How I Made Sports Illustrated Magazine!

O.K. This is slightly old news, but it is a bit relevant as there are many American Olympians who were not born in America. Some started running after arriving in America (Abdi Abdirahman in the 10000m) and others have Olympic medals from other countries (Bernard Lagat formally of Kenya who will represent America in the 1500 and 5000 races in Beijing. Unless we are paying them to come run for us, I agree with many others-but not all, that they are American runners if they are American citizens.

Anyhow back in 2002 Sports Illustrated had a short one page article "Catching up with" on Alberto Salazar. I read it and while appreciating an article on distance running and Alberto, Sports Illustrated missed the mark and did not even acknowledge the fact that Khalid Khannouchi (an American who came from Morocco) had just broken the world record in the London Marathon with a thrilling race against Ethiopia 's Haile Gebrselassie and Kenya's Paul Tergat.

I sent off this letter (the only letter I have ever written to a publication):

Marathon Man
It was nice to revisit Alberto Salazar (CATCHING UP WITH, April 22). However, the article begins, " Alberto Salazar has no desire to be known as the last great American marathoner, but that's exactly what he is." Well, in case you didn't notice—and it looks that way—an American set a world record in the London Marathon on April 14. Khalid Khannouchi broke his own mark in a long-anticipated, epic race against two of the greatest distance runners ever, Ethiopia 's Haile Gebrselassie and Kenya 's Paul Tergat . The often overlooked Khannouchi is an American citizen who was born and raised in Morocco , but this does not make him any less an American. Just ask Alberto Salazar , who was born in Cuba . The greatest marathoner in the world today is an American!
JIM HANSEN, Nashua, N.H.

I remember receiving my issue in the mail and seeing a large picture of racing greyhounds. I held it up to show my son since we had a greyhound at that time and as I held it up I was startled when I saw my name and letter printed on the reverse side of the page.

I was even more surprised when I was reading the Jan/Feb issue of Running Times and an article called "Foreign Born Americans". Imagine my surprise to see my letter to SI quoted in the article.

Anyhow in the 2002 London Marathon Khalid Khannouchi set the World Record against two of the greatest runners of all time. It was a classic race. I remember getting up early that morning and listening to the race on internet radio. Here are the top three times.

1 KHANNOUCHI, KHALID (USA) 2:05:38
2 TERGAT, PAUL (KEN) 2:05:48
3 GEBRSELASSIE, HAILE (ETH) 2:06:35

I wasn't really in running shape that Spring but decided to run a marathon that same day to celebrate the London race and also to celebrate my first Boston Marathon 20 years earlier almost to the day in Boston. That race was the "Dual in the Sun" between Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley. My results there are another story but I died like I have never died in a race that day in Boston. I went out trying to run 2:42 and was on pace through the half, but it was hot and I dehydrated bad and stumbled in with a time of 3:23:58.

My school board was not going to let me run Boston in 2002 so I decided to do Fred's Marathon (a Boston alternative in Worcester, Ma). I had only run a couple hundred miles since the beginning of that year. My training was to do a 16 miler two weeks before the race and a 20 miler the week before. I ran Fred's in a time of 3:23:58. A week or two after the race I realized I had run the exact same time that I had run in Boston 20 years earlier. Fred's was basically an easy run on limited mileage. Boston 1982 was a dreadfully hard day when I was in the best marathon shape of my life. A week after that Boston I ran a 5 miler in 26:36 to break my 5 mile best PR set in college a year earlier. Two weeks after that Boston I broke my foot sliding into a base (sandbag) during a softball game and I have never run as fast.

Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley both suffered from that race in 2002 and never achieved the times or places in races that they had before that epic race. Here is a video of that race:



Here is Dick Beardsley talking about the "Dual in the Sun".



On a smaller scale, tonight the Gate City Striders had their Ultimate Runner workout. The Ultimate Runner consists of a 400, an 800, a mile, and then a 5k run. Then they age grade the times to find out who is the Ultimate Runner. It was a hot night like usual for this contest. I couldn't wait to get on the track because I really bumped my mileage up the week before. In the past 7 days I accumulated 64 miles of running and I feel like I am training for the first time in a long time. My times were 76 seconds for the 400, 2:44 for the 800, 6:00 for the mile, and 20:28 for the 5k. The heel lifts are helping although I still need adjusting. My left hip and adductor was tight all day today and during the races. My times were slower than normal but it was good to push and run for a change.





There are two good books on Dick Beardsley and the "Dual in the Sun" Boston Marathon race of 1982. I enjoyed reading "Staying the Course" by Dick Beardsley that talk about his running and what happened after with accidents and drug addictions. "Duel in the Sun" by John Brandt is another good read comparing Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley and their personalities as well as that great race and what happened afterwards to both runners.

