Things to remember...

• As the mileage increases, you need to start moving to muscle fueling instead of just taking in fluids for hydration. The focus is on building up and maintaining your glycogen stores.

• Pre-exercise: body weight * .5g carb per hour before exercise (150 lb person, 2 hrs before => need take in 150 g carb); Remember to practice the morning routine you will have during the race (what time you get up, what you eat, etc) -- it's not too early to start the routine!

• During exercise: you need to take in muscle fuel (ie carbs) every 15 minutes starting at about 1 hour into the workout; 20-60 g carb per hour (smaller person is closer to 20, etc); If using a gel, consume 8 oz of fluid with gel; practice using what you will use during the race.

• Recovery is the most important part of the endurance athlete's diet. You need to get carbs + protein (ex. a recovery drink) into your body within 15 minutes (max 30 min) of completing your workout! Your recovery nutrition should last as long as your workout. Consume 20-50 g carb/hr (varies with body size) throughout your recovery period. If you recover correctly you will be able to go out and exercise the next day -- otherwise you will go out with a "half tank" and you are setting yourself up for a non-optimal workout.

• LSD: Long slow distance - This is the backbone of your endurance training. On Saturdays, we are all about LSD, working on building your aerobic endurance by running or walking at a comfortable, aerobic pace. We push the mileage each week in order to expand your base.

• Fartleks - This is a Swedish term that means "Speed Play". This is a less structured form of interval training (as opposed to sprints) where you work on varying your pace from "easy" to "moderate" to "hard". It is a good tool for creating pace awareness as well as building strength and speed.

• Interval Training - This type of speed work is highly structured, with specific number of repetitions of hard running or walking with recovery after each repeat. This type of training is often done at the track and is ideal for pushing the anaerobic threshold up higher.

• Tempo runs/walks - This type of workout is at a faster pace for a longer period of time than interval training. The goal is to complete a moderate distance, say 2 - 4 miles, at a pace that is about 10% faster than your LSD pace.

• Hill work - Hills are another great form of speed training because they challenge you aerobically. Hills also make you stronger -- specifically make your legs stronger -- which has the effect of increasing your overall speed.

• Speed Work: "8x30-30" means "30 seconds fast, 30 seconds slow, eight times in a row." After a thorough warm-up, run for 30 seconds at about 90-95% intensity, then do a 30-second recovery jog. Make sure that you don't slow down during the workout, so you are running your last 30 seconds about as fast or even a little faster than your first 30 seconds. Run on a soft surface if you can, rather than on concrete or asphalt. When you are done, jog or walk slowly for a while to cool-down. Both the number of repeats, and the duration of the fast and slow intervals, will change from week to week.

• Tempo: "35/tempo" means "35 minute tempo run (plus warm up, cool down)." After a warm up for about 5 - 10 minutes, maintain a pace about 10 to 15 seconds per mile slower than 10-K race pace. The last 5 to 10 minutes should be a cool down period. Another way to gauge the pace of tempo runs: a pace about midway between short-interval training speed and your easy running pace.

• Easy: "30e" means "easy 30 minute run or run/walk." This should be a slow run done at a conversational pace.

• Hillwork: "45/hill" means "45 minutes of hill work." Hills prepare the muscles for faster running without going anaerobic. Hill training will enable you to run better on all types of terrain. Find a hill with a moderate grade, about 10-15%. Run at about 85% effort and jog slowly down to recover. Start with about 4 hills and increase by 1 a week until you can run 8-12 hills.

• Power Walk: "10.10.10" means "10 minutes of warm up, 10 minutes of walking a faster pace, 10 minutes of cool down." Incorporating a faster walking pace on one workout per week helps to build your overall endurance. You want to increase the pace enough to feel like it's a push, but not so much that you can't hold it for the specified time period. As the "fast" interval gets longer, do the best you can to maintain the faster pace, but if necessary slow it down a bit or incorporate recovery periods within the interval.

ATP

I HATE RUNNING!

