training Archives - Page 9 of 10

Foultips.Run to Coach 12-Time World Record Breaker, Carlos Coste

by Coach Adolfo Salgueiro | Jan 12, 2021 | Announcement, Coaching

The athlete’s name is found multiple times in the Guinness Book of World Records

Foultips.run is pleased to announce it has reached an agreement to train 12-time world record breaker Carlos Coste to his first ultramarathon. The Venezuelan-born athlete is training to participate in the Zion 50K race, which will take place through the Southern Utah desert, this upcoming April 10th, 2021. This will be his first ultramarathon race.

Coste is a world class athlete in the sports of apnea and freediving (Photos courtesy of Carlos Coste).

Coste, 44, is known worldwide for his superhuman feats as a freediver. He started training in apnea and free divining in 1996 and promptly broke several Venezuelan national records. In 2002 he broke into the world scene with his first couple of world records. In October 2003, he became the first human to achieve a free immersion dive of more than 100 meters (328 ft.), when he went down 101 meters (331 ft.). This was certified as an AIDA and Guinness World Records. In 2004 he became the first freediver to pass 100 meters (102 m/334 ft.) in Constant Weight, a record he later expanded to 105 meters (344 ft.) in 2005. After rewriting the record book in the sport, in November 2010 he broke another Guinness World Record in the Yucatan Caves, with 150 meters (492 Ft) of Dynamic Apnea at the Dos Ojos Cenote.

He wants to run for the rest of his life while combining his new found passion with the sports that made him a household name. (Photos courtesy of Carlos Coste)

“I discovered my passion for trail running about two years ago”, stated Coste, “and, in addition to my freediving career, I would like to run on a regular basis for the rest of my life. I contacted Coach Adolfo [Salgueiro] to help me improve my endurance and skills without risking injury. His blog has connected me to new concepts, as well as his knowledge and passion for the sport.”

There are many challenges to this particular training program, especially because the athlete lives at sea level in the Caribbean island of Bonaire, while the race will start at an altitude of 3500 feet (1067 mts) and will reach a maximum elevation of 5500 (1676 mts). The difference in weather between both locations will also be a test of wills.

“It is a big challenge to train an athlete of Carlos’ pedigree, especially for this race”, said Foultips.run Head Coach, Adolfo Salgueiro. “We want to make sure he can compete at the same high standards he is used to. At the same time, he needs to be trained in a safe and sustainable way so he can finish his race satisfied with his results and injury free”.

You can follow Coste’s training and progress via his Instagram account (@carloscoste1) and by Strava . For more information on his athletic achievements, you can visit his website at https://deepseabonaire.com.

Adolfo Salgueiro is the head coach at Foultips.run. He currently helps runners, both in person and online, achieve their running goals, from 5K to ultra-marathons. He is certified by the Road Runners Club of America as one of only seven Level II coaches in the State of Florida and one of only two in South Florida. If you want to contact Coach Adolfo, click here.

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The Importance of Embracing Failure

by Coach Adolfo Salgueiro | Aug 26, 2020 | Article

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

A few days ago I got a meme where two people are having a conversation. Maybe a job interview. The meme is the first illustration of this blog post. They talk about the key to success and how to accumulate experience to make right decisions. What was the key? Wrong decisions. Why? because failure is not the opposite of success. It is part of it.

This meme got me thinking on how this applies to our sport of running. It applies to life in general, for sure, but that is beyond the scope of this blog. As runners we are always pushing our limits, both in training and races. We strive for that PR. We sweat to hit the splits on each interval. We suffer the day we feel great but the training plan ordains an off day. We can’t sleep the night before an important 20-miler but still wake up ready for action. Yet.. then… sometimes… we fail.

Common knowledge teaches us to “listen to our bodies”, but as runners, we rarely do. We even struggle with what “listen to your body” actually means. What we need to remember is that the body is a machine. An exceptionally complex, fine-tuned machine, but a machine, nevertheless. This means that it doesn’t always perform at its highest potential. Sometimes it needs maintenance, sometimes a part breaks down, sometimes you forgot to add oil or coolant. Even the best F1 cars fail to finish races due to mechanic failure.

We must understand that failure is an intimate part of our running life. Is not if we will have a bad run or a bad race, it is a matter of when. And we cannot hold this one bad day as the defining moment of our day, our training plan, or our life. Running great Dean Karnazes tells the tale of his failed attempt at Badwater in his book Ultramarathon Man, and he is not ashamed of it. Alberto Salazar also opens himself about facing death after overdoing it in a race in his book 14 Minutes. The key is, as they both tell us, what do you take from those experiences, and then how you apply what you learned while moving forward.

Imagine if we were not going to run another marathon because we hit the wall that one time. Imagine how many people would participate in your local 5K if the failed to set up a PR or place in their age group, last year. How many runners would you see on the track on any given afternoon if they could not hit their splits last week? Not very deep thoughts, sure, but so simple, so real, and so close to us all.

Thomas Edison said: “I didn’t fail. I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. This also translates to your 800 repeats, your first-mile pace in that 5K when you bonked, and your stupid decision of pushing too hard at mile 8 on that marathon because you were feeling so good.

