Lexington Area Trail Running
Central Kentucky Trail Running
- Veteran’s Park – 650 Southpoint Dr. Lexington, KY – Has approximately 3 miles of trails on grass paths and wooded singletrack, along with a 1 mile asphalt path. Located off Tates Creek Rd. just beyond Man-O-War Blvd.
- Masterson Station Park – 3051 Leestown Rd. Lexington, KY – Has 4+ miles of cross country style paths. Located on Leestown Rd. about 1 mile beyond New Circle Rd.
- University of Kentucky Arboretum – Alumni Dr. Lexington, KY – Has approximately 1 mile of grass path along the fenceline of the property and another .5 mile loop in the woods. Also has a 2 mile asphalt path. Located on Alumni Dr. directly across from Commonwealth Stadium.
- Raven Run Nature Sanctuary – 5886 Jack’s Creek Pike Lexington, KY – Has approximately 10 miles of trails, many of which are wooded singletrack. The closest thing to true trail running in Fayette Co., Raven Run is about 14 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Falling Springs Park – 275 Beasley Dr. Versailles, KY – Cross country style course with approximately 4 miles of trails and grass paths. Approximately 13 miles from Lexington.
- Capitol View Park – Glenn’s Creek Rd. (Off East-West Connector) Frankfort, KY – Has approximately 7.5 miles of mostly singletrack trails. These are heavily used by mountain bikers year round and can get pretty muddy in wet weather. Located about 30 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill – 3501 Lexington Rd. Harrodsburg, KY – Located just across the Kentucky River on Rt. 68 South. Has several miles of trails, most of which are grass paths but with a few sections of singletrack sprinkled in. Located about 27 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Brushy Fork Park – Berea, KY – This is used as the Berea College cross country course but much of it is a wooded trail. You can get creative on the backside of the property by heading to the top of the ridge and adding more mileage. Located about 40 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Camp Nelson Heritage Park – Rt. 27 Nicholasville, KY – 5K cross country style course around the property. Located about 20 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Asbury College Cross Country Course – Wilmore, KY – 5K cross country style course. Located about 20 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Red River Gorge Geological Area – Slade, KY – The Red River Gorge Geological Area consists of approximately 26,000 acres inside the Daniel Boone National Forest. The main section of the gorge has approximately 140 miles of mapped and unmapped trails most of which are rugged singletrack. Very popular with hikers and climbers, this is arguably the best trail running within an hour drive of Lexington. Located about 50 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Cave Run Lake – Farmers, KY – Has approximately 90 miles of trails many of which are wooded singletrack. Heavily used by mountain bikers and horseback riders, the trails can become pretty muddy during wet weather. Located about 63 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Laurel River Lake Area – London, KY – Park at the KY 192/KY 1193 intersection and you can run the Sheltowee Trace south to Laurel River Lake or north to the Rockcastle River. Both sections are very scenic with the northern option being the more technical of the two. The northern route is very similar to the Red River Gorge area but sees much less traffic. Located about 90 miles from Lexington.
- Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest – State HWY 245 Clermont, KY – Approximately 2,000 of Bernheim’s 14,000 acres are open to the public. There are approximately 40 miles of trails many of which are wooded singletrack. Bernheim was designed by the Olmstead Co. who were also responsible for the design of New York’s Central Park, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, Louisville’s City Park system, and many more. Located about 75 miles from downtown Lexington.
- Daniel Boone National Forest – 707,000 acres of public land east of Lexington. Many, many miles of singletrack and dirt roads to explore.
What do olympic weightlifters think of CrossFit?
(via Tabata Times.com)
Glenn Pendlay, renowned Olympic Weightlifting coach, recently wrote this in a forum post:
As weightlifters, or those that use weightlifting movements in training, squat deep, and worry more about lifting more weight than about how defined our arms are (I would guess this describes most on this board)… what did we used to complain about?
1. No place to train with bumpers and chalk.
2. Getting hassled about dropping weight.
3. “Trainers” at the local globo gym telling us squatting deep was gonna ruin our knees.
4. Girlfriends not wanting to squat because she is afraid she will get “bulky.”
5. For the competitive weightlifters among us, getting asked “how much ya bench?” after telling someone you are a weightlifter.
