The Hills Were Alive!

That was one of the best hill run­ning work­outs I’ve seen yet! Every­one was work­ing to full capac­ity — and I didn’t even hear one sin­gle whim­per or com­plaint. All I heard were the sounds of speed and strength.

Hills are your friends. Hills drills can make you a faster and stronger run­ner. But the best part is that hill drills can also increase your con­fi­dence. The more you run hills, the less intim­i­dat­ing they’ll seem when you encounter them on a long run or race course. Your improved strength and tech­nique on the hills will def­i­nitely give you a con­fi­dence boost when you’re racing.

As you per­form your hill drills, keep these tech­niques in mind:

Uphill: Take short quick steps (baby steps) as if rid­ing a bicy­cle in low gear. Use your arms in a straight back and for­ward and up motion to help lift your legs. Con­cen­trate on relax­ing your upper body and par­tic­u­larly the back of your upper legs. Look where you are going and not down at your feet.

Down­hill: Don’t hold back. Go for it! Lengthen out your stride to take advan­tage of the hill. Land on the balls of your feet with your knees bent. Let your arms swing to the sides and across your body to help keep your bal­ance and to rotate your hips to improve stride length. Con­cen­trate on using the mus­cles in the backs of your legs to push you for­ward. Remem­ber, you can go a lot faster than you think and still be under control.

Tran­si­tions: Strive to make a smooth but imme­di­ate tran­si­tion in your form and stride length as you go from uphill to down­hill or as the slope changes. Antic­i­pate the changes in ter­rain and change your form and stride length accord­ingly. Main­tain your cadence.

Week 1 — the hard­est week some say — is done! How are you feel­ing? Share your thoughts by click­ing “Com­ments” above.

IMAGE CREDIT: Run With Jill

Ice Ice Baby!

BY LAUREN

Great work this morn­ing, run­ners! I saw both groups in action and all of you were cov­er­ing a lot of ground in lit­tle time.

As Andrew men­tioned dur­ing the cool-down stretch, a cold shower or ice bath can help your sore mus­cles recover quicker. You can also try using an ice pack on any spe­cific sore spots.

Don’t own an ice pack? Here’s how you can make your own:

THINGS YOU’LL NEED

• (2) quart-sized Ziploc® Freezer bags *
• 1.5 cups of water
• 0.5 cup of rub­bing alcohol

PREPARATION

1. Fill (1) Ziploc® Freezer bag with the water
2. Add rub­bing alcohol
3. Gen­tly squeeze out any air and seal the bad tightly
4. Mix the liq­uids by squeez­ing gently
5. Place bag inside the sec­ond bag so your ice pack is double-bagged for protection
6. Place bag in the freezer until frozen (sev­eral hours)
7. BONUS: add blue food col­or­ing so that your home­made pack looks like the fancy ones you can buy in a sport­ing goods store!

The trick is that the alco­hol keeps the water from freez­ing com­pletely, so you end up with a bag of slushy liq­uid, which is ideal for plac­ing around your joints.

Be sure to always use a towel or cloth between the ice pack and your skin, and if pos­si­ble, ele­vate your limb while icing. Ice for 30 min­utes at a time.

* You can make larger ice packs by using the gal­lon size bags. Sim­ply increase the water and alco­hol amounts appro­pri­ately to fill the bag, using 1 part alco­hol to 3 parts water.

It’s Never Too Late…

to become the per­son you want to be!

Today we are high­light­ing a story about Ida Ida Keel­ing. Ida is the world’s fastest nonagenarian.

The 95-year-old Bronx native set a world record at a track meet in north­ern Man­hat­tan last week, run­ning 60 meters in 29.86 sec­onds, accord­ing to ABC News. She’s the old­est woman to do so.

At 4-foot-6 and 83 lbs Keel­ing says she has always been the old­est per­son at her meets. That might be because she didn’t even take up run­ning until she was 67.

From ABC News:

Active and healthy and liv­ing alone in her Bronx, N.Y., apart­ment, she could pass for 75. She says she feels even younger.
“Like a puppy,” she declares. “I feel younger now than when I was in my 30s and 40s and had all those prob­lems. Then I was aged!“
Keeling’s hus­band died of a heart attack at the age of 42, and both of her sons were killed in drug-related killings, accord­ing to ABC. Her daugh­ter, Shel­ley, a lawyer, real estate investor, and high school track coach con­vinced her mother to take up run­ning at 67.

Since then, Keel­ing has set record after record, becom­ing one of the world’s old­est sprint­ing leg­ends. Accord­ing to ABC, she set the record for the world’s fastest sprint in the 90-and-over age cat­e­gory last year.

For ABC’s piece on the elderly sprinter, check out the video below. (Click the image to jump to the arti­cle on the Huff­in­g­ton Post site and scroll down to see the video.)

ARTICLE REFERENCE: Huff­in­g­ton Post

Exercising releases _____.

BY MARY ELLEN

Unfor­tu­nately, vol­un­teer instruct­ing for one hour, four days a week, for an orga­ni­za­tion that gives all its money away doesn’t exactly pay the bills. Enter my real job in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing at Lost Boys inter­na­tional (shame­less plug!).

I was perus­ing indus­try sites the other day when I came across a blog post from another agency that caught my eye and really “res­onated.” (Sorry, had to throw in at least one Mar­ket­ing word.) It fea­tures the lat­est Asics cam­paign which is all about the fact that “by stay­ing active, you can shed neg­a­tiv­ity.” I thought the com­mer­cial was pretty cool – I can def­i­nitely feel things like stress and anx­i­ety leav­ing the bod when I work out. I also just hap­pen to be an Asics girl.

What does run­ning — or exer­cis­ing — release for you?

What is Interval Training?

BY DANIEL

Inter­val train­ing is when you work out while alter­nat­ing between higher-intensity exer­cises and lesser-intensity exer­cises for a set amount of time. A prime exam­ple of Inter­val Train­ing at boot camp is when you are asked to sprint and then asked to jog in order to recover your breath.

As you get bet­ter fit you should begin see­ing a decrease in your “rest” or “recov­ery” times and bet­ter fit­ness gains.

Ide­ally, inter­vals should be done in ratios of 2:3 (unless, of course, your boot camp Trainer as asked dif­fer­ent of you). Mean­ing you should work hard for two min­utes and then less hard for three min­utes. This does not mean work hard for two min­utes and then rest for three minutes!

Whether you’re new to boot camp or been around the block a few times, Inter­val Train­ing is your best method to make large fit­ness gains, such as:

• Lose weight: Inter­val Train­ing increases the amount of calo­ries you burn dur­ing and after your workout.
• Get stronger: Inter­val Train­ing will improve your aer­o­bic capac­ity, allow­ing you to work­out longer more intensely.

And, con­ve­niently, Inter­val Train­ing can be done with­out equip­ment and adds vari­ety to your workouts.