Next Workout: Saturday, Feb. 6, meet at 8:45 AM, workout at 9:00 AM Parking lot for Columbia Island Marina

Walk-to-Run Trainees:

Welcome to the fifth week of our program.

1) Inclement Weather Potential

As I'm writing this, a "little" storm is dropping 3 to 6 inches of fresh snow over the metro DC area. But the forecasters sound ominous about a "significant" snowfall coming this Friday and Saturday.

If the snow starts Friday, and there are several inches on the ground by Friday evening, I'll make pre-emptive decision to postpone the weekend training workout, till at least Sunday AM. There would be no point risking life and limb to get to the Marina if our trails are already under a half a foot or more of snow.

But if the storm hold off to late Saturday AM, or even the afternoon, there's a chance we could sneak in a workout like we did last Saturday.

Stay tuned for further updates. And whatever we do Saturday, please consider your own safety on the roads before heading out to join us. Thank you.

2) Assuming the pending storm misses us, we meet again on Saturday, Feb. 6, at 9AM, in the parking lot for Columbia Island Marina, in LBJ Park.

Is there anyone still shaky on getting to or from the Marina? If so, please let me know, and I'll try to give you directions offline.

And if there is anyone else who needs a ride to or from the Marina, please pipe up!

Again, if you find yourself turned around on Saturday, please call me at 703-371-5171.

Our four-mile route will head up to and across Memorial Bridge, and around the circle in front of the Lincoln Memorial. At the entrance to the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, hang a sharp right and head down the path paralleling the reflecting pool. Our turnaround is about half-way down that path, before we get to the WW II Memorial.

Please print out this map ahead of time and bring it with you:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3451943

In future weeks, we may go all the way to the WW II Memorial for a clearly-defined turnaround, but no need for that this Saturday.

I will ask Coach Bev to lead out the group this week, with Coach Humaira following up at the back. I will be somewhere in between, and will be trying to walk and run a bit with most of the trainees in the middle.

3) Speaking of Bev, I'd like to welcome Assistant Coach Beverly Keane to our ranks. Bev is a veteran runner, and has completed several marathons and other distance races. Last Winter/Spring, she joined Walk to Run to get back into running after a layoff, and she continued running with us throughout the Summer.

I'm asking Bev to walk and run with the faster folks this training season, as I know from experience she's an excellent running companion, and can probably do a 10 or 11 minute mile once we're all the way up to running 4 minutes at a time.

4) The Walk/Run Methodology

We begin this week (on Saturday, and in your midweek workouts starting on Feb. 8) the heart of our training program, the walk-run method. We will be using this method for the remaining 12 weeks of our training program, because I believe it is the cornerstone of learning to run safely, and with enjoyment.

Walk/Run intervals means that for a period of time (usually a minute or so) you walk, and then for a few minutes you run, in a repeating cycle. The intervals are usually expressed in a ratio between walking and running, or walking:running. This Saturday, we will walk for 4 minutes, and run for one minute, so we'll express the ratio as 4:1.

Walk/Run Intervals were popularized by former Olympic Runner Jeff Galloway, who has coached literally tens of thousands of individuals to take up running, and to complete a race of some distance. Jeff is the pied piper of walk breaks, and has waxed rhapsodic about them in his many books and articles, which do a far more thorough job of explaining the concept than I can here. Often, one will hear runners describe the walk/run method as "Galloway Style."

But there is a physiological basis to the method. Doing any activity to an extreme fatigues working muscles. A muscle doing the same motion for an hour, or several hours, or half a day (as in the case of a marathon), will become progressively more fatigued. A fatigued muscle does not maintain the same form as a fresh one. And a deterioration of form can lead to further fatigue, fatigue of new and different muscle groups, or even injury from muscle or joint overuse.

Many injuries to joints, such as the knee, ankle or hip, are really due to muscle imbalances, muscle weakness, or muscle/tendon mis-alignment. One can have otherwise perfect physiology, wear perfect shoes for that physiology, run on the perfect surface, and adopt a perfect training pace. Yet fatigue, perhaps from overuse of muscles (particularly if a runner is not used to the distance involved], can still cause this "perfect" form to fail, misalignments to grate against joints, and injuries to erupt.

New runners are particularly susceptible to "overuse" injuries, which is why any good training program will only gradually increase the amount of running undertaken.

Yet, a surprising fact is that even a brief break, a small respite from exercise, can let a muscle drop its fatigue. Repeated small breaks can slow the accumulation of fatigue in working muscles, letting someone run further, run faster, or both. Because walking uses slightly different muscles than running (and does not put the same 2.5 x body weight upon joints as running), a minute of walking can serve as that brief break, and reset the "fatigue meter" of running muscles.

Read Galloway to see all the testimonial evidence for adopting the walk/run or run/walk method. Runners can go further distances using walk/run. They can do those distances _faster_ than if they had run them continuously. The workouts are simply more enjoyable without the crushing weight of accumulated fatigue. Training can be more frequent, and consistent. Injuries can be reduced.

I have used the walk/run method during all 19 of my marathons, and on every training run since late 2001. I am positive it has let me train for those distances, logging well over a thousand miles in the process. It has kept me moving.

I've introduced (at least) walk:run to every trainee I've ever coached, because I believe it will let almost anyone continue running as a life-long form of fitness. And it will make runners out of folks who never thought they could run. Just take one stride at a time. And just keep running until the next walk break.

This week, baby steps. We will walk for 4 minutes, and then break into running for just one minute. We will repeat the 4 minutes of walking, then another minute of running, all the way through our workout until the end.

Over the next few weeks, we will increase the running segments of our workouts, and decrease the walking segments. Eventually, we will be running 4 minutes for every 1 minute of walking, a ratio we will keep up until the end of our program.

But no rush. We will linger at each ratio [4:1, 3:2, 2:3] for a few weeks, until you and your body get used to it. That's why you need the midweek workouts. You need to do the new interval 8 to 10 times total, before you're really ready to step up to the next one.

5) Sports Watches

How will we know when to start and stop running during our workouts? That takes the countdown timer of a sports watch, which is the only other essential piece of gear you need for this program (besides running shoes).

Attached is an article I wrote about sports watches for the Summer marathon training program. But it has almost equal applicability for our Walk to Run program.

A sports watch need not be expensive, and you will probably pay far less for one than you will for your running shoes. My first Timex Ironman watch cost $20.00 at Target. Buy an inexpensive watch now, that you can beat the snot out of this year.

Then, when it's time for a new one (they make excellent Christmas or Hanukkah gifts!) you'll know which bells and whistles you want in the fancy replacement. The Cadillacs of sports watches combine the watch functions with GPS and/or heart-rate monitors - very nice. But I want to see you finish AT LEAST a 10K race (twice the distance we train for in this program), or keep running for the better part of a year, before you invest in those pricier toys.

For our Saturday workouts with the group, we will have several timekeepers (one or two in each clump of runners), so you need not keep track of intervals on your own watch. Humaira, Bev, and I will also be keeping track of walk/run intervals, for those running with us.

But you will need your own sports watch (and will need to learn how to use it) for your midweek workouts, which should use the same walk/run intervals we used the preceding Saturday.

6) Housekeeping:

OK - I have now an updated list of the trainees who have signed up for our program, formally (an asterisk means I still need to acquire from you a completed trainee questionnaire):