The Racing Snail Running Club

2009 Mirose Games Wannamaker Mile

In case you didn't get a chance to see this race: Bearnard Lagat vs Nick Willis vs Pablo Solares

Cross Country Nationals

USATF Club XC Nationals: http://runnerspace.com/video.php?do=view&video_id=8082

Girl's Footlocker HS XC: http://www.dyestatcal.com/?pg=videos&vid=E1943022C85674D9&cat=&page=1&search=&PHPSESSID=8d5e3c41e6c7da390c1c0ceac39e3183

Boy's Footlocker HS XC: http://www.dyestatcal.com//?pg=videos&vid=714686017CB4917B&cat=&page=1&search=

Excellent Training Pace Calculator

Just stumbled upon this calculator that gives you training paces according to your VDOT value. A really great tool when you need to look up something that you can use to build on your future workouts. Runbayou: VDOT Calculator

Also on the website, a way to find which of your race performances is your best again the world record: it's called age-grading. The website also does a great job of explaining how age-grading race times works. Runbayou: Age-Grade Calculator

2008 NCAA Men's Cross Country Video

Finally uploading the video from the NCAA Men's Cross Country Championships. If you didn't get a chance to view it, I highly recommend that you watch it. You can download the video here.

If you're looking for many more videos not listed on this site, you need to check out Travis' Track Public Folder. There is where I download many of my videos from. He has an amazing selection of recent videos, from the 08 Olympics to the Olympic Trails... you need to bookmark his page!

... also you'll start noticing Google AdSense here on this website in a few days. I know it can be annoying, but it's a way for me to start being able to pay the bills (this site only cost $6 a month!). So if you're feeling generous click on the annoying adds you see at the top of the page and I'd really appreciate it, thanks!

Mileage Philosophy

I recently answered an e-mail from a poster on LetsRun.com concerning raising mileage through doubles. I think this is an extremely common question for all runners. Below is my response to the e-mail that I received concerning my thoughts on how to efficiently raise mileage with respect to the amount of times that you run per week and how many miles you run for each run. I think this is something that can help all runners in their training when considering raising their mileage and how to do it without suffering the inevitable injuries that normally occur when runners increase their mileage.

Ben,

One thing that I really think is important when building up mileage is to
consider how many times a week do you run. But first you said that you
were at 45 MPW currently, right? How many weeks have you been running 45?
Did you just start, and what is your history of mileage? What's your
longest week, what do your last 3+ weeks (or more) of training look like?
How you should proceed on building up mileage all depends on your previous
history. If you JUST started hitting 45, and the plan is to all of a
sudden increase to 70... you're almost guaranteeing that you will get
yourself injured in a matter of weeks.

Mileage increases need to be taken slowly and consistently over time to
raise your mileage without suffering injuries. You need to allow your body
time to adapt to a mileage set, before increasing the load. You don't just
go into a weight room and add 10lbs everytime you go in to lift, right?
You have to work with a certain weight for a number of weeks, until it
gets easier (improved fitness), then you increase. It's the same thing
with mileage.

So how you should proceed with running doubles or mileage really depends
on your history and how you've handled mileage in the past. But since I
don't know anything about your history, I'll just give you something
generic giving yourself 24 weeks until May from starting Monday. Here's
what I would advise, if you are following Daniel's Formula:

Weeks 1-4 Base Mileage Phase I: 50, 50, 55, 40
Weeks 5-9 Base Mileage Phase I: 55, 55, 60, 40
Weeks 10-14 Phase II : 65, 65, 70, 40
Weeks 15-19 Phase III: 70, 70, 75, 40
Weeks 20-24 Phase IV: 70, 50, 50, 40


What I did here to give you three weeks of something consistent, before
giving yourself a rest week, then increasing for three weeks, then rest
week, etc. But what's more important here than anything else, is not the
mileage... but rather what I said at the beginning of this e-mail: How
many runs you do per week. Let's break this down a little more for an 70
MPW:

Sunday - 15 miles
Monday - 11 miles
Tuesday - 8 miles
Wednesday - 10 miles
Thursday - 9 miles
Friday - 8 miles
Saturday - 9 miles

In this week we ran 7 times for an average of 10 miles per run. This is
very important to remember. Now let's look of another way to run 70 MPW,
this time using doubles:

Sunday - 15 miles
Monday - 10 miles
Tuesday AM - 7 miles
Tuesday PM - 6 miles
Wednesday AM - 8 miles
Wednesday PM - 5 miles
Thursday - 10 miles
Friday - 9 miles
Saturday - OFF

In this week we ran a total of 8 times for an average of 8.75 miles per
run. Now you should be wondering: "Which example is better?". And the
answer of course, is relative. According to how well you handle mileage,
your time constraints, your fitness, and many other factors. However, I
can say this: 8.75 miles per run is MUCH more manageable for most athletes
when it comes to preventing injuries rather than running 10 per run. Elite
athletes usually run 13 times a week and run between 120-130 MPW. They're
averaging plus or minus, 10 miles per run.

So where am I trying to go with all of this? What I'm trying to say is
that you need to determine what is YOUR average per run for a week that
you can train at consistently and without injuries. Unless you have a
rather detailed training log, like I have, you probably don't have enough
information to break it down. So now you'll have to start an experiment on
yourself. I can only speak for myself when I say that I've found that
during the entire year/season when I am training well and injured, I am
usually running around 8.5-9.5 miles per run during a training week when I
am in season (for the entire 08 year I've average 8.06). Another important
key to consider is the difference in average run when you're running 40
MPW and when you are running 70 MPW, because there is one. If I'm
averaging 8 miles per run - on a 40 MPW then I am only running 5 times for
the whole week. This is pretty good on a rest week, but if you are just
beginning to build up to that distance then you should probably run more
than 5 times a week. Meaning that you should average less miles per run.
BUT with improved fitness you'll find that maybe you used to average 6
miles per run when running 50 MPW, and now that you're fitter you find
that averaging 8 miles per run during an 80 MPW is not very difficult for
yourself. That happens when you get fitter!

So, let's look back again at the weekly mileage:

Weeks 1-4 Base Mileage Phase I: 50, 50, 55, 40
Weeks 5-9 Base Mileage Phase I: 55, 55, 60, 40
Weeks 10-14 Phase II : 65, 65, 70, 40
Weeks 15-19 Phase III: 70, 70, 75, 40
Weeks 20-24 Phase IV: 70, 50, 45, 40

... But instead let's consider how many times a week you should be running
to achieve this mileage:

Weeks 1-4: 50-55 MPW on 7 runs would average between 7.1-7.8 miles per
run. I think that is a realistic and achievable distance that is not too
difficult. But you may find during Weeks 1 and 2, that is difficult. So
many you decide to run 8 times for a week (doubling only once) and now you
are averaging 6.25 - 6.85 miles per run for 50-55 MPW. That is much more
achievable! I suggest that maybe you want to start with 8 runs for the
first couple of weeks. After those initial weeks you may find that you are
feeling a bit fitter and should try only running 7 times a week. Maybe
double during the week and give yourself a full day of rest!

Weeks 5-9: Now let's consider running 8 times a week for these weeks, that
would give us a 6.87 - 7.5 miles per run for 55-60. As you can see our
average mileage is starting to increase. Depending your own personal level
of fitness, that may be too much, or not enough. So you'll really have to
do some self reflection on your own running and determine if you want to
be running 7 times, or 9 times. Another thing to consider: if you're
training for a Marathon you should probably want your average mileage per
run a week to be on the high side, than on the low side!

Weeks 10-14: Let's see what happens when we stick to our 8 runs a week, if
you can recognize simple math patterns you should know what to expect: 8.1
- 8.75 miles per run for 65-70 miles per week. Now, this is either a good
thing or a bad thing. If you are feeling very comfortable with your 6-7
miles per run, we are adding an extra mile on every run. That can be a
lot! BUT by this time in your training, you should be noticing improved
fitness... and maybe you find that the extra mile per run isn't really
hurting you! Depending on how you are feeling with your training at this
time, you may want to add more runs to your week, or keep it the same.
Let's go ahead and assume maybe now is the time to start considering
adding a few more doubles to your week, to try and keep the average near
6-7 miles. If we now run 10 times a week we average: 6.5 - 7 miles per
run. I think if this is your first time building up mileage to this
distance, you'll probably want to stick on the low side. Remember the
point of all of this is to increase mileage efficiently, consistently, and
doing it without getting injured!

