Kara Goucher and the Nike’s Oregon Project

On Monday (April 20th, 2009) Kara Goucher became the first American woman to finish in the top three in the Boston Marathon in 16 years, which is a great achievement.

Kara belongs to a project by Nike, called Oregon Project, lead by Alberto Salazar.  This is a group created in 2001 to promote American long distance running, using air thinning technology. By living in altitudes with thinner air, where less oxygen is available, the body increases its production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. When these athletes compete at lower altitudes, the extra red cells  supply their muscles more efficiently with oxygen, making them faster than their competitors.

Lance Armstrong, is also a believer in air thinning technology and was one of the first ones to try it in cycling.

Wired magazine wrote an excellent article in 2002 about the project. You can read it here.

The Los Angeles Times in 2007 also wrote an interesting piece on air thinning technology that you can read about here.

So it seems that the experiment is working at least for Kara. Although Ryan Hall, who  is not part of this experiment, also did really well (3rd place).

Cool triathlon t-shirts

There are a few places online that you can buy t-shirts and other stuff like mugs or mouse pads designed by simple people like you and me.

These sites also allow you to make your own designs and to sell them and make money from them.

From what I have found, the best designs are available from Cafe Press.

Cafe Press has the larges amount of designs.

 

Other similar sites are:

• Spreadshirt.com
• Zazzle
• Printfection

If you have a design that you want to upload for a shirt for you or to sell over at the sites, it is a very simple process and you can have your own store in a matter of minutes.

Read Alberto Salazar's Guide to Road Racing

I recently posted on Lactic Acid Threshold here.

You can read what Alberto Salazar** has to say about Lactic Acid Threshold in his book called Alberto Salazar’s Guide to Road Racing. It’s available at Google Book Search.

You can read from pages 32 to 37 about Lactic Acid Threshold. All these pages are available.

You can actually read most of the book online.

Here is the link:

Alberto Salazar's Guide to Road Racing

 

** According to wikipedia:

Alberto Salazar (born August 7, 1958 in Cuba) is an American marathon runner of the 1980s. Born in Cuba, Salazar immigrated to the United States with his family. They ultimately moved to Wayland, Massachusetts, where Salazar competed in track and field in high school. Salazar is best known for his performances in the New York City Marathons in the early 1980s and his American track records of 13:11.93 for 5,000 m (July 6, 1982 - Stockholm) and 27:25.61 for 10,000 m - (June 26, 1982 - Oslo).

You can read all his profile here.

Good sports books available for free (limited preview)

Google book search, is a good source to preview or read books online. They do not have the latest books available but you can find some interesting books with limited preview where you can read full chapters online.

Some great books I’ve found with limited preview are:

• Total Immersion. This is a revolutionary technique for triathlon swimmers. (click on the image to go to the book)
• Bicycling magazine’s 1,000 all times best tips. Link.
• Triathlon 101 by John Mora. Link.
• Triahtlon training by Michael Finch. Link.
• Triathlon training in four hours a week by Eric Harr. Link. (You can read the complete book online).
• Galloway’s Book on Running by Jeff Galloway, Richard Golueke, Edna Indritz, David Willis. Link.
• Alberto Salazar's Guide to Road Racing by Alberto Salazar, Richard A. Lovet. Link.
• Becoming an Ironman by Kara Douglass Thom. Link.
• Become an Ironman by Cherie Gruenfeld. Link.

There are many more books you can search and read online.

(If you run across other interesting books, drop me a note.)

Improve endurance by increasing lactic acid threshold

Paul Collins, M.D.,  an  orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine at Orthopedic Health Care in Boise, wrote an interesting article at Idahostatesman.com about lactic acid threshold.

In the article he says:

For many years, scientists thought lactic acid was a detrimental byproduct of exercise, but this is not the case. It turns out, the body uses lactic acid as a fuel to produce energy without oxygen.

You can read the rest of the article here. 

A New York times article also confirms this. In an article called Lactic Acid is Not Muscles’ Foe, It’s Fuel the author states:

Lactic acid is actually a fuel, not a caustic waste product. Muscles make it deliberately, producing it from glucose, and they burn it to obtain energy. The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid.

The notion that lactic acid was bad took hold more than a century ago, said George A. Brooks, a professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. It stuck because it seemed to make so much sense.

He also noted:

…Even though coaches often believed in the myth of the lactic acid threshold, they ended up training athletes in the best way possible to increase their mitochondria. "Coaches have understood things the scientists didn't," he said.

Through trial and error, coaches learned that athletic performance improved when athletes worked on endurance, running longer and longer distances, for example.

That, it turns out, increased the mass of their muscle mitochondria, letting them burn more lactic acid and allowing the muscles to work harder and longer.

Finish reading the article here.

In the following days I will provide some exercises you can make to increase your lactic acid threshold.

Foods that keep extra weight away

This article talks about 9 foods that can help you keep extra weight away.

