The Atlanta BeltLine Running Series

BY LAUREN

Look­ing for your first — or next — 5k?

Join me and a few other BC4Cers for the next 5k in the Atlanta Belt­Line Run­ning series. The next race will be held July 16, so now is the per­fect time to start training.

Karen, Kate, Mary Frances, Rama and I com­pleted the first 5k in the series, which was held on April 30th in the Col­lier Hills area. It was a hilly run, but fun… and worth it for the t-shirt and swag!

Watch this video to learn more. You may spot some­one you know around 0:38…

The Haka

BY TRACY

Although Rugby may not be very pop­u­lar in the US, it is one of the most pop­u­lar sports world­wide. If you have ever watched a game, it can be a lit­tle con­fus­ing at first (I call it American-football-on-crack), so be sure to watch it with some­one who knows the rules.

How­ever, to me the most enter­tain­ing aspect of rugby is not the game itself but the pre-game rit­ual. Take New Zealand for exam­ple, they are called the All Blacks and they per­form a dance called the Haka.

The Māori war style dance has been a part of the team’s pre-game rit­ual dat­ing back to 1884. Māori are the indige­nous Poly­ne­sian peo­ple of New Zealand. The most per­formed Haka at New Zealand rugby games is called the “Ka mate, Ka Mate.”

Check out this video to see the rit­ual in action. Think we can try this out at boot camp?

Holiday Challenge Results

Nor­mally, we like to share a healthy recipe with you every Fri­day, but today we want to inspire you with some high­lights from this past winter’s Hol­i­day Chal­lenge. Enjoy!

For those of you that were around this win­ter, you may remem­ber that we orga­nized a 3 month Hol­i­day Chal­lenge from Novem­ber to Jan­u­ary. All the com­peti­tors put in $20 and the male and female win­ners split the entire winnings.

The rules were simple:

1. You must keep a log book every day (and yes, this means Christ­mas, New Years and Thanksgiving!).
2. You must do the bench­mark work­outs at the begin­ning and end of the Chal­lenge, which included the Base­camp work­out and a 5k run.
3. You must set nutri­tion and per­for­mance goals
4. You must com­mit to the entire 3 months.

We had 15 com­peti­tors and the win­ners were announced Feb­ru­ary 22. Mar­cia Ware was the over­all female win­ner and Gra­ham Car­roll was the over­all male win­ner. These results are seri­ously inspir­ing, whether you are an ath­lete who is in good shape but wants to get even stronger and faster, or you are a begin­ner camper who won­ders how all these peo­ple got so fit and fast!

Here are their results:

Gra­ham:

• 2.6% reduc­tion in body fat
• 20 sec­onds off his base camp run
• 45 sec­onds off his over­all base camp time
• 10 sec­onds off his 5k time

The biggest trans­for­ma­tion of all was the fact that he cut his daily Diet Coke con­sump­tion by over half! Prior to the chal­lenge, Gra­ham was drink­ing 100 oz of Diet Coke every day. Through­out the entire 3 months of the chal­lenge, he cut his daily amount down to less than 40 oz., a huge reduc­tion for a Diet Coke addict!

Mar­cia:

• 5% reduc­tion in body fat
• 2:15 off on her over­all base­camp time
• 8 minute off her 5k run time

The most impor­tant and sig­nif­i­cant detail of all was that we had 51 boot­camp ses­sions dur­ing that 3 month period, and Mar­cia attended almost every sin­gle one (unless she was out of town), but she ALSO worked out twice a week on her own! That means she was con­sis­tently work­ing out 5–6 days a week! She was so inspired by her results that she con­tin­ued to work out and com­pleted her first half marathon in March.

Remem­ber, this chal­lenge was over three major food-feasting and alcohol-consuming hol­i­days, when it is the cold­est, dark­est and least moti­vat­ing out­side (the cold­est morn­ing was 13 degrees!). These results are a tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion, con­sis­tency, and moti­va­tion of Gra­ham and Mar­cia, as well as all the participants.

