Thursday, January 24, 2008

To Cold to Exercise




Hi everyone! This is one of the best articles I have ever read about exercise and the cold! I sure have always run in the rain, sleet or snow and have found it very hard to get anyone to run with me in the extreme cold!!! Read this article below and I would love to know your thoughts. Do you over dress when you go out in the cold???
Has anyone else been blasted with the stomach flu? 5 full days for me of being so sick I did not want to move..I have made the turn for the better,,,so thankful.
Lisa


Too Cold to Exercise?

Try Another Excuse Published: January 17, 2008 NY Times

JULIA HENSLEY, a 41-year-old artist, got a taste of bitter cold a decade ago when she spent a winter living on a glacier near Seward, Alaska. Typical winter temperatures were 10 to 15 degrees below.

“The first time it got really cold, I was scared of it,” Ms. Hensley said. “My instinct was to get a stack of books and curl up beside the wood stove.” But a boyfriend persuaded her to go out anyway, to cross-country ski or snowshoe for hours in deep snow.

He taught her, she said, that as long as she kept moving, she would be fine. It was a conclusion — that extreme cold can be safe for exercisers — that runs contrary to conventional wisdom. But in fact, said John W. Castellani, an exercise physiologist at the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, it turns out that even though cold can be frightening, more people are injured exercising in the heat than exercising in the cold.

Dr. Castellani was lead author of a 2006 position paper from the American College of Sports Medicine on exercising in the cold. “The big question was, ‘Is it ever too cold?’” Dr. Castellani said. “The answer is no. People go to the poles, people are out there when it’s minus-50 degrees, people do incredible things, and safely.

There really isn’t a point where you can tell people it is not safe anymore.” Dr. Timothy Noakes, an exercise physiologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa who was a reviewer of that position paper, even supervised a swimmer, Lewis Gordon Pugh, who swam 1 km or (.62 miles) in 19 minutes at the North Pole last July, in water that was between 29 and 32 degrees. The problem with exercising in the cold, exercise physiologists say, is that people may be hobbled by myths that lead them to overdress or to stop moving, risky things to do.

Some worry that cold air will injure their lungs or elicit asthma symptoms. Or they are convinced that they are more susceptible to injury when it is cold and that they have to move more slowly — forget about sprinting or running at a fast clip. But lungs are not damaged by cold, said Kenneth W. Rundell, the director of respiratory research and the human physiology laboratory at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa. No matter how cold the air is, by the time it reaches your lungs, it is body temperature, he explained.

Some people complain that they get exercise-induced asthma from the cold. But that sort of irritation of the respiratory tract is caused by dryness, not cold, Dr. Rundell said. “Cold air just happens not to hold much water and is quite dry,” he said. You’d have the same effect exercising in air that was equally dry but warm. Dr. Rundell and Tina Evans, a Ph.D. candidate, showed this a few years ago in a study designed to dispel what Dr. Rundell called the myth that cold air can induce asthma. Volunteers with exercise-induced asthma, whose airways tended to narrow after exercise in the cold, breathed cold air or room temperature air that was equally dry. Their airways narrowed in response to the dryness of the air, not its temperature, Dr. Rundell said. People with this problem should see a respiratory specialist and take medication when they exercise in dry air, Dr. Rundell said. And, he added, “you might want to use a balaclava,” so your exhaled breath can moisten the air you breathe.

Another myth is that you have to acclimatize to cold, just as you do to heat. It’s true that peoples’ bodies adapt to hot weather and that adaptation makes people feel better when they exercise in the heat. It also improves performance. With heat adaptation, you sweat more profusely, your sweat is less salty and your blood volume increases. But exercise physiologists find only modest adaptation to cold.

