Ryan Hall's Blog, page 227
August 11, 2016
American Women to Watch in the Olympic Marathon
If you’ve ever run a marathon (or even a half marathon), then you will appreciate how grueling this 26.2-mile event will be in the heat and humidity of Rio. The route is the same for both men and women, starting and finishing in the long, narrow Sambódromo open-air stadium (where Carnival celebrations are held every winter) and sending runners on multiple criterium-style loops along Guanabara Bay.
RELATED: Check Out the Olympic Marathon Course via the RioRun Interactive App
The women’s marathon will be held on Sunday, Aug. 14, beginning at 9:30 a.m. local time (live coverage begins at 8:30 a.m. ET on NBC and NBCOlympics.com). Although it only debuted in 1984, the women’s marathon has a strong Olympic legacy. It has typically taken somewhere in the 2:26-range to land on the podium and earn a medal, however, the bronze medalist in 2012 finished in 2:23:29 after Tiki Gelana (Ethiopia) pushed the race and won in an Olympic record of 2:23:07.
This year Amy Cragg, Shalane Flanagan and Desiree Linden will represent Team USA for the 26.2-mile event and here’s what you’ll need to know about each of them before watching it.
RELATED: How to Watch Track & Field at the Rio Olympics on TV
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Amy Cragg
32, Portland, Ore., 2:27:03 PR
Nike Bowerman Track Club, Coached by Jerry Schumacher
Although her marathon PR doesn’t yet reflect it, Cragg has revitalized her marathon running since moving to Portland to train with Shalane Flanagan last year. She says she’s more confident than ever in her abilities over the long haul, incorporating high-altitude training with high-mileage weeks of 120 miles or more. (Based on her U.S. Olympic Trials win, she's likely capable of running in the 2:22-2:24 range.) Until race day she plans on keeping a low profile by opting out of the Olympic opening ceremony and staying outside of the Olympic village. In her first Olympics in 2012, she finished 11th in the 10,000m. Can she repeat her stellar performance from the Trials? If she's been able to replicate her fitness, she certainly could. Photo: Victor Sailer/Photorun.net
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Shalane Flanagan
35, Portland, Ore., 2:21:14 PR
Nike Bowerman Track Club, Coached by Jerry Schumacher
This is Flanagan’s fourth Olympic appearance, having qualified in at least one event since 2004 and owning the bronze medal from the 10,000m run in 2008. The daughter of two elite marathoners (her mom, Cheryl Treworgy, is a former world-record holder), Flanagan ran an American record of 30:22 for the 10K on the roads in Boston in June. She’s also been experimenting in the kitchen, and will be releasing a cookbook, Run Fast Eat Slow: Nourishing Recipes for Athletes in September. If she's as fit as we think she is, she's definitely capable of finishing among the top five.
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Desiree Linden
33, Rochester Hills, Mich., 2:22:38 PR
Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, Coached by Kevin Hanson
Linden secured her second U.S. Olympic marathon berth with a gutsy second-place effort at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Los Angeles in February. She’s out to make up for her disappointing experience in the 2012 Olympic Marathon in London, where she pulled out early in the race due to a stress fracture in her femur. Known as one of the world’s fiercest competitors in the marathon, she’s been back at the top of her game since 2014. Desi might not have the all-out speed of some of the runners in the field, but very few are as tough she is during the final 10K of a race.
Photo: Victor Sailer/Photorun.netRelated Galleries
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The Guardian Releases RioRun Interactive App
British media outlet The Guardian has released RioRun, a new interactive app based on the Olympic marathon course in Rio de Janeiro. Designed exclusively for mobile devices, it provides an audio tour of the 2016 racecourse. The experience varies based on the user’s pace and distance during a workout.
The women’s Olympic marathon will be held at 8:30 a.m. ET on Aug. 14, while the men’s race will be held at the same time on Aug. 21 as the last sporting event in the Rio Olympics. The route is the same for both men and women, starting and finishing in the long, narrow Sambódromo open-air stadium (where Carnival celebrations are held every winter) and sending runners on multiple criterium-style loops along Guanabara Bay.
