In March of 2008 I (Coach Tony) moved to San Francisco to work on the Garmin Connect website for the fitness division of Garmin. It was a very hard decision to move away from Folsom and the wonderful friends I had made, the multi-sport training and racing programs I had become a part of, and the venues I had become so comfortable with. Between moving, starting a new job, and training for the 2008 Ironman Coeur D’Alene, I took a break from coaching altogether. Now that I’m taking a break from the saddle to concentrate on running, and I have become assimilated with my new job and city, the desire (and time) to begin run coaching again (outside of Tony’s ab workouts every Tue-Thur afternoon at the office) is burning bright. On Sunday, November 23rd, I put on a free run clinic / workout at Kezar Stadium for some friends and we all had a blast. I’m not sure exactly when, what day(s) and time, or with whom, but I hope to start administering weekly running workouts at Kezar Stadium in 2009 so stay tuned.

Coach Chi-An is still pursuing her post-graduate degree in exercise physiology at the University of Oregon and will likely be residing in Northern California again as early as Spring 2009. I would be ecstatic to re-unite with my Track Attack partner in crime and coach together in San Francisco, but if she lands back in El Dorado Hills I’m sure there will be a lot of happy people to see her back.

Before moving from Sacramento, we wrote a good chunk of a book aimed at helping runners and coaches put together their own fun yet effective running workouts on the track. We sidelined the project while we both got situated in our new environments, but we have begun working on it again. We also wrote a few magazine articles for Incite Magazine that I will be posting on our blog soon, along with other helpful tips and ponderings on running.

But there is no reason to wait for Chi-An and I to come out of hibernation if you live in the Sacramento area. Total Body Fitness, who gave us our start in coaching, continues to put on the Track Attack style workouts we started in January 2004 at American River College (contact Dan Foster for more information). And if you live in the Folsom / El Dorado Hills area, Rhonda and Joey Figone of Specialized Multisport Training have picked up where we all left off at the Oak Ridge High School track and field. Facility availability changes throughout the year so please join their Yahoo! group to receive updates on workout dates and times.

I hope everyone had a healthy and happy Thanksgiving and wish you all a wonderful Holiday season. Anyone running the California International Marathon? If so, I’ll see you out there! I’ll be at Brew It Up! at 1:30pm after the race…

– Tony Pelosi

Thanks to all of you who attended and had so many kind words for me at my final coached workout in Folsom. I hope you had fun doing “Tony Says” and “Tony’s Twist & Shout Ab Workout”, I know I did! Here are the group photos we took after the workout. Stay in touch, I hope to see you sometime somewhere soon in the future, and keep on spreading the word because you are in good hands with Rhonda, Joey and Aracelly.

After coaching run workouts since January 2004 in the Sacramento area, I will be moving to San Francisco to work for the MotionBased Division of Garmin International on the Garmin Connect web portal. I plan to get involved in the San Francisco multisport coaching community after I get situated so stay tuned. I’ve handed over ownership of the Folsom / El Dorado Hills Track Attack Running group to Rhonda and Joey Figone in February and they have done a great job continuing on the workouts and adding their own twist and expertise. Join me on Tuesday March 25 at 6pm at Sutter Middle School in Folsom for my last regularly scheduled coaching performance in the Sacramento region and sign up for the Specialized MultiSport Training Yahoo! Group to receive announcements on future workouts in the Folsom / El Dorado Hills area. See you on Tuesday!

At Track Attack workouts, we do monthly time-trial testing to track each runner’s progress, but what about lactate threshold? Or anaerobic threshold or ventilatory threshold? And what exactly do each of these terms mean?

Anaerobic threshold (AT) and lactate threshold (LT) are pretty much synonymous, although lactate threshold is the more accurate term, since it is blood lactate level that determines this threshold value. LT is the point at which your body produces lactate faster than it can take it up, and therefore a rapid accumulation of lactate in the blood occurs. It is a useful number for endurance athletes to determine training heart rate zones and to predict racing performance. Usually, LT occurs right after ventilatory threshold (VT), which is the point at which breathing rate goes from increasing linearly to increasing exponentially. VT is not used very often, so LT is the preferred benchmark.

