Run Faster

World records in running are improving at a fantastic rate, and recent studies indicate those records are getting faster because runners are running much faster while they train.Thirty years ago, top marathon runners trained by using an interval workout of 40 quarter-mile runs averaging about 67 seconds each. Today, no knowledgeable marathon runner would run that many quarter-mile repetitions at such a slow pace. A more respectable workout would be to run only 12 quarters, but to make each run much faster, averaging less than 60 seconds each.

Notre Dame wide receiver Golden Tate has turned some heads here, at least after Sunday's performance in the 40-yard dash. Tate ran a 4.36 and a 4.37 in his two attempts, which might convince someone to take a chance on him in the first round. Even Tate predicted in his interview he would probably run somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.5. He didn't do quite as well in the pass catching drills -- dropping several balls -- but most teams seem comfortable with his hands. Percy Harvin , one of the players Tate thinks he compares favorably with, ran a 4.40 at the combine and a 4.32 at his pro day. Tate was a running back in high school, but made the transition to wide receiver fairly quickly.

If you have suddenly lost your energy and feel tired all the time, you may have hepatitis C, a viral infection that was discovered in 1988. There were 150,000 new cases last year.Nobody knows all the ways that the virus is transmitted. You can pick up the virus through blood transfusions, infected needles and sexual contact with an infected partner, but a lot of people with hepatitis C have none of these risk factors. Country singer Naomi Judd was forced to retire because of this disease.

In his younger days, Jeffrey Perkins spent countless hours practicing acrobatic flips with his neighborhood friends. These days, however, it's the track coaches at Woodlawn who are doing back flips over the emergence of the 17-year-old as one of the area's premier sprinters. The senior recently won three Baltimore County titles, including individual gold in the 400, and followed that up with individual championships in the 100 and 400 at the Class 4A North regionals. Now, two years after transferring from Reginald F. Lewis High in the city, Perkins will be one of Woodlawn's top hopes at this weekend's Class 4A state meet.

Fast runners are born, not made, but you can train yourself to run faster by strengthening and stretching your leg muscles and practicing.To run fast in athletic competition, you have to run fast in training. All training is done by stressing and recovering. Run very fast on one day and slowly on the next because every time that you run fast, your muscles are injured and it takes at least 48 hours for them to recover. Try to run very fast two or three times a week. Run very fast over distances that are shorter than you normally run in your sport.

After nearly four years of training athletes to run faster and jump higher, the Cal Ripken Jr. Sports Acceleration Center will close this month, a spokesman for Ripken and the center said. Ripken, who owns the center, likely will redeploy elsewhere, possibly in the baseball complex he is building in Aberdeen, the spokesman said. "We made the decision to pull in the concept," John C. Maroon said. "We wanted to do it so we can apply certain aspects of it down the road. Cal very much liked the acceleration program and how it worked with kids, and how it fit in with our youth focus."

The best way to prepare for an important competition, particularly running, is to taper your training for several days before the event. What's the best way to taper?Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, studied competitive athletes who were running 50 miles a week. One week before competition, the runners were given three different training programs.One group did no running at all. Another group ran fewer than 20 miles, very slowly. The last group sprinted 500 meters, five times on the first day of tapering, then four times on the second day, three times on the third day, two times on the fourth day and one time on the fifth day. On day six, they rested.

Do you think you would be able to run a marathon faster by running short distances very fast once or twice a week and doing fewer miles overall, or by running more than twice as many miles slowly?Surprise. You'll do better if you train by running short distances very fast. Strengthening your leg muscles will help you to run longer, even in a marathon. The principle of specificity applies to strength training.To become strong for running, you have to strengthen your leg muscles, using the same motion that you use while running.

If you are happy with your jogging program, continue as you are doing, but if you want to be able to run faster, you have to push yourself to run faster a couple of times a week, even though it may increase your chance of injuring yourself and you may not be able to run as many miles.Competitive runners know that the only way to become faster is to run faster in practice. At the University of Copenhagen, Danish scientists studied experienced runners who had been running 60 miles a week at a fast pace.

After three years of training athletes to run faster and jump higher, the Cal Ripken Jr. Sports Acceleration Center will close this month, a spokesman for Ripken and the center said. Ripken, who owns the center, likely will re-deploy elsewhere, possibly in the baseball complex he is building in Aberdeen, the spokesman said. "We made the decision to pull in the concept," John C. Maroon said. "We wanted to do it so we can apply certain aspects of it down the road. Cal very much liked the acceleration program and how it worked with kids, and how it fit in with our youth focus."

