May 5, 1986
Fitness
HARD-CORE RUNNERS CALL IT THE BAY-TO-BONKERS
It is as though a hibernation has ended.
Bay-to-Breakers T-shirts have been taken out of mothballs and—whether you’re working out in Golden Gate Park, in the Marin hills, or above Silicon Valley—more than half the conversations overheard while passing joggers and runners center on the annual San Franisco trek from Spear and Howard to Ocean Beach.
Many hard-core runners have common feelings about this month’s Bay-to-Breakers (or Bay-to-Bonkers, as they call it in these days of 85,000-plus entries). It’s amateur’s day at the starting line, something to be avoided at all cost, a real zoo scene at which a serious runner would not be caught dead, the march of the lemmings.
Admittedly, I haven’t run the race since 1982. Before that it was an annual event for my friends and me, a rite of spring, an opportunity to walk/run with people at all levels of jogging/running, followed by a picnic and siesta in either Golden Gate Park or Sutro Park while the last of the stragglers were lauded by the milling masses of happy survivors.
In March 1983, however, after training hard for 16 weeks and getting into the best marathon shape I’d been in for five years, I was tripped 400 yards into the race while passing one of many slower runners who’d lined up in the front row.
One second I was moving along smoothly, talking to a fellow runner about our planned pace, and the next I was trying to put my kneecaps back where they used to be, picking up pieces of my glasses, and looking for something to sop up the blood running off my elbows.
Since then I’ve pathologically avoided races with large starting fields, too-narrow roads to accommodate the field, and reputations for people seeding themselves irrationally.
Instead when I get the urge to race, I look for small fields, scenic courses (even if they are hilly, a factor that limits the size of the field), and little to no hype.
That is not to say that since 1983 I haven’t attended a Bay-to-Breakers. It is often a better race to spectate than it is to run. In fact, it is quite possible to leapfrog from one prime spectator spot to the next while on foot, and still beat many of the participants to Ocean Beach, while getting in a good, safe workout.
The Bay-to-Breakers is not one of the classic American road races. It in no way ranks in there with Boston, New York, or Chicago, or even the Bonne Bell 10K run in Golden Gate Park.
It is a race that, along with races like Atlanta’s Peachtree and Spokane’s Lilac Bloomsday, provides a unique situation where, once a year, tens of thousands of American who might otherwise be spectators pull out their training flats, and work for 6-10 weeks to get ready for their spring fling into fitness.
Anything that moves that many people to o something physical can’t be all bad.
May 12, 1986
Fitness
LESSONS FROM THE WORLD’S BEST FEMALE RUNNERS
On back-to-back days in April, Grete Waitz won the London Marathon and Ingrid Kristiansen won Boston. Both women (Waitz the winningest female marathoner in the world, Kristiansen the fastest) hail from Oslo, Norway.
Both of them enjoy an ally that runners in most parts of California have never met: winter.
During nearly one-third of their year, Grete and Ingrid are forced to modify their training because of winter storms, snow, ice, and radically shortened daylight.
Waitz backs down on both the intensity and the distance, turning instead to relatively easy runs that are meant to keep up a good fitness level while allowing her body to heal itself from the previous season.
Kristiansen alters her program even more sharply. She cross-country skis (thereby removing the constant pounding on her legs, ankles, and feet) and goes indoors, doing some of her longer runs on a treadmill. She admits to at least one month during the heart of winter when she seriously cuts back on her training in an attempt to allow her body to recover from the physical stress and strain of the previous year.
The winter-imposed rest periods also serve as a good psychological break. Both admit that the mental strain of training and racing can be a major factor in breaking down the entire system.
Ingrid hasn’t suffered an injury of any consequence for the past seven years. Grete’s record of injury avoidance is nearly as good.
In California, the moderate weather is also responsible for many of us not backing off training long enough to allow our bodies to heal themselves. It is so easy to train and race in California that many aerobic enthusiasts tend to forget that although the race schedule goes on unbroken, their bodies do not. It is not uncommon to line up for a race and overhear more chatter comparing recent injuries than recent accomplishments on the roads.
Even aerobics exercisers who are aware of the hard/easy training philosophy often overlook the fact that hard/easy should not be restricted to day-to-day cycles, but should also be applied to months, seasons, and even years.
The most logical hard/easy schedule on an annual basis involves three months on and three months off, three on and three off. For those parts of the country enjoying standard seasons, this usually involves hard training and racing in the spring and fall, with easy workouts in the foul winters and stifling summers; hence, the major marathons in the Northeast are Boston (April) and New York (October).
In California, you’ve got your choice. For those who revolve their training around a race like next weekend’s Bay-to-Breakers, a hard spring and easy summer are logical. On the other hand, because summer mornings in San Francisco are relatively cool, the S.F. Marathon is scheduled in July; for those aiming at the city’s 26-miler, it is logical to come out of spring fresh, train hard in early summer, and the recuperate by backing off in the fall.
In the long run, it is better to work with nature instead of forcing nature into a position where it works against you.
May 19, 1986
Fitness
ONE OF THOSE YEARS WHEN NOTHING GOES RIGHT
Did you ever have one of those years where, at least in one area of your life, nothing seemed to go right?