I'm a 6'-4" blue eyed blond (at least when I had hair) I grew up wanted to play third base for the Houston Astros. I also grew up with really bad asthma. For someone with asthma, running is not easy. Breathing tests show that I breathe at about 62% lung capacity. Even with that I've tried to be athletic. But try to run up and down a basketball court when you can't breathe. I think there was a sailor that said "water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink." When I have an asthma attack my lungs swell and contract to where I cannot get any air into my lungs. As I'm choking I think "air, air everywhere, but not a bit to breath." Don't ask me to blow the candles out on the cake. So... After years of being yelled at by coaches for not being able to run wind sprints with my teammates I had grown to hate running.

January 26, 2006 I was in the hospital where my doctor was sticking a camera into my heart. Two days before my EKG lead the doctor to believe that there was something wrong with it. The week before I had been at Andrews Air Force Base where I had gone to the base fitness center to workout like I typically do when I travel. Afterwards my chest ached. I thought that maybe I had strained something while doing the bench press.

It was a Thursday and I had plane tickets to fly to Korea on Saturday for a meeting the following week. I knew that if I was not feeling well before the trip that the 15 hour plane flight and the 14 hour time difference would be a big strain on my body. Now on the screen I could see my own heart beating. The doctor pointed to an hour-glass shaped line on the screen. He said, "See the spot where the artery gets thin? You are 98% blocked. You might die if you try going over to Korea. You might not even survive the plane flight." Those words changed my travel plans. The next day I had triple by-pass heart surgery.

Recovery was not easy. Two weeks after the operation I was having trouble breathing. I thought I was having problems with my asthma, but an x-ray showed that I had a build up of fluid in my chest that had collapsed my left lung. They had to stick a stray sized needle into my back and drain out over a liter of fluid. Also, the 12" incision in my chest has caused nerve damage on the left side of my chest to where it feels like thousands of needles sticking me. Some days just wearing a shirt all day can tire me out.

Having lifted weights most of my life I knew I needed to build up the strength of my muscles again including my heart. I knew the best way of building up my heart was to do something aerobic. Even though I hated running, I know it was the best exercise for my heart. Being goal orientated I asked myself what would challenge me? Why not run a marathon. Well my heart doctor did not like that idea. I got him to agree to let me try to run a half marathon, but I had to monitor my heart rate as I ran and if it got above a certain level I agreed to walk until it went down.

It has now been over 4 years since my operation and I've run 12 half-marathons and a quite few 5 and 10k's. Each one I try and do a little bit better, but not without problems. While running I have had sports induced asthma attacks. I fight through them, but my lungs do not put enough oxygen into my blood while it occurs. Your muscles need oxygen to work well so I end up having cramps in my legs. My breathing doctor says to use my inhaler to help with the attacks, but the inhaler causes my heart rate to rise so I end up having to walk. If I walk then I don't have the asthma attacks so I don't need the inhaler.

My heart doctor had told me that my good fitness level kept me from having a heart attack when I was much younger. He also said that by knowing my body it got me in to see him before I actually had a heart attack. I know that running will keep me fit for the future. I might not be the fastest. I might walk when my heart rate gets too high, but I always try to Achieve my True Potential. (ATP) And I always try to enjoy myself. I may still hate running, but doing it with my friends in San Antonio Fit makes the hated running enjoyable. Each week I trying my best, fighting through the pain and enjoying every step no matter how hot it gets.

"Top results are reached only through pain. But eventually you like this pain. You'll find the more difficulties you have along the way, the more you will enjoy your success." JUHA VAATAINEN (who won the 1971 European Championships for the 10,000-meter (10K) in 27 minutes 52 seconds - that's like 4 ½ minute pace guys!)

"Running is ultimately a personal experience. It is a revival of the spirit, a private oasis for the thirsty mind. Yet, its healing power only increases in the presence of others. Run together and the oasis grows cooler and more satisfying." AMBY BURFOOT (Who won the 1968 Boston Marathon and is now the Editor At Large of Runner's World magazine.)

