Endurance Blog

Good Luck on Your First Half Ironman Jay!

September 5, 2012
by Melissa
in Blog, Endurance Blog, Topic of the Day
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Jay is the first athlete at CrossFit Surf City to compete in a half Ironman. Most of us will never know what it takes to train and compete in such an event but, for some brief insight we asked him a few questions about his upcoming venture…

WHAT RACE ARE YOU DOING?

Half Ironman in Muskoka, Ontario – Canada
http://ironmanmuskoka.com/- A half Ironman is a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run.

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL AND REASON FOR DOING IT?

I am always trying to push myself into accomplishing new things; whether its a new experience/skill or its a higher level of difficulty. My goal for this race was to gain the experience of doing one and then turn around and train for another one. Applying what I have learned, I’d like to be a competitive finisher.I also enjoy coaching and working with athletes that have goals of finishing races like this. So with my experience, I will be able to pass along that knowledge and help others compete in a race like this. Who’s up for it?!

WHATS DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS RACE THAN THE OTHER RACES YOU’VE DONE?

Longer! My triathlon events in the past have been a lot shorter.

HOW DID YOUR TRAINING CHANGE IN PREPARATION FOR THE RACE?

I have been using CrossFit Endurance and my preferred training program for 2+ years. I used the programming to train for a half marathon, Ragnar Relay, and multiple triathlons. It’s a great program! I have become stronger and faster while also not over-training myself into unnecessary injuries or down-time.My training did change slightly for this race to accommodate the longer distances. I would follow the traditional CFE program, however every 4-6 weeks I would add a long run, long bike, and long swim. The biggest complaint of the CFE programming is not adapting your body to biking for 3+ hours, running for 1.5 hours, and swimming for 30 minutes. I am hoping this approach will make up for that.

HOW IS YOUR NUTRITION AND HAS IT CHANGED?

I have stuck with Paleo as my primary nutrition. I have noticed that fruit prior to and after workouts has also helped me maintain my energy levels and speed up recovery. Other than that, I have stuck with vegetables for my carbohydrates. I raised my protein intake to 1gram per pound of body weight. With the volume of training required for triathletes, I wanted to make sure I was fueling my body with enough protein to recover / re-build my muscle and preventing my body from using muscle for energy. Maintaining high fat levels is also important for a triathlete. I eat 1-2 avocados per day in addition to oil used for cooking and nuts for snacking.

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR AFTER THE RACE?

I am going to take a week and a half off of working out completely. My body needs it…training for this race has been exhausting and I know my body needs a long rest. I’m going to treat myself to some ice cream, some pizza, and…I’m taking ideas…anybody? I’ll probably also go spend a week or two in Alabama for work…to celebrate……

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT YOU?

My sister is doing the Half Ironman with me after following my programming for the last year or so. As a soccer player, she never expected to be doing these kinds of races. But she has done a few triathlons, run a half marathon, and who knows whats next. She’s a beast!

GOOD LUCK FROM EVERYONE AT CFSC!!!

Forefoot vs Heel Striking

June 17, 2011
by Nick
in Blog, Endurance Blog
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Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels and little cushioning relative to modern running shoes. We wondered how runners coped with the impact caused by the foot colliding with the ground before the invention of the modern shoe. Here we show that habitually barefoot endurance runners often land on the fore-foot (fore-foot strike) before bringing down the heel, but they sometimes land with a flat foot (mid-foot strike) or, less often, on the heel (rear-foot strike). In contrast, habitually shod runners mostly rear-foot strike, facilitated by the elevated and cushioned heel of the modern running shoe. Kinematic and kinetic analyses show that even on hard surfaces, barefoot runners who fore-foot strike generate smaller collision forces than shod rear-foot strikers. Continue reading…

May 25, 2011
by Nick
in Blog, Endurance Blog
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Post courtesy of the NY Times

Do we run because we like the pain?
Peter Sagal, the host of the NPR show “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” — who happens to be an avid runner and a columnist for Runner’s World — thinks so. Or at least that’s what he told me in a recent e-mail exchange. Continue reading…

May 20, 2011
by Nick
in Blog, Endurance Blog
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If you base your workout schedule on the weather, you’ll never build a habit of exercise. The same is true for writing or any other creative practice: base it on anything outside your control, and good luck getting anything done. Continue reading…

May 16, 2011
by Nick
in Blog, Endurance Blog
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Carl Paoli of the Gymnastics WOD and CrossFit SF talks about the skill transfer of jumping rope to running to form.

In this series, Carl focuses on using Jump Rope POSITIONS and MOVEMENTS as a skill transfer exercise to improve your endurance, specifically with your running. In this video, Carl starts by reviewing the key positions – do the butt test! For all the videos click here

Details at GymnasticsWOD

May 10, 2011
by Nick
in Blog, Endurance Blog
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Sugar is getting a bad reputation. A cover article in The New York Times Magazine several weeks ago persuasively reported that our national overindulgence in fructose and other sugars is driving the epidemics of obesity, diabetes and other illnesses. But that much-discussed article, by the writer Gary Taubes, focused on how sugars like fructose affect the body in general. It had little opportunity to examine the related issue of how sugar affects the body in motion. Do sweeteners like fructose — the sweetest of the simple sugars, found abundantly in fruits and honey — have the same effect on active people as on the slothful? Continue reading…

May 7, 2011
by Nick
in Blog, Endurance Blog
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By TJ Murphy of Competitor Magazine

A bit of a snippet from some of the reporting I’ve been doing for stories on Crossfit Endurance that will appear in the June issue. One of the things I’m looking into–both for myself as a runner and also as a journalist–is digging into the question, ‘Is LSD, Arthur Lydiard-style training the only way to train as a distance runner?’ Continue reading…

March 29, 2011
by Nick
in Endurance Blog
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Interval WOD
1 Minute ladder (1 min on/off, 50 on/off…back up to 1 minute)

Tempo WOD
10k TT

Problem Areas

March 28, 2011
by Nick
in Blog, Endurance Blog
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If you’re having pain in an area it might be because of issues in another area. Jani of Crossfit Thames discusses some exercises to loosen the knee joint up at a CFE Seminar.

Here we move upstream from the last post we had with Jami at our seminar in London. We are targeting the knee joint, and Jami points out something rather interesting that we should all be aware of in the beginning of this little vid… Problems with the knee USUALLY happen at either the ankle or the hip because the knee is in the middle. Continue reading…