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An Experiment of One
Dr. George Sheehan, running’s mad monk and philosopher, used to claim that each of us who runs long distances is an experiment of one: sort of a mobile science experiment run amok, where we learn as much from personal observations, consulting our running journals, and from intuition as we do from being poked and probed and preached to by scientists who specialize in human locomotion.
George, in his way, was wonderfully retro. He got runners back to The Garden. Scientists wanted to put runners in a lab, on a treadmill, hooked up to wires and hoses.
The first running boom hit, and George directed marathon runners in one direction and scientists in another. And sometimes the runners went both ways at once.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
Travel with Don as he shares his view from inside the world of long-distance running.
I’m back in the marathon saddle again. Not just because I’ve agreed to write a regular column for Marathon & Beyond, but because I am actually, really and truly, after many a misstep and backslide, back on course to run another marathon.
My last marathon was New York City in November 2001, a week after completing the Marine Corps Marathon. Running those two marathons a week apart was a kind of personal response to the 9/11 tragedy, a show of support, if you will, for the two cities that had been attacked. Crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and seeing empty space where the World Trade Center had been is something I’ll never forget. Being in the midst of thousands of runners as they began their weave through the wounded city seemed comforting in a way that’s hard to explain. The crowds cheered us on, but they could just as well have been coaxing New York back to its feet. It was a powerful experience and could have served as a fitting final chapter to my marathoning history.
After nearly 50 marathons, where better to call it a day than at the finish line in Central Park, the pacific-green heart of the city that changed forever, and the world with it, on that sad morning in September?
Apt or not, though, I had no plan to retire from marathoning in the fall of 2001. The specter of forced retirement would come later, and it would have nothing to do with geopolitics. It had to do with faulty menisci.
The meniscus is a crescent-shaped piece of cartilage in the knee joint, and it can tear during weight-bearing, twisting activities—soccer, tennis, basketball. It can also tear, so it seemed, from four decades of running. Or maybe menisci don’t like serious gardening, which I’ve been known to do. Whatever the reason, a persistent pain in my right knee was eventually diagnosed as a complex tear of the meniscus. And well before diagnosis, hobbled by relentless knee pain, my running had come to an abrupt halt.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
2005 Košice Peace Marathon
KOŠICE, SLOVAKIA, October 2, 2005—Selecting the starting pace for a marathon should not be a difficult calculation. A formula such as 1.25 times your half-marathon pace (in minutes per kilometer) plus or minus 0.5 (minutes per kilometer), depending upon the level of preparation, appears in most training guides. But in my experience, it is as difficult to calculate (and stick to) the proper starting pace as it is—anytime after 20 miles—to determine the finishing pace needed to meet an often steadily receding finishing time. Problems late in a race are well documented, but their genesis is frequently in prerace planning, which in my case is not very good.
Having run more marathons than I can count on my fingers and blistered toes, I need only one thumb to count the number of races where I got the pace right (Chicago 2003, a 1:50/1:48 negative split). Despite this dismal record of prognostication, I yet again took leave of good running sense in the 2005 Košice Peace Marathon (KPM). However, before I describe and try to rationalize my latest lapse in logical thinking (and sound running practice), let me first give some background about the KPM, for I suspect that most runners have not heard much about this historic race (one exception being Hal Higdon, who, when I mentioned to him at the expo for the 2005 Grandma's Marathon that I had signed up, quickly said something like, "Oh yeah, ran that twice in the '60s!").
Few marathons can offer a runner more tradition, in a country of great beauty, than the KPM. Set in eastern Slovakia, approximately equal distance from Krakow and Budapest, on a rough north-south line, Košice is a thousand-year-old city (first written record is from 1230) that annually hosts the world's second-oldest marathon (established in 1924). While the KPM is relatively unknown today in the United States, the race, the city, and the region have much to offer a runner seeking a fast, flat course for a fall marathon. Košice's location in the mountains of eastern Slovakia invites the visitor to travel from the country's capital of Bratislava by train on a cross-country trip, a sort of brief Orient Express through a changing vista of villages, thick woods, mountains, and river valleys guarded by medieval hilltop castles. A tempting option on this trip is a stop in the High Tatras, with 25 peaks over 2,500 meters, for some vigorous prerace mountain training or some postrace sight-seeing and relaxation. Another good choice is a visit to the nearby Slovenský Raj National Park, with miles of marked hiking trails and many waterfalls. Once in Košice, a modern city of 250,000 people surrounding a charming historic center, the visiting runner and party will find excellent and reasonably priced accommodations (one option is a race-sponsored youth hostel), convenient public transportation, and a variety of musical, artistic, and culinary activities.
continued in our Jan/Feb issue...
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A low-key marathon in an out-of-the-way capital.
In 1984 the first U.S. women's Olympic Marathon Trials were held at-appropriately enough-Olympia, Washington. It was the scene of Joan Benoit's miraculous comeback after major knee surgery, where she won the Trials less than three weeks after arthroscopic surgery. More miraculously, the plucky Benoit went on to win the first women's Olympic Marathon at Los Angeles.
Olympia, the capital of Washington State, seems an out-of-the-way place for a marathon, sandwiched as it is between two major West Coast marathons, Portland and Seattle. Even more surprising is the fact that although the race starts and ends in the middle of downtown Olympia, most of the course is rural and rolling.
Olympia, like other state capitals in smaller cities than the states' biggies, is pleasant (benefiting from the array of state buildings and state-financed maintenance that goes with them) and easy to get around in. (Take the state capitals of all three of the West Coast states. Washington's isn't Seattle or Spokane, but Olympia; Oregon's isn't Portland, but Salem; California's isn't Los Angeles or San Francisco, but Sacramento.) Olympia has a population of only 44,000 and is located at the lowest edge of the state's generous mélange of inland coastal waterways that characterize most of the northwest portion of the state.
Interstate 5 passes through Olympia on its way north to Seattle, so there is easy road access; and Olympia is where scenic Highway 101 splits off from I-5 and heads north and west up into the beautiful Olympic Peninsula.
Within a few miles, a driver—or a runner—can be away from the white noise of I-5 and the modest downtown of Olympia and into the countryside where, during the May running of the marathon, the predominating impression you get of the area is that it has been overrun with rhododendron the way the South has been taken over by kudzu. Every resident's front yard seems to compete with the next in showcasing rhododendrons of all colors and hues. The new (as of 2006) marathon course spends most of its time away from the city and out in the northern countryside, taking a tour of the spring foliage. Pennsylvania calls its rhododendrons "mountain laurels" and has a huge annual festival to celebrate them; Olympia would do well to promote a similar festival by handing out copies of the marathon course to cyclists and tourists who want to experience the best of the rhododendron blooms that May has to offer.
One of the more unique marathons in North America. Only in our Jan/Feb issue...
Pacesetter Paul.
A tradition ends in one way and continues in another this month. Many previous year-opening issues contained essays by Paul Reese. The last one ran posthumously in early 2006. Now it's my turn to write about our old friend Paul. Many of my best friends in this sport are older than I am. Hal Higdon was the first of these, George Sheehan was the closest, and Paul Reese was the oldest.
I look up to them as pacesetters through life, in running and other ways. None of us can grow younger, but we all can find leaders who show how to age actively and slow gracefully.
No one I've known has packed more activity into his upper years than Paul Reese. He ran across the United States at age 73, finished crossing the remaining states at 80, and published three books about these experiences (and left another book unpublished as yet).
No one I know has approached his own finish line with more grace than Paul. Evidence of that will come later, but first I need to tell how he lived and how I joined his ever-widening circle of best friends.
Paul was a Marine by choice, a schoolteacher in his second profession, and a communicator by nature. He phoned often and wrote long and well-in books, articles, journals, and especially in letters and e-mail.
He was the oldest e-mailer I've known. My mother, who was almost exactly the same age as Paul and died the same year, was a professional writer who never conquered her computer phobia.
I'm not overstating to say that Paul became my second second father. He took over that role in 1993 from George Sheehan, who had first played that role after my own dad's too-early passing.
Paul and I met at the 1967 Santa Barbara Marathon. On our first day of racing together, I finished a little way ahead of Paul. This began years of good-hearted competition between us.
This new feature is continued in our Jan/Feb issue...
Lively responses to our most recent issues.
Experts answer readers' training and competition questions. This month's question: Strength for Endurance. I'm 41 and training with some friends for our first marathon. We've raced 5Ks, 10Ks, and two half-marathons, and we want to do our first 26.2-miler with all the bases covered. Many marathoners have underdeveloped upper bodies. I'd like to do some upper-body workouts to help maintain strength in the latter miles, but one of my training partners argues that the more muscle you build, the more weight you have to carry for 26 miles, thus slowing you down. Is he right?
Our experts answer this question in our Jan/Feb issue.
Among this issue's authors are David Martin, Jake Emmett, Guy Avery, Jason Karp, and Don Kardong.
With this issue we present our third sports medicine special issue. The previous two sports medicine specials (November/December 1998 and May/June 2003) were among our most popular issues ever and quickly went out of print. We trust our readers will find something of interest in the special section that follows, featuring the articles below. Run long and thrive.
Just what does running a marathon do to your body?
Running a marathon has been viewed, and still is by many, as too extreme to be healthy. Certainly, the physical stress of running a marathon played some role in not holding a women's Olympic marathon race until 1984. On the flip side, casual runners think that if a pampered celebrity can run a marathon, it can't be all that strenuous. While marathon running is far from damaging, it should be respected for the physiological stress inflicted over its 26.2 miles.
For example, running a five-minute-per-mile marathon requires a 15-fold increase in energy production for over two hours. Even runners who finish in over four hours maintain a 10-fold increase in their metabolism. Such extended energy demands require the cardiorespiratory, endocrine, and neuromuscular systems to operate at an elevated level for an inordinate length of time. It is no wonder then that the story of Pheidippides and his marathon run to Athens easily grew into a tragic tale about how running a marathon killed the first person to do so. Fortunately, scientists have researched the physiological stresses of running a marathon. The findings from such studies can help potential marathon runners better appreciate what they will be up against and remind seasoned marathon runners just how amazing the human body is.
The physiology on marathon running starts with Pheidippides, who reputedly ran from the plains of Marathon to the city of Athens to report the victory of the Athenian army over the Persians. Upon his arrival, Pheidippides exclaimed, "Rejoice, we conquer" and dropped dead-or did he? The accuracy of this account has been questioned by modern scholars (Martin and Gynn 2000); however, the unfortunate outcome of Pheidippides is manifested in a few marathon runners every year. Just how stressful to the human body is running a marathon? This and other questions regarding marathon running were addressed at The Marathon: Physiological, Medical, Epidemiological, and Psychological Studies conference in 1976. The boldest theory regarding marathon running was made by Dr. Tom Bassler (1977), who suggested that the stress of running a marathon built immunity to the development of fatty deposits within coronary arteries. In other words, running a marathon prevents coronary artery disease (CAD). Bassler compared marathon runners to the heart-disease-free Masai warriors and Tarahumara Indians in that they all maintain active lifestyles, eat healthy diets, and have enlarged and wide-bore coronary arteries.
After reviewing the cause of death in marathon runners from the previous 10 years, Bassler claimed that "there have been no reports of fatal, histologically proven, [CAD] deaths among 42K men." While he noted that some runners have died while running marathons, he concluded that these deaths were due to other factors such as nonatherosclerotic heart diseases (such as myocarditis or coronary spasms), congenital abnormalities, hyperthermia, or undertraining. To his credit, Bassler also acknowledged that a low-fat diet and abstention from smoking play important roles in developing immunity to heart disease. Bassler concluded that whether running a marathon offered absolute protection from CAD would be proven within the following 10 years.
