June 13
Fitness: BEFORE A LONG WORKOUT, SIDLE UP TO THE WATER BAR
Did you ever watch a vengeful gardener pour salt on a snail?
A snail, even more than most animals, is almost totally composed of water. The salt dries the snail our so fast that, in an hour, all that’s left is the memory.
Snails present an interesting analogy of water and fitness at the cellular level.
Each cell in the human body functions best when it is well-fed and well-watered. Cells are nourished by vitamins, minerals, and oxygen transported to the cells by blood vessels and capillaries.
When the body had an adequate water supply, there is adequate blood volume through which the nutrients and oxygen can be transported to cells, and through which waste products and be sent back out for disposal.
Lower the water volume of the human body, and several things happen:
Blood volume drops. The blood becomes thick and sluggish. The heart must work harder to pump the sludgy blood.
Capillary capacity drops. The sludgy blood reaches the capillary level slower, and when it gets there, it finds that its progress is further impeded because the vessels up which it usually carried its nutrients and oxygen have dried up.
Nutrients and oxygen transport are compromised. With the ability to deliver nutrients and oxygen to the cells retarded, the individual cells become like oases in a desert where the sand is encroaching.
Waste products back up. If a new supply of nutrients and oxygen can’t get to the cells as quickly as the cells would like, the cells cannot send out waste matter.
While the nutrients and oxygen are stalled, and the wastes are building up, the interior structure of the cell begins to resemble the salted snail on the sidewalk.
A healthy, fit human body suffering from dehydration on the cellular level for an extended time can go from fit to unfit to sickly in a short time. Dehydration causes the body systems to work under extreme stress, causes some to break down, has its cooling mechanism (sweating) compromised, and can cause a lot of damage.
The exercising body, because it sweats to cool itself, requires much more than the two quarts of water per day recommended for the average person. Two quarts merely replace what is used by the body in the process of living a sedentary life for 24 hours.
Some athletes think the human body can be “trained” to function with limited or no water. These people exercise for long periods of time without drinking water. Unfortunately, the human body needs water to function and doesn’t take to being “trained” to think otherwise. It knows better.
To help the exercising body through the hot days of summer, nothing goes better than a tall glass of water. If a particularly long workout is planned, it is a good idea to increase your intake of water the day before and the day after the workout. There’s nothing pretty about getting 80 percent through a workout and feeling like a salted snail.
June 20, 1988
Running Roundup: WESTERN STATES 100-MILE RUN TOPS WEEK’S ENDURANCE EVENTS
Next Saturday at 5 a.m., while most of us are snug in our beds, several hundred wild and crazy souls will begin their annual quest for personal fulfillment—by running 100 miles over the backbone of the Sierra.
The runners will be competing in the Western States 100-mile Endurance Run, which starts at Squaw Valley and finishes at Auburn.
Among the 625 participants entered is Redwood City resident Doug Latimer, former publisher of Women’s Sports and Fitness magazine, who is going for his tenth buckle. Latimer, who is just turning 50 this year, won the race in 1981 in a tie with ultra endurance Jim Howard. He has never finished a race below eighth place.
In an examination of degree-of-difficulty in major endurance events made several years ago by Outside magazine, the Western States ranked number one—above other stalwarts such as The Race Across America bicycle competition and the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii.
Race organizers are still seeking volunteers to help coordinate the race or to help pace runners from 30 miles out. To volunteer, call Norman Klein at 916-638-1161.
For those who would rather sleep more and run less, there’s the DSE’s Double Dipsea this Saturday at 9 a.m. The race starts at the Stinson Beach Park Service maintenance office. The course runs from Stinson Beach to Mill Valley by going over the shoulder of Mount Tam. It then turns around and follows the classic Dipsea Trail course back to Stinson Beach.
The cost is $1, which is a real bargain for more than 14 miles of the toughest—and most inspirational—terrain in the Bay Area. That works out to about 7 cents per mile. The Western States would have cost you $1.25 a mile.
