Eating right, feeling good

Eating good food has the power to make us feel good. It's as simple as that. If you have taken a WoW Power Walking course, you know we stress balancing the macronutrients - food, water, protein, carbohydrates, and fat - so that we feel good every time we eat. Many diets recommend playing around with the balance of macronutrients - the high protein diet, the low fat diet, the no carb diet. All fail because the body becomes starved for a key macronutrient. These macronutrients play an interesting role in the manufacture of certain chemical neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine in the brain which means their existence or lack thereof, has immediate and dramatic effects on our mood. Yes, we actually do have control over our mood through what we eat.

While I have known this for some time and we have incorporated it into our program to train power walkers, a new book is out now that is entirely based on eating to feel good. It is called The Good Mood Diet by Susan Kleinberg. I heard Ms. Kleiner speak last August at the Can-Fit-Pro conference in Toronto (a leading North American conference for fitness and health professionals) and I highly recommend the book. I am about half way through reading it now. Ms. Kleiner is a leading nutritionist in the U.S and she has published another excellent book I would recommend to anyone called Power Eating.

Within the first few sentences of the book she asks the reader to think about how they feel. This is so elemental and right in alignment with the WoW philosophy of listening to our bodies. I'll be back to this blog with some other thought provoking and palate pleasing ideas based on eating to feel good.

Hot off the press - race news

The Toad is sold out as of this morning! Congrats to all of you who are participating.

Landmark Sports Group, organizers of the BRAND NEW Oakville Half Marathon on Labour Day, September 3, 2007 have agreed to have walker registration and divisions in both the10k and half marathon events. This change to registration will be made to their website within a few days. http://www.oakvillehalfmarathon.com/

This is very exciting and I hope that ALL Oakville power walkers, and especially WoW Power Walkers, will sign up for either event, get a friend to sign up, get your mother to sign up, volunteer for a WoW water station, put up posters, and generally support this great new local race.

I have it on good authority the race starts at Coronation park, heads east along Lakeshore to Morrison Heights, north to Cynthia then Melvin to Chartwell, Chartwell south to MacDonald, MacDonald to Douglas (our favourite walking street!), west on Randall and then Rebecca to Jones, south on Jones to Ontario Street, east on Ontario to the Waterfront Trail at the corner of Ontario & East, east along the waterfront trail until it emerges on Water’s Edge Drive, east along Waters Edge to Third Line, north on Third Line to Old Lakeshore Road, east along Old Lakeshore Rd, through the cul-de-sac, cross Belvedere to Lakeshore Road shoulder, east along the shoulder of Lakeshore Rd W. to the west entrance of Coronation Park, south along park drive to the finish line near the stage facility. There may be changes as required by local authorities, but it's still a super route through our beautiful town.

Ottawa Race Weekend

It was a smaller, but speedy, contingent participating in Ottawa than we’ve seen in recent years. This may be explained by the fact that race organizers eliminated the early start for walkers in the full marathon and did not separate results for walkers in either the full or the half events. We had a much larger showing in Cleveland last weekend where walkers had separate divisions, bibs, and results postings. Ottawa walkers have no way of knowing how they compare to other walkers on the course as their results are listed with the runners and participants who run with walk breaks.

Still, I'm confident the results are times to beat. We had four power walkers entered in the full marathon. Jeff accomplished a PB with a time of 4:48:32. George, Domenic and Nancy can go home with outstanding first-time results. George finished in a sole burning 5:14:24. Nancy and Domenic can be really pleased with a finish under six hours! Amazingly, their chip times were identical - 5:56:27. These two know how to avoid marital conflict!

Have a look at the results for WoW Walkers in the half marathon too! Jane Heath led the pack with an amazing PB of 2:23:41. Myra was guided by Krista to accomplish a personal best with a chip time under 3 hours. Myra’s got more amazing ideas hatching for the upcoming year of her 65th birthday. She has set a personal challenge to walk a half marathon in every province and territory between September 2007 and September 2008. Myra is doing this as a fundraiser for the CNIB Braille Library.

Congratulations to all of you...including those that have been left un-named here. Results like these don't happen without commitment to training.

Now, it's back to the race directors to see what we can do about getting them to reinstate separate walker registration and results postings. Ideally, they will also bring back the early start for the full marathon although this is not critical if there is sufficient support on the course. They might want to take their lead from some other race organizations that have moved beyond recognizing the walkers to embracing the growth in walking and the participation of walkers at race events.

Check back to the thread following this posting as our chief cheerleader in Ottawa, Vera, will be reporting with an eye-witness account of the race, WoW Power Walkers, as well as walkers everywhere.

Muscle mass, mitochondria, and aging

It's always news if someone finds a way to reverse the aging process. So it is that several newspaper articles published this week highlighted an interesting finding coming out of a study conducted at McMaster University: resistance training can reverse the aging process in skeletal muscles. Resistance training is another term for strength training. Study participants were asked to lift weights for just two hours per week. The result was a 50% increase in strength. Well, this doesn't seem like that much news to me.

However, the other interesting tidbit discovered in this study was that the participants actually increased the number of mitochondria in that increased muscle mass. Well, this caught my attention. I get pretty excited reading anything about mitochondria. These babies are neat.

