Elite Running Coaches to Offer Training Talk at Boulder Running Company

Boulder, CO, USA - Internationally known running coach Bobby McGee and world champion marathoner Mark Plaatjes will host a discussion on run workouts and run training this July at Boulder Running Company. McGee and Plaatjes will discuss what road runners and triathletes can learn from each discipline's unique approach to run training.

Bobby McGee and Mark Plaatjes
Run Workouts for Runners and Triathletes
Wednesday, July 1, 7:15-8:15 pm
Boulder Running Company
2775 Pearl St # 103, Boulder, CO 80302
boulderrunningcompany.com
(303) 786-9255
Free event

Discussion topics will include recovery vs. frequency, quantifying runs, crosstraining, periodizing training, and developing the abiliity to surge and attack.

All too often, runners and triathletes reach a plateau in fitness because they do the same type of training, week after week. To see improvements in fitness, athletes need to vary the kinds of workouts they do. This means mixing up endurance runs with hill repeats, intervals, and track workouts.

McGee has teamed up with Plaatjes to give runners of all levels a complete collection of workouts and training plans. Run Workouts for Runners and Triathletes is the perfect tool for self-coached athletes to add variety to their training.

Run Workouts for Runners and Triathletes features 21 training plans for all the most popular race distances; 5km, 10km, half-marathon, marathon, Olympic-distance triathlon, half-Ironman, and Ironman. Each plan offers three performance levels, and McGee explains precisely how runners can determine their training paces and balance hard days with easy days.

McGee offers new takes on the workouts all runners and triathletes should practice and master. Each training plan incorporates 80 fresh and challenging workouts including endurance runs, intervals, hills, Yassos, and a variety of tests and bricks. Runners and triathletes can pepper these workouts into their own training plans. Run Workouts for Runners and Triathletes is available now in bookstores, tri and running shops, and online. Autographed copies will be available at this event through Boulder Running Company.

Bobby McGee is an internationally certified track and field coach whose athletes have produced world records, won world championships, and been consistently ranked amongst the best in their events. He coaches runners and triathletes, and has worked with USA Triathlon preparing athletes for the 2004 and 2008 Olympic games. For more information on Bobby, please visit bobbymcgee.com.

Mark Plaatjes is the 1993 Marathon Gold medal winner at the World Track and Field championships. In addition to being a world champion, Mark's running record includes a win at the 1991 Los Angeles Marathon and a 6th place finish in the 1993 Boston marathon. Mark owns a private physical therapy practice and specializes in treating runners and athletes. He currently lives in Boulder, Colorado, and coaches recreational and elite runners.

To schedule author interviews or workshops, please contact:
Dave Trendler, Marketing and Publicity Manager, (303) 245-2138, dtrendler@competitorgroup.com

Distributors and specialty retailers please order through:
Jen Soulé, Sales Manager, (800) 811-4210 x169, wholesale@competitorgroup.com

Sage Rountree Releases First Book of Yoga Routines for Athletes

Boulder, CO, USA - June 15, 2009 - Nationally known endurance sports coach and yoga instructor Sage Rountree has published the first book of yoga routines for athletes. The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga: 50 Routines for Flexibility, Balance, and Focus offers runners, triathletes, and cyclists a convenient way to gain the benefits of yoga.

When endurance athletes attend yoga classes, they bring tight muscles and even tighter schedules. At the height of the season, athletes often disappear from the yoga studio, yet it is then that yoga can be most beneficial. The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga makes it easy for athletes to continue reaping the benefits of yoga all year.

The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga offers 50 simple yoga routines athletes can use every day. The book includes quick warm-ups and cool-downs, 20-minute flexibility routines to relieve muscle tightness, longer strength sessions for the off-season and base periods, focus exercises to sharpen mental toughness, and restorative routines to speed recovery.

Even without any yoga experience, readers will find The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga simple to use. Each page presents full color photos of athletes demonstrating the poses in a routine. Rountree groups routines by their goals so that readers can quickly address common problem areas like a tight lower back or hamstrings. The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga is spiral bound so that it lies flat, making it easy to refer to the photographs while practicing.

Careful consideration of the athlete's needs has earned Sage Rountree a committed following, and her newest book delivers a practical approach to yoga that will make good athletes better.

The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga: 50 Routines for Flexibility, Balance, and Focus by Sage Rountree
Spiral-bound with color photos throughout
6" x 7", 160 pp., VP-APGY, $15.95, 978-1-934030-41-7
Available late June in bookstores; bike, tri, and running shops; and online.

Download three sample yoga sequences here (2 meg pdf).

Sage Rountree is a Yoga Alliance experienced registered yoga teacher and holds coaching certifications from USA Triathlon, USA Cycling, and the Road Runners Club of America. Her popular yoga classes draw all levels of athletes, from recreational walkers to Olympic runners and Ironman triathletes. She is a contributor to Runner's World and Yoga Journal and has published articles in Running Times, Inside Triathlon, and Endurance magazines. Rountree has taught at Kripalu and offers yoga workshops for endurance athletes and coaches around the country. To try out an example yoga routine for athletes, please visit sagerountree.com.

