Review of 2010 and a Look Forward to 2011

It is that time of year when the TV is full of review shows and I thought that I would jump on the bandwagon and give a review of 2010 and a look forward to 2011.

2010

For us 2010 will be thought of as the year that we moved to the USA. We sold our business, gave away our cat Willow, rented out our apartment and started a new business in California. Corina and I have lived in Edinburgh since we left school 17 years ago, we were married in Edinburgh and our business was in Edinburgh but it was time to leave.

Getting to the USA was a monumental task, if we knew quite how hard it was going to be I don’t think either of us would have started. The stress involved in emigrating to the USA was far higher than the stress we had to endure during Corina’s cancer treatment. To get our USA visa we had to invest all of our money and sign a 5 year lease before we could even submit the paperwork. We had to apply for our visa in Germany and we had to drive there from Scotland because the volcanic ash cloud stopped air travel.

While we were in Germany, waiting for our passports to be returned to us from the US embassy, we visited the Dachau concentration camp. This visit deeply affected me and the way that I viewed the world. The horror of what occurred in Europe during the Second World War and the pure evil of the Nazi regime chills me to the bone. I am glad that I went, it was one of the most difficult memories of the last year but I hope that I never forget that there are things that are worse than death and the suffering that occurred at the hands of the Nazis should never be forgotten.

We arrived in San Diego in the middle of the year, we had hoped we would be open in Spring but things take so very much longer than you expect. The Wolf Studio was opened in August and we continue to grow and develop our business. Since we have been in the United States we have had the opportunity to meet and work with some fantastic clients, professional triathletes, an NFL head coach and some equally wonderful and no less crazy clients. Marketing our business and adapting to the new market has been a challenge, we are now on Facebook daily, we have a blog on our website and we both attend networking meetings!

Our life in San Diego is so very different from that in Edinburgh. Corina has much more opportunity to train, she can attend regular running groups and swim in the ocean. In Edinburgh we were considered crazy for training so much but here we are decidedly tame. Corina has found her spiritual home in RunningSkirts, an unexpected find, a product that she loves made by people who she loves. In 2010 I went back to martial arts after a brief hiatus. I have begun a study of Iaido, the art of drawing the Japanese sword. My dojo is a little outside of San Diego and the traditional nature of the training in exactly what I have been looking for. America is the most amazing place.

Corina and I have immersed ourselves in American culture. We have watched lots of American sports, football is now soccer, I watch UFC regularly, I check on the status of Bret Farve’s injuries daily and I drive an SUV!

Always a shutterbug I have fallen in love with photography in 2010. My first DSLR (real camera) has changed an occasional interest into a full blown hobby, (read: obsession). I read about photography, listen to podcasts, take loads of pictures and I love it! My Amazon wish-list is now full of photo-gear and accessories. Who would have thought that I would have an artistic outlet?

We are thankful to our friends and families for supporting us throughout this year. Corina’s parents have been particularly generous. Both of our families have been in good health, we have family in the UK, in Thailand and in Germany and we would loved to have seen more of them.

2011

For us 2011 is the year that we will make The Wolf Studio successful. We need to travel back to Germany to renew our visa and it is essential that our business is working well. This is our #1 priority, and we know that we have colleagues, clients, friends and family that will help us achieve this.

Our personal goals for 2011 are quite varied…

I will, at the behest or my Sensei, travel to Japan to take a formal grading in Iaido. Testing for Iai only takes place twice a year so I aim to test at the beginning of December 2011. Random goals: I intend to learn how to shoot a gun and I would like to take a few golf lessons to see what all the fuss is about.

In 2011 I am going to get into photography more seriously. For years I have been told that I take a good photograph, now I have the equipment, I am learning out how to handle a real camera and achieving the results I would like. I would not rule out the possibility of a wee sideline developing in 2011.

Corina has her sights set on exploring this beautiful country, as a tourist and as an athlete. She wants to visit some of the spectacular national parks, participate in a memorable swim (maybe Alcatraz) and continue enjoying her running and cycling.

Corina would also like to meet her niece who was born just as we were getting our visa.

Although not technically next year (more next week) we are both looking forward to meeting some real wolves at the California Wolf Center.

