We still have our eyes glued to the updates coming from Italy, in the Giro d'Italia. Garmin veteran and pride of Canada Ryder Hesjedal currently sits in second place with only one week remaining. He has traded the leader's jersey, Maglia Rosa, a few times and is determined to earn it back before the final stage. The big mountains and climbs remain and we can't wait to watch the lanky Canadian attempt to bring victory to the Garmin Nation.

Take a look at the Garmin Connect data from Zabriskie's time trial in California. His official time had his average moving speed over 30mph for the entire ride!! With the rush-hour traffic around here, I don't think I average that speed driving in my car at night.

Hello there, Garmin runners. I am so honored and blessed to be given the opportunity to represent the United States this summer in the Marathon and to be supported by a great company like Garmin. My training has been going great and I am on track to toe the line in August and stride for a chance at victory! I wanted to share a few insider tips with you about things runners can do to improve their marathon and half marathon times:

1. Do fartlek training:

Here’s an example of how it works. Always remember to warm up before you start and approach each session with lots of energy. Try to avoid putting a time or distance limit on the session before you start:

• Jog gently for 5 minutes (or so) then pick a landmark in the distance to aim for and a running pace. For example, this could be the next lamppost in your view, and you decide to run at 70% of your maximum speed until you reach it.

• Run toward the landmark at the pace you’ve decided and when you reach your target, start jogging again until you’re ready for the next burst of speed.

• Pick a new landmark and running pace, but make sure they’re different from the previous one. For example, you now decide to run to the end of the street at 90% of your maximum speed.

• Keep completing these varying distances and speeds with gentle jogging in between. End the session when you feel you’ve done enough and had a thorough workout.

3. Do drills for 4 to 5 minutes at the end of your run. Also, be sure to apply sit ups and push ups or other forms of core workouts to your routine. This will help with strength and decrease your chance of injury. Here are a few examples of drills:

• High Knee Running / Quick Feet Drill

The objective of this drill is to increase your leg turnover and improve your knee lift for when you need to pick up the pace a bit.

Start off jogging slowly, when you hit the point where you want to start your drill, increase your stride rate so that you take as many steps as possible over about 20 meters or so with a high knee action. You should be bringing your legs up in front of you and maintaining a nice upright posture. The goal is not to move forward quickly but to maximize the number of steps that you take; remember this one is about leg turnover not stride length.

You should feel this one in the front of you hips and thighs (hip flexors) as they will be working hard to lift your legs up in front of you. Do a few quad stretches after this one to loosen things up.

• Butt Kicks

Butt Kicks have a very similar objective to the high knee running drill, to increase leg turnover. However, as you most probably have guessed from the name, the emphasis is on the hamstrings and the recovery stage of your stride. The hamstrings are often overlooked by runners and other athletes who have strong thighs from other activities so this one is good for getting a bit of balance back.

Once again begin by jogging slowly toward the spot where you want to start your drill and increase your stride rate, concentrating on getting you feet moving as quickly as you can and getting your lower leg to swing up behind you. Your heel should literally be hitting your butt. Continue on for about 20 meters.

During this one you will feel it in your hamstrings, so show them some love and jog out of each repetition. Stretch gently if things are feeling a bit tight.

• Pull Throughs

This is one of the hardest drills from a coordination point of view. If you can master this one then you should feel pretty agile. The objective with this drill is to develop the timing and power to get your leg in position to power yourself through your stride, hence increasing your stride length.

Starting from a walk, in a nice upright position, extend your leg out in front of you like a hurdler and then bring your leg down and through to contact the ground in a powerful fashion directly under your center of gravity. As your foot contacts the ground, drive up on your toes and swing your other leg forward and repeat. Do about 12 to 15 steps on each leg like this.

Do a bit of a jog after each repetition concentrating on your form and imagine you are Desi Davila!

• Bounding

Bounding is also a tough drill, however it is also the most fun and beneficial once you have it locked in. Bounding will really help you to develop your leg power and strength, in turn increasing your stride length.

Again, beginning from a slow jog, bound forward and upwards with a high knee lift. Land on your other leg and repeat the movement. Continue alternating legs. Concentrate on holding good form and keep your head up and drive with you arms. This will help you keep the whole movement together. Repeat for 8 to 10 steps on each leg. Jog out of each repetition.

Since this is a more advanced movement, heavier runners and people who have not done this drill before should take things easy and not try to drive too far or too high with each stride. If you find it hard or your form deteriorates you are better to do a smaller number of bounds on each leg, rest, and then repeat.

Keep chasing your dreams and working hard,

Meb

• Dashboard

Here you will see your five most recent activities including a brief summary of each and a view on the map.

