 Epic triathlon day. Vernon Kringas, Kevin Reinsch and Mike Ricci at the end of the race. |
BY USAT LEVEL II Coach Mike Ricci
Most of us have heard the acronym ‘LSD’ and we know that it stands for ‘Long Slow Distance’. I decided to write this article about LSD to debunk a few myths. I don’t think of ‘Long Slow Distance’ as being as slow as most people think. Years ago we were taught that running slow would make us faster and I admit that I harped on this when I first started running. What I have learned over the years is that LSD or “running slow” is relative to each person.
Having started running at the back of the pack, it took me some time to improve, but to be honest it caused me to use more brain power than aerobic power. I was walk-on at my college for the cross country team because they needed a seventh man. Most of my teammates ran at 5:15-5:35 per mile pace for a 10k. I started out at 7:00 per mile pace and one of my goals was to break 40:00 someday – a blazing 6:25 pace! That is pretty slow especially in the world of cross country running. I had a lot of work to do to reach my goals.
I didn’t start out with a heart rate monitor, knowing my max heart rate, VO2 max or anything else. I knew that my five mile time was 34:50 which makes my pace just about 7:00 per mile. From here I worked backwards and decided to run about 1:00- 2:00 slower per mile for my training pace or somewhere between 8:00 to 9:00 pace. I typically ran 10 mile runs in 85-90 minutes and for shorter runs I ran 3 mile runs in 25 minutes. My running wasn’t anything blazing fast; it was just simply ‘running’. I ran hard enough to stress my system, and easy enough that I could repeat it day after day and week after week. Those two facts were the keys to my improvement: Frequency and Repeatability.
Frequency is something we tend to dismiss as multi-sport athletes. Some of us ‘get through’ our weaker sports and maintain our fitness while continually spending the majority of our time on our strengths. If you want to be a better swimmer, and you don’t come from a swim background, you need to swim more than three times per week. Simply put, the more you do an exercise, the easier it becomes. More...
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The MAYO Diet
By USAT Coach Erik Cagnina
I wasn’t aware our government could do this,
but through no action of my own my middle
name has been changed. I received a packet of
official documents the other day - Jon is out, Fat
Bastard is in. I was shocked to say the least, but
decided there was no way I was going to take this
lying down (with my mouth full of chocolate).
Desperate times call for desperate measures, enter
the MAYO diet!
I was particularly excited to try this diet until I
found out that MAYO was actually an acronym for
“Mitch’s All Yuck Out.” Essentially, the diet consisted of a carefully
orchestrated week, with each day focused on a particular food
group, and all processed
foods were strictly
forbidden. This diet was not
only designed to help you
lose weight but also cleanse
your body of some of the
impurities of a typical diet.
Lots of fruit and vegetables,
a little meat and rice and
gallons of water was the
supposed path to nutritional
enlightenment. Sunday
morning, I made a run to
the grocery store and filled
up a cart with fruits and
vegetables in preparation
for the MAYO. More...