According to the definition found in most medical journals, Flat feet refers to a change in foot shape in which the foot does not have a normal arch when standing. The condition is normal in infants and toddlers and occurs because the tissues holding the joints (called tendons) in the foot together are loose.

The tissues typically tighten and form an arch as children grow older. This will take place by the time the child is 2 or 3 years old. Most people have normal arches by the time they are adults. However, the arch may never form in some people.

This can be hereditary or can come from aging, injuries, or an illness that harms the tendons and causes flat feet to develop in a person who has already formed arches.

So what? Does it matter? Do you NEED arches? The truth is that most people with flat feet live with no pain or other problems.

Some adults with flat feet may experience tired or achy feet after long periods of standing or playing sports. Some may also have pain on the outside of the ankle.

I’m one of those cases where my arches never formed. I’ve had flat feet as long as I can remember. My parents may recall otherwise, but I don’t recall even having any pain associated with my foot deformity.

I wore normal shoes as a kid – I had some Larry Bird Converse, Nikes, Kangaroos…you know, all the classics. But once I started running, I was told that because I had no arches, I would have to have running shoes with arch supports to prevent foot pain and injury. Not only that, but I would need inserts (orthotics) in my shoes to provide additional stability and balance, align my body and further prevent the pain that I wasn’t even experiencing.

For a while, I had over the counter (they make prescription ones) orthotics in my running shoes - like the ones pictured below. They were uncomfortable and actually caused me pain in my arches – the opposite of what they were supposed to do. I was told that I would get used to them and the pain would subside.

Being in my early 20’s, I was not the greatest advocate for myself and instead of doing some more research on my own, the foot pain forced me to just stop running. I thought maybe my feet were just not made for me to be a runner.

After several years of lifting weights on doing other things to stay in shape, I signed up for a triathlon and therefore needed to start running again. This time, I decided to forego the insoles, but still took the advice given to me at the shoe store and wore running shoes with a lot of support to offset my flat feet and overpronation.

As I started to train for longer distance races in the subsequent years, I developed plantar fasciitis, patellar tendonitis, and IT Band Syndrome. I have no idea if all or none of these were related to my flat feet, but I was frustrated and started on a quest to learn more about how to prevent running injures.

Around 2011, I read Christopher McDougall's book Born to Run. He believes that modern cushioned running shoes are a major cause of running injury, pointing to the thin sandals worn by Tarahumara runners in the Mexican Copper Canyons, and the explosion of running-related injuries since the introduction of modern running shoes in 1972. This book sent me down many rabbit holes into other barefoot running books and podcasts.

I then learned that it was possible to build, develop and then strengthen arches in flat feet. This was not something that anyone had ever told me I could do. The thought of being able to run injury free AND reduce muscle fatigue in my feet and legs was exciting to me, so I developed a plan!

It started with getting some running shoes with minimal cushion and minimal drop (The 'drop' of a running shoe is essentially the difference between the height/thickness of the midsole under the heel compared to the same measure under the ball of the foot). I would rotate these shoes in for shorter runs, still wearing my more “supportive” shoes on longer runs.

After 6-9 months of running in these more minimalist shoes, I started to incorporate barefoot running into my warmups. Yes, I would actually take off my shoes and socks and run barefoot on the grass. I would jog a mile barefoot on the grass inside the track before my speed workouts. This was once or twice a week.

Next step was to assess all of my footwear. I tossed out my dress shoes for those with no heel. The flat shoes forced my feet to adapt. The constant support of shoes with built-in arches and heels prevented those muscles and tendons from getting stronger. I bought some minimalist shoes to just wear out and about in the evenings and weekends.

I also made it a point to go barefoot around the house and even outside when possible. The more time I could spend without shoes, the better.

I even started doing my weightlifting sessions without shoes. I would just wear socks when lifting to not only improve foot and ankle strength, but my balance and stability.

While still doing all of these things, somewhere around 2017, I transitioned to a standing desk at work. I remove my shoes while standing at my desk and do lower leg strengthening exercises such as arch lifts, calf raises, towel curls, golf ball rolls and toe raises.

The final touch was to start wearing toe spreaders for an hour or so each night before bed. After a lifetime of wearing shoes that smashed my toes together, I needed to return the big toe to its normal anatomical position; that is, separated from the second toe and in line with its metatarsal bone instead of being turned in. Getting my toes splayed would provide the foundation to maintain a strong arch.

It is important to note that I didn’t incorporate all of these techniques and routines at once. In fact, I've been adding something new once a year or so for a long time. Jumping into all of these at once would have undoubtedly led to more injuries. Like anything else, the best way to make change is gradually.

While my ultimate goal was to be injury free – and I have been for a long time now despite doing some pretty intense races and events for the last 14 years – I also set out to grow my arches. While I hadn’t thought about that aspect of it in a long time, it has actually worked.

Just two weeks ago, I was spraying some dog vomit off of our deck (don’t act like you haven’t had to do that before) and was barefoot. After getting it all cleaned off, I was gathering up the hose and my feet got wet. As I walked back across the dry portion of the deck, I was making footprints with my wet feet. My wife Jessica looked down and said “hey…look at your footprint…there’s an arch!”. She was right; sure enough, my feet had been developing arches all this time and the proof was right there in my wet footprint.

Over time, I have been able to build a beautiful foot arch that functions the way nature intended. I’m looking forward to the benefits of having arches, such as improved balance, fewer back problems as I get older, improved posture and fewer leg and foot injuries as I continue to run into my late 40’s!

