Coming this weekend
posted by www.gatherlogic.com

July 13, 2009 Tryon NC:

Learn what to do out on the trail when you run out of food, water, or matches with "The Upstate's Survivor Man" Richard Cleveland as he shares his wilderness wisdom at Earth School's survival skill training session this coming weekend.

While our smoke signal messaging is almost as fast as blackberry texts, we politely and humbly request all tech savy WNC based trail runners to pass on the blog, tweets, and digital calls to the community about the upcoming wild skills training coming to Earth School in Tryon NC this coming weekend:

"Wilderness Survival & Self - Reliance I" ( July 17 - 19 ) We'll introduce Wilderness Survival and Awareness Skills in this program. Everyone will receive in-depth instruction on the Survival basics like Shelter - Water - Fire and Food. A wide variety of Nature Awareness Exercises are woven throughout the fabric of this course also. These invaluable skills will build a solid foundation toward being prepared for any backwoods emergency or situation, whether hiking for a few days or camping for several weeks. Sign up by following this link: http://www.lovetheearth.com/programs.htm#backtobasics

Contact:

Earth School
Richard Cleveland
info@lovetheearth.com
www.lovetheearth.com
(828) 395-1758

The epic shut in trail ridge run is coming up again in Asheville in November but it needs sponsors now.

After 30 something years this race still fills everytime, but costs are mounting so sponsors are so important for events like this one.

Because of the economy and too many people offering events in Asheville, participation is dropping and the good races are souring.

Help us keep the shut in race going to the top of Mt. Pisgah at the same blistering stride this year by spreading the word.

As you know this race brings people from all over and has appeal for national and local sponsors.

Contact us at staff@gatherlogic.com to help or visit www.gatherlogic.com

Last week marked the five-year anniversary of ncultra.org. There are 695 articles posted (not including this one). Some day when you are bored you might want to browse some of the past articles. There are 488 registered users.

These days the site averages around 150 unique visits per day and 1800 page loads. Before google indexed blogs, all the traffic was generated by word-of-mouth. Anita Finkle must have personally told 200 people about this web site. For the first three years I never did anything to market the site or to drive traffic to it. To date the extent of all site promotion is registering the site with technorati and enabling Google Analytics.

With all the search-driven traffic these days, the site still gets a huge percentage of its visitors from links residing on running web sites and individual blogs. Although most of the articles are by me, the focus of ncultra.org is on the North Carolina ultrarunning community, with a measure of content on neighboring states. And there are quite a few articles written by others. I encourage anyone to contribute an article at any time, provided it is focused on ultrarunning, adventure running, or trail running.

The first five folks to register as site users are Matt Kirk, Steve Hoge, Quatro Hubbard, Mark Long, and Scott Brockmeier.

I went to the podiatrist this morning to have a Morton's Neuroma in my right foot treated. A couple of years ago I had the same condition in my left foot. Back then I had two cortisone injections and the neuroma in my left foot has not returned.

Today I received the first injection in my right foot. The whole thing just took a few minutes. Unlike the last time I had this treatment (on my left foot) I did not experience any pain when the needle went into the nerve. The podiatrist went over a few things with me. He is a runner and he has neuromas in both of his feet. His neuromas are under control due to injections. He says that injections usually last for months to years. His have lasted for years.

With my left foot two years ago, I had to have two injections before the condition went away. Hopefully one injection will be enough for my right foot.

Since November, I have experienced pain from this neuroma. It usually starts around 1 hour after I begin running. It starts as a tingling sensation in my forefoot, and progresses to a burning sensation with sharp pain. The only way I can continue is to take my shoe off and massage my forefoot for five minutes or so. The massage causes the pain to subside for 15 minutes or so. Recently it progressed to the point where it effected my training. Plus I have Uwharrie coming up in three weeks. I think this injection will be successful. If not, I will get another one before Uwharrie.