• Analyze

In this area you will have access to your activities page (a list of all your past activities including metrics of each), reports (where you can really dig in and look at your progress by searching for weekly, monthly or custom date range totals or averages), and health (this is your personal well-being portal where you can input your daily weight and with the Tanita BC-1000 Body Composition Monitor you'll see Body Fat, Body Water, Bone Mass, Muscle Mass and many other useful metrics)

• Plan

With this tab we have given you quick access to your calendar (to view past and scheduled workouts), courses (where you can create a custom course/route and send directly to your compatible device or just to get an idea of where you might want to run/ride/explore), workouts (a tool to allow you to create your own workouts no matter how simple or complex and send to your compatible device or to print off and bring with you), and goals (with this option you can keep yourself honest, and motivated by setting goals based on time, speed, pace or distance to name a few and let us track these over a set period of time for you)

• Explore

Here you'll be able to search the millions of public activities from around the world and even access courses that other users have created. You'll also have one-click access to the cycling data of Team Garmin.

As with any change in our lives, whether it's a new pair of shoes (those annoying blisters after the first couple runs), a new seat on your bike (not always a fun break-in period) or a new look to your favorite social media site, we understand it can take some getting used to.

It is our goal to continue to interact with all of you and to create a Garmin Connect Community where active users can feel like home!

This past weekend also marked the start of the Tour of California (TOC), where Team Garmin has sent a top squad in search of an overall individual victory. Last year, the team took home the best overall team award and want to keep that momentum moving forward. Tom Danielson appears to be the team's leader for this year's TOC and based on his early season form we should be in for a fun ride! After stage one of the race, Garmin had earned its way onto the podium with Heinrich Haussler in second position.

As evidence from their unparalleled, exclusive race and behind-the-scenes footage, our friends at Bicycling Magazine appear to have caught the argyle fever too. At their "Garmin Insider" page you can find photos, candid interviews and videos about your favorite Garmin riders. The stylish kits that our riders wear with pride even made the list of the top stylish teams of 2012!

Here is a great recap of the first stage as told by team manager Jonathan Vaughters: Stage One.

Get your cowbells out and your vuvuzelas pointed to the sky as we cheer our argyle riders on to victory!!

As things go some times, my second day there I pulled my calf muscle on a run, and running was out for this month of training. Not ideal, but we must adapt. Focus became getting healthy and putting big miles in on the bike, and what was already going to be a focus….swimming! As luck had it, my Forerunner 910xt showed up in the mail the day before I left for camp, and I was able to use this amazing unit to track my progress and work for the next 5 weeks. I decided for these 35 days, I would swim--  every day. No matter what happened I would touch the water every day. Whether it was swimming with my big brother on the Ironman Hawaii course or a workout in the pool. Sure, some days were lighter, but some days were heavier with double swims sandwiched around a long ride. But I was in the water swimming. I had never been able to swim this much before due to weak shoulders and chronic pain. Before my trip I went in to Rebound Physical Therapy and learned some pretty useful exercises that I did daily to strengthen my weak muscles so I could handle the swim load.

One of my favorite swims was an open water swim from my sponsor in Hawaii, The Mauna Launi Hotel  & Bungalows. I would usually walk to a neighboring beach and swim laps around a boat that was moored about 500 yards out. Typically, I did a few warm up laps, then I would do laps for time, and then usually somewhere I would focus on breakout speed to simulate a race effort and then settle in. It was a great way to find rhythm and get a good feel for race type conditions. Of course the turtles and the handful of dolphins, I was lucky enough to have as swim buddies from time to time, were a welcome treat. They would come close enough for me to tack onto the end of their group, and I would literally swim my pace with dolphins surrounding me.  Spectacular, and yes I promise this is work!

It was great to be able to swim in the ocean, but at least half of my swimming was done in a pool. This is essential as I am always trying to improve upon my stroke and drills and shorter intervals are essential for this.  My coach Matt Dixon would prescribe the set, and I would put my head down and get to work.  Most days in the pool were between 4-5,500 yards and consisted of a mix of intensities and drills.  My focus for this period was to improve my cadence of my stroke and I would do this by swimming faster 25 yard intervals and doing drills with a snorkel and a band around my ankles (something that was easy to track with my 910XT). Try tying your feet up and swimming, your stroke rate will improve. ha ;)

Did this 'swim camp' work?  Yes, I believe it did. In 35 days I swam every day with a total distance for the camp of over 150,000 yards. This is not a huge load compared to some “swimmers”, but for me, as a triathlete with chronic shoulder issues, this was huge. In 5 weeks I had noticeably more speed and strength in open water and my pool 100yd pace had improved by 3-4 seconds. I’ll take it. Once the season gets rolling this should put me in the front group of every race and allow me to race from the front early.  Definitely worth the 35 days of “swim camp”. 

