0 Science and health

Ordinarily a subject line like 'science and health' would be followed with a note about how science was doing good things for health, or how we understood more about health because of some recent research. Instead, it's time for some reflections about looking from a scientific perspective at health issues that you might have.  Two things prompt this.  One, you're unsurprised to hear, is that I'm having a nuisance that has contributed to not being here.  The other was email I received recently about running with diabetes.  On the latter, it's important to note that you can run with diabetes.  You have to be more thoughtful and attentive about it than the usual beginner.  But it can be done.  That article was written by a runner with diabetes (Rob Carr).  The diabetes prompting him to start the running.

Whatever is at hand, you rapidly get taken to a chance to think scientifically.  My take being, remember, that science is about understanding the natural world.  Your body is a pretty important part of your natural world.  A different aspect of the consideration is that I think science, and thinking scientifically, enrich your life.  At least it does mine, and I think it's for reasons you can share.

I confess at the moment one of the attractions of the science is distraction from my body.  What happened is that I caught something in my eye.  Blown hard enough that it scratched the cornea.  It turns out that a scratched cornea is very painful, so looking at the anatomy and physiology of the eye is helpful for distracting me from that.  (Seriously: One thing that helps with pain management is aiming your attention hard on something else -- reading books, knitting, your left big toe (assuming that the pain is somewhere else, maybe the right.))

It turns out that there is very little guidance on exercising with diabetes.  So you have to do your own experimentation to understand what's going on and what you need to do, what you can get away with doing, and what you definitely cannot do.  It's imperative because exercise is an important part of managing diabetes, particularly adult-onset diabetes.

Running with diabetes requires one end of science, the 'what happens if I do this?'.  You need to pay a lot of attention to what happens to your blood sugar before, during, and after the run.  This was one of Rob's major experiences -- that he could indeed determine what was important to managing his diabetes.  If he collected enough data.  For diabetes management this means your test strips (if you need strips) and in general, measuring your blood sugar and assessing how you feel.

How you feel could be fuzzy.  If that's what it is, write that down.  Back in high school, I described something in chemistry class as being fuzzy.  Some of my classmates, but not the teacher, took exception to me using a normal word like 'fuzzy' to describe something.  They figured that I should use something long and 'scientific' -- meaning, really, something that nobody would understand.  Especially if you're writing notes for yourself, but also for doing science, it's important to use words that will be understood.  The scientific vocabulary is weird because it's trying to be clear -- to the people in the area at least.  But clarity is the aim.  For my class's purposes, 'fuzzy' was a perfectly good word.  Everybody had a similar idea of what 'fuzzy' meant.  For your own notes, use terms that you're going to remember what they meant.  If 'chumbly' is such a term, great; use it. (One of my physical therapists used that one.)

A different sort of science is 'what goes on here?'  For my eye situation, the start was having a small speck of something, probably metallic, blown in to my eye on a windy Saturday (8th of May).  Ordinarily the eye produces tears to wash away things.  Either the tears weren't enough, or the wind was strong enough to blast the speck in to the cornea.

The cornea is the top few layers of cells in your eye.  It's so thin that the cells can get their oxygen by just letting the oxygen molecules bounce their way through the layer of corneal cells.  They need this because there are no blood vessels in the cornea.  Oxygen has to come from somewhere.  Ordinarily that'd be the blood vessels, but running blood vessels across the front of the eye would interfere with being able to see.  So our bodies found a different solution to feeding the cells.

On the other hand, the cornea does have nerve cells so that you can feel pain when you have something caught in your eye.  That's part of what triggers the tear response.  Your body generally isn't very subtle.  Pain is the sign that something is wrong.  If tears aren't enough to remove the obnoxious foreign body, you can also normally remove the body by pulling your upper eyelid over the lower lashes and brushing off the obnoxious against your lower lashes.  It could take a few tries to get this to work.  But usually between tears and brushing off against the lower lashes you can take care of anything.