The Spartan Trifecta World Championship consists of three obstacle-course races on consecutive days. Athletes from around the world compete in Sprint (7K run plus 20 obstacles), Super (12K run plus 25 obstacles), and Beast (25K run plus 30 obstacles) races. The courses take racers into the mountains and ancient ruins surrounding Sparta, Greece and challenges them to clear obstacles such as a 100-pound atlas stone carry, spear throw, eight-foot wall climb, plate drag, inverted wall, monkey bars and rope climb. A failed obstacle means 30 burpees before you can continue the race.

Sprint Distance Race Day - Day 3 of my Trip (Friday, Nov. 4)

My race time was not until 1:10pm, so I had some time to kill. I much prefer racing early as I hate the anticipation. I was up by 6am local time, so I took my time getting ready. The hotel serves breakfast, so I went down to see what the offered. Mostly baked goods and spreads, but I did manage to get some olives and turkey slices.

I packed up my race gear and started walking to the race start around 10am. I always drink some Cordyceps prior to races, but I was not able to find a to-go cup at the hotel. As I waited for the race to start, I found a little coffee shop and got some hot water to mix up my Cordyceps powder in. It right around this time that I realized I had failed to put on my Garmin watch.  I still had about 45 minutes before my race started, so I decided to hustle back to the room and get it. While it isn’t critical that I have my watch, I like to know how far I have left in a race to help determine my pacing. It’s more mental than anything.

Not that I felt complete with my watch on my arm, I checked my bag and started to warm up. The sun was out, and it was warm! I had a good sweat going before the race even started.

I made my way up to the front of my start group (Male, 40-44) and took in the moment. Greek warriors protecting the start line, music from the movie ‘300’ playing. The announcer getting us all fired up. Adrenaline was definitely pumping!

After reminding everyone of what our “profession” was with the chant of “Aroo, Aroo, Aroo”, we were off and running.

As usual, we were all really fast out of the gate. The race is straight up a hill to start, so things spread out quickly. The terrain was the toughest that I have ever experienced. Lots of water of various depths. From ankle deep to over 5 feet deep. It was not just crossing streams either, it was hundreds of meters at a time running through water.

The obstacles were what I expected, with the exception of the atlas stone carry being in ankle to shin-deep water and the sandbag being broken in to two segments with a bonus rope climb in the middle. I felt a drop in energy around the 3 mile mark. Not sure if it was jet-lag or the heat, but I fought through it and found a second wind around mile 4. This was supposed to be a 5K, but ended up being 4.7 miles (7.6K). My only failed obstacle on the day was the spear throw. My spear it the bail of hay, but didn’t stay in long enough before falling out. So it was 30 burpees and a few minutes of lost time for me.

Finished 56^th in the Male 40-44 Age Group and was the 7^th American for the Sprint distance race.

After the race, I walked back to the hotel and got cleaned up. I found a little restaurant and enjoyed an authentic Greek salad (one of my favorites back home). I spent the rest of the day taking in some of the ruins of Acropolis, the Ancient Sparta Theatre and other ancient buildings dating back over 2,050 years! I also walked over to the tomb of the infamous King Leonidas.

I hit up the market again for some water for race morning and bought a few to-go coffee cups with lids for my Cordyceps the next two mornings.

I’m trying to learn some Greek and so far I’ve been able to remember “Thank You”, which is “Efacharisto”, “Yes”, which is “Nai” and “Hello”, which is “Chairete”.

The TV in the room only gets a few channels, all of which are in Greek. So before bed I logged in to Netflix on my computer and watched “All Quiet on the Western Front”. I very realistic and sad movie depicting the journey of a 17 year old German soldier during World War I.

After a call to say hi to the family, I was asleep by 11pm.

Super Distance Race Day - Day 4 of my Trip (Saturday, Nov. 5)

Race time for the Super was a little earlier (10:20am), so I set me alarm for 7am. I woke up around 6:45 on my own, so I was happy to know that my body was rested. I had my pre-race meal of a banana and some almond butter – thankfully brought from home, because I have not seen any here. I headed down to the race site around 8:30am.

The race was a tough one. I felt good most of the time. It took me a little bit to get me stride after the atlas carry and some of the steep climbs. I was feeling great about my race until the last half-mile. The monkey bars is an obstacle that I have never failed. It is one if the few obstacles that I can actually practice during training. What I did not expect was the variation they put on for the Super. The bars were spaced at least 6 feet apart and had about 18 inches of height difference. I tried to keep my momentum going, but my arms just weren’t long enough to get to the second high bar. So I failed and had to do 30 burpees on the street. I then failed the spear throw again; this time it fell short. Seemed like the string attached to the spear got caught on something as the spear was on target and then abruptly hit the ground. So 30 more burpees right before the finish line.

These two failures probably cost me at least 5 minutes and to come right at the end made for a frustrating day. I still managed to finish 48^th for the race and was the 6^th American. After two of the three races, I’m sitting in 47^th place and 6^th American. Hoping tomorrow I can make up some ground on a few people.

After getting cleaned up, I walked to the Olive and Olive Oil Museum. It was a fascinating place that took you through the history of the oil dating back to prehistoric times. I love olives and olive oil and to see how it has played such a large role in Greek culture was amazing.

I found a restaurant on the way back to the hotel and enjoyed some amazing grilled vegetables.

There was talk of having a staggered start based on total time for the final race on Sunday, so I decided to walk back down to the Festival area for the Athlete Briefing at 7pm. While it turned out not to be the case, I did get an early look at the Beast course maps. It’s going to be an epic end to the weekend with over 15 miles of hilly trails and over 30 obstacles!

Beast Distance Race Day - Day 5 of my Trip (Sunday, Nov. 6)

Final day of racing. Thunderstorms woke me up several times overnight and it was still raining pretty hard when I woke up around 6am. My start time for the Beast was 9:40am. First thing I looked at when I woke up was the World Series results. With the game starting at 2am local time, I was unable to follow it live at all. Seeing that the Astros won the Series was a great way to start the day!