Larry Graf - ATP Coach

Blue / Green

Hey Blue/green,

So this week's topic is speed work, something that I'll be honest with you I don't really enjoy doing. I don't really enjoy running at a hard pace around a track over and over again. It's just not my favorite thing to do. I would rather run a hilly course over speed. The great thing about speed work is that it does help to improve your pace. When I first trained for my first marathon I didn't do any speed work. I still finished my first marathon under four hours and was very pleased with my time. But like most runners I really wanted to qualify for the Boston marathon and I knew that one thing that I needed to do was speed work. There are many types of speed workouts: tempo runs, Fartleks, and intervals. I ran tempo runs and I did the Yasso 800's. The 800's really helped me to become a faster runner. The idea is that you run the 800's in the time you want to finish the marathon in. So let's say you want to finish a marathon in 4 hours, you would run each 800 in four minutes and recover for the same amount of time. You begin with four 800's and each subsequent week add one more until you reach ten. The workout should be completed at least 14 to 17 days before the marathon. This workout really helped me achieve my goal last summer in San Francisco when I qualified for the Boston marathon.

Keep running strong,

Coach Jessica

Yellow

Howdy Yellow Runners-

Great job on 8 miles this past week, although it was extremely humid. I know for a lot of you this was further than you have ever run and you should pat yourself on the back. Also, be aware that you will not be running this short of a distance again until you taper for your marathon, so I hope you enjoyed it. This week we will be running one of my favorite routes - on 1604 to NW Military and back. This is one of the nicest 9 mile routes that I know and it has actually helped me get through one of my marathons, as I was counting down the miles from 17 to 26.2. I wanted to commend you on being safe runners this past weekend in Hollywood Park, even though runners from other groups weren't. Please continue to be safe, run a maximum of 2 abreast and watch out for traffic signals and signs. Remember, we are not running PR's on Saturday mornings, we are working on endurance. If you want to get faster, speed work is a good way to do that.

Starting in the next week or so, we will be incorporating speed work into our weekly workout routines. Speed work is one of the ways you can get faster, as it trains your muscles to continue working when you feel absolutely too tired to keep going. We start with shorter sprints and work our way up to where you can run almost 1 mile at a really fast speed. When doing speed work, always make sure you get about 1 mile as warm up in and that you stretch. Then between each fast interval make sure you either jog slowly or walk to give your body time to recover. At the end of the work out make sure that you do a cool down mile at a slow speed and again stretch your muscles. Speed work is very different from our long runs on the weekend. If you can't go to a track, try finding something in your neighborhood where it would allow you to run intervals. I live in a small neighborhood where I can run down one street fast and recover on the way back and run that for as many repetitions that I have time for or that the schedule requires. As the season progresses, I like to move to Yasso 800's. If you have heard of these, they are tough but have proven to increase marathon pace. If you have not heard of them, stick around and you will get to enjoy them with me this season.

See you all on Saturday - bright and early. REMEMBER WE START AT 6 AM.

Your Yellow Coaches - Svenja, Amber, Michelle, Sarah, and Vidal

Red

"The Need for Speed"

Last week we continued to look at efficiency in our running with proper nutrition to enhance your running abilities and aid in recovery after a run. We've been building our base, adding mileage, learning about pacing and form; and now we get into the part of our training that we've all been waiting for...you feel the need...the need for speed! Right now, our training schedule calls for one day of hill work and one day of tempo running. In mid July, the hills will be replaced by speed work which along with the tempo training will continue through end of the season. All three of which are designed to build up your endurance and strength which will make you more efficient and, yes, run faster!

