The Vancouver USA Marathon race mobile application is a simplified version of the Strands Fitness mobile app, a GPS tracker combined with social networking integration.  With the race app, participants and spectators can receive updates from the race director, view photos uploaded by the community, and live athlete tracking on the race day.

Benefits for the event organizers:

• Keep race participants updated with news and race information
• Provide training tips and sponsor messages
• Distribute detailed course maps with elevation profile, aid stations and entertainment on the course

Benefits for event participants and spectators:

• Receive event news directly to your phone
• Track runners in real-time on race day
• Find exclusive deals and promotion from the event sponsors
• Share and view photos by the community

Download the Vancouver USA Marathon app here.

For more information, please contact Wookie@strands.com

New and Improved Features

Goals

We’ve revamped our goals! All goals will be displayed in the the progress bar and will be automatically updated with every activity you add to your training log. To share a goal, click on the yellow ‘More’ button. Choose goal options including Simple, Weight and Activity and define how you want to track.

Progress Summary

View your activity summary for the current week! The progress tab displays active goals, recent workouts and friends’ activity. From the report tab, you’ll get your weekly summary charts, recent activity from your contacts and current active goals. From the complete summary page, you can then navigate to the pages and posts you wish to find.

• Facebook Login
• Layout theme
• Faster!
• Easier user navigation

Using Strands Fitness Beta

Remember, any posts created in the Strands Fitness Beta application will only be saved and available in Beta. When the Beta application replaces current site at fitness.strands.com, all your saved activity history from Beta will then be transferred. We suggest you try out Beta, but choose one application to add your activity. Facebook login users will not be able to access fitness.strands.com until the Beta application replaces the current site at fitness.strands.com

If you have any questions, comments and concerns, please visit our Beta FAQ or contact us at feedback@strands.com.

Thank you for your support as we create a stronger application to help achieve your fitness goals!
Strands Fitness

Javier is now competing in the United States under the sponsorship of Suunto, Louis Garneau, Oakley, Nike, and Cervélo among others.  You can follow his training at Strands.com/javiergomeznoya.

Meghan’s tip of the week…get regular massage therapy. Massage is a great tool to keep you healthy and running faster than ever. Massage therapy keeps your muscles supple and strong by promoting blood circulation, elasticity, flexibility and relieving stress from both workouts and everyday life. And did I mention; it feels great!

A quick note: after your first session of massage you may not feel like normal, your legs may feel “heavier” than usual. However, with continued therapy you will see the results you are looking for, namely an increase in work capacity and faster times.

Think massage therapy would be too much of a burden on your wallet? Think again. Search online or the phone book for a local college offering massage therapy. Students are always looking for volunteers on which to hone their skills. And it is great for you because you get a person who is enthusiastic about what they are doing and usually at a deeply discounted price. I personally have tried many different massage therapists and can say without a doubt that Suzie, a student at St. Paul College, gives the best massages. In an hour’s time my legs go from tired and sore to feeling refreshed and ready for my next workout.

Massage is just one little piece in the puzzle of becoming the best runner you can be. People often emphasize the importance of a great workout, but you shouldn’t forget that recovery from workouts is equally as important.

2008 Olympic Trials 800m champion; Two-time USA Outdoor runner-up (’06, ’07); 2007 USA Indoor champion; Seven-time NCAA Div. III Outdoor champion (800m, 1,500m)

I can still remember my first season of high school cross country with stunning clarity. It was an exciting time as I embarked on a new chapter of my life. I recall how those first few weeks of conditioning were brutal and I would go home every afternoon barely able to lift my fork at dinner. However, each day after school I would throw on my beat up trainers and head to the track to meet the coach and find out what new form of torture he thought up for us. At the time, I hated everything about running (except maybe the fact that the men’s and women’s team practiced together). I hated the pain; I hated the way my body was always drained of energy and I didn’t like the coach telling me when to go to bed and what to eat. But, the thing I remember hating most was the t-shirts we were given the first week of practice. Now, I certainly don’t claim to be any kind of creative genius, but these shirts were the worst. They were relatively standard issue: white, cotton and our school’s letters on the front. But it was the quote on the back of these shirts that really rubbed me the wrong way. It read, “Our sport is your sport’s punishment.” It was seeing these words and understanding their truth that made me realize how masochistic our daily endeavor really was.

To understand my feelings you have to know what led me to the cross-country team in the first place. In the fall of 1998 I stood just over 5’0″ and weighed in at a whopping 95 lbs. Up to that point, my sport and passion in life had always been soccer. I dreamed of playing on the high school varsity team and perhaps one day in college. However, there was very little interest from the head soccer coach in putting a pre-pubescent fourteen year old anywhere near the playing field when there was a good chance he would be obliterated by fully developed juniors and seniors. Instead, it was suggested that I spend a season with the cross country team and work on my fitness so that when I returned a year later I would be more developed in my cardiovascular fitness and muscular strength. This was tough for me to hear because I loved everything about soccer. I loved the team, the games, even the practices. In fact, I would say that the only part I did not enjoy were the times when we would mess up a drill or show up late to practice and the coach would actually PUNISH us by making us run laps. So, imagine my utter disgust when I was asked to wear shirt advertising the fact that we were, as the coach put it, “running for fun!” I thanked the team captains for my shirt and as soon as I was home tossed it in the bottom of my closet.

I continued to push my body to its limits each day at cross country practice and found myself growing stronger and faster and, of all things, winning races. At first it was the winning part that kept me going. I loved crossing the finish line in first, knowing that on that particular day I defeated an entire field of people in a physical challenge. Of course, as a late bloomer, the cross country course was one of the few places where I could actually achieve such a feat. For years it was the pure desire to win competitions that fueled my training. Though I would dread the countless miles that I would have to log day in and day out to be great, knowing that the next competition was only a few weeks away would keep me going.

Then, somewhere along the line, everything changed. I learned to love the training as much, if not more than the competitions. There was something incredible about going for a ten mile run and knowing that I had seen and accomplished so much, usually before noon! Whenever I ran in a foreign city I would return to my hotel room knowing that few tourists saw the sights and places I had been; those out-of-the-way bike paths and trails that we runners eagerly search for the second we touch down in a new place. Running a workout no longer felt like a punishment of any kind, but rather more of a challenge to surpass my prior achievements. I got to the point where training had become so much a part of my life that my eating and sleeping cycles completely revolved around my workouts. To this day, I live my life the same way. I love to race and feel the rush that competition provides, but I have learned to appreciate the process and cherish the journey.