Continued in our January/February issue... and also online.
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Taking the scientific method to the field.
by Jason R. Karp, M.S.
I always thought scientists were nerds. I should know. After 12 years of multiple university educations, including a year of classes in medical school, I've been around many of them. But I decided that, as a graduate student, I was going to be different. I figured that I had to be if I was to stay focused on my real interest: running. Combining running and school isn't easy. Although my main interests in exercise physiology center on endurance performance and training distance runners, my academic adviser keeps reminding me that I am in the world of academia now, and so instead of writing articles on coaching and training, I should be spending my time writing research articles for scientific journals. However, writing research articles requires doing research, something I would rather save for the real scientists. I would rather be coaching.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
Do women have an edge when it comes to running ultradistance events?
by Lindsay Weight
The Comrades Marathon is a race of variable distance, run in alternating directions between the coastal city of Durban and inland Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. When the race starts in Pietermaritzburg, it is referred to as the Down run, and the other way around is the Up run. There are five notorious hills between these two cities, which make the Up run approximately 56 kilometers of positive gradient, compensated for slightly by the fact that the Up route is marginally shorter—about 86 kilometers compared to the 89-kilometer Down run.
The Comrades Marathon has been run 81 times, and 76,768 people from around the globe have completed it at least once in their lives. Twenty-nine (male) runners1 have completed more than 30 Comrades Marathons, and 2,567 have their green number, awarded for finishing the race 10 times. The course records for the two races are 5:25:33 (Vladimir Kotov, 2000) and 6:11:15 (Elena Nurgalieva, 2004) for men and women, respectively, in the Up run and 5:24:07 (Bruce Fordyce, 1986) and 5:54:43 (Frith van der Merwe, 1989) for the Down run.
The Comrades Marathon has grown from a modest, amateur, and intensely local event to a race with substantial prize money, sponsors, international status, a 13-hour television broadcast, four-day expo, and all the carnival that goes with a big-city marathon. Between 12,000 and 15,000 runners enter the race each year, with the highest entry being over 24,000 in 2000. Of these runners, less than 20 percent are women, and about the same proportion are novices. In 2005, the average finish time was 10 hours, 27 minutes for women and 9 hours, 55 minutes for men. However, the average finish times for both sexes have increased by an hour since 1980. The average age of competitors has also increased over the same time, from 34.0 years in 1980 to 40.2 years in 2005.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
They came, they saw, and they continue to conquer.
by David Martin, Ph.D.
It just might be true that never before in history has a single country so dominated an event in track and field and distance running as Kenyan men have dominated the marathon during the past five years. Breaking 2:20:00 in the marathon has long been considered the benchmark for elite athleticism in this event: racing the distance averaging at least 5:20 per mile.
In 2005, as shown in figure 1 on page 66, 490 out of the 1,126 sub-2:20:00 men's marathon performances worldwide were achieved by Kenyans-that's 43.5 percent of the total! Far back in second place was Japan (106 performances, or 9.4 percent). Even more astounding is the quality of Kenyan marathon achievements: of the 401 sub-2:15:00 performances recorded worldwide in 2005, 199 were by Kenyan men (49.6 percent)! And on the world all-time list of 50 fastest marathon performances (as of the end of 2005), 29 of those belonged to Kenyans; the remaining 21 were divided up with a few each among the United States, Brazil, Japan, South Africa, Ethiopia, Portugal, France, and Morocco.
Kenya is a little smaller than Texas, with a population of 34.7 million, a 40 percent unemployment rate, and a life expectancy of 48.9 years. The country is divided into several ethnic groups. The Kalenjin (12 percent) are the most talented at distance running, followed by the Kikuyu (22 percent) and the Kisii (6 percent). The marathon dominance by the Kenyans is a relatively recent phenomenon, starting in the late 1990s and developing with no really good explanation. Taking a brief jaunt back into history provides some interesting perspective. The first sub-2:20:00 marathon performance by anyone over the standard 42,195-meter marathon distance was 2:18:41, by Jim Peters of England on June 13, 1953, at Chiswick, England. The first Kenyan man to break the 2:20:00 marathon barrier was Joseph Kinyabi, running 2:16:31 at Kisumu (in Kenya) on June 6, 1976 (table 1 on page 68). Thus, 23 years elapsed from the time of the initial sub-2:20:00 marathon until a Kenyan runner achieved it.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
Scientifically speaking, less can be more if quantity gives way to quality.
by Bill Pierce, Ed.D.; Ray Moss, Ph.D.; Scott Murr, Ed.D.; and Mickey McCauley
Runners are always searching for a magic formula for faster race times while dealing with limited time for training, trying to avoid or coping with an injury, and looking for a fresh approach to training. Many discover that while training for an optimal performance they suffer an injury, the effects of overtraining, or an imbalance in their work, family, and social responsibilities. Can high-quality training and faster performances be fit into a balanced, high-quality lifestyle?
The Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training (FIRST), established in January 2003 to promote running as a healthy physical activity and to provide training information based on scientific principles, seeks to assist runners in establishing training programs that enable them to pursue their goal of running faster without sacrificing job, health, family, and friends. At the heart of the FIRST philosophy is the belief that most runners do not train with purpose. When runners are asked to explain their typical training week and the objective of each run, they are at a loss to explain why they do what they do. Not having a training plan that incorporates different distances, paces, and recoveries means that runners won't reach their potential, nor garner maximum benefits from their investment in training time.
The FIRST 3plus2 program makes running easier and more accessible, limits overtraining and burnout, and substantially cuts the risk of injury-all while producing faster race times.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
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A successful marathon training program has three basic workouts.
by Jason R. Karp, M.S.
Whether you are a lawyer, a soccer mom or dad, or a professional runner, you want to make the best use of your training time. Although it may take around 100 miles of running per week to reach your full potential as a marathoner, you probably lack the time or the inclination to run that much. So, how can you make your workouts more efficient and obtain the greatest benefit in the least amount of time?
If you have time for only a few runs per week, five or six miles at an intensity easy enough to let you sing along with your iPod isn't going to cut it. The fewer workouts you do, the greater the importance of each workout. Below are the most effective workouts for improving your marathon performance.
The staple of marathon training, long runs are significantly longer than any of your other daily runs. Since your body has a much better concept of time than of distance, the amount of time spent on your feet is more important than the number of miles you cover.
It has been known since the 1960s that the ability to perform prolonged endurance exercise is strongly influenced by the amount of carbohydrates stored in skeletal muscles (glycogen), with fatigue coinciding with glycogen depletion. To the marathoner's benefit, the human body responds rather elegantly to situations that threaten or deplete its supply of fuel. When glycogen is depleted by running, muscles respond by synthesizing and storing more than was previously present. Empty a full glass and you get a refilled larger glass in its place. The more glycogen you have packed into your muscles, the greater your ability to hold your marathon pace to the finish.
In addition to serving as a stimulus to store more glycogen, long runs improve your blood vessels' oxygen-carrying capability by increasing the number of red blood cells and the hemoglobin concentration. They also create a greater capillary network, providing more oxygen to your muscles, and increase mitochondrial density and the number of aerobic enzymes, increasing your aerobic metabolic capacity.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
A primer on buying running shoes.
by Tom Pecoraro
This article was written with one purpose in mind: to educate runners on the degree of service and expertise to expect when buying running shoes. As a tech rep and now an independent salesman, I have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of shops throughout the United States, and I have noticed a disparity in the quality of experts and their advice to runners. If you believe you already have a trusted store where you can buy running shoes, I urge you to keep reading, because you may be surprised at what you are missing.
I started my career in the footwear industry five years ago as a tech rep for Saucony. My job was to travel to a specific region of the country and teach the staff and store owners about the technology of Saucony shoes and foot biomechanics. Two and a half years ago, I made a transition to independent sales, representing a number of top brands, including Saucony and Powerstep, an over-the-counter orthotics company. My experience has led me to draw a few simple conclusions on what separates the good running stores from the great ones: informed staff, running evaluations, and a decent return policy.
It's important to be familiar with the industry because, as a rule of thumb, running-shoe styles change about every 12 months. The good ones may last up to 15 months, and the real dogs are finished in a year or less. To keep track of these changes would be a daunting task for any runner. Rest assured that there are people who are tracking these changes-the sales staff at your local running shop. The question is What running shops are giving reliable advice?
When I refer to a running store, I am not referring to the large sporting goods stores. The large sporting goods stores occasionally have someone knowledgeable on staff to discuss footwear, but they rarely specialize in running footwear. Most local running stores, however, are owned and operated by a local runner, selling only running-related items.
In the past, a running store's credibility was judged by the number of marathon T-shirts or first-place medals that were hanging on the wall. Those days are long gone. The old way of fitting running shoes was simple: if it feels good, then it's the right shoe. Although this is still a key ingredient to finding the right shoe, many other factors help determine if there is a good fit between you and your running shoe. Shoe manufacturing has become a science, and companies are now addressing specific foot types when designing shoes. Each shoe has a specific purpose, and it is up to the running store to match your foot with a shoe.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
Success—or failure—is all in the mind.
by Joe Weber, M.A.
Most marathoners and ultrarunners pay particular attention to their equipment (running shoes, gear, heart rate monitors, and so forth), training (mileage, intensity, route, weather), rest, diet, and hydration. Runners commit a great deal of time to their physical training, but it's not just a matter of putting the hours in physical training that breeds success. We are not merely physical beings but rather an integration of body/mind processes. Thus, mental preparation is also an essential component for optimal performance.
Imagery is a technique often utilized by elite and professional athletes as part of a psychological skills training program. We make use of images most of the day as part of our thought processes. Most of us think in images as we think about what to wear in the morning, our commute to work, our plans for the day, our daydreams, and so forth. There is a difference between dreams and imagery. Dreaming is the product of our subconscious mind, while imagery utilizes focused, planned, conscious, and controlled images in an effort to affect some future event.
Sport psychologists Orlick and Partington conducted a survey at the 1984 Olympic Games to ascertain the number of Olympic athletes who adopted imagery as a daily training practice. The results indicated that 99 percent of the athletes used imagery at least four times per week (Baker and Sedgwick, 2005). Imagery is one of the most often-used tools in most sport psychological skills training programs.
My first experience with imagery was as a high school swim coach. I assumed the reins of a team that had finished in second place for eight consecutive years, and I was looking to give our swimmers an edge. I hadn't fully bought into the effect of imagery but thought, Why not give it a try? We conducted imagery sessions daily, sometimes before and after practice or during interval rest. When imaging their races, the swimmers became quite proficient at this skill. I would set up the race as if I were the starter and time their event. The swimmers would raise their hands when they imaged the completion of their race. Most were able to image their race within a second of their goal time. I often experimented with some imagery designed to create more vivid images. At our championship meet, I had all the swimmers sitting on the deck by the diving well with their feet in the water. We began imaging the color of the water changing and then the temperature. As we imaged the water burning hot, something amazing happened: all the swimmers jerked their feet out of the water! This profound experience sold me on the power of imagery. Our team went on to win its first championship in the school's history.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
When marching age slows your marathon times, it’s time to explore the theory of relativity.
by Bill Childs
Addictions tend to creep up on most victims slowly. Additionally, it is often claimed that a patient's recognition of the condition is the first step toward rehabilitation, always assuming the patient requires-or wishes-rehabilitating. This old guy, however, certainly does not wish to be rehabilitated. Woe betide all who try. Attempts to rehabilitate me simply result in argument and anger. This old fellow readily admits to being addicted to and obsessed with percentage age-performance measurements. Verily, I claim that such a simple yet accurate arithmetical statistic must ultimately prove to be the prime, if not the sole, motivator for most ancient marathoners to continue their running and walking fitness activities. As a calculation, I claim, it can be likened to the Hawaiian muumuu dress in that it covers everything and hides nothing.
