Torture. Because I Like It.

The wind was hitting like a sledgehammer, relentlessly pounding me as I ran headlong against it. With each step I wondered if I was actually moving forward or if the wind slamming me backwards was overcoming all my forward progress, but I kept on. Finally, I anticipated some relief as I turned on to an even smaller side road out in the country. Rather than relief, the wind was now beating at me from the side, causing me to lean into it as I ran. At least it was a warm day.


Long distance running out alone in the country surrounded by farm houses and winter emptied fields yesterday was just one day of many of my training for the Fall Creek Falls 50K Trail Race. It has been a long, hard winter of training. Living in Kentucky I am fortunate to have many warm days in the winter, and even the cold days don't compare to the ones people are facing farther north. Still, the hundreds of miles of training behind me so far leading up to this race and the hundreds still to go have required the tenacity of a pit bull.


There have been many days that I did not want to get up and go for a run that day. There have been times that I adjusted my weekly mileage down for a break, or skipped a day for some extra rest. There have been days that were supposed to be a hard workout day, that I opted for an easy workout day instead. Even with those, I still keep pushing forward, training in the face of those sledgehammer winds.


Training for this race, for me, is partially for my health. Any fitness expert would say, that the number of miles I am doing per week is beyond that needed for health. So there must be other reasons. One is that I just want to see what I am capable of, I want to test my limits, I want to go further, run faster, train harder, and all that. Another is that I am having fun doing it. Even on the days that it is cold, and windy, days on which the wind rips at my clothes and attempts to slice through the armor of my down jacket, I am having fun doing it.


There is no heroic backstory of being overweight and running from the demons of ridicule. There is no running to overcome addiction. There is no running to prove something to my father, and only a little bit of running as a reprieve from the grief of losing my mother.


So my story is not as dramatic as some others.


I just like to run.


I set goals. I set hard, lofty, distant goals, and head towards them one running stride at a time. On cold days and hot days. Lathered in sunscreen sometimes, or wearing a headlamp to see by others. Sometimes I run in the morning while my wife is still asleep, or I run while she is at work, or I get my run done as early as I can so she can get her run in too.


Training for this race is by far the hardest thing I've ever done. Running 50, 54, then 60 miles in a week is time consuming, mind consuming, and energy consuming, but I keep pushing forward to meet my goals.


At times it feels selfish, so I hope that what I am doing inspires my daughter to believe, to know that she can accomplish big things if she tackles them one step at a time. I hope that my fitness clients can see by my example that if they make a plan and stick to it they can lose 50, 60, 100 pounds, or run their first 5K or marathon.


At the heart of it though, my motivation is not that noble, I just like to run.

Fear of Fat Marketing

I am mad. 

The fitness marketing commercials have gone beyond selling to fears people have and have started creating fear where there should be none. 

The "T25" commercial came on with people talking about flattening their tummies and thinning their thighs and on and on. The next day my beautiful 6 year old girl told me she wanted to lose some fat. 

This is a girl who ran a 42:40 5K at age 5. This is a girl who at four years old biked 5 miles to Chaney's Dairy Barn for an ice cream treat. This is a girl who runs around all day, likes to row on the rowing machine at the gym, and likes to swing kettlebells. 

This one commercial and suddenly she thinks she needs to lose some fat. 

Why do they insist on selling fitness this way?

Probably because it works. We live in a society that is obsessed with image and appearance. The world around us tells us we are less than if we are not tall enough, muscular enough, skinny enough, tanned enough. . .

Commercials for jeans reduce women to nothing but their hips. Clothes aren't sold on how they function, but on how they make your butt look. 

The TV tells me I need a bigger chest and bigger biceps. It tells me I need fancier clothes, and that three months later those will no longer be fashionable enough. 

It will only stop if we stop buying what they are selling. 

Yes, fitness is important and you should be doing something to take care of the amazing human body you are in. Being strong and having good cardio is awesome, but I beg you, for your own sake and the sake of all our little girls, I beg you to be outraged at every ad and article that promises a sexy body, a perfect butt or a "beach body." Turn away from that style of marketing and focus your fitness on what your body can do and how your body feels instead of how some guy on TV tells you your body should look. 

I am disgusted. 

Trail Running Observations

Trail running is awesome. 

The next person to tell me that natural surfaces are easier on the body is invited to come trail running with me. 

Trails that are shared with horses are often difficult to run on. 

They are even harder to run on when frozen. 

Worse than that is when they are half frozen. 

Wet sandstone is less slippery than wet limestone. 

Sandstone and limestone are  equally slippery when covered with a sheet of ice. 

Picking your way on a technical trail can be fun. 

Bombing down a non-technical trail is also fun. 

Discovering that the non-technical trail you  are bombing down abruptly becomes technical is not so fun. 

Ankle deep oak leaves are very good at obscuring trails. 

Running half the trail in X amount of time does not mean you will cover the second half in the same time. 

Now

The time is now, today is the day. Not because it is January first of a new year, but because now is the only thing that is real. Take charge of your health and fitness. All aspects of your health and fitness. Pick something to change, something to improve on, something small, or something big, as long as it is obtainable. Build a habit of setting goals. 

