First, because it’s such a visual treat, a post from Alex Hutchinson’s Sweat Science blog, in which he offers image-based evidence of the effects of exercising on aging. The photos, as you’ll see if you follow the link, compare the muscle mass of a 40 year old triathlete, a 74 year sedentary man, and a 74 year old triathlete. Fantastic!

Next, a “two for the price of one” offer. (That’s two wisdoms in one…) Steven Sashen of Invisible Shoes recently posted his take on Daniel Lieberman’s “Foot Strike and Injury Rates in Endurance Runners: a retrospective study” report. Lieberman’s study is fascinating enough (his stuff always is), but Sashen adds his own perspective.

Last, a bit of controversy. Here’s a post from the Science of Running blog, in which the author critiques the CrossFit model. I’ve got to admit, I’ve had the same concerns about CrossFit since doing one of their workshops a few years ago. Couldn’t have said it this well, though.

Reflecting on the past month and a half of training, I’ve learned a few things about myself.

Discipline Though I’m very fond of routine (partly as a result of having Asperger’s Syndrome), I’m not nearly as keen about discipline. In the past, I’ve gone off the rails of a training program because I’ve been unable to hold myself to its requirements. That hasn’t happened this time. I’ve done what I’ve been told, and have kept the type and pace of my runs without deviation. I have, though, upped some of the distances of both steady and LSD runs, because I think that can only do good. Harder to do has been not running on rest days, or going out for a short run when the weather’s been unseasonably good. All treadmill, all the time, doing the needful.

Cross-training My training program calls for two rest days a week. I’ve been filling those spaces with a set of exercises that include stretching (upper and lower legs, plus opening my hips), plank (regular and side) and breathing (using my nifty Sport Breather). Right now, I’m up to 20 minutes of stretching, 4 minutes of plank, and 15 minutes of breathing; will probably hold to that for a while, and increase the numbers later.

Light The Winter Solstice has passed, and the days are getting longer. I find that makes a tremendous difference to how I feel, both physically and psychologically. No point in doing all this hard work and still feeling dark, gloomy, and unresponsive, is there? I’m still using my SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) light for 20 minutes each day, and will keep on doing so for at least another six weeks. And I’m sleeping well -I started using Hammer Nutrition REM Caps about a month ago, and they’ve resolved some long-standing sleep issues. I sleep deeply, and I wake up rested. Wish I’d known about them earlier.

My only concern in all of this is that all of my runs right now are being done on the treadmill. That’s mostly because it’s winter, but, even on the couple of days when it’s been possible to run outside barefoot, I’ve been on the treadmill. I run first thing in the morning, and it’s dark and cold then. Also, it’s far easier to stay to my target paces on the treadmill than it is to approximate them outside. The downside of that is that the soles of my feet aren’t going to be as well-conditioned as I’d like them to be for Sarasota. So I’m doing gravel bucket sessions two or three times a week, and hoping that the weather in early March will allow me to get out on the roads. I may just have to tough things out in some cold weather.

On the Running Technique Tips blog, there’s an interesting post about Arthur Lydiard’s famous LSD (Long Slow Distance) training tool. The post lays out the theory behind the tool, then explores how and why it may not be for everyone. Worth a look and a careful read, I think!

Next, a report on a field study on how pre-race carb loading affects performance. This one’s from Alex Hutchinson’s Sweat Science blog. It’s based on a field study done on 257 runners who trained for the 2009 London Marathon.

Another good post from Alex’s blog is about training one leg to strengthen the other. (It’s of particular interest to me because of my hip issue.) The data comes from a recent Australian study.

That’s all for today. More good stuff coming soon!

Once again, I have the pleasure of passing along to you the newsletter of Barefoot Running UK. As always, the newsletter, put together by Anna Toombs and David Robinson, offers excellent articles, news, and training tips for barefoot runners. This one, though, is a bumper edition, coming in at a full 32 full-colour pages. I urge you to read it!

You can download a PDF-format file of the newsletter by clicking here.

My thanks go (again) to Anna and David for offering this great resource to the barefoot running community.

It’s been an interesting experience. For all that I’m a lazy runner (heck, I’m a lazy person, if the truth be told), I’ve enjoyed pushing myself. I’m a bit surprised that I can do the speeds I’ve been doing, and can only hope that exercise-based science is correct, and that I’ll be able to build my strength, endurance, and speed even further. Starting next week (which, coincidentally, will be the first week of the new year) I’ll trade one of my weekly tempo-paced runs for a hill repeat session. I’ll start with only a few repeats, and build gradually through all of January and part of February. In mid-February, I’ll swap the hill session for speed sessions, at a pace I can now only imagine. If I can keep at it, I’m going to be a much-improved runner.