To request media copies, author interviews, or to schedule a workshop, please contact:
Dave Trendler, Marketing and Publicity Manager
dtrendler@competitorgroup.com, (303) 245-2138

Retailers and distributors, please order through:
Jen Soulé, Sales Manager
wholesale@competitorgroup.com, (800) 811-4210 x169

Let Graham Watson Be Your "Tour Guide" to the Tour de France!

Experience the Tour Like an Insider with 31-Year Veteran's Travel Guide

Boulder, CO, USA - June 5, 2009 - Each July millions of cycling fans head to France to experience the world's greatest bike race or dream of the day they'll make the trip. Unless they've planned carefully, they'll arrive to find full hotels, blocked routes, overpriced food, chaotic roads, and endless frustration as they try to get close to the race they've come to see.

Now Graham Watson's Tour de France Travel Guide lets cycling fans experience all the excitement of the Tour while negotiating its many daily obstacles with the confidence of a local. As cycling's leading photographer, Graham Watson has been in the right place at the right time during every stage of every Tour de France since 1977. No one knows how to get around the Tour like Graham. Graham Watson's Tour de France Travel Guide is available now in bookstores, bike shops, and online.

Graham's guide is the first book of its kind, and it's the only resource cycling fans need to experience the Tour to its fullest. Learn where to eat, where to sleep, how to get around, how to see and photograph the race, and how to enjoy the greatest show on two wheels.

Graham shares his 31 years of Tour de France experience in this beautifully illustrated guidebook. Featuring over 200 of his award-winning photographs along with full-color maps, travel tips, checklists, and travel resources, this book presents a fresh and unique strategy for getting around the Tour's many opportunities for frustration to find a front-row seat for all the action.

Presented in sturdy, flexible binding with flaps for marking pages, Graham's guide also includes a clever menu decoder for quick reference when the waiter is tapping his pad, tips on how to meet the riders, a glossary of French cycling terms, historical perspective on each region of France visited by the Tour, and a special chapter on how to photograph the Tour like a pro. For the Tour's legion of fans, Graham Watson's Tour de France Travel Guide contains everything they need to watch, follow, and enjoy the Tour de France in style.

Graham Watson's Tour de France Travel Guide: The Complete Insider's Guide to the Tour!
Text and photographs by Graham Watson
5 5/8" x 7 7/8", 304 pp., VP-GWTDF, $24.95, 978-1-934030-38-7
Flexibound paperback with flaps. Full-color photos, maps, charts, and tables throughout.

• Since 1903 the Tour de France has visited over 500 towns and villages. Watson has followed every stage of 31 Tours de France, a pedigree few can match.
• A completely modern guide, annotated with websites and the latest contact information for hotels, restaurants, trains, car rental, bike rental, camping, tourist information, and more.
• Lavish 4-color interior, handy size, and flexible binding with flaps make this travel guide inviting, durable, and easy to use.

Download the table of contents and sample pages with photos here (5 meg pdf).

VeloPress is an endurance sports and fitness publisher with training and history books on cycling, triathlon, and running. VeloPress is the book publishing division of Competitor Group, Inc., publisher of VeloNews, Triathlete, Inside Triathlon, and Competitor magazines and producer of the Rock 'N' Roll marathons, half-marathons, and the Muddy Buddy adventure series.

For review copies, excerpts, author interviews and events:
Dave Trendler, Marketing and Publicity Manager, (303) 245-2138, dtrendler@competitorgroup.com

Distributors and specialty retailers please order through:
Jen Soulé, Sales Manager, (800) 811-4210 x169, wholesale@competitorgroup.com

Run Faster with the Run-Walk Approach

Tara Parker-Pope of The New York Times wrote a story "Better Running Through Walking" that introduces the concept of the "run-walk" method of run training. Parker-Pope is using the run-walk method to prepare for her first marathon.

Bobby McGee, an internationally certified running coach, agrees that walking can help running. "Even the most advanced athletes can benefit from some walking," says McGee. "It helps you recover faster and increases your muscle endurance without breaking down muscle tissue the way running does." McGee says that walking's low intensity teaches your body to rely on fat instead of quick-burning carbohydrates, which leads to improved endurance. Walking also allows for greater overall training volume with less impact. McGee's new book Run Workouts for Runners and Triathletes incorporates the run-walk method. (Download sample run-walk workouts here.)

Elite endurance sports coaches Joe Friel and Gordo Byrn are also proponents of the run-walk protocol. In their Iron-distance triathlon training book Going Long, they offer guidelines for the marathon leg of triathlon based on McGee's years of coaching experience:

• Use run/walk for all runs longer than 30 minutes.
• Use walking as the rest interval for all workouts involving running above zone 3.
• Use run/walk for all longer brick workouts (those over 2.5 hours).
• Depending on your abilities and fitness, periods of running should last 5-15 minutes with walking recovery periods lasting 15 seconds to 1 minute.
  

Both Going Long: Training for Triathlon's Ultimate Challenge and Run Workouts for Runners and Triathletes offer more detail on how you can use the run-walk method in your run training. Get started with run-walk by downloading several free sample workouts here (800 kb pdf).