I totally blame others for my initial slide into this obsession.
There were three persons in particular who I insist are responsible. The prime culprit is a writer and sports editor. The other two are Arthur Lydiard and Tim Noakes. But it was the research in 1994 by WMA (formerly the World Association of Veteran Athletes) that delivered the coup d'etat. It all began some 25 years ago. A sports editor by the name of Benyo was the first to sin, in or about 1979, by allowing an article to be published concerning the effect of shoe weight on time to complete a marathon. This old guy's memory is now fading, but I think it appeared in Runner's World magazine, wherein it claimed that 4 ounces added to the weight of a runner's shoe increased marathon time by some two minutes. At that period, I was middle aged, had just completed my first marathon, and was keen to discover the true capability and limitations of aging bones.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
When it’s time to bring it all together, the pieces neatly fall into place. Part 3 of 3.
by Guy Avery
In parts 1 and 2 of this three-part series on optimal marathon training and racing, we have outlined the general framework and building blocks for creating a high probability of marathon success. In this third part, we will look at some additional body-mind zone concepts and nuances as well as a final two- or three-week tapering period in detail, including a racing approach and strategy and an optimal postmarathon supercompensation cycle.
Finding your personal training and racing zone is the foundation of our effective and fulfilling marathon approach. Being in your personal training and racing zone entails choosing a sustainable training level commitment and a marathon goal pace that are challenging and feel comfortable for you to achieve. The broad concepts that will support such an approach include important details around goal setting, visualization, the tapering process, key final workouts, carboloading, race strategy, and postmarathon recovery.
Along the lines of setting a marathon time goal, it is important to say that a single, specific goal time is not recommended. While you choose a goal pace that you feel confident you can race, your goal time is best set up as a goal range of times so that you do not have the added pressure of feeling you have to hit an exact pace and time for the 26.22-mile distance.
Instead, it is a wise practice to subtract five minutes and add five minutes to the marathon time that your goal pace will yield. For example, a realistic goal pace that yields a 3:42 marathon goal time would be a goal range of 3:37 to 3:47 when you add and subtract five minutes from the single goal time. I see the fast end of the time range serving the purpose of giving you a time you can run at your very best. The slow end is something you will still feel pleased to achieve if you do not run your very best race. Psychologically, this gives you a reasonable margin for error while reducing unnecessary mental-emotional pressure.
A simple and effective self-test is to be able to say, "I think I can run this pace in the marathon." This statement ("I think I can...") correlates with a 70 percent probability of goal achievement before you even start. Also, by widening your target time range, your probability of success increases even more. Widening your specific goal time into a goal time range is the difference between going to a standard basketball foul line and shooting a free throw at the standard-size basketball hoop (which is 10 feet high) versus going to the free throw line and tossing the ball into an 8-foot-around baby swimming pool at ground level from the same distance. Even the least physically gifted among us can throw a ball into an 8-foot baby pool at ground level from a few feet away. Consider the psychological difference you experience when faced with these vastly different tasks. In a like manner, employing a marathon time goal range (versus a single, specific goal time) will allow you to feel much greater psycho-emotional and physical ease in achieving your goal-and therefore will keep you in your optimal zone and dramatically increase your probability of success.
The difference in your anxiety level alone is highly significant! And obviously the physical task is a night-and-day difference in difficulty (or ease). Consider the difference in this analogy and in your mind-set as you visualize and train for your target marathon. Basically, you do not want to feel you have to hit a bull's-eye with a dart-you just need to hit the board. This simple approach keeps you in your zone, never feeling that you have to force your training or getting discouraged if you need to skip a workout for some reason. You can go with the flow, knowing that when you are standing at the start, you will have to do only what you have consistently done all along in training.
Our training approach is ultimately designed by taking human psychology into account as a fundamental concept in increasing your probability of success. If the mind has doubts, funny things happen in training in the form of what I call self-sabotage or subconscious resistance. These frequently observed resistances appear seemingly random and show up as sudden illnesses, injuries, frustration, and other unlucky catastrophes. This is the physical body mirroring back to you the internalized pressures or doubts that you have saddled yourself with.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
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Occasionally, circumstances dictate an end to things as they were. It’s best to go out in style.
by Anne Saita
"What is that smell? Is someone smoking?"
Wherever he raced, the scent was hard to miss, let alone for Alford Claiborne to escape since the cigar he had puffed produced the offensive plume. Donning his running bibs, including the Boston Marathon running number he had earned through qualifying, the middle-aged marathoner sheepishly observed runners' reactions and privately vowed that, as comforting as the occasional stogie may be, it was time to give them up. Backing up his resolve were two back-to-back bouts of bronchitis and a bet placed with two lawyers at a local race that if he stopped smoking, they would reward him.
Thus, in July 2000, the San Francisco Marathon would be duly recorded among Alford's long list of marathon firsts as his first 26.2-miler as a nonsmoker. He had already done almost 80 marathons by then and peaked in terms of personal records, including a 3:08 in Pensacola, Florida, almost 10 years prior.
He would go on to run almost 60 more marathons, all "for fun," in the next six years. Then he would call it quits.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
Father/daughter marathoning on the slopes of an active volcano.
by Charles Kastner
My daughter, Katie, first saw me run while she was cradled in her mother's arms more than 20 years ago. Over the years, as Katie moved from toddler to teenager, she watched me accumulate a drawer full of race shirts. She joined me in "Dad and Me" runs and school fun walks, and eventually she graduated to 5Ks, 10Ks, and half-marathons during her high school years and breaks from college. Running had always been our thing, our bonding time, but lately time and distance had left little time for father-daughter running.
My eyes lit up when Kate broached the idea of the two of us running the Kilauea Volcano Wilderness Marathon on the island of Hawaii, an event billed by race organizers as one of the toughest endurance events on the planet. It had been a long-standing family tradition that we (my wife, Mary; Katie; sons Brian and Andrew; and I) would run one of the series of wilderness races held annually in late July in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The events celebrated the tradition of Hawaiian runners from premissionary days, when fleet-footed messengers spread news to scattered villages on well-worn lava trails. Mary first started the tradition when, on a dare for more vacation time in Hawaii, she ran the difficult 10-mile course and hooked the rest of the family into this annual event. I was the only one in the family to attempt the marathon course that followed footpaths on the tortured southern slope of the still-active Kilauea volcano. Now, I had visions of Katie and me negotiating these tricky and often dangerous paths as a team before crossing the finish line together, to the thunderous applause of the assembled cast of family and friends.
I saw the race as my best and perhaps last chance to reconnect with Katie in a big way. My all-too-independent daughter had turned 22, and she had decided to move to Hawaii for graduate studies at the University of Hawaii after completing her undergraduate degree at Washington College in Maryland. She is studying historic preservation and American studies, and she lives four blocks off Waikiki in an apartment, more than 2,800 miles from our family home in Seattle. Katie had lately become more and more occupied with something outside of school, namely Dave, a fellow Washington College graduate. He is a natural athlete, a former college sailing champion and lifeguard. Together, these two sail, swim for miles in the ocean—I keep reminding her about the sharks—surf, hike, and enter triathlons, biathlons, and 5K, 10K, and half-marathon road races. They had recently completed their first marathon as part of the 25,000-runner extravaganza known as the Honolulu Marathon.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
Time to ask that frequently asked question: “How long is this maratón?”
by Paul Hyman
It is my second day at the hospital when I see the flier. It is taped up on a plain aqua-green wall in the main hallway. The flyer is white with black writing with what looks like a clip-art drawing of a runner.
"Gran Maratón. Viernes. Su participación es importante."
"¡Gran maratón!" I ask my hospital coworker, trying unsuccessfully to hide my excitement.
"Sí," she responds matter-of-factly.
"De, de. Veinte seis miles?"
Blank stare.
"Veinte seis, meele?... Mayles?... meeyes... " I say, searching for the correct pronunciation.
Blank stare.
"Ugh, como... 40 kilómetros?" I ask. (Ugh, like... 40 kilometers?)
"Sí, un maratón," she responds.
Continued in our Jan/Feb issue.
What We Do Must Be Fun and Impractical and Useless, Or Else We Won't Do It. Play Is the Key.
Here is Joe Henderson's introduction to our new Book Bonus:
Dr. George Sheehan beat his own doctors' time-left forecasts by many years, but his end finally came in late 1993. Soon afterward, a favorite race of his was renamed and moved to his old training course.
The next summer I walked to the start of the George Sheehan Classic in Red Bank, New Jersey. A young runner ahead of me turned to another and said, "This is a cool race. But who is this Sheehan guy, anyway?"
He said "She-han," not the proper "She-un." At that time and place, this was like asking who that Kennedy was with his name on a New York City airport.
Every runner should have known George Sheehan then-or so his friends and fans liked to think, though he himself knew better.
George would have loved telling this story on himself. Others built up his bigger-than-life legend, and he sometimes felt the need to knock it down to size.
The two of us once walked away from the adulation that always greeted him at the Boston Marathon. He shook his head in amazement, then added, "Two blocks from here I'm just another skinny old Irishman."
For all the fame heaped on him in his later years, he didn't take all of this too seriously. Being famous was a phase that started in his late 50s, when the practices of his lifetime were pretty well set and wouldn't change much the rest of his days.
As long as I knew him, which was 25 years, he wore the same blue(jeans)-on-blue(shirt and sweater) uniform while greeting crowds of runners. He drove the same little well-used cars, VWs and Hondas, that doubled as his mobile locker room.
He spoke and wrote his last words in 1993, which means that many of today's runners can be excused for asking: who's this George Sheehan, and why is Marathon & Beyond reprinting his old book?
Many of you came into the sport after George left. You never had the pleasure of hearing, reading, or knowing him in life.
But it isn't too late to get acquainted with a figure who once stood taller than anyone in this sport. (Put John "Penguin" Bingham on Jeff Galloway's shoulders and you get an idea of George Sheehan's stature at his peak.) No one to come along since has given better speeches to runners or written finer literature on running.
George was an accidental author. He wasn't trained as a writer and had practiced medicine for half his life before publishing his first article at age 50. His medical career was winding down when he wrote his first book seven years later.
By then he had settled into his distinctive style of writing: personal, philosophical, and padded with quotes from great thinkers from outside of sports. The Sheehan style would come to be widely mimicked (and occasionally satirized) but never matched.
The first book, Dr. Sheehan On Running, sold well among his Runner's World readers, but the wider world wasn't yet ready to buy running books. That would happen soon.
During one amazing month of 1978, three different books for runners ranked among the top 10 in national sales-for all topics. Each book took a different look at the sport.
Jim Fixx's Complete Book of Running profiled people who ran and what it meant to them. Bob Glover and Jack Shepherd's Runner's Handbook advised how to run. George Sheehan's Running & Being examined why he, and we, ran. George's book, along with his previous and later ones, gave voice to what other runners thought but couldn't express. They embraced him for this for the rest of his life and beyond. They loved him all the more as he wrote as openly about his final test as he had about other subjects.
In 1986, George was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer that had spread into his bones. His doctors told him to hope for another year but to plan for less.
He lived seven more years-good years, mostly. He wrote three more books during that illness (finishing the last, Going the Distance, in his final week), published dozens of newspaper and magazine columns, and spoke at hundreds of races (running them as long as he was able, including the 1989 World Masters Championships). His end came just days shy of his 75th birthday.