The mitochondria exist at the cellular level in our bodies to convert stored carbohydrates into adenosine triphospate (ATP). ATP is the fuel your muscles need to contract. If you have more mitochondria in your body, they are able to convert more stored carbohydrate to ATP to allow muscle contraction. More mitochondria, better calorie consumption - even at rest! In other words you are altering your resting metabolic rate which is the rate at which you burn off calories when resting. It's a thing of beauty.

I've read studies where the authors discovered that the intensity of exercise performed is the key workout ingredient for mitochondrial production. Scientists know that if a person works at an intense level, 17-19 on the Borg Scale of Rate of Perceived Exertion ( a scale that goes from 6-20), they will increase the mitochondria in their body.

It would appear that we have two ways to increase mitochondria in our body: resistance training and intense cardiovascular training. The next question is whether endurance training, such as marathon walking, affects mitochondrial production.

It has always been our focus at WoW Power Walking to work on intensity. As well, we encourage strength training (which we are now doing in our Walk Circuit classes!). So, we're pretty much covering the whole mitochondria production thing here. If they find out that endurance workouts also increase mitochondria, we might be doing so much reverse aging, we'll have to go back to kindergarten!

Cleveland Marathon

I admit it was tempting to contravene my own coaching guidelines this past weekend. Don't ya know - do as I say, not as I do! Yes, up until one hour before the online registration deadline for the Cleveland Marathon last Thursday night, I was considering entering the full marathon. I thought it might be an interesting experiment to walk an event every weekend for 4 consecutive Sunday mornings starting and ending with two full marathons! I wasn't expecting a PB this weekend, but I was looking forward to that medal with the spinning guitar.

Still, I had decided that the race would be fun only if I could bring my family with me for the weekend. One thing about entering a race every weekend is that one can miss out on essential family time. When it became clear the only way to include everyone in the road trip meant leaving town at 1:30 pm and arriving in Cleveland at the earliest close to 6pm, I decided the race gods were not with me on this one.

No complaints, though....I've had a great spring season and I look forward to the Alfie Shrubb 8k on June 3 and the OTMH Classic 5k on June 17 - both events that have walker divisions.

The really great news is that we can hear the details about the Cleveland race from the many WoW Power Walkers who have come home with amazing times and stories. A quick look at the results is impressive. We had representation walking the full, the half and the 10k. Look for their comments to follow this post...and you might be inspired to put Cleveland on your schedule for next spring.

Water: bottling your own

Last Saturday there was an interesting article in Canada's National Newspaper, The Globe and Mail, on drinking water. Well, more specifically on bottled water. Deep in the recesses of my brain I knew I had read somewhere that Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola both bottle municipal tap water and re-sell it, one as Aquafina and the other as Dasani. They get their municipal tap water from Mississauga and Brampton.

I am grateful to the author of this article, for bringing the wet reality more strongly into my consciousness. I don't use bottled water very often because we have a filter at the source of the municipal water entrance to our home. I do enjoy the reduced chlorine taste this filtration process provides. When I am traveling, or I forget to put water in my car cup before I leave the house, I buy bottled water. Often it is Dasani or Aqaufina. Really, I'd be getting the same product if I entered a Tim Horton's or Starbucks and asked for a cup filled with tap water. According to the article, if I just stir the water and let it sit for a bit the chlorine taste will be gone.

As a coach, drinking plenty of water is something I’ve recommend more times than I could ever count. I suggest water when people tell me they hit a low point during the afternoon, or when they experience muscle cramps during a training walk or race. The first line of defense should be to drink some water. Headaches, muscle fatigue, a dry cough and many other symptoms of dehydration are experienced every day by people who have come to accept these feelings of low energy as normal. A single glass of water may be all that is needed to feel good.

Still, whether we need bottled water to feel good is controversial. Several of the plastics from which these bottles, including the polyethylene terephthalate (#1 PET) of single-use popularity, are manufactured leach chemicals into their contents. Essentially, if your water tastes like plastic, you are drinking the chemicals that have gone into making that plastic.

In recent years, sports enthusiasts have taken to using the harder polycarbonate bottle, the most popular brand being Nalgene. (Several of us got really nice versions of this in our race kits for the Ottawa Full Marathon, two years ago!) Now, there is some evidence that the hard #7 polycarbonate plastic in these bottles may leach an artificial estrogen into its contents.

What’s an ethical, environmentally-minded, health-conscious power walking addict to do? Well, general consensus seems to suggest that we do not use single-use bottles again for re-fills. Also, common environmental sense suggests that we try to reduce the number of plastic bottles we buy.

Experts are now recommending the use of polypropylene (#5 PP), which is not known to leach harmful substances, as well as high density polyethylene#2 HDPE and low density polyethylene#4 LDPE for refillable water bottles.

Some people are not waiting for the next bad-news scenario on these plastics and are switching to stainless or glass containers. Glass might be a bit tricky for power walkers and stainless steel can get heavy, so ultimately the decision is yours.

If you are a power walker trying to stay on top of your hydration needs, your long-term health may be worth some thoughtful consideration as to how you are storing your water.