As always, the realities of a Canadian winter mean that all of my tempo, hill, and speed sessions will be done (barefoot) on the treadmill. I’ll try to get outside for at least some of my LSD runs (not barefoot, obviously, but in my Invisible Shoe huaraches and Injinji socks), but I have to be being realistic – those, too, may have to be done on the treadmill. I’m OK with that, but doing long runs on the ‘mill requires a sort of attitude adjustment. Not better, not worse, just different.

Lately, I’ve also managed to do, on a more or less daily basis, a short routine made up of stretching (legs, hips, and some upper body), plank (I can now hold the plank position for a steady two minutes), and some breathing exercises (“strength training for the diaphragm,” if you like). They don’t do anything directly for my intended running prowess, but they keep me from feeling creaky.

And I definitely feel creaky these days. It’s partly because it’s winter. I always feel old and somewhat decrepit in the cold months. It’s a combination of sensitivity to the cold, SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and my deep yearning to be nearly-naked in the sun. It’s also, though, simply getting older. My wife says that I’ve aged dramatically in the past six years, and I think she may be right. During that time, I’ve broken a hip and suffered two bouts of cancer, and survived 14 months of physiotherapy for the hip and two sets of radiation therapy for the cancer. The costs have been psychological as well as physical, and the wear and tear sometimes shows.

Never mind. I’m holding up well, all things considered. And I keep telling myself that summer is on its way.

First, something from Alex Hutchinson’s Sweat Science blog. This one is about the links between mental effort and physical fatigue. In summary, it suggests that the focus and mental effort required to push to your limits come at a cost, because those are finite quantities. Seems basic and obvious, but the science is fun to look at, and Hutchinson’s post has links to other studies on the same topic.

Next, The Lazy Runner’s Guide to Preventing Injuries, a guest post by Jason Fitzgerald on Matt Frazier’s No Meat Athlete blog. Good advice, and a good read. This is something well worth looking at and thinking about. More importantly, it makes sense to become injury-free if you can. Running shouldn’t mean hurting!

Last, an excellent article titled Pronation: Decelerating Naturally, originally posted on Rick Merriam’s Engaging Muscles blog. In it, Merriam says “When the foot can pronate successfully, you increase your chances of supinating or overcoming gravity successfully.” As with the previous post, this one just makes sense. Pronation is natural, and learning how it works can only do you good.

For the first three and a half weeks, I think it was doing some good. I saw (or was willing to believe that I saw) some improvements in leg strength, form, and ease of motion when running. However, as I moved from doing all minor sets (walking in place) to including more major sets (running in place), my left hip began to hurt. That’s the hip I broke six years ago. I had hoped the 100Ups would strengthen the chronically weak soft tissue there, but, in the end, it was doing more harm than good.

I still think the 100Up exercise is a good one. It just doesn’t work for me. I can run long distances, and am running more quickly than I used to, without any trouble at all. But lifting my knees as high as is needed in the 100Up exercise seems to place an undue amount of stress on my hip, and the results aren’t good. It may be that I can strengthen the hip by doing deep squats, and so might try that. Or it may be that I’ll simply leave well enough alone, and continue what I’ve been doing so far.

As I’ve said before, the “experiment of one” continues…

There’s nothing unusual about the training program itself. Its pattern is conventional – two hard sessions, two middle-effort sessions, one long run, and two days off each week. Right now, the hard sessions are tempo runs (at a much quicker pace than I’ve done in the past), but soon that will change to one tempo run a week and one hill session a week. Towards the end of the program (in late February), the hill sets will be replaced by speed/interval work. Out of necessity (because of winter weather), I’ll do most of the tempo and hill sessions on my treadmill, and will try to get outside for the middle-effort and long runs.

Now for the tweaks…

For the past 3 1/2 weeks, I’ve been warming up for my runs by doing 100Up exercises. They seem to be helping with both my speed and my form. I’m still willing to allow for some placebo effect going on here, but, at the very least, the 100Ups are a good prep for a workout, so I’ll continue to do them on a daily basis.