I took my time getting ready and made a make-shift poncho out of a trash bag and headed out. I was thankful that I bought that little umbrella for 9€ at the market the other night. It kept my head dry on the 15 minute walk to the race site. I checked my bag and headed over to the start line. Rain was still coming down as we took off on the 26K (~16 mile) course.

I knew that this was going to be a challenge as it should be - after all, this is a World Championship! The rain made for an extremely muddy course and there were many times by feet just slipped right out from under me. The ankle-deep water was not shin-deep and all of the obstacles involving metal bars (Twister, Beater, Monkey Bars) were wet and very difficult. Even on fresh legs, the 2,600 feet of elevation gain would have been brutal, but on legs that just raced the last two days…it was painful. I pushed myself to keep running and only walked/hiked on a few very steep inclines along the way. The views from atop to mountains looking down into Sparta and the Taygetus mountains were worth the pain it took to reach the top!

Some of the obstacles felt nearly impossible in the conditions. The slack line and balance beams were covered in mud and everyone around me failed them as well. These penalty for these two was an extra running loop and thankfully not burpees. As usual, I found a second wind late in the race. All the years of endurance training for Ironman triathlons pays off in these moments. I was moving along pretty well and knew that I only had a few obstacles left. I had completed several that others were failing (Olympus, Beater, Z-Wall, and even the first of two Spear throws).

As I approached the town, I could hear the announced at the finish line. I knew I was almost home, but some challenges awaited. First was the rope climb. I am pretty confident in my rope climb and have not failed it in the last few years, but I also knew I was physical beat. I climbed to the top and made a swing at the bell. I missed. I held on for dear life and used all I had left to pull myself up a little higher and hit the bell! Next up was the monkey bars. They were spaced the same as they were for the Super. I knew I had to try and swing and lunge myself to the high bar as my arms aren’t long enough to just reach it. As soon as I grabbed the first bar, I knew I was in trouble. It was covered in mud. I did the best I could to get a good grip, but as soon as I stated swinging, I fell. 30 burpees.

Three easy ones, slip wall, 7’ wall climb and A-Frame cargo and then it was the second spear throw. I calmed my breath and made a good throw. It hit the target and fell to the ground. Once again, I hadn’t put enough force behind it. 30 burpees.

A small cargo net climb and all the lay between me and finish line was the Multi-Rig. The “beat mode” set up has always been tough for me. The straight bar traverse and rings are not the issue, it’s the hanging ropes. I’ve worked on my grip strength, and I’d like to say that I would have been able to swing from rope to rope on a dry day, but with them being wet, I couldn’t hold on. 30 burpees.

Despite doing 90 burpees withing sight of the finish line, I’m still happy with the race. I finished 43^rd in my Age Group and was the 5^th American.

After washing off the mud to reveal all of my cuts, scrapes and bruises, I collected my “Trifecta World Championship” medal and made my way back to the Festival Area. There I was able to get all my swag from completing four lifetime Trifectas and two this year. I got a patch, hat and a medal. Not sure how I’m going to get all of this home!

After going back to the room and showering, I rested for a little bit and then went out and bought some souvenirs and ate some dinner. I’m exhausted. I will sleep well tonight!

_________________________________________________________________

The weekend was a true test of strength, endurance, and mental toughness. They truly set the difficulty level of these courses to "World Championship"! I used this unique opportunity to get myself in the best shape of my life. I challenged myself in all weekend and managed to place 44th in the Men’s 40-44 Age Group and was the 5th American finisher with a combined three-race time of 6 hours 15 minutes and 33 seconds.

Being able to represent the United States and race with the best Obstacle Course Racers in the world was an honor. I’m filled with gratitude to be able to share this experience with people from 78 different countries. I’m grateful for the support from my family, friends, and co-workers. I’m grateful that my body held up through all the hard training and I was able to perform at my best when needed. Racing in this historic city filled with the spirit of iconic warriors was truly the experience of a lifetime!

A recent study found that the more runners distract themselves from what their bodies are doing, the more effortless their run may feel, and the better their performance. The new study was published on October 1^st of this year in the Journal of Motor Learning and Development. Researchers at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran, used the study to determine whether runners would perform more effectively if they were distracted, compared to if they tuned in to what was happening with their bodies.

After a baseline test of a treadmill, the subjects ran on four separate days, for six minutes at a time, running at about 70% of their top speed, while the scientists monitored their oxygen consumption, the amount of lactate in their bloodstreams and their feelings about the difficulty of each run.

Participants experienced a different experimental condition (i.e., four focus of attention conditions) during each of their 4 days of participation in the study. The four attention strategies were as follows:

    (a) An associative-external attention was prompted by repeatedly instructing the participant to “count your steps” while running.

    (b) To create an associative-internal focus of attention, the examiner repeated the phrase “Focus on the muscles in your feet” during the running action.

    (c) Participants viewed a video clip of a basketball game on a monitor placed at eye level while in the dissociative-external condition.

    (d) An dissociative-internal attention was prompted by asking each participant to perform mental calculations during the trial. This was done by providing each volunteer with a unique number and then instructing them to continuously subtract by three while running. The researcher asked the participant to verbally report the currently calculated number every 30 seconds.

A lot of us have been told by a coach or read an article telling you to focus on your running form, listen to your breathing, count your steps to track cadence, or think about the process of lifting your knee with each stride or kicking your heel back. But does doing any of this make us faster or make running seem easier?

To my surprise, the study found that that video watching easily bested body listening. The runners consumed the least oxygen and produced the least lactate when they viewed basketball and were the most distracted. Their running, physiologically, was least taxing then. They also told the researchers that when they watched the videos, they felt the least strained. Their running felt hardest, on the other hand, when they paid attention to their muscles, with the other strategies falling in between.

