Expert du Jour - Jeff Galloway

I did ninety minutes of cardio today. A long, gentle run/walk on the treadmill, and a half hour on the elliptical. I really wanted to do 10K on the treadmill, but the left knee said it was time to step off, so I did. I wasn’t really paying attention to speed at all, just trying to listen to my body - run when i was ready, stop when it was time.

Weigh in tomorrow - I peeked at the scale today and am officially at a plateau. I have my quarterly check in with the trainer (Brad is my new man - Jordan is off playing professional football which I find to be incredibly cool). I’ll see what his thoughts are about how to get the fat burning motor started again.


EXPERT DU JOUR

I read a book this week, Running - Getting Started by Jeff Galloway. He’s a blogger and a columnist for Runner’s World and a 1972 Olympian, so I figured he had some valuable things to teach me. And so he did.

The thrust of his message to beginners is to avoid the pitfalls that make most people give up. He suggests a run/walk approach where you begin a run by walking at a very slow pace, then gently work your way up to short runs, stopping to walk again before you become breathless and tired. in this way, you avoid “overdoing” that causes the kind of fatigue and soreness that discourages so many new runners.

He had some things to say that surprised me. He does not think runners should lift weights, especially lower body exercises because they build up heavy muscle that you’re just going to have to haul around when you’re running.

He is also very much against stretching, (except in the case of IT band injury) which really caught me up short. His position is that stretching almost always does more harm than good, reduces your performance, and increases your recovery time.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone suggest that stretching was bad for you. Still, this is a very respected and experienced dude. I’m going to experiment with the no stretch thing for a couple of days, but it still sounds really weird to me.

It is a good book, though. Gallaway obviously loves running, and loves helping others to run. His passion shines from every page. I don’t intend to spend too much time reading books about running, but I think this one will be useful to me for a long time.

SPRINGTIME IN THE BLUEGRASS

Still, a good day to be Pennsy. Thanks to lynross for posting this beautiful photo on Webshots. The Bluegrass flora are starting to bud and bloom. I sure do love me some Kentucky today.

Peace,
Pennsy