We know that 2011 will be full of learning experiences for us, we are still adapting to a new country and way of life. Embracing these challenges, we know that moving forward, our lives can only be enhanced by staying the course and taking strength from our clients, students, friends and family.

Summary

2010 was a momentous year for us, the hardest year that we have ever had, both personally and professionally. In 2011 we will make sure that all of our hard work is translated into personal and business success.

Alan

A Good Diet is for Life Not Just for Christmas

At The Wolf Studio we often notice that our clients have two phases of training and diet. Clients will train and diet in order to get fit for their summer holiday, and at this time of year clients are often trying to loose weight to look good for the office party season.

While it is a great idea to get into the gym and start looking at your diet to get fit and healthy, whether it is to look good on the beach or to look good in that little black party dress, it is important to remember not to throw away all of your hard earned gains. Particularly at this time of year our clients are literally working their butts off to look good, it seems a shame for them to binge during the holiday period and get unfit and overweight.

A much better and more healthy approach is to look after your diet throughout the year and to exercise regularly. By doing this then you can maintain a higher level of fitness and the need for high intensity training and more severe dietary change is lessened. At times of the year when you want to add more training into your schedule, to look good on the beach or at the Christmas party, then these changes can be added much more easily as you will be working from a higher base of fitness and vitality.

What we often see is that clients will achieve their goals of looking and feeling better for their holiday or party season and then will stop training. They will go on holiday or overindulge at Christmas and will feel guilty about not training and will feel bad about getting back to training. Guilt is a major factor in many peoples training, it is a motivational factor but it is also a major obstacle. Just imagine that you have spent a couple of months working hard to achieve that weight loss or get those bulging muscles, you overindulge over the holiday period and the thought of getting back in the gym come January is just too much. A much more sensible approach is to accept that you are going to have a good time on your holiday or at Christmas, life is for living after all, but once the Christmas period is over then you are going to go back to eating sensibly and exercising regularly.

Exercise and diet are habitual, both good and bad diet and exercise. The problem at this time of year is that once you start indulging at Christmas parties, a few extra drinks or whatever then this becomes the norm. We have clients for whom Christmas parties start in mid November and end at the end of January. Obviously it is not possible to over indulge for this period of time and maintain health without some discipline.

Here are some tips to help you through this time of year;

• Keep exercising. Too many people just stop training over the Christmas period. Even if it is just one training session per week it will make a difference and will make going back in January easier.
• Prioritize your parties! Don’t over indulge at every party or Christmas lunch that you attend. Pick which parties are important for you and let yourself have a good time. At other events limit your alcohol intake, or don’t have a desert. Don’t blow all of your training at events or with people whom you don’t really like!
• Watch the alcohol. There are loads of hidden calories in alcohol and alcohol is really easily broken down to fat. Limit the amount that you are going to drink. Even better to take the car and stay tee total, especially at events that you are not too bothered about.
• Quality not quantity. If you are going to indulge, which you should at this time of year, treat yourself with high quality food and drink rather than masses of cheap crap. You will find that good quality food will taste better and will last longer, especially if you have been denying yourself over the build up to Christmas.
• When it’s over it’s over. Set a date when you are going to start exercising again and when the partying ends. If you know that you are going to be good from a specific date then you will be more disciplined.
• Tell everyone about your New Years resolutions. It you shout your intentions from the mountains so that everyone knows what you are going to give up or even better achieve in the New Year then you are much more likely to actually do it. Write your New Years resolutions down and stick it where you can see it, it really does work

Enjoy this Christmas and New Year and we hope to see you all in 2011.

Alan

Dare to Bare

How many people will wake up on Christmas morning to open their presents only to find an empty shoe box with a note saying “here are your new running shoes”?

Barefoot running is in it’s ascendancy there are lots of barefoot runners and barefoot running advocates. There are tons of new running shoes with minimal support and cushioning, conversely, there are also a preponderance of big clog like instability shoes! In this instance I think that less is more.

