March 14, 1988
Fitness: LEARNING TO COPE WITH THE THREAT OF INJURY
When the average person hears the word “injury” it evokes scenes of an automobile accident , an elderly person falling down stairs, or perhaps a skier suffering a fall.
Injuries, to most people, are associated with accidents.
To the athlete, professional or amateur, injury evokes different scenes and carries an entire litany of associations.
In professional sports, injury is frequently associated with a violent act: a football player is clipped, a second baseman is spiked, a basketball player is fouled.
Injury is a threat to professional athletes. And the nature of the injury the athlete suffers can determine the length of a career.
The amateur athlete also is familiar with injury. But for the aerobic athlete, the anticipation of an injury is not fraught with visions of violence.
Traumatic injuries among the aerobic faithful are rare: a cyclist falls off the bike or is hit by a car, the runner turns an ankle coming off a curb, the endurance swimmer’s concentration lapses and he swims into the wall of a pool.
The injuries aerobic athletes suffer usually emanate from three sources:
One. Biomechanics. Some people should not be running, for example. Because of peculiar biomechanical problems in the foot, ankle or leg, the tremendous forces associated with each stride are not absorbed evenly throughout the lower body.
Certain bones, ligaments, and tendons are taking an inordinately large share of the bashing that is associated with sport.
These bones, ligaments, and tendons become like weak links and ultimately fail. Without correcting the biomechanical problem, the injury is likely to become chronic.
Two. Overuse. The most common cause of injury among aerobic athletes is plain old “beating it until it fails.” Because aerobic sports involve the repetitive motion of certain muscles and joints, those muscles and joints become prone to failure from being overworked. One of the most frequent causes of overuse is doing too much too soon.
Although the heart and lungs can be trained to respond in as little as two months, the rest of the body (especially the muscles, joints, tendons, cartilage, etc.) takes much longer to come around.
Unfortunately, the enthusiastic exerciser frequently feels that if the lungs are willing, the rest of the body is as well.
Very few aerobic athletes subscribe to the theory that one should increase one’s athletic workload only 5 percent per year. Unfortunately for them, their bodies often know the theory and adhere to it.
Three. Addiction. The aerobic athlete who is “hooked” on his or her exercise, and wallows in the good feelings it provides, suffers classic withdrawal symptoms when denied the ability to exercise.
The “hooked” athlete is likely to attempt to “train through” what appear to be minor injuries. This degenerates to attempting to train through major, chronic injuries.
Ironically, the athlete who suffers from addiction to exercise respects the exercise least, because he or she is willing to court very serious, even disabling injuries just for the pleasure of getting in one more workout.
Professional athletes work with coaches and trainers in an attempt to get the best from their bodies while avoiding shortening their career through injury. Sometimes they take a calculated risk by playing injured because a great deal rides on the next play.
Amateur athletes usually play without coaches, so they have a skewed perspective of their own invincibility.
When injury threatens, it is best not to ask yourself what you should do next, but to ask what advice you’d give someone else if they were you.
March 21, 1988
Running Roundup: LONG-ISTANCE WARE IN S.F.; ’88 SEASON MOVES RIGHT ALONG
Since the San Francisco Marathon moved from Golden Gate Park in 1982, and became a big-city marathon with a downtown course past the city’s world-famous sights, this race has tripped, stumbled, and fallen…thanks in large part to city officials who view it as a nuisance instead of a premiere event.
Officials of New York City, Los Angeles, and Honolulu don’t seem to have the same hang-ups. Why should they? Marathoners have strong demographics: they spend money, they eat like horses, and they are generally non-polluting.
One of the city’s major complaints with the San Francisco Marathon has been that it disrupts tourism on Fisherman’s Wharf and it interferes with the free flow of customers at several downtown hotels.
Thus, the marathon has annually run an uphill course. After the 1987 edition, major race sponsor Audi ended its involvement with the race.
The 1988 marathon is scheduled for July 17, but dreams of city cooperation under the new mayor remain unfulfilled. “In the wake of the recent Olympic fiasco,” race director Scott Thomason said, “we’re depressed over San Francisco’s attitude toward sports in general, and special sports events in particular.”
Thomason and the Pamakid Runners are still searching for a major sponsor for this year’s race, but find it a difficult task in the face of the city’s resistance to hosting world-class events.
The San Francisco Marathon’s woes may be complicated by a new marathon moving into the November slot left vacant by the former Golden Gate Marathon. Dave Horning, director of Tri-Sports in Berkeley (specializing in small-field races), has secured a permit from the Board of Supervisors to stage a marathon on November 20.
The Golden Gate Marathon, like the original San Francisco Marathon, avoids the downtown. The race will start at the Music Concourse at the De Young Museum and finish at the windsurfing windsock at Crissy Field.
