Dog Days of Spring

Felled by a bad cold for far too many days this week, I finally made it back onto some dirt with our ever ready dog.  We were both a bit slow, both a bit tired (notice the tongue), but we enjoyed the early evening - tapping out a nice rhythm on the way home down Quigley Canyon.

Science Wire: New Study Details Risk of Taking Pain Medication Before Endurance Running Races

A new study published last week in British Medical Journal: Open adds more evidence to the dangers of taking pain relief medication before a long running event.

German researchers studied 3900 runners of the Bonn Marathon and Half Marathon, asking them to report their pain medication use before the event and any adverse events experienced during or after the race.

Half of the runners reported using pain medication before the race, with the most popular drug being diclofenac (which isn’t often used in the United States), followed by ibuprofen and aspirin.

Researchers found that those runners who took pain medications experienced significantly higher rates of stomach/GI cramps, GI bleeding, heart-related problems, and bloody urine compared to those who didn’t take any medications. All serious events requiring hospital visits (though only 9 in number) were in the pain medication group, with the three instances of temporary kidney failure in those who had taken ibuprofen.

Not surprisingly, but also not documented previously, the higher the medication dose taken before racing, the more likely it was that adverse events occurred. But even at low doses, the risk of adverse events was higher in users than non-users.

Researchers also found that pain medication didn’t seem to offer much benefit to offset the risks. While those in the medication group had slightly fewer muscle cramps during the race compared to non-users, they didn’t experience less soreness or joint pain. In fact, medication users had higher rates of soreness and pain after the event than non-users.

While it’s not perfectly understood why pain medication may lead to adverse events during endurance running, it could be that such medications inhibit the production of prostaglandins, which have hormone-like qualities that help protect tissue from damage. Inhibiting prostaglandin production could make tissue damage to the GI tract, heart, and kidneys more likely, especially under the stress of a long athletic event.

Taken together, these results are pretty compelling that taking pain medication before long endurance running events likely provides little benefit and can come with some real risks . While these results can’t be directly transposed to ultramarathons, it’s not too far fetched to think that the risks of using pain medications before or during such events would at a minimum match, and possibly exceed, those detailed in this study.

Looking Back on My 2005 Boston Marathon Photos

I lived in Boston for seven years in the late nineties, but it wasn't until I'd returned to the West Coast that I punched my ticket for the Boston Marathon in 2005.  I was in the middle of a training block for an Ironman (it was before my ultra days) and not really in any sort of marathon fitness.  But it was a great opportunity for some hard miles on storied ground - the same ground I'd gone to year after year as a spectator to watch the likes of Uta Pippig, Moses Tanui, and Cosmas Ndeti unravel their opponents.

So on that warm spring day in 2005, I toed the line and carried my camera (yes, even back then) and snapped some photos on the trip from Hopkinton to Boston.  A few times a year, I think about some of the photos I took that day, but I hadn't actually looked at them for a number of years - until Monday, after the bombings.

What I see in the photos from that day - more so now than ever - is a community in celebration stretching the full 26.2 miles, and it comes to a head on that final stretch down Boylston Street, where five deep crowds and their roar push the mid-packers and leaders alike to the finish.  It's like nothing else I've experienced in sport, really.

I know I can't really add anything to the discussions of the past few days that hasn't been said.  I simply wanted to share the photos from my experience that seemed to capture the spirit of the Boston Marathon - a spirit that no event, however tragic - will ever suppress.

Early miles

Getting close to the Newton Hills

Baby on board

Spectators the full length

One for the road

The half

Near the Citgo sign and Fenway Park

Down Boylston to the finish

Silverbacks

Lingering Spring, Worderland Dreams, and a North Seattle Photo Tour

Until the singletrack thaws and dries a bit more, there's won't be too much interesting to write about on the backcountry running front here in the high mountains.  Yet, it's shaping up to be a great season, what with the early spring and some nice indications that I have a good shot at some fun ultra-distance outings this year.  Top of this list - because what is a running season without a few goals? - is an early September unsupported trip around the Wonderland Trail, which circumnavigates Mt. Rainier.

While planning and training for that outing are in embryonic stages, I recently found myself in the shadow of that hallowed ground on a spring break trip to Seattle with my family.  While there, I could have sought out some of the classic singletrack the area has to offer.  Instead, I took my runs to the road, which is always a nice switch since the vast majority of my miles are trail miles in the high season.

Road running in the city also offers a completely different set of photo opportunities.  So I took my camera out on one of my North Seattle/Burke-Gilamn Trail runs to document things. Photos below.  Slideshow, here.

Separation:  On the Burke-Gilman Trail

Kenmore Air and Lake Washington

Group ride

The industrial side

Playground

Spring in Lake Forest Park

The past

RJ Photo Tour of Memphis, TN

No.  It's not the high mountains, and my feet only touched for a few minutes anything resembling singletrack, but my two quick runs in Memphis, TN earlier this week produced some of the most satisfying photos I've taken this winter.   I'm not sure why I feel that way exactly.  I just know I do.