Weeks 15-20: Now we're hitting max mileage, 70-75 miles per week. Now
here's something to think about: if we want to keep our average between
6-7 miles like we've been doing, we're going to add in another run. Now
we're running more than 10 times a week. If you're running everyday that's
two doubles, and if you want to increase your runs, that's even more. The
choice here is whether you feel you are fit enough to start upping your
run average. Hopefully by this point you are feeling significantly fitter,
and you can stick with 10 runs and average 7-7.5 with no problem.


The key point in all of this, is how much mileage per run should you be
running that will you keep you healthy? I can't answer that for you. If
you have training logs from the past, I would highly recommending looking
at periods where you were training well, racing fast, and were healthy.
How much mileage per run during the week were you doing? That should be
the number you should be aiming for, and base your mileage per run around
that. If that number is 6 miles per run, then in the first few weeks you
might want to be running a little underneath that per run. In the later
phases of your running you should be wanting to run further than that, or
at that distance. This is all relative to the runner!

I hope this wasn't too confusing and was helpful. If you have any more
questions, please feel free to ask!

Still Alive!

I have not had anything recent to post up since the Olympics... so just wanted to drop in and tell everyone this site is still up and running strong. Videos from the collection are still being downloaded as much as ever!

Just wanted to point you in the direction of two links. One is a great YouTube Channel featuring many classic track videos. This guy's collection is insane, give it a look! 1981Alan's YouTube Channel. And also a really great training calculator that helps you determine training paces based off recent performances. This calculator has been around for a long time and is one of the best, McMillan Running.

As far as new things: I'm going to start up my own personal training blog again, so be sure to look to that for the future. Also NCAA Regionals are this weekend, so look forward to some video coverage of the races should I come across any. In the meantime, enjoy the videos and I'll be sure to post up any great links should I come across them. Thanks for visiting!

CVS Downtown 5K Road US Championships and 5th Avenue Mile

Great video of the finish of the CVS Downtown 5k - Anthony Famiglietti and Matt Tegenkamp: http://www.turnto10.com/northeast/jar/sports.html

5th Avenue Mile - Nick Willis versus Bernard Lagat: http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/234117/73972-mens-5th-ave-mile

2008 Olympic Games Videos

Check out the video section! We have the 100m, 200m, 400m, 3000 Steeple, 1500m, and Shot Put Finals.

You can also watch other events over at the NBC Olympics Track videos.

If you have any requests for other videos from the Olympics let me know!

2008 Olympic Trials and More New Videos

Better late than never, to get you excited about the Olympics here are the three best races from the Olympic Trials, in pretty good quality: 400m - 800m - 1500m. If you are dying for the other races, let me know (e-mail or comments), and I'll try and provide those as well. I do have limited disc space for this website, so I only got the ones that I thought were the best.

And an old/new video from last 2007 season: Remember when Alan Webb out kicked Bernard Lagat and Craig Mottram in the final 100m of the mile and left both of them looking absolutely silly? Yeah, I know... I'm not even making this up. It's a pretty exciting race of one of Alan Webb's better days. Download here

Also this is worth watching: grainy, old, no audio footage of Jim Ryun running 3:58 against high school only competition. It's ridiculous to see just how much he beats the rest of the field (use your imagination. 3:58 versus high schoolers!). According to Wikipedia: "His 3:58.3 to win the mile at the 1965 Kansas High School State Meet is still the record for the fastest time ever in a race that includes only high school competitors." Download here

...And I finally found an excellent quality video of quite possibly one of the greatest Olympic races: 2004 Athens Olympics 1500m. Really if you have never watched this video, well let's just say that it is easily my most favorite track race of all-time. And you should watch it! Download here

Lisa Koll new Women's Colleigate 10K Record

Congratulations to Lisa Koll tonight for setting a new Collegiate 10K record tonight at the Standford Invite... and she's only a Sophomore!

Here is the last lap of her record race on RunnerSpace.com

Here is Lisa's post race interview

...And here's the Men's 10K video, this is worth a watch. Sean Quigley runs an awesome final lap for the win. RacingSnailClub.com is also a huge supporter of NCAA 10K and Indoor 5K Champ Shadrack Songok, who finishes 5th in this race.

