are not proud of, but at the time seemed perfectly valid.

Here are some of those stories. Somehow, I believe there will be more than one of these posts, so I added the “Part 1” to the title. 

Sue Behrens
A1A Half Marathon 2022

Ft Lauderdale A1A Starting Line 5am.

Horror stories

With a medal but without a key fob

I like to run in a Lululemon skort which is a skirt with shorts. The Lulu skort is well designed with a pocket on each leg and that’s where I stash my phone. There is also a smaller zipped pocket at the center back of the waist perfect for keys and gels. Pre-race, like about everyone else, I get in line at the porta-pottys and that’s where things took a dive. Each line was at least 5 deep and once it was my turn, there was complete darkness inside.

As I pulled my skirt down, I found my bib was not only pinned to my tank but also to the skirt! I had to contort so I wouldn’t rip anything. Straight to business thinking I would re-pin once out of the porta-potty and back in the streetlight. When I pulled everything back up, I heard a bang and felt the seat ride up with my skirt. Panicking I felt for my phone and thankfully it was still in the side pocket. Thinking I dodged a bullet I stepped out and the next runner hopped in. I re-pined the bib and joined the crowd awaiting the start. While downing my energy gel I reached back to check on my car key fob and the zip pocket was empty. Unzipped and empty. Crap! literally crap as I realized that the bang, I heard was my car remote dropping into the pitch-black porta potty. UGH! Panic, what to do?

As race start was minutes away and the lines now doubled, I had no choice but to be positive and get the run done. The plan was to locate the Lost and Found after the run and then check each stall when the lines were lessened. Hoping that the fob fell onto the floor and not into the bowl. No such luck. It must have fallen into the bowl. No fobs were turned in, so I had no key. Thankfully, I’m local, one town south and my husband was able to grab the spare fob, drive it up and hand it off to me after the race. From what I have researched it going to be at least $300+ to replace, making this most expensive half marathon I have run!

Rube Urieta
Space Coast Marathon 2015

Horror stories

Kindness from a stranger at Mile 17

My first mistake was to believe I could run a marathon without proper training. So, needless to say my legs started cramping up after mile 13. This continued on an off. However, close to Mile 17, both legs cramped so bad, I fell to the side of the road. At that moment, many things came to mind, like am going to be the first runner to be picked up by the emergency golf cart, or can my legs unlock from this painful situation. And while this thought was rushing through my head, suddenly, a female runner stopped and asked: “Are you OK?”

After explaining my situation, she told me to open my hand. She proceeded to pull out something from her belt and sprinkled it into my hand. Then she told me to lick it and reassured me it I was going to be able to stand up and continue. Right there, I realized she gave me salt. The lack of sodium caused the whole situation.

When I tell my friend about my ordeal, they often ask me: how can I trust a stranger to give me something and just taking it so blindly? My answer is: “In this sport you know people, young and not so young, with diverse backgrounds and goals. Some of them have been running for years, some only for weeks. However, we runners tend to trust each other. And to that fellow runner that helped me out, back in 2015, thank you for spreading the sportsmanship.

Adolfo Salgueiro
NYC Marathon 1983

Horror stories

Another version of Seinfeld’s “The Marble Rye”

It was my second marathon and at 18, I thought I knew everything. So, I did not have breakfast before the race, never considering the 10:30 AM starting time. It was a cold and rainy day for an undertrained, young runner. Around 2:30 PM, being awake for about 10 hours and after 20 miles of running, I was starving. This was an era before gels and chews. So, as I was walking, defeated, down 5th Avenue towards Central Park, I saw among the spectator, a kid, maybe 7, with a big, hot pretzel that looked like heaven.

I resumed my running and approached the sidewalk, yanked the pretzel from the kid’s hand, and then ran into the crowd of runners as fast as I could so I couldn’t be identified or caught. I am not proud of this but somehow, I was able to justify the dirty deed. The carbs and calories allowed me to get a second life and finish the race.

When I ran New York 34 years later (2017), I thought of that kid as I was running towards Central Park. He must be now in his early 40s and hopefully has an interesting story to tell about cheering in the marathon.

