Run training made easy: an interview with fitness trainer and nutrition coach Julia Rittner, part 2

FROGBLOG: Julia, from your expe­ri­ence as a nutri­tion coach, what should run­ners pay atten­tion to on the last few days before the run, imme­di­ate­ly before the run and dur­ing the half marathon itself?

Julia Rit­tner: On the last few days before the race you should have a high car­bo­hy­drate diet. The car­bo­hy­drate reserves can be replen­ished, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the day before the run, but please do so 24 hours before the race itself. I always advise my ath­letes to avoid fibre rich food on the day before the race and eat less veg­eta­bles, let­tuce or nuts, so as to reduce the bur­den on the gas­troin­testi­nal tract and give it less diges­tive work to do.

Julia Rittner, Portrait Willingen

Fit­ness train­er and nutri­tion coach Julia Rit­tner

On the morn­ing of the race, an ade­quate amount of car­bo­hy­drates should be eat­en 3 hours before the start – prefer­ably eas­i­ly digestible car­bo­hy­drates and few­er whole ones, accord­ing to expe­ri­ence. I know that dur­ing train­ing each run­ner has already test­ed his or her opti­mum break­fast before a long run. Many swear by soaked rolled oats with hon­ey or toast with hon­ey or jam. An hour or even 30 min­utes before the start, accord­ing to expe­ri­ence, they also eat a small ener­gy bar, a ripe banana or anoth­er small slice of toast and hon­ey. Flu­id intake dur­ing the race is crit­i­cal so they do not wait to feel thirsty but head straight for each refresh­ment sta­tion to take on more flu­id! One thing I strong­ly advise them to test dur­ing train­ing is nutri­tion while run­ning. The gas­troin­testi­nal tract is high­ly sen­si­tive dur­ing stren­u­ous exer­cise and there is some nutri­tion that it does not nec­es­sar­i­ly tol­er­ate. After 60 min­utes the car­bo­hy­drate reserves are emp­ty and a car­bo­hy­drate gel, a bar or a ripe banana, accord­ing to expe­ri­ence, can pro­vide ener­gy for the sec­ond half of the race. But it must always be accom­pa­nied by flu­id intake.

Julia Rittner_Fuß

FROGBLOG: Now for appar­el – what kind
of run­ning gear do you advise our run­ners to wear on 11 May in Mainz? What in
par­tic­u­lar do you think they should they keep in mind?

Julia Rit­tner: It is very impor­tant not to start exper­i­ment­ing on race day! The run­ning shoes and all the cloth­ing are famil­iar and have been tried out over a longer run, and the nutri­tion dur­ing the race should hold no sur­pris­es, either. At the start we should feel almost a bit too light­ly dressed, because over-warm clothes can have a dis­turb­ing effect once the body is at run­ning tem­per­a­ture and
there is a risk of over­heat­ing. We will have to wait until race day in Mainz to see what vari­ant is best – we have already found the event equal­ly enjoy­able in inces­sant rain and in blis­ter­ing heat.

FROGBLOG: Per­haps it is more than non-run­ners can com­pre­hend, but can one get hooked on run­ning?

Julia Rit­tner: The body releas­es more Endor­phins dur­ing sport­ing activ­i­ties, so we auto­mat­i­cal­ly receive endoge­nous feel-good hor­mones that nat­u­ral­ly increase our sense of well-being. If the lev­el is high, a state of pseu­do-intox­i­ca­tion can be reached: we are on a vir­tu­al high and total­ly light-head­ed! Then we can eas­i­ly get a bit addict­ed, with the deter­min­ing fac­tor being the dose – if used in mod­er­a­tion, indi­vid­u­al­ly and for health-ori­ent­ed pur­pos­es, move­ment is a Mag­ic bul­let for achiev­ing phys­i­cal and men­tal health!

Julia Rittner_Lauf Wbn

FROGBLOG: And final­ly, how is your own prepa­ra­tion for the Mainz half marathon going? What goals have you set your­self?

Julia Rit­tner: I am enjoy­ing doing light prepa­ra­tion as part of my reg­u­lar train­ing and on the day itself I will rel­ish every kilo­me­tre, as I did last year, relaxed and hap­py to be part of a
fan­tas­tic team!