RELATED: How to Watch Track & Field at the Rio Olympics on TV
To get the free RioRun app, use your phone or tablet to access riorun.theguardian.com. Laptop users will be redirected to a related news story.
“As you run (or walk), you’ll hear from the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent Jonathan Watts about Brazil’s struggles to get ready for the world’s biggest sporting event,” says The Guardian’s account. “Hall-of-fame track and field coach Bob Larsen will fill you in on the science and strategy of marathon running. And Guardian editor and tour host, Valerie Lapinski, will bring you the stories behind some of Rio’s biggest landmarks—from the shining lights of the Carnival Sambódromo to the city’s dark past as a major slave port.”
The RioRun experience also features awards and the chance to earn prizes as players complete the full 26.2 marathon distance before the Olympics conclude.
RELATED: American Women to Watch in the Olympic Marathon
RELATED: Complete 2016 Olympic Track & Field Schedule
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August 10, 2016
Inspire Runners With Your Story of the Ambition Effect
Having a goal can change your life. Once we’ve identified a goal, it can affect our relationships, social activities and where we spend our time. By setting a goal, we often unknowingly create a domino effect where one positive action leads to another. We call this the “ambition effect.”
Synchrony Financial understands this because they empower individuals to realize their unique ambitions and reach their goals everyday. This fall, Synchrony Financial and Competitor are partnering to share stories of runners who have transformed their lives through running. We will select one runner’s story to follow through a video, and reward this runner with a complimentary trip to the Synchrony Financial Rock ‘n’ Roll Brooklyn Half Marathon on Saturday, October 8, 2016.
Share your story here for a chance to be featured and the opportunity to inspire other runners!
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Let Us Make Your Finish Line Proposal Extra Special
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series sees over 30 couples get engaged at finish lines each year. This fall, we are partnering with Synchrony Financial to follow a couple through their race day proposal story and capture the journey on camera. Is anyone planning to pop the question at a fall Rock ‘n’ Roll event? Let us help you make it extra special with race day support to ensure the proposal goes off without a hitch!
Share your story here.
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All submissions must be received by 8/31.
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August 9, 2016
3 Key CrossFit Drills for Strength and Stability
CrossFit Endurance is all about strength and midline stability. Add the following drills to your workout two to three days a week.
Excerpted with permission from “ Unbreakable Runner” by Brian MacKenzie (VeloPress, 2014). Learn more at Unbreakablerunner.com.
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Pulling Wall
The primary goal of this drill is to learn how to activate your hamstrings and glutes when pulling the foot up from the ground after landing.
Stand 6 inches away from a wall and engage your core. Now practice pulling your foot up from the ground directly beneath your hip, using a light but quick snapping motion initiated by the hamstring. Use the wall to keep your foot from extending too far behind you.
Do 20 repetitions with each leg while focusing on using your hamstring and glutes to do the work. For runners who have relied more on their hip flexors than their hamstrings to run, this exercise will wake up some dormant tissue—you may even cramp up a bit. You’ll want the hamstring activation to translate into your running, with a quick popping off the ground with each foot pull.
SCALE: Start with five pulls on each leg, and slowly add repetitions with each workout until you can do 20.
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Hop with Forward Lean
This drill will help teach you how to properly use gravity with a falling forward lean. It helps runners transition to a more compact stride; instead of reaching out with the leg and standing on the heel, midline stability is maintained and the hips become more central to the flow of power.
Begin with small vertical hops, as if jumping rope, engaging the core. Once you are hopping, allow your body to fall forward, hinging from the ankles instead of the waist. Continue to hop as you allow gravity to move you forward. Imagine that you are a pogo stick; focus on the elasticity in your feet and ankles to propel you. Lean for three to five hops without scuffing the feet, and then level out for three more hops.
SCALE: Practice leaning and squatting without actually hopping, which will accustom you to the movement and build strength in your hips and quads.
