A Casual Runner in Africa

Francesco P

If your first thought when you are about to travel to some far-off place is: "how is this going to affect my running schedule?", you have definitely reached a high point in your addiction to running and, as you can well imagine, you are in very good company. 

Now, we runners love to think that nothing can ever stop us from running. But can it? 

There was a time, not long ago, when my work often took me to places like China and Mongolia, and I felt adamant that I would find a way to run no matter what. There is surely no better way to explore a Chinese village than on an early morning run, when the locals shuffle out to the streets and fill the parks for their daily tai chi practice. Admittedly, the occasional treadmill in the hotel gym gives you that extra security you need in case the weather conditions or the air quality make you think twice about venturing outdoors. But the treadmill is always the last resort.

Never until I moved to my current job in New York, however, did I have the chance to travel to Africa for work. For the past two years, my job took me to visit a few UN peacekeeping missions in tough places like the DRC, Somalia, South Sudan and Mali. It goes without saying that places that are ravaged by conflict and where security is a major issue, and on top of this triple-digit temperatures are the norm, are not the most propitious for a casual run. But, again, would this be a reason to stop a runner from going out and doing the job?

I have actually given this question some thought and I have developed 3 rules of wisdom.

Rule of wisdom #1: assess the risk. 

Dangerous road conditions, rampant crime, a history of violence or even the risk of terrorist acts against foreigners are all factors to consider carefully when choosing whether to go out or run on a treadmill. While no place is totally danger-free, it is important to be aware of the potential threats around you, in order to make an informed decision. Talking to people, finding out what time the sun rises, and scouting out your routes are all good tools to assess the risk in your environment. 

The evening when I arrived in Bamako, Mali, I was thrilled to discover that the area where I was staying had first-rate street lighting. The next day, I was out running well before dawn. The long, wide roads that stretched from my hotel to the government district along the banks of the Niger river were totally deserted and looked a bit eerie, but I could pretty much spot all the open potholes and the other "runners' traps" scattered on the way, and at the same time I managed to avoid running when the roads are awfully congested and clogged with motorbikes. 

Of course, I had also been reassured that, while violent crime could be an issue, no act of terrorism had ever occurred in Bamako. Mali is a country struggling with a deadly internal conflict between the government and the rebel forces and the Islamists in the North, and the towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, up in the North, are those that suffered the heaviest consequences of the conflict. Sadly, only three weeks after my visit, five civilians, including a colleague of mine who was serving for the EU Delegation in Bamako, were tragically killed during a terrorist attack. No reasonable precaution could have saved them from the brutality of that heinous aggression.

The UN base in Gao: not a good place for a casual run

Rule of wisdom #2: study the route. 

Once you have acquired a fair sense of security, you should figure out how far to go, what you want to see and how to get there. GoogleMaps can be very helpful to plan on an itinerary. I usually also try my luck talking to hotel staff, though that can be rather disconcerting at best, and totally useless more often than not.

The evening when I arrived at my luxury hotel in Addis, Ethiopia, the first thing I did after I was checked in, I went to the polished concierge who was idling by his stand next to the revolving door. I needed his advice on my run the next morning and I wanted to go all the way to the old town. The guy looked at me like I was crazy. The best place to run - he said - was the fancy shopping boulevards on the route to the airport, certainly not the old town. As for running in the early morning, he just could not get why I was dead set on doing my run when all the stores would still be closed...

And, finally, rule of wisdom #3: enjoy the run! 

Once you have overcome the headache of going over security and logistics, nothing beats the excitement of discovering the start of an ordinary day in the life of an African city. Two cities, in particular, hold a special place in my heart of die-hard long-distance runner: Nairobi and Addis. I cannot believe I have just managed to tick them both off my bucket list! I ran in Nairobi last year. At the time, I was advised not to venture too far from the safe area where my hotel was located, next to the UN headquarters. 

My run in Addis, this February, was quite a different story: I broke loose and scampered away into the bustling streets, as far as I could from my hotel. Thanks to my GoogleMaps, and in spite of my hopeless hotel concierge, I had a pretty good idea of where I was directed. I reached the National Theatre and the Lion of Judah, while the town was still waking up to a new day, children trotted to school, a small crowd gathered around a bus, guys in suits walked along to their work places. Then I turned a corner to cut towards the French School on the other side of the hill, and all of the sudden the streets were no longer paved and I remembered where I was: in a country that used to be among the poorest in the world, and had made huge leaps since and was climbing out of poverty.

Lovely day for a run in Addis!