The body’s main responses to cold — constricting blood vessels near the skin, shunting blood to the body’s core and shivering do not improve if you spend more time in the cold. Nor are the physically fit any better at adaptation than the sedentary. “Right now, we’re not sure if there is any degree of habituation,” said Robert Kenefick, a research physiologist at the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine. Of course there are hazards like frostbite and hypothermia , which occurs when the body’s core temperature drops too low. Dr. Noakes said that during Mr. Pugh’s North Pole swim, hypothermia was a real concern.

Hypothermia can happen suddenly in icy water, with the swimmer’s core temperature plummeting, and the fear was that Mr. Pugh might pass out and sink before he could be rescued. Mr. Pugh, an experienced cold-water swimmer, was wearing a device to monitor his temperature, but nonetheless, Dr. Noakes was “petrified,” he said. The biggest risk of hypothermia comes with a combination of wet and cold. That is because water transfers heat from the body 70 times more efficiently than air. Hypothermia begins to set in when the body’s core temperature falls to 95 degrees. That elicits shivering and a rise in blood pressure . But if your temperature drops to 85, you lose consciousness, and if it goes much lower, you can die.

The trick to avoiding hypothermia is to keep moving, Dr. Noakes said. “As long as you keep moving you are not going to die because you generate so much heat.” One mistake winter exercisers make is wearing too much clothing. You don’t want to sweat profusely because you overdressed. “You should feel cool before you start exercising,” Dr. Castellani said. “You should not feel comfortable.” That means, Dr. Noakes said, that even in temperatures as low as 10 to minus-20 degrees, a runner probably needs to wear no more than a track suit, mittens or gloves and a hat.

The other major concern, frostbite, can come on fast, as my running partner Jennifer Davis, 37, discovered about a decade ago. It starts when the skin’s temperature drops to 82 degrees and you feel an area of skin is becoming really cold. At a skin temperature of 68 degrees, the skin starts to hurt. It may tingle or burn or ache or you may feel a sharp pain. When the skin’s temperature falls to 50 degrees, it feels numb. And when the skin’s temperature reaches 27 degrees, the skin freezes. The result is frostbite. Ms. Davis got frostbite when she went out for a run early in the morning on a cold, windy day with temperatures in the teens. She ran for about an hour wearing a baseball cap. Her ears hurt for a while, then the pain went away. She took off a glove to touch her ears so she could find out just how cold they were. To her shock, one of her ears cracked.

“It was sort of like semi-frozen meat,” she recalled. When she got home, she was horrified by her red and swollen ear. An ear, nose and throat specialist diagnosed frostbite and told her that her ear would be sensitive to the cold for the rest of her life. He was wrong, though. The ear was red and stuck out for weeks, but it healed. Now, Ms. Davis said, she can’t even remember whether it was her right or left ear. But ever since, she has worn a hat that covers her ears when she runs in the cold.

As for Ms. Hensley, the woman who lived in Alaska one winter, she now lives in Seattle and rides her bike in the winter rain, charging up hills. “I just remember the lesson I learned that winter,” she said. “You don’t have to stand inside and say, ‘Oh, it’s a yucky day.’ You can go out in anything. You just have to do it.”

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Kilimanjaro trip

Hi guys and girl's.
Anyone want to go on an amazing trip to Kilimanjaro?? Our good friend Marshall Ulrich is taking another group at the end of July this year. All the details are below.

All the information on the Kilimanjaro trip in 2008. It is an upgraded version of the one I did a couple of years ago and should be top notch with 7 days on the mountain, 5 days safari and rest days in between at a wonderful hotel—the Keys. Cost is $4500.00 and includes everything but a few meals at the Keys hotel. Go to: http://www.marshallulrich.com/mountain_guide.html and take a look. I anticipate a few married couples on the trip. I also have a link to airfare that’s really great on the website.
Hope you can go! Marshall

Monday, January 14, 2008

Las Vegas Running Team!

Good morning to you all! We had such a great weekend. I paced 2 students through there 1st marathon in Phoenix. 5:24 with easy running and walking. It was such a joy to watch Mike and Annemarie accomplish something they never dreamed possible. Mike has lost about 20 pounds in less than 2 months. They both did the Tucson half marathon and I challenged them to do the marathon and they did!!!! Yeah to you both and yeah to all of you who ran and walked races this past weekend.

