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When you breathe air with unsafe pollution levels, you may experience tightness in your chest, shortness of breath, wheezing, and coughing. Runners and other outdoor exercisers are especially susceptible to these effects not only because we spend more time outdoors, but also because during exercise we may breathe ten or twenty times as much air—and ten to twenty times as much air pollution—as we do at rest.

In addition to irritating your respiratory tract, working out in smoggy air may also affect your performance. Air pollution causes the airways to constrict during intense exercise, reducing oxygen delivery to the muscles.

In American cities that have the worst air quality, doctors are seeing an alarming trend of more and more outdoor athletes and exercisers coming to them with complaints of asthma, allergies, and breathing difficulties. It’s a frighteningly ironic phenomenon. These people are getting outside and sweating every day in part to improve their health, and due to factors beyond their control, they wind up harming their health in certain ways.

There are some simple precautionary measures you can take to help protect yourself from traffic pollution. First of all, time your outdoor workouts for periods of the day when pollution levels are lowest, typically the morning or evening, rather than at noontime. Photochemical smog levels increase after the morning rush hour as the exhaust travels through the bright sunlight.

Also, do your workouts far away from high-traffic areas. Pollution levels tend to be highest within fifty feet of major roadways. Finally, check the air quality in your area before you work out. You can do this by logging on to
www.epa.gov/airnow
. On days when the air is rated “unhealthy for sensitive groups” (orange) or worse, do your workout indoors.

Thankfully, ozone levels are lower now than they were thirty years ago, though they remain problematic in some areas. One such place is Chicago, where I ran the live Chicago Marathon on Day 36 of the Endurance 50. Unfortunately, Chicago ranks among the fifteen worst cities for air quality in the United States. Don’t get me wrong: I love Chicago for its vibrant people, rich culture, colorful history, great food, and musical heritage, and I had an absolutely stellar time completing the Chicago Marathon alongside forty-two thousand other runners. It’s truly one of the most exciting and upbeat marathons I’ve ever run. Yet as I ran, even though it was a smog-free and breezy day, I couldn’t help thinking about the world that we’ve created and how we runners are subjected to all kinds of environmental insults that our bodies were not designed to tolerate.

Large Versus Small Marathons

With forty-two thousand runners, the Chicago Marathon was one of the largest marathons in the Endurance 50. This massive scale has its advantages and disadvantages. Small marathons typically have a different set of advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a comparison.

I did not brood on such unhappy thoughts very long, though. The Chicago Marathon offered too many happy distractions for that. The aid stations were well stocked with the usual stuff from start to finish, and the outside support was even better. During the course of the race, I had a container of chocolate-covered espresso beans handed to me, a slice of Chicago-style deep-dish pizza delivered up piping hot, and a platter of freshly made baklava offered at the twenty-mile mark. The air was good in Chicago today, and the food was even better.

And it didn’t stop with the race. At the Finish Festival, a large contingency of Greeks had gathered to greet me and my family. Most were relatives, including Uncle Leo, Aunt Sophia, and cousin George. I watched Alexandria and Nicholas socialize with the group. They looked totally at home among cousins, aunts, and uncles.

“Here, you look skinny. I brought you this.” Aunt Sophia held out a bag to me.

“Thanks, Sophia,” I said, “but I just had lunch.”

“It’s okay, it’s just something light,” she said. “Eat.”

I took the bag, and it nearly pulled my arm off.

“That’s light?”

Inside was a gyro sandwich the size of a cantaloupe.

“I used lamb instead of meat. It’s very light. Now eat.”

Uncle Leo and cousin George approached.

“We saw you at mile twenty,” Uncle Leo said. “You looked like you were in pain. Have some of this. It will help.”

They handed me a cup with some clear liquid inside. I thought it was water and downed it.

Immediately I started choking and coughing on the contents. “What is this?” I gasped.

“Ouzo. You won’t be feeling much more pain.”

I instructed the Endurance 50 team to get me out of there as quickly as possible. If we hung around too much longer, the Greeks were sure to end this tour right here in Chicago.

Day 37

October 23, 2006

City of Lakes Marathon

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Elevation: 834'

Weather: 38 degrees; overcast and chilly

Time: 4:22:06

Net calories burned: 117,919

Number of runners: 55

The City of Lakes Marathon was different from any other marathon in the Endurance 50 in one key respect: It doesn’t exist anymore. Held for the first time in 1963, the City of Lakes Marathon (initially called the Land of Lakes Marathon) continued through 1982, when it merged with the St. Paul Marathon, moved to a different course, and became the Twin Cities Marathon. When the folks from The North Face contacted the Twin Cities Marathon organizers about our running a re-created version of their event as part of the Endurance 50, they responded by proposing that we instead use the old City of Lakes Marathon course, which takes place entirely on footpaths, so we wouldn’t have to deal with traffic. This not only allowed us to accommodate more runners but also ensured that we breathed cleaner air throughout our four-hour run.

At the finish of the marathon, there was a young girl holding up a sign. She had been following the Endurance 50 in her class and had convinced her mother to take her out to the finish so she could be part of the event. Her sign read:

ENDURANCE IS . . .

E
FOR
EFFORT

N
FOR
NEVER GIVING UP

D
FOR
DARING

U
FOR
UNBELIEVABLE

R
FOR
REACHING FOR YOUR GOAL

A
FOR
ATTITUDE

N
FOR
NOTHING STANDS IN YOUR WAY

C
FOR
COMMITMENT

E
FOR
ENERGY

If this is the future generation we’re leaving the world to, I’m encouraged.

