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Running Speech

This is the first version of the speech that I gave during my Leadership training class this summer.

Leadership Speech – Running Idea

“The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” Quote by John Bingham, Runner’s World columnist and co-author of “Running for Mortals”. Running is an activity that has long roots for me, having competed in track in high school, but until a year ago, I didn’t have the courage to start again.

With a need to lose weight and lower my cholesterol level, I decided to jump back in and set a goal to run a 5K race in the spring. Being a short distance sprinter and without having run a race longer than two miles, going one and half times the longest distance I had ever run, was not going to make it easy.

Many people asked me, why run? As I studied about running in preparation to return to the sport, here are some of the things that I learned:

  1. Aerobic Fitness

    First, running is one of the most efficient ways to achieve aerobic fitness. It works your heart and lungs allowing your blood to become more efficient at carrying oxygen. And as your heart becomes stronger, it pumps more blood with less effort.

  2. Helps with losing weight

    Losing weight was one of the primary motivators for me to return to running. Obviously, along with a balance diet, running helps with weight loss due to the increase that it has on your metabolism. As you’ll see from this chart, running has the highest calorie burn rate per hour compared to the next level of exercise, Tae Kwon Do.

  3. It can be done inexpensively

    Other than a good pair of shoes, running requires very little expense in the way of gear.

  4. Can be done indoor or outdoor

    Running in a gym or on a treadmill are great examples of running indoors. However, I’d say there is nothing like outdoor running. My favorite is actually trail running.

  5. Stress reliever

    Once you get past the pain of the beginning stages, you’ll most likely feel that you want to run – and not that you have to run.

  6. Can be done in a social group or in solitude

    Having a running partner can help you keep consistent with your workout routine, knowing that someone else is waiting on you.

How do you get started? When I first started to run, I had been doing infrequent exercise by walking my dog, which is a great foundation for running, since you’re using similar muscles.

Select the right type of shoes

Make sure to wear proper fitting running shoes. If you need to cut anything from your expenses, do not cut short on these. The frequency of your running will determine how long your shoes will last, but they commonly don’t last more than 3 to 6 months.

At first you’ll need to determine what type of running you want to do, trail or pavement. Pavement shoes are fine for running off road, but are designed for solid traction in very loose terrain. My first pair of shoes, I decided to purchase trail shoes because it was early winter and I wanted the extra support in mud, common in Washington.

Now to determine what shoe style you need there are two things you need to know about your feet. The first is your arch shape. Any easy test is getting your foot wet and stepping on a piece of paper. You will either have a high arch – very narrow, curved footprint, a flat or low arch – much wider and straightened footprint, or a normal arch.

Second is the biomechanics of your running or how your feet pronation, the natural roll inward when your foot strikes the ground. There is the neutral pronation, which is the natural roll. The next type is over pronation, where the foot is more exaggerated in its inward roll and the final type, is a slight roll outward called supination or under pronation.

Walk, then run

Gradually mix walking and jogging, lengthening each over time. This was one concept that helped me the most to “just do it” when it came to running distance. Not being afraid to walk and gradually get into a run as well as not feeling like I’m “quitting” if I need to take a break.

Frequency

Rather than measuring speed or distance, establish a weekly running schedule to get into the habit of exercising.

Continuing on…

  • Keep track of the results of your runs to see improvements along the way.
  • Set goals that can be attained and work toward them.
  • Avoid comparing yourself with someone else.

My Goals & Accomplishments

  • I have completed three 5K races with increased improvement.
  • I am aiming to run a 10K and go for a Triathlon next year.
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I did it!

Every year my kids’ elementary school sponsors a 5K fun run. All the students can participate for free. This year I was determined to start my racing career with this run, but my son’s baseball game schedule created a scheduling conflict. Most of the routes I take my runs on are along the path that the race is run. The start of the race and the start of his baseball game were 15 minutes apart, even though they were across the street from each other. So, I determined that I would just have to wait for another local race.

However, at the last minute, the baseball game was rescheduled for later in the day. This gave me the opportunity to run. My son also decided that he wanted to run, too, which made it difficult for me to run my own pace if would need to stay with him. We decided that he would ride his scooter along to keep up with me.

The start was interesting since we began on wet muddy grass before going onto the road, so I had Davis carry his scooter on the grass until we reached the pavement. This put us behind a bit, but we started to catch up. The other problem at the start was that I had to navigate both for him and for me through the different runners that were ahead of us. And, to make matters worse, the road still had traffic, so we had to be cautious about how far into the road we ran.

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Battle of the Blackberry GPS applications

I’m posting this blog post both on my personal blog and my technical blog because the subject matter crosses over both topics. Since I started back into running often I have been obsessed with tracking the distances that I’ve been running and the times and figuring out my pace. I like doing this because it helps me see the progress that I’m making.