Jared Porter, a professor of human movement at the University of Tennessee, who oversaw the new study suggested that those of us that run should wear headphones and stream music or podcasts while running or watch television as you jog on a treadmill.

“We were surprised by how significant the effects were” when people’s minds drifted away from their bodies, he said.

In conclusion, according to the results of this study, recreational runners who wish to optimize their running in terms of movement economy should be encouraged to implement an external-dissociative focus of attention while running. So will I start running with headphones? Not likely. But what I will do is try and just be in the moment and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature as I’m out running. Maybe get real crazy and even try not running with a watch now and then!

You can find the full text of the study here: The Effects of an Associative, Dissociative, Internal, and External Focus of Attention on Running Economy

Be sure and visit all of my sponsor’s websites. I sought out these companies because they provide great products and services.

I started training for this race in the fall of 2019. I had signed up to run the full marathon in April of 2020. A global pandemic caused a slight change to those plans! I was in great shape in the months leading up to the race that was planned for April 25th. My workout times were faster and my heart rate was lower. I was poised to run a fast race. Then on March 25th, for the first time in it's 19 years (47 years for the half marathon), the race was cancelled. The half was rescheduled for August 2020, the full was not going to be run at all in 2020 - the only option would be virtual at some point later in the year - which I was not interested in doing.

So I stopped my training. All that fitness was wasted as there were no other races anywhere else to run either. While I continued to run a few times a week, they weren't focused runs and with no races on my calendar, my diet started to slack as well. 

Then in December came the announcement that you could defer your race registration to the 2021 race. Since I knew that I wanted to do the race live, and didn't want to lose my entry fee, I signed up for the April 2021 race. I was still not feeling motivated, but hoped that once I get back into my training, my mental state would improve!

I decided to kick off my training with a long run at the end of 2020. I wanted to see where things stood both physically and mentally. It wasn't pretty. I had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. I still wasn't excited about the race. So I decided a good way to ensure that I put in the work and was ready come race day was to challenge myself publicly. On January 2nd, I posted the following to social media:

It worked. Any time I didn't want to push that last run interval, or any time I wanted to eat that dessert, I thought of this post. I thought of that feeling I would have when I crossed the finish line with a new Personal Record (PR) and how good that would make me feel. That feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction far outweighs any temporary feeling of pleasure I get from eating a piece of cake or indulging in some Jet's pizza! When my body wanted to call it quits at 6 hill repeats when the training plan called for 8, I thought about crossing that finish line on April 24th and did those last two reps.

Even in a pandemic, not much has changed from a stand point of free time I have to train. Making time to train for a marathon is not easy with a full time (50+ hours a week) job, a wife, four kids, a dog (that I'm training), and countless responsibilities around the house. I knew that I had to follow the Balanced Approach plan that I developed while training for four Ironman triathlons.

At the beginning of January, I got the training plan out and got to work. I pulled just the running workouts out of the 36 week plan and counted back. I had 20 weeks until race day. Every workout was going to be important, there was no room for wasted days when the plan was cut 16 weeks short.

Each week consisted of three runs. Usually one with hill repeats, one with sprints and one that was either all aerobic or a progression run. When it was all said and done, I went back and looked at the 20 weeks of training. My average week consisted of just 18.75 miles and only 2 hours and 39 minutes of running! Compare this to most marathon training plans that require you to run 5-6 times a week with weekly mileage in the 45-50 mile range!! Seriously, who has time to run for 7 or 8 hours every week?!?!

If you are interested in learning more about the training plan I followed, you can find it here: The Balanced Approach to Marathon Training

The workouts and my fitness improved, and in the weeks leading up to the race, so did my confidence in my ability to get that PR. My previous best for a stand-alone marathon was 3:40:31. That was what I needed to beat. Even just one second faster would be enough!

The actual race was unlike any other that I had done. While still navigating a pandemic, the race organizers did the best they could to create a safe environment for everyone. That meant staggered start times and no (very, very few) spectators. It also meant a new course that was basically on walking/running paths instead of roads. The aid stations were a mix of water bottles and giant water coolers for runners to self-fill their own bottles. Runners would be required to carry their own nutrition. This was no problem for me, as I always have my own food anyway. For this race, I decided to try something new. In my search for real food that is both portable and easy to digest while running, I decided to try out baby food. That's right, I was going to fuel my 26.2 miles with the stuff that you feel to your one year old. I spent some time in the baby isle at the store reading ingredient labels and thinking about how easy it would be to carry 4 or 5 of these pouches. I grabbed a few different kinds to test on some runs. I ultimately landed on the Biodynamic brand made by White Leaf Provisions. I tucked four of them into my fuel belt and ate one at miles 5, 10, 15 and 20...and it worked great. Being fat adapted meant that the 160 total calories (40 calories per pouch) is all that I needed to get me through.  

Beating my goal time equated to a pace of 8:24 minutes per mile. I knew that I wanted a little to spare, so I set my sights on holding a pace of 8:20 or less. I knew not to go out too fast, so I was checking my pace every few minutes to make sure I wasn't getting much under 8:10's. I'm happy with my pacing and I honestly feel like holding a steady pace is a huge key to running a successful marathon. It wasn't until mile 22 that my pace started to fall off. As expected, those last 4 miles are brutal.

Good thing the course was pretty lonely, there were several times that I was talking to myself out-loud. Trying to keep my legs moving and willing myself to hold as close to my 8:20 pace as possible. My Garmin was telling me that I was 0.15 miles long the whole day. The mile markers on the course always came 0.15 to 0.17 miles after my watch beeped for the mile split. I think I ran the extra distance early in the race at the turn around at Eva Badman Park. There was no sign, cone, or even paint or arrows on the ground to indicate where to turn around and I'm sure I went too far. So my actual distance for this race turned out to be 26.37 miles! Not that I needed that extra 0.17!!

