Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Walk breaks.  Salvation of many new runners, who credit the brief reprieves from the pounding of running with their ability to complete a marathon, half marathon, or 5K.  Yet in many runners’ minds, getting caught in a walk break by your friends and family who came out to watch you run, not walk, is akin to showing up to high school in your underwear.

But walk breaks aren’t just for first-timers or those who are physically unable to run the whole way.  In his book Marathon!, former U.S. Olympic marathoner Jeff Galloway prescribes walk breaks every mile, even for marathoners trying to break 2:50.  Somehow though, even with the backing of an Olympian, walk breaks have always managed to seem — well, soft.

When I was a younger, brasher, testosterone-charged new runner and I came across the idea of stopping every mile or so to walk, I vehemently denounced it. The point of running is to run, I said.  It shouldn’t count as a marathon if you don’t run the whole thing.  If you’re going to count that, then I run marathons every week; they’re just punctuated by 22-hour walk breaks.

I can understand that walk breaks might help avoid injury, but when you think about it, it’s a little bit counterintuitive that they should help you run faster.  If someone were to tell me my family was kidnapped and the only way to get them back was to run a 5:20 mile, it’s possible that I’d muster the strength to do it.  (Later, I’d wonder why the kidnapper took such an interest in my running a 5:20 mile.)  But I sure as hell wouldn’t do it by trying to run a pair of 2:30 half-miles with a twenty-second rest in the middle.  That’s just stupid, and if I tried it, I would never see my family again.  Anyone who has ever done interval training knows that the way to run fastest is to spread the effort out evenly over the allotted distance or time, because required effort increases exponentially with speed.  The same goes for hills: You try to maintain a constant level of exertion over them to avoid burning yourself out.

After I got a stress fracture while training for my first marathon — not entirely surprising, given my attitude — I started to rethink things and decided to try Galloway’s method in hopes of avoiding injury, doing six-and-one’s (six minutes running, one minute walking) for a few weeks.  It didn’t last; I got bored with it.  The inspiration of running long distances melted away when I knew that I’d have to stop to walk.  I was 22 years old, for god’s sake!

But finally, a singular experience changed the way I look at walk breaks — I injured my knee a month before my second marathon.  I was devastated, given that I had already planned the road trip out West in my dad’s camper.  As race day approached, I discovered that I could delay the onset of the pain by taking walk breaks every mile or so.  Against better judgment, I lined up at the start of the Rock n’ Roll Arizona marathon, and somehow, I made it through the entire race.  And by “somehow,” I mean “stopping to walk after every mile until about 18,” at which point adrenaline took over and I was able to run the rest of the way.  Someone even told me to slow down on the final hill because I was making him look bad!  To this day, that’s the best I’ve ever felt during the final miles of a marathon, and there’s no question that the walking was to thank.

I haven’t made walk breaks a habit (though I do walk through water stops now), but more and more I’m coming to understand that there’s something to the idea.  All that talk about effort increasing exponentially with speed really only applies to short distances where the cardiovascular system is the limiting factor; there’s tremendous value in giving your leg muscles occasional breaks over long distances.  In trail running, where hills are far steeper than those encountered on roads, it’s common knowledge that you walk the hills to run a faster race.  It’s about doing whatever it takes to get to the finish line as fast as possible, and sometimes, to finish at all.

This I know now: There’s no room for machismo when it comes to running far.  No, there is no shame in walking.

Image by tiffanywashko via Flickr

We imagine we’re with most runners when we say we’d like to shake the hand of whoever came up with the smoothie.  Whether you drink it as a vehicle for nutritious ingredients before or after your workouts, or simply as a refreshing treat that tastes like it should be a lot worse for you than it is, the smoothie is a staple in the diet of many runners.  But you don’t need to go to Smoothie King for your fix—most commercial smoothies are royally bad for you!  Here are two of our favorite energy boosters you can make at home.