As runners, it is imperative to have a short-term memory when It comes to failure so we can keep moving forward. Some need of more encouragement than others. The key is to remember that we run because we enjoy it. We are choosing the suffering. Nobody is forcing us to put ourselves in a position where we may and will eventually fail. We just must extract the lessons from what happened, put them into practice, move on and forget whatever happened that day. If we learned nothing from bonking on that long run, if we learned nothing from going out too fast the first half of that race, if we learned nothing from that day we got dehydrated; then we are bound to repeat those mistakes, and very soon.

Always remember that experience is what we get when we don’t obtain what we originally set out to get. So make sure you take advantage, and even embrace, your running failures. They will be visiting you soon enough and you should be prepared to deal with them.

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To Fast or Not to Fast?

by Coach Adolfo Salgueiro | Aug 5, 2020 | Article, Coaching

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

It is an ongoing debate between runners, coaches, scientists and onlookers in general if we should run in a fasting state or not. Despite all the science, studies, anecdotal evidence and articles on the subject, the verdict boils down to a simple two-word answer: It depends.

Figuring out what to eat and when is the responsibility of each runner.

It depends on what type of runner you are, how long you are running, when you’re going for a run, what are you trying to accomplish, and so many other factors. There are as many answers as there are runners. And what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me.

If you run first thing in the morning, you can do a simple A/B testing and figure out what works for you. There are people that can’t function without a coffee and there are people that will have to rush behind the bushes if they have a coffee before running. You can try with an apple, or a banana, or a bagel, or toast, and from there find out what helps you out and what upsets your stomach. A running partner once told me she had a bowl of oatmeal before our long runs. If I had a bowl of oatmeal, I would be the one running for the bushes.

The key to this is not to overdo it. You are just looking to top off your glycogen stores before you hit the road. You are not taking breakfast. Digestion uses a lot of blood, same as running does. So when the body diverts the blood to fuel your running, digestion stops. The rest I will leave to your imagination.

Running on a fasting state, you will teach your body to use its own resources without depending on outside fueling. This is beneficial when you are training for a long effort, usually the half-marathon and above. As you your body adapts to the finite amount of glycogen it has available, it learns to use its stored fat as a source of fuel. This becomes invaluable when you go beyond the 18-20-mile mark, so you can avoid the dreaded wall.

I want to make absolutely clear that I am not saying to go run 18-20 miles just with what you woke up with. You should not neglect your fueling strategy (that is a topic beyond the scope of this blog post). What I am saying is that running in a fasting state will train your body to reach that critical point with something left in the tank.

The time of the day in which you run is one of the key variables on fasting or not

The time of the day in which you run is key on deciding if fasting or not fasting is right for you. If you run in the afternoon, you shouldn’t be fasting all day. What you must do is adjust your eating habits so you can fulfill your training without interrupting digestion. Once again: A/B testing. You will have to discover what works best for you. You will have to eat something before your run, but what and when is the key. It could be some fruit, or a sandwich or handful of almonds; either two or three hours before your run. Or maybe its just one hour. It is your responsibility to figure that out.

Even if you prefer running in a fasting state, you must prepare for the task you will be facing. If you are running New York, or Boston, where you may be starting at 11AM, you can’t do it in a fasting state. You must eat something hearty for breakfast with enough time to digest (about 4 hours). You breakfast needs to be a low-waste meal so you can avoid number-2 unscheduled breaks. Astronauts for the first Mercury and Gemini missions, when bathrooms were not available in their spacecrafts, used to eat filet mignon, eggs and toast before launch. You may want to switch the filet mignon for another type of protein but in general, this is a great option. One that needs to be practiced before race day.

My recommendation is to start working on your A/B testing right away. Find the benefits and the drawbacks of fasting or not; of eating and eating what; of eating or not based on how long are you planning to go; on when to eat; on figuring out if coffee, oatmeal, fruit, toast or whatever, works best for you; or not. The time to work on this, is now, not when you are tapering for your marathon or the morning of your goal race.

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So, Tell Me About Your VO2Max

by Coach Adolfo Salgueiro | Jul 8, 2020 | Article, Reflection, Science

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

It is interesting when you with your running buddies and they start bragging about their VO2Max number. “Mine is 41”, says Runner #1. “Mine is currently at 39 but it has been going up for the last 3 weeks”, comes back Runner #2. “I am down to 43 but have been up to 44 as recently as last month”, chimes in the Runner #3. Funny thing is that if you ask any of them what VO2Max is, you can pretty much bet that none of them will know.

These are the elements that conform VO2Max (British spelling used here)

VO2Max stands for the maximum (Max) volume (V) of oxygen (O2) that your body can utilize at maximum effort. It is obvious that the more oxygen your body can handle, the more efficient it is and the faster you should be able to run. Eliud Kipchoge has been measured at 75 while the fittest of my readers most likely be under 50.

VO2Max is measured as an absolute rate in liters of oxygen per minute (L/min) or as a relative rate in in milliliters of oxygen per kilo of body mass per minute (ml/kg/min). Yes, this is a little bit technical, well, more than a little bit. The point here is to understand that if you can barely grasp the concept and how this parameter is measured, you shouldn’t make it your end-all factor to measure your progress, let alone your value as a runner.

