A certain Canadian marathoner (let’s call him “Reid C.”…No, that’s too obvious…Let’s say “R. Coolsaet”) has trained for months leading up to a big marathon. He’s running very well through the first half, and is on pace for a personal best time. But just past halfway…uh oh. He feels something no runner wants to feel mid-race. He has to go. You know…#2. With no porta-potty in sight, he quietly ducks behind an electrical box and does his “business”. Luckily (and impressively), the stop doesn’t take long and he is back running in no time. He grits it out until the end and still comes away with a personal best time!

So what happened to our unidentified marathoner friend? Did he eat too much spicy food the night before the race? Did a rival competitor spike his sports drink? And how did he still manage a personal best even with the pitstop?

This particular marathoner, along with many of his marathoner friends, has started to experiment with an exciting new performance enhancer: Beetroot juice. It’s fully legal and natural, and there has been a ridiculous amount of good research done in the past 5 years that indicates it will improve performance. As you can glean from the above story, the evidence is so convincing that many runners are willing to risk some rather “unfortunate” side effects to get that extra edge!

So how does it work? What would drive an athlete to take such risks? Jamie Whitfield, a PhD student at the University of Guelph who is currently researching beetroot juice and other ergogenic aids, gave this summary:

“Beetroot juice is a dietary source of nitrates, which are broken down in the mouth and stomach to become nitric oxide. Nitric oxide expands blood vessels and increases blood flow. But what’s really impressive about beetroot and dietary nitrate supplemetation is that it lowers the amount of oxygen you need to run at a given intensity.”

Why is that so impressive? Well, the amount of oxygen needed to work at a certain intensity is normally constant. It’s not affected by age, exercise training, or even erythropoietin (EPO) use! 

In short, beet root juice can help you run faster, or run longer without tiring. So it has implications for the runner looking to improve on a 5k time, as well as the runner looking to complete a marathon! Check out this video if you want more information or if you’d rather not read any more.

How much beetroot juice do you need? And where can you get it? The usual dose is 500mL within 2-3 hours of exercise. You can buy beetroot juice at many local health food stores, or you can try to make your own at home. If 500mL sounds like too much, a more manageable alternative is available from a company called Beet It. It contains the same amount of nitrates in a much smaller amount (70mL). And if you really don’t want to get technical, simply include more nitrate-rich vegetables in your diet: beets, spinach, lettuce and celery.

One final piece of good news for those runners who may not be aiming for Rio 2016: It seems like beetroot supplementation helps recreational runners more than it helps elite runners! Studies using recreational athletes have consistently found improvements in exercise efficiency and performance, whereas studies using highly trained athletes haven’t always found positive results. It seems that elite athletes may already have higher levels of nitric oxide “precursors” in their body, so supplementation may not have the same effect. And in case you’re worried about some of the side effects: Not everyone who takes beetroot juice experiences issues like our friend RC (whoever he is). Just make sure that you try it out in training first and see how your stomach handles it. From there, get ready for some seriously good runs!

Next time: Some cool information about winter running!

Reference:

Bailey SJ, Vanhatalo A, Winyard PG, Jones AM. The nitrate-nitrite-nitric oxide pathway: Its role in human exercise physiology. Eur J Sport Sci. 2012;12(4):309-20.

Thanks to Reid Coolsaet for letting me share his story from the 2011 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. Reid and fellow Speed River athlete Eric Gillis both used that race to qualify for the London Olympics.

By: Karen Karnis

As volunteer president of Athletics Alberta, Tim Berrett was elected to represent the interests of Athletics Canada’s provincial branches on the National Team Committee (NTC). In a nutshell, this committee is responsible for selection criteria and standards for national team events and athlete carding.  In addition, the NTC is working on evaluating the national team coaching system post-2012 Olympics.  Berrett says, “In my contributions, I always try to have the best interest of the current crop of athletes at heart – trying to ensure that they are treated fairly and with respect.”