Sometimes, as happened with me, you can't. One thing I learned along the way, incidentally, is exactly why you shouldn't rub your eyes.  The constructive reason that you think about doing it is to encourage your eyes to produce tears that will wash away the obnoxious invader.  The reason you shouldn't is that you can drive the obnoxious invader in to your cornea and/or scratch the invader through the cornea.  I'd never previously heard it put that way.  I'd heard, of course, that you shouldn't rub your eyes 'it will only make it worse', but not just how it will do so.  I didn't do this, but never previously had understood why.

Ultimately I went to the emergency room because the pain was that high, and neither tears nor trying to rub the invader off against my lashes was working.  First time I'd ever gone to an emergency room. 

Digressing a minute: There were a few 'rules' where I grew up.  One was that 'real men don't admit to pain'.  It's likely, according to the ophthomalogist I saw Friday (14th), that the only reason I can see out of my right eye is that I don't believe that.  As I said, pain is your body's sign that something is wrong.  He was horrified that I hadn't come in earlier (like Monday, the 10th!).  You know something is seriously wrong when your doctor is saying 'Oh my God!' every few seconds.

The normal good news about a corneal scratch is that the cells are replaced very quickly.  24-72 hours is the turnover time.  That makes sense, if you think about it.  The cornea is exposed to the insults of outside world (obnoxious gases, chemicals, scratches, ...), and doesn't get a blood supply to rebuild itself.  One way of keeping the cells there healthy is to replace them very often, like 1-3 days.  Which takes us to the next phase of my learning.

After 24-72 hours, I was still having pain.  While I don't entirely believe my childhood's area's attitudes about men and pain, I did somewhat.  I was still having pain.  This turned out (Friday) to be because I still had something embedded in my cornea.  The doctor(s) seemed surprised I was still walking around.  The first one I saw verified that I had something in my eye, but he didn't have the right tool (a drill) to remove it.  He also said I seemed to have an exceptionally large 'cup' in my optic nerve, which is normally a sign of glaucoma.  (It wasn't a great week for good news.)

But the first doctor arranged for me to see a second doctor, who did have a drill.  He also (of course, and reassuring to me) did his own check of what was going on.  That included seeing the exceptionally large 'cup' in my optic nerve.  But, more immediately, it meant seeing the obnoxious bit of metal lodged in my cornea and removing it.  The speck which had been tormenting me for almost a week was so small that my wife could only see it with a magnifying glass.  I can just barely see it with my unaided eyes.  It's maybe 0.1 mm (100 microns, 1/250 inches).  Hard to imagine how something that tiny was causing so much pain.

So Saturday was fine.  Much less pain, and the eye was doing its healing process.  This meant recovering from having a hole drilled out of the cornea.  For having something to think about other than the week of pain, I started thinking about how the healing process might work.  Two ideas came to mind.  One was that the cells adjacent to the hole would sense the hole and divide until they had filled it in.  The other was that the eye was just always producing new, healthy, cornea cells at the edge (where there is a blood supply) and then pushing in towards the middle (where they'd be the oldest and dying, or, in my case, they had been forcibly removed).  It turns out that the eye builds from the edge inward.

So a fun bit of learning.  But Sunday was not so fun, as the pain levels shot up as soon as I woke up.  The new cornea cells turn out not to be firmly seated on the layer beneath.  So it can happen, and probably did, that as the eye dried out at night, the thin layer of new cells over the hole were torn off.  That wouldn't have been pleasant.  But it also turned out that the tiny bit of metal had probably been capping off some bacteria.  The tiny, marginally visible, bit of metal had probably carried along some bacteria -- a few microns, thousandths or tens of thousandths of inches.  Once it was removed, the bacteria started growing, meaning I developed an infection.  The infection meant the pain levels started up.  Again fortunately I didn't believe in 'ignore the pain'.  Called the Dr. on Sunday (he'd said it would be ok) and he saw me, saw the infection, and prescribed appropriate antibiotics.