Moral of the story is, focused 'one' sport camps, or focusing on a weakness for a period of time can be VERY beneficial. With triathlon we have to juggle so much that sometimes we become stagnant because we spread ourselves too thin. For me, this camp showed that a single sport focus can allow you to make breakthroughs in a short period of time, and in the end will lead you to be an overall better athlete if handled correctly.  And…. Training in Hawaii is pretty awesome ;)

-- Matt

I started out with a Forerunner 205 roughly 7 years ago (I was “just” a runner at the time). I really loved it and it played a big part in my wanting to work for Garmin. I’ve retired the 205, but currently use a Forerunner 405 for runs, an Edge 500 for biking, and the Forerunner 910XT for swimming and brick or triple workouts. The biggest benefit for me personally has been finally incorporating heart rate-based training. I used to poo-poo heart rate monitoring, thinking that I know my body and what it is capable of, but it turns out there was a whole other level I hadn’t been tapping into. I’ve been on a heart rate-based plan I found online for about 6 months now in preparation for Ironman Texas, and I use a Forerunner or Edge in every workout to make sure I’m keeping the intensity I’m supposed to. Having a plan like this makes it really easy. You go out, you make your Garmin say what it needs to say, no thinking about it, no excuses.

After Ironman Texas, I’ll compete in the ITU Long Course World’s in Vittoria, Spain at the end of July, so this is turning out to be quite the season for me. This sounds crazy, but Ironman Texas is actually a warm-up race for worlds so that the O3 distance doesn’t seem as intimidating. I sort of lucked into qualifying for it. I was the last qualifier in my age group at nationals last October. But it has been very motivating knowing that I’m going to have “USA OLSON” printed on my tri suit, and I want to have a good showing for myself and my country. Now I’m feeling very confident about things, and excited for summer to get here already, which is not something we usually wish for in Arizona.

Check out Lauren's swim, bike and run data from the Marquee Triathlon in Garmin Connect, our site for free online analysis, storing and sharing.

This morning, we are excited to announce a new feature within the Fit App-- an app that turns your smartphone into a powerful fitness training tool. This new feature, LiveTrack, is an affordable, secure and easy way to let others track you during your favorite fitness pursuits. With Livetrack, you can easily set up a new tracking session and email a link to your friends and family or you can even post the link via Facebook and Twitter to let the masses follow your event or training session.

One of the many awesome features of LiveTrack is its ability to display, in real time, your pace/speed (changes depending on cycling or running), distance, elevation and if you already own any of Garmin's ANT+ accessories like a heart rate monitor, foot pod or cadence sensor you can plug in an ANT+ Adapter (for iPhone) and it will show those stats too (if you have an Android phone that is ANT+ compatible you will see these stats as well)!! Sure, there are a few other tools out there that can tell you where someone is, but with the Fit App and LiveTrack this is taken to a new level.

We have ensured that this feature is mobile optimized to give you the best experience on your home computer, smartphone or tablet. Many races offer tracking solutions and only update at various mile markers throughout a course, yet with LiveTrack, you'll know that friends and family can track your every move and see just how fast and far you are running/cycling the entire race. If you are like me, you might not be a fan of running with a phone in your hand, however LiveTrack is fully functional even if you can't see the screen. So, placing the phone in a fuel belt or arm pouch works great for me and I use my more robust Forerunner running watch to view my metrics like pace, time and distance. 

This is also the perfect companion for cyclists who want to give friends and family a peace of mind while out on long rides. Cyclists can activate a LiveTrack session and stow their smart phone in their saddle bag right under their seat-- protected from the elements-- giving viewers a feeling of being with the rider at all times. During a LiveTrack session, their accessory data (heart rate, cadence etc..) will display on both the phone and their Edge cycling computer (with ANT+ iPhone Adapter).

LiveTrack can be activated directly from your smartphone for only $1.99 per month or $19.99 for an annual subscription by using the Garmin Fit app.

As with any App that uses GPS, you'll want to remember to set up your phone in advance to get the most of your battery. Try some of these easy steps to enhance your Fit App and LiveTrack experience:

How can I extend the battery life of my phone when using the Garmin Fit smartphone app?

If you plan to use the Garmin Fit smartphone app for an extended period of time, it could cause shorter than normal battery life. Following one or more of these steps when using the LiveTrack feature will be beneficial.

