Running is green, right?

Running is green, right?
Or is it?
I’m being barraged with ‘Green’ this and ‘Green’ that these days. It got me to thinking about our sport and how green it is. Let’s do a quick walk through of it, you and I, and see what we come up with. Maybe we qualify for carbon credits? Great! We can trade those for new shoes on the commodity exchange.
In general runners are probably one of, if not the most concerned-with-the-environment demographics. Seriously; take a look around at your next race. These are people who are heavily into a healthy life style. They are personally accountable and responsible for their health. I’m sure that cascades into the rest of their lifestyle. I’m sure as a population we reduce, re-use and recycle.
I’ll bet us runners have a lot to be proud of on the environmental responsibility front. Let’s see if we can do a quick comparison of the good and bad effects we have on our small planet. Just for fun – as it were…
What about eating habits and lifestyle?
I bet a fair amount of runners are vegetarians or at least love a good salad every now and then. I would have to give us a plus sign on the ‘intent’ here. Whether in practice we actually do a better job of taking care of ourselves is another story, but I’ll credit us with knowing what to do and having good intentions.
I’d say on the whole we make better eating choices and as a population we make more sustainable choices that are better for our world.
On the other hand – the math is interesting…Let’s say I run 50 miles a week. That’s ~5000 calories I burn. Probably I consume 5-10% more calories than I would require if I weren’t a compulsive running nut. Does this mean that I’m taking 1,000 calories a day out of the available world calorie pool with my thoughtless dashing about in circles at the local track?
With the millions of us out there doesn’t this mean that we are causing more acreage to be planted to support our out-sized appetites? Aren’t we contributing to the rainforests being burned, the continents over fertilized, the water squandered, the genetic mutation of crops to keep up and all the other evils of over production? Are we basically all creating an unnecessary and artificial population boom?
Maybe we’d be less impactful staying home and doing meditation. Hmm… food for thought.
Doesn’t our running and biking replace a bunch of carbon producing driving?
Surely there’s a positive for us. We use our legs to get places not our gas guzzling SUV’s, right? We ride our bikes to work, right? Clearly this is a plus on the carbon footprint. We are the reason there are sidewalks. We are fit and don’t need our corpus transported everywhere through artificial means.
Hold on a second…How many of you have actually run to work instead of driving? How many of you have actually ‘run errands’ about town? I have, but not the majority of the time. It’s a bit of a struggle to carry the dry cleaning and the groceries.
You may run at lunchtime at work. You’re not actually replacing any driving time there are you? And you’re taking an extra shower and creating some dirty laundry to boot! You, Mr. /Mrs. Runner are a resource drain!
When we run those races we’re not actually replacing a driving activity either are we? Truthfully we are driving to that race. We are making an extra trip so we can run in a loop or worse a point-to-point with a diesel bus to bring us, or at least our bags, back.
While we’re running that pointless marathon to nowhere the police are blocking and rerouting traffic. I’d guess tens of thousands of citizens idle or drive extra miles every year because we’re tying up the road. Hmm…maybe we need to rethink that strategy…
What about our love of nature? What about our trail running and joyous communion with nature?
Only a trail runner truly appreciates the beauty of nature. Such joy, nay ecstasy, overwhelms us as we combine our love of running with the outdoors. That makes us all rabid environmentalists, right?
Runners absolutely have a positive impact here. We spearhead conservation support. Our trail races fund the maintenance of big chunks of real estate that might otherwise turn under the developer’s blade. We are conservation activists. We protect the land. Right?
On the whole I’ll give the nod to conservation on this point, even though we are trotting about on the endangered species and scaring the animals. We also are introducing lots of people to these places with our trail races and running that would not normally go there. We’re adding to the fatigue of the very natural resources we love.
What about the gear? Well, I don’t know about you, but there’s not much natural fiber in my running closet. I’m not running in rattan sandals, hemp shorts and an organic silk racing shirt. Most of what I’m wearing is definitely petro-chemical derived or worse. This doesn’t even include the layers of petroleum based lube I spread on my pointy bits for long runs.
And the fuel? How about those al those little packets of goo and stuff? It’s all in separate landfill choking plasticized packaging. Count up the thousands of plastic cups, bottles and cardboard boxes for doling out at your next half marathon!
Am I over-thinking it? I think running and we runners are extremely green in thought and action. I wonder if we could do more. What kind of activism is called for hear? Should we only run races that recycle their water cups? Do our shoe providers need to think about the re-use / recycle of the 52 pairs of shoes we each have hidden in our closets? How do we make our actions match our words?
Here’s my plan. I’m going to only eat food that creates bio-fuel. Like french fries, potato chips and buffalo wings. Tomorrow when I’m out in the woods I’m going to pay attention and make sure not to step on the endangered newts. That’s the plan!
See you out there!
C-,