Fortunately we didn't have to engage in more scientific learning.  If it hadn't responded to the antibiotics, the next guess was fungus.  Fungi are a lot less responsive to medication, and would have required taking a sample (off my eyeball!) and growing it in a dish to see which one of many fungi it was.  If it had been fungus, though, it would probably have been a Psuedomonas.  When the Dr. said that, I laughed.  I know very few genuses, and this is probably the only fungus genus I know.  I know it because Psuedomonas (synringii) are thought to be important for producing rain.  I'll take that up at a later date.

In the mean time, I'll just repeat the advisory that pain means something is wrong, and you should figure out why.  Once you figure out why, address the problem.  If I'd fully followed the notions of my childhood area, I probably wouldn't be looking out of my right eye.  Ignoring pain is stupid!

Detail: Science and health

0 What is training?

It's easy, but wrong, to think that training is what you're doing when you're working out in the gym, or running outside, and so on.  That misses some important parts of what your body is doing -- normally, during exercise, and following exercise.  I've constructed a casual sort of diagram to illustrate what happens:

 

 

If you do nothing, your fitness declines over time.  (At least for those of you over about 30-35.)  What's happening is that your body has very strong 'use it or lose it' tendencies.  It is always tearing down muscle and bone, for instance.  It is always, also, building muscle and bone.  As you get older, though, the 'build' tendency declines, and the tear down takes over.  For some good descriptions of the processes, and places to read deeper, see Younger Next Year, by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, MD.

The main signal to your body that it needs to do more building is to use it.

That's where the exercise comes in.  While you're exercising, as my sketch suggests, you're taxing your fitness.  At the end of a workout, you're in slightly worse shape than if you had done nothing.  But!  Your body looks at those fatigued muscles, and the micro-tears, the depleted enzyme stores, and so on and realizes that you need stronger muscles and more enzymes and such.  The tears are the signal to rebuild the muscles stronger.  If they were strong enough already, they wouldn't have (micro!)-torn.  And so on throughout the body and its systems that you taxed by exercise.

That is the recover phase.  How fast you recover and how much above your original fitness level you go varies by person.  And as you age, the recovery takes longer and you don't go as high above the previous baseline.  But you do recover, and you do move above where you'd be if you didn't exercise at all.  When you're younger, the recovery from a hard workout is something like 24 hours.  When you're older, it's more like 36 hours.  And still later, it's more like 48.  One problem being, 'younger', 'older', and 'still older' all depend on the person.  So does 'hard workout'.  Hard workout itself will change as you get more fit, as well.

Training is that combination of stress AND recovery.  You challenge your body in some way, whether by lifting a weight, going for a longer walk than usual, running instead of walking, ..., and then it rebuilds itself to be able to manage that challenge more easily.  The 'stress' is defining 'hard workout'.  If you can do a workout day after day and never experience a decline in performance, it isn't a hard workout any more.  It isn't providing a challenge for your body to deal with. 

I can now, for instance, walk a mile a day, every day, and would get essentially no training from it.  My current condition is good enough that all the muscles, ligaments, tendons, enzymes, lung capacity, and on, would not consider the 1 mile walk to be a challenge.  On the other hand, they do currently consider 32 minutes of run/walk to be a challenge.  So that is my hard workout.  After a while, as I continue to do my workouts, it'll be 32 minutes of running straight through that I need to do in order to challenge my body.  And later still, it'll be 60 minutes on trails (fun!).  At that time, 30 minutes running will be an easy day, that needs little recovery time. 

What is a hard workout for you, today, is probably different than what it is for me.  What is hard for you today, after 3 months of regular exercise, you'll be calling easy.  As long as you provide the training challenge AND time for recovery.

Stresses and recovery are also fairly specific.  It means that if I did a hard running workout today (my 32 minutes of running 3 minutes and walking 1, currently), that I should not do that workout again tomorrow.  (I need 36 hours recovery time from a hard workout.)  But I can certainly, and plan to, go to the gym and do a weights workout, particularly one that is not stressing the muscles I use most heavily in running.  Folks who mostly do weights tend to arrive at a rotation -- lower body today, upper body tomorrow, core muscles the day after, a day of full rest and then repeat the cycle.  And, of course, many variations on that theme, giving themselves the 36-72 hours recovery/rebuilding time they need.  (It seems that strength work takes longer to recover from than running does.)  I could also alternate my running workouts with swimming.  Different muscle groups are emphasized.