Below is a letter from a very good friend of mine. Please read it, read the links and then if you feel the love copy it and pass it on to others of even post on your own blog. Dan Campbell is such a wonderful man and has given and done so much for the running World. We pray he makes a come back and that we can all help make a difference to help he and his family in some way.
Have a great day
Lisa



Hi lisa!
Thanks for asking for more details about Dan Campbell and our fundraiser for him.

Dan Campbell, creator of the Las Vegas Running Team (www.lasvegasrunningteam.com) and director of many races in Las Vegas, Nevada, suffered complications from an aneurism on Nov.11. Through most of December, Dan was in a medically induced coma as his brain attended to repairing itself. In late December, we finally began to see improvement in his condition.

Muscles that were dormant for over a month are now able to support Dan as he sits upright in a chair and focuses on lots of physical and speech therapy. He remains in the hospital, but we hope that he will soon be moved to a rehab center where he will receive intensive therapy until he’s ready to return to home and the Running Team! Understandably, Dan and his family (wife and three boys, age 6, 8, and 16) have numerous medical bills to pay and the running community is assisting in many ways.

Beginning at noon on Friday, January 18, Eric Herdman, local ultrarunner and shoe store owner, will take on a team of 24 others in his One vs. the Many Treadmill Challenge. Eric will run on a treadmill for 24 hours. The “other” team is made up of 24 runners; each will run or walk on a treadmill for one hour during Eric’s 24 hours. The team compiling the most miles at the end of the 24 hours will be declared the winner – and the winner decides which of three charities proceeds from the race entries will be donated to. Eric’s charity is the Dan Campbell Medical Fund. The other team members could choose from the same fund or from Friends of Feral Felines, Karno Kids, and Opportunity Village – Las Vegas. Eric Herdman is well aware of the national record for 24 hours on a treadmill and is suggesting that one team or the other should strive to break the record. More details about the race are available at the Live Webcast site: http://www.redrockrunningcompany.com/1vsmany.htm

I’ll be running from 1 to 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. I can’t think of a better way to honor Dan and all of his contributions to our local running community. If you can check in on our progress, I know that all runners would appreciate it!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Nutrition for Athletes

Good morning~

Whether you want to analyze the diet your on, get an answer about creatine, or find a new recipe for chicken you can get an amazing amount of high quality food, nutrition and health information on the web. I have been researching several web site that I feel have quality information and I feel some of you will find this information helpful to!
Although I do not like to use the word diet or tell anyone they should be or go on a diet!!!
Living a long healthy life means eating and living a healthy life style. The old saying is true," you are what you eat."

If you feel you need to be on a diet try to change the wording your using. Tell yourself your going to make some different choices in your daily food intake..the word choice is a big one.
You are the one who usually goes to the grocery store to shop and you are the one who puts the food in your mouth. Stop and think about it before you do, it is about making the right choice.
The word diet can be so sabotaging, this means YOU CAN'T HAVE IT, and when people think they can't have it or eat it they seem to grave it even more leading them to eat more!!!

So..try to take the word diet out of your life and start to make some better choices for yourself and your family. I know in this new year you will feel better, your exercise will feel better and everything else in your life will fall into place!!!
We are all so unique and different. What works for me during training, racing and recovery might not work for you. I can lead you and help you find the magic that will work for you but it will take some trials and we will get you to a place where every thing works! Why don't some of you tell us what you eat and drink before, during and after training and a race? This would be such helpful information for us all.:)

Check some of these web sites out!

www.ais.org.au
If you have questions about fueling for exercise, The Australian Institute of Sport has a great deal of sports nutrition information. Click on Sports Science/Sports Medicine and you can find out how to fuel for any sport (triathlon,running, rowing, etc.) Good articles on this site to!

