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.

Zoladztest

On my Dutch site I have shown my test results on the Zoladz tests before and discribed how it should be performed (for those who want to give it a try check it out here).
What is the test? Like a coopertest it give you an indication of your level of fitness. However where the coopertest only gives you one figure: The distance run in 12 minutes. The Zoladztest gives you your fitness level in relation to your heartrate. Let me explain how.
Before you start you have to do a bit of homework > you have to figure out your Maximum Heart Rate (HRmax). If you have not measured it you can calculate as follows: HRmax = 220 - (80% of your age). So lets say you are 35 like me, your calculated HRmax will be 220-28=192. This is just an indication as I know for sure that my HRmax is higher. Besides this figure you need a track of other means to measure your distance.
Do a moderate warming up with a few accelerations and some stretching just as you do your usual warming up. Than start your test.
Run 6 minutes at a average heartrate interval of HRmax - 50 (in this example = 142) than rest for 2 minutes and write down the distance you have run.
Run 6 minutes at HRmax-40
Rest 2 minutes
Run 6 minutes at HRmax-30
Rest 2 minutes
Run 6 minutes at HRmax-20
Rest 2 minutes
Run 6 minutes at HRmax-10

Relax and do your cooling down!
For every interval you write down the distance run. Take care, te last interval can be to strenuos for some runners and with my last test I did not manage to run this highest interval. If you are not sure about your own level of fitness than do this test under supervision of an expert.

Know you have gathers 5 distances (or 4). Plot them in a graph as shown below where you see the results of a couple of test I have done.
What can you learn from this test? Like with the cooper test: The more you can run in the intervals the more fit you are. But there is more. Ideally al the measured distances should be on a straight line. If there are measurements below this line you know that you have put more effort in training in the heartrate zone and the best thing is...this will help to lift the whole line higher, thus increasing your level of fitness overall. So in the last measurement from oktober 2007 you can see that I have to work on my lower heartrate (around 150bmp) where on some of the older measurements I had to work on the higher heartrates around 170 bmp (temporuns and interval).
So compared to the cooper test it is not only a measurement of fitness but it also gives you insight where you should put your training effort!

Egmond

Every year in the beginning of january there is the 'Halve van Egmond'. A half marathon which takes the runners along the flood line over the beach for some 10k and then back thourgh the dunes. Heavy, often cold, but o so nice to see. This year I had planned to take part but I first wanted to see the outcome of the 15k in Nijmegen (de Zevenheuvelenloop). As this was succesfull, with a new pb, it was time to register...only to find out it is no longer possible to enter the half marathon. Now I have to see if I particpate in the quarter marathon instead.