TWW Daily Feed for May 16th, 2012: lots of nutrition, running rules to break and drinking and cycling

May 16th, 2012 | by jm0 Comments

There are some hoops worth jumping through.
skier-at-whistler
The Feed

The legality of drinking and cycling: Bicycling.com has a little blurb up looking at the laws surrounding drinking and cycling. As in, can you get a bicycling under the influence ticket? As it turns out yes, you can. Depending on what state you live in. It is probably not a good idea to drink and bike in Oregon, but South Dakota is a good bet for those that like to combine beer and bikes.

Running rules you should break: Runner’s World has a list of some common running rules/conceptions that might not be the best idea (for example: strides before a race). Most of them seem to fall in to the common sense category. Such as don’t “structure your schedule” when training. I liked the little blurb about how building upper body mass can help with running efficiency. As someone with some upper body mass I can verify that generally, extra weight = extra effort.

Beet juice for training: In a devious attempt to both increase your oxygen utilization when training and terrify you during your morning bathroom trip, Outside Online has a nice post up talking about the benefits of beets and other vegetables as natural ways to increase oxygen utilization when training and racing. The piece delves in to some of the science behind how components of vegetables, in this case nitrates, work within the body to increase oxygen flow. Definitely worth a read if you are looking to modify your nutrition.

Nutrition for training (and aging): Trail Runner Magazine has a fairly standard “here is what you should be eating” post up, which includes advice about increasing anti-oxidant consumption, zinc, protein and so on. There isn’t much new here, but it is a nice reminder of the foods we should be eating.

Is there such a thing as “too many” training miles?: There are moments in long training cycles where I step back and think “What the hell am I doing to myself. Is this extra run really going to make me faster?” Or, in other words, can you reach a training zenith in which the total accumulation of miles is actually doing more harm than good? That would be a big MAYBE. The NY Times Well blog looks at the “too many miles” question and reviews some of the studies on the subject. The bottom line: there is simply not enough evidence to make a definitive conclusion. The article is worth a read as it breaks down the effect of age on performance, but it definitely does not answer the question of whether those 5:30AM runs are really worth it.

Posted in Daily Feed

TWW Daily Feed for May 14th, 2012: is endurance training bad for you?, Olympics in Colorado and the top canned beers

May 14th, 2012 | by jm0 Comments

Yesterday was an experiment in complete and utter laziness. With tons of projects and the desire to put in a twenty mile day on the trails my response was to lay on the couch, eat all day and indulge my inner thirteen year old by racking up hours on various video games. I have found, through years of experimentation, that if I am not out and exercising as my first weekend activity that my psyche quickly morphs to that of a 45 year old, 300lb divorcee who spends most of Sunday migrating between the couch and the bathroom. Overall, a pretty horrible change that usually makes me feel like crap for the rest of the week. I suppose that this is what happens without kids; there is simply no reason to engage in the day apart from internal motivations. Thankfully, with some unusual prodding by the girlfriend, I managed to make it over to the Manitou Incline for an early evening hike/run. It wasn’t enough to obviate my feelings of guilt, but it was the right dose of solitary mountain and sweat to make me feel like Sunday wasn’t a complete waste. Here’s to hoping this weekend is more adventure/outside based. Hope everyone got outside and enjoyed the outdoors much more than I did.

A nice calming video to start the work grind.

The Feed

2012 Tour of California riders to watch: This is fairly late considering that the Tour of California cycling race is already a stage in, but that is my fault and not Bicycling.com’s. Here is their slideshow guide of riders to watch for this year at the Tour along with a rundown of their strengths and weaknesses and result histories. Levi Leipheimer started this year, which was a surprise after his broken leg accident earlier in the season. His participation is throwing off the projected podium so it should make for an interesting race this year. You can follow the action at the Tour’s official website: http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/.

2022 Winter Olympic rumblings: There has been some talk in Colorado that Denver will attempt to put together a bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, which could see the skiing and snowboarding events at the Vail owned mountains. It looks like Tahoe is also hoping to get in on the action. In either scenario, Vail comes out on top as they own mountains in both Tahoe and Colorado. I’m going to make a prediction that the games, if they come to Colorado or Tahoe, will come to the location in which Vail stands to profit the most.

For the mom’s out there: A great essay from the Adventure Life in praise of moms who crush.

Just in time for summer: Outside Online’s list of the top 10 beers in a can. The can trend has been going strong for a while now and while incredibly convenient for hiking and camping I have to say I’m not a huge fan. I think beer always taste cleaner and “fresher” out of a bottle. And besides, it is much harder to shank someone with a beer can than a broken beer bottle.

