January 2011

Ultra running
With the dawning of a new year there are thousands of runners around the world, and in South Africa particularly, sitting down to plot and plan assaults on various events in the world of ultra marathon running.  With our country being distance mad, it’s surprising to see how few ultra marathons there actually are in the build-up to the Comrades marathon.  Marathons are a dime a dozen, but there has been a major decrease in the number of ultra marathons on offer.  There could be a number of reasons for this, including the fact that Comrades is a bit earlier in the year now than 10 years ago; sponsors are not that easy to come by and a few ultras were cancelled due to loss of sponsorship; the congested calendar can only accommodate so many big events.  Below are some of the most popular of these events in the running up to the Comrades marathon this year.  I have done most of them and can testify to great atmosphere, organization and reasons to return time and again to these events.
Whether the December holidays and the festive season was conducive to good training will be seen as we creep forever closer to the first of these ultra marathons in March!

Athletics fixtures
For those not so focused on mileage but more on the need for speed, and in particular our junior runners, the athletics season will resume this coming weekend with some open fixtures on the CGA calendar.
Starting at 8h30 this Saturday, there will be track meetings held at Ruimsig Stadium, and then Germiston for the following seven Saturdays (please confirm as they do have a habit of changing!)  Track meetings are open to all ages from primary school to adults as well as masters athletes (the latter have their own league).  Please contact us should you require any more information about track running.


To bail or not to bail?  Give us your opinion!
At some point in time, even if you didn’t go through with it, most runners entertain the thought of quitting during an event.
Let us know your opinion on bailing.  Is there ever an appropriate time to call it quits?  Have you done it before?  If you did bail a race at some point, how did it affect your training and racing after you did it?
Your opinion matters, please let us know!

How long should I hold the stretch? (by Benita de Wit www.lynosport.co.za)
“I have worked with sports injuries and particularly runners for the past 24 years. Initially I followed the 20 second stretching rules I was trained to do, and which was supported in most of the textbooks etc...
However since 1995, I worked with professional athletes who were tired of chronic recurring injuries and we decided to start a research program to develop a method that would permanently fix and prevent running injuries.
At the time I came across Aaron Mattes’ work, Active Isolated Stretching (AIS,) with which he had excellent results. He propagated 2 sec stretches and when I compared his way of stretching to the old 20 second stretches, it was much more effective, gave much quicker results and without weakening the muscles the way the long static stretches did.
In my research I found more than half of my athletes completely overstretched and along with that they were extremely weak when tested on my Bunkie Test. (they were all using regular 20second stretches). Chronic calf injury athletes were all stretching their calves regularly; the chronic Hamstring athletes were doing regular long Hamstring stretches, etc.
Initially we made them stop their stretches completely and within about 2 weeks, the muscle strength started picking up and the tightness they felt when training, disappeared.
I then stopped all the 20 second stretches with all my athletes, measured their muscle length according to my tests shown in RW, and only allowed them to do 2 second stretches (5x2seconds) where they lacked range of movement. I suddenly got rid of hardcore injuries like Piriformis syndrome, ITB, chronic muscle tears, etc.

The balance band or power band?  Give us your opinion!
We see them everywhere we go – sportsmen and women, school kids, executives, tall, short, fat, skinny and muscular, all wearing some or other from of “balance band”. 
Have you got one?  What is your opinion of it?  What does it do, or not do, for you?
Your opinion matters, please let us know!