Finally, don’t forget…you can also worry your way sick! Above all: get outside, get power walking!

Mississauga Marathon - Half and Full Sunday May 13: Mother's Day

My alarm sounds at 4:50 and, again, at 4:53, and yet one more time at 4:55. I finally manage to swing my legs over the side of the bed at 5:10am feeling like I have already walked a half marathon. I had been dreaming all night about getting ready for the start - packing the right food, attaching the timing chip, choosing the right shirt and always moving too slowly to make it to the start. Fortunately, it was all a dream and the day looks glorious, with clear sky and forecasts of temperatures between 6 and 13 degrees. Perfect race conditions.

This will be a treat for the 5,000 participants in the Mississauga Full and Half Marathons and especially the many WoW Power Walkers who are signed up. This year the race organizers decided against an early start for walkers, and in fact, did not even have walker registration or separate results postings. This is a disappointment to walkers who put so much into their training, but it didn't stop lots of us from enjoying a great race course and a beautiful day close to home. We have more than 35 participants entered in the half marathon - many of them walking their first race and four inrepid competitors - Karl, Carleen, Elaine, and Cheryl - walking the full marathon!

All the participants - runners, walkers, half marathoners, and marathoners - start together at 7:30 am at the corner of Highway 10 and Burnhamthorpe. Time corrals have been set up and clearly marked. Port-a-potties are plenty and the line-ups move quickly. I particularly like the inspirational quotes posted in each one - well, I assume they had one in each stall, I didn't check them all!

Settled into the corral for a completion time of 2:25:00, it takes Jeff and I 8 minutes to cross the timing mats at the start after the gun has gone. The road is wide so the large crowd doesn't stop us from finding a good pace at the onset. Although the first 1 to 2 kilometres are not noteworthy for scenery we soon arrive at the the bridge over the Credit Valley River where the scenery becomes green and soothing. Shortly, we are turn down Mississauga Road into a leafy residential area. Most of the race continues like this until we make our way to the lake at kilometre 17. It's a pleasure to be near the cool breeze off the lake, slight as it is. The terrain does get a bit more challenging. Our muscles are starting to feel the fatigue of pushing hard and we must negotiate some uneven asphalt, a walking path and subsequent return to rthe oad, sidewalk and then path again. There is even some concrete sidewalk that must be traverseed. Concrete is always felt more keenly by the feet and joints than asphalt.

Someone ahead of us takes a tumble in one of these transitions from road to sidewalk. Later, at the finish line, we will see a woman take a frightening face plant into the pavement a mere 100 metres from the finish mats.

Volunteers at the water stations are amazing. I am grateful that they are fully stocked and in position every 2 kilomentres along the route so that I do not carry a drink pack with me. All I need to bring along is my small supply of Clif Blok Shots in my shirt pocket.

The course narrows for the final kilometres as we are directed on a lakefront path. It is a lovely setting although open to interference by Sunday picnickers. Fortunately, at this relatively early time there are few casual pedestrians in our way and we enjoy a fast hard push into the finish. We are rewarded as we come into the end with some great compliments for power walking form from the race commentator. It's great to have them recognize the effort it takes to walk the entire race. Now, we just need to get them on board with separate registration and results posting!

Great day! Great course!

Congratulations to the many WoW Power Walkers who showed beautiful form and excellent speed out there on the race course. Special congratulations to first time half marathoners Laura Inman, Peter DeRosa, Patricia Drapeau, Marie MacNeill, and Monette Smith and first-time full marathoner Cheryl Van der Kroon. We know that many of you achieved personal bests today. Check out the website for full results for WoW Power Walkers.

Finally, there were many of us walking in memory of Mike Moran, an excellent power walker and all-round great guy who died this past March on a training walk in preparation for the Mississauga Half Marathon. We all miss you Mike. To Mike's very close group of walking friends in Port Credit, a big hug to all of you.

Welcome

Welcome to the WoW Power Walking Forum. After almost five very successful years helping people achieve amazing power walking goals, we are setting up this blog to widen the circle of discussion for power walkers everywhere.

I started WoW Power Walking because the idea that people could enter a marathon as a walker was a revelation. The thought of running 26 miles never appealed to me, but walking that distance might actually be fun. Amazingly, there wasn't much out there in the fitness industry or in the running community to help me achieve the goal of walking a marathon. It's a big goal, and a big goal requires commitment and good training. For walkers, training in technique and speed work is incredibly valuable as a way of minimizing injury and reducing the number of hours that it could take to complete a distance event.

More importantly, research has shown that it is intensity of workout that makes a difference to key fitness indicators like resting heart rate, blood pressure, and resting metabolic rate. In other words, to really challenge and change our fitness level, we need to work hard. Many walkers do not know how to get a good workout from walking. That's why WoW Power Walking is here. That's why we've become the leading walking coaching program in Canada. That's why we produced the Simple Secrets for a Great Walking Workout DVD-CD.

We believe that everyone can get a better workout from walking. We hope that you will join our discussion and take your walking to another level. On the way, bring a friend or a family member on your walking journey. The world will be a better place with more happy walkers getting outside!

Happy Trails!

Lee