6. Trying to explain what a snatch is to someone, usually ending with a pantomime then the words “you know, like they do in the Olympics.”
7. If you ever tell someone, hey you should try it it’s fun, being told “oh no, I could never do that.”
8. Being surrounded in any gym by folks that think eating red meat or fat is the enemy of good health or a good looking body.
9. Curls in the squat rack.
10. Pink dumbbells.
So with CrossFit you get…
1. 2000 + more gyms around the country with bumpers and chalk.
2. Most Crossfitters would think you were weird if you DIDN’T drop weights.
3. They may debate where to put the bar on their backs, but they all squat deep.
4. CrossFit girls squat heavy and are proud of getting a rounder butt from it.
5. Most CrossFitters don’t bench press; they might ask you how much you squat instead.
6. Most CrossFitter’s snatch; those that dont certainly know what it is.
7. CrossFit is filled with people people who not only want to try new things, but are willing to work hard to learn and won’t be put off by falling on their butt a few times.
8. CrossFitters, as a whole, seem to be proud that they not only eat meat, but are able to eat GOOD (meaning eat a LOT) and still look good because they train so hard. A couple cookouts at CrossFit boxes remain the only two times I have seen women bragging about how many ribs they ate. And not fatties. Young, in shape women.
9. CrossFitters are the ones who will make fun of YOU, if YOU do curls in the squat rack.
10. CrossFitters only use pink kettlebells.
LAC: Rogue Warrior Challenge
Are you ready for the Rogue Warrior Challenge? If you are, come to the LAC Front Desk (Tue-Sat, 7a-9p) and tell them “I want to take the Challenge!” A staff person will weigh you and then supervise and verify your reps and time.
Complete the 100 reps with your body weight as load in under 20 minutes—and you get a Rogue Warrior t-shirt and a place in the Rogue Warrior Hall of Fame.
Good luck!
Example of a Rogue Warrior Challenge score card can be found HERE.
Rogue Warrior Hall of Fame can be found HERE.
Photo gallery of (most) of the Rogue Warrior’s can be found HERE.
Lexington Athletic Club: 2013 NCAA Bracket
Lexington Athletic Club 2013 NCAA Bracket
It’s FREE to play. Win fame and fabulous prizes.
Submission deadline is Wednesday night at 11pm.
Lexington Athletic Club: “CrossFit: Boot Camp”
CrossFit: Boot Camp at LAC!
Starting March 15, all of our Boot Camp classes will be re-branded as “CrossFit: Boot Camp“. We will be teaching a health club (globogym 
) version of the very popular CrossFit.com program. We affiliated with CrossFit earlier this year and have been teaching for-fee main-site CrossFit classes and On-Ramp’s so far, but this will be a FREE version, available to all LAC members.
CrossFit: Boot Camp will not be exactly like what you see in the CrossFit games on ESPN or even the WOD’s on CrossFit.com, but the classes will honor the core philosophy of CrossFit, and will be “constantly varied, high intensity, functional movements” that will be challenging–but doable, and they’ll get you sweaty–yet will still be “fun”!
And it wouldn’t be CrossFit without t-shirts. Look for them at the LAC Front Desk soon!
Check out the schedule of classes here: http://lexingtonathleticclub.com/group-exercise/
And we’re working on a new webpage for LAC CrossFit here: http://laccrossfit.com/
LAC CrossFit: Great equipment and a great training space…at a GREAT price!!!
Eleiko bars, Rougue Infinity Rig, Prowlers, sleds, lifting platforms, a turf field and even an outdoor training area!
Join NOW for less than $1 a day and get 3 months FREE!
Why Fast?
Mark Sisson has a great website HERE: The article below was from a series he did on fasting. Fasting is not for everyone, but you might want to consider.
Why Fast? Part Six – Choosing a Method
Assuming you’ve been keeping up with the series, you should be saying to yourself “Hey, maybe this fasting thing would be a cool thing to try out, and it might even make me healthier/live longer/lean out/lose weight/etc.,” which is a sufficiently extensive list of benefits, don’t you think? I could probably go on theorizing and speculating about all the reasons why you should consider intermittent fasting, but I’d rather move on to the implementation. Thinking about fasting, reading about fasting, and reciting the benefits of fasting are all pointless if you don’t know how to go about doing it.