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Hollow Rock
Hollow rock develops trunk strength and midline stabilization, which allows runners to hold good form even when they are fatigued at the end of a long race.
Lift head up and off the ground with arms reaching overhead. Tighten up your muscles—including abs and glutes—and imagine that you’re trying to pin your belly button to your spine. You should be aiming to achieve a shape like a crescent moon, with your lower back flat on the ground and your arms and legs elevated about a foot off the ground. Now use your legs to kick and power a rocking-chair motion.
SCALE: If you have a weak core, this exercise is tough to do properly at first. Build up strength by first spending time holding planks and using other traditional trunk strength exercises. You can also scale hollow rock by holding the engaged position without progressing into the rocking motion.
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Tips for Nailing Your Marathon Taper
During your taper, maintain intensity while shortening your long runs. Photo: istockphoto.com
The benefits of a pre-race taper before a marathon are scientifically proven facts. The only thing left for debate is how to specifically adjust that taper period to your individual needs.
Tapering off your training by cutting back volume but maintaining intensity in the weeks before a major race has been found in some studies to lead to as much as a 3 percent increase in performance. Tapering lets microcellular muscle damage repair and glycogen stores replenish, says Pete Pfitzinger, a two-time Olympic marathoner for the U.S. and co-author of Advanced Marathoning. Tapering can also lead to increases in red blood cell count and VO2 max—not to mention psychological improvements that leave you feeling sharp and ready to race.
“Studies have shown that a well-planned taper leads to improved running economy and increases in muscle strength and power,” Pfitzinger says.
Great. So how can you make sure you’re getting all those benefits for your marathon?
The standard marathon taper plan starts three weeks before your race, with shorter tapers for shorter races. Typically, Pfitzinger recommends cutting training volume by about 60 percent over those three weeks, starting with about 20 percent in the first week and increasing to a 60 percent reduction in the last week. Do this by shortening your longer runs, decreasing the length of easy runs and taking more rest days. Your longest long run, often around 20 to 22 miles (though it depends on the athlete), is typically done a month before the race. A week before your marathon, your long run is just 10 to 12 miles. The key during this taper period is to maintain the level of intensity with short VO2 max efforts and tempo runs, resting more on the intervals, in order to “maintain race fitness,” Pfitzinger says. Many athletes will even do a shorter race, like a half marathon or 10K, a few weeks before their A-race marathon.
While that’s the standard taper plan—and a good place to start—you’ll want to adjust it based on what works for you.
Some athletes don’t feel good with a big reduction in volume and some athletes respond well to large cutbacks, according to Juli Benson, an Olympian and coach for college and professional runners.
The only way to figure out what’s going to get you to that starting line feeling the freshest and hungriest is by testing different approaches at races throughout your season or throughout the years. Think about what you did leading into your best races, and if there was a pattern.
There are generally three tapering schools of thought: to cut volume sharply and focus on high-intensity efforts, to cut volume moderately and do more medium-intensity race-specific efforts, or to cut volume less and maintain routine—which should still include a variety of speed efforts. You might find you race best in any one of those programs or somewhere in between.
Regardless, two of the most common mistakes in a marathon taper are going too easy or too hard. Often, Pfitzinger says, people focus on the rest part of tapering, but don’t do enough efforts at race pace or slightly faster. That can leave you feeling sluggish. Other runners are overly worried about losing fitness and so don’t taper as much as they should. Benson also sees people who are feeling great from the taper and end up running too hard as a result. Or they try to throw in anaerobic efforts for the first time ever—which, if you haven’t done efforts that hard in the months before your race, could make you susceptible to injury.
It can be hard to balance all the physical demands before a race, but it’s just as hard to balance the psychological aspects. Runners typically feel anxious and fidgety with all the extra energy and time.
“You invested all this time and energy, and now you have to play the waiting game,” Benson says. That’s why she often has her athletes sign up for online classes or read a book—anything that has nothing to do with running. You can also use that time to make sure you have all your nutrition and logistics nailed down.