Thank you, Julia, for your sug­ges­tions and for your per­son­al impres­sions and expe­ri­ences.

With con­tin­ued run train­ing and thanks to your advice, the Mainz Marathon is bound to be an event that pleas­es every­one. We hope you con­tin­ue to enjoy your train­ing and wish you lots of fun on 11 May with the ENERGETIX run­ning team!

You can find more infor­ma­tion from and about Julia Rit­tner at www.julia-rittner-sports.de

Run training made easy: an interview with fitness trainer and nutrition coach Julia Rittner, part 1

Julia Rittner_PortraitMany ENERGETIX dis­trib­u­tors already know Julia Rit­tner from the 2013 start-of-year event in Will­in­gen, where the slo­gan was „Fit for the new decade“ and she moti­vat­ed every­one present to greater sport­ing activ­i­ty. Julia will once again pro­vide run­ning sup­port for the ENERGETIX team in 2014. A licensed fit­ness and per­son­al train­er and pas­sion­ate triath­lete, she is mak­ing a moti­vat­ed group of run­ners in Bin­gen fit for the Novo Nordisk Guten­berg Marathon Mainz, for which they have entered. She is also run­ning a week­ly train­ing ses­sion for ENERGETIX staff mem­bers – one that is tai­lored to their wish­es and require­ments – under the slo­gan „Fit through the lunch break“.

A few weeks before the Guten­berg (Half) Marathon we asked Julia for advice that trained long dis­tance run­ners can still fol­low to improve their form and arrive at the start line well pre­pared and in top con­di­tion on 11 May.

Marathon 2013_115

FROGBLOG: It’s fan­tas­tic, over 130 peo­ple have reg­is­tered for the ENERGETIX run­ning team in the 2014 Guten­berg Marathon! Julia, you ran in the „frog team“ last year – as did Joey Kel­ly among oth­ers. What mem­o­ries and expec­ta­tions will you have as you go to the start line in Mainz on 11 May?

Julia Rit­tner: The Mainz Marathon is a region­al event whose major attrac­tions are its friend­ly atmos­phere and a beau­ti­ful route. On every sec­tion the atmos­phere car­ries the run­ners on to the next kilo­me­tre and they are cheered along towards the fin­ish­ing line. As was the case last year, the run­ning expe­ri­ence will cer­tain­ly be marked by the strength of the ENERGETIX team – the large num­ber of entries means that the hap­py excite­ment before the start and the proud feel­ing of relief at the fin­ish will be a great shared event!

Marathon 2013_180

FROGBLOG: What can a run­ner who is in train­ing do to opti­mize their form and well-being in the last few weeks before the run?

Julia Rit­tner: It is impor­tant to main­tain an opti­mal bal­ance between tar­get­ed train­ing loads and recov­ery phas­es in the last few weeks before the race. A few more long runs of up to 18 or even 19 km will cer­tain­ly be planned dur­ing this peri­od. At the same time, the expe­ri­enced run­ners are also already in a phase where they are improv­ing their race fit­ness and basic speed with inter­val and tem­po train­ing. All runs and par­tic­u­lar­ly the more inten­sive units should be car­ried out in a relaxed man­ner; and if the body gives any indi­ca­tion that it would be bet­ter to take a rest day, this is what should be done. It is not our „weak­er self“ speak­ing, the body is ask­ing for rest. Ade­quate sleep, a
nat­ur­al and bal­anced diet and reg­u­lar stretch­ing ensure regen­er­a­tion – often „less is more“ in the last few weeks. There are no more major leaps in per­for­mance dur­ing the final month of prepa­ra­tion, but the lev­el of Per­for­mance reached must be main­tained.

FROGBLOG: And what is best a few days before the run? Should „non-pro­fes­sion­als“ go easy and save their ener­gy or should they pre­pare their body for the run ahead with gen­tle train­ing?