Since my new Blackberry has so many additional features (other than just being a phone) like allowing me to watch video, listen to the radio, listen to MP3’s, get directions on a map and update facebook (amongst other things). I had been reading about all the cool GPS devices that attach to your shoe or wrist that allow you to track your pace and map your routes automatically and then upload them to a website. However, many of these devices are several hundreds of dollars. So, I decide that I would look for an application that would allow me to use the GPS functionality of my blackberry to do the same thing.

My search uncovered several applications, but two of them actually had free trials that I could download and test during my real work outs. The two that I downloaded to try were RoadrunnerGPS (http://www.roadrunnergps.com) and AllSport GPS by Trimble Outdoors (http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/). On the immediate surface one of the main differences between the two are the price. RoadrunnerGPS is a single purchase of $4.99 while the AllSportGPS is a monthly subscription of $5.99.

As the name implies the AllSport covers not just running but cycling, hiking, mountain biking and walking. They both upload their data to a website which you can log into and review the data. One of the advantages of the AllSport is that even after the data has been uploaded to the website you are still able to review the data on your Smartphone, while the RoadrunnerGPS “loses” the local data once it’s been uploaded to their website. Both applications gather very similar data, however and are joy to use for data geeks like me.

The AllSport has a 7 day trial while the Roadrunner has a 14 day trial. So, I will have to get busy with the testing the AllSport.

More to come later.

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Round and round we go!

As a teenager I spent every spring running around oval tracks throughout Western Washington. Road running has been good for building strength and endurance for me; however, getting back on the track has been invigorating for me. Sometimes it feels like I’m stepping back into time to familiar surroundings (especially since the tracks I’m running on are the tracks that I ran on in Jr. High and High School). I love the feel of the track on my legs instead of the asphalt and concrete of running on the road.

What is encouraging is that my times are starting to improve. I dropped 20 seconds from my mile time that I clocked just a week ago. I’m getting the speed down and improving. Now, I just need to work on building my endurance more. It also helps that I keep losing the extra weight. I’m down 25 pounds since September.

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On Running

OK, I’ve been keeping this a small secret for some time. Since high school have I been much into running. Most of the time adult running consists of running distances over a mile, like 5K, 10K, half marathon or a full marathon (26 miles!). Now, there are triathlons and even 50 mile and 100 mile races! However, for me this is a problem because as I teenager I was a sprinter and had a body built for short fast bursts of speed.

However, I did have some endurance in me and competed at distances such as 200m or 400m. So, doing anything close to a mile was challenging, much less to be able to run 2 miles or more. I did get my times for the cross country mile+ course in junior high and the 12-minute test in high school down to reasonable ranges, I pretty much lost any endurance beyond that level. Funny, because looking back I think that had I continued to compete in college, it might have been a good idea for me to attempt to compete at the 800m distance.

Thinking this over obviously was the fact that I do not have a great amount of endurance, but this, like working out in the gym can be improved upon by conditioning and training. When it comes to walking or even hiking I have no problem with going as far as necessary. For me, the walk wasn’t even taxing enough on my body to break a sweat. Therefore, this has become my most recent goal is to speed up my pace and push myself as far as possible to build up my endurance level that is so lacking.

As I’ve been running, one thing that I’ve noticed while pushing myself is how different my body is built from the average distance runner that I know. Obviously, I have a few extra pounds that I need to shed that I put on in my post-HS and post-college years and the lighter weight on my frame would help me be able to push myself further and faster. Beyond that fact is that much of my body (especially my legs) are bulky and muscular — weighing even more than fat. My body was built (naturally and through training) for traveling very short distances as fast as possible and for the physical “combat” of football.

Because of this, one of the first and most debilitating pains that I experienced when I first started to run was tightness in my right calf. When I ran track I developed shin splints early and my senior year even developed them on only my inside left shin due to running so many curves at top speed (200’s, 300’s and 400’s). So, pain in my legs was nothing new — but this pain was different and difficult to deal with.

I found several things that could be contributing factors. First was my shoes (strange that it would only develop in one leg and not both) which were over a year old and ready to be replaced (I have since replaced them). The other thing is again the size of my calves, built for sprinting not distance running. Sprinters usually run on the balls of their feet and therefore the tendency of a sprinter when running is to run this way as well. Try it some time. It will kill your calves. So I have had to force myself to run a little further back on my feet to force them to run more flat and avoid this pain. Finally, since I’m right handed and tend to do most things heavily on my right side, I think that perhaps just like when I developed shin splints in only my left leg because of pounding my my inside leg harder when I would lean into the curve, maybe I am leading too hard on my right leg.