Friends who lived in Addis say it is a special place for runners. People there value running like nowhere else. In the morning - my friends say - the streets of Addis literally fill with runners of all types. Even in my very short running experience in Addis, I can only corroborate it is a place like no other for runners. I cannot think of another city in my long years of running where people look so cheerful seeing a runner zip by. I would have loved to stop and converse with them about the secrets of their masterful endurance running. We think it has something to do with running, generation after generation, at a high altitude. I felt blessed by my altitude solo run, and ready to go back to New York and to my running buddies, full of energy, stronger than ever, and looking forward to my next African trip!

-Francesco P.

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Prehab for Runners

Michael Conlon

If you’ve been a runner or endurance athlete for any period of time, chances are good that you’ve experienced aches and pains throughout the training process. You know: it’s that nagging soreness in your hamstrings, or the periodic pain in your knees, or the tightness in your hips that doesn’t seem to go away.

What’s the first thing most runners do when they feel something? We run through it, of course. But that’s a mistake! Pain is your body’s signal that something is imbalanced—and it’s those initial aches and pains that can become something bigger, hampering your performance and possibly preventing you from getting to the start line.

The good news is, you can reverse the repetitive stress of training. Incorporating prehabilitation – or “prehab” – into your training regimen is one of the most effective ways to minimize limitations, which in turn allows you to train consistently at maximum effort and feel more prepared for your race.

Here’s the catch: prehab requires you to proactively take care of yourself rather than waiting until your body is at the point of breaking down. The goal is PREhabilitation, not REhabilitation.

As physical therapist Kelly Starrett says in his great book, Ready to Run, “All human beings should be able to perform basic maintenance on themselves.” If you’re asking your body to withstand the stress and impact of running, then it’s your job to support that body.

Here are a few keys to functionally preparing your body for the sport of running:

Incorporate maintenance work into your daily routine

We’ve talked in the past about the importance of dynamic stretching and self-myofascial release (foam rolling) – but despite the fact that we KNOW how beneficial these are in improving range of motion and tissue health, most runners still neglect to do them regularly.

Here’s the thing: supporting your body and proactively addressing weaknesses through regular maintenance is not just about injury prevention; it’s also about enabling yourself to get the most out of each and every training session. Starrett makes a good point: “When you fix problems and retrain your body to move well, you also allow for greater performance—more power, more speed, and you’ll be able to hold it together longer, too.”

He establishes a standard that is worth taking to heart: all it takes is a minimum of 10 minutes a day for maintenance work—but that means no days off, no excuses. You don’t always have to do the same thing, either. Maybe one day, a “hotspot” in your piriformis crops up. So after your run, spend 10 minutes mobilizing your glute muscles, working out the tissues above and below the hotspot. If you have more time throughout the day to focus on other global muscle groups, even better. But make sure you’re at least getting in 10 minutes a day, every day.

Try these three simple mobility drills to improve your range of motion and increase your capacity, focusing on your:

• Ankles -- please click HERE 
• Hips -- please click HERE and
• Thoracic spine -- please click  HERE  

Build in a formal warm up and cool down as part of your workout

How many times have you woken up in the morning, thrown your clothes on and immediately gone out for a run? Or worked 8 solid hours staring at a computer screen, then gone straight from your desk to the park for a workout?

We’ve all done it – and yet, we short change ourselves when we fail to adequately prepare our muscles for work, or give them a chance to recovery properly after we’ve completed a workout.

Running drills are a great way to get the blood flowing while also practicing the movements we ask our body to go through for the sport of running. It’s really hard to heel strike when skipping or doing high knees. These drills (and others, such as butt kicks, side shuffles, karioka, strides and more) enable your body to naturally land on your mid- or forefoot and below your center of mass.

Don’t limit yourself to doing these drills in one direction. Because our bodies move in three planes of motion (forward-backward, side-to-side and in rotation), we should train them in a variety of directions. Check out this video of how to do high knees in all three planes of motion by clicking HERE. 

Increase “running” strength to support good movement patterns

Runners oftentimes overlook the role that functional strength plays in improving performance. The key is in building running-specific strength to improve your stride length, which along with stride rate (i.e. cadence) is a key component to increasing speed.

Squatting, when done with good form, is an extremely effective exercise for runners because it helps you to access power from your posterior chain. Because running is essentially a single-leg sport, training your body with single-leg activities will help you activate your all-powerful glutes.

Try doing single leg squats with toe touch with hand reaches in all 3 planes to build glute strength. Please click HERE to view a demonstration video.