www.fitday.com
This web site will let you analyze the protein, carbohydrate and fat content of what you are eating and help you track your food, exercise and weight goal. Just enter what you typically eat in a day into the nutrition calculator and you will learn how well or how awful you eat!

www.ific.org
If you have any questions about anything you eat or drink this is a great site.
Questions about caffeine? Chocolate? You will find the answers here. Just go to "search:, enter the topic, and you will find articles that will answer your questions.

www.americanheart.org
Do you need to lower your cholesterol? This site you will about foods that interest you (soy, fish, eggs..) or click on Healthy Lifestyle.

www.findingbalance.com
This is one of my favorite sites! If you are having trouble trying to find the right balance of food and exercise this site will help you. There are videos of professionals who can help you peace it all together.

www.cancernutritioninfo.com
We all know someone who is afflicted with cancer. This site will help you learn and understand the latest research about healing food suggestions that can help cure or prevent cancer.
Search the topic you are interested in on this site..they have the latest information on exercise and carb loading.

www.mealsforyou.com

Have no idea what to have for dinner? This web site has over 8,000 recipes but also the nutrition information about each recipe and the shopping list you need to prepare the recipe!
I would have to say, it does not get any easier than this:) By the way..I love to cook!

www.vegweb.com

If you are thinking about a vegetarian lifestyle, this site is sponsored by Vegetarians Unite.
It has over 4.300 recipes..even meals for kids, chat room, articles, books..it is a fun site.

www.SCANdpg.org

If you are looking for personal help with your sports nutrition this site is sponsored by SCAN, the American Dietetic Association's dietary practice group of Spots and Cardiovascular Nutritionists. This site has a referral network. Just click on the state you live in, and you will get a list of sports nutrition professionals who can give you personal attention!!!


Ok..now it is time to go eat breakfast and then for a sunrise run!

Have a great day

Lisa

Monday, January 07, 2008

Great information/pass it on

Happy New Year to you all. I have been slow getting my to my blog with what I would like to say for the New Year:) I will have it by the end of the week. This year I am going to be posting many blogs with great information for all of you to read and share with family, friends and running buddies!

I first have a favor to ask all of you. So many of you prayed for my father and trust me your prayers were heard! I sent this note to some family and friends today and I am going to ask the same from you!!!


Hi all..I hope this note finds you all doing well and off to a great start for the new year.

as you know my dad went through a 10 hour open heart operation..he is now on kidney dialysis 3 days a week and he is very depressed and weak. His will to live is very strong.

I am trying to get people to send him a card to help cheer him up. If you take 5 minutes out of your day to send a note to cheer someone up it would make the world of difference is his life. I think if we all take more time to do things like this it will help put a smile on so many faces!

The power of prayer!

David Smith
207 Collie Road
Calhoun, LA. 71225

I thank you in advance for taking and making the time.

Love to you all
Lisa

My friend Will sent this to me last night. It is very powerful.

If a person thinks first about the needs of the other, and thinks only second about himself, he'll always be guided to the right answers. Wherever it is that you focus, that is where your answers will come from. When you think of yourself first, you will always get the wrong information. There is an ancient Aramaic word that kabbalists sometimes use. The word is lezulat. And it means... For another. The word lezulat is not a charming little piece of spiritual history; it's a secret code that will lead us to prosperity and well-being. We live in the "me-first" paradigm, and our belief system states that we will achieve more if we think about ourselves. We're always looking out for Number You-Know What. Wrong! Kabbalah teaches that if you think of others - if you struggle to find what's good for them - you yourself can have more. Life is full of questions and answers. When my only agenda is to advance myself, the flow of energy and information has stopped. At every step, others must be injected into my calculations. It's the only way to tap into that 99% world of guidance and right information. This week, while you're selling somebody something, or having a heart-to-heart with a friend, or disciplining your child, take 60 seconds to think about the other person. If you were him, how would you feel? This process immediately injects sharing into the equation - and when that happens, every decision you make will be based on Light.