Return of the MP3's

I was the first one I ever knew to have an MP3 player. I got a Sensory Science RaveMP 2000 back in 1999 and I couldn't believe such technology. It could hold 30 minutes of music! I had to explain what an mp3 was to everyone I knew, because no one had heard of or seen such a thing before. I actually liked this player, its hourglass shape meant it fit snugly in my hand.



My next MP3 player, a Creative Nomad 2, held 60 minutes of music. I could also put a media card in it to add songs. Both players fit neatly in the palm of a hand and on long runs I would take both so I could hear a change in music.



Eventually I got an mp3 player with a mini-hard drive that could hold tons of music, The Rio Nitrus. It worked great at first, but like everyone else that had this player it died about 2 days after it 90 day warranty expired.



I had a few other low cost mp3 players through the years, but eventually ended up with my first iPod: a mini. It worked great and held lots of music but I had to use an armband like this to run with it and after a year the battery died. I replaced the battery but that lasted less than a year. It is now plugged into my alarm clock to wake me up to tunes of my own choosing.



Finally I got an iPod shuffle. This mp3 player is perfect for running. I clip it onto my shorts and listen to music without feeling encumbered at all by the mp3 player. It worked great, but unfortunately it disappeared from my stuff while I was in Hawaii in April. I have run tuneless since then until I replaced it this week. I am happy to be back in the music. I have no apologies for running with an mp3 player. It is one of the few times I can listen to music during my day and after running for over 30 years, I need a little diversion. However the important rule about mp3 players is never use one during a race or while training with friends.

I had another good day of running and adjusting to the heel lift. Today I ran 8 miles, yesterday 12 miles, and Thursday 10 miles for 30 miles in 3 days and I felt great when finished with each run. My hips seem balanced side to side. My right hip doesn't dip down and back. My legs feel straighter although they are still adjusting and I am being careful about overdoing it (it doesn't sound like it- but I feel like running more than I have the last 3 days). I have about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch lift in my right foot so the angles of my feet landing on the ground, my ankle, knees, and hips all have a different angles of motion and supporting my weight as I run. I would guess I would be having all sorts of problems if I wasn't on to something with the lift. I hope my stride keeps on making improvements and adjustments as I feel a new balance as I run.

Things that are making me run better: a heel lift, ART (Active Release Technique) and also more on the Tibialis Posterior

I went to Boston for my third Active Release (ART) appointment today. I was feeling good since my run on Tuesday, but didn't run yesterday as I spent a couple of hours in a dentist's chair before celebrating 20 years of marriage!

Today the I had a quick treatment on the back of my left hip and my left adductors (I didn't tell him that this was bothering me on Monday). The ART therapy never hurts me and I don't feel a thing but it does do something. He has me check my balance doing lunges and of course my left side is awkward when I do these. He gave me a hamstring strengthening exercise. I am to lie on the floor on my back with me knees at 90 degrees and my heels resting on a bench at knee height. I am to press my heels into the chair and lift my rear off the floor. I am to do this until tired (maybe 50 times), rest a minute, then repeat. I am to do these once per day. He doesn't say anything when I mention I am working on the tibialis posterior.

Here is a video where an Active Release Technique therapist explains the process. The second technique he does for this persons sciatica is similar or the same as one of the hip movements I had done the last two appointments. I do it with straight leg and bent leg as shown.



Here the founder of ART, Dr. Leahy, talks about what ART is and its effectiveness.



This is another video dealing with sciatica and ART. At about 7 minutes into it you will see the ART Psoas release similar to the one that is done on my Psoas muscle.



Today my run was really good. I think the heel lifts are right on. I feel so much more balanced and my hips don't have to do all this work trying to be leveled and balanced. I feel better walking and running and the back of hip pain is subsiding. Today I added an extra loop to my run so I did close to 10 miles. I would do more but I am nervous that the change by using the heel lift could create a new problem from adjusting muscles. I am getting my legs to feel straighter and I could happily train at this level as I don't feel so exhausted from fighting my own body. Although not 100%, I do feel a whole lot smoother and solid as I run.

I am doing the Tibialis Posterior exercises. They are simple and feel so right for what I need to do with my knee and feet. I found another exercise to try for strengthening the tibialis posterior. The accent is from New Zealand and the person, Gary Moller, is the older brother of Olympic Marathon Bronze medalist Lorraine Moller. Here Gary writes more about correcting foot pronation. What I find interesting is that his diagram and the diagram on the Yoga site I listed the other day, both show the inward knee rotation and hip problems that I suffer from.

