June GK News

Juicy June June has always traditionally been an easier month for those athletes based in Oz. Much enjoyed down time in the cold, dark, and often wet days.  But for many who are racing a mid year Ironman, it's been the biggest volume month of the year (lucky them) We've had athletes tackling a variety of races including Ironman and 70.3 Cairns, Honu 70.3, Victoria 70.3, Japan 70.3, Comrades and Ultra Marathon events, ITU Asian Championships, Tri Factor Series Races, Bintan Sprint and Olympic, Plus a hand full of other sprint and Olympic distance races around the globe. (WOW that's a lot, there certainly are some busy athletes )

COACHES CORNER Maximising Quality Sleep In recent weeks we have talked about recovery, training, motivation and sickness. Today we thought we'd cover something that all us coaches harp on about and that's SLEEP. We all have VERY busy lives and most people simply don't get enough sleep or if they do the quality of that sleep isn't great. So below is a short article by Dan Golding on how to improve your sleep... Hopefully this will help you get some quality sleep, and we can live in hope that you start getting some more too :) "Sleep is by far the most important tool in fast recovery. Most people do not get enough. As an athlete, you need more sleep, not less. There is sometimes a “macho fad” in business and sport about not requiring much sleep. This is false and you will perform far better if you can get good quality sleep- and enough of it. If you can carve out 30 minutes on a weekend to get your head down and take a power nap- this will do wonders for recovery, allow you to train harder and fit more into each day. Make the setting as seductive to good sleep as possible. I found black out blinds helped a lot for quick naps during the day as does having a constant temperature, deep breathing and learning to switch the mind off.  Recovery, repair and rebuilding tissues occur during sleep. Your hormones are extremely busy during this time repairing tissues and trying to reduce inflammation. Light sleep is not enough to ensure adequate recovery. Deep sleep is where the magic occurs. It may take 1-2 hours to get to this stage. During deep sleep, your body releases large amounts of growth hormone for repair and recovery, and initiates cellular turnover that can speed up removal of “junk” from a taxed musculoskeletal system." To get to deep sleep quicker: Try to keep regular times- go to bed at the same time each night and have a night-time winding down routine that signals to your body you are preparing for sleep The hours before midnight are more important for quality sleep than after Avoid intense exercise 4 hours prior to sleep Shut down computer and screen use 1-2 hours prior to sleep Reduce caffeine and alcohol Do deep breathing techniques or meditation Fresh air and cooler temperatures improve quality of sleep. All of the above, you have probably heard from your coaches!! But here it is again. Do we sound like broken records yet? Sorry, not sorry!! Sleep more and deeper = a better version of you,  whether that be in the office or out training.  SOCIAL MEDIA  We Want to Feature You Please feel free to tag us in your social media posts. We would love to repost Images of you out exercising or being your awesome selves. INSTAGRAM : @gkendurance FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/GkEndurance/ Any and all pictures are welcome, I'll even take cartoon versions of yourself. COACHED SESSIONS We still have some coached group sessions run by Janine for those of you looking for company over the cooler months. Reach out to Coach Janine for more info. !! YAY SWIM:  - Monday/ Wednesday and Friday morning from 5.30-7am at Arena Joondalup. If you are interested in attending these, please contact Janine and she'll be able to give you the low down.  BIKE:  - Tuesday Trainer session - 5.30-7am - Carpark #9 underneath Coles at Whitfords shopping centre. Enter off Banks Street. BYO trainer, towel and water! Janine will bring the "fun" and the tunes!  RUN:  - Thursday evening - 5.30-6.30pm - Whitfords nodes, working on strength and speed. Meeting at the picnic bench near the toilet block. Suitable for all levels Contact Janine or your coach if you need more info. janine@gkendurance.com  This week in Tips N Tricks we talk about the Nike Vaporfly 4% and if it's worth the $350AUD price tag? It's a 3min read or you can jump to the last sentence where I give my opinion on purchasing these shoes! Wearing the shoes makes runners more efficient than wearing other shoes, although not for the reasons many runners might expect.  Eliud Kipchoge crosses the finish line at the 2018 Berlin Marathon on Sept. 16 wearing his Nike Vaporfly 4% Flyknit ‘Bright Crimson’ running shoes. The distinctive and controversial Nike Vaporfly 4% running shoe is supposed to improve running ease and speed by as much as 4 percent, as its name suggests. Two new laboratory studies of the shoes suggest that those claims are credible. The new studies, which were not funded by Nike, find that wearing the shoes makes runners more efficient than wearing other shoes, although probably not for the reasons that many runners might expect. Together, the experiments help to explain what can make one runner swifter than another and also raise interesting questions about whether it is cheating if part of the answer is their shoes. Since its introduction about a year ago as an aspect of Nike’s ambitious project to breach the two-hour barrier for the men’s marathon, the neon-salmon hued Vaporfly 4% has become a common sight at major road races, despite its hefty $250 USD price. They were on the feet of Eliud Kipchoge and Abraham Kiptum when the men set world records this year in, respectively, the marathon and half-marathon. Eliud Kipchoge and fellow runners train in Tiergarten in Berlin in the week leading up to the marathon. The shoes, which contain a curved, carbon-fiber plate embedded in a thick layer of a unique, lightweight foam, gained their name and reputation after research, funded by Nike, showed that they improved experienced male runners’ metabolic efficiency by about 4 percent. In other words, the men used less energy to run at a given pace, which should allow them to run faster with less effort. Those results were met with calls from some people to ban the shoes, since the carbon-fiber plate was thought to be acting like a spring, creating extra propulsion and an unfair advantage compared to other shoes. But that original research had not examined just how the shoes improved efficiency or whether the plate was the key element. They also had not included women runners or compared the 4% models to more-specialized racing shoes, such as spiked, speedy racing flats. The two new studies set out to fill those gaps. The first, which was published in October in Sports Medicine, involved both male and female runners, all of them experienced competitors. It was paid for by grants at Grand Valley State University. The researchers asked these runners to wear the 4% shoe, a minimalist, spiked track-racing flat (also made by Nike) and a different marathon running shoe (made by Adidas). The runners then strode on a treadmill for five minutes at a time, at speeds ranging from about 5.5 minutes per mile to about 7 minutes per mile, a pace that represented easy running for this group.  