Who was George Sheehan? The best way to introduce yourself to him now, or to renew acquaintances, is to read one of his books. You can still find copies without looking too far. (The family Web site, www.georgesheehan.com, offers his bestselling Running & Being plus reprints of many columns.)
I worked with George on all but one of his books. He never once, in almost two decades of writing them, named one as his favorite.
"These books are my babies," he said. "I could no more single out one than say which of my own children I like best." His kids outnumbered his books, 12 to seven.
Readers must decide which book they like best. Once you read this reprint of his first one, Dr. Sheehan On Running, you'll want to find others. Once you've read him, you'll know him and won't forget him.
The previous six installments of Dr. Sheehan's entire book were printed (in serial format) in M&B in the previous six issues.
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Transition
For as long as I’ve been running long distance, I’ve known people who went longer still, into the wonderfully wacky world of ultras. The realization has recently sneaked up on me that a goodly number of runners I know are suddenly making the transition from marathoner to ultrarunner. It’s almost like a delightful epidemic.
The basic ultrarunner universe has not grown greatly over the past decade or so. There may be 8,000 or so ultrarunners in the United States while there are roughly 400,000 marathoners. The new converts are finding in ultrarunning a kind of revivifying effect on their running.
Their marathoning has been all well and good, but the transition to ultrarunning has opened new doors, not the least of which is that, at least in America, most ultraracing is done on trails—very much unlike the 1970s and very much unlike the rest of the world. For most international ultrarunners, their races are run either on the road or on the track.
Continued in our Mar/Apr issue.
Rerunning
When in doubt, attend your college reunion. That’s my advice. In fact, that’s what I did, last fall.
I graduated from Stanford University in 1971, during the turbulent ’60s. Chronologically, 1971 may have been in the ’70s, but the actual end of the ’60s as a cultural phenomenon wasn’t until 1974, when Richard Nixon left office and young men started wearing bow ties and platform shoes. When people embrace disco, you can be damn sure the revolution is over.
Being a college distance runner in the ’60s meant you were doubly alienated. As an athlete, you spent a considerable amount of time doing something with no apparent social or political relevance. That meant ridicule by campus radicals, who thought dallying along dirt trails did nothing to stop war or alleviate human suffering. And within the cozy confines of the collegiate athletic community, distance runners were perceived as the wretched, emaciated dogs that skulked around the edges of camp. Running miles and miles every week with little recognition and no professional prospects— what’s up with that? Couldn’t catch a ball, eh?
Continued in our Mar/Apr issue.
“The pain, I can’t stand it much longer!” Lightning bolts were tearing down the side of my body! Ugly, mean, paralytic, unendurable throbbing rendering me nauseous and reducing my pace to a crawl as I dragged myself past the 23-mile mark. It was awful and I cursed Dr. Sheehan, Runner’s World, and just about anyone else I could contemplate that had anything to do with my entering and running in the 1977 Ottawa National Capital Marathon!
I began my journey to that pain-filled moment innocently and without any knowledge of the marathon horrors that I would be enduring in less than two years!
continued in our Mar/Apr issue...
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The Few, the Proud, the 34,000.
What does it take to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, to send chills up and down your spine, to make you proud to be an American?
Is it marching with your VFW post down main street in a Memorial Day parade, pledging allegiance to the flag in your high school auditorium during a Veterans Day assembly, or rising as one with 75,000 race fans at the Martinsville Speedway to sing the national anthem?
How about standing near Arlington National Cemetery on Highway 110, with the National Mall to your left across the Potomac River on the last Sunday of October as jets fly over and 34,000 raise their heads and voices?
It works for me.
Continued in our March/April issue...
Lively responses to our most recent issues.
Experts answer readers' training and competition questions. This month's question: Death in Stride. I've been appalled at the number of marathon runners who have died this year. Is this a shocking increase or are such deaths merely being better reported this year? I was under the impression, at least from reading excerpts from Dr. Sheehan on Running a few issues back, that if you run marathons, you’re immune from heart attacks; I think it was a Dr. Bassler who made that claim. Can you ask your experts what’s going on andshould we be frightened?
Our experts answer this question in our March/April issue.
Among this issue's stellar cast of authors are Hal Higdon, Don Kardong, Rich Engelhart, and Roger Robinson.
Few Road Races, Few Runners, Then Browning Ross Convened a Meeting at New York’s Paramount Hotel.
On February 22, 1958, a small group of runners gathered on a balcony above the lobby of the Paramount Hotel in New York City. Most of the runners were in town to compete in, or watch, the National AAU Indoor Track & Field Championships at Madison Square Garden later that night. The organizer of the meeting was Browning Ross, a two-time Olympian and publisher of Long Distance Log, a newsletter with a circulation of barely a thousand: in other words, every single long-distance runner and fan of the sport in North America. While that evening’s track meet would attract 15,000 fans to the Garden, earning headlines in sports pages around the world, nobody cared much about road running, except once a year for the Boston Marathon.
Browning wanted to change all that.
I missed that groundbreaking gathering on the balcony, probably because I was in my room resting for the three-mile run at the Garden. Later that afternoon, I did connect with the group, which continued to meet in Browning’s room, so small that it barely accommodated a single bed, much less many chairs. Even after 50 years, I remember sitting on a radiator in the window and hearing Browning talk about the Road Runners Club in Great Britain, a country where the sport flourished, producing top distance runners on the track and on the roads. He felt we needed such a club to promote our sport in the United States.
Continued in our March/April issue...
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Some runners prefer to return to the basics of human locomotion.
by Zoie Clift
Though it could have happened, running barefoot did not disappear with the advent of the running shoe. A subculture of runners still abides by the au naturel technique our ancestors relied on even with the rows upon rows of hi-tech options stocking the shelves of running stores these days. One of the most oftencited barefoot cases was Ethiopian runner Abebe Bikila, who ran a world-record 2:15:17 marathon at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. South African Zola Budd also springs to mind: in the early 1980s, she made headlines by breaking one middle-distance record after another sans shoes.
A solid example of a barefoot runner these days is Ken Saxton, 51, a computer technician from Long Beach, California. Saxton finished 14 marathons barefoot in 2006, and has now completed a total of 56 marathons barefoot, including major races such as Los Angeles and Boston. There is even a society, the Society for Barefoot Living, devoted to the lifestyle. Though barefooting has survived the test of technology, many runners disagree about it, with some being wholehearted backers while others view it as a route to potential injury.
So with this in mind, it seems interesting to trace how we went from running barefoot through nature to running in what to ancient man would probably seem like clodhoppers. From there, we will take a quick tour of what barefoot running can offer endurance runners today.
Continued in our March/April issue,and online as an editor&rquo;s choice.
Near-death drama at the Great White City (London 1908). Part 1 of 2.
by Roger Robinson
“He has gone to the extreme of human endurance. . . . It is horrible, and yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose and an utterly exhausted frame.”— Arthur Conan Doyle on Dorando Pietri
It is the fantasy moment all marathon runners imagine during training runs on cold wet nights: you’re running through a dark tunnel and out into the bright sunlight of the stadium—and then, that sudden swelling roar of acclamation rises from 100,000 people. Your blood races at the very thought of it. No other moment in sport, however thrilling, is quite like this one. There are great touchdowns, and soccer goals, and home runs, and sprint finishes to one-mile races; but we watch and analyze the unfolding plays that precede each of those—we are witness to the whole drama. At the finish of a marathon, the stadium crowd sees only the final minute of a three-hour narrative. And for the runner, the moment of encounter is just as sudden—26 miles of lonely effort, then this sudden welcoming rapture.
It happens in a second. The crowd has waited, often with limited information. It mutters and shuffles and worries and waits—and then, he’s there, in front of you—he or she, since that iconic emergence into the sunlight by Joan Benoit in 1984. So much significance is condensed into that first glimpse of the marathon leader—an arrival that is the beginning, not the end, of the drama, a hero completing a journey, on the edge of triumph, yet still not quite there, visibly tired, terribly vulnerable, a tiny figure on a huge arena. Few moments are so expressive of human heroism and human frailty, the aspirations and fears we all share. Even as we roar in praise, we are looking anxiously or eagerly for the next runner. The runner’s sense of completion is also full of fear.
Continued in our March/April issue.
What does running have to do with it?
by Julie Balamut
One of the best things about the 2004 Athens Olympics for me wasn’t just the edge-of-the-seat excitement of both marathons and the spectacular performances of Deena Kastor and Meb Keflezighi. It also provided all of us ancient history and philosophy junkies the chance to hear almost daily the great stories of ancient Greece. Those of us who are distance runners were finally able to relate with renewed attention to the fable of Pheidippides’s legendary trek from Marathon to Athens, and it was thrilling to see many great marathoners 2,500 years later make the same trek and receive the glory of the race well run on a much larger stage.
Even though the 2004 Olympic participants are putting away their training logs, organizing their scrapbooks, and, for some, planning for Beijing 2008, the spark created by Athens, the legendary marathons, and the focus on ancient Greece has compelled me to look back at my own scrapbook and my bookshelves to revisit some of my old, ancient Greek friends. Even though lots of attention has been on Pheidippides and the ancient Olympians, I have reacquainted myself with my old philosopher friend Aristotle, who had a lot to say about so many things that his work continues to be the bane of many undergrads who are forced to study and write about him and the joy of generations of literature, classics, and philosophy majors who still think his work is relevant for us today. As I’ve looked at him again, I can see more and more ways in which Aristotle can be relevant to those of us who are not only ethics buffs but runners, too.
As an undergrad at a Catholic women’s college in the late 1970s and as the current bookstore director of the same college, I have always loved the Greeks in general and Aristotle in particular. In classic Catholic liberal arts fashion, not only did we read Aristotle in literature and philosophy, but we received a liberal dose of him in our theology courses because so much Christian moral theology is based on the ethics of Aristotle. My Nicomachean Ethics (NE) was well highlighted at my graduation from St. Catherine (aka St. Kate’s) and always remained on my bookshelf. In the last 25 years, I’ve picked up the NE periodically whenever I’ve needed a dose of well-reasoned writing in my life.
Continued in our March/April issue.
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Ernst van Aaken was a coach well ahead of his time.
by Rich Engelhart
This is a story about a man who began coaching distance runners in the years following World War II. In an era when most elite athletes were training on relatively short, fast, repetitions followed by brief rest periods, this coach was preaching the benefits of slower-paced, endurance-based training. This coach initially trained for middle- and long-distance competitions using himself as a guinea pig before training others along the lines he had used. The coach saw his athletes win national championships and medals at championship games and set world records. Eventually, the coach began to write about his approach to training distance runners and about the problems and limitations he perceived in the more common speed-based approaches other coaches were using.
But his interests went beyond the preparation of championship-caliber runners. This coach came to recognize that running—gentle, aerobic running—was of great value in the prevention of cardiac disease and even in the rehabilitation of heart attack victims. He began promoting slow running as medicine for all and also began writing about the health benefits of easy, aerobic running. His advocacy of running for the masses made him a popular figure in the United States, where he became a popular lecturer as he expounded upon his ideas.
Most amateur sports historians will assume that this story is about Arthur Lydiard, but it’s the story of Ernst van Aaken, a German physician and running coach whose interest in distance running and endurance-based training predates even that of Lydiard.