There's not much better than that feeling you get when you try to do math with a little over a mile to go and after assessing how you feel and how fast you need to run, you realize that you are going to meet your goal. I knew that despite the race course being long, I would still set a marathon PR! My official time was 3:38:49.

The finish line was very anticlimactic. No PA system. No one announcing your name as you sprint toward the line. No finish line shoot full of cheering spectators. No music playing.  - Just a small flag that says "Finish" and a timing strip on the ground. I cross the line, stopped my watch, and stumbled up to the rack of medals. No one was there to put it over my head like I just won gold in the Olympics. I took one off the rack and put it around my own neck. I looked around. There were only a few other race finishers standing around. Everyone looked a little lost. So I just started walking back to my car.

While inside I was busting with joy, I'm sure to anyone that saw me, they probably thought I was disappointed. It was weird. I worked so hard, made so many sacrifices to accomplish my goal and then there was no one there to celebrate it with. The good news is that 20 minutes later, I was in my living room surrounded by people that were proud of me and were more than happy to celebrate with me!

Putting races on the calendar and setting goals for them has always been a driving force behind training hard and keeping myself healthy through diet and lifestyle. With no races in 2020, it was hard to stay on track. Despite the persona I put out, I struggle to make good choices sometimes when it comes to food and doing things to improve my mental state. With several races on the calendar for 2021, I'm hoping that I can make this a year where I can get things back in alignment. A marathon PR is a good start!

​Depending on where you are, your life looks different than it did 8-10 weeks ago. Here in the United States, it was mid-March that things started to shut down and we were told to stay home. In order to prevent the COVID-19 virus from spreading too quickly and overwhelming our hospitals, we shut down all non-essential businesses. This ​meant not only no access to gyms and pools, but also most people working from home.

So what impact did all of this have on exercise? Did people give up completely on their routine since there was no access to treadmills, ellipticals, weights, spin class or the pool? Would people find something else to do since they could not go to Pure Barre, Orangetheory or their local CrossFit Box?

While it's impossible to gather all of the data to determine how exercise habits changed over the last two and a half months, Garmin compiled data from it's users and came up with some pretty interesting results. For those of you not familiar with Garmin, they ​produce activity trackers and sports watches, aimed at activities such as running, watersports, golf, cycling and swimming with sensors such as heart rate and GPS. Most users upload their workouts to the Garmin website or app, giving the company access to the activity of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.

​Here are some of the more interesting statistics from the Garmin report:

Total steps worldwide decreased 12% in the month of April - but some countries saw a sharper drop-off than others. This is likely due to how strict the lockdowns were. ​While some countries stay at home orders meant that it was hard to leave the house for any reason, others allowed people more freedom to get out. The map below shows how people's step counts differed from the same time period one year earlier. If you look back to data from March, step counts in the United States dropped almost 13% from March 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020.

​Another method of exercise that has seen an increase worldwide ​is indoor workouts with fitness equipment. In China, Mexico, South Africa and a handful of other countries, fitness equipment workouts increased more than any other activity. ​People were able to shift from gym-structured workouts to home-based workouts. Good luck trying to buy a Kettle Bell or Dumbell Set right now! People also ​turned to bodyweight only workouts and found that they could be just as effective. 

Offering further reassurance on the dual physical and emotional health front is the positive trend for yoga. Garmin wearable device data showed an 11% increase in yoga in March.

Along with Swimming, Multisport (triathlon) training,​ hiking and golf also ranked as the activities with the largest decreases in multiple countries. But according to Garmin, athletes that focused on these sports have been finding alternatives. In South Africa, for example, 20% of the users who were golfing in April 2019 turned to indoor fitness workouts in April 2020, while another 11% began indoor cycling.

After analyzing the activity trend data for two months, ​Garmin is using the phrase “fitness is finding a way”.  ​I am encouraged, but not surprised that hard-core athletes have not stopped training, but are just adapting and finding other ways to exercise. My hope is that the casual exerciser or even those that did not exercise before have started a new routine and will continue to walk, ride, run or even do yoga after things open back up! ​

Deadlift

• ​​Begin in a standing position with a bar, broomstick, or band in your hands in front of you
• Keep your back is straight for the entire exercises, suck in your stomach to engage your core, and stand with your feet hip distance apart.
• Bend forward at the hips, slowly pushing your butt back towards the wall behind you. Your knees should only partially bend which should generate tension in your hamstrings
• When your hips cannot go any further backwards, pause, and then slowly return to standing by extending the hips

Single Leg Box Squat

• ​Set up your box or bench so that it is around knee height
• Stand with your feet hip width apart, suck in your stomach to engage your core and keep your shoulders back
• Lift your right leg off the ground, keeping the above posture as you balance on the one leg
• Slowly start bending your left knee, pushing your butt back as if you are about to sit in a chair
• Get as low as you can, then slowly engage the muscles and start standing up straight again

Lateral Lunge

• ​Either with or without dumbbells.
• Step out to your right side, keeping both feet pointing ahead of you
• Lower your body until your right thigh is parallel to the ground, keeping your left leg straight
• Step back to the center and repeat on the other side
• Focus on keeping your stomach sucked in the entire time. As you have to balance to bring your leg back to standing position, it means that you abs have to do a lot of the work, and in turn they also get a workout!