Berrett is an extremely appropriate person for these tasks, considering he has represented Canada at numerous national and international competitions, including nine IAAF Athletics World Championships – a record equaled only by two others in the world – and five consecutive Olympic Games, beginning in Barcelona in 1992.  His sport is race walking, most commonly the 20K and 50K, with a few track events for good measure.

Think about that for a moment: five Olympic Games, at four years apart…equals an incredibly long and amazing athletic career!  It all began in England, when his high school coach told the running team that they must either help out at a local race walking event, or participate in it.  After finishing 3^rd overall in the 3K, Berrett went on to place 11^th at the English schools championships a few months later.

Despite several more successes, Berrett says he didn’t consider competing internationally until after he had moved to Canada to pursue a Master’s degree at Queen’s University in 1987. “It took 5 more years of consistent training until I achieved the athlete’s ultimate dream of competing in the Olympics for Canada,” says Berrett.  “But even that hung in the balance until the 11^th hour as my citizenship application had to be expedited in order for me to be named to the team.”

As a race walker, Berrett encountered a lot of the same challenges as any runner.  The biggest one, he says, is “maintaining focus during the long, lonely hours of training for an event that lasts 3 ¾ hours.” Just like in running, it takes years to develop a race walking career, and there isn’t a whole lot of money in it.  Berrett says, “I was fortunate to have been supported during my career by Mizuno, who supplied me with high quality training and racing shoes and apparel.  In covering up to 8,000km annually in training, I used to go through about 10-12 pairs of shoes every year, so Mizuno’s assistance was not insignificant.  I was also ‘carded’ by Sport Canada and received a monthly stipend to help pay the bills.”

Other factors contributing to his success include his coach, John Fitzgerald, a support system of massage therapists, physiotherapists and chiropractors, staying injury free for the most part, and indoor facilities that allowed him to train through the harsh Alberta winters.  Most importantly, however, Berrett says “I would not have been able to continue my career without the ongoing emotional and financial support of my wife, Tara.  Without her backing, it would have been impossible for me to continue to train and compete at the highest level in my sport.”

Now that he’s retired from competition, Berrett continues to contribute to the world of Athletics. In addition to his involvement with Athletics Alberta and the NTC, he organizes a program called AthletiKids, a twice-weekly before-school program for elementary school kids. It is a modified version of Athletics Canada’s Run, Jump, Throw program. “I do this because I believe that the importance of physical fitness is often overlooked despite a mandated 30 minute daily activity in Alberta schools, and because I would like to provide an opportunity for youngsters to get exposed to the sport that has given me so much,” says Berrett.  He adds, “The ultimate goal is to fine-tune the program to make it easily delivered by the non-expert instructor in schools across Alberta and beyond.”

Berrett also enjoys running for 45 minutes to an hour daily with Ozzie, his Portuguese Waterdog.

Q & A with Tim Berrett:

What is your favourite anecdote from your competitive career?

My training environment was not always what one might consider to be ‘ideal’.  On a monthly basis, my coach and I would arrange to meet in person – alternating between Edmonton (where I was based) and Saskatchewan (where he lives) to work on technique.  In the spring of 1993, it was my turn to make the trek to northern Saskatchewan just prior to competing at the World Cup of Race Walking that was to be held in Monterrey, Mexico.  On arrival in Stanley Mission past midnight, after having driven 9 hours from Edmonton, I didn’t notice that there were no paved roads in the town.  When I woke up the next morning and saw that the only roads were of the dirt variety, which (given the impending spring thaw) had turned to thick mud, I asked my coach where I was going to train for the next couple of days.  As usual, he had a plan…even though the town did not have a treadmill, or a gym larger than a volleyball court.  He drove me to a lake just outside town & informed m that this was to be our training venue.  I looked for the path around the lake that did not exist.  John checked the thickness and traction of the ice & deemed it safe enough to mark out a 500m course for me to walk countless laps around, while he kept a watchful eye from the middle of the lake.  Over the next couple of days, that was the only place for me to train, but the workouts were good.  So good, that I went on to have one of my best ever performances at the World Cup two weeks later (finishing 5^th).  Other athletes from around the world wondered what my secret training had been leading up to my breakthrough international performance.  I simply told them that I’d been walking on water (remember that this was the days before underwater treadmills)!