Megan: Cocoa-Banana-Buzz Smoothie

My go-to smoothie includes three of my favorite things: coffee, greek yogurt, and chocolate. I love the smell and taste of java, but that’s not the only reason it’s added to this smoothie. A recent Science Daily article reported that “athletes who ingested caffeine with carbohydrate had 66% more glycogen in their muscles four hours after finishing intense, glycogen-depleting exercise, compared to when they consumed carbohydrate alone.” More glycogen in your muscles means faster recovery and a better run the next day, so sign me up! I included greek yogurt due to its high protein content (approx. 18 grams in 6oz) and its live and active probiotic cultures. A banana is added for potassium (an essential electrolyte) and the chocolate contributes antioxidants and delicious flavor! Don’t let the February cold stop you from enjoying a post-run smoothie – crank up the heat and break out your blender!

Ingredients:
1 banana, sliced and frozen
3/4 cup plain greek yogurt
Splash of milk
2 tsp instant coffee (or 1 shot of espresso)
1 Tbs cocoa powder
1/2 Tbs agave nectar or honey

Directions:
Add everything to the blender and mix until combined.

Matt: Strawberry-Banana Raw Vegan Smoothie

I can’t call myself a full-on vegan, but after I read Brendan Brazier’s Thrive last summer, I started incorporating raw, vegan meals into my diet.  I’ve found smoothies to be a great intro to raw foods, since most of the ingredients in a standard smoothie are raw anyway, so it’s not too big a leap.  This smoothie is my own adaptation of some of the smoothies in Thrive.

You’ll see that there are a few strange ingredients in here.  I use hemp protein powder in all my smoothies because it’s from a whole food source and minimally processed (it should be green, not white).  Maca is a root that, supposedly, Incan warriors used to eat before going into battle.  Here it’s included mainly for aid in recovery from adrenal stress, which for me usually takes the form of a tough workout or too much coffee!  Chlorella is an algae (don’t worry, it’s in powder form) that’s a true superfood—it’s loaded with chlorophyll, 19 amino acids, and vitamin B12, which is nearly impossible for vegans to get from whole foods.  Bonus: human life can be sustained for long periods by eating nothing but chlorella!  Of course, you can substitute any greens powder, or just leave it out altogether.

Ingredients (makes two smoothies):
1 banana
1 cup frozen strawberries
2 Tbs ground flaxseed
2 Tbs hemp protein powder
1 Tbs hemp oil or flaxseed oil
1 Tbs raw agave nectar
4 ice cubes
1.5 cups water
1 tsp maca powder (optional)
1 tsp chlorella (optional)

Directions:
Add everything to the blender and mix until combined.  Use more or less water for desired consistency.

Image via Wikipedia

We hear a lot about the mental aspects of other sports.  Bobby Jones famously told us that golf is played on a five-and-a-half inch course, the space between the ears.  Peyton Manning’s mental advantage is what makes him the dominant quarterback of the era in the NFL.  Watch any sport on TV and you’re bound to hear an announcer exalting the importance of mental poise among the game’s top athletes.

But what about distance running?  Can the head game possibly play a large part in a sport in which there are so few decisions to be made during the course of an event, a contest where physical conditioning is such a dominant factor?  Runner’s World magazine brought the mental side of running to the forefront this month with its cover story about marathon sensation Kara Goucher and how she deals with her mental demons during a race, and it got me to thinking: Does it really matter? continue »

Image by redjar via Flickr

In the past, if a runner could meet or beat the Boston Marathon’s stringent qualifying times, they were guaranteed a spot in the prestigious race. In 2008, however, the race sold out for the first time ever and in 2009 race registration closed in late January. Still, this gave many late fall and winter marathoners a chance to qualify. To the surprise of many (including myself!), the 2010 race filled up unprecedentedly early – November 13th, 2009. Runners hoping to qualify in the Philadelphia, California International, Phoenix, and Houston marathons would have to wait until 2011 to run Boston. Luckily, once you qualify for the beantown race, your time is usually valid for 2 years. However, not being able to participate in the 2010 race as planned has put a damper on many runner’s training schedules and made races such as the “Last Chance for Boston” race all but obsolete. continue »