Micah True’s death and a reflection on endurance training and health: Micah True was a fairly well known endurance athlete who recently passed away from heart disease. Which, appropriately, freaked out just about every endurance athlete on the planet. How can a guy known for living an extremely healthy lifestyle die of heart disease? Was his running a cause of that hear disease? Thankfully, Sweat Science has a phenomenal post up looking at various studies that point toward how lifelong endurance training may contribute to heart problems, but also examining the overall picture that those who exercise regularly will, statistically, live years longer than those who don’t (make sure to check out the NFL link Alex throws in there. That is another great post.).

Posted in Daily Feed

TWW Daily Feed for May 9th, 2012: Exercise to build bone strength, Denver as Adventure Town and when to work out

May 9th, 2012 | by jm0 Comments

The last week or two have been slow as far as outside/fitness/awesome videos go, and I’ve been slacking on getting the Feed up. It would seem that when the weather gets nice the bloggers and website runners head outside instead of posting cool stuff to check out. Hope everyone is having a great week.

Surfing and orchestra. Great combination.

The Feed

When is the best time of day to work out?: I vote any time of day that works best with your schedule for the rest of the day. But, at least physiologically, that might not be the case. Outside has a little blurb up reviewing the best time of day to work out to maximize performance, lose weight and get used to race day.

Building bone strength through exercise: There have been a lot of articles up this week about recent studies demonstrating that it is possible to build bone strength later in life through exercise. Which is good news, as the prior thinking was that our bone strength steadily declines after the 20s hit. Sweat Science has the most science oriented post up. The key, it seems, to building bone strength is the type of exercise that is performed on a regular basis. It seems that activities that are more jarring, such as basketball or gymnastics are better than “non-impact” sports such as cycling and swimming (running is ranked relatively low as well). The lesson seems to be that you need to add some sort of jarring exercise into your routine on a regular basis to keep the bones strong.

A testament to Denver as an Adventure Town: The Adventure Life has a great essay/testament up about why Denver is an amazing adventure town. As the author points out, Denver is not Portland or Seattle – the access to mountains is not as readily achieved, nor is the town as cultured and food oriented. But, as the author points out, it is what Denver possesses that other towns don’t; Red Rocks, climbing in short sleeves in January and the grit of a major city this close to the mountains. I have a love/hate with Denver, and despite its complete lack of culture and incredibly limited amount of good food I think Colorado Springs is the better “adventure” town, but the essay is great love letter to Denver as outside destination.

The National Park Service is on the side of money: In 2004 Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, clear cut 130 trees on a national park. A park ranger named Robert M. Danno was responsible for investigating the incident. And then he was blackballed by the very agency he represented. Adventure Life has the story up talking about what happened next. Nothing like marrying money with government to make you cynical for the ability of our representatives to effectively, and independently, protect our natural areas.

Posted in Daily Feed

TWW Feed for May 2nd, 2012: Skating in Afghanistan, when to replace your minimalist shoes and how over training effects the dome

May 2nd, 2012 | by jm0 Comments

Another entry from the Vimeo Awards action sports category. This video is phenomenal and worth 9 minutes of your day.

The Feed

When to replace your minimalist running shoes: A short little blurb from Outside Magazine about what to look out for when assessing whether or not to replace your minimalist running shoes. In most running shoes the midsole material breaks down relatively quickly, but in minimalist shoes there is very little midsole material, and as a result runners are able to put in a lot more miles in minimalist shoes than in normal running shoes. Bottom line? Tread wear is the important indicator.

How over training slows you down: Sweat Science has a short post up (with a link to the longer study abstracts) reviewing the effects of over training on cognitive performance. As the graph within the post demonstrates, drastic increases in activity loads slows down cognitive abilities. Pretty interesting and something to keep in mind before a big test or presentation.

Does resistance training interfere with aerobic training, and vice versa?: I literally had no idea that this was even an issue but apparently there has been a lot of disagreement in the exercise science world about whether aerobic exercise follow up by resistance training interferes with the benefits gained by aerobic training and whether reversing that combo inhibits resistance training benefits. Gretchen Reynolds from the NY Times Well Blog has a nice post up reviewing the “controversy” and some studies that actually sought to measure the effect, if any, of “mixed training” interference. The studies, while flawed, do seem to indicate there is no actual interference effect. Good news for the runner/meathead folk out there. And for the rest of you who had no idea this was even an issue (ie: 99.9% of the population), keep on shredding.