There are a lot of good reasons to do at least some of your run training barefoot. Running barefoot on a suitable surface like semi-hard sand or grass makes the body develop a more natural stride and gait pattern. Barefoot running can help with correct foot-strike, it makes the body stabilise itself and can help biomechanics. But like all types of training it should only be part of your training program. Running barefoot for all of your training and doing your long runs barefoot without years of practice is not advisable. This is because it strongly taxes your stability mechanisms which can become fatigued easily and this can lead to overuse injuries.

The same holds true in the gym where I think that a client who is barefoot often develops stability faster than someone in a very stable shoe. Most gyms won’t allow members to exercise barefoot, sandals are great for lifting weights and yoga classes are great for developing this type of intrinsic strength.

As a martial artist I do most of my training barefoot, both in the dojo and out of the dojo. When I train with my sword I will be barefoot so this is how I train in the gym. I do this is in order to get the biggest functional carry-over into the work I do on the mat. If I was to wear shoes in the gym my body would get used to lunging or squatting in shoes, so when I go into the dojo and perform similar moves barefoot my body would use different muscles and those muscles would fire differently. I want the training I do in the gym to help me become more efficient in the dojo, so that I can concentrate on my technique rather than the pain in my quads! As with all types of training the closer you can mimic the action that you perform in your activity to that which you do in the gym the bigger the carryover.

I have tried to wear tabi, (traditional Japanese indoor booties) when I lift weights to see how this effects things. Tabi have only a single layer of material on their sole, a bit like a sturdy sock. Traditional martial artists often wear tabi. It is amazing to see the difference, muscles fire differently and you lose so much sensation and information from your feet. Wearing these tabi with just this single layer of fabric on the sole of my foot was like wearing a glove to massage with, ok but not the same. Given the choice I would much prefer to be barefoot.

Too much of anything is a bad thing but in the right amount, barefoot training is an excellent addition to most athletes training repertoire. Training barefoot stimulates the nervous system, taxes stability mechanisms, strengthens the muscles of the foot and ankle and overall provides an excellent training stimulus.

Alan

Alan’s Top 10 Tips for Enjoying the Holiday Season

1. Enjoy your Holiday party season but remember that once the party has finished the diet and exercise regime must restart. The Holiday Season is long, you just keep exercising between Thanksgiving and New Year!

2. Don’t get involved with New Years resolutions. Make lifestyle changes when you are ready for them rather than just because it is the turn of the year.

3. When you go out drinking, and no I’m not condoning it, try alternating between soft and alcoholic drinks. This will hopefully reduce the amount that you drink and will increase your hydration level.

4. Do not under any circumstance go for the ‘diet’ option. Most of these sugar free or diet foods and drinks will contain aspartame or similar and should be considered poison. Yes that means that if you are going to have a cola mixer in your drink you are better to go for the full sugar option rather than the diet option.

5. To reduce the chances of the kids going hyper supply them with some healthy snacks such as carrots and fruit rather than chocolate. Your aim is to stabilise your kids blood sugar levels, introduce them to healthy food and it also means the times when they do have chocolate they will appreciate it more.

6. Treat your food like we treat exercise, it is quality not quantity that counts. If you are going to have food or drink that you know is naughty then buy high quality, high cost naughty food. This will mean that you will appreciate the food and drink more, you will savour the flavours more and the chances are that you will consume less.

7. If you are going out for your celebration meal and you know that you are a protein type, have a high protein snack before you go out. If you have a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal the chances are that it will be high in carbohydrate rather then high protein so have a suitable snack first. Also remember that you must include your desert in your carb/protein balance, so if you are going to have a desert you may not want to eat your veggies with your turkey!

8. Chew your food, it sounds basic but trust me this makes a big difference. By chewing your food until it is liquid you will take much longer to eat and this will much improve your digestion. Increasing the time it takes to eat will allow your stomach to actually register that you have eaten, this reduces the chances of overeating.

9. Remember that we are open throughout the holiday period so if you fancy a training session on Christmas day or hurt your back while playing with the kids give us a call.

10. Finally, reduce your stress levels by buying your loved ones a voucher for massage or personal training from The Wolf Studio (come on you didn’t think I’d miss an opportunity to plug the business!).

Alan

Flexible Thinking

Do you stretch before or after exercise? Why?

Do you stretch in the morning or in the evening? Why?