Throughout, the volunteers wore masks that tracked their oxygen consumption, which is one measure of efficiency. They turned out to be most efficient in the 4% shoe, even when compared to the skinny track spikes and even after the researchers used lead pellets to add weight to the 4% shoe so that its mass equaled that of the other, slightly heavier marathon shoe. The men and women had benefited equally from the 4% shoe and their efficiency gains had been unrelated, it seems, to that shoe’s featherweight. But which elements of the 4% shoe did, then, most matter was still unclear. So for the other new study, which was published in November in Sports Medicine, the same researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder who had conducted the original study of the shoe invited 10 fast, male runners to their lab, fitted them with motion-capture sensors, and filmed them as they wore the 4% shoe, a different Nike marathon shoe, and a similar Adidas model. (The work was paid for through the lab.) They also employed specialized equipment to bend and manipulate the shoes, to see how they responded to forces and which portions of the shoes were most affected. Finally, they used the motion-capture data and complicated mathematical formulas to determine that the 4% shoe had slightly changed how the men ran, reducing the amount of muscular activity around their ankles and within their feet, lessening the amount of energy they burned with each step and making them more efficient. But those benefits were not due primarily to the carbon-fiber plate, their calculations showed. It stiffened and supported parts of the foot, allowing runners to push off hard with less muscular effort, but did not provide much thrust of its own. In effect, it acted like a lever, not a spring, says Rodger Kram, an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado who conducted the study with a research associate, Wouter Hoogkamer, and others.  That finding might seem abstruse but is important for discussions of banning the shoe, Dr. Kram says. Some people consider springs to be an unfair advantage, but few seem to feel the same way about levers.  There also are no calls to ban the particular type of foam used in the shoes, although it was the most consequential element of the shoes, the new study showed. Lightweight and soft without being squishy, it absorbed and returned a portion of the energy the men generated with each step, doing more than the plate to reduce the energy costs of their running. Whether shoes with the same foam but no carbon-fiber plate would be as fast is still in question, Dr. Kram says, although they almost certainly would be less pricey. There also is little evidence yet that the shoes can substantially improve the efficiency and pace of those of us who are older, slower or inexperienced runners, although we can, of course, dream. “The shoes might help” to shave a minute or five from a plodding runner’s 10K or half-marathon finishing time, Dr. Kram says. But, realistically, he says, “many people will get much more than a 4 percent improvement from more training and maybe a little weight loss.” Still confused? Well they are not for everyone as every athletes body is different, BUT if you have disposable income, they are worth a try!! (Bare in mine that these are NOT a volume shoe, you might get 200KM out of them if your lucky) In short, they do work, but they are expensive and they don't last long. Positives and negatives!! As a coach, I don't mind what shoe you wear, as long as that shoes allows you to train consistent and stay injury free. Those things will make you faster than the 4%.  GKE ATHLETES OUT & ABOUT!  A few pictures of winter training, racing and general GK fun. Feel free to send your pictures to Guy if you want to be featured!! THINGS THAT CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION Most of us are guilty of running the same routes over and over again. Here are two lists of top runs around the Perth area. (there are a few double up's) Maybe it's time to branch out and run somewhere new? https://www.theurbanlist.com/perth/a-list/perths-best-running-routes http://letslivewell.com.au/nine-of-the-best-running-tracks-in-perth/ GETTING TO KNOW YOU 10 Quick Questions with Kate Burton How did you first get involved in Triathlon? Watching my (now) husband do the Foster/Tuncurry 70.3 and thought, ‘yeah, I can do that’. I couldn’t even run 5km at the time! What are your goals for the coming year? Rottnest Channel Swim solo 2020. Roth Challenge 2020 Taking myself less seriously! What is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you at a Triathlon, running, swimming or cycling event? My wetsuit getting a big tear on race day at Ironman Busselton. I literally had to duct tape it up. Also the unisex/communal showers and change rooms at Roth Challenge comes to mind… What is your favourite movie? Love Actually (love a good chick flick with a happy ending). Where is your favourite place to relax? At a café at the beach. What is your best characteristic? I’m determined (stubborn!) What is your worst habit? I’m stubborn. Also over critiquing how I could have done better in an event instead of enjoying what I have achieved.  What is your favourite "go to" post race/event meal? Coffee Do you have any pre-race rituals? No, although I used to have a glass of red the night before. I also tend to be the person on race day line up asking, “So what buoys are we swimming around? How many laps are we supposed to be doing on the bike?” What are you most afraid of? DNF!