RELATED: The Taper Advice Nobody Tells You
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10 Running-Inspired Tees You Can Wear Anytime
As often as we all love to run, there are times when sweaty running clothes don’t count as proper attire. These running-inspired T-shirts pick up the wardrobe slack while giving a nod to your passion for the sport.
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Boom Running Make Running Boom Again, $29
Celebrate the marathon and the Olympics in red, white and blue style with a shirt so soft it already feels like an old favorite.
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Gone for a Run May The Course Be With You, $20
A soft, cotton blend shirt is just the way to affirm your passion for all things Star Wars and running. The real question is, what would be Han Solo’s preferred race distance?
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Suffer Better Semi-Tech T, $25
Suffer Better’s motto, “Giving your all plus giving back,” inspires others to give one hundred percent while they donate 10 percent of company profits to worthwhile causes.
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Maggie Tides Design Mt. Tam, $30
The outline of Mount Tamalpais (aka Mt. Tam), in Mill Valley, Calif., graces the front of this casual, cotton T-shirt that gets softer with every wash and wear.
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Endurance Conspiracy Jogger, $35
Whether you jog, run or both depending upon what suits you, the retro styled graphic on soft cotton is a cheeky nod to the first “jogging boom” in the 1970s.
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Reckless Running Tri-Blend Winged Foot, $29
Bold graphics, a comfortable fit and blended fabric will make the Winged Foot shirt your next outfit staple.
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Headline Shirts 1K Fun Run Ringer, $28
Who says a run has to be long to be remembered? When you go the distance, any distance, it’s T-shirt worthy!
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Brooks Happy Smile, $22
Made of soft, wicking fabric, this semi-fitted tee looks like a casual shirt but has the technical aspects needed to hang tough on a run.
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Territory Run Co Runners of the Wild, $29
With a delicate design and cotton/poly blend fabric, you can run or rest wherever you please in this comfortable tee.
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Nike Oregon Track Club Retro, $24
A classic white T-shirt with a retro take on the Oregon Track Club logo.
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Man Sets Half Marathon World Record Wearing a Business Suit
Mike Tozer speed his way through the Blacktown Running Festival Half Marathon in his dapper attire. Photo: Drew Grigg/Yet Another Idea
When he toed the starting line at the Westlink M7 Blacktown Running Festival Half Marathon on July 31 near Sydney, Australia, Mike Tozer wore a pair of bright yellow Brooks T7 Racer racing flats that looked strangely out of place.
That’s because he was wearing a full, three-piece business suit: a white shirt and blue tie, a black vest and a royal blue jacket with matching pants.
Certainly, it was a sign the 36-year-old UK-born Hong Kong resident meant business.
Tozer was running in business garb to raise money and awareness for Fragile X syndrome, the most common genetic cause of autism. His 5-year-old son, Josiah, was born with the condition, and that motivation helped him set a new world record.
Running at 5:58/mile pace, Tozer crossed the line in 1:18:10, which took three seconds off the world record for running a half marathon in a business suit (set by Scott Forbes on April 3 in a race in the UK).
Tozer’s personal best without a suit is 1:16:46. It was his second attempt at the recording, having run 1:18:40 in May at the Sydney Morning Herald Half-Marathon.
“I checked my watch as I came into the stadium for the final lap and I had one minute 30 seconds left to beat the record,” he told the Blacktown Sun. “As I crossed the line the clock in the stadium ticked over to 1 hour, 18 minutes and 13 seconds, which meant I hadn’t done it. I collapsed on the floor thinking I had missed out.
“I checked with an official who confirmed my real time. It was a whirlwind of emotions.”