Paul McMullen's Video Hits YouTube

Here is a video posted on YouTube today about the running career of Paul McMullen. If you don't know Paul has his own (very good) website called: www.trackandfieldradio.com. Just like the name suggests, he does audio interviews with former and current track and field athletes from college to pro. It's great stuff and I highly suggest you check out his site.
Anyways this video documents Paul's running career... and is crazy amateurish. It has ridiculous music selections (Coldplay WTF) and features Paul himself reading the narration sounding like he's bored watching his own video. It does however feature great race footage throughout Paul's career (including some good high school and college track videos with his dad screaming in the background) and his story is fairly interesting. So it's an okay watch, I wouldn't mind seeing more videos like this about current runners.

By the way, the video is actually called, "I DARE YOU TO RUN". So can you guess what song loved by high school girls everywhere gets over played in this video?

Part 2

Part 3

Kenya vs Ethopia Documentary & Texas Relays

Another cool video the collection of YouTube user, 1981Alan. This video is Part 1 and there's 5 parts. This is a really awesome video on the history and rivalry of these two countries in distance running, it's long but well worth the watch! If anyone wants me to compile this series into a single video segment like I did with the others just let me know.

The Texas Relays are this weekend, and they kicked off today. Head on over to FloTrack.com because they are going to have videos of every single race!

Also, now is a good time to let everyone know if you are having trouble downloading videos from this site (they won't play, incomplete downloads, etc) PLEASE let me know! I obviously don't have the time go go through and check every single video. Sometimes they get cut off when uploading and they get uploaded incompletely, so if you come across a video like this please let me know so I can fix it. Thanks again for visiting this site!

Welcome to the new RacingSnailClub.com

Welcome to the new and improved Racing Snail Running Club website! I've obviously decided to take a more blog style approach to this website now and will continue to do so for its future. It makes it easier to update and be able to quickly post new videos and information around the world of Athletics. So allow me to introduce you to the main sections of my site:

The Video Collection
This website is almost two years old! Back when I first started this website there were a few websites on the internet that hosted race videos for downloading. Over the years I collected all these videos and decided that I wanted to put them all in one place. So I purchased this website with that sole intention. The collection of videos that I have downloaded over the years is still going strong. If you ever have any new running videos that I have no posted about, feel free to share them in the comments section! What makes this website special is the huge video index full of classic Track & Field videos, and here they are: www.racingsnailclub.com/video

Track Race Pace Calculator
Another new thing I added to the website was a Race Pace calculator that I created in Microsoft Excel. I found that there are a lot of good ONLINE calculators out there, but not very many ones that can be used offline very quickly. So I created my own and now I have this: http://www.racingsnailclub.com/runcalc.xls This calculator is mainly useful for track races as it gives splits for every lap and every mile, kilometer, and so on. The calculator itself is very easy to use. In the black input boxes on the spreadsheet you enter in the time in the HH:MM:SS format. Which means if you just ran a mile in 4:45 you enter it as: 00:04:45. See? Pretty easy. There is a "Read Me" box on the spreadsheet itself with better instructions. If you have other questions, don't hesitate to ask me personally in the comments section or send me an e-mail.

My Training Log
The first thing I ask whenever I meet any new runner is usually, "What kind of training plan do you follow?". So in fairness of the question, I readily offer up my training log for all to see. I highly encourage you to post your own training log in the comments section for me to look at. I love to talk about training ideas and workouts, so if you ever want to have any discussions my log or yours feel free to e-mail me or post a comment!

Featured Video: 2008 IAAF Cross Country World Championships

Okay, this video is another language and was apparently recorded off of someone watching the race on their own television. So we're not talking about super quality stuff here, but this is the best you're going to get for now. I'm sure the World Championship Sports Network is going to post the full race or have highlights in the near future, but for right now this video is what's available. You can read about the race here: http://iaaf.org/WXC08/news/kind=100/newsid=44253.html

Here's the YouTube Video Part 1:

And here is the entire 5-part race video YouTube video hosted on RacingSnailClub.com
08WorldXC.wmv (77 MB)

Featured Download: The Super Milers Documentary

Part 1:

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

This great in-depth video documentary about greatest milers of all time was uploaded by user 1981aLaN on YouTube. You'll want to give his channel a look, he has over 400 Athletics videos and has some really great stuff that you probably have not seen anywhere else! I went ahead and compiled the entire "Super Milers" documentary into one 45 minute .WMV file. The file is massive but well worth the download to own on your computer.