Cruising along the Mighty Mississippi.

The river does call.

On the way to Sun Studio.

"Birthplace of Rock N' Roll"

Outside Sun Studio

Outside Sun Studio 2

Riverwalk sign battered much like the Riverwalk itself.

The Pyramid, looking like 2008 fallout but soon to be the ultimate Brass Pro Shop 

Beale Street at sunrise.

Beale Street facade.

Installation at the Center for the Performing Arts.

Of Running Crampons, Heel Strike, and Short Shorts.

As I've recently written, my commitment to run the Pocatello 50 this spring - knowing full well what that entails after running the beastly inaugural in 2009 - has had me actively seeking out winter vert here in Sun Valley.  Those runs have dominated my recent posts, and I was going to give RJ readers a rest from these sessions, until something from the above pic from Sunday's outing caught my eye.

If you look past the Pioneer Mountains in the background, the wondrously lonely corduroy, and my favorite winter running tools - the Kahtoola KTS crampons - you'll see what can only be described as a full-fledged heel strike (as well as stark over-pronation).  Now, I've read Born to Run, and even gave it my own tepid review here in Run Junkie - with one of my favorite titles to date: Mexican Food, "Mexican" Food, and Brief Thoughts on Christopher McDougall's Book "Born to Run." 

Suffice it to say that I was skeptical of many of McDougall's suppositions but have tried to keep an open mind, and in the name of efficiency and injury prevention have even tried over the last three years with coaching, drills, and shoe choice to move to more of a mid-foot strike.  For me, a true maximalist in shoe choice, the move to a minimalist-inspired approach was jaw-dropping even to myself.  But chronic injury can make Shinola seem like penicillin. (What else would explain kinesio tape?)  And I must admit to yearning for a return to form seen in this video from 1985 (from the post I hate Hank Dart...).  Yes. That's me bursting out of the navy blue short shorts, winning the Condor League Championships 800 meters.  Oh, the form (at least comparatively).

Drills and nostalgia, though, had a tough road to plane.  The end result after all the effort to improve my form?  An unchanged-momentum-stopping-knee-thrashing-earth-shaking-heel-strike-gait.  That's exactly what I saw in Sunday's photo, and it was a bit of an epiphany. I finally decided that that is the runner I am and that that is the runner I am going to be, so I will embrace it.  

This prompted me to fire off a tweet to that effect, which then prompted some funny and sage tweets in response - posted below in chronological order for those very many who most likely missed them.  

Road Miles in St. Louis's Forest Park

The unseasonably dry - and at times warm - weather of the past six weeks has opened up the first harbinger of spring here in Sun Valley, the singletrack on Carbonate Mountain.  It's an epically early opening for Carbo, but my dog, my winter Nordic weight, and I hit the trail first thing this morning just because it was possible and, of course, to lay down an early season (if slow) marker on the climb up to the mine.

It was a bit strange, unexpectedly hitting the singletrack of Carbo just a handful of hours after I'd returned from a  work trip to St. Louis, where I always get in some solid road miles around the 10k perimeter of Forest Park - one of those large parks that punctuates the urbanscape of all well-planned cities.

I realized on this trip, though, that after many years of going to St. Louis for business, I'd never chronicled a run around Forest Park.  So after a busy day, and in the waning light, I grabbed my shoes and camera and took some photos as I made my way around the park on the gravel path, slowly letting go of the day and settling into the night.

The Vert Life: "Ghosting" (Photo)

Having broken the seal on Baldy last week, I took to the Sun Valley corduroy again for a dawn patrol up and down before work on Friday.

Photo: Headlamp light-painting as I make my way up Upper College;  Frenchmans Chair and the town of Ketchum in the background.

Morning on Bald Mountain: Quad Seasoning (and Photos)

As much as I try to not let life interfere with my training, it did just that in early winter.  But with the calendar cresting into February and the beastly Pocatello 50 looming just four months away, it was time to slough off the excuses, throw on some Smartwool, and get to some serious miles and, even more importantly, some serious quad seasoning.

With any singletrack of consequence shut down in Sun Valley until at least March, this meant only one thing, a hike up and run down the local ski hill, Bald Mountain (aka Baldy).  Given the slow start to my winter training, I modified my usual route, cutting about two and half miles off by starting and ending on the River Run side of the mountain.  For those who may care:  I went up Lower River Run then over to College to the top; then down I80 to the full Olympic cat track and back down Lower River Run - for a total of 7.5 miles and 3200 vertical feet (full details and map, here).

Of course, I took my camera along to capture the spirit of the morning and maybe to entice some fellow runners on the next outing.  It really was a stunning day.

Light traffic on Lower College.

Further up College looking over the Pioneer Mountains, including
Cobb, Old Hyndman, and the very top of Hyndman.

Skinners just cresting Upper College
under a waning crescent moon.

Top of the world.

Heading down I80 nearing College.

Cruising down Olympic.