A common myth for good sleep is to leave 2-3 hours between eating and sleeping. This is a good recipe for lying awake fretting.
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Neilon Running the 2011 Brighton Marathon
Do weight Training.
Properly executed heavy squats, dead-lifts and military presses should be the bread and butter of a weekly or twice weekly workout regime. Also work on Sky-divers/back extensions and planks. This will give you a very strong core and back and a robust body all round. It will also help you maintain a strong upright posture and keep your running more efficient. You’ll also be less prone to injury. - Don’t lose weight in order to go faster. Some people are tempted to shed a few extra pounds in the last couple of weeks in order to have less weight to carry around the course. Don’t! Any extra speed gained by being lighter would be negligible, however, you’ll risk significantly reducing your strength, energy and glycogen stores, making the whole thing much harder and slower.
- Do make eye contact. Connecting with others on the race and even during training will make you feel better and help with a sense of camaraderie. This will help make the challenges of the running more bearable. Also connecting with any charity that you’re running for and all the good your raised money will do will inspire you to keep going when it gets tough.
- Don’t buy special sports clothes. Any special wicking properties of so called high-tech materials are pretty irrelevant once you’re proper sweaty. However, if you like the figure hugging effect or that it helps you get into the right frame of mind or even that you like it cos it dries quicker after washing – then crack on.
- Don’t buy special sport gels. As far as race nutrition goes, the most important thing is that you can stomach it and digest it on the hoof. Carb gels are designed for the purpose but can be pretty gross. Kit-Kats are preferred by some people I know. The advantage of sports gels is that they often have added electrolytes is which good as you’ll have been sweating a lot. You can also get a similar effect from coconut water, bananas or having a bit of salt. It is essential that you practice the race nutrition on your long training runs to see what you best get on with. If a race is being supplied by a particular gel or bar, get hold of a few in advance to see if you like them.
- Do eat more protein. You need protein to repair muscles after training to make you stronger for your next run. After each training run chug down a pint of milk or a protein shake. You can also get protein from food like chicken, fish etc, but a shake is a lot easier when you’re knackered.
- Don’t drink too much water. On the day you absolutely need to keep hydrated, but if you’re constantly drinking water you’ll only need the loo which means jelly legs afterwards and obviously having to stop means you’ll be delayed getting to the finish line.
- Do take an old top to the start line. It’ll be pretty nippy at 7am when you are standing around waiting for the race to start. Take a top you want to donate to charity for before the start. You can get rid just before you actually set off and volunteers will take it to the charity shop for you.
- Don’t eat curry. Eating anything spicy or too fibrous in the day before the run is a bad idea as long distance running loosens the bowls, so anything that might make that worse is best avoided. You’ll have enough on your plate without worrying you might poo yourself half way round.
- Do have a drink the night before. If you’re used drinking moderately during your training then a small, and I mean small, tipple the night before might not be such a bad idea. It’ll help you relax and hopefully get better sleep than you would anyway. It might even help top up the glycogen stores in your muscles.
- Don’t worry about all those runs you didn’t do. No one has ever done every single training run on their programme. As long as you’ve been reasonable consistent you’ll be in good shape. Don’t try and catch up when you should be tapering!!
- Do enjoy the race! All the hard work is done. All that running in the cold and dark is behind you. You’ve put in the miles, now you just have to have a blast.
1. You’re Just Not Getting The Results You Want
2. You’re At A Loss At Where To Start
3. You Don’t Like Gyms
4. You’re Bored With The Same Old Workouts
5. You Want To Be Pushed
6. You Want Confidence To Workout On Your Own
7. You're Motivated by Accountability
8. You Have A Specific Illness, Injury Or Condition
9. You’re Training For A Sport Or Event
10. You Want Supervision And Support During Workouts
2. You’re At A Loss At Where To Start
3. You Don’t Like Gyms
4. You’re Bored With The Same Old Workouts
5. You Want To Be Pushed
6. You Want Confidence To Workout On Your Own
7. You're Motivated by Accountability
8. You Have A Specific Illness, Injury Or Condition
9. You’re Training For A Sport Or Event
10. You Want Supervision And Support During Workouts
Studies, such as the one carried out by Dr Carrie Ruxton, have shown that eating 2 eggs for breakfast compared to a bagel based breakfast leads to people eating 200-400 less calories throughout the rest of the day. The 2 compared breakfasts had the same calories, but the people who had the eggs were not as hungry by lunch time and so ate less. My advice? Eat eggs for breakfast. Or indeed any protein rich “real food” such as smoked fish, leftover chicken.
Ditch the cereal and the bread. It’s junk, unsatisfying and damages insulin response in the long run.
Worried about eggs increasing cholesterol? Don’t! The British Heard Foundation dropped it’s advice to limit egg consumption in 2007! Eating cholesterol does not increase blood cholesterol in the vast majority of people and even if it does, there is no evidence that this increase leads to heart disease. In fact the yolks contain most of the nutrition like the much needed omega-3 fatty acids, cretinoids and other vitamins.
OK, so the real reason I'm running the marathon is that when I was 13 the specialist said that I should never run and that I could end up paralysed just by running for the bus. Pretty much from that point it's been at the back of my mind as an impossible goal that some day I'd like to conquer. I was never sure it would ever be possible.
Personal trainer Neilon Pitamber of Neilon PT will be running the Brighton Marathon in April 2011 – and his first step was to throw out his running shoes.
There is an uncredited adage of indeterminate age that vaguely goes something like "The better you are at martial arts the less you have to use it". To some people this makes sense straight away - it's common sense. To others it just sounds daft. This video clip on YouTube gives a pretty clear example of how this can be true.
Research indicates that a good night’s sleep does the body good and helps it stay fit, especially for athletes.
Full article here
my first workout mix made for you.
1 hour long.
1 warm up track.
1 cool down track.
127-130bpm and back
Which one works best?
Given all the recent hype about low-carb and high protein diets you might assume that high-protein/low-carb diets are more effective than high-carb/lower-protein* diets.