During the Finish Festival ceremony, our crew presented a tree to a Twin Cities government official. We did the same thing at numerous stops throughout the Endurance 50. Our intent wasn’t only to give beautiful thank-you gifts to our host communities. We also wanted to offset the carbon emissions produced by our tour bus and other official vehicles as we crisscrossed the nation. Since trees consume the carbon dioxide that vehicles emit, planting them is an effective way to fight global warming.

The Conservation Fund operates a program called Go Zero that enables individuals, families, businesses, and other organizations to calculate their carbon footprint, or the amount of carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere, and also provides guidelines for offsetting these emissions through tree planting and other means. We worked with them on our tree-planting mission. Our carbon offsetting was achieved primarily through the planting of more than five hundred trees—which was the number Go Zero calculated was needed to cover the emissions from the Endurance 50—across the nation.

A Breath of Fresh Air

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the ten United States cities with the cleanest air are as follow:

1. Cheyenne, Wyoming

2. Santa Fe, New Mexico

3. Honolulu, Hawaii

4. Great Falls, Montana

5. Farmington, New Mexico

6. Flagstaff, Arizona

7. Tucson, Arizona

8. Anchorage, Alaska

9. Bismarck, North Dakota

10. Albuquerque, New Mexico

There are some environmentalists who dismiss the practice of carbon offsetting as a gimmick that allows people to essentially buy the right to continue polluting guilt-free. The real solution, they argue, lies in reducing pollution, not offsetting it. I agree that the endgame is to reduce pollution, yet I celebrate the carbon-neutral movement because it’s just that: a movement. Within the past few years, we’ve seen the beginning of a major shift in the public attitude toward protecting the environment. While I know we must progress beyond carbon offsetting if we are to adequately safeguard our planet, it’s a start—and more than that, the very acceptance of carbon offsetting is a positive sign for the future. Baby steps add up.

Runners should be leaders in the fight to save the planet. Along with cyclists, surfers, skiers, hikers, and other outdoorsy types, we make a regular habit of immersing ourselves in nature and enjoying all that it has to offer. We appreciate the fragile health of the environment more than a lot of people do, in part because we experience the negative effects of pollution more than a lot of people do. Those of us who live in places like Riverside, California, may suffer from headaches and chest tightness for the rest of the day after running outside on a morning of especially poor air quality. People in places like Penticton, British Columbia, might miss snowshoeing in the winter—as they did in childhood but can do no longer, because of global warming. These are very real effects of the damage we have already done to our global home, and there will only be worse effects if more runners and other outdoor enthusiasts don’t do their part to defend it.

What actions have I taken, personally, to do my part? First, at the beginning of the Endurance 50, I sold my car. That was more than a year ago now, and I haven’t owned one since. How do I get around? You got it: on foot. I have different-size backpacks for use in different types of excursions. For trips to the bank, for instance, I’ve got a small mesh backpack that is really light (not much heavy lifting going on in my bank account, unfortunately). For trips to the post office, I’ve got something slightly larger. And for trips to the hardware or office supplies store, I’ve got an even larger, sturdier backpack.

For more major outings, like to the grocery store, I use a jog stroller. Sure, you get some strange looks when people see a bag of produce inside rather than a baby, but I’m just trying to do my part to save the environment. In fact, we’ve now adopted a policy in our household. For all trips of less than a mile—if we have sufficient time—we walk. At first, Alexandria and Nicholas moaned and groaned. So we amended the dictum to include any human-powered mode of locomotion. Skateboards, Razors, in-line skates, and bicycles are acceptable. Anything goes, so long as it doesn’t involve the burning of fossil fuels.

The kids seem to truly enjoy it now. And, interestingly, most of the time they end up walking with us. We see their friends along the way (most waving out SUV windows), talk to neighbors, enjoy the fresh air, and feel rejuvenated when returning through the front door.

Granted, it might not sound like a Herculean effort we’re putting forth to save the planet. But if everyone were to adopt this policy and start walking, we could collectively have a massive impact on the environment. Yep, I’m on my soapbox. Let’s collectively give new meaning to the phrase
running an errand
.

CHAPTER 26

The Art of the Stride

Day 38

October 24, 2006

Green Bay Marathon

Green Bay, Wisconsin

Elevation: 591'

Weather: 43 degrees; partly cloudy

Time: 4:07:26

Net calories burned: 121,106

Number of runners: 46

T
he Green Bay Marathon
in Wisconsin fell on Nicholas’s ninth birthday. In the spirit of the Endurance 50, he decided to celebrate by running the last nine miles of the marathon—his longest run ever. Alexandria, bless her heart, stepped up to the challenge and ran with him, even though her birthday falls in January.

They timed the start of their endeavor so that, if things went well, our group of forty-six runners would catch them about half a mile away from the finish line and we could all cross together. Indeed we did. The Green Bay Marathon finishes with a lap around historic Lambeau Field, where the Green Bay Packers football team plays. Running in that hallowed venue with my two children and the other runners was a magical experience. My heart swelled with pride as I watched the birthday boy and his big sister dash through the finishing tape, beaming with a sense of accomplishment and looking as though they could run another nine miles.

Something else I noticed during that lap around the football field was how gracefully Alexandria ran. She exhibited the fluid, efficient gait of a naturally gifted distance runner. Younger children look more or less the same when they run, but by the time they reach ten or eleven years—Alexandria’s age at the time—you can easily spot the boys and girls who have the potential to excel as distance runners, if they so choose.