What are your favourite Mizuno products?

All of them!

Shoes: While I was competing, I would use lightweight racing shoes such as Wave Ronin and Wave Musha for both training and racing.  I also trained in lightweight trainers such as the Wave Precision and Wave Elixir.  Now that I am doing more running, I enjoy the additional spring afforded by the Wave Inspire, and the traction on the trails provided by the Wave Ascend.

Outerwear:  In winter, I rarely run without my Breath Thermo gloves and toque, as well as my Breath Thermo pants.  On windy days, I enjoy the lightweight protection from the wind provided by the Cabrakan jacket.

Performance clothing:  In summer, I’ll usually wear lightweight tee-shirts, such as the Aero, and fast-drying shorts like the Ascend.  In the winter, I’ll use a Breath Thermo mock turtle long-sleeved tee-shirt on cooler days, or, on very cold days, a Breath Thermo Stretch Crew.

By: Nikki Reiter

How do some of Canada’s best endurance athletes perform ‘on demand?’  It’s not a real secret, except that they plan well.  Having an annual training plan helps tailor training so that the best result comes at the most important competition of the year.

Gerry Dragomir is coach of multiple Olympic race walkers with Racewalk West.  Since its formation, Racewalk West athletes have come to dominate the sport of race walking in Canada at every level from Youth to Master.  Of course, this couldn’t be accomplished without proper planning.  Gerry offers his advice on how to best plan your own racing schedule.

How do you select the most important race of the year?  What factors should play a part?

Selecting your most important event of the year is all about what you want to achieve.

Novice planners start out trying to do their planning the “easy” way. The easy way works (or doesn’t work) like this:

• I want to run a marathon in 2:48;
• Chicago has a marathon.
• I’ll plan to do that one in 2:48.
• I have 14 weeks to the event.
• I’ll download a 14 week training program from the Internet, plan complete.

This method is very quick, very easy and very often results in failure.

A more reliable but more involved method works like this:

• Find someone to evaluate your current state of fitness.
• Based on the evaluation, determine the fitness changes that you want to make to improve your performance.
• Find someone to help you determine how long it will take to make your fitness changes based on your desire and capacity to train.
• Based on the estimate of time required to make your changes, choose an event that will be held around the time that the changes should be complete.
• Select a couple of lesser events between now and the BIG one to allow you to test your progress.
• Build your detailed program to fit the schedule you now have.

At a basic level, what is periodization? 

Periodization is interval training writ large.  The idea behind interval training is that you can do more work with more intensity if you put rest/recovery periods between the intense parts.  If you’ve ever done an interval workout you know what I mean. Periodization simply takes the concept of the rest/recovery periods and applies it to larger segments of time.  You can periodize weekly by mixing more intense and less days with days off.  You can periodize by training cycle where you may do a particular type of training for a multi-week period with the weeks varying in intensity over the cycle.  You can periodize annually where you time and include different cycles at the appropriate time of the year.  You can periodize quadrennially by mixing intensities between the years.  Finally, you can periodize over a career or even over a lifetime.

The athletes who are best at periodization are those that set records (personal or otherwise) at major events.

How can a recreational runner use the principles of periodization to plan their race schedule?

I’d say “just do it” but I’m probably breaking someone’s trade mark.  Start out simple.  Identify what is a hard day, easy day and rest day.  Mix them up during the week.  Identify what is a hard week, easy week and rest week.  Mix them up over a 4-6 week period.  See how that feels, did you make progress?  Experiment with different combinations during the week and between the weeks.