Blogmaster's Note: Michael Conlon is the founder and owner of Finish Line Physical Therapy, which he opened in 2006 to provide the highest quality of care, service, and personal attention in a comfortable, supportive, and friendly atmosphere. He has been a New York State licensed physical therapist since 1997. He is a certified full-body Active Release Techniques provider and is recognized as a Fellow of Applied Functional Science (FAFS) through the internationally acclaimed Gray Institute. He is passionate about endurance sports, both as a participant and coach, and has run 24 marathons and completed three Ironman triathlons. As a coach for the NYC chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma’s Team in Training program since 2002, Michael has trained hundreds of runners, from beginners to advanced marathoners.  -Dave K.

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Fifty miles of joy

Diederik van Hoogstraten

The following is adapted from a piece contained in the blog of Flyer Diederik van Hoogstraten, chronicling his journey running the Sean O'Brien 50 Mile Race in the beautiful and challenging Santa Monica Mountains. To read his prior posts that have appeared in the Flyers Blog, including about his book, The Running Dutchman: Confessions of a Wanderer, please click HERE. 
-Dave K, Flyers Blogmaster

M i l e  0. The headlamps of runners seem to be dancing in the cool, pitch-black morning. It’s 6 a.m. and there’s nervous tension, camaraderie between strangers. I fist-bump fellow runner Ann and wish her luck. I kiss K, my ride to the start who is also my love. Off we go. Easy up the single-track. We walk in the dark, up the steep hills. Ann is right behind me and she compliments me — for starting slowly, for not losing myself and my energy in those first adrenaline-fueled miles. Not this time.

M i l e  3. I know this creek, but I have never passed it. There’s a road bridge a few hundred meters away! Whatever, they want us to cross though knee-deep, not-warm water. I worry for a moment: about cold, soaking feet and socks and shoes for the next 47 miles. Then I decide worrying is pointless. Onward.

M i l e 7. Warmed up and excited I arrive at the first aid station. It was gorgeous getting here, on trails and fire roads I know so well, deep in the Santa Monica mountains. The rising sun blew my fellow runners and me away. It’s beginning to feel like a perfect day. I quickly eat some banana, the stomach feels surprisingly calm. K hands me a fresh water bottle. Another kiss. I am off again, into the wild.

M i l e  15. A glance at my watch, a missed tree root, and down I go at a decent downhill speed. I roll, curse, jump up, check for any serious damage, wipe some blood off my knee. And… moving on!

M i l e  22. How come I feel so good after what’s almost a marathon with huge climbs? I don’t wait for the answer and fly down the fire road toward the Bonsal Aid station, where my Trailrunners Club-mates and K will be waiting. But first I see my friend Matt and his friend Kristine on the narrow trail. This makes me happy. She is injured but he jumps on the trail. We run and chat. Matt’s a good guy, which I already knew, but he proves it, patiently waiting while I refuel and kiss K yet again. Then Matt runs another mile with me, nicely distracting me as a huge uphill section stretches out in front of us.

M i l e  26. I know these trails very well. Still, this climbing is slow! If I don’t keep drinking, if I don’t keep thinking happy thoughts, I risk the all too familiar slide into self-defeating thinking. Instead I focus on the next aid station and the cup of coke I know will be there. Passing runners as we push uphill cheers me up; the coke at the station is even better than imagined. I also wolf down a piece of potato dunked in salt, some banana, and a piece of a PB&J sandwich. It fills me, but as I run my stomach protests. Oh no.

M i l e  32. This is new terrain: I am wandering into the great unknown; I have never in my life run this far. The 50Ks I ran back in 2010/2011 felt short and easy. I realize my race really begins here, in the final 20 miles. Hey, there’s K. She has parked, walked up the trail and now she runs with me. Perfect timing. My GI issues were distracting and I was allowing some self-doubt. K forces me to focus, to talk, to smile. She gives me my new blue shell as it is now raining and misting and generally pretty miserable up here on the mountain. When she heads back to car I get yet another kiss. A runner behind me yells out: you should marry that girl, man. He has seen her caring for me. I tell him: you’re right, and I will.

M i l e  40. Will my toe need to be amputated? The pain is excruciating, sending an increasingly fast moving series of SOS messages to my brain. I walk, drink, take some Aleve. The good news: I don’t feel my tight calves, burning quads or hunger pangs — just that toe. I imagine a bloody mess and decide not to take off the shoe and look. I imagine it would be the end of this adventure. Yay denial.