Dumbbell Single Leg Dead Lifts

• Stand straight with a dumbbell in each hand. Keep your stomach sucked in tight and your shoulders back
• Plant your left leg into the ground, this leg is going to be your support on this side
• Now send your right leg straight back behind you, while at the same time bring the front of you body forward until it is almost parallel to the ground. Without breaking the hips, slowly start leaning forward, allowing the weight to carry you down, while pushing the right leg back towards the wall behind you
• Now slowly bring yourself back up to standing. You should be feeling this in your core, your left hamstring and your right glute

Overhead Squat

• ​Hold a barbell, towel, band or broomstick above your head
• Stand straight with your feet at shoulder width apart and slightly angled at around 45 degrees
• Slowly squat down, keeping your chest and arms up and your core engaged
• When you get to your lowest point, engage your core and push yourself back up to standing keeping the band or bar above your head the entire time.

3 Common Weight-Lifting Mistakes

Keep in mind that a runner using weight training to improve your running is different than a weightlifter who also runs. Here are some shares some common weight-lifting mistakes to avoid according to Matt Fitzgerald:

• Going Too Heavy: The weight room is no place for ego, so check it at the door. “Not every lift has to be superheavy and superhard. Don’t risk injury trying to be a hero in the weight room.”
• Lifting Too Light: If you’re always lifting low weight for high reps, you’re building endurance in the weight room, but you shouldn’t be. “Runners work on endurance all the time with every run. The goal with weight training needs to be strength and power.”
• Focusing on Specific Body Parts: “Runners don’t need to lift that often, for as long, nor isolate individual muscles. You can lift full-body twice per week for 30 to 60 minutes, prioritizing strength and power.” You’ll get everything you need with that setup.

If you have lifted weights or spent much time working out, you have likely heard that you need to 'keep the body guessing' by regularly switching up your workout routine. For those just starting out, it’s much easier to follow the same plan day in day out. However, doing the same workouts for too long will bring your training progress and gains to a slow crawl.

The biggest problem of not altering your routine is simply boredom. There are certainly people out there that would do the same thing every day for years if they thought it would help them accomplish their goals. There is a certain segment of the population (Type A Personalities), that will do whatever necessary to succeed…even at the cost of being bored. But the truth is, you will at some point plateau and no longer adapt to your training. Not to mention the risk of injury from overuse. Nagging injuries could be a sign you’ve reached a threshold pattern called pattern overload—an injury to the soft tissues resulting from repetitive motion in one pattern of movement.

Your training should be physically challenging and mentally stimulating. If you are constantly progressing, it's highly likely that you will remain motivated to keep training hard and progressing. But if your body starts feeling sluggish, fatigued, or it's taking you longer than usual to recover in between workouts, a change of pace might be what you need.

Even slightly altering your routine every so often will lead to the best results. Just switching your grip position is enough to create a different stimulus. For instance, a different stance in your squats, or changing from front squats to back squats. Doing narrow grip versus wide grip bench press is an easy way to switch things up as well. And it doesn’t need to be just new exercises, either. Trying a new sport or even a new kind of workout class—say spin or bootcamp if you never venture out of the weight room and treadmill.

The next obvious question is, how often should you switch up the routine? A good general rule is every 4-6 weeks for most people.

As with most things, you can overdo it. You do have to be careful not to bounce from program to program too regularly, as your body is not going to know what to adapt to and you will never get the results you want because you are not sticking to anything long enough to see measurable progress.

All that being said, you can keep a few key exercises or lifts as part of your routine even if you change up other parts of it. Complex lifts such as deadlifts, pull-ups, squats, bench presses and rows are worthy enough to always have a place in your program. Mobility exercises are also a key part of staying injury free.

Happy training!

Some bad news hit the local road racing community this week. After 35 straight years, the Louisville Triple Crown of Running will not take place in 2020. The series consisted of a 5K, a 10K and a 10 Miler each spring. At the beginning of the series, it included a half marathon before that became a stand-alone event at the 5K was added in its place.

Thousands of runners would race at least one of the races, and many would do all three, which took place over a four to five week stretch. Training for these races would be the start of the race season for many runners and for others a reason to get moving after the holidays. I personally participated in one or more of these races eleven times and eight of the last ten years. It had become a tradition for me as well.

With the news this week came a lot of questions. The official reason the race organizers gave for cancelling the race series was "steady decline in participation, available sponsorship dollars and rising operating costs.” They went on to say that they "could not continue to create the type of experience that would meet their standards and measure up to the quality events they have nurtured for nearly four decades."

People speculated as to how the races that continued to draw around 4,000 participants per race could have trouble with costs. With race entry fees of $25-$35 per race (depending on when you registered), how could they not be making enough money to keep the series going?

While I have never attempted to organize a race, I have worked closely with people and organizations that have put on road races and triathlons. I can tell you that for the most part, when it’s a local race and not put on by global corporation like Ironman®, race organizers are not making much money. They put on races for the love of it and to support the local community.  It’s not an easy job. A race director or committee has to worry about the safety and satisfaction of hundreds or thousands of participants and volunteers. It’s a big responsibility!

In the last few years, fundraising for a charitable organization has become an objective of most races. If this is the case, it creates an added stress of the balance between offering a quality race for the participants and raising as much money as possible for the beneficiaries. As for the Louisville Triple Crown, according to their website all net proceeds from the 3 events went to the Crusade for Children and they have contributed $1.8 million to the charity in the last 17 years, which averages out to over $100,000 per year. So where they just not willing to continue the races if this amount was going to be less going forward?

There are numerous variables that impact what a race may cost and how much money can be raised for a charity or earned by the race director. These usually include:

• The number of participants registered
  
• The race experience and “professionalism” you want the participants to feel.
• The venue where the event is being held (cost of road closures, permit fees, etc.)
• The swag participants get (t-shirt, food, entertainment, timing, medals, etc.)
• The race beneficiary (if for charity) and how much it is expecting to receive
  

According to a few sources and a little research, a typical race budget looks something like this:

   20% - Miscellaneous and charity donations

    20% - Race equipment rental (sound system, port-o-pots, trucks, tents, start and finish lines, etc.)

