Archives for April 10, 2008
ChiRunning
Posted on 4/10/2008 to Health and Fitness
This past Monday I ordered ChiRunning
The goal of ChiRunning is to provide runners with effortless, injury-free running technique that focuses on the pleasure of movement rather than on struggling and battling to run further and faster.
Created by Danny Dreyer, ChiRunning is meant to lower your perception of effort, regardless of how fast you're going. This is where the lean comes in (at the ankles, not the waist), allowing the body to work with--rather than against--gravity.
Of course there is a lot more to ChiRunning, and if you're not familiar with the ChiRunning technique, I encourage you to read more about it on ChiRunning.com, and to pick up a copy of the book
As for my run, I already mentioned that it was a schedule "easy" 5 miles @ 11:04/mile, and that I actually did it @ 9:34/mile, but I didn't mention the specifics of my experience using ChiRunning...
I certainly didn't set out to go at a pace that much fast than I was supposed to run--it just sort of happened. After completing my initial mile in a comfortable 10:16, I hit a nice downhill stretch early in mile 2, and the next thing I know, I've completed mile 2 in 9:26. Not wanting to burn myself out on this run, I tried to back off a bit in mile 3 and turned in a 9:39 pace. At this point I just gave in and ran mile 4 faster than any of the other miles @ 8:50. It was sometime during mile 4 that I decided that I would turn this run into a 3-mile tempo run, with mile 1 as my warm up and mile 5 as my cool down. And I did slow down in mile 5, to a 9:35 pace.
I am not going to say that this was all due to ChiRunning, after all, I only looked at a very small portion of the book before heading out on my run. However, I will say that it helped. Sure, I was working hard, but not as hard as I have in the past to turn in that sort of pace over an extended distance. Without implementing the lean, I am sure that pace would've caused my average heart rate to be in the 180s, rather than the 166 bpm that it was.
Head on over to Amazon or your local bookstore and take a look at ChiRunning
Tequila And Salsa
Posted on 4/10/2008 to Eats and Drinks
For those of you who cannot get enough tequila or salsa, I'd like to remind you of my latest website: Tequila and Salsa Party. The Tequila and Salsa Party website is dedicated to, of all things, tequila and salsa--and consuming them with good friends. The website was created as a companion to the Tequila and Salsa Party, which we've held for the last two years.
The Tequila and Salsa Party website contains not only information on our annual party, but also information on tasty salsas and tequila, as well as Mexican food that goes great with both.
Make sure you head on over to the site, and subscribe to the feed for the latest in tequila and salsa.