In exercise one of the most mis-understood areas, by both the public and professionals, is stretching. If you look at the sports section in your local books shop you will find many volumes on how to increase your flexibility, if you go to any yoga studio they will tell you that it improves flexibility, the same when you go to the gym or into any martial arts studio. So flexibility must be important?

Ask anyone if they stretch before or after their run and they will give you a confused answer, they often know that they should but they don’t know what to do or why. Often people have been given conflicting information regarding stretching and flexibility.

The most important thing when deciding what to stretch and when, is knowledge. You must know what you want to achieve from your stretching before you begin. Do you want to make your muscles longer or more flexible, are your muscles actually short or are they just carrying too much tension, do you actually need more flexibility or are you just doing what the others in your group are doing?

If you exercise with bad posture then your body will remember that, so stretching muscles that will allow you to go into better posture before you exercise is sensible. So it is a good idea to do postural correction stretching before you exercise. If your sport involves going into extreme positions like martial arts, football, ballet or gymnastics a much more extensive stretching regime should be an essential part of the warm up routine. If your sport does not involve extreme ranges of motion, like distance running or cycling, then it is not usually necessary to do stretching before the activity unless it is to correct a postural deficit or address an injury issue.

Developmental stretching is best done after exercise when the muscle temperature is higher. These stretches can be done as part of a warm-down or at home in the evening. Again for developmental stretching the evening is better than the morning because a warm muscle will respond to stretching more readily than a cold muscle.

Most people stretch muscles that are already normal in length, they do stretches that they are good at, this is normal but this often leads to joint imbalance, instability and injury. At our studio we take a great deal of time assessing and measuring our clients to ensure that the stretches we give are right for them. Stretching a muscle which is already overly long can lead to imbalances across a joint and result in injury.

Some people need to stretch before and after every session to avoid injury, some people never stretch and never get injured. You need to figure out what works for you regardless of what others in your training group are doing, the only thing we guarantee is that your body is different to everyone else’s, so what should you expect the same stretching routine to work?

Alan

Krispy Kreme Challenge

Saturday saw one of those momentous events that challenges the very beliefs you hold about yourself and shows you what you really can achieve when you apply yourself to the task wholeheartedly: The 2nd Annual Krispy Kreme Challenge West! For those uninitiated to what the KKCW has to offer, here is the lowdown:

1. Run 2 miles
2. Eat 12 Krispy Kreme doughnuts
3. Run 2 miles

As in true multisport fashion it is a single event. The time is taken from the gun up to the point you cross the finish line, split times are also measured allowing comparison of different race strategies. To further add to the challenge there had been no female finishers of the challenge the previous year. The leading lady had only managed 9 doughnuts. That was just throwing down the gauntlet….

This year there was a strong turnout from Team Running Skirts. Christy, Cindy, Brooke and myself were racing in the adult division, Maddy in the Under 18s and Pam was assisting with doughnut distribution. All wearing the same stylish uniform of course. The boys, Jamie and Dave, were there as well and ended up showing us girls how it was done, but alas they did not don the skirts.

How does one train for such an event? The 2 mile run was fine, I know I can run that far, although not very fast. The doughnuts were an unknown quantity. Being new to the US I had never actually sampled a Krispy Kreme and decided to keep it that way, just in case I didn’t like them. Having practiced eating large quantities of junk over Halloween weekend I decided to start my taper early and leave my sugar cravings in-tact for the big day. On race day morning I opted for a small breakfast hoping this would be the best compromise between having something in my stomach to off-set the doughnuts and not filling me up too much.

Lining up at the start and looking over my fellow challengers and team mates it was clear that I was at a distinct disadvantage in running ability. The strategy was therefore clear: slow and steady and hope I manage to polish off more doughnuts than the other girls.