As our miles and time running start to add up, we need to gradually use these speed training sessions and work up to their full potential. They will help us to make our muscles stronger including our heart muscle. But we don't want to do over-do it and risk getting injured or burn out. If you run too fast you will not be working in the proper heart rate zone, or if you run with too much effort you will tire yourself out or get hurt. "Tempo Run" is a three part work out with the middle part at a faster pace than your long run. Warm up about 10 minutes, then push yourself past the easy effort where your breathing is labored and hold this steady pace for the middle segment. Then finish with a 10 minute cool down. The middle portion at "tempo pace" would be at about a 70% max effort. "Speed Work" is generally done on a track and is made up of quick repetitions of fast and slow paces after a proper warm up and followed by a cool down. During speed sessions, also called "intervals", run quickly at about a 80-90% effort for a set interval of time or distance quickly, then recover at a much slower pace for a set time/distance. So how do we know what speed is right for us? As Red runners we are in the pace group of 10-10:55 minute mile, so to put training in perspective, here is an example for a 10:30 minute miler who would run a marathon in 4:35:00:

8:15- 9:00 Speed Intervals (80-90% max effort)

9:30- 9:45 Tempo Pace (70%)

10:50-11:40 Long Runs (65%)

11:40-13:00 Easy / Recovery (60%)

Orange

Hey there, Orange TEAM! If you didn't get the announcement last week: we are starting our run at 6:00 am! Be there in plenty of time to sign in and get a raffle ticket. I hope you are all enjoying the pre-run warm-ups. The rest of the groups are already impressed and maybe a little intimidated!

Speaking of getting there on time, did I mention that we are starting at 6:00 am? If you show up at 6:30 we will be long gone!

I will be reminding everyone about our SAFit rules: we must carry water and I will go over the route, pointing out all of the highlights and possible pitfalls. All of this great information will occur just after the raffle prize has been awarded, so make sure you are there for our 6:00 am start time! You might even win!

I hope you are all enjoying this season of SAFit so far and I am really seeing our group start to jell as a TEAM, with members looking out for each other, encouraging and giving out high fives to each other, so lets keep up the good work that we have started. Please consider leaving the headphones and ipods at home and make a friend, or at least take one headphone off. It is much easier to approach someone and strike up a conversation if they are able to hear you!

It is also important to get there on time! What time did I say we are starting? Oh, yeah: 6:00 am!

Orange Zest is the Best!

Kathy S.

--

Is it speed you need?

Before I "speed" into the topic, let me just reiterate: Unless we sprout wings, we are NOT going to win the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in November! That does not mean we are not going to finish before they roll up the race course, however.

If you were present on the first day of the USA Fit program, you heard that the philosophy of San Antonio Fit is to become FIT while having fun and to reach the starting line healthy, conditioned, and free of injuries. Remember that a marathon is primarily about endurance, not speed. Speeding increases your chance of injury. Therefore, if this is your first marathon, speed should not be the focus of your training. It is difficult enough to go the distance, and if you wear yourself out by running a 5K pace, you will quit at 10K.

However, with the addition of a speed component to your training, it is possible to adapt your body to faster overall running. Some of the speed workouts included in our training program are tempo runs, interval runs, fartleks, and hill runs. A tempo run consists of a warm-up, then a 20-min run at a pace with a heart rate of about 85% max, finishing with a slow cool-down jog. Interval runs are repeated bouts of high-intensity running with intermittent rest (recovery) periods. Fartleks (Swedish for "speed play") can be compared to a less-structured form of interval training. While interval training is usually done on a track, fartleks can take place anywhere. For example, in the city, you may want to run all out for one block, then jog or walk for another one, thus allowing your heart rate to return to near-resting rate, then pick up the pace again or run up a hill, or do some other moving-fun thing. Hills-what can I say? Maybe just this-in hill work, you run up fast and come down slow. Defies logic, wouldn't you say? But, boy, does it pay off in the long run (no pun intended)!

Play with this and see what happens to your overall pace, but don't let your exuberance lead you to an injury. Remember to prepare your muscles for any increased effort by walking, then slowly jogging for 10 to 15 minutes. See you at the finish!

