50/50 (22 page)
Five Great Boston Marathon Qualifying Events
Choosing the right marathon event will improve your chances of achieving a Boston Marathon qualifying time. The best qualifying events feature flat courses, cool and dry weather (most years), and large fields with plenty of competitors who run as fast as you hope to, or faster. Here are five marathons that meet these criteria:
1. Bay State Marathon, Lowell, Massachusetts (October)
2. California International Marathon, Sacramento, California (December)
3. Chicago Marathon, Chicago, Illinois (November)
4. Grandma’s Marathon, Duluth, Minnesota (June)
5. Mercedes Marathon, Birmingham, Alabama (February)
For a complete list of Boston Marathon qualifying races, go to
www.baa.org
.
The pride of qualifying to compete within a selective group of runners is not the only attraction of the Boston Marathon. This classic event also features a number of great traditions that make it unique and special. Our re-created Boston Marathon had some of the same jovialities that the live event is renowned for. Runners had journeyed from Texas, California, Florida, Canada, and even Israel, and the group was serenaded by many cheering spectators along the way. A couple of Wellesley College girls even offered “free kisses,” as on race day, and several of the younger lads in our group partook, as did some of the not-so-younger lads.
When we rounded the final corner and headed down Boylston Street, we were treated to the sight of the actual Boston Marathon finishing line, which had been painted across the street especially for us that day. As we took our final few steps, people lining both sides of the road cheered, police sirens wailed, and noisemakers clanked. We runners joined hands together and broke through the finishing tape as a united group. It was a glorious and emotional moment. One runner turned to me and said it was his best Boston ever.
“How many times have you run Boston?” I asked.
“That was my twenty-fifth.”
“Wow,” I marveled.
“And the best thing about today,” he went on, “is that I got a Wellesley kiss. So I’m twenty-five for twenty-five there too.”
I chuckled.
“That’s the only reason I keep doing this race.” He winked at me.
What was it I was saying earlier about motivation coming in many forms? For this fellow, obviously, motivation came in the form of two lips.
As I’ve mentioned before, when it comes to motivation, I say get it wherever you can.
Breaking Down
Day 30
October 16, 2006
Breakers Marathon
Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island
Elevation: 98'
Weather: 60 degrees; crystal clear
Time: 4:14:12
Net calories burned: 95,610
Number of runners: 28
M
ore than a few Endurance 50
participants started their marathons with lingering minor injuries from training, or developed minor injuries on the course. One of the most memorable cases was that of a jet pilot who ran the Breakers Marathon with me and twenty-seven others on Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island. Years earlier, Jonathan had suffered a knee injury that had healed well enough to allow him to run every day but still caused him pain when he pushed it. He had never run a marathon before, so after completing thirteen miles with us, Jonathan was definitely pushing it.
At fifteen miles, still feeling okay, he stopped briefly to heed nature’s call. When he tried to resume running, his knee locked up and ignited with intense pain. Devastated but undeterred, Jonathan began walking in a stiff-legged manner, doing his best to ignore the pain in his left knee. With four miles left to go, he began to doubt whether he would finish after all. Just then, a runner who had completed the Hartford Marathon two days earlier pulled alongside Jonathan in his vehicle, introduced himself as Paul, and asked whether Jonathan needed a ride. Paul had driven to Rhode Island expressly to provide additional support, if needed. Jonathan declined the offered lift, and instead accepted a subsequent offer of improvised medical treatment.
Paul pulled out a roll of duct tape and created a makeshift brace around Jonathan’s aching joint. The additional support reduced the pain just enough to allow him to walk the last four miles—and run the last twenty-five yards to complete his first marathon. Paul’s generosity and Jonathan’s determination were especially noteworthy examples of the spirit evinced by Endurance 50 participants in every state across the country.
The knee is the most common site of injury in runners. In fact, running-related knee injuries are so common that doctors informally classify this type of injury as “runner’s knee” (much as tennis players have “tennis elbow” and swimmers have “swimmer’s shoulder”). The technical name for runner’s knee is
patellofemoral pain syndrome.
The main symptom is pain underneath the kneecap that is mild, at first, and felt only during running, but tends to become more severe and to linger longer after runs, until eventually running is impossible. Its primary cause is instability at the knee joint during the impact phase of the stride, which causes damaging friction in the tissues between the kneecap and lower leg bones.
QUICK TAKE:
Runners tend to develop a lot of tight spots in their muscles that cause stiffness and can lead to injuries. One way to work out these tight spots is with a therapeutic foam roller. By rolling your legs across one of these tools at various angles for just five minutes a day, you may notice a big boost in your mobility.
Runner’s knee is considered to be an overuse injury, as are many other types of common running injuries. As the term suggests, overuse injuries involve the gradual breakdown of body tissues resulting from repetitive motion over the course of days, weeks, months, or even years. These injuries are quite different from so-called acute injuries such as ankle sprains.
It Starts with the Shoes
Improper footwear contributes to many injuries. Wearing the appropriate type of running shoe for your foot can help prevent such occurrences. Generally, runners with flat arches may benefit from a motion-control or stability shoe, with extra stability features to manage overpronation of the foot. Runners with normal arches typically fare best with a neutral shoe. And those with high arches most often require a running shoe with extra flexibility.
These are guiding principles, not definitive rules. The “best” shoe is the one that works best for you. My recommendation is never to skimp when it comes to finding your ideal running shoe. In my experience, running specialty stores are the best retailers to purchase running shoes from, as most of the sales staff are passionate runners themselves and understand how to match a runner’s foot and running style with the ideal type of shoe.
I have neutral biomechanics, but I log a ton of miles, so I wear extra-durable shoes designed for runners with normal arches, such as the North Face Arnuva 50 Boa.