In his book Lore of Running, Tim Noakes MD provides a simple test that runners can use to detect potential injuries before they become problematic. He call's it the "pinch test." This is something I have been doing for years without thinking about it. It involves pinching certain muscles or tendons and noting any pain or discomfort. Invariably, pain is a sign of an impending injury.

Some areas that runners should "pinch" regularly include the achilles tendon, the tendon on the outside of the knee joint, the patellar tendon, and the front of the shin. If you feel tenderness when pinching these areas, it is time to pay more attention to them and to rest if necessary.

Identifying nascent injuries is easy to do. Knowing when to stop running is more difficult. Noakes offers a simple way to grade injuries and provides advice on when to rest.

While many of you are going to be heading north this weekend to run MMTR, I'll be heading south to run the Cactus Rose 100. This is a no-frills, self-supported 100 mile race outside of San Antonio, TX. It is held on the same trails as the Bandera 100k. Regardless of where you run this weekend, I hope you enjoy the fall weather and have a great time.

An experiment of one – injury recovery Having been running for many years, I have had a few injuries and experimented with different techniques for recovery and prevention. Here are some of the things I believe work for me. (Nota Bene: I have no relevant medical training. At most, you should take any information in here as a starting point for your own research.) Recovery & Prevention

• Cadence. IMHO, The most important aspect of running is cadence. Your cadence should be about 180 steps per minute; the lower the cadence, the higher the landing impact. http://www.active.com/story.cfm?CHECKSSO=0&STORY_ID=12114&CATEGORY=running [The running stride consists of about 50% of the time in contact with the ground and 50% of the time in flight. For the time in flight, the body will travel in a parabola. The longer the time in the air, the higher the body must go; the higher the body goes, the harder the landing impact.] Keeping the hands higher can improve cadence, as the natural frequency of the arm swing is higher.
• What changed?If you get injured, try to determine what has changed that might have triggered the injury. This may be something obvious, like increased mileage, new shoes, different training surface, more hills, higher intensity, but consider things that are more subtle. Are you running with a different partner? Are you listening to different music? (Music can change cadence.) Have you started to do more walking in your training? (Don’t assume walking is just easier running; it uses similar muscles, but inflicts different stress on the body.) What about non-running changes? New car, or driving position, different computer usage, lifting something heavy, etc.
• Find the source. Sometimes, where it hurts is not what is injured. I had a really bad ankle problem and physiotherapy did not help. I could run about 1/4 mile before the pain in my ankle shut me down. It turned out to be a problem in the calf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroneus_longus) that was causing a tendon in the ankle to be too tight. Once the calf muscle was relaxed, the ankle recovered in a couple of days. The book “trail guide to the body” is great, but wildly expensive; I eventually picked up a very cheap second hand copy.
• The Stick. This is a reasonably cheap massage device. It not only helps relax muscles, it also works as a great diagnostic device. By using it on my legs, I believe I have found sore spots and problems early, before they cause me grief. www.thestick.com.
• Ice. I use ice a lot and have found it to be close to miracle cure. I use the Ziploc hefty bags with the little plastic zipper to seal. I find they only last one or two sessions, especially if there is any weight on the bag. The established technique is to ice for 15-20 minutes; any longer can cause tissue damage, frostbite and nerve damage. That said, I routinely ice for up to two hours at a time. My limited understanding is that after about 10 minutes, the capillaries expand to prevent tissue damage (the Hunting effect) increasing blood flow. It is also advised never to apply ice directly to the skin; I apply the Ziploc bag directly to the skin as the melting ice should keep the temperature at a steady about 32 Fahrenheit. I avoid chemical ice packs like the plague. They start off too cold and can burn the skin, but do not stay cold for very long. By using ice, the state change from solid to liquid keeps the water near the skin cold. (http://www.brianmac.co.uk/cryo.htm)

Earlier this year I did a double crossing of the Grand Canyon, also known as Rim to Rim to Rim. Because this was not a race, I took my camera and lots of pictures, so I decided to try telling the tale with photographs and comments rather than prose.

http://jfsavage.smugmug.com/gallery/5234247_ifowG#317990740_3w9me