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Newsletter Archives: January 1999

Words from Jeff | The Difference Between a Dream and a Vision

To Run Faster | Teaching a Muscle to Burn Fat | Snips

A body on the couch wants to remain on the couch, but as soon as you get that body in the running motion, it wants to keep running.

There's nothing that gives me a good attitude and vitality as a run. Speed is not the issue. Just moving forward slowly, with walk breaks, bestows a feeling of pleasure and accomplishment. Just as momentum is important in the daily run, so it is with the written word. Each monthly newsletter will have a mixture of helpful hints, inspiration, humor, and feedback. Yes, this is your newsletter and will be only as good as the input from you and other readers. Just as I hope that the information can help you with your fitness vision for the next 6-12 months, I need your questions, jokes, stories, and desired topics. Thanks, and have a great running or walking day, month, and year!

Running Free

I have a friend, close to 50, who started using my marathon training schedule recently. Although he's now run in one marathon and says he might do one or two a year, the race itself isn't his primary motive for training. "I love those long runs. I'm out in the hills for 2-3 hours, alone, it's peaceful, just a pair of shoes and shorts, no hardware, no motors." He finds joy in the exertion, the solitude, the tiredness when it's over. He says he'd follow the program now, even without the marathon as an incentive.

That's the attitude I wish most runners would adopt toward the long run. Whether the race is a fixed goal or a hazy sometime-in-the-future dream, the long run should be fun, easy, relaxed and not too fast. It's obviously going to be much more enjoyable to you if you can run in the hills, the woods or the park as opposed to pounding monotonously down the same city blocks. But wherever you run, try to approach the long run as an enjoyable experience. Not coincidentally, relaxing and having fun will improve your conditioning and future performance more than any other single aspect of your training program.

From Galloway's Book on Running by Jeff Galloway (Shelter Publications, 1984), pp.120-121.

The Difference Between A Dream and a Vision

A dream is an abstract image with no direct connection to reality.
A vision is an image-experience, organizing behaviors into a pattern which leads to a goal.

To Run Faster....You Must Run Faster

You can't run all of your runs slowly if you want to run fast in the marathon. But you can't go too fast either. By running the speed play too fast, for example, you will prepare your muscles to go out too fast in the marathon and pay dearly for that later. The best type of speed is that which simulates the marathon experience. This will encourage the exact type of endurance/speed adaptations necessary to go faster on race day. Strength and coordination are developed simultaneously with the other improvements generated by speed sessions.

From Marathon! by Jeff Galloway (Phidippides Publication, 1996), p. 60.

Teaching the Muscles to Burn Fat

One of the most significant changes which occur as you get into better marathon shape is the adaptation of your exercising muscles to burn both stored sugar and fat. Those who are in poor physical condition will not be able to go very far without running out of energy:

Untrained muscles are not conditioned to burn fat and must rely on glycogen for fuel.
Unfortunately, the supply of this fuel is small and runs out quickly.
Glycogen also produces a great amount of waste product, which slows you down.

By slowing down the exertion level, and mostly walking, beginners are better able to increase their endurance limits and teach the exercising muscles to burn fat. The long walks, and then long walk-runs, are the most productive venue for the "teaching" to occur. From Marathon! by Jeff Galloway (Phidippides Publication, 1996), p. 60.

Snips

On page 22 of the January 1999 issue of Runner's World, Alisa Bauman writes that a group of military-school cadets used roll-on antiperspirant on their feet for three nights before a 13-mile hike and got fewer blisters than their friends who didn't. She says it might have worked because it reduced the amount of sweating which could have prevented the blister-causing friction. Word of caution: some of the cadets' feet were irritated by the antiperspirant so experiment carefully.
The American Running and Fitness Association brings us good news about getting older and running: Apparently, some scientists have reviewed research and concluded that "loss of strength in the elderly is not an inevitable result of the aging process, but rather, it is the inevitable result of sedentary lifestyle choices often associated with aging and retirement. This is a good example of Œuse it, or lose it.'" (Running & Fit News, November 1998, page 2).