SPECIAL NOTICE
Given the current situation related to COVID-19, the SudburyROCKS!!! Marathon organizing committee has decided to postpone our race. The new date for the 2020 SudburyROCKS!!! Marathon will be Sunday, October 25th. We know this news may be disappointing to you and for that we are very sorry, however we recognize this is the right thing to do at this time.
We are still encouraging participants and the public to register for the 2020 SudburyROCKS!!! Marathon and to support our beneficiary the Northern Cancer Foundation by collecting pledges. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.
If you have any questions please feel free to connect with Elizabeth Taillefer at the Northern Cancer Foundation by email at etaillefer@hsnsudbury.ca or by calling 705.523.4673.
The organizing committee will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation and keep our participants and friends up to date.
Please take care and stay healthy.
Thank you,
SudburyROCKS!!! Marathon
Organizing Committee

http://www.sudburyrocksmarathon.com/

 

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As we navigate these challenging times, the organizers of The Miner’s Mayhem have weighed the risks along with the community impact of cancelling our event for 2020. We are focusing on the health of our community and feel our decision to cancel at this time, supports the efforts on a larger scale to flatten the curve.

We did consider the option to postpone the event however the nature of our activity is not only to bring a large group of individuals together but also to get them sweating on and sharing equipment / obstacles. We are hopeful that the uncertainty around the current pandemic is temporary however we do not want to be guessing when things will settle down so with heavy hearts we agreed, as a group, on the cancellation action.

Individuals that have registered for the 2020 event will receive a full refund.

This is unchartered territory for all of us and we believe we have made the best possible decision, to keep our fitness families, friends and community as safe and healthy as possible.

We appreciate your understanding and hope to bring The Miner’s Mayhem back strong in 2021.

 

 

Hello All,
After reviewing the latest information on the Coronavirus spread it is necessary for me to suspend official Sudburyrocks!! run sessions. They include the Wednesday pm run from the Running Room and the Saturday am run from Laurentian University,
It would be difficult to comply with social distancing guidelines with a group of 5 to 15 runners on the roads.
My self, I hope to be able to run solo outside or maybe with a friend maintaining safe distances from all we encounter.
I'll be watching and listening for developments as they unfold.
Stay safe my running friends
Vince Perdue

 

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With organized running justifiably on hold for the foreseeable future, it’s understandable to scrap formal training. Many people are scaling back to maintenance running, and you’ll find coaches who are advising the same. The idea here is to keep running’s physical and mental health benefits while not getting hurt or burnt out from more ambitious, seemingly purposeless training.

I have a different take that has worked for me over the years: Your running should look like you’re training for a race even if you’re not. Here’s what I mean by this approach, and why now may be a good time to try it if it’s not what you already do.

This idea isn’t new, and I’m not claiming to have invented it. Long before any of us had heard of a coronavirus, it made sense to regularly vary distance and pace in your running. As I’ll describe below, that means a mix of slightly harder workouts, gentle recovery jogs, and long runs, in addition to your standard getting-in-the-miles outings. Here’s what I mean by this approach, and why now may be a good time to try it if it’s not what you already do.

Vary Very Much
Consistency underlies most success in running. But, per the famous Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, there’s a difference between consistency and a foolish consistency.

Running consistently shouldn’t mean an endless string of short to medium-length runs at an easy to medium level of effort. But that’s an easy routine to fall into, especially when there are no races in your near future. One reason to mix things up: You might lower your risk of injury. That notion can sound counterintuitive. Wouldn’t doing longer and faster runs increase your injury risk?

It helps to remember the nature of most running injuries. They’re usually not acute injuries, like when a soccer player tears her hamstring or a football player wrenches his knee. They’re repetitive-strain injuries, the result of one or more body parts being unable to hold up to the low-grade but constant stress of running.

In this view, avoiding injury means lowering the stress and varying the stress. Lowering the stress encompasses things like wearing the right shoes, running on soft surfaces, having good running-specific strength and mobility, and cross-training. Varying the stress means, well, not going out and doing the same run at the same pace day after day after day. And that’s the relevant angle to my run-like-you’ll-be-racing approach. Running at a wide variety of paces works you through slightly different ranges of motion. Running a variety of distances means having lower-mileage days during which you recover from higher-mileage days.

Doing different types of runs also encourages rotating shoes. Wearing similar but distinct shoes is another way to vary the stress of running. In one 22-week study, runners who rotated among two or more models were 39 percent less likely to get injured than those who ran the same amount in just one model.

Another plus: Varied running will mean that you’re always in shape to get in shape. That’s good for two reasons.

First, when it comes time to start formal training for a race, doing so won’t be a shock to your body. It’s pretty easy to see that someone who quickly ups his mileage and intensity is more likely to get hurt than someone who always has a good baseline of fitness.

Second, when you do start training, you’re only weeks away from good performances at a range of distances. Focusing on 5Ks? Cut the mileage a bit and start doing more VO2 max workouts. Aiming for a half marathon? Bump up your long run a little and emphasize tempo runs. Whenever running returns to normal, wouldn’t you like to be ready to join in the fun?

Like I said, I didn’t invent this approach. It’s basically what pros do when they’re base training. A typical week includes a long run, a day of longer repeats, a day of shorter repeats, and as many “normal” runs as you feel like doing.