Now what is your excuse for not bring­ing your log book?

The Benefits of Group Running

BY TRACY

My mom has started run­ning for the first time in her life in prepa­ra­tion for her first 5k. She calls me her “run­ning trainer” and asks me for advice on shoes, what her pace should be, rest­ing tech­niques (Gall-o-walking as I call it) and how to pre­pare men­tally for her first race. She finally entered and ran her first 5k a few weeks ago and was so proud of her­self! She took pic­tures along the way and sent me one of her­self at the fin­ish line.

Now she has dis­cov­ered a dif­fer­ent problem–motivation. She is start­ing to get bored with the same old rou­tine now that she doesn’t have the excite­ment of the race to moti­vate her. I had only one piece of advice for her: Find a run­ning group. In my opin­ion, run­ning with a group makes the expe­ri­ence less of a chore and more of a fun, social experience.

This arti­cle sums the ben­e­fits up perfectly:

Cre­ative Stim­u­la­tion: Run­ning is very ful­fill­ing in terms of cre­ative sat­is­fac­tion. Most of us at one point or other, should have expe­ri­enced bet­ter cre­ative impulses while walk­ing or run­ning. So many con­struc­tive thoughts, full of pos­i­tive energy and vibes crop up in an indi­vid­ual while run­ning. Run­ning is like mobile med­i­ta­tion. Group run­ning is good for facil­i­tat­ing fruit­ful inter­ac­tion. The enthu­si­asm of one able peer spreads across the rest of the group mem­bers, through a cas­cade effect. This enriches the col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence of the group lead­ing to a bet­ter outcome.

Boosts the Moti­va­tion: Another impor­tant ben­e­fit of group run­ning is the sort of moti­va­tion that it gen­er­ates. The very fact that some­body out there is wait­ing for you to join him/her makes you feel more respon­si­ble and pushes you for­ward. So, as far as pos­si­ble make it a point to take a fam­ily mem­ber or a friend along with you.

Enhanc­ing the Per­for­mance: Group run­ning involves friendly chats, which add to the ambi­ence of run­ning and the short friendly races, which boost the com­pet­i­tive spirit of the par­tic­i­pants. All these add to improved per­for­mance in the long run.

Ensures Career Ben­e­fits: It is not always in a golf course that deals are sealed, even run­ning offers viable occa­sion for ben­e­fi­cial inter­ac­tions. Tak­ing your team mem­bers or clients along with you is always help­ful in pro­mot­ing your pro­fes­sional inter­ests. Run­ning is arguably the best pro­fes­sional net­work tool.

Expands the Social Cir­cle: Run­ning is the most suit­able oppor­tu­nity for bring­ing together peo­ple with com­pat­i­ble mind­sets. Run­ning also helps in expand­ing your social cir­cle. There are some peo­ple who have actu­ally come across their prospec­tive close friends and even spouses while running.

Now that we are enter­ing into the Spring and Sum­mer sea­sons, we will be offer­ing a few group runs a month. Stay tuned to the blog and check your email for our next orga­nized group run!

Editor’s note: Join your fel­low BC4Cer, Emily Hawkins, at the upcom­ing gen­eR­ACE­tion 2011. It will be in Grant Park on Sat. May 21 and start at 8:15am.

Show your sup­port for Kate’s Club and Senior Cit­i­zens Ser­vices. The event is open to all fit­ness lev­els, with every­thing from a 2K fun run/walk to a Peachtree Road Race 10K qual­i­fier event.

After the race, Emily has invited all BC4Cers to be her guest at the annual Kate’s Club Fam­ily Pic­nic! Meet her in the large pavil­ions from 10-1pm for burg­ers, hot dogs and other snacks. Bring your fam­ily and friends to enjoy the music, face paint­ing, and games.

Go to www​.gen​er​ace​tion​.org to reg­is­ter or www​.scsatl​.org/​g​e​n​e​r​a​c​e​t​ion to learn more about the race.