Cerials versus sportdrink for recovery

On the Belgian site gezondheid.be you can find an article on the effect of cerails with milk on recovery after an excercise in cmoparison to the effect of sportdrinks. I don't know about you but in the Netherland we make jokes about the Belgian but as this article is on some amrican research...well judge for yourself.

In is some small scale research that has shown the following effects:

• The effect on the levels of glucose and insuline in the blood and on glycogen were simular
• The cerials resulted in a stronger dercrease in lactate, a better synthesis of proteins and a higher glycogen level in the muscles.

So you see that a simple bolw of cerials is better thant the chemical mixtures from a sportsdrink. I have to admit. this sportdrinks is easier to carry along in your sportsbag to use directly after you have done your excercises or your run.

Stretching: how to be done?

Last week during the marathon I looked in surprise at a man leaning into a lamp post almost horizontaly stretching his calfmuscle. Hand at about a meter height and heel from the ground. This urges me to write once more about stretching. This time stretching in general.
Is stretching usefull?
exploring the web you'll find that there is some debate on the usefulness of stretching. Almost every runners does it in the belief that it helps to lengthen the muscles en increases its resistance to injuries. It also decreases muscle pain after excersises when stretching is applied during the cooling down.
The purpose of stretching
By stretching the muscle you lengthen it and put tension on the fibers. After the stretching the muscle relaxes and is in a more relaxed mode than before.
During the cooling down stretching keeps the bloodflow going, helping to get rid off the waste products in the muscle (hence the reduction of musclepain afterwards). I also thinks that the relaxation of the muscle has a good healthy effect on the tendon reducing the risk of injuries but i could not find proof of tihs quickly.
Static versus dynamic
there are different ways of stretching:

• Static
• Dynamic
• Ballistic
• PNF

Best knwon are static and dynamic. The second was out of fashion after the appearance of the book 'The Stretching Methode' by Bob Anderson.

Sequence of stretching
I never gave much thought to the sequeance in which I did my stretching untill recently someone pointed out that stretching the muscles in the upper leg first stimulates the blood flow so that when stretching the muscles in the lower leg the waste products from these muscles are better transported. Makes sence, doesn´t it?

When to stretch?
Most runners do a warming up first and then stretch before starting with some serious excercises. Taking into account the point made above you realize you should not stretch to fanatical before starting you excersises otherwise your muscles will be completely relaxed.

Other good moments for stretching are, under the assumption that it is healthy, after your excercise, during your cooling down or when you have muscle cramps.

Now let us return to the runner and his lamppost. Taking everything into account you realize stretching has no use when you put strain/force on the muscle because it won't relaxe. I don't know about you but I cannot lean into a lamppost and lift my heal from the floor without straining my calf muscle. So his pose was not effective and he still had to do another 15k.

In spite of all the fact that the debate about the use of stretching has not settled I myself find it useful. I think that on 50% of the runs I do, I do stretch it after some warming up and on 90% of the runs I stretch afterwards. (I skip when I am in a hurry).
Before I was not albe to reach my toes as the lady does in the picture...now I can. So to me it helps. And in the book on running from Haile G. he spends a few pages on stretching and it helped him to run the worldrecord so who am I to argue with him.

The perfect marathon day

A perfect day for a marathon resulted in the second best marathon this season to be run in Amsterdam only behind the world record marathon of Berlin just a few weeks earlier. Winner was Mutai in a time of 2:06:29 and the Dutch runner Kamiel Maase finished ninth in a new national record.
Yours truly finished in 3:35:19. For me this was an improvement of over 2 minutes off my personal best so I am satisfied. I ran an nice flat race with just over 25 min for every 5k and some 27 minutes for the 5k between 35 and 40k. So there is still some rome for improvement either by speeding up a little bith to just under the 25k of by running also the final 5k in just over 25 minutes. However 3:35 something is a nice time compared to the rest of the field as the image shows my fnish time (the yellow figure) relative to the other runners:

New world best Half marathon women

During the world championchips on the road in Udine, Italy, Lorna Kiplagat sets a new world best. New record is 1:06:25, 19 seconds faster than the previous worldbest of South African Elana Meyer run eight years ago in Tokyo. "Everything just went perfect today" according to the Gaurdian.
When I started this blog I addressed the fact that Dutch in English can have a negative ring to it. However the Kenian born Kiplagat has the Dutch nationality as well so she gives a new meaning to Running Dutch.