Julia Rittner_Dehnung

Julia Rit­tner: The expe­ri­enced run­ners will cer­tain­ly run some addi­tion­al longer dis­tances even dur­ing the week­end before 11 May, where­as new­com­ers to the half marathon dis­tance are best advised to do their last long run two weeks before the race. The last week before the race should be tak­en up with qui­et short­er runs. It all depends on the train­ing con­di­tion, of course, so it is dif­fi­cult to make a gen­er­al state­ment. Usu­al­ly each indi­vid­ual run­ner can feel how much rest is need­ed before race day. Two or three full con­sec­u­tive days of rest are a good idea. Rest is impor­tant, but too much rest before the event leaves the mus­cles real­ly „lame“ and deprives us of the nec­es­sary ten­sion. This is why many run­ners make a point of doing a mini-train­ing ses­sion the day before the race to tone up the mind and the mus­cles – a short 10-minute warm-up run fol­lowed by 3–5 crisp uphill runs and a com­fort­able 10-minute wind-down run.

FROGBLOG: And what of the „weak­er self“? How do you moti­vate your­self and how do you spur on your run­ners? Do you use spe­cial tricks that you’d like to reveal here?

Julia Rit­tner: If sport is char­ac­ter­ized by enthu­si­asm and enjoy­ment, no spe­cial moti­va­tion is need­ed. The chal­lenge starts when we reach our lim­its while train­ing, are sur­prised by lack of form on the day or have to call on our final reserves of ener­gy in a race. We must then make greater demands on our men­tal strength and call up pow­er­ful images – it can be a won­der­ful run­ning expe­ri­ence or a mag­ic moment in nature, or we see our­selves arriv­ing at the fin­ish­ing line! Dur­ing run train­ing my ath­letes know that I always refer to the nature around us as a force field and a dis­trac­tion. So if I name the
plants around us too often or dis­cov­er the beau­ti­ful view sev­er­al times, I get smiled at – but that’s okay, you run bet­ter if you are laugh­ing!

Read fur­ther advice from Julia Rit­tner in the next few days.

You can find more infor­ma­tion from and about Julia Rit­tner at www.julia-rittner-sports.de

ENERGETIX Turkey’s spring event: ENERGETIX Turkey off to a flying start

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ENERGETIX’s spring launch was held at the begin­ning of March at the Green Park Hotel in Pendik (Istan­bul) in Turkey. Tol­ga Delik­taş, Head of the Turkey Office, said that all 82 par­tic­i­pants were real­ly enthu­si­as­tic about the 2014 spring / sum­mer col­lec­tion. The Lava and the Mas­cu­line lines were par­tic­u­lar­ly well received by the par­tic­i­pants.

Serife Cigili

Tol­ga Delik­taş, Head of the Turkey Office, with Ser­ife Cig­ili, a suc­cess­ful dis­trib­u­tor


Hon­our­ing the best:
pure emo­tion
Ahmet Kocoglu host­ed the excit­ed­ly await­ed event. Besides the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2014 spring / sum­mer col­lec­tion and the shar­ing of impor­tant com­pa­ny news by Tol­ga Delik­taş, the award cer­e­mo­ny for the top dis­trib­u­tors was one of the event’s high­lights.
The appre­ci­a­tion that the excel­lent results were being offi­cial­ly hon­oured was clear­ly tan­gi­ble.

Gül Batir

Gül Batir

 

 

Ms Gül Batir was the first to be hon­oured in the PSV and GSV cat­e­gories: the ded­i­cat­ed dis­trib­u­tor achieved top results in Feb­ru­ary 2014. Mr Bora Yos­ma also deserves men­tion as an exam­ple of some­one who was par­tic­u­lar­ly suc­cess­ful in build­ing up his team and who has already risen to the posi­tion of Area Man­ag­er.

Bora Yosma

Bora Yos­ma

 

 

Proud per­for­mance
ENERGETIX Turkey cur­rent­ly has 850 reg­is­tered dis­trib­u­tors on its books. We con­grat­u­late the Turkey Office on its remark­able per­for­mance and wish it con­tin­ued suc­cess.

 

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion required? This link will take you direct­ly to the FROGBLOG arti­cle about the road show at the end of 2013: http://en.frogblog.tv/energetix-in-turkey-the-road-shows/