One thing at a time, baby steps forward, but always moving forward, little steps add up to big accomplishments. 

Eat less junk, choose one bad food to take out of your diet and one good food to add in. 

Skip 30 minutes of facebook time and spend it on a walk instead. 

Skip a TV show and play a board game with your family. 

Take 10 minutes each day to pray, or meditate, or do whatever you do to decompress. 

As always, if you want help with the physical fitness side of things, let me know, I'll help.  

4 Keys To Starting Fitness

1. Make a commitment. 

Decide what sort of workout you will do and plan the days and times you are going to workout. Having it on the calendar makes it much easier to to be consistent.

2. Just start. 

On your planned day, make a commitment that no matter what (other than injury or fever) you will atart your workout. Even if you don't think you will finish it, commit to starting each day no matter what. In the beginning building the habit of starting is the most important thing.  

3. Bite the bullet and hire a trainer. 

Even if it is just temporary, hiring a trainer (like me for expample) will help you get off to a good start in a reasonable manner. Not only can a good trainer show you what exercises to do and how to do them safely, they can help you progress your workout as your fitness improves. 

4. Don't let the ego plan your workout. 

If you are new to fitness take it easy at first. Overdoing it can get you injured or worse. At first learning how to exercise properly is more important than "feeling the burn."

If you want help, let me know. My email is franklinkungfu@gmail.com, and I'm on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/StevenONanPersonalTrainer?ref=bf  and can be reached at franklinkungfu@gmail.com. 

How Many Minutes of Cardio?

This week I will do approximately 400 minutes of cardio.

The recommendations for cardiovascular exercises are to get 150 minutes of moderate exercise, 75 minutes of intense exercise, or somewhere between those two numbers if it is mixed between moderate and intense.

There are two possible reasons someone might be doing massive amounts of exercise. One is the idea that if a little is good, a lot is better. If someone is doing 400 minutes of cardio in a week in order to get health benefits, there is some bad news in the form of the law of dimininshing returns. The truth is that you will gain some more benefits from doing more, but the higher the amount is, the less bang you get for your buck.

If you go from no exercise to 75 minutes of moderate exercise you will start seeing some huge health benefits. The benefits keep increasing a lot as you up the amount or intensity from there. Once you get over those numbers though, to get a little more benefit, you have to do a lot more work.

The other reason to massively increase exercise is if you are training for a specific event. That is why I will be doing 400 minutes of cardio this week. That is why by the time my training is done, I will have a had a couple of weeks with nearly 10 hours of cardio. I have a 31 mile trail race coming up. I have carefully crafted a training plan to create in my body the physiological adapatations that will enable me to complete this massive race.

After the race, I am going to tone things back down to a more reasonable level. Rest and recovery is part of the plan.

Your exercise plan, or your training for an event should be planned intelligently. Randomly doing some exercises will benefit you. Having a long term plan in front of you based on your specific goals will benefit you a lot more.

If you want help with setting and meeting your goals, whether they include weight loss, toning muscles, or running a marathon, let me know. I'll be glad to help.

One Reason Runners Should Be Lifting Weights

As I've written about before, I truly admire those people who enter a race knowing they will be at the back of the pack, knowing they will be struggling at the finish line. I love watching their faces when that "I did it!" feeling takes over. As a result, I have often stayed and watched the last people coming in at various races. Something I notice repeatedly at endurance events is how a person's posture can completely collapse by the time they get to the finish line.

One particular aspect of this is the upper back and shoulders. Often by the end of a race, a runner has started hunching their shoulders forwards. This can be due to tension in the chest, or due to fatigue of the upper back. Either way, those hunched shoulders are going to be causing a lot of suffering during, and after the race.
During the race, hunched shoulders will limit the ability to breathe deeply. When you are not breathing deeply, then your muscles are not receiving the oxygen they need to continue going, especially on the last few miles of a long race. If the hunching is a result of tight pectoral muscles and shoulders, full movement of the body while running is limited interrupting stride, and the extra tension is burning energy that could be much more useful in other parts of the body.

After the race, that hunching posture can lead to upper back pain. The longer you run in that position, the more your upper spine has been jarred while in an unnatural position. This position does not allow the spine to absorb the shock the way it should, so you can expect back pain and even shoulder pain afterwards.

Lifting weights, specifically using motions that involve the upper back musculature, strengthens, and builds endurance in the muscles that maintain a neutral spine during endurance events. Running alone doesn't do much for these muscles, so at some point your legs will be able to last much longer than your postural muscles.

The solution for this problem is to stretch the pectoral muscles, and strengthen the rhomboids and trapezius. Some good exercises for this include the reverse lateral dumbell raise and the single arm dumbell row.

If you want help with your running, come check out my class "Run For Your Life." You will do strength training, learn about different types of training runs, and improve your running. This class can make running easier on your body, and improve your race times. So come on down to GT Fitness or get in touch with me. Find more information by clicking the tabs at the top of the page.