Gallagher Fitness Resources

Category: 10k, Half-Marathon, Marathon Clinic

This category and subsequent sub-categories and topics are for TEAM GFR Training participants and any other runners, walkers and interested people to read and post comments.

  • If the Shoe Fits

    Pronation is a normal foot in motion, from foot-strike on the outside of the heel through the inward roll of the foot. Pronation occurs as the foot rolls from the outer edge to the inner edge. Everyone pronates, and the initial pronation is considered an important and healthy response to the intense amount of shock imposed upon the foot and is integral to propelling you forward. If the foot pronates too much or too little and does so frequently, several biomechanical problems may result that will cause a decrease in performance and increase the possibility of injury.

    Fit

    No matter how expensive your shoes are or how much technology your shoes contain, they will not do their job unless they fit correctly. Here are useful tips that can help assure you are getting the proper fit.

    When trying on shoes, if you have custom orthotics or over-the-counter inserts, bring them with you.
    Combining rigid orthotics with supportive shoes can sometimes result in over-correction. Consult with the experts to make sure your shoes accommodate your orthotics for a comfortable match.

    Make sure there is adequate space in the toe box. Leave 1/2 inch between the longest toe and the end of the shoe. This is about a thumb’s width. This measurement should be done while standing since the foot elongates while weight-bearing. If this measurement is done while sitting, there is a good chance the shoe will be too short.

    Check the heel counter to make sure your heel won’t slide excessively and is firm enough to provide stability. A little slippage is normal, but not too much.

    If your feet tend to expand throughout the day, try on shoes in the afternoon or evening to insure you have enough toe room.

    Walk or run in the shoes while in the store, and experience how they feel. They should be comfortable right away, not needing to be broken in. General rule of thumb: If it hurts in the store, it will hurt at home. An expert sales associate will observe your biomechanics while you try out the shoes, providing knowledgeable feedback.

    Knowledgeable Staff/Specialty Shoe Store
    Use the knowledge of staff at a specialty shoe store, Gallagher Fitness Resources. We listen to your specific foot concerns, explain the technology of the various categories, assess the wear pattern of your old, worn shoes, and observe the biomechanics of your stride. Taking all this into account, we can help take the guess work out of finding shoes that will provide you the best comfort and functionality.


    Durability

    There is a wide variety of running/walking shoes. The main types are neutral/cushioned, stability and motion control. Regardless of the type of shoe, the constant pounding will wear out the midsole cushioning before the rest of the shoe. The impact at heel strike is typically 2.5 times or more your body weight. This is the same force that is translated to the ankles, knees and lower back. Running shoes are specifically designed to redistribute and absorb shock to preserve the health of these joints. It is recommended to change running shoes every 350-500 miles or every 6 months to maintain proper shock absorption and help prevent injury.

    Minimalism

    The running shoe world has been buzzing with minimalist/barefoot hype. Gallagher Fitness has an entire line of minimal/natural footstrike shoes from New Balance, Brooks, Saucony, Nike and Altra in addition to the “minimal” racing flats we carry from Asics, Nike and adidas. We want to represent as many choices to our customer base as possible without finding ourselves awash in a tsunami of inventory. To be certain, there are some fads and pretenders trying to make a buck before this minimalist movement implodes. Yet at the same time there are some quality products built by manufacturers who have taken the time and effort to research the final offering and produce a product that will stand the test of time.

    We recommend a very careful and methodical transition to using minimalist shoes, especially if you’ve been in conventional shoes for most of your life. If you’re curious about trying them, we encourage you to talk to our staff individually when you come in for shoes. Trust the cumulative experience we have at GFR over the marketing, which can be confusing and misleading. When used correctly, minimal shoes can be a tool to strengthen your feet and lower legs and assist with form awareness. However, they don’t work for everyone. We’ve seen quite a few injuries. The Good Form Running classes at GFR twice a month will increase your awareness of form, regardless of your shoes. We encourage you to sign up. It’s more involved than princess steps.

    “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” However, if you try minimalist shoes, start slowly and proceed gradually. What works for some, doesn’t work for everyone.

  • Conversation Pace

    “Conversation Pace” is the key to getting started and staying with it.

    Walking and running should feel good. Your effort, in general, should be comfortable. We are often asked, “What’s comfortable supposed to feel like?” or “How do you define comfortable?”

    Comfortable means being able to talk in complete sentences while exercising. Using the “talk test,” you’re doing fine if you can “comfortably” carry on a conversation. If you can’t “comfortably” talk in complete sentences while you are exercising, you’re trying too hard. Slow down and get back to “Conversation Pace.”

    “Conversation Pace” doesn’t mean gasping for air every few words or forcing the end of the sentence, wishing the session were over. It means talking so comfortably that you are totally involved in the conversation and you don’t even notice you are exercising. The session is practically over before you realize it, and you think, “Wow, that was so easy!”