http://www.runrunlive.com/RunneratiBlog/tabid/54/BlogID/1/Default.aspx

Chris Russell lives and trains in suburban Massachusetts with his family and Border collie Buddy. Chris is the author of “The Mid-Packer’s Lament”, short stories on running, racing, and the human comedy of the mid-pack. Chris writes the Runnerati Blog at http://www.runnerati.com/. Chris’ Podcast, RunRunLive is available on iTunes and at http://www.runrunlive.com/. Chris also writes for CoolRunning.com (Active.com) and is a member of the Squannacook River Runners. ChrisRunner@runrunlive.com

What’s on the other side of the wall?

What’s on the other side of the wall?
More wall!
I remember training for my first marathon. Somewhere around 70-90 minutes into those first long runs my body would crash. All energy would leave in a rush. My legs would fell like lead and my brain would start reviewing the top ten good reasons for walking home.
It was ‘the wall’. Unused to the process, my body was very bad at making the transition from free glycogen for fuel to burning deeper reserves. Instead of switching to the next available fuel source as the glycogen tank ran dry, it would just stop instead.
Each subsequent long run the wall got smaller and smaller as my body adapted and became very good at making a seamless transition. Eventually I didn’t even notice it anymore. I realized that I could use my big brain to manage the way my body reacted. I’d just say “oh that’s the wall” and keep running. After a couple minutes the reserve tank would kick in and I’d be back on track.
Then there was that other wall. The one that hits like a sledge hammer around the 18 – 20 mile mark of a hard raced marathon. This wall wasn’t so much about exhausting available energy stores. This wall was the end result of running too hard into your lactic threshold for too long. Your muscles essentially becoming incapable of processing the fuel. The engine shuts down. More like when your car engine runs out of oil. Lots of black smoke and a seized engine – all the parts incapable of movement.
Well – I’ve found another wall. This past weekend I entered the ‘ultra’ phase of my ultra marathon training. Saturday morning I ‘ran’ for 3 hours and 37 minutes. Not so bad. Then my wife decided we should take down some trees in the back yard – so load on 4-5 hours of sawing, chopping and hauling. Sunday morning I set out early for another 3 hour run. Towards the end of this one my energy stores were definitely flashing red.
The trick it seems is to find a pace that you can run indefinitely, one that is in balance with energy consumption and energy output. I’m still figuring it out, but It means keeping your heart rate low and stuffing all sorts of high calorie food down your throat before, during and after your runs.
The challenge here is that I hit my energy reserve wall sometime on Saturday morning and then kept moving forward for another 5 hours or so. It’s all wall. There is no other side. You just have to learn to run in the wall.
It’s not quite the lactic death shuffle – but it sure is slow. Your body keep s sending messages up from the engine room, “Hey dude, we’re out of gas down here, you should pull over!” But you and your big brain override those sensible suggestions and keep moving forward.
This wall is a strange one. My legs aren’t really sore and it’s not a huge effort to spend that much time on my feet – but I feel like I haven’t slept in days. I’m curious to see if my body stabilizes and learns to live with this wall of exhaustion.
I actually feel the lack of carbohydrates in my system. Just like that feeling you get on the ‘zone’ diet.
Live and learn,
See you out there,
C-,
Chris Russell lives and trains in suburban Massachusetts with his family and Border collie Buddy. Chris is the author of “The Mid-Packer’s Lament”, short stories on running, racing, and the human comedy of the mid-pack. Chris writes the Runnerati Blog at www.runnerati.com. Chris’ Podcast, RunRunLive is available on iTunes and at www.runrunlive.com. Chris also writes for CoolRunning.com (Active.com) and is a member of the Squannacook River Runners. ChrisRunner@runrunlive.com