The process is very personal and there is no magic formula except for the formula that you discover that is right for you through trial and error.  Believe it or not, that’s how the pros do it.  Of course, we make it much more complex based on what we know but we’re still just guessing until we get the evidence that validates or refutes our beliefs.

***

Nikki Reiter is a Mizuno Running Brand Ambassador from Kelowna, BC.  She holds a master’s degree in biomechanics, coaches Cross Country at UBC Okanagan and is the founder of Run Right Gait Analysis Service (run-right.ca).

There are several gift-giving guides for children available this time of year, but don’t forget the special woman in your life who considers hot pink Asics her number one fashion statement. Here are the gifts the running mom in your life really wants.

Noise-isolating earphones. After listening to a never-ending chorus of “Mommy? Mommy! Mooooommy. MOMMY!” for hours on end every day, we don’t want to hear anything except Rihanna’s newest mix or maybe some Iron Maiden while we run. We don’t want to hear the neighbourhood dog, we definitely don’t want to hear your kid if we don’t have to listen to our own, and we’re even negotiable on hearing someone sneaking up behind us in the event they want to take us to a quiet place.

A good sports bra. Mother Nature is a cruel, cruel beast. You’d think she’d take it easy because she’s one of us, but unfortunately she changes everything after a woman gives birth. Everything. And there’s nothing more disheartening than realizing that sound you hear 2k into your run is not your feet hitting the pavement, but rather your once perky assets slapping against your ribcage.

Wine. Also known as liquid motivation. We might not be super-eager to run home to the chaos we left behind, but you can bet the promise of a glass of malbec will put a spring in our step and keep us going until the end.

A running shirt. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy or special. It just needs to be there as back-up in the very likely event the one we’re wearing gets puked on or a massive snot ball rubbed on it before we can make it to the front step.

A banana. Chances are we were saving the last one in the house as a pre-run snack, but cut it up for our three-year old instead. Chances are even greater said child didn’t eat it, but made sure to stick it in their ear or up their nose so we couldn’t either.

Running tights and/or Body Glide. Sometimes when we find the time or actually remember to shave/wax our legs, we get motivated to put on a cute pair of shorts or a running skirt. And then after a few kilometers we remember the reason we stopped wearing them in the first place is that our thighs are aiming to earn a Girl Scouts badge by trying to start a fire in a very primitive way.

A nap. If there’s anything that kills motivation faster than discovering a Gilmore Girls marathon on TV, it’s exhaustion. And if your spouse/daughter/friend is a mom, there’s a 98% chance she’s tired. The other two per cent who say they aren’t are lying or heavy drinkers and the alcohol has numbed their senses.

By: Magi Scallion

Many Canadian runners have a love-hate relationship with winter… or maybe just a hate relationship. It’s a tough time of year with shorter days, colder temperatures, and poor running conditions on the whole. My strategy has always been to participate in a winter sport and to look for beautifully sunny winter destinations. It also helps that I do primarily contract work so I can switch my hours of work to early mornings and evenings so that I can exercise and be outside during the sunny part of the day.

This week I’m visiting one of my favourite winter destinations. Silver Star mountain in Vernon, BC is a great place to visit if the winter blahs are getting you down. First and foremost the cross-country skiing is excellent (more than 100 km of groomed trails) and the downhill skiing is pretty good as well. The ski village is also very charming: the houses are all painted in bright colours and walking is the primary mode of transportation.

There is a delicious coffee shop / bakery in the village, at which I spend a lot of my time. The coffee is good and the baked treats (croissants, cookies and more) are absolutely mouth watering. It’s a great place to enjoy lunch or an afternoon snack after a good morning of skiing. We normally stay in vacation rental homes with hot tubs while on the mountain… and hot tubs are not hard to find. There is not much so nice as sitting outside in a hot tub while snow falls in the evening.

