1. SOFIE MANARIN LOPPET MARCH 6th
2. Michelle and Friends in the Secret Marathon
3. The Virtual Hypo Half
4. How to use your breath to control pace
5. Why running doesn’t help with weight loss (but is still really good for you)
6. Photos This Week
7. Upcoming Events:   Mar 28 Bush Pig Open, April 11 Marathon of Hope, May 30 SudburyRocks!!! Virtual Marathon
8. Running Room Run Club Update: 
9. Track North
   

SOFIE MANARIN LOPPET MARCH 6th
Hi Folks, There will be a loppet this year! I'll post more details as they are confirmed. The plan is for it to happen next weekend at L.U. Spots will be extremely limited so I would recommend that the check the site frequently and to sign as soon as the Zone 4 Page opens. I would hate for any SFC regulars to miss out on this first event of the year.

Wednesday March 3 Last Night to Enter

https://zone4.ca/register.asp?id=25675&lan=1&cartlevel=1

General Rules For the Loppet:

This race is open to residents of Greater Sudbury who have not traveled outside the community within 1 week of the event. Skiers should only participate if they feel that they can complete their chosen distance in less than one (1) hour.
Skiers may only participate in one (1) race (8km or 5km) and wave (9am or 11am). Once registered, skiers will receive an email with instructions on how to select their start time within the chosen wave.
Skiers may not arrive on site any earlier than 30 minutes before their scheduled start and all skiers must depart promptly after finishing their race. Skiers are only permitted on posted race course during their race, no prerace or postrace skiing on the trails. Skiers can warmup on the soccer field loop in the 30 min prior to their scheduled start. No spectators or coaches allowed. Start and finish line will be in the field near the climbing tower. Skiers must check in with timers 10 minutes before their scheduled start time.
Skiers will not pick up race bibs as this is a completely contactless event. There will not be any medals or ribbons given out. There will not be any food or water available on site. There are no washrooms or toilets available on site. Results will be posted on line
Face masks covering the nose and mouth must be worn at all times when not racing. Parking will be available in lot G (soccer field). At all times skiers must remain at least 2m away from any volunteers and those not in their household.

NOTE: It's not clear in the Notice or Zone 4, but I believe that there will be races on both Saturday and Sunday. The 8km will be on Saturday. Wave 1 is classic and Wave 2 is Skate. The 5km will take place on Sunday with the same format. I will confirm immediately if I hear otherwise from the organizers.

Neil Phipps

A great day running the Virtual Hypothermic 1/2 Marathon today with my friend Vince! Thank you for the company again this year! The great thing about a virtual race is that you can make your own... we added a little trail, lake run and road!

Elizabeth Schweyer

Helen B. and Ginny D.

Finished the Hypothermic Half Marathon today. What a beautiful morning to run. The trails just started to soften as we were finishing up. Thanks for sticking with me Ginny Denomme

Hypothermic Half 10 km Walk done Walked home from Laurentian ski trails to home with some add ons to get the distance Satisfied with my results since any walks I have done since the snow came are no more than 5 km

Maureen Moustgaard

Hypothermic Half Marathon
We were soaked from the thighs down but it was a beautiful day for a half marathon!
Very different weather than last year's event.

Ashley, Marc, Krystel and Alex

In our technology-obsessed world, it’s easy for runners to get caught up in the numbers — pace, heart rate, weekly mileage, etc. As we compulsively check our smartwatches and Strava totals, we can sometimes become detached from how our bodies are actually feeling and miss important physical cues that our training needs to be adjusted. For this reason, it is sometimes beneficial to ditch technology and run by feel instead. But how do you control your pace during runs and workouts without a watch? The answer is in your breathing.

Your breath can be a very effective tool for determining effort and controlling pace, and the best way to understand your breath is to pay attention to how much you can talk while running. Can you easily carry on a conversation, or are you only able to spit out a few words here and there? This is a great way for more experienced runners to gauge their effort level. Keep in mind that if you’re brand new to running, you may not be at a point where ‘talking pace’ is feasible. If this describes you, don’t worry about pace at all, but instead focus on staying relaxed while you run and staying consistent with your running schedule. If you run regularly a few times a week, you will soon develop the fitness to be able to talk while running.

How to control your pace with breath
To use your breath as a pacing metric, it’s important to understand how the different levels of breath equate to running effort. Let’s break it down.

Talking paceThis is the pace you want to use for your easy and long run days, which should make up the majority of your training. The idea of talking pace is that you can speak in full sentences without too much trouble — if you can’t talk your running buddy’s ear off about your cat’s latest shenanigans, then you’re running too hard. The actual pace you’re running will vary depending on the day, and some days you’ll be able to chat easily while running a 5:30 kilometre, while other days you have to slow down in order to stay in control. This is the benefit of running according to your breath — it allows you to push your body a little more on days when you’re feeling good, and ease up when you’re not.

‘Shy guy pace’ Others may refer to this as ‘comfortably fast’ pace, with the basic idea being that you can manage only a couple of short sentences at a time (imagine the way a shy person might interact at a party…not exactly a Chatty Cathy). This is the perfect pace for tempo runs and progression runs, which you’re likely only doing once a week. As with talking pace, some days you’ll be able to manage a much quicker speed at this effort level, and other days you’ll have to back off a bit.