Rainy ramble on the rail trail – Dateline: Cape Cod

Rainy ramble on the rail trail – Dateline: Cape Cod
How often do you find yourself saying “It’s an easy week I only have to run for 3.5 hours.” Welcome to Ultra training. So far I’m digging it. Lots of slow easy miles. Plenty of eating. All the good things in life.
Buddy the Wonder Dog and I ventured out for an easy 90 minute out and back on the Mid-Cape Rail Trail. It was as close to raining without actually raining as it can get. Nice and cool for July 5th, but still very humid and the dog wasn’t digging it.
There were many random tourists on poorly fitted bicycles. Some looking as if this may be their once-a-year ride. There were a couple of girls on those pseudo-cross-country-ski things with the poles and everything. There were a half dozen runners and joggers.
Buddy and I parked at Thompson’s conservation land on Rte. 39 in Harwich. This is a great little park to take your dog to. On any given day there will be 10-20 dogs being walked (off leash). It is a regular love boat for dogs.
Today we parked there because it has access to the rail trail spur. The Mid-Cape Rail Trail goes all the way from Dennis up to Providence Town – over 60 miles. The surface is of the parking-lot-asphalt variety. Not too hard. There is usually a strip of unpaved grass to one side for the dog to trot in.
The Trail itself skirts beaches, ponds, highways, state forests, state parks and cranberry bogs as it makes its way Up-Cape. The section I run from Harwich up to Brewster and Orleans is quite heavily traveled. Lots of families on bike outings. It crosses Rte 6 for the only major elevation gain. It also passes through the large fresh water ponds in Harwich.
Buddy had to stay on leash today because of the traffic. He doesn’t like it. If I give him too much leash he’ll inevitably make his way to the center of the path and end up running directly into oncoming traffic. I think it’s because his breed originated in Scotland – where they run on the wrong side of the trail.
We do just fine on the rail trail. Most of the bikers are faster than us and we are faster than most of the runners. We don’t get caught in traffic. We mind our own business.
Today we passed two women on the way out. Buddy doesn’t like following. If we are close enough to another runner – Buddy will insist we throw in a fartlek to take them. One of the women was evidently a sophomore like my daughter. She had a shirt that said “Class of 2010” on the back. I thought “Huh - Class of ‘80” when I passed her.
It got warm enough that I ended up shucking my shirt and running in my “racing sweater”. I’m old enough now to not care if I scare the locals with my Elephant Man good looking naked torso.
There are at least 5 porta-potties in the 5 or so miles I went out. That’s outstanding port-potty density. There is also an ice cream stand and a general store.
On the way back I let Fur-Boy go for a swim in one of the ponds. It reenergized him. He came out of the water wanting to run some tempo. The dog has no pacing skills. We got tangled up racing a family of four on bicycles. I think Dad could have taken us and Mom would have been a tester, but we had the two little kids hands down and lost them on the up-hill over the highway with a little burst.
And so it goes. Another place, another run. Back to the burgers and chips. Tomorrow morning we’ll see if we can get up early enough to sneak Buddy onto the real beach.
See you out there…
C-,
Chris Russell lives and trains in suburban Massachusetts with his family and Border collie Buddy. Chris is the author of “The Mid-Packer’s Lament”, short stories on running, racing, and the human comedy of the mid-pack. Chris writes the Runnerati Blog at http://www.runnerati.com/. Chris’ Podcast, RunRunLive is available on iTunes and at http://www.runrunlive.com/. Chris also writes for CoolRunning.com (Active.com) and is a member of the Squannacook River Runners. ChrisRunner@runrunlive.com

