Laps Around the Blogosphere

Before I barrel headlong into a weekend recap, here's a look at what I've been reading up on this week. Some good, some bad, but all beneficial to creating an effect workout ...

Over at Cranky Fitness, Cranky takes a look at the pros and cons of recording your workouts and diet. She hits the nail right on its little head when she discusses the fine line between recording progress and obsessive practice of a routine:

3. Obsessive, Perfectionist Thinking

The ability to monitor and track your performance can be a force for Evil as well as for Good if you have perfectionist tendencies. Food and exercise journaling takes long-term goals (like getting to a healthy weight, or running a marathon) and turns them into daily sources of pride or shame.

This is of course awesome when you're doing really well.

But you won't always be doing well, and you need to be prepared for that.

Depressing news comes out of the New York Times. GlaxoSmithKline is on the verge of developing a drug that transforms you from couch fungus to a model of muscular envy. But this isn't the effortless drug some might hope for. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him swim laps. The pills works in conjunction with exercise, not in its absence.

Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego reported that they had found two drugs that did wonders for the athletic endurance of couch potato mice. One drug, known as Aicar, increased the mice’s endurance on a treadmill by 44 percent after just four weeks of treatment.

A second drug, GW1516, supercharged the mice to a 75 percent increase in endurance but had to be combined with exercise to have any effect.

And finally, something that has been on my mind recently - trail runs! Active.com provides newbies like me some advice on trail running. Usually when I read these articles, I shrug off the guidance. After a couple years, I consider myself a bit more than a novice. But reading this has given me some perspective. I really don't know much about trail runs. And the points they make are valid, especially, "Think Time Not Distance":

Tough terrain and hills can double the time you need to cover a mile. So consider how long you want to be out. "Experienced trail runners cover about six miles an hour," says Scott Jurek, seven-time winner of the Western States Endurance Run. "Less-fit runners should target four."

Hear that?

That's the sound of expectations being adjusted for the Sept. 28 Pt. Mugu Trail Run.