The Olympic Track Trials in One Workout

I missed four days of running last week due to going to the Olympic Swimming Trails. When I came home Saturday night the heel lifts I had ordered had arrived. My left hip and left shoulder were off the whole time I was away so I was happy to try them out. I adjusted them by taking many layers off and put them in my shoe. I liked the feeling of balance. I woke up and wore them again and the tightness I had were gone. I had a very well balanced 8 mile run and felt good afterwards and the next morning.

Then I went in for a massage. It went well and I got looser. I had a very tight right ITB band and left hamstring. When I was done my hip was tight in a new way. I had lost the balance I had. Still I decided to do the 5k at night. This time I did a 4 mile warmup right to before the start of the race, but I was all off and my hip was not working. I had a horrible race and lumbered to a slow finish.

Then my hip was sore all night. I couldn't sleep and got up a few hours early. All day it was out of whack. I tried rolling the left adductor which was tight. It is hard to do but here are two clips on how to do it:





It helped ease a little tension, but not enough. I did Z-Health drills (no help), used a heating pad on my back (nothing), and although I was dressed to run I decided the hip still hurt so I decided to bike.

I got dressed for biking but then thought I'd go back to an earlier page on my blog where I had placed a web link that I intended to get to later. I decided it was later. I decided to take a closer look at the tibialus posterior tendon as explained here. This muscle can cause a flat pronated foot and knock knees. That is me!

I read it through and tried the strengthening exercises on my left side. That is the side where my knee knocks in. The exercise gave me an idea of what that muscle should be doing and the effect it should have on the functioning of the foot and knee. It lifted the arch up like the orthotics I had tried last month did artificially. I learned to push the knee out and what that felt like (actually like I felt the Z-Health knee circles should be doing-but aren't). I also felt I lot of tightness and work being done on the outside of my hip. After doing the exercises my muscles felt distracted enough that I though I'd try running, so it was back to putting on my running gear.



I tried running with some of the cues from the exercises I had done and it was tough but I was able to get a better alignment and feel. However since I only did the exercises on the left side, I found it hard to use the cues on the right side. After about 3 miles I started cuing in the right side and things were falling into place a bit. I was running and my stride was changing. I felt I was bearing the running load on the outside of the hip rather than on the inside like I normally do. I am sure I was only making minor movements toward straightening my knee-leg out. It started getting easier and flowing and I realized a good mental image would be to picture Gabe Jennings running the 1500 at the Olympic Trials. There is not a whole lot I care to emulate about Gabe Jennings and in particular his running style, but I put the image of his almost bow-legged running stride in my mind and used it to help keep my knees straight and because of that they were not buckling in.


It was all going well until all of a sudden I felt a sharp twinge at the inside bottom of my left heel. Bam I had to quickly adjust my stride, I felt like Tyson Gay pulling a muscle. Of course he was going fast when his hamstring went and he veered all over the track trying to stop. I was going slow and veered about 5 inches as I tried to adjust my stride and stop. I walked for a few minutes and got back to running but without such an effort to adjust that foot! Fortunately the pain did not reappear.



In the end I feel like Alan Webb. Last year he was fast and set the American record in the mile. This year he looks lost and confused without the stride he used to have. Of course Alan's worst day is still 5th best in the USA. I can't get my body working correctly and it too is confusing. The 5K's I am running are pathetic and I can't move my body properly. Sooner or later I hope to hit on the right combination of strategies and recover my stride. I will continue with the heel lifts and work more on those posterior tibialis strengthening exercises.

I hope you like the pictures of Gabe, Tyson, and Alan running in the Olympic Trials, because pictures of me trying to straighten my knees out, hobbling with a pain on the bottom of my foot, or racing last night would have been really horrible to look at!

More on Tibialis Posterior Dysfunction:
"The tibialis posterior tendon is the primary dynamic stabiliser of the medial longitudinal arch,6 and its contraction results in inversion and plantar flexion of the foot and serves to elevate the medial longitudinal arch, which locks the mid-tarsal bones, making the hindfoot and midfoot rigid.7 This later action allows the gastrocnemius muscle to act with much greater efficiency during gait. Without the tibialis posterior, the other ligaments and joint capsules gradually become weak, and thus flatfoot develops. Furthermore, without the tibialis posterior the gastrocnemius is unable to act efficiently, and therefore gait and balance are seriously affected." (from here)



Here is another look at the same exercise I did today from a Yoga perspective:
It says, "If you have a tendency toward flat feet and knock-knees, use an elastic exercise band to create the resistance...Even if you don’t have flat feet, this exercise will help you learn and practice good action in the feet. The essence of the exercise is to learn how to keep the inner heel and ball of the big toe grounded while lifting the arch, and not throw all of the weight to the outer edge of the foot.