If that sounds too ambitious, note that none of this has to be epic training. “Long run” doesn’t mean “as long as possible.” This winter, for example, I’ve been going a bit over two hours most Saturdays. These 14- or 15-milers constitute about 20 to 25 percent of my weekly total. I finish them feeling like I could easily go another hour without having to spend the rest of the day on the sofa.

My longer-repeat days are things like 6 x 1200 meters at 10K race pace, or 2 X 15 minutes at half marathon pace, or 45 minutes at marathon pace. My shorter-repeat days are usually 10 to 15 X 1 minute at mile to 5K race pace. I finish all of these sessions feeling like I could do plenty more at the same intensity if I had to.

That moderation is important during any period of sustained base training, but especially while the coronavirus rages. Draining hard and/or long runs temporarily suppress your immune system; that’s currently an unnecessary risk. But running a few miles at half marathon pace or 10 minutes’ worth of short repeats at 5K race pace isn’t a hands-on-knees effort. Nor are long runs that you could extend by another 25 to 50 percent without duress exhausting.

Mind Your Mind
If the physical benefits of running like this aren’t compelling, consider the mental side. One of my running partners, a two-time Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier, does one or two harder workouts and a long run most weeks, even when she has no racing plans. As she repeatedly explains to her husband, the variety keeps her fresher mentally.

Another running partner, the 1997 U.S. marathon champion, almost never races, but still goes long most weekends because she likes the extra time to think and be in nature. Like many people, she simply enjoys running, and views her longest run of the week as more pleasure than obligation.

I feel similarly. It’s when I string together too many consecutive medium-length, medium-intensity days that I start feeling flat and bored with running. Longer and faster runs bring feelings of satisfaction, of meeting a challenge, and—a welcome occurrence these days—of being in control. There are still plenty of easy to moderate runs for daydreaming, problem solving, and a daily hit of feel-good brain chemicals.

Of course, you should go about your running however you like. My approach works for me and helps me feel more engaged and energized by my running.

That’s something we would all benefit from right now.

 

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"To finally know for sure that the (Olympic) Games are postponed is definitely a relief. Without a doubt, this is what I was hoping for, for sure."

At first glance, it might come as a surprise to most that these are the thoughts of eight time national triple jump champion Caroline Ehrhardt.

Born and raised in Espanola and having trained in her youth with Track North Athletic Club in Sudbury, Ehrhardt lives, these days, in London (Ontario), with her husband and Canadian decathlete Trevor (Stewart) Ehrhardt, the couple having completed their studies at Western University.

She is also, obviously, an Olympic hopeful, having not yet attained the standard necessary for pre-qualification.

To that end, and given all of the uncertainty, she was thankful when the Canadian Olympic Committee announced, over the weekend, that the country would not be sending athletes to Japan for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

"Before the COC made their announcement, there was a lot of frustration," said Ehrhardt. "It just seemed like the decisions that the IOC (International Olympic Committee) was making were just so irresponsible and so tone-deaf."

"When the COC made their call, it was relief and pride that our organization was able to make a decision that spoke to the safety of everybody. But with their decision, there was that one little bit of fear, of what if they do go ahead with the Games and were that one country that made this call, and nobody really followed our lead."

Within days, the IOC followed suit, backing up the Games in Japan by one full year. It was another indication of just how rapidly the landscape was changing, globally, affecting different people in different ways.

"About three weeks ago was when I first started hoping that the Games would be cancelled," said Ehrhardt. "At that time, it felt a little bit selfish. I was feeling that way because all of the meets that I had planned to attend to try and qualify for the Olympics were being cancelled."

"It wasn't necessarily all of the meets, across the world, at that time, but a lot of the ones that I happened to be going to."

"But then all of the meets started shutting down, and facilities started closing down, and we couldn't even train," continued Ehrhardt. "I started to hear from athletes who do have their Olympic spot secured. It gives me some piece of mind knowing that even people who had their Olympic spot taken away from them were on board."

Like most who have come before Caroline Ehrhardt and her contemporaries, Robert Esmie is thankful he did not have to try and balance the emotions of the current COVID-19 crisis as a world class athlete.

"On the one hand, I was wondering if it was premature, that maybe they could wait until April to finalize a decision, to see how bad things were, because these athletes have been preparing for four years in advance," stated the Sudbury resident and lead runner in the 4 X 100m sprint relay team which captured gold in Atlanta in 1996.

"On that end, I was hoping they would wait. But on the other side, there is the safety of the athletes that is a concern. I think it's right that they postponed the Games. I am happy they postponed the Games, and are not waiting another four years."

In the meantime, Ehrhardt and others will try and make the best of the situation, knowing that inevitably, at some point, they will return to competition. "We're just kind of taking it day by day, right now, and not come up with a plan," she said.

"Every time, in the past few weeks, that we have come up with a plan, the next day something has drastically changed. When the weather cooperates, we try and get out to a park and do some upbeat tempo running."

"We have my (triple jump/long jump) runway that I had as a in Espanola, growing up," Ehrhardt added. "It's in our backyard, which isn't nearly as big, but it gives us the space to do something."

"I'm not expecting to get any meets out of this season, so I just want to kind of keep my fitness up and stay healthy."

Just like everybody, these days.