    When you are comfortable, your fitness level improves. The more comfortable you are, the more you can do, and the fitter you get. Here’s how it works… Your heart and lungs get used to processing more and more blood and oxygen every time you go out. Your cardiovascular system responds by becoming more efficient. You respond by being more comfortable doing more work.

    Most beginners and many experienced people have a tendency to “over-train” when exercising. They think they’re able to talk but it’s with way too much effort. They fail the “talk test.” They aren’t getting enough oxygen and the cumulative effect of this leads to over-training. Day in and day out they eventually get anaerobic and they aren’t aware of it. This is why staying comfortable is so important.

    Staying comfortable and exercising at “Conversation Pace” is also more fun. You get to know the people you are working out with and time just seems to fly by. When it’s fun you’re more likely to stick with it. What a simple concept this is. Regardless of the actual pace that you are walking or running at, if you simply carry on a conversation, you know you are going at the right pace.

  • Injury Cycle

    Injuries can be avoided when you discover YOU can alter the cycle that creates them.  Hydration, proper recovery, massage, and rolling out with trigger point tools are all important pieces to the training puzzle.  We want you to reach your goals.  Taking care of your body is the easiest way to get there.  If you ignore the easy things your goals are harder to reach and unexpected injuries are just around the corner.

    Here’s a message from Cassidy Phillips, Trigger Point creator, talking about the role dehydration plays in the injury cycle.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry1Q67x5NmU

  • Are You Breathing?

    As with any form of exercise, proper breathing techniques are a foundational element for success when using Trigger Point Performance tools and methods.

    Deep nasal breaths provide a steady stream of oxygen to the lower lobes of the lungs where blood oxygen transfer is at its greatest.  As we address key areas of the body with Myofascial Compression Techniques, this fresh oxygenated blood can successfully enter the muscle to restore pliability, elasticity, and fluidity.

    Nasal breathing also stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which reduces stress and triggers relaxation and the recovery that is essential for optimal results when rolling out.  Many times rolling on a tender spot in the muscle will cause someone to hold their breath which will limit the muscles ability to relax.

    Begin each routine with a few deep nasal breaths to get focused and to set a pattern for the manipulation.  You will become more efficient and experience greater results with each session.

  • Hill Running Tips

    When running hills, many look up at a hill and say, “Oh my!” They panic before giving themselves a chance. A great place in Salem to practice hills is at the Soap Box Derby track in Bush Park. It doesn’t come overnight, so be patient and keep practicing your form work. You’ll get better and better as you keep working at it. Here are some tips to help you remember.

    • Eyes: Keep your eyes focused on the top of the hill. Don’t look down.
    • Visualization: As you run up the hill with your eyes up, visualize someone at the top of the hill pulling you up with a rope that’s tied to a central spot between your hips. Creative Visualization is an amazing tool that top athletes frequently use. If you practice this, you will actually “feel” your hips being drawn up the hill by this invisible rope.
    • Hips: Lead with your hips and keep them going “straight” up the hill. Visualize small headlights attached to the front of your hip bones. You need to keep those headlights centered on the road! Don’t let them “weave” back and forth across the road.
    • Head: Keep your head up! Looking up and keeping your head erect puts your body (especially your spine and hips) in the right position. It also doesn’t rob you from oxygen.
    • Short Steps: Maintain a quick cadence and keep your stride length short. Don’t over-stride.
    • Arms: Use your arms, but don’t overdo it! Reach back with your hands far enough to brush the sides of your hips.
    • Keep Going: Continue past the top of the hill and concentrate on using good form for several more yards after you’ve crested the top. Keep up the quick cadence. Going up hills with good form is very important. However, being able to continue after you’ve “conquered the hill” is what will make you more efficient, stronger and faster.

    Demonstration:

    Look up – deep breath

    Look down – deep breath

    You need oxygen when going uphill

    Eyes up – head up – oxygen

    Spine straightens up – hips align – increased efficiency

    And remember the tow rope

  • Marathon training is like homebrewing or winemaking

    If you have ever participated in the homebrewing or winemaking process you will appreciate this analogy.  Assuming the right ingredients are mixed in the right proportions and the “recipe” is followed correctly there is little that separates marathon training from winemaking and homebrewing when you reflect on these three essential components:

    • Experience – The best brewer or winemaker is nearly always the one with the most years of experience.  Sure it takes a lot of luck, but when you are in the realm of art + science, luck is directly proportional to years of experience.  The “art” is enhanced by all the mistakes made along the way.  Training for a marathon is quite similar.  You can have a stroke of beginner’s luck, but you are more likely to improve through years of experience and, unfortunately, a few mistakes and training errors.
    • Being Confident and Trusting the Process – Experimentation is always tempting when you are trying to make a batch of beer or a most exquisite wine, but you cannot change the essential process.  There are inviolable steps in making beer or wine.  You may have the most creative idea in the world for the next best brew, but if you change the order of the essential steps the results will stink – literally.  Your grand experiment will be entirely undrinkable and you will have wasted a lot of time.  Trust your training plan.  The workouts follow a specific order and plan.  The plan is your key to success.  Experiment “slightly” and “carefully” but don’t abandon the essential steps to success.
    • Patience – Wooo boy.  This is the toughest part of marathon training as well as brewing and winemaking.  Once the beer is in the carboy or the wine is in the oak barrel or stainless steel fermenter, not much can be done to change the final product.  Playing too much with the ingredients in the late stages of the fermentation process will more than likely ruin the final outcome rather than enhance it.  The same is true in the later stages of marathon training.  You cannot “cram” like you did for your college finals.  Either the work is in or it’s not.  When your marathon training reaches the final three weeks, you can only screw up the final result with final “tweaking.”  It’s patience in those final, sometimes agonizing weeks, when the aging process/training effect yields the best product.

    Feel free to make comments on this topic!  Let’s have some fun with it.

  • 2010 Portland Marathon & Half Marathon Finishers

    CONGRATULATIONS to the following runners from the TEAM GFR Training Program!

    Half-Marathon

    • Leigh Elliot – 2:13:34
    • Chane Griggs – 2:13:34

    Marathon

    • Gloria Marlowe 3:46:34 (Boston Qualifier)
    • Bill Sime 3:50:41
    • Anita Risberg 3:51:09 (Boston Qualifier)
    • Jim Sears 3:53:51 (Boston Qualifier)
    • Tracey Davis 3:59:33
    • Francis Curtis 4:10:39
    • Kyle Brager 4:19:35
    • Virginia Brager 4:21:21
    • Teri Bledsoe 4:21:55
    • Laura Metzger 4:21:56
    • Debbie Baker 4:26:38
    • Rebecca Preston 4:28:37
    • Ron Tatom 4:30:56
    • Alex Welch 4:43:48
    • Lazeni Koulibali 4:46:38
    • Kathy Wilson 4:48:44
    • Eileen Virden 4:49:24
    • Dexter Johnson 5:01:31
    • Teri Wright 5:09:33
    • Shelley Bokor 5:09:40
    • Jenna Smith 5:35:46
    • Fahlene Lockwood 5:38:36
    • Diane Miller 5:39:36
    • Brenda Kirsch 5:56:54

  • Thoughts: Post-PDX Marathon 10/10/10

    Congratulations to all finishers on 10/10/10!  Mother Nature dealt a crooked hand this past Sunday in Portland, OR.  Soggy shoes, soggy shirts, and soggy shorts ruled the morning.  Our TeamGFR Marathon and Half-Marathon group performed bravely!  Finishers endured a record setting rainfall for marathon day and a record crowd of runners and walkers.

    Here’s a link to the pictures Susan took:  [You may have to paste it into your browser or go to the GFR Facebook page.]

    Pictures from 2010 Portland Marathon:   http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=226386&id=87156918283

    Many of you are still a bit sore today.  Most are happy they finished.  Some are admittedly a little (or a lot) disappointed they did not meet their intended goal time.  Regardless of that finish time, YOU ARE A MARATHONER or a HALF MARATHONER!

    As I have reminded folks after numerous marathons.  You are now a member of an elite bunch of folks.  Less than 1/10 of 1% (that’s .001 for the decimal minded) of the US population finished a marathon last year.  How many people can confidently say they are in the 99.9+ percentile in anything?  Congratulations – you can make that claim!  Don’t believe me?  Here’s your proof:

    The Running USA Annual Report on the State of the Sport:  http://www.runningusa.org/node/57770

    Susan and I have spoken to a lot of folks.  Emailed a few more.  And posted to a whole bunch of Facebook profiles.  Ladies and Gentlemen, that was a tough day.  No one should feel disappointed with their performance.  You may not believe me at this point (just 2 or 3 days after the race), but some day soon – maybe not this week or next – but soon, you will look at that finisher’s medal and wear that finishers shirt and shed tears of joy while feeling an intense sense of accomplishment.  You EARNED that medal and shirt on Sunday.  No one can take that away from you.  Think about ALL the days that went into earning that medal and shirt.  It didn’t just happen magically on Sunday 10/10/10.