        15% - Management fees & Insurance (USATF or USAT Sanctions)

10% - Police coverage (blocking roads, directing traffic, etc.).

    10% - Advertising, marketing, and promotions (social media, print, email, flyers for other race goodie bags, booth at race expos)

10% - Participant and volunteer t-shirts, medals and awards.

    10% - Timing equipment (race bibs, timing mats, computers)

    5% - Medical coverage (Having EMS on the course and at the finish line).

When you break it down like this, it’s easy to see how you can blow throw a $25 per person race entry fee pretty quickly. There are few places where you can cut corners, but would people continue to do the race if you went with a non-technical shirt or a chintzy finishers medal? Or is it worth all the planning and work if you only end up being able to donate a few thousand dollars to your charity?

Getting sponsors to cover some of the race expenses is pretty common for bigger races. A corporate sponsor could even have the race named after them. The Louisville Triple Crown races were most recently called the “Anthem” 5K, the “Rodes” City Run and the “Papa John’s” 10 Miler. While I do not know how much the sponsors paid to have the naming rights, I would suspect that it was not inexpensive. Not to mention the many sponsors the contributed less, but still got their logo on the race shirt and their banners at the start and finish lines. According to their website, the Louisville Triple Crown had over 20 sponsors.

I feel like the Louisville Triple Crown could continue with a few changes, but I am not privy to all of the information the committee had before making their decision. While raising money and awareness for children with special needs holds a special place in my heart, having local races that encourage and motivate people to stay active is important to me as well.

The American College of Sports Medicine published a Fitness Index this past May. It evaluated the cities on 33 indicators, including health behaviors; health outcomes, from obesity to pedestrian fatalities; and various community and environmental factors. Louisville ranked 95^th out of 100. Our city is not healthy. These races provided a reason for a lot of people in this city to get off the couch in January and start running. I fear that their absence will lead to an absence of exercise for many people in this community.

We’ve all had to take some time off from exercising. It is usually related to an injury or a change in schedules at home or work. It can be frustrating to know that all the gains in fitness you made are slowing going away as you miss workout after workout. But how long does it really take to lose all that you had gained? Once you get back to running, cycling or lifting again, do you get back to your previous level of fitness much faster than it originally took to get there? I wanted to know the answers to these questions, so I started doing some research.

It’s important to note that “fitness” can take on two forms. Aerobic fitness is the measurement of how efficiently your body can absorb oxygen into the blood and transport it to your muscles. In running this means your ability to maintain a certain level of performance, essentially your endurance. Structural fitness ​relates to the strength of your muscles, and for runners, this translates into how well your body can absorb and tolerate the impact of running. Structural strength is essential for avoiding overuse running injuries.

Both research and personal experience shows that an experienced runner who has built up running endurance over many years will retain most of their aerobic fitness for several months, while a beginner runner’s overall aerobic fitness will drop sooner (within a week) following a period of inactivity.

Structural fitness will start to decline after seven days or more of inactivity, but the big difference being it will take longer than aerobic fitness to build back up again. You're demonstrating to your body that you don't need those muscles anymore. Over time your body will revert to a stable state that's adapted to the workload that you're giving it. Your body will also start shifting more attention to type 1 muscle fibers away from the high burning Type 2 muscles. At this point, it really depends on who you are and how well you're trained. Some athletes see a loss of about 6% muscle density after three weeks. Some power lifters see losses of as much as 35% after seven months. Young women who trained for seven weeks and gained two pounds of muscle mass, lost nearly all of it after detraining for seven weeks.

In 2016, there was a study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29212672) done with 21 people that had trained and raced the Boston Marathon. Immediately after completing the race, they were only allowed to exercise a total of two hours or less a week with no more than 3-4 miles total running per week . During their training leading up to the race, they averaged nearly 32 miles a week. So these were some well-conditioned athletes.

After the first four weeks, the runners had significant drops in blood volume and plasma volume. These changes can be thought of as the body’s blood-pumping system deteriorating, both in terms of the size and power of the pump. The result of this would make a given running pace feel harder, because less oxygen would reach working muscles per heart beat than had been the case at the time of their marathon. The changes that were experienced in the first four weeks stabilized and didn’t get much worse over the second four weeks.

At the end of the 8 weeks, a treadmill test found that the average time to exhaustion decreased by 5 to 6 seconds per week. This test matches most runners’ observations that their ability to sustain a hard pace had declined more than their ability to maintain their easy pace. It’s worthy of noting that there was a lack of decline in VO2 max and haemoglobin mass. According to the researchers, this suggests that with the resumption of training, you would see a fairly rapid return to form.

When researching cycling detraining, I found a review of over 60 studies from The Journals of Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise and Sports Medicine.

They summarized what can occur during a 2 to 4 week break from training. They found the same drops in blood and plasma volume as the Boston Marathon runners study. Other effects of detraining include a loss of flexibility, a decrease in your lactate threshold pace, and large reductions in your muscle glycogen concentration and aerobic enzyme activity. Interestingly, the fitter you are, the greater these losses tend to be.

They found that endurance performance tends to remain the same or actually improve after just a few days without training. This is not surprising because when you are in hard training you are perpetually fatigued, so a short break allows your body to recover and adapt to your previous training (i.e. a taper before a race). Between 1 and 2 weeks off from training, however, the benefits of recovery start to become outweighed by a loss in fitness. Performance is likely to decrease by about 3-5% after 3 to 4 weeks of detraining.

From what I found, it appears that the body will lose its ability to tolerate the impact of running sooner so than its loses its ability to run. This can be scary for runners that are returning from injury. Your aerobic fitness might be telling you a six-mile run is fine, whereas your body’s ability to actually tolerate six miles of running has decreased due to the decline of structural fitness.