Maybe it was financial investments. Or your job. Or your car. Or the physical side of life.
Mine, ironically, has been the physical side: In regards to training and racing goals, the past year has been a disaster.
Last spring I set a series of short- and long-term goals: more short road races, more upper-body workouts, planned periods of backing off to allow the body to recuperate, more bicycling, a fall 1985 and a spring 1986 marathon.
Everything was meticulously planned out and I was ready to go. Early training went according to plan, with an occasional missed workout—but not many. Then I got sucked into running the San Francisco Marathon with a friend. The July marathon wasn’t on my master schedule, but I rationalized that, being in fair shape, I could do it and not negatively affect the rest of my planned year. I added some shorter road races over the summer in order to keep a foot in racing and to build speed somewhere besides on the track.
Two weeks before the S.F. Marathon, my friend canceled due to injuries. Having put in all those long weeks of training, I decided to go ahead with it solo. Made the mistake of lining up at the speed I proposed to run, only to learn once again that to do so is foolish because you’re guaranteed to spend the first five miles working your way around people who lined up too far forward. After a first mile of nine minutes, planned as a 7:15, the next nine miles were spent rushing to get back on pace. At twenty-three miles, the legs went.
I vowed never to do another marathon.
When it came time for the October marathon, it turned out I’d have been wise to sign up for the half-marathon. I fell apart at 14 miles.
I vowed never to do another marathon.
Feeling that the training hadn’t been adequate, I threw aside my plan to back off a bit during November and early December in order to allow the old body to recuperate. Instead, I went back to the now-fractured master plan and started training in November for the March 9 Napa Valley Marathon.
For three weeks before the race I felt whipped, stale, and dead in the legs. Then the incredible amounts of rain we’d had in January and February caused everything to bloom early, and I was suddenly suffering my April-May allergies in February and March. I dropped out of the Napa marathon at 16 miles, suffering from leg cramps and allergy wipeout. My legs were sore for three weeks.
I vowed never to run another marathon.
When so much goes bad so consistently, there are only three things a person can do: keep slugging away, throw in the towel, or come up with a good rationalization.
Since getting back in there and slugging away is what got me into this sorry state, I rejected that. Since throwing in the towel is unacceptable, I rejected that.
So, I chose to rationalize.
I couldn’t’ rationalize that my year had gone badly because I had turned 40; that momentous event was scheduled for the end of my disastrous year. Instead, I rationalized that my 39th year was a period of major transition into my fifth decade on Earth.
It seems to have worked. After laying off running for a week, substituting instead some peaceful walks, I celebrated my 40th birthday with one of the best hour-long runs I’ve done in years.
May 26, 1986
Fitness
FINALLY, AEROBICS LINKED TO LOWER MORTALITY
Scientists studying aerobic exercise and health have frequently found themselves in the role of philosopher.
With exercise devotees clamoring for proof on the health benefits of regular aerobic activity, the scientific community has waxed philosophic about exercise—improving the “quality of life”—meaning your ability to enjoy life because of an improved capacity to physically do more, to soak up more of life.
There were plenty of studies in the works that would attempt to prove the seemingly logical connection between regular aerobic exercise and longevity, but scientists stopped short at suggesting a direct connection.
Medical evidence indicated that a sedentary lifestyle promotes degeneration of the body in several ways. By contrast, the inference was that an active lifestyle improves a variety of bodily systems.
What was needed was a comprehensive study proving the wide-reaching benefits of a regular exercise program, a study that would link regular aerobic exercise with lower mortality.
In March, it finally arrived. A report published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine stirred headlines in newspapers and magazines.
Obviously, the comprehensive study everyone was waiting for yielded the results that dedicated exercisers had anticipated all along. Involving 16,936 Harvard alumni between the ages of 35 and 74, it was well beyond reproach and so comprehensive as to be mind-boggling.
Actually, the groundwork for this research was established back in the mid-1960s by Stanford’s Ralph S. Paffenbarger, Jr., a man who takes his research—and his exercising—seriously.
Paffenbarger is something of a philosopher-scientist. Long a proponent of exercising for health, he has for years lived his intuitive philosophies. A dedicated runner, Paffenbarger was one of the earliest entrants in the grueling Western States 100-Mile Trail Run, finishing it several times in less than 24 hours.
The March report was especially significant because, instead of only confirming that regular exercise is beneficial for the cardiovascular system, it suggested that a program burning as little as 2000 calories per week (running or walking 20 miles a week) offers protection against almost every American cause of death except auto accidents.
The study indicated that a regular, modest aerobic exercise program adds about two years to the average American life. One newspaper story put it in this context: “Subjects in the study added one to three to their lives for every hour spent exercising.”
Paffenbarger cautioned, however, that there is a point of diminishing returns beyond 3500 calories per week, where the benefits derived are canceled out by potential injuries.
But from an exercise standpoint, out beyond 3500 calories is where Ralph Paffenbarger lives his life: beyond the scientific truths, into the realm of philosophy, where quantity of life is just a bonus to the more exquisite quality of life.