    Not only did you endure nearly 3/4 of an inch of rain, you made it through over 5 months of consistent training.  Are you fitter, thinner, healthier than you were 5 months ago?  Did you meet and get to know some brand new and absolutely awesome people over the last 5 months?  Did you find yourself actually looking forward to getting up early on Saturday mornings – and behaving a bit more on Friday nights? Did your life change?  Did your accomplishment inspire others to make changes in their lives?  Do you realize the impact that medal around your neck had on your family, friends, and co-workers?  How does it feel to be inspirational?

    I’ll admit, I have had a few brutal marathons.  More of them have been successes, but none of them have been a “walk in the park.”  My first experience at the Boston Marathon in 2005 was affected by an unseasonably hot day and I wilted miserably over the last 4.5 miles.  I was disappointed and felt that sense of failure.  I was kicking myself around inside my head.  It was still obvious on my face a couple of hours after the race.   Then something extraordinary happened.  Susan and I were doing the tourist thing, walking around Boston wearing my finisher’s shirt with my medal around my neck.  While we were waiting at a crosswalk for a traffic light to change, a guy holding a cigarette and wearing a Boston Red Sox ballcap asked me how I did.  I mumbled something like “Well, I finished, but I didn’t hit my goal.”  He looked at me in absolute amazement.  He tossed his cigarette aside and threw his hands up in the air and shouted, “What’re you talkin about? You finished da Bah-stun marathon! Bah-stun, man!  Nobody cares what your time was – you did it!”

    Ah – perspective!

    Susan and I are excited to hear your post-marathon stories.  We will listen and offer advice on how to get closer to those goals in the next one.  But expect the same reaction from us as that guy on the Boston street corner:  “What’re you talkin about? You finished da Portland marathon! Portland, man!  Nobody cares what your time was – you did it!

    ”

    Have a great week!  Please plan on attending the Celebration and Kickoff on Thursday November 4th.  We want to see ALL of you PROUDLY wearing those finishers shirts!

  • St George 2010 Race Report

    FROM Deb Lush:

    I thought I’d forward this email that I wrote this morning to the Renegade group about St. George.  We had a great time, but it wasn’t a PR race.  Of course, that’s disappointing, but there’s more to life and it’s the gamble we take on the weather.  No regrets.  I’ll just have to wait another 6 months or likely more to break a new PR.  I’m proud that a slow run with lots of walking still gets me in at 3:48, which is still my 4th fastest race, of 18.  =)

    Deb

    Subject: Deb’s report

    We have been a little silent, haven’t we?  What’s more to say:  high of mid-90s that day.  Nearly 60 degrees at the start…before the sun was up…at 5200 feet elevation.  No shade.  Anywhere.  Period.  We all were hot, dehydrated, and slow.  At least I’d like to say we were all slow, but there were three notable exceptions.

    Chris PR’d with a 3:28 after eating FOUR SPORT BEANS the whole race.  He has confessed he might need a different fueling strategy for the next race, given the IV at the finish.

    Sue got second in her age division with a 3:32.  And no IVs.
    Nancy qualified for Boston with a 3:52.

    The rest of us slowed it down, whether by choice or not.  Jen and Dennis both ran smart, slowing it down for the heat and doing what made sense for the day, which was not the intended goal.  Same for me.  I personally was at least 15 minutes slower than planned, and I walked a lot.  I felt very nauseated any time I picked up the pace. 

    Bob and James were smart enough to give up the intended goal before the race started and so probably felt the best of any of us on the course, and they had a great time.

    But then my brother finished and I didn’t feel so bad: he collapsed, was delusional, and had two IVs.  We enjoyed a bonding hour in the medic tent.  His newbie mistake (marathon #2) was that he didn’t know you could refill your water on the course and he ran out at mile 20, then was so delusional he missed the next water stops.  Despite his dehydration, he did a 4:06, quite an improvement after the 4:52 we ran at Napa.  He’s itching for a sub-4 again, and would have had it if it weren’t for the weather.

    The rest of the time was perfect!  Well, that is, except for the little issue of the airline losing Chris’s luggage…running shoes and clothes and all….  It has yet to be found.  Did I mention Chris PR’d with NEW running shoes, too?  He the man.

    So, aside from Boston, where we going next year guys???  Deb

  • Newport Marathon June 5, 2010

    Congratulations Team GFR Newport Marathon Runners!

    Raille Wilson 2:53:56 (6:39)
    Joel Turner 2:58:02 (6:48)
    Chris Erion 3:30:55 (8:03)
    Jennifer Kinkade 3:54:19 (8:57)
    Karen Rumrill 3:54:32 (8:57)
    Greg Burgess 4:06:13 (9:24)
    Rebecca Preston 4:43:47 (10:50)
    Brent Smith 4:44:34 (10:52)
    Alicia Mahrt 4:48:35 (11:01)
    Shelley Bokor 5:06:18 (11:41)
    Diane Miller 5:22:51 (12:19)
    Marlee Underhill 5:22:55 (12:19)