The ACSM recommendation of 5 days a week of moderate aerobic exercise, or 3 days a week of vigorous, as a baseline is perfectly consistent with what I'm suggesting here.  What I'm calling hard, is pretty much what they're calling vigorous.  You can only do those about 3 days a week.  The moderate workouts need less recovery, if any, so you can do them 5 days a week.  Remember, too, that they're talking about a baseline, a low end.  It would be good (there are health benefits) to go beyond that level.  Such as my target of 5 days a week aerobic, with 2-3 days of it being vigorous.

There's a different issue of difference between my diagram and what the ACSM suggests.  (Which one of us is the expert?)  In labelling the vertical 'fitness', I was taking a very narrow definition.  Namely, how well you can do your exercise.  You can maintain current ability with only 2-3 runs per week and 1-2 strength workouts.  They have to be hard runs or workouts, but it can be done.  The recommendation exceeds that because whole life health benefits show improvement with doing more exercise.  Keeping your bad cholesterol down and good cholesterol up benefits from the extra days.  You also get to be a better runner, and stronger, if you're doing the extra days of exercise.

You'll notice, I hope, that neither the ACSM nor I said a word about how fast you should run in any absolute sense (your vigorous might be impossibly fast for me, but you and I can both go out and do a workout hard enough that we don't feel like talking during it).  The health benefits don't seem to care about that.  They do care about you doing something that gets your pulse up for 30 minutes (total, ACSM also mentions that 3 sessions of 10 minutes in a day seem to be equivalent to 1 session of 30) a few times per week.

Different reminder, as people do have a tendency to think if a little is good, more must be better.  The stress you impose has to be one that you can recover from before the next workout.  And you should be doing those 3-5 workouts per week.  This won't happen if you run so far or fast or both that you can't run for a week.  Or, worse, that you get injured and need to take several weeks off.  That's several weeks of continuing decline, plus the damage you need to recover from when you can finally get back to work.

Of course, one of the ways I know about mistakes you can make in your training is that I have made them.  Hence my current (first, and hopefully only) rehabilitation.  Still, I've usually caught myself before the point of actual injury.

Detail: What is training?

0 Setting goals for your workouts

One of the more important things coaches do is set goals for their athletes.  If the coach is more of my type, it's a matter of helping the athlete choose good goals.  I'm writing here on the principle that you're your own coach. 

Good goals are opportunities for successes.  Each success helps invigorate you, and encourage you towards your next goal.  This gives us some guidance on how to select goals.  One part is, there should be a progression of goals.  Rather than have one major goal, for instance 'run a marathon', you should have a number of goals that build towards the bigger one.  In this case, it could be something like 'run a 5k', 'run a 10k', 'run a 15k', 'run a half-marathon', and then, finally 'run a marathon'.  (I strongly recommend this if you're contemplating the 'run a marathon'.)  Break down the big goal in to a series of stepping stones.  That gives you successes along the way, and some positive feedback to encourage you.

A second aspect comes from considering the 'opportunity for success'.  When I was racing regularly a few years ago, I ran the mile in 5:51.  I was both happy and sad, mostly happy, with that time.  The reason being, I had multiple goals for my time that day.  The optimistic goal, which was probably achievable if I had paced myself better and not gotten some bad personal news a few minutes before the race, was 5:40.  My realistic goal, something that I figured I should be able to reach if I didn't race particularly stupidly or get particularly tangled up in a pack, was 6:00.  And my conservative goal, which should have been hard for me not to reach even if I had run stupidly and did tangle in a pack, was 6:10.  Ok, I didn't get the optimistic goal (which was probably too optimistic, given the others).  But I did beat the conservative and reasonable goals, so a success.  And some feedback on how to race the mile better.  That was my first mile race in over 20 years.

Results, though, are a little dicy as goals.