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August 8, 2016
Photos: 10K Race Takes Runners Across the U.S./Mexico Border
The cities of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, have teamed up for a second year of the International 10K, which took place on Saturday, Aug. 6. Runners had to carry a passport with them as they crossed the U.S./Mexico Border over the Stanton Street Bridge. The race started in El Paso near the International Bridges Department and then wound its way past historical and culturally significant landmarks—including the Old Customs House where the first U.S./Mexico presidential meeting took place in 1909 between William H. Taft and Profirio Diaz—before ending with a climatic finish atop the Paso Del Norte Bridge in Juarez.
Photos: Eric S. Pearson
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International 10K
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Photos: Sneak Peek at 2017 Running Gear, Gadgets & Apparel
Much of running’s appeal lies in its simplicity. Yet, it’s also a given that the right gear can up both the fun and safety factors. All things new and shiny with regards to the great outdoors were on display at the August 3-6 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market trade show in Salt Lake City. Scroll through the gallery to see the gear you’ll be coveting in 2017.
RELATED: Sneak Peek at 2017 Running Shoes
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Safe Reflections Brilliant Reflective
Each package ($10) comes with 30 square inches—the amount necessary to create biomotion or sense of movement—of reflective stickers or iron patches. Updating a favorite running jacket, adding reflective pops to trekking poles or adding reflective safety to a running costume is as easy as peeling and sticking or ironing. The peel-and-stick version is removable, the iron-on version is permanent. Stickers currently come in four colors.
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Buff USA UV Arm Sleeves
Lightweight, moisture-wicking and breathable, these arm sleeves ($25) provide UPF 40+ without the hassle of sunscreen. Silicone dots hold the sleeves in place and they have reflective accents for visibility.
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Camelbak Quick Stow
A new soft flask, the Quick Stow is made from a stiffer TPU than most soft flasks, making it easier to hold, fill and maneuver. It holds a half liter of water and comes in traditional, shown on the right, ($20) and insulated ($28) versions. Also be on the lookout for new hydration reservoirs and packs. CamelBak’s Crux reservoirs have a higher flow per sip and improved reservoir designs.
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Folk Rebellion Let’s Wander Where the Wifi is Weak long sleeve shirt
Post-run lounging takes a social conscious bent in this Folk Rebellion long sleeve ($58). Jess Davis founded the Brooklyn-based company more than two years ago with the belief that as a society we need to temper technology usage, and believes that “less tech is the next wellness trend.”
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Lucy Indigo Collection Run Tights
Lucy Activewear is launching the Indigo Collection, a four-piece collection of denim designs laser printed on technical fabrics. The Run Tights ($128) may look like your favorite skinny jeans, but they have the wicking fabric, wide waistband and reflective pops you want on the run.
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Osprey Duro 1.5
Osprey debuted a new line of gender specific running accessories that includes handhelds, belts and packs. Packs like the men’s Duro 1.5 ($90) come with a new (for Osprey) soft-backed reservoir, a whistle, bite valve magnet and lots of pockets.
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Para Kito
Early morning and evening runs often make runners a moving target for bloodthirsty mosquitos. Bites are annoying, but the threat of Zika virus makes them scary too. Para Kito is launching a new mosquito repellant band, the only existing prototype is shown above, with athletes in mind ($20). Waterproof with welded tech, the barely-there band is outfitted with refillable mosquito repellant pellets. The DEET-free pellets are made of essential oils and last for about 15 days.
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Salomon S-Lab Sense Ultra 5 Set
This pack ($140) is the end result of asking a bunch of trail runners what they want to see in a hydration pack. Lightweight yet durable materials, minimized straps, a streamlined design and easy-access pocket placement provide all you need conveniently and comfortably close at hand.
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Timex Ironman GPS
Billed as “the Simplest GPS Watch, Ever,” the latest sport watch ($100) from Timex has intuitive, one-button functionality, a 12-hour battery life (even in full GPS mode) and charges with a micro USV port—meaning no proprietary cords!
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The North Face Flight Series Warp Capri
The structure-without-seams component of these capris ($120) is definitely interesting. Even more so is the warp construction, meaning you can cut the length, without needing to hem or worry about them unraveling, for a semi-customizable fit.
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