“There are a few hills, yes,” Horning says, “but the course is runnable.” Horning then lauds the weather for November 20: “It’ll be either 50-65 degrees and clear, or 50-65 degrees and overcast. There’s only a one in 10 chance of rain.”
Several city officials like the new marathon because it will require 50 less police officers and will stay hidden away from the heart of San Francisco.
“The November marathon splits support,” Thomason says. “It plays into the hands of those members of the Board of Supervisors who are unable to support a big league marathon. The new marathon’s course will not excite many people from outside the city.”
The 1988 racing season is off to a good start. In the March 5 Run for the Seals four-miler in Sausalito, Marshall Browne, 32, of San Jose won by nearly a minute with a 19:40, while Napa’s Christina Cahill, 30, won the women’s division in 22 minutes flat. Male Masters’ winner was Al Tagliaferri, 40, but 50-59 age group whiz Russ Kiernan, 50, was only 10 seconds behind. On the women’s masters side, it was even closer: 52-year-old Kay Willoughby was two seconds behind 41-year-old Alice Jones, who ran 27:07.
On February 20, the 4.5-mile Great Chowder Chase in Santa Cruz went to Santa Clara’s Casey Reinking, 30, in 22:47; women’s winner was Alison Unterreiner, 31, of Palo Alto, with a 27:11. In the masters’ division, George Mason, 44, won in 25:59, while the women’s masters division was won by Sherry Gaskin, 45, in 35:42.
While the Pamakids may have their troubles with the city over the S.F. Marathon, such isn’t the case with the long-running Bonne Bell 5K and 10K for women, scheduled for next Sunday in Golden Gate Park. For details, see Sidetracks, Page C9.
The annual Gallup Leisure Activities Index for 1987 generated its usual level of controversy, especially when one version of the results was distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate to client newspapers. The Times reported Gallup as saying that jogging/running participation had dropped from 28 percent of the general public in 1986 to 17 percent in 1987. That comes as news to the Gallup people. Our copy (sent directly from Gallup headquarters in Princeton, NJ) indicates that the percentage of joggers/runners in 1986 was 13 percent, with that number coming down to 12 percent for 1987. How did the Times come up with its numbers? A participation of 28 percent in 1986 would have created pedestrian traffic jams at every intersection in the country.
March 28, 1988
Fitness: SAND WALKING: A WORKOUT THAT KEEPS YOU ON YOUR TOES
Some people take to sand like dead kelp to an ocean beach. You see them running bare-footed with their dogs in the early morning along Ocean Beach and walking bare-footed along Stinson Beach. On a recent trip to Death Valley, scores of people were cavorting up and down the sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells.
But farther north, and the next valley to the west, at the mid-point of a sand road between Death Valley and Big Pine, we had the Eureka Dunes almost to ourselves.
Because they are so remote, the Eureka Dunes do not exactly draw your average sand enthusiast. But to the person who likes to walk on sand, run on sand, or do hard training on sand, the Eureka Dunes are Nirvana.
Nearly 700 feet high, the wind-blasted white dunes spread like a child’s sandbox across the southern end of the valley with the Last Chance Range on the east to the Saline Mountains on the west. Seen from 10 miles away, they appear serene and out of place. Up close, they seem deceptive, as one dune that appears high is conquered only to yield a view of the next, which is even higher.
The sand at Eureka Dunes is extremely fine, and years of winds sculpting the dunes have made it relatively solid. The sand doesn’t give way under the feet until the angle of the climb reaches 45 degrees. Atop the second ridge, with only about one-third of the ultimate height climbed, I recalled Percy Wells Cerutty, the eccentric Australian coach who trained Herb Elliott, still considered the finest miler ever.
Cerutty had a training camp at Portsea, Australia, where he trained his athletes with a combination of weight-lifting, swimming in ocean surf, eating uncooked vegetarian diets, and running up sand dunes until the runner vomited. Arguments still rage whether Elliott was a great miler because of Cerutty or in spite of him.
But the belief that running up sand dunes strengthens the athlete is not unfounded.
Few people have the opportunity to train on dunes of the magnitude of the Eureka Dunes. Most dunes along the ocean are tame in comparison. Some contend that large dunes are not necessary for training.
Because sand gives under the foot, there are two factors to consider:
- The toes will tend to dig into the sand in order to get some purchase against the uncertain surface. This digging in of the toes uses muscles—especially muscles in the front of the lower leg—that are not called upon on a solid surface.
- The heel of the foot, upon impact, will sink into the running surface. This sinking causes the stretching of the Achilles tendon, which for people who are used to walking or running in shoes with significant heel padding, becomes an unnatural act.
The looser the sand, the more exaggerated the reliance upon the toes and the extension of the Achilles.
Individuals who walk and run on sand on a regular basis tend to train their lower legs to adjust to the unique demands of a shifting surface. Those unused to such training would be advised to not get carried away: an hour of sand running on Sunday can mean a week of limping around starting Monday.