Week in Review
Last week included plenty of work and fun. On Tuesday our team made it out to our course for the second week in a row and got in some fartlek-type workouts. We're super grateful to Terry Nations and Eric Clements for keeping the course mowed this summer.
Wednesday was one of the days of summer training most looked forward to by our veteran runners. This year's color war included reusable water balloons that took the paint slinging to another level. We had a Christmas in July theme, and the mostly senior Red Team emerged victorious.
Thursday saw our second Neuro Day of the summer. The wicket runs and med ball throws already looked markedly improved for many. Friday we headed down to McBride to do our long run on the gravel road atop the levee. The onslaught of humidity, bugs, and transport trucks weren't enough to prevent a great run. Afterwards we headed to Al's Place for a delicious team breakfast.
This was the first week of the summer without any runners earning their summer shirt. That's because most of our team already has theirs. However, we did make sure Coach Heine got his official shirt for the season on his birthday.
The Week Ahead
With the dead period for fall sports set to begin this weekend, the week ahead marks the last of our summer training. The plan is to go out on a high note!
That means one more Tuesday workout on the course. Then on our last fun day, we'll get in a game of infection tag. But the fun won't stop there. On Friday we'll end the summer with our photo scavenger hunt at the park.
Midnight Marathon
Our team is debuting a new event. Originally intended as a team fundraiser, this year the Midnight Marathon will just be a fun teambuilding experience open to family and friends.
The premise for the event is for the team to collectively run a marathon, completed as a relay divided into 300m segments at 5k pace. But all of this will happen on the main straightaway of our course under the cover (and cool) of darkness, complete with lights, color, music, food, and fun. In the end we'll see where our overall time stacks up against famous marathon times and standards. Be sure to mark your calendars for August 17, and stay tuned for more details! 
Recipe of the Week
This week's recipe made its debut at practice earlier this summer and got a shoutout in the blog a few weeks ago for containing a number of runner superfoods. They might not taste as good as my regular chocolate chip cookies, but these cherry chocolate recovery cookies have still gotten pretty good reviews.
Ingredients (makes 24 average cookies)
Directions
What Coach Learned
This week I got to read through a consensus statement from the International Olympic Committee that was published last fall. The statement (which is really more of a journal article) addresses a somewhat recently emerging concern in the endurance sports world, Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs). It's a bit heady and dense in places, but the issue came up at both coaching clinics I attended this year.
Put simply, REDs is a syndrome of poor health and declining athletic performance that happens when athletes do not get enough fuel through food to support the energy demands of their daily lives and training. While more common in female athletes, its effects are being seen in an increasing number of males as well. Athletes expend a great deal of energy throughout the day, not just in training but so the body can continue to perform its normal functions. When a runner starts to ramp up volume and intensity, this expense climbs sharply. If a runner's energy intake (i.e. food) doesn't match this, their body ends up in a situation intuitively termed Low Energy Availability, where there's not enough energy for the functions necessary for optimal health and performance. If the deficit is slight and short-term, the body has an impressive ability to adapt and shift energy resources to meet the most pressing needs, almost like when a bunch of grocery shoppers show up to checkout at the same time and the manager pulls a stocker over to man an extra register. When the energy ratio balances back out, the body can quickly and easily return to normal. These situations happen quite regularly and without concern. However, as the duration and severity of the deficit increase, so do the concerns. At higher levels, the body has to shift energy from more vital functions and/or from secondary functions for extended lengths of time, either of which becomes problematic. This would be like several workers at the grocery store calling in sick on the same morning when one of the freezers goes out and its entire inventory must be relocated. Short-staffed with excess workload, the store has to choose between letting product spoil or forcing customers to wait 20 minutes to check out, neither of which is good for business. Likewise, as key body functions are shut down or impeded, the risk of health and performance issues characteristic of REDs approaches a tipping point. You can see the full picture in the graphic below, but the effects span a number of systems. This includes things like decreased bone density/strength, bloating/abdominal cramps, depression, sleep disturbances, dangerously low heart rate, impaired muscle synthesis, stunted growth, and greater susceptibility to illness/infection. For developing teens at the peak stages of forming bone density that must last the rest of their lives, this is all the more concerning. That's before considering what all of this means for an athlete's training and races. Awareness is one of the greatest tools in preventing and treating REDs, as it allows athletes and parents to look out for common warning signs. Beyond that, being intentional about avoiding overtraining and underfueling will help limit the risk of Low Energy Availability. As studies emerge that estimate incident rates of some degree of REDs characteristics among high school students at around 50% for females and 40% for males, I do think there's going to be a lot more conversation and education around the topic in the months and years to come. 
Comments are closed.
|
RSS Feed