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - The 21st Breeders' Cup concluded Saturday at Lone Star Park with a spectacular performance by Ghostzapper - a horse unknown outside racing circles. The bay colt, 4 years old and suitably named for Halloween exploits, led every step of the $4 million Breeders' Cup Classic to win by three lengths in a record time of 1 minute, 59.02 seconds for 1 1/4 miles. No previous winner of the Classic, North America's richest race, had run faster - not Sunday Silence, not Alysheba, not Cigar.

IT SHOULDN'T come as a big surprise that McDonogh senior Tristram Thomas got a big kick out of the Hereford cross country course that just about everyone else thinks is a run through a gauntlet of villains. For Thomas, the competition in the Bull Run Invitational, and the run across its hilly and exacting layout, was just one more opportunity to venture out from the safe and expected and to try something different. "The first time you see it [the Hereford course], you're sort of shocked at how difficult it is, but you come back for many years after that and, actually, it almost gets fun, even despite its incredible difficulty," Thomas said.

ALTHOUGH I HAD been watching games for weeks, that Friday night was the first time I could hear one. Perched on the hilltop sidewalk behind Jacksonville Elementary School in Phoenix, Md., I had watched my son's lacrosse games with binoculars. To help me find him in the sea of Carroll Manor Recreational Council blue jerseys, he wore a yellow T-shirt and left the shirttail out. Once I located the yellow-trimmed jersey, I knew I had found my 8-year-old son, Peter. That Friday, my friend, Jarrod, helped me down that hill, across the baseball field and over to the lacrosse game sidelines.

After nearly four years of training athletes to run faster and jump higher, the Cal Ripken Jr. Sports Acceleration Center will close this month, a spokesman for Ripken and the center said. Ripken, who owns the center, likely will redeploy elsewhere, possibly in the baseball complex he is building in Aberdeen, the spokesman said. "We made the decision to pull in the concept," John C. Maroon said. "We wanted to do it so we can apply certain aspects of it down the road. Cal very much liked the acceleration program and how it worked with kids, and how it fit in with our youth focus."

After three years of training athletes to run faster and jump higher, the Cal Ripken Jr. Sports Acceleration Center will close this month, a spokesman for Ripken and the center said. Ripken, who owns the center, likely will re-deploy elsewhere, possibly in the baseball complex he is building in Aberdeen, the spokesman said. "We made the decision to pull in the concept," John C. Maroon said. "We wanted to do it so we can apply certain aspects of it down the road. Cal very much liked the acceleration program and how it worked with kids, and how it fit in with our youth focus."

James Carter and Bernard Williams excused themselves from their regular circles and twice broke bread together at the U.S. track and field championships in late June. Both were in the process of qualifying for the world championships, which begin today in Edmonton, Alberta, but their catching up over two nights in Oregon restaurants had little to do with running. "It wasn't about track," Carter said of their conversations. "I know that's what we do for a living, but you need to escape sometimes, and we talked about what's going on with the rest of our lives.

All men are created equal . . .Not exactly.Some men -- and some women -- jump higher and run faster than others, just to mention a few physical differences. And most men jump higher and run faster than most women, a fact recognized by organizations that recruit people who must be physically fit.The armed services, police and fire departments judge men and women by different performance standards that take into account the physiological differences between the sexes. Even the South Carolina military college, the Citadel, which last month lost its lone female candidate, was holding that woman to a different physical standard.

If you watched the recent Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, no doubt you were impressed with the performance of runners from mountainous nations. You may have wondered why this was so.The reason: The runners' high-altitude home environments helped them become better competitive distance runners because sleeping at high altitude helps the body use oxygen more efficiently.Igor Gamow of the University of Colorado has shown you can run faster by sleeping where oxygen is sparse. When you sleep at high altitudes, you breathe oxygen-sparse air, causing your kidneys to produce large amounts of erythropoietin (EPO)

FORT MEADE -- Quietly and without fanfare, men and women in the Army achieved a measure of equality last week on a muddy practice field.Sgt. Corinne Castanza and Spc. Omari Walker had to complete at least 50 sit-ups to pass the Army's new physical fitness test.Five years in the making, the new test narrows a gender gap that caused grumbling from male soldiers, who complained that women were getting off easy on the semiannual test that also requires push-ups and and a 2-mile run.And there's a lot at stake in the three events of the test: The fitness score is among the factors considered for promotions and entry into advanced Army courses.

All men are created equal . . .Not exactly.Some men -- and some women -- jump higher and run faster than others, just to mention a few physical differences. And most men jump higher and run faster than most women, a fact recognized by organizations that recruit people who must be physically fit.The armed services, police and fire departments judge men and women by different performance standards that take into account the physiological differences between the sexes. Even the South Carolina military college, the Citadel, which last month lost its lone female candidate, was holding that woman to a different physical standard.