Born in 1910, van Aaken became a gymnast. At one time, he tried to run away from home and join a circus as a gymnast. Returned home, he turned his attention to the pole vault and became a champion vaulter. Inspired by watching Paavo Nurmi compete in the 1928 Olympics, he became interested in distance running and also began to compete at 1,500 meters. Van Aaken studied medicine in the 1930s and became a physician, then served in the German army in the Crimea during World War II. By 1947, he settled into the small West German town of Waldniel and opened a medical practice with a specialization in sports medicine, where he also continued to compete as a distance runner. In 1953, he became one of the founders of Waldniel’s Olympische Sport Club (Olympic Sports Club) and began training its athletes according to his methods. Waldniel at the time had a population of 7,000, yet the Olympische Sport Club’s junior athletes had the fastest average times at 600, 1,500, and 3,000 meters of any club in West Germany. His club continued producing a disproportionate number of national and European records.
Continued in our March/April issue.
Be careful whom you compete against.
by Patricia Halderman
This story is about the very best workout buddy I have ever had. It started like this: The weekend was hot. The temperature was 100-plus degrees. I spent Saturday on the Olympic Training Center’s archery range. I was shooting my bow in the state games and was standing in the hot sun all day. I was fried and boiled, red, burned, and hot.
Sunday is my long-run day, and the plan was for a three-hour run. There was absolutely no way I was going to put my poor parboiled body through another day in the sun.
I found my free gym pass and was off for a three-hour run on a treadmill in a nice, cool gym.
As I walked upstairs to the treadmills, I noticed a person behind me heading for the same equipment. I circled around the treadmills and chose one farther down the line so the fellow or gal behind me could have first pick. I assumed the person walking behind me was on the treadmill beside me.
When I prepare to mount the treadmill beast, I am all business. I wear my trail-running pack, complete with water bottles and a Walkman. I am focused and don’t look around. I prepare the music and start to walk and then run. I am serious. I have very poor eyesight, no side vision, and must look straight ahead when running on a treadmill or I will fly off the back or sides.
I started to run. The music is Yanni. I run. I feel good. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the person next to me is running very well. I see perfect posture and form. I am impressed. Time passes.
After 45 minutes of running fast and slow to the music (I think of them as Yanni intervals), I have to pee. I entertain the idea of asking the person next to me to watch my stuff while I run downstairs. No. I will keep running until that person stops. No one stays on the treadmill as long as I do. I am woman. See me run. I am on fire, running very fast and strong. The person next to me just keeps on running.
Continued in our March/April issue.
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Streakers bare their souls every single day.
by Jim Bates
Psst! Hey! Hey you! Psst, yeah, you. Come over here. Shhhhh! Hurry! Let me ask you something. Have you ever talked to a streaker before? Ever see one in action? Ever get to know one? Do you wonder: What does it feel like? Is it exhilarating? What kind of person would allow himself to become one? Why must streakers go against what’s generally accepted as normal behavior? When you see them from a distance, you look closely, and you wonder, are they nuts?
I’ll be up front with you; I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m a streaker, have been since November 2000. I’m not ashamed of it at all. I mean, why fight it? It doesn’t hurt anyone. It usually feels good. At first it felt strange. I worried: What kind of problems is this going to cause? Will I get hurt? Yet, the longer I did it, the more I liked it. Trust me; I’m not the only one around here who’s into this. There are plenty of others. Quite frankly, I think most everyone should try it. Why not? Are you surprised to hear this? Hey, keep your clothes on. It’s not really that unusual; actually it’s a natural high.
I mean, why not become a streaker and run every day of the week, every day of the month, 365 days a year? After all, streakers peel away the general adage that a body needs one or preferably two days off a week to heal. If streakers crosstrain, they do it along with, not in place of, their daily mileage. Sure, this butts up against the general body of knowledge. Are they less of a runner because of it? The naked truth is that I don’t know, but does anyone know? Do streakers injure themselves more often; are they sick more frequently than nonstreakers? Probably not, or they wouldn’t be able to maintain their streaks. My hunch is that streakers incur far fewer injuries than nonstreakers over comparable weekly distances.
Continued in our March/April issue.
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One marathon does not a runner make. Or does it?
by Debra Josephson Abrams
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! —Sojourner Truth
In the predawn of an unusually cool July Saturday, my alarm sounds at 5:15 A.M. as it has for many weeks. Barely conscious, I hustle into the bathroom for some rote tooth and hair brushing and change into my running gear. I kiss my still-sleeping husband and drive in darkness to join a few hundred others for a training run marking the halfway point in my 2004 Marine Corps Marathon training with disorganized and questionably staffed DCFit—aka DCUnFit.
It was Sunday, October 26, 2003, shortly after 11:00 A.M. when the marathon bug bit me. In fits and starts for 10 years, I had tried running. But I didn’t run regularly until fall 2002, mostly in vigorous protest against middle-age weight gain but partly to take my place in my husband’s highly competitive and athletic family. I ran a few miles a few times each week. My first race, Habitat for Humanity’s 2002 Frostbite 5K, was postponed in poor December weather and rescheduled for March 2003. So in March, I bundled up in snuggly warm layers and gloves to run the 3.1 miles through unexpectedly hilly Silver Spring, Maryland. I overdressed, knowing little about how my body would react to running nonstop for nearly 45 minutes. My athlete-friend Stephanie and my athlete-cousin Stephanie ran with me; experienced runners both, they were cheerleaders and coaches as I struggled to finish my first race. But I proudly collected the customary participant’s T-shirt and finisher’s medal and marveled at my accomplishment.
Around that time, I lay on a massage table in front of my fireplace while my athlete-friend and massage therapist, Stephanie, worked on my not-very-sore muscles. Steph announced she was beginning training for the 2003 Marine Corps Marathon, her second marathon. Easily and quickly, I replied, “I’ll cheer you on,” envisioning standing at the finish line, applauding madly. “No,” said Steph. “I want you to run the final six miles with me.”
Not long after Steph’s command, I registered for an all-women’s 5K in June. By that cool morning, I had learned how to dress properly and what it means to be in the zone. I began the race slowly—jogging, really—conscious of other runners and the route; as I ran, my feet and legs overwhelmed my consciousness. My feet and legs were my consciousness; I stopped thinking and allowed my body to lead me to an under-28-minute finish. Again, I collected my participant’s T-shirt and finisher’s medal. Two months later, on a wickedly hot and humid August morning near Cape May, not far from where I was born and reared, I ran my first five-miler. At times, I staggered and even walked. When I finished, I was sure I had been running for well over an hour, but to my surprise and delight I finished in well under an hour. I added another T-shirt and medal to my growing collection.
Continued in our March/April issue.
How the B.A.A. finally got its long-awaited day in the sun.
by Richard Benyo
It is impossible to tell the story of the younger John Kelley (who is no relation to the other, older John Kelley) without telling the story of Johnny “Jock” Semple.
John Semple was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 26, 1903, in a second- floor apartment not far from the steel mill called Dixon’s Blazes because of the hellish light its furnaces cast through the closely built, nondescript apartment buildings both day and night. John was one of three sons born to Frank and Mary Semple. At age 4, John and his family packed up and moved to Clydebank, a shipbuilding city on the River Clyde.
With more than a little encouragement from his father, Johnny worked part time for a local butcher. He would get up at 6:00 A.M., walk from house to house taking orders from the butcher’s customers, and deliver the goods on his way home from school in the evening. He earned 50 cents a week for his work. His father was a strong believer in the benefits of going to school, but Johnny was of the belief that it was better to have a nickel in your pocket now than to have the promise of a quarter after you got out of school. Quitting school at 14, he went to work at the Singer Sewing Machine plant, where his father also worked. The war was on, and there was plenty of work available.
Singer sponsored an annual sports day, and with the help of a soccer trainer who lived in the apartment below his, Johnny got some valuable training tips. He won the 100-yard dash, and it was not long before he was recruited by the Clydesdale Harriers, a local running club that stressed the social rather than the competitive end of running. The Clydesdales liked to win, but they felt that the fun was in the running and the physical exercise.
Continued in our March/April issue.
A runner can be inspired by those who watch.
by Eddie Hahn
I was born in November 1965 in Fullerton, California, which is outside of Los Angeles. I grew up in the town of Monroe, Oregon, a bedroom community in the rural and fertile farmlands of the Willamette Valley. Monroe is 20 miles north of the Emerald City of Eugene, which is also known as Track City USA and is the running capital of the West Coast. I was raised in the shadows of, and inspired by, the legend of the late, great middle-distance runner Steve Prefontaine, the socalled James Dean of running. I started competitive running at age 14. My first long-distance run was about eight miles when I was 12 years old.
I did my first marathon in Portland, Oregon, in September 1984, as training for joining the Marine Corps two weeks later. Recovering from an injury (I stepped on a broken wine bottle that cut my tendon), I missed the three weeks of training prior to the race. I had hoped to run below three hours but finished in 3 hours, 8 minutes, 54 seconds.
I took a near five-year marathon break following Portland, vowing to myself that there was no need to do another marathon; I had already eclipsed what I then considered to be the ultimate test of endurance. On the way home, and in the comfort of the canopy while seated on the couch in the back of my grandma’s Chevy Luv pickup truck, my friend George and I consoled each other. We complained about sore muscles and vowed we would never do that again. George (who finished in 3:40) held up his end of the bargain; he has yet to do another.
Although I abandoned marathons, I never quit running shorter races. I had two reasons to continue running after high school, when all of my high school running buddies dropped by the wayside. First, I had a reputation to uphold: I was from one of the major running capitals of the Western Hemisphere, and I had to keep the torch burning. Second, I was inspired by disabled family members who didn’t have an opportunity to participate in athletic events that I took for granted.
Continued in our March/April issue.
Dr. Sheehan On Running
by Dr. George Sheehan
Part 8: The question of amateur versus professional raises a number of issues.
Words and the Numerosity of Their Meanings
Because English is a living language, some words force themselves into use-sometimes overuse-while others become anemic and die. You don't hear "groovy" too much these days, or "psychedelic," or even "rad." "Awesome" has dropped off the radar screen, "wicked" (regionally confined to New England) is going the way of the Edsel, and "amazing" is currently way overused.
On the marketing and PR front, about all you hear these days is "branding." It used to be that "branding" referred to applying a hot iron to the flank of a steer for purposes of identification. These days it refers to "the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design."
At the annual Running USA convention in February, every other speaker used the term "branding" along with the accompanying jargon that is a required tool kit of an "in" term. To be frank, I was lost half the time, because although the words sounded like English, the cumulative effect was of a tongue I knew not. Glancing about, I gathered the impression that I was not the only one lost in a jungle of jargon and gibberish.
I think that what the speakers were trying to say is that you've got to get the news of your event or product out there, and in order to help raise the consciousness of your audience, you need to have distinct signs and symbols that people will recognize and associate with what you're trying to sell. This is not exactly a new concept. The Roman armies carried standards on poles at the front of their armies. The hordes from northern Europe made it even easier: they stuck the heads of their enemies on the tips of their spears and rode into battle, often on horses sporting brands on their flanks.
Continued in our May/June issue.
Kid's Stuff
Have you ever wondered what it is in your constitution that predisposes you to marathoning (and beyond)? Are we distance runners hard wired by genetics, biologically destined to embrace effort? Or is it nurture, the effect of childhood experiences, that prompts us to set our sights on a challenging goal and revel in the battle to achieve it?
Imagine, the next time you're heading for the finish line of a marathon, surrounded by other adults hobbling and wobbling on weary legs, what it was that compelled your fellow travelers to join you in this particular sport, an ambitious and occasionally acutely painful activity. Are you all just missing a gene somewhere in the sequence? Or is this, perhaps, the manifestation of severe toilet training by an overbearing parent?