Antisocial pace This is the pace you reserve for your hardest efforts. At this speed, you should only be able to spit out a few words here and there, and you will likely need a bit more recovery time to catch your breath when you’re done. This is the pace you want to shoot for when doing hard interval sessions.

The benefits of pacing with breath
As we said, some days you’re going to feel amazing, and you’ll be able to manage a quicker pace at each of these effort levels, while some days running is going to feel harder. When you track your pace with a watch, it’s easy to stop paying attention to your body, and not only will you end up pushing yourself too hard on days when your body isn’t ready (or feeling discouraged when you can’t hit the pace), but you might also hold back on days when you could have given more, and end up missing out on some training effect. Running according to your breath solves this problem and helps you become more in tune with your body. It is also a great way to pull yourself out of a running slump, especially for those who are feeling frustrated that they’re not hitting the paces they think they’re capable of.

This is not to say that watches are evil and you should never use technology to track your progress – only that there is a benefit to occasionally leaving the tech at home and running according to feel. This approach could make you a faster, happier runner.

https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/training/how-to-use-your-breath-to-control-pace/

People choose to start running for a lot of reasons, but weight loss is arguably one of the most common. Since many people associate the typical runner’s body with the elites they see cruising around the track at the Olympics, it’s logical that they would turn to running when trying to lose weight. But is running really the magic ticket to shedding pounds? As one scientist found out, it’s not — but that certainly doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. Here at Canadian Running, we encourage our readers to run not for weight loss, but to be happier and healthier, and now we have some science to back us up.

Why doesn’t running help you lose weight?
Despite the millions of people downloading couch to 5K programs, Strava and other fitness apps, it hasn’t really resulted in any meaningful amount of weight loss. This seems counter to what we’ve always been taught, which is that if you expend more calories than you take in, the number on the scale will go down. Since running is a pretty high calorie-burner, it should be a sure-fire way to lose weight — so why isn’t it?

Herman Pontzer, a professor at Duke University in North Carolina, decided to investigate. Over the last decade, he has spent a portion of time with the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer people in northern Tanzania, who walk approximately eight and a half miles per day and get far more physical activity than the average Westerner. He wanted to find out how much energy these people actually expend on any given day, and he did so by providing them with drinking water with added hydrogen and oxygen isotopes. By measuring the different rates at which they were excreted in their urine, he and his team could calculate how much carbon dioxide they produced, and use that to determine how much energy they expended.

The result? Despite their high level of physical activity, the Hadza people expend pretty much the same level of energy as we do, relative to their body weight. This suggests that physically active people don’t expend any more energy than sedentary ones, and goes against everything the wellness and diet industry has been telling us for decades. So what gives?

In his book Burn, scheduled to be published next month, Pontzer explains that most of the energy your body uses (around 60 per cent) goes toward your basal metabolic rate. This feeds the cells in your muscles, organs and (most notably) your brain, so they can function properly. Your basal metabolic rate also keeps your immune system running and allows your body to produce necessary hormones and generate heat. Pontzer explains that your hypothalamus, which is the area of the brain that helps regulate metabolism, has a target energy expenditure. If you go beyond that amount (i.e., you expend more energy by running), your hypothalamus will down-regulate your metabolism to reduce the amount of energy it uses for everything else.

It uses many methods to do this, including suppressing your immune system’s inflammation response, lowering your body’s stress response and reducing your production of sex hormones. This is why running helps to cut down on inflammation and relieves stress, which, of course, are just two reasons why running is so good for you. Incidentally, it is also why Hadza men (as well as many elite male endurance athletes) have much lower levels of testosterone compared to less active men.

All of this is to say that your metabolism is extremely good at keeping you from losing weight because it wants to have some energy savings in the bank for a rainy day. This is also why simply cutting calories doesn’t result in long-term weight loss, because your metabolism will react in the same way as it does to exercise. So does this mean you should forget that learn-to-run program and toss your sneakers in the trash? Absolutely not. As we said, running has so many benefits, including improving your heart health, lowering your blood pressure, strengthening your muscles and bones and improving your mental health.

Remember, being thin doesn’t necessarily mean you’re healthy, and not being thin doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy, which is why weight loss is not a great reason to start a running program. Instead, we encourage you to run for all the other things it can do for you, and to appreciate what your body can accomplish on the roads, trails and track, regardless of its size. As Pontzer says, we’re designed to run, and while it may not make you smaller, it’ll make you live longer, healthier and happier.

https://runningmagazine.ca/health-nutrition/why-running-doesnt-help-with-weight-loss-but-is-still-really-good-for-you/

Feb 25 at Laurentian

Feb 25

Feb 26 Bell Park

Feb 27 Lively sunset by Running Man

Feb 27 Minnow Lake sunset

Feb 28 Moonligt trail

Feb 28

Mar 1 Laurentian loop

Mar 2 Fielding Park Trumpeter Swans

Mar 3 Ida St.