I’ve also started wearing compression stockings after my hard workouts. They’re similar to the compression stockings some runners wear, but for two things. One is that, as the benefits of wearing such things is inconclusive for performance improvements while running, but proven for recovery, I only wear them for a couple of hours after my hard run workouts. Secondly, they’re not athletic-specific compression stockings. They’re medical-use items, in fact a pair I wore during my last set of radiation therapy treatments last September. They’re embolism stockings, designed to prevent blood clots during certain types of stressful surgeries. (Without going into all the messy details, the radiation sessions involved me being heavily sedated and lying on my back with my legs raised for about 3 1/2 hours while long needles inserted numerous radioactive pellets into my prostate via my perineum. A fascinating procedure, but I’m glad I was sedated.) For me, the effect of wearing the stockings for a couple of hours after a tempo run is quite remarkable – less late-onset soreness, improved circulation, and better ability to get back to another workout the next day. I’ll take the stockings to Sarasota in March, to wear after the half marathon and probably on the flight home the next day.

Last, but certainly not least, I’m going to start doing gravel bucket sessions next week. A winter doing mostly treadmill runs is fine for training purposes, but it’s not going to anything to keep the soles of my feet conditioned. Come mid-March, I’m going to run 21.1K at a race pace, and I doubt that I’ll be able to squeeze in too many outdoor barefoot runs here before I head south. So my plan is to do my 100Up sets in the gravel bucket, at least three times a week, from mid-December until late February.

What all the above will do – as well as the obvious, which is to prepare me for a good performance in the Sarasota Half Marathon on March 11 – is help me survive the winter. Winters are always hard on me psychologically, and seem to be getting harder as I get older. Having goals, routines, and these little tweaks will be the honey that helps makes the medicine go down more smoothly.

First, a good post from the Engaging Muscles blog on improving proprioceptive feedback. This is all about training your feet to adapt to the ground, at every single step. Like many other elements of running, it has to do with enhancing learned muscle patterns.

Second, a post from Amby Burfoot’s excellent Peak Performance blog about the latest foot-strike studies. In it, Burfoot concludes that, while there’s lots more data on this item that before, none of it’s conclusive. The best advice, he says continues to be “Do what feels right for you. Do what works for you. Don’t worry, be happy.” (Amby Burfoot is a very experienced runner, and, in my opinion, a very wise man.)

Next, a post from Alex Hutchinson’s Sweat Science blog about whether compression garments do anything during exercise to improve performance. It comes from a new Australian study just posted in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research.

And lastly, a really interesting post from the Science of Sport blog. This one is a round table discussion about natural and barefoot running. It features a lot of big names, namely Prof. Daniel Howell, an anatomy professor who formerly worked as a podiatrist but who now works in biomechanics and is an Asics research consultant; Prof. Benno Nigg, one of the world’s leading biomechanists; Dr. Mathias Marquard, a clinician and running coach; and Prof. Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist from Harvard, who recently published the Nature studies looking at how habitually shod and barefoot runners differ, and who wrote a key paper on how humans are adapted (skeletally and physiologically) to run long distances. Lots of good stuff here!

I’m kind of glad to have begun training. The rest/transition time I’ve had through the past few weeks has been nice, but it’s good to get back to a routine, especially one that’s goal-oriented and progressive. It’s not so much that I’m driven by goals as that I do better with routines (or schedules, or habits, call them what you will) than without.

As I’ve mentioned before, the program is something I’ve cobbled together out of training regimes I’ve tried before, things I’ve learned by trial and error along the way, and some new things I want to try. Because I’ve set myself a 1:50 finishing time as a goal for Sarasota, this new program includes a lot more tempo, hill, and speed work than I’m used to. But it’s based on the standard easy day/hard day, one long slow run a week that almost all runners follow. (My ambitious finishing time goal means, of course, that “hard” will be more intense and focused than what I’ve done before.)

Of necessity, most of my training throughout the winter will happen on my treadmill. I’ll try as much as possible to do my long Sunday runs outdoors, at least until the weather and roads get really nasty. I’ll keep on doing 100Up sets as a prelude to each training session, and will try to make time for some upper body workouts as well. Starting around Christmas time, I’ll do the 100Ups as gravel bucket sessions, and so (hopefully) keep the soles of my feet reasonably well conditioned.

As I write this, it’s -4C outside if you factor in the windchill. It’s going to get a lot colder than that before too long. But, with my trusty treadmill, my training program, and a couple of photos of palm trees taped to the wall, I’m aimed directly at Sarasota.