Finally, the resort is high above Vernon, and normally high above the clouds. It’s really lovely to feel the sun on your face while looking down the mountain at a layer of clouds. We all need a little bit more Vitamin D in the winter.

I highly recommend Silver Star as a winter destination – whether you’re a cross-country skier, aspiring skier, alpine skier or pure runner. I’m sure you’ll find it a relaxing and cheery break during the long winter months.

***

Born in Nova Scotia and emigrating to British Columbia via Ontario and Alberta, Magi has been running the entire way. Primarily defined as a cross country ski racer, Magi has competed nationally and internationally in that sport. The highlight of her career was competing in the World University Games and the World Cup races in Canada in 2007. Cross country skiers rely heavily on running for cross training and Magi has become an accomplished trail and mountain runner, representing Canada at the World Mountain Running Championships in 2005 and the winning numerous national championships medals.

Today Magi runs for fun… and it’s a lot of fun! Epic mountain runs, city cruises with friends, and more keep her happy and occupied outside of work and school.

I went for a run Tuesday night. I wasn’t really into it. A stomach virus made its way through our house over the weekend and I was still trying to make up for lost sleep. I’m also pretty sure the smell of vomit lingered under my fingernails.

However there was something else that pushed me out the door, a far stronger motivation than even the need to escape my germ-infested home: the Victoria’s Secret fashion show was airing on television that night. I suppose there was a part of me that hoped by getting in my exercise for the day, I’d miraculously develop Alessandra Ambrosio’s abs or actual space between my thighs like Miranda Kerr. I’d probably have had to run further than 5k to even enter that stratosphere. Like non-stop. Until next summer.

The show always features a warning for parents with small children. I propose the following addendum to next year’s broadcast:

“Warning: the following broadcast may contain content that is inappropriate for women who have or plan to have children. Self-loathing may occur. Husband/Partner discretion is advised.”

It really doesn’t help matters that Alessandra, Adriana Lima and Lily Alridge, all who participated in the show, had babies in the past year. In fact, Adriana popped hers out a mere eight weeks before taping the show. Fortunately she didn’t pretend she got her body back solely from breastfeeding the way every celebrity mom claims to. Memo to those women: WE AREN’T STUPID AND WE’RE NOT BUYING IT. Many of us have also breastfed and our babies have not sucked the fat from our midsection to reveal six-pack abs underneath. Nursing means little ones drink milk your body produces. They are not tiny little lipsosuction machines (unless a lipsosuction machine also pukes in your hair three minutes after finishing).

Instead, Adriana revealed the tough (read: insane) regimen it took to have her looking like this when she walked the catwalk.

Six hours of working out a day, seven days a week. Unfortunately no one is paying me hundreds of thousands of dollars to run (let me know if you want to though), so my dream of strutting in lingerie for network television remains elusive for now. I may not have the bank account with millions of dollars and abs you could grate cheese on, but I went for my 5k, breathed in cold, fresh air, admired the Christmas lights in the neighbourhood and watched the fashion show with the one thing I have that the Angels on the catwalk can’t: cookies.

Two weeks ago I organized my first trip away from both kids since giving birth to Little Dude in April. It was just a short weekend jaunt to Sin City, but I experienced a mixture of emotions between being drunk on the feeling of forthcoming freedom  (I promise, that’s all I was drunk on for the time-being) and extreme guilt over leaving my seven-month old while he was still so attached. Friends talked me off a ledge and assured me that taking time for myself and my love would make me a better parent, and even though I wasn’t entirely convinced, I proceeded with my plans. Cheese strings were bought in bulk, favourite toys and pajamas were cleaned, and endless lists were made. I am a great list-maker, but not such a great list-follower-through-er. I can easily identify what needs to be done, but when it comes to actually doing it, I get easily side-tracked by very important things, like feeding my baby and making sure the cork doesn’t break when I’m pulling it from my Friday happy hour bottle of Zinfandel.