There are plenty more stories out there that deserve to be preserved. Do you have one? Please email them in 250-350 words to foultips.running@gmail.com, or leave them as a comment here, and I will be publishing additional chapters of this saga, very soon.

 
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Race Recap: Miami Half 2022

Race Recap: Miami Half 2022

by | Feb 15, 2022 | Article, Personal, Reflection

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

 The biggest and most important event in the South Florida racing calendar is the Miami Marathon and Half Marathon. In 2022 it ran its 20th edition. A must for all local runners and a destination run for international runners, especially from Latin America. Even though the field was reduced to “just” 15,000 due to Covid restrictions, it was nevertheless, a great race.

Race Recap

Free race pictures are a staple of the Miami Marathon. At least I got a good one to cap the sufferfest

As the name states, the race has both marathon and half marathon distances ran simultaneously. They separate around mile 12.5. I cannot say much a about the marathon because I have never run it. As for the half, 2022 was my 11th consecutive participation in the event.

The expo took place in the newly renovated Miami Beach Convention Center. The bib pick up was quick and easy. The expo was packed with vendors of every kind, with diverse samples of drinks, foods, gels, food services and electrolyte concoctions. You could also find shoes, shorts, socks and the newest gadgets. Stands for many international races were present. Even a coaching service where you could talk with an actual Olympic marathoner. For the first time, I saw free haircuts. Go figure!

In general, the race ran smoothly. Gear check was impeccable, signage was good and there were plenty of porta-pots. No urinals around, though. I still can’t figure out the logic behind the opening of Corral H. While the race started at 6:00, the gate to corral, inconveniently located in front of a row of porta-pots, remained closed past 6:15, as thousands of runners congregated in front of an empty corral. Other than to annoy runners on purpose, I can’t figure out any other reason for this to happen.

The half marathon course is always a delight, running by the cruise ships as the sunrise bathes the runners with sunlight while they enter the world-famous South Beach. Then through Miami Beach, followed by the spectacular views of the city on the way back to Downtown and the finish line.

Race Recap

A nice medal to commemorate the 20th edition of the Miami Marathon and Half Marathon.

The sour note was the screw up at the water stations. How can a race of this caliber and in its 20th edition, f-up the water stops so badly? When I stopped for water the first time, I picked the left side of the road, only to learn that it was the “Gatorade side”. This meant that if I wanted water, I had to cross the street while I had thousands of runners coming at me. And this happened more than once. At Mile 6, the water stop was abandoned and after that, a handful of stops did not have enough cups readily poured. This on a day with 93% humidity.

MY RACE

 On the personal side, my race was terrible. Despite the fact this was my 11th time running the half, and my 43rd half marathon, I made many mistakes, many of them rookie blunders, which guaranteed me a forgettable sufferfest.

It started when I woke up at home and went to eat a bagel, only to realize my wife served me the last one for breakfast, the day before. It was my mistake not to ensure there was one available, and I assumed it. I didn’t bother to check the weather and the humidity caught me by surprise. Then it was the issue with the corrals, which got me in a bad mood just before the race.

Because I had ran the Houston Marathon three weeks earlier, I thought that half was a done deal, and didn’t even bother mentally preparing for the task at hand. I found myself at the starting line not even sure what I wanted to do with the race. I knew I wasn’t going to push and that I just wanted to have fun, but never bothered to review what that really meant or how get it accomplished. By the time I found no water at Mile 6, I had already bonked mentally. I didn’t go fast nor was I tired. I just didn’t feel like I wanted to run another 7 miles.

All that is on me. They were my mistakes. I can’t blame anyone else. I was cocky, overconfident and acted like a teenager who thinks he knows better than anyone. I paid for it.

As I tell the athletes I train, bad days, mistakes, failure and poor races are important to experience because they will give you invaluable experience that can only make you a better runner. I learned my lesson: never underestimate any distance, regardless of how many times you’ve ran it.

One of the remarkable things about the Miami Marathon is that it includes free photos for all the runners. I got was an amazing image from the culmination of my sufferfest. Final time was 2:33:27, by far my worst running half.

Did you run in Miami on February 6? Please share your experiences with the readers by leaving a comment.

Race Recap

A nice medal to commemorate the 20th edition of the Miami Marathon and Half Marathon.

 
 
 
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