First, let’s go over the different variations of fasting. I’ll give a quick rundown. Each involves not eating for a period of time, unsurprisingly.
A couple other rules that apply to all the given methods:
- Sleeping hours (provided you don’t sleep-eat) count as fasting hours.
- Eat well regardless. While some fasting plans tout their adherents’ ability to eat crappy food and still lose weight, I’m not interested in fasting solely as a weight loss method.
Okay, on to the variations.
Leangains
Martin Berkhan’s incredibly popular fasting protocol is slightly more involved than others, but still pretty simple:
- A daily 16 hour fast (Martin sometimes recommends 14 for women, who just seem to do better on shorter fasts) during which you eat nothing. Coffee, tea, and other non-caloric fluids are fine.
- A daily 8 hour (or 10 for women) eating window.
- Three days of weight training, ideally performed at the tail end of the fasting period. To improve performance and muscle protein synthesis, you have the option of consuming 10 grams of branched chain amino acids 10 minutes before the workout.
- Always eat high protein.
- On training days, eat more carbs and less fat.
- On rest days, eat more fat, fewer carbs, and slightly reduce calories.
- Most people begin their fast after dinner (say, 9 PM), workout in the afternoon (at around 12 PM), and break their fast immediately post-workout (at around 1 PM), but you can use any schedule you prefer.
- Your post-workout meal should have about 50% of your day’s caloric allotment (a real feast).
Who should try it?
Because it’s geared toward people interested in losing fat and putting on muscle and strength, Leangains presupposes that you will also be lifting heavy things several times a week, usually in the fasted state. Therefore, Leangains is best-suited for people who will be training on a regular basis. In fact, it’s probably the most meticulously-designed IF program.
People with steady schedules will have more success than people with erratic schedules. A huge part of Leangains is the hormonal entrainment induced by regular feeding times. Once you get locked into your routine, your hunger hormones will adapt to the schedule, and the fasting should get easier, or even effortless.
Eat Stop Eat
Put together by Brad Pilon, Eat Stop Eat is really basic:
- Once or twice a week, don’t eat for 24 hours.
- Start your fast in the morning, at lunch, or at dinner. It doesn’t matter as long as you don’t eat for 24 hours.
- Break your fast with a “normal-sized meal.” Don’t try to make up for the lost calories by feasting.
- Exercise regularly.
Who should try it?
People interesting in fasting for the therapeutic benefits (cancer protection, autophagy, life extension, etc.) would probably get a lot out of this method, as opposed to people interested in the body composition benefits.
Going a full 24 hours without food is a much tougher slog than going for 16 hours. In my experience, going lower-carb and higher-fat makes longer fasts easier, so I’d have to say a low-carb Primal eater would do better than most.
The Warrior Diet
Ori Hofmekler’s plan is based on the feast-and-fast concept:
- Eat one meal a day, at night, and make it a big one. A real feast. You have three or four hours to eat until full. So it’s basically 20/4 hours.
- You can occasionally snack on low-calorie raw fruit and vegetables during the day, but try to limit protein as much as possible until the feast.
- Exercise during the day, in a fasted state.
Who should try it?
People who have trouble sticking to a stricter fast will do better on the Warrior Diet, as it allows light eating during the time leading up to the feast, but I wonder if you’d be squandering some of the benefits by eating.
Alternate Day Fasting
Researchers often use this method in lab studies:
- Eat normally one day (last meal at, say, 9 PM Monday).
- Don’t eat the next day.
- Resume eating the day after that (at, say, 9 AM Wednesday).
- It works out to a 36-ish hour fast, although there’s plenty of wiggle room. You could eat at 10 PM Monday and break the fast at 6 AM Wednesday for a “mere” 32 hour fast.
Who should try it?
People who have no trouble going to bed hungry. With Leangains, Eat Stop Eat, and the Warrior Diet methods, you can always manage to get to bed with a full belly; with ADF, you will be going to bed on an empty stomach several times a week. That can be tough.