The Oakland Double 10K, scheduled for Sunday at 9 a.m. (14th Street and Broadway) is only into its second annual running, but organizers already are calling it a “classic.” Obviously, they are referring to “in the highest class” as opposed to “traditional.” The race course is flat and fast. This year it serves as the Pacific Association/TAC 20K Championships. You can sign up on race day for $15, or you can call 415-387-2178 before race day.
Sunday also is the day for the Monterey Bay Triathlon, which is a half-Ironman featuring an open water swim, a hilly bicycle ride, and a fairly flat run.
In local competition, the Wildcat (14.4 miles) was run in El Sobrante during the Memorial Day weekend. The winner was Dennis Rinde of Orangeville, who finished in 1:18:05. Runner-up was Robert Weatherwax of Oakland, who was more than 9½ minutes back. Women’s winner was Eldrith Gosney of Vallejo, who posted 1:53:29.
Team Challenge, which sponsored the race, has a scenic 7-mile hilly trail run set for this Sunday, called the China Camp Challenge. It starts at 10 a.m. at China Camp State Park near San Rafael. Entry fee is $12 on race day.
The 11th annual Pacific Sun 10K also was held during Memorial Day weekend in Kentfield. Men’s winner was Dan Aldridge of Santa Rosa, who posted 30:07. Lourival Sampaio of San Francisco was a mere two seconds behind. In the women’s division, April Powers of Kentfield unleashed a 33:26, which gave her a 91-second advantage over Laurie Binder of Oakland. Binder easily won the women’s masters’ division. The men’s masters winner was Steve Ferraz of San Francisco, who ran the 6.2 miles in 31:38.
June 27, 1988
Fitness: THE OVER 40 CROWD BEGINS TO STRETCH AND FLEX ITS MUSCLES
In swimming and running events, one of the most crowded and most competitive age groups is 40-49.
In longer swimming races where there are enough contestants to necessitate wave starts, it is not uncommon to see 48-year-old swimmers finish in front of younger swimmers, who started 15 minutes earlier. In local running races, the top 10 are consistently sprinkled with runners in their 40s and some in their 50s.
A generation ago, this would have been unheard of. Forty years old was middle age, and 50 was a stumble away from retirement. Thirty years ago, my parents’ idea of a workout was cutting the lawn with a push-mower and taking a walk around the block.
For too many years, the attitude was that as you aged, you were rapidly less able to remain active. That philosophy came in spite of glaring exceptions to the rule that made good human interest features in the newspaper: An 81-year-old Illinois farmer still plows using a mule and horse team, a retired female school teacher spends summers hiking Colorado mountains, a bunch of old guys in San Francisco swim with the sharks in the Bay.
Those were stories I vaguely remember reading as a kid. The response of the adults around me to such stories? “There’s something wrong with those people.”
As it turns out, it’s the other way around. Research now indicates there’s something wrong with “middle aged” and older Americans who allow themselves to deteriorate for fear of being too old to exercise.
William J. Evans, chief of the physiology laboratory at the Agricultural Department’s Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston recently put a dozen males (60-72 years of age) on a rigorous 12-week weight training program.
The results? All the males increased the size of their leg muscles (some as much as 15 percent), and they nearly doubled their weight-lifting ability (from 44 pounds to 85 pounds).
Evans contends that studies in the past did not produce similar results because researchers were afraid to push older people in weight training for fear they would hurt themselves.
He feels that bone fractures as a result of falls could be significantly reduced if older people would exercise more often and more rigorously.
This contention is supported by a study published in the April 1987 issue of The American Journal of Medicine, in which Stanford University researchers Nancy Lane, Daniel Bloch, Peter Wood, and James Fries compared 498 long-distance runners, ages 50-72, with 365 community control subjects.
Their findings? The runners had less physical disability and maintained more functional capacity. Also, musculoskeletal disability developed with age at a lower rate in the runners than in the control subjects.
The previous year, the same four scientists, in addition to Henry H. Jones and William Marshall, Jr., published a research paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association in which they compared 41 distance runners, ages 50-72, with 41 controls. They found that the runners had 40 percent more bone mineral. It also was learned that running did not cause osteoarthritis, as some medical people had theorized would happen in the wake of thousands of miles of roadwork.
It appears that little by little, more and more people are realizing the human body is the only machine at mankind’s command that improves performance the more it is used.