Then the article describes a "wide-legged standing forward bend" that uses the same lifting of the arches by strengthening and lengthening the tibialis posterior. It says, that this stretch "is obviously a stretch to the hamstrings, but a big part of the stiffness that holds us back from fully expressing the pose comes from tight adductors. These inner thigh muscles pull the thighbones toward each other, tightening and even locking the hip joints. And you will find that what goes hand in hand with tight adductors is the inability of the tibialis posterior to keep the arches of the feet lifted." What I find interesting is I do have that tighntess of the adductors (particularly the left side) and this is the side where I have the most trouble with the knocked-knee and fallen arch and it was the first thing I thought of treating today!

Of the many sites I visited, these two suggest a stengthening of this tendon. The other doctor related sites suggest surgery, orthotics, or arch supports. This quote from the last site suggests why this is not the best strategy, "In the orthopedic world, what is often offered as a solution for fallen arches—particularly when they cause a knock-kneed condition—is support in the form of a lift or orthotics in the shoe. The artificial arch takes over the job of the tibialis posterior—and certainly the support is appreciated over the course of a long day as our feet get tired. Yet when the tibialis posterior is not working properly, a host of postural misalignments ensue, and some of them are not rectified by arch supports. With arch supports, changes do happen in the lower leg: the arch is lifted, and the shinbone of the lower leg (i.e., the tibia) rotates out from its base at the ankle, as it should. But not much changes in the thighbone: it remains inwardly rotated and, in the case of knock knees, adducted. This means that while the shin is now rotating out, the inner thigh muscles remain tight and pull the femur in toward the midline of the body, causing a twisting and grinding in the knee. It’s not enough to shore up the arches. This simply shifts the problem up the leg to the knee, where the twisting can damage the knee ligaments and cartilage. The solution, beginning with the tibialis posterior, has to involve the whole leg."

Recover Your Stroke (part 2) Champions

Here are a few more pictures from the Olympic Trials in Omaha.

New Hampshire Olympian Jenny Thompson



Legendary Olympian Mark Spitz



Future Olympian Hannah



Mark Phelps (no we are not underwater-this huge poster was on the ceiling)

Recover Your Stroke

There will be no running the next three days. but I will be seeing lots of swimming. My daughter Hannah and I are in Omaha, Nebraska watching the Olympic Trials for swimming. We have great seats for all the races and we are staying at the Hilton that is connected to the Quest Center. There are athletes all around. While I would feel comfortable at the Olympic Track and Field Trials knowing who all the athletes are, at a swimming meet I know some names and only a few faces.



The first face we recognized was Michael Phelps' mother in our hotel. I watched a tall guy having a conversation and couldn't figure out who it was until the races at night when the interviewed him. It was Matt Biondi. We met Mary T. Meagher and saw lots of people that "could have been somebody" as they looked real familiar but I just couldn't place them.



The race atmosphere is great. The preliminaries in the afternoon had race after race. In the evening sessions with some finals it was more theatrical with lights, interview, announcements and more.

We are having a great time.

How important are the hips for injury-free running?

I know if I could get my hips working together as a balanced unit my running would be much more efficient and fun. While some people say that money is the root of all evil, I have found someone else who mirrors that weak hips are the root of many running injuries. In this article found at runninginjuryclinic.com, which is based on a study at the University of Calgary, hips are often the culprit when it comes to leg injuries in runners. In fact 92% of the runners who came to the clinic over a seven month period of time had weak hip muscles. By strengthening the hip muscles runners may be able to overcome other injuries such as knee troubles. Reed Ferber, who runs the clinic, said that, "89 per cent of the patients reported a significant improvement in pain within four to six weeks," after undertaking the hip strengthening exercises and other recommendations. "While strong hips aren't a guarantee against future running injuries," Ferber says, "improving the strength in your hips is a great way to reduce the number and severity of lower-leg running injuries."

What is helpful is that the clinic shows the hip strengthening exercises here. This is nothing new to me as I had these same exercises given to me by a PT many years ago. It is a reminder that they may be a good thing to implement in my routine to keep them strengthened.

I got this from an email from RMAX (Scott Sonnon) and it is an interesting hip mobility drill. I have not tried it at this level yet. I have done the leg swoop on the Intu-Flow DVD at a more beginning level. This is supposed to open and strengthen the hips. Here is a video of the movement.



From the same RMax email was this post concerning called "The 4 Myths of Joint Mobility".

Speaking of mobility and flexibility check out this 6 year old kid in India. That is taking things to the extreme!