Or think, for a moment, of the young cross-country runners in your town (who will eventually be the point of this column). It can't be an accident that teenage runners are also so often the top students in school. Dedication and hard work pay off in competition inside and outside the classroom. But do those kids succeed because they were born motivated or because they were raised right? And whichever it is, what kind of nudge, spark, or arm-twist was it that got them started running? What keeps them going and will keep them going, for years and years?
If you think running is a good thing and you think young runners should continue running as adults, these are important questions. But after spending a lifetime thinking about what makes us runners tick, I can only say one thing for sure. You can't change genes, but you can influence behavior.
At a party a few years ago, I was kidded by a nonrunner who announced to our gabbing group, "Don thinks everyone should run."
Continued in our May/June issue.
CLEARWATER, FLORIDA, November 25, 2005-My most unforgettable ultramarathon is one that did not happen. I was ready, injury free, mentally centered, gear packed, and car loaded when the phone rang in the middle of the night. It was a call I will never forget. The pain was searing, palpable. Words failed me.
Continued in our May/June issue...
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Only the Brave (and the Foolish) Need Apply.
Like a recurring nightmare, the Kilauea Volcano Marathon keeps resurfacing at this magazine. Two issues ago, frequent contributor Charles Kastner recounted the 2005 edition of the race, which he ran (sort of) with his daughter. Kastner had first run the race in 1999 after encountering it in Marathon & Beyond, where in 1998 it was voted the 10th-top marathon in North America, even though it is based in Hawaii. That's not exactly geographically correct among the M&B voters, but obviously it was memorable enough to be ranked in the top 2 percent or so of all "North American" marathons.
And it's memorable, obviously, in more ways than one, for in the January/February 2001 edition, we put together a panel to rate North America's 25 toughest marathons, and the geographically challenged panel ranked Kilauea as the 13th-toughest marathon. (For the curious, the Nunavut Midnight Sun Marathon in Canada's frigid north was voted number one. And yes, Nunavut is in North America.)
We use the term "nightmare" carefully in referring to the Kilauea race. Everyone who has run it has tales of horror, from breathing the sulfuric fumes to getting sliced up by the coral-like cooled magma through which much of the course runs. Yet in the next breath, these same folks wax poetic in their praise of the whole wonderful, memorable, exhilarating experience.
Continued in our May/June issue...
Bumpy Road to Boston
The Boston Marathon is the Olympic Trials of the less-than-elite. It is the one annual race that isn't as easy to get into as entering on time or winning a lottery drawing.
You must run a fast marathon before you can run The Marathon (that's how Bostonians think of it, as if no other marathon counted). You have to qualify far ahead of this race itself, and this can happen as long as 19 months earlier.
This means that you're still only halfway to Boston when you better the required time. After you get in, life still has plenty of time to block you from getting there.
Life happens while we're making plans to do something else. Consider all that happened last year to a runner friend from my hometown.
One minute Sandy Itzkowitz looked up a clear road stretching far into a future filled with exciting possibilities. The next instant an unseen obstacle crashed her hopes and dreams.
Continued in our May/June issue...
Lively responses to our most recent issues.
Experts answer readers' training and competition questions. This month's question: How Much Is Too Much? I am 45 and have done two marathons and a few half-marathons. I have a question about osteoarthritis in the knees and how it impacts running or vice versa. I find that with activity, I feel much better. But with every longer run I do, I am very concerned that it will make the arthritis worse over time. Everyone tells me to stop running. The orthopedic surgeon says to keep active but that running will eventually shut me down. That is so discouraging. I feel that I want to run some longer distance, but I am afraid about the long-term problems. I feel pretty good right now. Do you have some advice for me?
Our experts answer this question in our May/June issue.
Among this issue's stellar cast of authors are Jason Karp, Jeff Horowitz, Roy Pirrung, and Roger Robinson.
Tapering for the Marathon.
by Jason R. Karp, M.S.
I attended a high school that was known for its swimmers. They were the best in the country, and some of them competed in the Olympics. Before championship meets, you could overhear amusing discussions in the hallways about "shaving down" and "tapering" in an attempt to swim faster. As a member of the cross-country and track teams, I was also interested in getting faster. So I couldn't help but eavesdrop. "What were these odd-sounding things?" I wondered. "Could they work for me, too? Do swimmers have a secret?"
The idea of progressively reducing, or tapering, the training load has been a long tradition among swimmers, the most often-studied athletes in regard to tapering. While it's not necessary as a runner to shave all of your body hair to run faster, you may benefit from tapering your training. Since most marathoners, either by training or by nature, are a driven bunch, it seems unnatural to cut your weekly mileage to a fraction of your current training. Competitive marathoners think they should always do more. But that's one of the most interesting things about fitness-the adaptations to training occur during the recovery periods from the training, not during the training itself.
The positive physiological adaptation to training is the result of a correctly timed alternation between stress and recovery. Following a training stress, your body adapts and physiologically overcompensates so that the same stress, if reintroduced, does not cause the same degree of physiological disruption. In short, your fitness has improved. When you taper your training, you provide your body the opportunity to recover, adapt, and overcompensate to the training you have done so you are prepared to run your best race.
Continued in our May/June issue...
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A Phantom Flu Is the Best Way to Force a Good Taper.
by Stephanie R. Kinnon
For me, tapering is the most difficult part of training for a marathon. Yes, I find it tougher to spend three weeks resting than I do slogging through a grueling multihour run or pushing myself through a demanding speed workout. In theory, I love tapering; but the truth is that I'm terrible at it. In practice, I don't relish the license to laze about on the couch; I would rather be running. What is supposed to be a relaxing time to rest and recover is for me a time of intense anxiety. Don't get me wrong, for a day or two, tapering is great. But as those days stretch into a week, I find myself longing for the thrill of a long run; I can't stand the torture of not being able to extend a run when I'm feeling great.
But it's not just the decrease in mileage that irks me during a taper; I hate the malaise of inactivity that overtakes me and the dramatic drop in my appetite. My mind becomes an overproductive worry factory. I become overburdened with fears, and I convince myself that all the sitting around and resting will ruin everything that I have worked so hard to build. I fear my legs will stiffen from lack of use and that by race day they will have forgotten how to run; I worry that my lung capacity will drop dramatically, leaving me breathless and exhausted before the first mile is through. And of course, I worry about the tickle that inevitably appears in my throat. As the tickle progresses into a full-blown sore throat, I panic; how in the world will I be able to finish a marathon with the flu? I mope around work, running every so often to the washroom to note the increasingly deep purple circles under my eyes and the frightening pallor of my face. I'm certain I feel the beginnings of a headache, and I find myself grabbing an extra sweater to ward off the invading chill. "That's it," I think to myself, "my marathon is ruined."
In a last-ditch effort to save my race, I stop at the pharmacy on my way home from work to stock up on flu-fighting essentials. I fill my basket with echinacea, vitamin C, throat lozenges, and cough syrup. At home, I concoct a dinner with as many vegetables, garlic, and onions as I can stand and wash it down with a disgusting brew of boiled grapefruit skin (my brother swears by this as a virus- and flu-killing elixir). I pop echinacea and vitamin C pills nearly every hour and crawl beneath a heavy down quilt to hibernate.
Continued in our May/June issue...
The Resistance Water Provides Can Be the Shortcut to Recovery.
by Joshua Castle
Water training for running is becoming more and more popular and is being understood as a greater benefit than people first thought. As people are training harder and longer for marathons or ultramarathons, aquatic training becomes increasingly important. The stress that the body takes from logging long, grueling miles is extremely taxing on the body. It has been proven that aquatic training can eliminate some of those long, unnecessary workouts that many people think they need day in, day out.
Aquatic training is extremely effective in helping prevent injuries that are associated with the constant pounding your body takes on long runs on asphalt. It also can help you improve your speed-and you thought you have done all you could. Aqua training gives you a different venue to focus your mind on setting a personal record. It can rejuvenate your motivation and your ambition.
Continued in our May/June issue...
Or How I Went to Idaho and Fell in Love With the Mesa Falls Marathon.
by Jeff Horowitz
I have to be honest with you. I'm a New Yorker at heart, born and bred in the five boroughs. I was schooled to have a very myopic view of the world: there is New York City, and then there are the sticks, the everywhere else. Moving out of New York has moderated this view only partially; although I now live in Washington, D.C., I still have a big-city view of how things ought to be. Naturally, being a runner, my bias slips over into my view of marathons as well. A proper marathon is not just a 26.2-mile race; it is an event. Streets are closed, runners come from all across the world to participate, there is major media coverage, and there is a sea of participants at the start. That is how things are.
But not in Ashton, Idaho, and especially not in the Mesa Falls Marathon. The race Web site states that when the race was born in 1997, it had only 11 participants and that this number grew only to 40 the following year. Looking around at the starting line in August 2004, it seemed to me that the race hadn't grown very much since then. I saw only a few hundred runners, apparently no media representatives whatsoever, and precious few spectators. Good lord, there weren't even any buildings around us, let alone skyscrapers. I had to wonder how I had ended up here.
I didn't need Sherlock Holmes to unearth the answer. Nearly a decade earlier I had committed to running a marathon in every state, and I was now down to my final six. Although I knew when I first declared my goal that my quixotic quest would take me to some remote places-at least by New Yorker standards-I hadn't fully considered the consequences of pursuing my dream. And then suddenly, standing at the race start line outside of Ashton, I realized that I would have plenty of time to think about it. Twenty-six-point-two miles worth of time, to be exact. Better late than never, I suppose. Having experienced some of the world's biggest and most prestigious races, including New York, Honolulu, Berlin, Chicago, and Boston, I was in a good position to do a proper taste test: I would put my past marathoning experiences side by side with the Mesa Falls Marathon to see which comes out on top: the big-city races or their country cousins. If you were running the race with me, you would have gotten a steady stream of comments and observations, but I'll give you an only slightly abridged version in the following pages. OK, here we go.
Continued in our May/June issue, and also here.
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Marathon Mania Follows in the Wake of the Great Pietri/Hayes Duel. Part 2 of 2.
by Roger Robinson
The story so far:
The most famous photo in marathon history shows rubber-legged Dorando Pietri (Italy) staggering across the line in the 1908 London Olympics, supported by race and medical officials whose assistance caused his disqualification. He had in fact collapsed and apparently passed out five times in the last 400 yards of the race, the first time at the entrance to the stadium, receiving medical help and physical assistance on each occasion. For Johnny Hayes (USA), though he never passed Pietri, the gold medal was just reward for excellent pace judgment and a strong finish, when favorites like Tom Longboat (Canada) and Fred Appleby (England) had gone out too fast. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was in the stands as a special reporter and wrote the best contemporary description of the dramatic last lap. But the frequent claim that Doyle was one of those who assisted Pietri is one of many myths and half-truths that have accrued around the legendary race.
Now read on:
The fund started by Arthur Conan Doyle for Dorando Pietri was intended to help the little cake maker set up his own business at home in Carpi, Italy (not Capri). In New York, Bloomingdale Brothers (as the big store was then known) resplendently decorated its whole building in honor of its most famous employee, Johnny Hayes, and rewarded him for all the publicity by promoting him to manager of the sporting goods department. Tom Longboat ("Cogwagee" was his Iroquois name) returned to the Toronto cigar shop that he nominally managed under the guidance of his racing manager, Irish-Canadian hotel owner and sports promoter Tom Flanagan.
Continued in our May/June issue...
Two Villages in Europe Host Two of the World's Most Important Ultras.
by Roy Pirrung
Most of Europe may have lagged behind other areas of the world as ultrarunning, once known as pedestrianism, suddenly gained momentum elsewhere in the world.