Beginning runners suffer the most overuse injuries per hour of training, because their bones, muscles, and connective tissues are not yet well adapted to the new activity. When taking up running, or when starting over after a layoff, ramp up conservatively, beginning with gentle, manageable workouts and increasing their duration and/or intensity gradually over the course of many weeks as your body adapts.
Even the fittest runners can put themselves at risk of injury by making abrupt changes in their training—specifically, by suddenly increasing the duration, frequency, or intensity of workouts. For example, competitive runners often become injured when they abruptly introduce challenging speed workouts into their program after having done only moderate-intensity training recently.
No matter your fitness level, proceed watchfully when making changes that increase the challenge level of your training, whether it’s adding high-intensity runs, increasing the duration of your longest runs, or adding one or more training sessions to your weekly schedule.
Errors in running technique can also contribute to running injuries. In runners, the most common injury-inducing technique flaw is heel striking, or landing heel-first rather than on the midfoot. Heel striking tends to cause a very sudden spike in impact forces that shoots straight up the legs, concentrating in susceptible joints such as the knees and hips. By contrast, landing on the midfoot allows the body to better absorb impact force in the foot, ankle, and lower leg, so that less force reaches the knee, hip, and pelvis. I also believe it’s very helpful to strengthen your lower abdominal muscles. Runners who cannot activate these muscles properly are unable to maintain proper stability in the pelvis, hips, and knees during running. As a result, their pelvis goes into a forward tilt and they get an arch in their low back. This places extra stress on both the hamstrings and knees.
Strengthening Your Lower Abdominal Muscles
Here are two good exercises to strengthen your lower abdominal muscles and improve your core stability when running.
Lower Abdominal Squeeze
Lie faceup with your arms relaxed at your sides and your legs extended straight toward the ceiling, heels together. Now contract the muscles of your lower abdomen and, by doing so, try to lift your heels ever so slightly toward the ceiling. (This is a very small movement.) Hold the contraction for one second, then relax for one second. Repeat the exercise until you feel a nice burning sensation in the targeted muscles.
Stick Crunch
Lie faceup on the floor and draw your knees toward your chest. Hold a short stick, rope, or rolled-up towel between your hands (about fifteen inches apart) with your arms extended straight toward your toes. Try to reach the stick past your feet by contracting your abdominal muscles and pulling your chest toward your knees and your knees toward your chest (curling into a ball). Pause briefly with the stick on the far side of your feet and then relax. Repeat twelve to twenty times.
While it takes time and patience, training yourself to switch from a stride with a heel-first landing to one with a midfoot landing is possible. The easiest way is to practice angling your whole body slightly forward as you run, as though you’re always running down a subtle hill. This will force you to make ground contact with your foot more in line with your body’s center of gravity—rather than out ahead of it—and at a more neutral angle, instead of toes-up.
I believe the human body was made to move and that we can all enjoy miles of injury-free running if we get into shape and then simply allow our body to do what it was designed to do. We were naturally made to run. Now, sitting behind a desk all day staring at a computer screen:
That’s
the unnatural state we need to correct.
Day 31
October 17, 2006
Portland Marathon
Portland, Maine
Elevation: 350'
Weather: 57 degrees; cloudy
Time: 4:12:37
Net calories burned: 98,797
Number of runners: 23
I woke up on the morning of Day 31 with full-body aches. The cold that had ebbed and flowed inside me throughout the Endurance 50 had taken a turn for the worse during the night. If I hadn’t been obligated to run a marathon in Portland, Maine, on this morning, I would have bailed and taken a day off. The last thing you feel like doing when you’ve got a raging cold is going for a run. In my current endeavor, however, the show had to go on. Rest was not an option. Endurance never sleeps.
It has been fairly well documented that prolonged, high- intensity activity (competing in Ironman triathlons and ultramarathons, for instance, or extreme mountain climbing) can temporarily suppress the immune system. Some of the folks I had talked to about my cold during the Endurance 50 had theorized that this was precisely what was happening to me. I didn’t buy into it, however. I had another theory—one that was much more verifiable.
We’d been crisscrossing the country at the beginning of cold and flu season, meeting thousands of people along the way. Intensifying this already heightened level of exposure to bugs, I’d been shaking hands with and hugging hundreds of sweaty runners, putting finger foods—like energy bars and fruit—directly into my mouth, and blowing my nose with the back of my hand. Gross, I know, especially after shaking dozens of other hands. There was just so much going on, however, that after a point I threw every basic precautionary measure to the wind. It was no use trying to remain hermetically sealed.
QUICK TAKE:
Carbohydrate provides fuel for the immune system. While the mechanism of action responsible for this is not fully understood, research has shown that consuming carbohydrate (for example, in a sports drink) while running reduces the suppressive effect of intense, prolonged exercise on the immune system.
One way to avoid colds is to refrain from touching your nasal tissue, a primary vector for germ transmission. Here I was shaking multiple hands—a primary carrier of germs—and then wiping my nose directly with the back of my hand, effectively swabbing the most vulnerable area of my body with millions of rhinoviruses from across the country. More than weakening my immune system through physical strain, I was infecting and reinfecting myself daily.
The minor colds I suffered from throughout the fifty days, however, were really just that: minor colds. I can’t remember the last time I was laid out flat from a cold or flu. I’m sure it’s been more than a decade since I was unable to get out of bed because of an illness. How do I prevent major colds and flus? In a couple of ways. First, I drink lots of water throughout the day. When I say
lots,
I mean three to four liters. I carry a water bottle with me all day long as a reminder, and constantly fill it. Second, I drink warm tea (ginger maté being my favorite) at the first symptoms of a cold to help loosen up phlegm. Yep, I’m talking about that nasty stuff that comes out of your nose when you’re not feeling well.