The following tips can help to extend your phones battery life while using the app:

• Turn off the screen¹
• Lowering the brightness level is also effective if you do not wish to turn the screen off during use²
• Turn off Wi-Fi²
• Turn off Bluetooth²
• Disable any additional apps that may run in the background or auto-sync

¹ Tap the power button on the phone to turn off the screen, but do not power the phone off. The Garmin Fit app will continue to run with the screen off.

² Consult your phones manual for instructions on changing these settings.

So to combat the uncertainty, I’ve assumed that everything will go right, and written a plan that will get me to Olympic Trials feeling my best, where I will qualify for the US Team and spend the summer preparing for London by racing World Cups in Europe and hardening my stomach to English Breakfast Tea. That’s Plan A.

Then, I came up with another schedule, where I’m focused on domestic races like the Lifetime Fitness Series, 5150, Rev3, Tri-California, and Ironman 70.3 Series. Not all of them, obviously, just the best races that each has to offer. This schedule in Plan A and Plan B is awesome! Plan B has me racing 15 times all over the US against the best non-drafting athletes around. If Plan A doesn’t happen (qualifying for the Olympics) then Plan B will keep me both busy and challenged.

1. Create a spreadsheet with all the possible races on it, sorted chronologically by weekend.
2. Figure out how many races you are able and want to participate in. It’s nice to include your significant other on this step.
3. Go through and choose the best race from every weekend with more than one race.
4. Find the races you definitely want to do and highlight them.
5. If any of the highlighted races require qualification, make sure the qualifying race is highlighted.
6. If you have too many races, remove some that you don’t “need” to do. Start with the ones you didn’t highlight, then the ones on bad weekends (do you really want to race on your wife’s birthday?) then take off any race with a course that just doesn’t suit you.
7. Continue removing races until you have only the number of races that you chose in step 2.
8. Present this list to your family and ask for objections, then present to your coach.
9. Last, be flexible. Plans change. Injuries happen, family stuff crops up. Racing should be part of a fun and active life, not an obstacle in it.

Hopefully this helps. Happy racing.

Ben

A small-town race competitive enough to welcome a team of collegiate runners gunning for their Boston qualifying times and a local runner, Kevin Miller, who smashed the Kansas master’s half marathon record. A small-town race charitable enough to draw Barefoot Rick, who not only celebrated a milestone on the yellow brick road (his 20,000^th barefoot mile), but also raised money for a charitable cause along the way — Samaritan’s Feet.

Stats: The race drew a total of 2,500 participants for the full marathon, half marathon, 5k and kids’ race. Among those were several marathon maniacs and 50 staters. In post-race tweets, some of those who’d crossed Kansas off their 50-state list reported they had so much fun, they planned to be back next year. The Garmin Marathon had runners from 44 states, 7 runners from Canada (who apparently can’t get enough of the Oz theme) and 1 from Sweden.

Smiles: We’re not sure if was the fast and flat course, the spot-on pace teams leading many runners to PRs or the themed aid stations and support along the route, but there seemed to be lots of excessive celebrations at the finish line. Jake was doing his fair share of announcer commentary/stand-up on the mic to put smiles on faces as they crossed — adding personal comments for the many runners he knew from work-day lunch runs. He got the crowd built up to cheer in the legendary Bart Yasso, who has run epic races on every continent.

After-party: The City of Olathe knows how to throw a party, and by many accounts, the race participants appreciated the details, from the unique finisher’s medals and shirts to the yellow brick road awaiting them at the finish to the post-race food and beverages. At the Garmin tent, product experts were on-hand to show spectators and runners that we also make products to help you fly, drive, hunt, hike, fish, bike and golf. We also had some fun handing out noisy Team Garmin-themed thunder stix for the young spectators who’d already knocked out their miler and were ready to cheer in more runners.

We could go on, but we’ll let one of our favorite race recaps, from Active Joe, tell more: “Clicked my heels three times and found a marathon PR.” Plans are already in the works to make the 2013 race even bigger and better, so mark your calendar: April 20, 2013, and we’ll see you back here at Garmin headquarters in Olathe, Kansas.

Runners in all race distances will be greeted by some of the most enthusiastic aid station volunteers on the planet. Garmin staff will be heading up many of the aid stations and let me tell you, they are pumped and ready to pump up even the weariest of runners. No promises, but I wouldn't doubt you'll see some Oz characters. We also have some special perks in store for our Forerunner customers. Before the half and full marathon start, Jake, the voice of Garmin fitness and morning emcee, will invite all runners with a Garmin watch to gather for a quick Forerunner Family Reunion pic. Post-race, we’ll be tossing tshirts to anyone wearing a Forerunner. There’s still time to join the fun! You can register in person at the race expo, Friday, noon-7 at the Olathe Holiday Inn.