X-mas greetings

Stretching: lower calf muscle

Many of the less experienced runnners do just one sort of stretching for the calf muscle. The regular stretch. They tend to forget the lower calf muscle which is connected to the achillesheel and not paying the proper attention can cause injuries to the heel. Stretching the lower calf muscle is quite simple
1) place your feet alngo side eachother and make one step with your hips (your centre of gravity) between your feet as with the regular calf muscle stretch.
2) Keep your upper body vertical but lower your centre of gravity (i.e. your hips) by bending both kness. You feel the strain building in the lower extremities of your calf of your 'hind'leg.

Pay attention to:
- Keeping your heel on the ground
- DOn't bring your knees in front of the toe of your foot. If you do before you feel the straing increase your step a little at 1.)

Stretching: The Quadriceps

A few times before I have written about stretching.

Recently I read an article in 'Gym Kaderinfo' a magazine about gymnastics (which used to do for some 15 years when I was a bit younger). In the article, the doctor John Mens discusses the use of stretching and basically he states that it is useless. However with the article is a picture of this good man stretching his Quadriceps. I have no scanner at hand so you´ll have to do with my figures. It looked a bit like this:

Added 2/1/08 scanned image from article:

I could be wrong but to me this is not the right way to stretch your quadriceps. Body to the front, the leg he is standing on overstretched. With this kind of examples I can understand that to him stretching is nog usefoull;-)
This is how I learned your quadriceps should be stretched:

1. raise your heel to your buttocks
   
2. genlty bend the leg your standing on


3. tilt your pelvis a bit (in the direction of the arrow, belly in)


4. bring the knee of your raise leg slowly to the back building the tention in the muscle

Your pose will look like this figure:

Or use the clip from the asics site as inspiration.

A simple and good idea: The SOS Coin. A round plastic disc that you can attach to your laces (like a ChampionChip). On this disc you can have you personal data printed!
Of course every runner thinks he will return savely home when he goes out for a run but you'll never know. Maybe a cardriver is not paying to much attention of you get disorientated by becoming too cold or tget overheated in summer and you will not be able to express yourself properly. Than this little disc with your address or the phonenumber from your homefront can help! You yourself can decide which information it should contain. Do you have key medical information? Add it to the coin.

Of course you could carry an ID card, actually in the Netherlands everybody above 14 is obliged to ID himself when requested by the police but be frank:"Do you carry an ID card when you go running?" I don't!
An alterantive I came across a few years ago was the following: Take an old plastic membership card which contains you address. Cut out the address, punch a hole and attach this to your laces. Of course this is just your address and not the contact details form your homefront! Therefore: A simple and good idea this SOS Coin.

Fundraising event with a twist

My attention was drawn to a very special run organized by ZOA-Vluchtelingenzorg (ZOA-refrugycare)(with CBF a kind of warranty for charity organisations). They organise a walk aand run (15k) on Saturday the 29th of March 2008 called Walk4Water. Please promote!

The walkers and runners should get themselve sponsored to raise money for a drinkingwater proejct in Uganda. The walkers and runners carry a jerrycan with them to experience what it is like to have to wlka for water. Imagine running 15k with a jerrycan filled with water! But then again, this makes it more interesting to sponsor the runners for this good cause. More information (in Dutch) onhttp://www.walk4water.nl/.

The scenery for this event is the dike between Lelystad and Enkhuizen.