On the first 2 mile stretch I predictably fell way behind. I was still maintaining my slow and steady approach and hoping to ensure than by not going out too fast I would be more able to eat as soon as I stopped. I was already several doughnuts down when I arrived in the doughnut corral. You could easily identify the returning veterans from the previous year – they brought coffee! I made do with water, but not too much lest it took up valuable doughnut space in my stomach. Soon after I arrived Christy announced that she was done, only 2 doughnuts in. Brooke and Cindy were still going strong. They were both using the strategy of stacking 3-6 doughnuts on top of each other, squashing them down and then eating the whole stack. I used a different approach of one doughnut at a time. Certainly my way didn’t allow for super-fast devouring, but I hoped it would allow me to keep a steady pace and survive to the end. It seemed to work, 4 doughnuts in I was still going strong whereas the other girls were slowing down. By 8 doughnuts they were struggling, Brooke was turning a slight shade of green and I started to get hopeful. But those girls are made of stronger stuff and they powered through. Brooke was the first to finish her doughnuts and head off for the 2nd run, soon followed by Cindy, I was just behind them.

Surprisingly the 2nd run was not too bad, I was actually doing some running and in no danger whatsoever of throwing up. I crossed the finish line as the 3rd woman to ever complete the Krispy Kreme Challenge West! Brooke took the honors and Team Running Skirts totally dominated the field (only one other woman had entered!). I did have a few moments later that day where I thought the doughnuts were going to strike their revenge on me but luckily it passed.

Here is to one of the craziest and funnest races I have done in a long time. I’ll give it a few weeks before I sample any more doughnuts though!

Corina

P.S. Check out the Krispy Kreme Challenge West Facebook page for loads of photos and videos of the event!

Great (but realistic) Expectations

I find myself having conversations with other athletes every day that go something like this:

“I’ve been training really hard and I’m making good progress but I don’t understand why I’m still not as good as Fred. I train much harder than him!”

It is at this point that I somehow tactfully need to bring up the point that the athlete in question may not be as genetically talented as Fred and that they can never hope to be as good. For some reason we have no problem accepting that some people are more intelligent than others, some are good at working with numbers, others are really great artists. But when it comes to someone being physically superior it is viewed as discriminatory.

Having to accept that you are not going to improve indefinitely with more training can be a hard pill to swallow. We realize that we will never be able to ride a bike as well as Lance Armstrong or run as fast as Paula Radcliffe, but when it comes to comparing ourselves to those that line up next to us at the local race for some reason we don’t accept that some people can fall out of bed and run faster than you without even trying.

I have been there too. I had my rude awakening last year when trying to qualify for the British Age Group Triathlon team. I had been doing Triathlon a few years and was steadily improving. I even managed to climb onto the podium at some small local races. Then I showed up at the first qualifying event and it was a different story. Not only did I get so soundly beaten that the winner had probably already showered and gone home by the time I crossed the finish line, but I also saw the bodies of the girls I was racing against. There was no way I could hope to be as good as them, my bones were not even of the right shape to manage that.

It was a bitter pill to swallow at first and I was considering throwing in the towel then and there. But I persevered, started to race for me and taking delight in improving my own performance (and hoping the really fast girls didn’t show up!). I made it onto the team eventually and went to the World Championships. There I was pleasantly surprised that all the countries attending had brought along my kind of athletes, as well as the genetically gifted ones that were battling it out at the front.

Of course it can be difficult not to judge the worth of an athlete by the time they posted in the last race. After all, that’s what races are for, right? To be able to judge the achievement you need to consider the genetic gift of that person, how much they have given to the training, what else they have going on in life (for example, it is harder to get lots of quality training in if you have several young kids than if you don’t) and what they want to get out of the race. And it is also important for the athlete to set realistic goals to allow them to enjoy training and racing more. For example, I would love to be able to run a 3 hour marathon one day, but I can confidently say that is never going to happen. So if I choose to run a marathon I would set a different more achievable goal and then be extremely proud when I get there.

It is not just race performance this applies to, but many things in life like body shape. If you spend all day around super-skinny beanpole running machines it is natural to think that you are too fat, too short or any manner of other things. But if your body shape is different then you need to apply different standards to yourself. For example, compare yourself against how you were a year ago or two years ago. If you were noticeably fitter/thinner/more energetic then you know you can make improvements.

I guess the message is to not put yourself down for not living up to the high standards of those around you, but also don’t hold others to your standards. That way we can all train and race together and all get great achievements and fun from it. And I will wait before I attempt a marathon.

Corina