Given that I needed to gather all of the necessities for myself, as well as for the kids’ stay with their grandparents’, writing it all down ahead of time seemed to be the responsible thing to do. Heaven forbid my daughter should decide at 3 a.m. that Grover would be better company than her SpiderBear. I only wish I were exaggerating the possibility.

My own  packing list was short and sweet. While I knew I would need important things like socks and jeans and my own corkscrew, the first two things I actually wrote down were running shoes and my breast pump. The last time I was in Vegas was pre-kid, in 2008 and my packing list back then was vastly different. Not only did I not have children four years ago, I considered running something one did when trying to make it from house to a vehicle in -30 degree weather as quickly as possible or to escape from the mafia. And up until that point I had only had experience with one of those (I’ll leave you to debate which one).

Confession: I stayed up all night the night before I left. List or no list, I kept remembering just one last thing I had to do. By the time I finally dropped, exhausted onto my bed, I had about three hours before I needed to be at the airport. I immediately fell into a heavy sleep only to be woken up by the phone 15 minutes later. It was a nice idea while it lasted. I cried almost the entire way to the airport, kissed my babies goodbye and boarded the plane tired, disoriented, worried, but desperately craving some time to remind me of what life was like before I had little ones.

Mr. S and I had planned to run somewhere in the area pretty much as soon as we booked my flight (maybe even before). Originally we thought about heading to the famed Red Rock Canyon, however a friend who lives in the area recommended a trail beginning at Lake Mead and leading through tunnels that were part of an old railroad system leading to the Hoover Dam. It was almost exactly six kilometers to the Dam and six back. I haven’t done a run that long since half-marathon training, but my brain is always more optimistic than my running legs.

Unsolicited advice: when planning a 12k run, don’t go to the casinos until 2 a.m., even if you ARE on a roll and up to $10 on a lucky penny slot. Also, don’t drink a Bloody Mary and then champagne and then a half-yard of strawberry colada and think that a 9 a.m. alarm will look and feel just fine (Hint: it won’t).

Fortunately measures such as non-refundable car rentals made it impossible to hit the snooze button until mid-afternoon. Instead, we grumbled, downed strong Americanos like they were an electrolyte replacement and drove the half-hour to our course. Even more fortunately, my half-marathon prep this summer often involved severe sleep deprivation and even poorer nutrition, so my body didn’t seem as ill-equipped to handle 12k fueled on four hours of sleep and caffeine as I initially expected.

I can’t tell you every little detail of everything we saw (in a nutshell, a lot of cacti and some very cool tunnels). What I can say with certainty is that I’m glad that I can call myself a (almost) runner this time around. This felt more “us” than a typical tour of the Hoover Dam, which can take several hours and require you to board a bus crammed with hung-over/overeager tourists. Instead we got to experience it as (mildly) hung-over athletes. We were able to talk without interruption – about our kids, how nice it was to be away, but how much we missed them; about our future; about their future; about things not even related to them. Somewhere in the middle, we got to share a bottle of water and Gatorade and a baked pretzel (without a three-year old clamouring for a bite) and see a major tourist attraction and an engineering wonder (P.S. That’s what my husband called it. I wouldn’t know an engineering wonder if one beat me over the head with an infrastructure blueprint). And we only had to wear one layer of clothing in the middle of November!

We were tired at the end of our adventure, but not so much that we couldn’t enjoy some liquid refreshment (ahem, recovery) at the nearby Boulder City Brewery. Above anything, we felt alive, reconnected and so glad to have seen more of Nevada than the Strip. While it was nice to have a break and feel like a human instead of just mom for a few days, I would never have started running if it weren’t for the birth – and ensuing hormonal surge – of my firstborn. Somehow it felt as though four years had come full circle and one hour and 24 minutes of a steady, slow pace almost (almost) made me ready to come home. Once I conquered the penny slots, slept in one last time and had a final Bloody Mary.