The VO2Max is a valuable tool if you know what you are looking at. But lately it has become overemphasized, primarily because watches now flash the number as if it were a badge of honor.

Unless your watch can be hooked to this machine, it cannot measure your VO2Max

VO2Max is tested in a specialized lab. While on a treadmill, with a mask covering your nose and mouth, while running to exhaustion, the machinery measures how much oxygen goes into your body and how much oxygen comes out. The difference between the two numbers while at maximum effort, is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can process at such speed, thus, your VO2Max. Your watch cannot measure this, regardless of how sophisticated and expensive it is.

In conclusion, VO2Max may work or not, I am not a sports scientist nor have read enough to know the extent of its reach. But what I do know is that it is not the end-all parameter to measure your progress or success. To me, a PR on my next 5K or marathon seems a much better way. And, once again, it CANNOT be measure by an equation on your watch.

It is not in the scope of this blogpost to advocate for or against VO2Max. It is not either to explain the science and value of the parameter, which, of course, does have a value.

If you want to learns more about the subject and are ready for a deep technical read, Steve Magness, head coach for the University of Houston, and an authority on the science of running, has a few articles on this, which I highly recommend. You can click on the links below to access them:

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Training Adjustments for the Summer Months

by Coach Adolfo Salgueiro | Jun 10, 2020 | Article, Coaching

By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

As summer approaches rapidly in the northern hemisphere, days are becoming hotter and humidity is ramping up with the passing of each day. We became accustomed to the mild spring (even if most of it was indoors due to the current world circumstances) and now we need to adjust to the harsh reality of the hot weather.

This Heat Index Chart by the National Weather Service, clearly explains the correlation between temperature and humidity. Be aware of it during your summer training. For a better view, click on the image to expand it.

When we run in hot weather, we get exhausted quicker and we must take precautions to avoid bad experiences or, even worse, dealing with dehydration and/or the dreaded heat stroke. Some situations could lead to permanent damage to the body or even, in severe cases, to death.

Adjusting to running in the heat is not just about drinking more water. It is about understanding the processes that will allow you to continue with your training in a safe way. Also, equally important, allowing you to recover quickly so you can keep going.

I have compiled 10 tips for you to be able to run safe during the summer. Especially if you are new to the activity or new to an area where heat is one of the considerations as you lace up your running shoes. These are by no means the end-all precautions to take, but it is a start.

1. Slow Down – Running in the heat is not the same as running in comfy weather. Your body is exerting itself at a higher rate to maintain the same level of perceived effort. You will need to run at a slower pace to keep the level of perceived effort. Make peace with this reality and keep moving forward.

2. Plan your hydration needs ahead of time – Plan your route around places where water is plentiful. If that is not possible, plant water in your route, ahead of time. Remember to consume water before you become thirsty. Once you are thirsty, it may be too late to avoid dehydration

3. Don’t overdo it with the water – With water intake is not about the-more-the-merrier. Hyponatremia is a life-threatening condition in which too much water in your body dilutes the amount of sodium in the blood. Keep yourself hydrated through your day and make sure your urine is lightly colored.

4. Dress appropriately – Dress in light colors, which reflect mor light, thus deflect the heat. Avoid long sleeves, long pants, of outfits designed to sweat in excess.

5. Stay connected– Well into the 21st Century is so easy to keep yourself connected while running. Carry your mobile phone during your runs and let someone know where you are and when are you expected to be back. You an also let a loved one track you in real time.

6. Be aware of the effect of humidity – If you train in a region of high humidity, make sure you understand that displacing a saturated mass of air requires more effort than doing so with a drier, lighter one. This means additional effort to maintain the same pace as when it is dryer. Make sure to account for this difference. Make peace with it.

7. Adjust your training schedule – If you are training for a fall marathon, make sure you are flexible on your schedule so you can switch that long run or that speed session to another day or time. Don’t be so strict that you end up hurting yourself because you refuse to push a difficult session for tomorrow.

8. Opt for shady routes – Be smart with your routes. Plan accordingly, making sure there is plenty of shade, and places to stop should you need it.

9. Don’t try to be a hero – Do not be afraid of stopping, cutting the run short, taking refuge in a shady place, asking for help, or calling it a day if you feel dizzy. Not only you will live to run another day, but your recovery process will be much easier, and you will be able to be back running, sooner.

Chart from www.weather.gov. For a better view, click on the image to expand it.

10. Differentiate heat exhaustion from heat stroke – Being spent because of heat is one thing, heat stroke is quite different and also life threatening. Make sure you learn the symptoms so you may avoid tragedy. Please get familiarizes with the graphic below, which is borrowed from The US National Weather Service.

Conclusion

Running in the summer months is perfectly doable, but you have be smart. Plenty of people from hot and humid climates participate in great autumn races all over the world. New York, Berlin and Chicago, just to name the World Marathon Majors. The key is to plan ahead, be smart and always err on the side of caution, so you will live to run another day.

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