7 Hot weather running tips from the midpack

Where we sweat a lot…
According to the Smithsonian Magazine I just read we all originated in Africa. The weather there a couple hundred thousand years ago was hot and humid. Somewhere our common ancestor slogged through a daily run in the hot and humid jungle. So you’d think we’d be used to it.
Unfortunately I think my more recent ancestors were digging in peat bogs somewhere in Northern Europe. I don’t perform well athletically in the heat. Neither does my Border Collie Buddy. Give us a couple inches of crusty snow and a driving sideways freezing rain and we’re right at home. Drop us into your standard Fourth of July race with full sun and 85 degrees and we wilt.
What can you do to mitigate the effects of the sun and the heat? First of all there’s no real reason we can’t have a good run on a hot day. Humans are designed to cope with the hot. Understanding the changes that your body goes through in response to the stress of heat will help you to come up with strategies to co-exist.
Failing a course of heat preconditioning I would recommend the following tactics to stay cooler.
1. Avoid the sun and heat as much as possible pre-race. Keep your core temp down. Stay in the shade until race time.
2. Don’t eat anything for a couple hours before the race. I’ve seen some gruesome finish lines from people who ‘fueled up’ before the hot race.
3. Manually rub/spray/squirt water on your large patches of exposed skin while you’re racing. I carry a water bottle and I’ll squirt water on my exposed arms and thighs in a race to maximize the evaporation potential over these large surface areas.
4. Get a good hat. Something light, light colored and vented. Lots of heat escapes through the top of your head – don’t trap it in.
5. Less clothing is better – maximize the surface area of skin exposed to the wind.
6. Lube up to prevent chaffing. When your clothing gets soaked with sweat it will rub more. Sweat becomes a whetting agent.
7. Help your body by visualizing. Picture the heat flowing from inside your core and out to the skin to be whisked away by evaporating water. Sounds hokey, but it helps.
What happens in your body when it’s hot out? Your body has a core operating temperature range that it likes to stay within. When you rev up the engine on a hot day through exercise your core temperature starts to rise and your body initiates response mechanisms to deal with it.
You start to sweat. Your body coats the available surface with a glistening sheen of water. Why? Because water has some amazing chemical properties (you may remember this from 8th grade science). Water evaporates. When it evaporates it changes chemical state from a liquid to a gas. This process requires a whole bunch of energy. It sucks this energy from the environment in the form of heat.
When you round that corner and feel that welcoming breeze in your local 5K you are feeling thousand of water molecules changing state and absorbing heat. Feels good doesn’t it? It’s the same concept as the radiator in your car.
Why is the radiator in your car so big? It is trying to present a large surface area to the wind to maximize the cooling. Your skin is your radiator. The more of it that you can expose to the wind the more efficient it is going to be at removing heat through evaporation.
As you continue to exercise your body starts to move more blood towards the radiator – your skin. The small capillaries in your skin will dilate to handle more fluid exchange – moving more blood away from your core and into your radiator. Your heart (the pump) will have to work harder to push this blood out to a larger surface area.
Ever feel nauseous in a hot race? That may be because your body has decided to reprioritize blood away from your non-essential core systems to get more out to the radiator. Our body thinks we must be being chased by a hungry lion and reprioritizes blood away from the GI tract and head to the muscles and skin. You become dizzy and sick to your stomach.
At some point systems start shutting down and if you tough it out long enough you can trigger a cascade of system failure that will end your racing career by putting you six-feet-under in a pine box.
So – What can a simple midpacker do about it? It really depends on how long you intend to be running. In longer races you’re going to need to focus on staying hydrated and getting the proper electrolyte balance, but the only real answer is to back off.
You can condition yourself to run in the heat by training in it. One of the hottest Boston Marathons on record was won by a furnace tender from Nashua N.H. who spent his working days shoveling coal into a blazing fire. All the other runners collapsed, but for him it was just another day at the office.
You may not have the option of shoveling coal every day, but you can take in some training runs in the heat and practice your water rubbing and heat exchange visualization. You may find that you enjoy working up a good sweat.
Be safe. Be careful. Unfortunately in our despoiled modern world many of the hot days also have bad air quality. Check the weather and use your head to stay cool.
See you out there,
C-,
Chris Russell lives and trains in suburban Massachusetts with his family and Border collie Buddy. Chris is the author of “The Mid-Packer’s Lament”, short stories on running, racing, and the human comedy of the mid-pack. Chris writes the Runnerati Blog at www.runnerati.com. Chris’ Podcast, RunRunLive is available on iTunes and at www.runrunlive.com. Chris also writes for CoolRunning.com (Active.com) and is a member of the Squannacook River Runners. ChrisRunner@runrunlive.com

Web 2.0 Running

Does anyone really care what you think?

