Alumni Links
April 7, 2007: Alysia Johnson Yesterday at the Stanford/Cal meet,
star junior Alysia Johnson set the only Big Meet record,
clocking 2:03.43 to win the 800 by six seconds. She eclipsed a 24-year-old mark
held by Cal's Louise Romo, whose school record Johnson also is chasing. "She's
a beast," Cal coach Chris Huffins said affectionately.

March 28, 2007 Salim Benmohamed at C.O.C.
Hey coach, I ran a 1:54.16 at Cal Relays. Im working towards my goal
of 1:51 or faster. Hopefully i'll get that mark at the UCLA invite.
My splits were 56.6 57.5
Take Care, Salim

Feb 21, 2007 Lauren Fleshman has a blog here

Feb 12, 2007 Cory Cunningham
I found these results interesting, and thought maybe you would too. Now, this is a different study than the core temperature one. It will have something to do with running with some special shoes on a submerged treadmill or something. Anyway, my account of this follows: VO2 Max test. It started out walking for a couple minutes after they put the whole apparatus/mask on me. Then, they put it up to 7.5 mph, or 8:00 mile pace. I did this for a couple of minutes, during which they told me that when I had only about a minute left of energy in me, to raise up one finger and I would just go until I couldn't anymore. Every minute after that, they increased the incline by 1.5 increments. Even though it was at a fairly slow pace, it was hard because it was like running a race up a progressively steeper hill. I got to about 14:30 total. I couldn't run anymore. My quads, calves, shoulders, and lungs were burning. I got good results, though. A "well above average" VO2 Max for my agre group is a 52 according to the chart they showed me, and I got a 65.1, which stands for mL Oxygen/kg body weight/ minute. My heart rate got above 200 bpm by the time I ended. I supposedly tied for the highest VO2 Max tested in the study. So even though it was a VERY difficult effort, an all-out race effort, I felt good afterward. I was satisfied. Even now, though, a day later, I'm still feeling the effects of it.

Feb 1, 2007 Cory Cunningham
writes: I hope you are all doing well back in old Canyon Country. I thought you would be interested in something I'm participating in right now. For a little background first, I am one of the 3 or 4 stalwart members of the Running Club, showing up every day to run. The regulars are me and a few guys who either used to be on the BYU team or have tried out for it--something I am considering doing once I get back from my mission. Anyway, one of the staff here, Iain Hunter, is a biomechanist for USATF, and the coach here, Ed Eyestone, is still very involved with Nike. They have been doing some research the last couple years on body temperature and warming up. They have been testing out some "ice vests," which are basically vests with a whole bunch of pockets for ice packs. The idea behind them is that if you wear them about an hour before the race and as you warm up, your core body temperature will stay lower and have more capacity to rise as you run, thus yielding higher performance. So for some more test subjects, they were looking for some experienced, pretty quick runners who had tried out for the team before--probably to make sure they were getting the quality of runner they desired. I was let in also since the leader of our running club said that I could handle it and that theyd probably like another person anyway. So this morning, I woke up at 5 AM to swallow a pill as the first part of the testing. The pill is a thermometer that transmits its reading to be read by an outside device. So I went back to sleep, then woke up to be down at the lab at 8:00. I took off my shirt, so it wouldn't slow the cooling process, and put on the ice vest after a first temperature reading was taken. I sat with it on until I was ready to warm up for a treadmill speed session to be held at 9. Iain would take readings every 10 minutes and record the results. I warmed up on the treadmill while still wearing the vest, then took it off and began. It was a 15 minute session at slightly slower than lactic threshold pace, which right now is only about 6:15. So I did that while he took readings of my core temperature and heart rate. I go back on Tuesday to do a session without the ice vest, and sometime in the near future to get a bone density scan so they can figure out my body fat. It has been cool to be a part of so far. One of the things I found interesting about it is how my heart rate acted. It was only 86 BPM when I finished my warmup and was stretching before the threshold run. As soon as I started, though, it jumped up to 168 BPM. It slowly rose from there, minute by minute, until I was at about 188 BPM for the last 5 or 6. It still felt pretty good, though, and I didn't feel especially tired like a race effort.
Anyway, I again hope you are all doing well. I just thought I'd share this cool running-related activity with you all. Good luck and good hunting this track season.

-Cory Cunningham