The best way to measure LT is to draw blood periodically during a graded exercise test and actually record blood lactate levels as they rise in accordance with heart rate. However, there are some ways to approximate lactate threshold on the track, but these methods are not quite as accurate and they do require some logistical planning on the coach’s part as well as some pacing experience on the runner’s part.

One example of measuring LT on the track is to do a 30-minute threshold run. Wearing heart rate monitors, the athletes run for 30-minutes at race pace, which should be the highest-intensity sustainable pace for that entire duration. Sustainable pace means speed is constant and heart rate does not fluctuate by more than ~5 beats per minute. During the 30-minute run, runners can call out their heart rate for coaches to record every minute. Most likely this will require two coaches on opposite sides of the track to record heart rate. After the test, coaches then average the heart rate values for the last 20 minutes, and that heart rate is the runner’s LT.

There are a couple reasons why this test only provides an estimate: (1) It takes a lot of experience for most runners to pace themselves at a constant speed while keeping their heart rate within that 5-beat range at the highest intensity that they can maintain. (2) Cardiovascular drift due to gradual dehydration during the 30-minutes causes heart rate to creep up, even if the runners can pace themselves perfectly.

So this method provides merely an estimate, but it is probably the best way to measure lactate threshold on the track without the hassle of drawing blood.

In my earlier days I was more of a purist, wearing sweat clothes and trying to break my personal best every time on my favorite local route. As I grew older and learned how to train smarter, I also found how beneficial gadgets could be in helping me attain my goals. First was the heart rate monitor (Polar), next was the portable digital music player (iPod), and now it’s the GPS watch (Garmin). At first these gadgets may just appear to be toys - Huh, that’s my heart rate…or…I love this song!…or…Hmmm, that’s my pace. Although it’s important to have fun when your running, the novelty will wear off and you will no longer benefit from the devices. Now you don’t have to read the instruction booklets word for word, but try to learn how to do something with each device that can help boost the effectiveness of your workouts and lead to greater results. Here are a few suggestions:

Heart Rate Monitor: Determine your heart rate zones and plan what heart rate zone you are going to run in before you lace up the sneakers. Every training run should have a purpose, even if that purpose is to mentally recharge, so you should make it a point to actually specify the purpose and use your heart rate monitor to stick to your plan.

Portable Digital Music Player: Music has affects on our mental and physical being that the scientific community is still trying to explain. Finding the right songs with the proper tempo for the purpose of your training run can have profound effects on your ability to get the most out of your run. Try different types of music until you find one that inspires you to maintain about 90 RPM cadence (count how many times your left foot hits the ground in a minute). So try 10 minutes of classical and count your cadence during the final minute, then try 10 minutes of alternative rock and count your cadence during the final minute and so on. Progressive Trance works for me!

GPS: Knowing your distance traveled and current and overall pace is extremely beneficial in itself if you have planned out how far and fast you are going to run beforehand. But you can take it to another level with some GPS watches and download courses. When you download a course, it can help you navigate an unfamiliar route (such as a marathon course you are prepping for) and race against either your own or another runners previous results. You can also post and retrieve courses from a network of user uploaded courses on websites such as MotionBased.com (check out my public activities on the website). The prices have come down considerably - I was able to purchase a Garmin Forerunner 305 on Amazon.com for about $180 after a mail-in rebate back in October - almost $200 off the original retail price! The Forerunner 405 is smaller, has a touch sensitive bezel for scrolling, and includes wireless transmission of data to your computer, but at about twice the price of what you can get the predecessor I’m not so sure it would be worth the extra money - unless you always have to have the newest stuff!

If you want to spend the money you’ve been saving up for a new car you might also be able to get your hands on anti-gravity treadmill. Call me a purist, but I’m not so sure if I would chose that over a new hybrid vehicle just yet!