Coach Ute

Purple

Can you believe we are already almost in July? You have already made it this far so keep up the great work. The key to this training program lies within staying motivated, training smart & safe, and maintaining proper nutrition. You can successfully train and meet all of your fitness goals. Believe in yourself. Talk to the people around you and get to know your fellow purple team members. The more you are connected the higher your level of success. So far the miles have been shorter so that you can build a good base; you have Saturday practice for endurance, and now comes the speed/tempo work you will focus on during the midweek. So what is all this speed/tempo work mumbo jumbo?

Tempo

A Tempo is a steady state fast workout. Push yourself a little this day, but don't push so hard you can not complete the scheduled time. Be sure to warm-up well at the beginning of your workout. For example, when the schedule says 10-10-10 you warm up for 10 mins than push yourself the next 10 about 85% of your max heart rate. You will be breathing very hard and only able to speak in short phrases. Then the last 5 to 10 minutes should be a cool down period.

Speed Work

At least 1 day a week you want to practice speed by doing short intervals at a fast pace, resting (walk at a comfortable pace) between intervals. If you have never incorporated speed intervals into your routine you should start out by doing fartleks. These are untimed intervals of faster paced and comfortable paced walking. Once you are more experienced you can move on to one minute fast, 2 minutes slow, and gradually build to 2 minutes fast, one minute slow, etc.. ALWAYS warm up well before doing any speed work.

This variety of workouts will ensure you get slow fat-burning workouts, aerobic carbo-burning workouts that also build and feed your muscles, and avoid overtraining and anaerobic workouts. "To get better, you have to do different workouts during a typical week.

Here are a few reminders this week. Don't forget your nutrition as the months get hotter and the distance gets longer and hillier, it's important to know that without enough energy/proper fluids, you might become weak and encounter what most refer to as hitting the wall. It could become that much harder to complete the marathon and increase your chances of getting injured. A nutrition sample day is quickly approaching, ask your coaches for more information. If you have any concerns while out on the course please let coaches/asst coaches know. It's import to make sure that you have either a coaches number or the Tri-point /RGR number in case of any emergencies. Also if you have any additional questions please use the google groups. It's a great way to get information and special tips from your coaches and hear what your fellow walkers walk/runners at both locations are doing. Lastly,

Realize that if you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.

Walk on & Walk Strong

Asst. Coach Janel

Aqua

Have you wondered why the schedule still has us running 20-30 minute easy runs three times a week? We are building our base. We are getting used to the mileage, the pace, the heat, the roads, and, of course, the basic running. If you look ahead at the full schedule, you will see that our weekly runs have increased in time and we will be incorporating speed work in the next few weeks.

What is a 8x30-30 workout? "8x30-30" means "30 seconds fast, 30 seconds slow, eight times in a row." After a thorough warm-up (about 10 minutes or one mile), run for 30 seconds at about 90-95% intensity, then do a 30-second recovery jog. Make sure that you don't slow down during the workout, so you are running your last 30 seconds about as fast, or even a little faster, than your first 30 seconds. Run on a soft surface (track or treadmill) if you can, rather than on concrete or asphalt. When you are done, jog or walk slowly for a while to cool down. Both the number of repeats, and the duration of the fast and slow intervals, will change from week to week.

Even though speed work can increase your pace, it's also the cause of many running injuries. Speed work should only be done after building a good base of endurance and strength, which is what the schedule has had us doing during the first few weeks. You MUST warm up before any type of speed work out. Warming up decreases muscle tension and reduces muscle soreness. Most of you will be sore for a few days but don't worry, it's normal. Don't be intimidated by the faster runners at the track. Everyone has to start somewhere. Follow the schedule properly and do not try to do more than your body can handle. Stretch after a speed and hill workout! Do not wait more than 5 minutes after you've stopped running/walking. Don't dread these workouts, have fun with them!!

**Athletes who have joined the program late and have not yet built their base mileage to at least 30 minutes, skip the speed work for another week or two.

See you at 6 am on Saturday morning! Don't forget to sign up for our google group discussion board for weekly updates! Just log in and subscribe to: http://www.groups.google.com/group/safit10aqua.

Coach Laurie, Rose and Mary