Monta Vista Running’s first seminar on Monday, November 7 was a great evening! More than 60 people came to the Monta Vista auditorium to hear Erica McClain, Dr. Russell Pate and Coach Edrick Floreal.
Erica opened the evening by talking about her experiences as a world-class athlete and high-achieving student. She made wonderful statements about being equally proud of her athletic and academic achievements.
Dr. Pate covered a wide range of topics covering the benefits of youth running and also some training guidelines. The benefits are wide-ranging and in many cases scientifically verified–and more work is being done. One thing we learned was that all humans layer on additional bone material until we are in our early 20s–and then for the rest of our life we lose skeletal mass. So strengthening our bones during our teen age years is important–and we have a deadline! (Sorry, fellow adults–it is too late for us!). Dr. Pate showed us data that showed that female middle distance runners had measurably more bone mineral content and bone strength than girls with less than three hours per week of physical activity. He took the group through a wide variety of studies covering muscle strengthening, aerobic activity and mental acuity, and gave some insights into future research work. You can find a copy of his presentation at:
http://www.mvrunning.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Dr-Pate-Presentation.pdf
Coach Floreal concluded the evening’s talks with some personal observations as both the head coach at Stanford and as a parent. Several parents made comments to me about how relevant his talk was to their lives and their families. Coach Floreal reminded us, among other things, that it is OK to learn how to fail also–that we need to exceed our limits now and then, both to try to find our limits and also to learn how to deal with adversity.
All the speakers stayed afterwards to answer questions–and there were many!
Thank you so much to all the speakers. Words can’t express how much I appreciate your time and commitment.