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Lead Stories: Monday, December 1, 2008

Ryan Hall: The Countdown
(Elite Athlete Blog Entry 12)

Posted June 20th, 2008 at 7:55 PM by Ryan Hall

Section: News & Results, Marathons, Track & Field, Olympics, Elite Athlete Blogs, Ryan Hall, Road Racing

Welcome to the official blog of top U.S. distance runner Ryan Hall as he begins his quest for Olympic gold! Check back every other Friday for Ryan’s latest entry at http://ryanhall.thefinalsprint.com/

As I laid awake last night trying to fall asleep, I did what I have a tendency to do once training is clicking well and I feel my legs beginning to feel “alive” again after the initial callusing is complete from the first month of marathon training; I began the countdown. Only a little more than two months until I run in the Olympic marathon.

Countdowns are nothing new for me. When I was a little kid my siblings and I used to fight over who gets to open the next day’s door on a Christmas countdown board. I am not going to lie, it was the chocolate behind the door that we were really fighting over, but it did make Christmas all the more special once it finally arrived.
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Ryan Hall: The Team
(Elite Athlete Blog Entry 11)

Posted June 7th, 2008 at 11:30 AM by Ryan Hall

Section: News & Results, Marathons, Olympics, Elite Athlete Blogs, Ryan Hall

Eleven weeks to go. I go back and forth between thinking I have too much time before the games, and then feeling like there is not enough time. Eleven weeks sometimes feels like a long time to train at the intensity that I am now daily putting forth, but then when I think to myself that in two months I will be heading out to Beijing, I wish I could sneak in a few more weeks at altitude before then. I have found that it is usually a good sign to feel like I wish I had one or two more weeks of training. It is a sign that I am still fresh, still hungry, and still moving forward. Contrast this with my first marathon run at the 2007 London Marathon when I had been hanging on for a month after training for what seemed like an eternity.

Today I will be repeating the same workout I ran two weeks ago before I left for Bolder Boulder—a ten mile tempo run. Last time out it didn’t go so well. Waking up to snow was my second sign that I was going to have a tough day, with the first sign being my cranky ankle that had been bothering me after doing an hour and a half run on a rocky—yet beautiful—single track trail in Big Bear. So between my cranky ankle, snow falling, and being out there all by myself without my shuffle (which I forgot at home) I set myself up for a long day. Let’s not get too much into the specifics; we can just leave it at that I went out slow and came back even slower. Not to mention picking up my bottles off the ground didn’t seem to speed things up any. I left for Boulder concerned.
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Study: Fewer Intense Workouts, More Recovery for Maximum Performance

Posted January 22nd, 2008 at 2:39 PM by thefinalsprint.com

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise

man_running_on_treadmilll How much time should you spend working at your maximum level in your sport, compared to miles or days spent going at a relaxed pace?

Researchers at the University of Madrid in Spain divided competitive distance runners into two groups. One group did frequent intense workouts and fewer slow recovery miles, while the second group did fewer intense workouts and more slow miles (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, August 2007).

At the end of five months, the runners who did fewer intense workouts and more recovery miles improved far more than those who ran fewer miles and spent a lot of their time trying to run very fast.
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Muscle recovery techniques to get you back up, running and in the gym

Posted August 7th, 2007 at 6:11 PM by Shannon Clark

Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise

muscle recovery man praying kneeling track runner breather One of the most critical aspects of your workout is your recovery. While you definitely do need to be putting in the effort at the gym to provide an overloading stimulus on the muscles to keep challenging them, if you aren’t giving your muscles enough time to recover and grow back stronger you will not see the progress you like.

Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to enhance your recovery ability so you spend less time out of the gym and more time enjoying your workouts (and reaping the desired results)…

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