The sport originated in England in the 18th century, and it seemed to revive in the 1970s. This was especially true in the English-speaking countries and primarily in Great Britain, Australia, and the United States. What had been a major sport a century earlier gained a foothold in those countries and made it appealing again, although for different reasons.
In the old days, the sport attracted major players willing to go the distance, not so much as a matter of sport, but rather to make money like other professional athletes. Races were staged in large arenas, drawing spectators and those willing to wager a few pounds or dollars betting on their favorite athlete. So promoters took full advantage of large cities, where they would be somewhat guaranteed to fill the house on race day or race week in many cases.
One of the most popular pedestrian events was the six-day go-as-you-please race. Not only did it afford promoters the chance to gather an audience, it allowed them to do it for nearly a week. As the week went along, the crowds generally would grow in anticipation of what would happen near the finish.
A lot has changed since those days. Many of the major races in the United States are run on trails, hence no paying spectators, and in many cases, no spectators at all. Promoting an event becomes less of an exercise in drawing spectators and more of one in drawing participants.
Continued in our May/June issue...
It Is Becoming Increasingly Common for Corporations to Create Incentives for Employees to Strive for Better Health.
by Jim Lafferty
As a small subset of the "finishers" group crossed Geneva's Mont Blanc Bridge, the highest peak in the Alps (and the namesake for the bridge) glistened with its snowcapped crown nearly 70 miles in the distance. As the crowds cheered the members of the group, all adorned in their red uniforms, with the shouts of "Allez les rouges" ("Go red!" in French), the group rounded the right-hand turn onto Rue de Lausanne in the heart of this quaint Swiss city and could see the 39K sign ahead. The end of the marathon for these beginners, these finishers, was coming closer. But it was a culmination of more than just 42.2 kilometers. It was a culmination of an 18-week journey of a team unified under the banner of working for the Procter & Gamble Company in Geneva, the European headquarters. It was the culmination of 57 separate nationalities making up the team. It was the culmination of 306 individuals finding out who they are, how deep their commitment lies, and whether they could realize the dream of doing what only a fraction of a percent of the world will ever do-complete a marathon.
The marathon is often referred to as a "singular" event: one person, one distance, the time, the person versus the distance and the clock. But for as much as the marathon means for many in the world today, could it mean even more? Could the power of the marathon be corralled by organizations, even for-profit companies, as a means to invest in their most important asset-their people-and to help them improve performance in the workplace? Could the marathon actually improve a company's bottom line?
Continued in our May/June issue...
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One Runner's Obsession With Courses and Courses.
by Lance Martin
Here is the moment when I realized I had a problem: it's early afternoon and I'm standing in my kitchen just returned from a steamy interval workout. Now, at the outset I should say that I acknowledge how certain runners love the fast stuff; an hour at the track is like an executive spa package for them. I am not that runner. With my one-two punch of negligible athleticism and low threshold for pain, what I do at the track shouldn't even be called a speed workout, more like hyperventijogging. Anyway, I've suffered through the workout and I'm in the kitchen. But am I stretching? No. Am I hydrating and checking my heart rate? No. I'm drizzling garlic-infused oil with one hand and wielding an immersion blender with the other so I can make homemade mayonnaise. This will be the foundation for a remoulade I plan to dollop or-if I'm feeling frisky-pipe over pan-roasted swordfish fillets. You get the picture: a pair of sweat-saturated Asics on my feet, a precisely emulsified scoop of homemade mayonnaise on my finger, Gatorade and eggshells on the counter. This is not the image of Alan Webb's kitchen. But what can I say? Have you ever tasted homemade mayo or its Scrabble-worthy sibling, aioli? One spoonful and you'll never go back to that jarred putty they sell at the supermarket. Bring out the Hellmann's and bring out the caulk gun.
I have been running for six years, and like many new runners, I have become addicted to marathons. I am training for my twelfth right now. I have trained under Coach Guy Avery. I own worn copies of Daniels' Running Formula and Pfitzinger and Douglas's Advanced Marathoning. I have MarathonGuide.com at the top of my bookmarks, and I think Gmap Pedometer is a more important program than whatever it is that allows for online banking. I know that lactate threshold has nothing to do with breastfeeding.
But long before I laced up my first pair of running shoes, I was building a cookbook collection, molding my own pate, seeking out duck confit for cassoulet, and tweaking my mom's jambalaya recipe. For as long as I can remember, I have been an unrepentant foodie. In school, when the kids huddled at the back of the bus and asked if I wanted a "toke," I assumed they meant "toque" and said, "Absolutely!" As I have grown more obsessed with running and my PRs have improved, glacially, my palate has become exponentially more demanding. On the running side, the notion of qualifying for Boston has gone from the mythological to the merely theoretical. But on the foodie side, I'm now marinating my own olives and trying to find money to join a cheese-of-the-month club. If someone mentions resistance training, I immediately think of "plats de resistance." The cook in me grapples with the runner, and the fate of my race times (not to mention the puffiness of my soufflés) hangs in the balance.
Continued in our May/June issue...
Neither Snow, Nor Rain, Nor Heat ...
by Thomas G. Allison
Maybe it was a late October night When cold shadows crisply outlined Beneath the full, white moon Set his steps ever quickening in flight One more closely on the next - Quickly, quickly - On the toes Past the harvest fields Where big pumpkins waited in uneasy rows Past the woods deserted But only for his goblin thoughts Rushed - Up the final hill around the bend and down To the first lamppost And the smell of town.
Continued in our May/June issue...
Fifty Miles Plus Fifty Miles Do Not a 100-Miler Make.
by Gay Renouf
For more than a decade, I had wondered what my running limits were-marathons, two marathons a week apart, 30 miles, 50 miles, 75 miles. How much farther could I go? And each race went well, or not. Still, none had really tested my limits. And in that spirit, that foolish and naive "How bad could it be?" spirit, I entered my first 100-miler.
The race that I chose for my first hundred was the 2005 Javelina Jundred in McDowell Mountain Park near Phoenix, Arizona. The pictures on the Web site were arresting-red dirt against deep blue skies, exotic cacti. I was enticed by the saturated colors and simple beauty of the desert. And if any 100-mile race could be fun, this would be it! The Web site advertised a 100-mile trail-running party with a costume contest and a "Best Ass" award to be determined by mooning the judges. And I really liked the spelling protocol that the Web site adopted. Of course there was the "Javelina Jundred" as well as "Jowdy Javelinas" and "Javelina Jeadquarters." It all just seemed too cool two months before race time.
A friend of mine told me that, as a teenager, she had invented her own holiday-Hubris Day. To her, it was a day of being proud to be a nerd and a chance for her gang to celebrate its own quirky individuality. To Webster's Dictionary, however, it meant a day of "excessive pride or arrogance." As I anticipated the day of the race, I began to think that I was indeed guilty of hubris. But in the spirit of the Javelina Jundred, then, so be it-I would celebrate "Jubris Day."
Continued in our May/June issue...
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The Stress of Running All Night Can Be the Doorway to Otherness.
by Gary Dudney
It was hard to say which was worse: the ache in my legs, the pulled muscle throbbing in my back, the headache, the nausea, or fighting to stay awake as I weaved from side to side on the gravel road. I had run plenty of ultraraces before, but this first try at a hundred miles was a monster. I had spent all day crossing the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, baking in the sun and fighting a stiff head wind, which the locals jokingly called Kansas mountains. Now the night and sheer exhaustion were doing me in.
A floodlight set on top of an aluminum pole cast a garish light over the aid station at Matfield Green. The camp chairs lined up next to the aid table there threw an ominous row of shadows across the road. A pair of crumpled runners covered with blankets filled two of the chairs. Neither was moving. They looked done, along with another guy stretched out on a cot behind them. It bucked me up a little that at least I was still on my feet.
The aid table was littered with cups, sticky chunks of watermelon and cantaloupe, and some cut-up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. None of it looked edible with my iffy stomach. The cut-up sports bars, just the thing for failing runners, looked particularly bad. I couldn't touch them.
I collapsed into a chair beyond the table as far away from the spent runners as I could get.
Continued in our May/June issue...
A Transformation
by Mike Pastore
This is it; finally I am at the race registration for tomorrow's Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run. At my first table stop, a bright yellow, sort of wide for my taste, hospital-type wristband is attached to my right wrist and two volunteers quickly hand me two T-shirts. The next volunteer delivers to me a bright red, genuine North Face backpack-so far this is easy and fun. A quick body-fat test and blood drawing must be payment for the T-shirts and backpack. Blood pressure is next, and the last stop is my prerace weight-all of this information is recorded on my wristband with a Sharpie pen. The wristband has now become me for the next two days.
Much of what all this fuss really meant was just now starting to sink in; by tomorrow at this time, we would be running a remote 100-mile trail, start to finish, in California's Sierra Nevada, and it would take most of us all day and all night. The race would start in the dark at 5:00 A.M., and we would get to see the sun come up over Lake Tahoe; after running all day and then all night, we would see the sun come up again as we closed in on the finish line in Auburn. Perhaps that explains the abnormal generosity of two T-shirts. Not much about tomorrow's race was going to be normal.
Tim Twietmeyer is behind me at the weigh-in. He has finished this race over 20 times. I wait until he is done and ask if I can have my picture taken with him. He graciously agrees. This picture will be my only chance to see him from the front when we are in the same race.
During the three-day Western States 100 Memorial Day training run, I wore a white singlet, black shorts, and a red bandanna-coincidently, much like Tim-and a few people even told me that we looked alike.
He is much taller, lots faster, and he is quick to smile.
Yeah sure, we look a lot alike, almost twins, like Schwarzenegger and DeVito.
Continued in our May/June issue...
Volcano Hopping on Easter Island.
by Willy Stern
Easter Island Marathon, June 11, 2006-Diane Kenna, a lithe and efficient 41-year-old runner, would have had plenty of reasons to question her own judgment, particularly as she was powering her way up the brutal three-mile hill after the turnaround point at the 2006 Easter Island Marathon.
Up to this point, she had led the whole way. Running fast and first were hardly new concepts to Kenna. She had clocked a 3:03 marathon at Boston in 1993. Five years later, she had been the first woman across the finish line at the grueling Death Valley Marathon. Nonetheless, in the 80-degree heat and ever-present humidity of this remote South Pacific island in mid-June 2006, Kenna could feel herself wilting. Still, she gamely continued the extended slog up toward the top of the Rano Aroi Volcano.
Making matters worse for Kenna on this muggy Sunday morning, she could hear the determined footsteps of Fernando Heredia drawing nearer. Although the two had yet to meet, Kenna would later learn that the 31-year-old Heredia was competing in his first marathon.
Why, she couldn't help wondering, had she made a spur-of-the-moment decision 48 hours earlier to compete in a sprint triathlon for which she had neither trained nor had proper equipment? Just 15 minutes before the triathlon had started, Kenna had signed up for the race-part of a three-day trifecta of sporting events on Chile's Easter Island. (Sandwiched between Friday's triathlon and Sunday's marathon had been Saturday's dramatic 35-kilometer mountain-bike competition that included the long haul up to the summit of the Rano Kau Volcano.) And yes, Easter Island is that island, the one with the enormous stone faces.
Continued in our May/June issue...
Dr. Sheehan On Running
by Dr. George Sheehan
Part 9: If It Were Proven That Running Offered No Physical Benefits, Would You Still Do It?
This final installment is continued in our May/June issue...