The better shape you were in, the less time it will take to get back into shape. Your muscle memory remains for a long time after your muscles have faded. Your body remembers how it was able to run and lift, you just have to remind it and get those muscles, blood vessels, and lungs back in shape to make it happen again​. Of course, it will take more time the longer you go without exercise. So slowly build the mileage back up as you are more at risk of injury because of the decrease in structural fitness. This applies to both beginner and experienced athletes.

My race schedule has been different in 2018 than previous years. It has not been littered with triathlons and road running races. This year was a year for me to explore new things and challenge myself. As the year progressed and I found some races I wanted to do, I saw that October was going to be a busy month for me!

THE BOURBON CHASE

​

I gathered up a team of 12 consisting of some old friends and some new ones. We left at noon on Friday, October 12^th on our journey to cover 200 miles of running through central Kentucky while hitting six different bourbon distilleries along the way. Our team consisted of some veteran runners and some guys that had only been running less than a year. We definitely exceeded expectations. Team “Holistic Athletes” finished in 27 hours and 34 minutes, placing us 19^th our of 109 all-male teams and 36th out of 400 total teams. Lots of good memories were made while being stuck in a van together for over 34 hours. It had been four years since I ran The Bourbon Chase and I had missed it. Absolutely planning to get another team together for 2019!

STORM EVA BANDMAN CYCLOCROSS RACE

Back in the fall of 2014, I won a gift certificate by randomly having my bib number drawn at the end of a triathlon. I used this gift certificate to buy a Cyclocross bike (it was a BIG gift certificate) from VO2 Multisport, our local swim/bike/run store. I’ve used this bike to do some gravel races and taken it on a few easy trails over the last four years, but I always seemed to find an excuse when it came to actually registering and riding in a Cyclocross race. For those of you not familiar with Cyclocross, it’s a bike race that typically takes place in the autumn and winter and consist of many laps of a short (1.5 –​2  mile) course featuring pavement, wooded trails, sand, grass, steep hills and obstacles requiring the rider to quickly dismount, carry the bike while navigating the obstacle and remount. Races are generally between 30 minutes and an hour long, with the distance varying depending on the ground conditions and lead rider times. The sport originated in Europe and we are fortunate enough to have a big CX scene here in Louisville.

With no excuses this year, I signed up for a local race on October 21^st that is part of an Ohio Valley series of races. I took the bike out for a practice run a few weeks before the race, practiced dismounting and mounting a few times and thought that I was as ready as I could be. I jumped in the Cat5 race (lowest level) and was ready to see what this sport was all about!

The race had a Halloween theme, so riders were asked to wear costumes. Most people did NOT, but I did. Since my Alma-mater had upset the #2 team in the country the night before, I proudly dressed up as a Purdue University football player.

Based on some advice from my friend Peter, I took the first lap slow to avoid congestion. Despite this plan, I had to jump off my bike when someone in front of my fell going up the first hill. This put me pretty far behind everyone else and I spend the rest of the race trying to catch everyone else. My lap times were 7:54, 7:41, 7:19, 7:22. So as you can see, I got stronger was the race progressed. I ended up 12^th out of 38 riders, which was better than I thought I would do. Now that I know not to hang back on the first lap, I’m hopeful that I can place better next time around.

SPARTAN ATLANTA

After doing my first Spartan Race at Ft. Knox back in July, I knew that I wanted to train specifically for obstacle course racing and try to do another one before the end of the year. The only option in driving distance was Atlanta, so I signed up for the October 28^th race and decided to step up from the Sprint distance and do a Super. This meant a total of 8-10 miles of trail running with 25-30 obstacles mixed in.

My confidence was pretty high after doing lots of monkey bars and burpees as pat of my runs a few times a week over the last two months. Despite the training, I still struggled with a few things.

Spartan Atlanta Super Obstacles:

Overwalls - COMPLETED

6’ Wall​- COMPLETED

Hay Pyramid - COMPLETED

Vertical Cargo Net- COMPLETED

Rope Climb – FAILED = 30 burpees

Inverted Wall - COMPLETED

Monkey Bars - COMPLETED

Bucket Brigade - COMPLETED

Hurdles- COMPLETED

Cliff Climb / Cargo - COMPLETED

Atlas Carry - COMPLETED

Rolling Mud - COMPLETED

Slip Wall - COMPLETED

Spear Throw – FAILED = 30 burpees

Hercules Hoist - COMPLETED

Twister – FAILED = 30 burpees

Sandbag Carry - COMPLETED

Plate Drag - COMPLETED

Bender - COMPLETED

8’ Wall - COMPLETED

Z Walls - COMPLETED

Low Crawl - COMPLETED

Stairway – FAILED = 30 burpees

Barbed Wire - COMPLETED

7’ Walls - COMPLETED

Olympus - COMPLETED

Muti Rig – FAILED = 30 burpees

A-Frame Cargo - COMPLETED

Fire Jump - COMPLETED

​

So in the end, I failed five obstacles and had to do 150 burpees (+ five as part of the atlas carry). I figure that each set of 30 burpees takes me about 3-4 minutes to complete. So if I can get through this distance race without any penalty burpees, I could shave 15-20 minutes off of my time. In this race, that would have moved me up close to a top 10 finish. I ended up placing 28^th out of 66 in my age group.

The 9 miles of trail running was not a problem for me and I was routinely passing people between obstacles. The trail took us through some waist-deep water a few times and lots of shin-deep mud. The varying terrain was actually pretty fun, it's been several years since I ran trails. I came away bruised, bloody and very muddy, but I had a lot of fun and I’m ready to figure out how to train for the rope climb, twister and multi rig so that I can continue to climb up the results board. I’m not sure yet with my 2019 race schedule will look like, but I’m pretty certain that it will contain some Spartan races! These things are a blast!