Posted in Daily Feed

TWW Feed for April 30th, 2012:Nutrition tips from top runners, the Vimeo Awards, and why sitting at work is bad for you

April 30th, 2012 | by jm0 Comments

And welcome to the last day of April and the first week of May. For those of us on the Front Range of Colorado, it seems that Spring has been here since about January. We have been fairly lucky with tons of sun filled days and milder temps. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

“Sense of Flying”: the first of twelve candidates for Vimeo’s 2012 Awards in the “action sports” category.

The Feed

Vimeo’s collection of the best adventure videos: Outside Online as a little blurb up about Vimeo’s finalists for its 2012 Awards. This is the first year that the site is featuring an action sports category. There are 12 video candidates within the category that you can waste a few hours at work exploring. I’ll try to post a few of them this week. Great stuff and a great way to spend a few hours during a rainy day.

Nutritional plans, as designed by runners: Run Addicts.net has a piece up discussing the nutritional habits of elite level runners, focusing on what to eat before, during and after a run or race. There are some good tips in here, such as making sure to eat proteins after a run to speed recovery. However, I’m pretty leery of the “before” advice as far as the carb loading goes. The piece advocates lots of carb loading with pasta, potatoes, rice, etc. I think with a lot of this stuff, carb loading works for some and is terrible for others, depending on your individual digestive systems. For some people, loading their bellies up with carbs the night before an event is a recipe for disaster.

Sitting is so, so bad: Gretchen Reynolds, from the NY Times Fitness and Nutrition blog has a great piece up that reviews some of the latest research out there that is pretty conclusively demonstrating that sitting down all day at work, or in front of a TV all weekend, is pretty horrible for your overall health, even if you are a relatively active person. The piece is worth a read for a synopsis of some of the studies, such as one out of the University of Massachusetts in which scientists found that remaining sedentary for as little as forty eight hours resulted in drastic changes to cell metabolic processes. The lesson: get out of your every twenty minutes, and try to work standing up when you can.

A confessional from an arsonist: Outside has a fairly creepy post up featuring the confession/justification for Vail’s Two Elk fire that destroyed about $12 million worth of property on top of Vail Mountain in 1998. I say that the post is creepy because it goes into a good amount of detail about how two motivated but untrained “environmental terrorists” can do massive amounts of damage with fairly little in the way of material and planning. The piece is a good read but falls a little too far in to “self enlightened justification” for my tastes.

Posted in Daily Feed

TWW Feed for Friday, April 27th, 2012: Resistance training is good for the brain, how to size a bike, and the Nutella lawsuit

April 27th, 2012 | by jm0 Comments

Last night we attended a benefit for the Cheyenne Canon open space outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado at Bristol Brewery. Colorado Springs, like a lot of cities throughout the country, has undergone drastic budget cuts, including eliminating almost all of the city’s parks budget. Thankfully, a ton of “friends” groups have rallied and have been aggressively fundraising and organizing volunteer armies to ensure that the parks in the city are well maintained and preserved.

So here’s to you Friends of Cheyenne Canon. Thanks for helping to keep Cheyenne Canon one of Colorado Springs’ best assets.

bristol-beer

The Feed

Nutella problems: A California mom recently sued the maker of the Nutella hazelnut spread, Ferrero, for “deceptive advertising”, arguing that ads and marketing for Nutella made it seem like a healthy food source. Ferrero’s response? They settled! For 3 million dollars! Why in the world would you not fight this in court? Flip the jar over and you can easily see that there are 200 calories per 2-tablespoon serving. And HALF of those calories come from fat. Thank you California mom for turning your nutritional ignorance in to yet another frivolous lawsuit that was awarded. Someone needs to start suing Americans that don’t know how to compute nutritional information (thanks to @endurobites for the link).

How to size a bike correctly: Bicycling.com has a handy little post up that details the proper way to size a new bike, including how to adjust your cleats to the proper position. Never once have I walked into a bike shop and had them detail fit me like this post describes. Usually I get a once over by the sales guy and steered towards the extra reinforced carbon bikes that are stress tested to 300lbs.

Maybe being a gym rat isn’t a bad thing: A few days ago we threw up a NY Times article that detailed how aerobic training seems to improve cognitive capacity. When I read the article I was pretty stoked. Another reason to make fun of dudes that spend way too many hours in the gym getting yoked! Well, as it turns out, getting yoked might not be a bad thing either. Sweat Science has a run down of a study showing that elderly test subjects improved cognitive function more by lifting weights than by engaging in aerobic exercise. Damn it! I’m still making fun of their insistence on a pre, during, and post workout shake.

And to finish off the week, a little Portland, Oregon love in the form of a great time lapse video featuring the best of the city. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Posted in Daily Feed