Competitive Running

For those who are running competitively, remember that the race is not won in the first lap. I remember in college we would host high school track meets and there was this one guy who would start out on the mile run and he would be 100 yards ahead of everybody after the first lap. But at the end of the fourth lap, he would be at the tail or 100 yards behind everybody. So the thing I would say is run fast enough to be where you want to be for the first three quarters of the race. Then sprint for the last eighth of the mile or the last 200 yards. You should save your energy for the final sprint, because that's where races are won; at the last.

I would also like to talk about cross training and cross training just means mixing in weights. I am a big basketball fan and you look at some of those guys out there on the court and they look skinny, but they really aren't. The time they spend training gives them the strength that they need to make the passes and to shoot from the first quarter to the final quarter. Just like basketball players, we need to have the ability to have strength as well as endurance. Running is great for endurance, but we need to build strength. I recommend cross training. With cross training, taking light weights and doing a lot of reps or taking heavy weights and doing fewer reps will add bulk. And you always want to be sure to use the proper form when you are doing the exercise so that you are not damaging your muscles. If you can have a personal trainer or weight training partner that can watch your form and gets the weights for you, that's a good thing. Vary your workout with the weights also. You could do lower body one day and upper body the next. When you start getting those burning muscles, that's when your body is releasing acid and actually that will build more muscle tissue. So weight training is a good way to bulk up and it's also a good way to keep the fat trimmed down in addition to running