Among the foods are:

1. Green tea

(In November, 1999, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published the results of a study at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Researchers found that men who were given a combination of caffeine and green tea extract burned more calories than those given only caffeine or a placebo.)

1. Yogurt
2. Beans
3. Water

You can keep reading here.

Some nice triathlon / marathon fotos from Flickr

A good deed

The World Bicycle Relief will be delivering 50,000 bicycles to schools in Zambia.

Working in partnership with local communities and other relief organizations, World Bicycle Relief will begin distributing the bicycles in June to students, teachers, and community supporters. To further enhance sustainability, World Bicycle Relief will also identify local field mechanics where the bicycles will be distributed to train and supply them with the proper tools and spare parts access to properly maintain and repair the bicycles.

According to the World Bicycle Relief, simple sustainable mobility in the form of a bicycle multiplies a person’s effort and efficiency with improved access to healthcare, education and economic development, especially when compared to the alternative of walking.

On this page, you can see the impact a bicycle can have on time, effort, distance and capacity.

Time During a commuting day of 10 miles traveled, a bicycle saves 3 hours. Walking – 2.5 miles per hour Bicycling – 10 miles per hour

You can make a donation on their web page.

Crash training for Ironman

This is a great article by Matt Fitzgerald on a guy named Robert Owens, a first generation Ironman.

According to Matt, Owens borrowed a bike for the 1980 Hawaii Ironman and completed the race after training for just a few weeks.

Read the article and next time you are about to face a competition and you don’t feel you have enough time, think about Owens and embrace your challenge with class.

Protein in eggs contributes to strength and energy

A recent research shows high-quality protein in eggs contributes to power, strength and energy.  This research was published by Nutrition today.

The Nutrition Today review analyzes more than 25 protein studies and concludes that the all-natural, high-quality protein in eggs contributes to strength, power and energy in the following ways:

• Sustained energy: The protein in eggs provides steady and sustained energy because it does not cause a surge in blood sugar or insulin levels, which can lead to a rebound effect or energy "crash" as levels drop. Eggs are a nutrient-rich source of high-quality protein and provide several B vitamins required for the production of energy in the body, such as thiamin, riboflavin, folate, B12 and B6.
• Muscle strength: Dietary protein intake directly influences muscle mass, strength and function in people of all ages. One egg provides more than six grams of high-quality protein (13 percent of the Daily Value), which can help individuals build and preserve muscle mass, and help older adults prevent muscle loss. Eggs are also rich in leucine, an essential amino acid that contributes to the muscle's ability to use energy and aids in post-exercise muscle recovery.
• Gold-standard protein: The high-quality protein in eggs provides all of the essential amino acids our bodies need to build and maintain muscle mass. In fact, the quality of egg protein is so high that scientists frequently use eggs as the standard for evaluating the protein quality of other foods.

Visit the Egg Nutrition Center at www.enc-online.org for more information on protein and the nutritional benefits of eggs.

Visit the American Egg Board at www.incredibleegg.org for egg recipes and preparation tips.

Sports groups in Linkedin

If you practice any endurance sport and would like to network with other athletes and business professionals, you should join linkedin and join some of the available networking groups in the site.

Joining linkedin is free (basic account) and joining up to 50 groups is also free.

Almost all the groups I have joined, have interesting discussions and you can meet interesting people.

You can generally have, Discussions, News, Jobs and an access to Members. You can get in touch with members or post your questions and/or your comments.

There are between 10 groups of triathletes, marathon runners and ironman finishers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just go to the linkedin search and look for groups with the sport you practice. You are bound to find other crazy people like you.

 

If you do join, you can add me to your network.  My email is michiels999@gmail.com 

 

Jobs in sports

If you are looking for a job in sports, here is short list of places where you can look for a job:

JobsInSports.com - A subscription-based service that works with groups such as the NFL, Orange Bowl and more.

SportsCareerFinder.com - For people already in the industry, or looking to break into it, SportsCareerFinder offers advice and provides job listings.

SportsDiversityRecruiting.com - Specializes in helping minorities and people with disabilities find jobs in the sports field suited to them.

SportsJobsUSA.com - Has job listings in virtually every part of the sports industry such as sales, management, administration and more.

SRSportsJobs.com - SRSportsJobs focuses on jobs that start in the neighborhood of $30,000 and are well above the entry level jobs that you can find on some other jobs boards.

TeamWorkOnline.com - A software vendor that supplies teams and stadiums with software to power their job boards. The convenient thing about their site is they provide quick access to all of the clients they work with such as major league teams and sporting organizations.

TheCorporatePlaybook.com - A site that helps college athletes make the transition from school to the corporate world. The jobs range from everyday jobs to those in the sports field.

WomenSportsJobs.com - Focuses on finding women jobs related to sports with teams, in broadcasting, coaching and more.

WorkInSports.com - The aptly named WorkInSports.com helps users find jobs with their favorite sports teams, from internships to higher level positions.

This list was compiled on October 16th, 2008  by Sean P. Aune at Mashable.com