The Endless Summer-& Beyond
In the tradition of many magazines before us, our July/August issue is our Summer Reading issue, which means we save a lot of longer, more casually-paced features for this issue. It is also our annual Adventure Running issue, which means that we also save a lot of the more outré stories for this issue. Combine the two, and this issue contains a lot of longer, more off-the-wall stories than our usual issues do. That means that the stories are usually easier to read because they don't dwell all that much on the scientific side of running, but they take longer to read because they typically have an enormous number of words.
I'm something of a sucker for such special issues because they harken back to somnolent summers as a kid, where we would spend the mornings doing a few chores, then play some pickup ballgames, and when the day began to swelter we would crawl down into the borough's big, cool, damp drainage pipes and read comic books and The Hardy Boys before emerging later in the day to put in our several hours working on the Mauch Chunk Bakery Company delivery truck for 25 cents an hour . . . which allowed us to buy even more comic books and more Hardy Boy books and expand into Rick Brant Electronic Adventure novels.
Summers in those days used to spool out to forever. They had a beginning: the last day of school. But until they slipped right up against September, June/July/August was like one big month swollen with warm breezes and sweaty chests and knocking around doing nothing that amounted to lots of little things stitched together to complete a typical day.
Continued in our July/August issue.
Time and Distance: An Argument in Favor of Measurement
by Dan Horvath
"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge of it is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science."-Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin of Largs (1824-1907)
"Run by time, not by distance;" "run by time or distance, but never both;" "to truly enjoy your running, leave your watch at home and measure nothing."
These and similar measurement-related adages have been put forth by popular writers, including some here in Marathon & Beyond. With the increasing number of new marathoners, these bromides have become more pronounced in recent years. Although usually slanted toward novice runners, the advice is also often presented as a one-size-fits-all rule for the rest of us to run by. The counsel is rarely questioned; it's merely accepted by many as the only worthwhile running method.
We run for many reasons: just for enjoyment, to be able to reach the finish line at our races, to improve or maximize our racing performances, or to be competitive against others. The minimal-measurement approach may indeed fit the needs of those who run only for fun or who enter races only to finish them. But is the approach best for the rest of us as well?
I don't think so. I believe in measurement. I ought to; besides my forays into running and writing, I am a software metrics consultant. This means that I measure and report on various aspects of computer software, so I may be somewhat biased (some would say anal retentive) when it comes to measuring things. Many runners, perhaps most, keep training logs. They know that these can be extremely useful tools. My point is that we need to record more than just time or distance. At least during important training periods, at least when we really care about the results, we need to track both.
Continued in our July/August issue.
It Was So Easy Then
The other day I bumped into a running acquaintance of mine, and he told me he had recently completed his first marathon. It was a 4:12 effort. That may be a modest time to some, but he was proud of the accomplishment, and justifiably so. Did I mention that he's 70 years old?
It surprised me that he had waited so long to finally add a marathon to his running resume, which has included solid age-group performances at a variety of distances over many years. I guess I've always assumed that the lure of the marathon strikes early and that completing one becomes a goal before most runners know what hit. In fact, these days a marathon is many runners' first race of any distance. That seems odd to most of us old-timers who worked our way through high school and college programs, racing the mile, two-mile, and other midrange distances before we were tempted, or allowed, to consider 26.2.
All this reminds me that my own experience with marathoning has been drastically different from most runners, especially most runners in the 21st century. And it also reminds me of how relatively easy, and certainly careless, my first marathon was.
The year was 1972. I had graduated from Stanford the previous spring and had decided to stay in the Bay Area for a year, focus on my training, and see if I could qualify for the U.S. Olympic team in the 5,000 or 10,000 meters. I moved into a house with three Stanford students, one of whom was Duncan Macdonald, who had been my teammate at Stanford and would be my Olympic teammate in 1976. But that was still four years in the future. In 1972, Duncan was competing for Stanford, and I was steadily ratcheting up my training.
Both of us had Olympic aspirations, but not in the marathon. Duncan was a miler, and I had had success racing two and three miles. The Olympic 5,000 was on my radar screen, and I was also keeping the 10,000 in mind.
In February 1972, with the U.S. Olympic Trials five months in the future, I was bumping up my mileage to previously unthinkable totals as a way to build underlying strength. In the first week of that month, I reached an all-time high of 132 miles, including one workout where I ran 10 times a half mile on the golf course, with a quarter-mile jog between them. I didn't record my times for those intervals, but I guarantee you they were fast. I was living that kind of running life.
Continued in our July/August issue.
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BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, April 15, 2002-From 1987 to 2001, it was the same old story for me. Every year I was sure to be among the manic crowd watching the Boston Marathon. It was fun to be swept up by the overwhelming hype surrounding the world's most notable running event. I was not a runner then, but this race had an inexplicable magnetism that lured me back every third Monday in April. I felt deeply inspired to watch thousands of runners make their way along the famous course, which includes my former town of Framingham. These incredible people of all ages, shapes, and sizes who performed such monumental running achievements were truly amazing. If they had the physical and mental capacity to run a marathon, why couldn't I? The concept of running 26-plus miles seemed unfathomable to me, and for 14 years I completely doubted my ability to cover the distance. Yet every Patriots' Day, while cheering along Route 135, I thought to myself, "Maybe next year." Sure enough, the impetus to train for the following year's race usually faded after less than a handful of abysmal three-mile runs. Yes, I was hooked on Boston. I was a total Boston Marathon junkie. Only I was not a runner.
Continued in our July/August issue...
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A Truly International Marathon With a Spectacular Course.
Each marathon has a style and attraction unlike others. Within Canada, you find all possible ranges of races. The Niagara Falls International Marathon could be fairly described as a civilized race. You won't encounter large numbers of runners by Los Angeles, New York, or Boston standards, even in fair weather. You won't encounter an entire city focused on you, the runner. You will run on paved roads past some of the most spectacular scenery imaginable. You will experience efficient processing and a staff dedicated to making your running experience a great memory. You will encounter lovely neighborhoods with friendly volunteers in abundance. You might also pass walkers with their dogs, in-line skaters, and casual runners out for their constitutionals. You'll pass beautiful homes with their owners engaged in yard work. In the area of the Horseshoe Falls, you'll pass tourist buses carrying people of all nationalities to view this natural wonder. This is not your ordinary neighborhood.
You will probably leave the neighborhoods of Buffalo, New York; Fort Erie, Ontario; and Niagara Falls, Ontario, feeling that you've just skimmed the surface-and that's pretty accurate. The term "embarrassment of riches" comes to mind. If you drive to Niagara Falls, you'll pass historical and visitor center markers along highways 401, 403, and the QEW. Canada has done a great job of tantalizing visitors. We will touch on some of the activities that runners can use to diversify their vacations.
Continued in our July/August issue...
How Many Miles?
How many miles did I run today? Ask me that simple question and you'll get a nonanswer. I don't know, haven't known in 40 years, haven't needed to know on any day except a race day, and haven't even wanted to know in recent years as distances shortened and paces slowed.
In 1967, I went off the gold standard of U.S. running-the almighty mile-and started keeping score by the minute and hour. Since then I haven't counted miles per day, added up weekly mileage, or calculated pace per mile-or even guessed at those figures. I've just run my time and let the mileage and minutes per mile fall where they may, unchecked or guessed at.
That's fine for me. But the runners I now teach and coach won't settle for such vague accounting. I doubt if you will either, because the by-time-only plan has always been a tough sell.
Like you, my students demand to know how far, how fast. So I'll turn the opening question around: how many miles did you run today?
Chances are, you think you know. Chances are even better that you're a little to a long way off, depending on your measurement method.
Continued in our July/August issue...
Lively responses to our most recent issues.
Experts answer readers' training and competition questions. This month's question: What Kind of Pace? I'm new to marathon running. At 45 years old, I've run three marathons, all of them slower than four and a half hours. I want to improve my time and maybe qualify for Boston. In doing research on pacing a marathon, I'm confused. There is a lot of talk about negative splits, which is a concept that seems to fly in the face of the natural tendency to slow down as you get farther into the race. There is also a lot of discussion about running an even-paced race. I find that difficult as I begin to run faster around the six- or seven-mile mark and then pay for it once I get to mile 18 or 19. What kind of marathon pace is most likely to lead to success based on what you've learned in the real world as opposed to what the "experts" teach?
Our experts answer this question in our July/August issue.
Among this issue's stellar cast of authors are Jason Karp, Jeff Horowitz, Roy Pirrung, and Roger Robinson.
The first effort to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days was a low-key feat, done on the cheap.
by Duncan Larkin
On August 15, 2006, North Face, the outdoor apparel company, issued a press release officially kicking off an event called the "Endurance 50." The company announced that on September 17, its sponsored athlete, ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes, would begin running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. The feat was well received by the press, making major headlines across the lifestyle pages of countless newspapers and Web sites across the world. Could Karnazes-himself no stranger to running stunts-pull off this Herculean endurance feat? Would he be able to, in his words, "test the limits of human endurance"? Could he pass this ultimate test? Would he make it? The buzz had begun.
What most people didn't know, what didn't make it into a press release, what got almost no buzz in the running community, was that on this very day, a quiet 26-year-old was running his 47th consecutive marathon in as many days in as many states to raise awareness for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. His name was Sam Thompson, and he ran 51 marathons in 50 days in 50 states.
He did it first; this is his story.
The seeds of perseverance that blossomed into Sam Thompson's 51-in-50-in 50 feat were planted, oddly enough, in his broken tibia. Sam grew up in the small town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the younger of two children. His father was an engineer and his mother was a French teacher, and Sam enjoyed a typical American childhood. He first took to running by playing soccer, where he discovered that he had cardiovascular endurance. His talent eventually drew him off the soccer field in high school and into cross-country. He was hooked and enjoyed the freedom of running. But the shorter high school events weren't enough for Sam, so he competed in triathlons and duathlons on the side. He excelled in these sports, winning the 1997 Mississippi Duathlon Championships and sought to repeat his victory in 1998.
And then it all fell apart.
Continued in our July/August issue...
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Sometimes What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You.
by Anne Saita
Somehow Gary Roberts failed to fully take in his roommate's strange habits: running on a treadmill placed in full sun; blasting the car's heat despite Oceanside's optimal weather; driving two hours each week to run in heavy-weather gear in the Anza-Borrego Desert. What finally got Roberts's attention was one summer afternoon when Akos Konya came out of his bedroom wearing six layers of clothing and a hydration pack holding a half gallon of water. Intrigued, Roberts grabbed his video camera and began recording. What, he wanted to know, was going on?
Konya explained that he was training for a big race in Death Valley and wanted to simulate extreme conditions. It was hot in San Diego County that day, but not that hot. Then he set out for an open trail behind their apartment complex, returning just over an hour and seven miles later. The multiple layers suffocated his skin; he had to stop. After drinking glass after glass of Gatorade, Konya wrung the sweat from each piece of saturated clothing to demonstrate just how much moisture he had produced. This prompted a big Ewwww! from Roberts's 10-year-old daughter, Mackenna.
"He'd told me a year ago he was going to do Badwater, but it really didn't register with me," Roberts explained a couple of months after they had returned from the 135-mile ultramarathon, considered one of the most grueling endurance races in the world. Despite the advance notice, it wasn't until three weeks before the July 2006 event, when his roommate's bizarre behavior finally appeared on Roberts's radar, that it dawned on him: this is not going to be easy for me, either.
Good thing the epiphany came when it did, because nonrunner Roberts headed into Badwater representing half of Konya's entire crew.
Continued in our July/August issue...
We Trained Long and Hard for the Moscow Peace Marathon, but the Journey Itself Is the Essence.
by Fern Greenwell
It is 6:00 A.M. on an August morning in Chisinau, Moldova. It is day 24 in the inexorable countdown to th