Running is such an intimate act that I’m surprised we haven’t seen Hollywood find a way to wrap an awful C-list celebrity reality show around it. Maybe they have and I just don’t watch enough TV to know.

The logistical problem for the aspiring Spielberg’s is that all you would see from the outside is some sweaty old guy plodding down the road for hours on end with a spacey look in his eyes.

Where’s the turmoil? The angst? Where’s all this striving and falling short of the man in the arena that you runners are always on about? Apart from the occasional collapse, regurgitation or ungainly dash behind a bush it’s all going on inside the head (and bodies) of us - the participants.

That’s what makes it so hard to capture visually. That’s why the raw emotive power of a run lends itself much better to the written form. It’s an inner world with its own funky architecture of towering spires and murky bogs. It’s a fantastical Suessical of our own making. It’s that undiscovered country beyond the doors of perception that we get to glimpse into every time those happy running chemicals start to seep into our meninges. Think Borroughs Naked Lunch or Castenaga’s Don Juan.

We used to write books and articles, but now we blog. That is the bite sized chunk of hyperlinked text that more and more runners are using to adequately describe the emotional journey of “my first marathon” etc. I think that’s great – it makes the sport even more inclusive.

Getting under the covers; letting the participants use the paint brush of a wordscape to share the powerful emotional impact of that “first marathon” is a further democratization of our sport. Of course it creates a chaos of mediocrity tempered by the glow of authenticity. Out of this chaos, perchance a sparkling gem of a thought or phrase or story will arise through the genetic selection that is the internet.

We get to ride along and tap that unfiltered emotion of a hard run in the pouring rain with Joe Runner.

It’s hard to make a movie about such things imagined or real as played across the inner screens of our minds, but how about an audio recording? I’ve been sampling the running podcasts recently and some of this ‘raw feed’ of running is out there to be listened to on your commute to work.

Like any new medium it’s got good and bad. Let me start with the top 5 reasons running podcasts are good.
1. Entertainment. Podcasts can be entertaining as well as informative (think Car Talk).
2. Multi-task. You can dual task and listen while you’re working out or driving.
3. Direct and immediate. They allow us to tap directly into the emotions of that runner at the point of the activity – no waiting – no filter.
4. Communication of mode specific info. There are certain things that are just easier to describe by speaking, like trying to describe what a tempo pace should feel like to a new runner.
5. Intimacy. It feels many degrees more intimate and emotional content is easier to convey.

Now for the bad news. Here are some bits that didn’t work for me from some of the Podcasts.
1. Listening to you run is a bit creepy. One of the most common things was that the podcasters would just carry a recorder with them when they went out for a run. It sounds good in theory but I found all that heavy breathing and rhythmic footfall a bit porno-soundtrack weird.
2. Stop being preachy. Hand people a microphone and all of a sudden they step into the pulpit. This is one area where the written word works much better. I know it’s harder but find a way to tell me how good it is without telling me how good it is.
3. It’s not about you. You know, at the end of the day, we really only care about you in the context of what it means to us. I only care about your race or training run if you can build a bridge to me. Try to answer the question, “Why do I care?”
4. I don’t have all day. Maybe I’m just lucky but I only have a 40 minute commute to work. Who can listen to a Podcast that is 1:20 long? Come on folks! That means I’m going to more than likely only listen to 40 minutes of it and then just worry that I missed something good.
5. Infomercials. This is a problem with podcasts in general that at some point they turn into an infomercial. Refreshingly enough none of the running podcasts I’ve sampled so far have this problem.
6. Give me content! That’s what I want! Valuable advice, entertaining stories, interesting people wonderful ideas – give me content!
Look what you’ve made me do! I’m 300 words over my self-imposed blog limit and still going. Go on out and sample the available sound imbroglio at iTunes or RunningPodcasts.org. Tell me what you think.
See you out there,
C-,

Chris Russell lives and trains in suburban Littleton Massachusetts with his family and Border collie Buddy. Chris is the author of “The Mid-Packer’s Lament”, short stories on running, racing, and the human comedy of the mid-pack. Chris writes the Runnerati Blog at www.runnerati.com. Chris’ Podcast, RunRunLive is available on iTunes and at www.runrunlive.com. Chris also writes for CoolRunning.com (Active.com) and is a member of the Squannacook River Runners.