Mile  47. Where’s that creek? I know it’s around here. Turns out I missed a well-marked turn after a long, steep downhill. I had run down the last huge mountain. After many miles in the 11-minute, 15-minute, even 18-minute range, it felt exquisite to go down at a sweet 6:20 pace. That’s when I knew my training paid off: downhill running can be tough, even dangerous when you are not ready for it, which is the reason I saw so many runners walk down gently and smartly. My descent on slippery, rocky terrain must have worn me out mentally, though, missing that turn. A kind fellow runner calls out, I follow, we cross the water. Now it’s one final push the last hill they call ‘the chihuahua': small but mean, with a real bite. Come on, move! I channel my late grandfather Opa and tell myself to toughen up, lummel. Lazy fool, I think it meant — in the most loving of ways.

M i l e  50. One more sweet downhill on the slippery switchbacks of Malibu Creek Park. I can hear K before I see her. She is proud, she says. I can’t speak. I swallow hard and run through the finish. Years of injury and frustration have ended right here, in this rain, on this quiet road, back at the spot where the headlamps danced around me this morning. That’s a wrap: fifty miles, fifty joyful miles, leading me home.

UPDATE (by request): the toe was absolutely fine. Not even a blister or damaged nail. I have no idea what caused that blistering pain late in the race. Can the mind imagine such pain? Why would it? Feedback welcome.

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A Message from the Flyers President

Doug R

It is a great honor to be elected President of the NY Flyers, even if my election competition was limited to “none of the above” and an aggressive write-in campaign from a tall, green, metallic lightpost known as “E7210.” While the Election Committee scrupulously prohibits the release of exact numeric results, it would seem from the committee’s declaration of my victory that I won at least a narrow plurality of the votes cast and will now be serving as your President in 2015. Sorry, E7210.

In taking office, I am blessed with an able, enthusiastic and collegial Executive Board and a thoughtful, supportive Advisory Board. Their skills and insights made my decision to adopt a consensual, committee-based approach to governance of the team a very easy and so far very successful one. We work together as a team and, while we may not always agree on every matter, we have candid and respectful discussion and debate on key issues facing the team.

As I look forward to the coming year, I have a few key priorities and initiatives:

1. Implement an inclusive decision-making approach both within the Board and with the membership. No one has a monopoly on good ideas and it is important that everyone, both board members and members, feels comfortable bringing forward items for thoughtful, respectful discussion and evaluation. Our decisions as a Board are made after appropriate amounts of discussion, concluding with an Executive Board vote where majority rules.

2. An emphasis on running events where our scale, skill and resources allow us to provide a valuable, unique offering to our members. The team’s Three Bridges runs have always been one of the most successful events that we do and are particularly successful in attracting new members. As a Board, we have decided to build on the success of Three Bridges by initiating a Flyers Long Training Run Series each month between March and November. These supported runs, with fluid stations and bag check, will culminate in the Three Bridges and Last Ten runs leading up to the New York Marathon in November. I am pleased to say that our first event in this series was a tremendous success – we had nearly 80 runners participating, aided by a dozen volunteers (please click HERE for the post-run survey results). Total cost to the team? About $300, making it one of the most cost effective events we produce. The Flyers Long Training Run Series will continue on April 25th, with the Little Toot run down the Hudson River from Central Park to the Battery and back and continue every month through the NYC Marathon.

3. Retain and attract members. The Flyers remains one of the largest running clubs in New York and this scale gives us the ability to do things like produce the Three Bridges Runs and our new Long Training Runs, support an extensive array of coaching programs throughout the year and provide for an active social agenda. We will strive to increase and diversify the demographics of our membership. As a Board, we will introduce a new marketing campaign to attract new members, while offering a variety of new running and social events to retain the existing membership.

4. Maintain financial balance while providing “good value” member services. Many years of prudent financial stewardship by successive generations of Boards has provided the Flyers with a comfortable cash balance. It is our duty to maintain that balance for the financial health of the club. In 2015, we will seek to achieve financial balance by focusing on cost-effective running events like the Long Training Run Series while still providing an attractive array of social events, including of course our Gala Awards Dinner.

I hope to end my term by working with the Executive Board to hand the next President and Board some key accomplishments – a robust Long Training Run Series that becomes a team tradition, a balanced budget that keeps our finances strong, and increased membership that diversifies our demographic mix. But, most importantly, I hope to end the year with fellow Board members and the membership believing that their views were heard and thoughtfully considered, with no one feeling marginalized and everyone believing that they always have a place in the club. 

I am honored to serve as President and am privileged to serve with such an able and collegial Executive Board and thoughtful Advisory Board. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions as members – please email me or another member of the Executive Board (or your Team Captain) with your ideas, suggestions, and complaints.

Respectfully,

Doug Runte

President, New York Flyers

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