That said, the therapeutic benefits to serious conditions will most likely really be pronounced with this way of fasting. The casual 20-something Primal eater who lifts heavy things and enjoys going out with friends? Probably not ideal. The older Primal eater interested in generating some autophagy and maybe staving off neurodegeneration? It might just work out. And while I’m not able to tell a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy what to do, I’d guess that the longer fasts will be more beneficial in that regard, too.
But my personal favorite way of implementing fasting?
Eat WHEN – When Hunger Ensues Naturally
I’m not going to put any bullet points here, because none are required. Instead, I’ll give a few scenarios:
I wake up bright and early on a Saturday morning. It’s about 65 degrees, the sun’s out, Buddha’s walking around with the leash in his mouth, and Red Rock Canyon is kinda calling my name. I’ve got my coffee already and I’m actually not all that hungry from dinner. You know what? I’ll go on that hike, skip breakfast, and really work up an appetite for lunch. Or not. If I’m hungry afterwards, I’ll eat. It’s a fast, but not really.
I hit the gym, put in a light workout, then swing by the beach for some sand sprints. I’m toast by the end and have to stagger back to my car, but I’m not hungry. Even when I get home and smell the grilled salmon, I have no desire for it. I might eat later that night, but only if my appetite returns. I’m fasting post-workout only because it doesn’t occur to me to eat, not because I’m following a plan.
I’m away on business, stuck on a layover that’s turned into a delay that’s turned into an overnighter. The only food available is a Kudos candy bar – I mean, healthy granola bar (they seriously still make these?) from the mini fridge, a greasy pizza joint on the corner across the street from the hotel, a Chinese takeout place next to the pizza joint, and a slew of fast food restaurants some ways down the road. It’s late, I’m tired, I had a Big Ass Salad before I left for LAX… you know what? I’m just going to skip the “meal.” I’ll figure out something at the airport in the morning (20 hour fast) or once I land (24 hour fast). And I’ll be okay either way.
That’s eating When Hunger Ensues Naturally.
This is the most natural, most effortless way of “fasting,” at least for me, because it allows a person to eat intuitively. Although most people will eventually acclimate to more regimented fasting schedules, and many may even need and thrive with that structure, I prefer a more fractal, loose, random pattern of “missing” (in quotations because I don’t feel like I’m missing anything, and that’s the whole point!) meals. I have no data on whether it’s as effective or more effective than the more popular methods, but I do know that I’ll often fast for 16 hours and eat for eight, or skip an entire day of eating, or sometimes (but very, very rarely) even approach a full 30 hours, and it seems likely that this random pattern of eating characterized the eating “schedules” of our ancestors.
In short, we’re all doing the same thing, chasing the same goals. We’re all skipping meals, reducing calories, staying active, and all the while we’re doing this without feeling miserable and restricted. It just so happens that because we’re efficient Primal fat-burning beasts, switching over to burning our own body fat reserves for energy during a fast is a natural, seamless transition. We often don’t even notice it. There’s no effort involved.
That’s the key: lack of stress. If any or all of these fasting methods stress you out, make you irritable, kill your performance, make you feel restricted, or reduce your ability to enjoy life, and these feelings persist beyond the first five fasts you attempt (when some adaptation difficulties are totally expected), you shouldn’t employ them. You should shelve fasting for a while and come back to it later, or never. It’s not a “requirement” or anything. It’s just a tool you can wield if your situation warrants it. In fact, this is the perfect opportunity to conduct an informal experiment of one. Try Leangains for a week or two, then throw in a full 24 hour fast once or twice a week for a bit, then try the WHEN method. Compare and contrast. How did you feel? How did you perform at work, at home, and in the gym? Take some waist measurements perhaps, or analyze your favorite barometer of body composition to see how the different fasting methods worked – or didn’t work – for you.
Now, I’d like to hear from you. What’s your favorite fasting method? Do you have one, or you just kinda go with the flow? Be sure to review the previous installments below and if you have any questions about any of the stuff I’ve covered in this series, leave them in the comment section and I’ll try to get them answered for you next week. Thanks for reading!
Here’s the entire series for easy reference:
Why Fast? Part One – Weight Loss
Why Fast? Part Three – Longevity
Why Fast? Part Four – Brain Health
Why Fast? Part Five – Exercise
Why Fast? Part Six – Choosing a Method
Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/why-fast-part-six-choosing-a-method/#ixzz2JkjsLjdU