If your results goal is, say, to finish before someone else at the race, you're somewhat at the mercy of whether they have a good racing day too.  It's possible that you run a great race for yourself, compared to your own previous times, but still finish behind the other person because they had an even better day.  If you're an elite racer and your paycheck depends on what place you finish, you do have to pick some of these type of goals.  Few of us, though, are in that position.


But, it turns out, even elite racers also set what I'll call execution goals.  These are goals where you succeed if you do the kind of thing you planned to do.  These can be 'run X km this week'.  For me, at the moment, I'm happy with 10 km in a week.  Or it's 'run 2 times this week' (my current one, next week I'm aiming for 3).  These sort of goals have the virtue that they are very largely under your control.  As long as I get out the door, or on to the treadmill, 3 times next week -- regardless of how far I go, how long I'm doing it, or how fast I'm going -- I meet this goal.

That's a good and important thing.  80-90% of the training for even an elite distance runner is simply getting out the door and covering ground.  That's why they, also, have execution goals.  Theirs will be loftier than mine -- elites often run 10-14 times a week, to my current 2.  And I only plan on going up to 5.  But I do have that eventual goal of running 5 days a week, regularly.  2 days is a stepping stone goal, as is 3.  Given my rehabilitation (which is proceeding pretty well, knock wood), I can't be as aggressive about leaping to 5 days a week as I'd like.  But doing a few weeks with 2 runs and not getting re-injured is my stepping stone, and reason for confidence, about going to 3 runs in a week.  (My physical therapists are also crossing their fingers for me in this.) 

In this vein, my note about the Running progression to get from walking 30 minutes to running 30 minutes sets one major goal and a number of minor goals along the way.  On the other hand, different people will have different rates of progression through the list.  For folks who are frustrated with what they feel is a lack of progress, I'll suggest the execution goal of getting out 3 times per week to do their exercise.  How fast you go through the list depends on age, natural talents, and even things like weather -- that you don't have control over.  But getting out 3 times a week, consistently, is how you will make that progress.  May as well make it its own goal.  And then bundle it in to bigger goals -- 5 straight weeks that you make your 3 times a week, 12 straight weeks, etc..

The thing is, if you do execute the 'get out the door and do your workout' part, the other aspects of your training and health concerns will follow.  That includes that you'll move up the running progression.  That, too, is a sign of a good goal -- it is the kind of thing that helps you reach other important goals.  For a goal of improving your aerobic health and fitness, an eventual goal is 5 days a week and 20-25 miles (30-40 km) covering ground (walking or running).  I'm actually aiming, myself, for 5 days and 45-50 km.

After selecting your goals, tell people what yours are.  You might have to be selective about whom you tell.  And it is typically better to mention your intermediate goals rather than the long-range.  But tell people.  It was amazing to me the support I got from people, some who didn't even know me very well, when I was training towards running my 50 km trail race.  That support was a big help in keeping me getting out the door for my next training run, even when it was raining, even when there was occasional sleet.

• Do set goals
• Set longer range goals (months to years ahead)
• Set shorter range goals (days to weeks)
• Ensure that the shorter range goals build towards the longer  range goals
• Tell friends some of your goals (typically the shorter term ones)
• Most goals should be execution goals (things you have control over whether you do them or not)
• If you set results goals (times or who you'll finish ahead at a race), it is a good idea to have multiple goals -- conservative, reasonable, and optimistic
• Periodically re-evaluate your goals

That last item is perhaps the least pleasant.  We usually, or at least I do, set fairly optimistic goals.  So, much of the time, when we re-evaluate it is to delay the date we're going to do our spectacular goal.  Still, if you don't do the re-evaluation, you wind up in the position that to meet your goal of running 1000 km in the year, you have to run 500 km in the last 2 months -- which is an invitation to injury.  (Pretty much a demand.)  Often, I take this as a chance to insert more intermediate goals.  The goal of running 50 km per week might fall after running 45 km per week, rather than 40 km.  Or, if it turns out that running 15 km is near the limit of what my injury currently permits, then I'll make the next goal 15 km of running plus 60 minutes of other aerobic activity (swimming and biking don't bother my calf), rather than be annoyed that I'm not reaching my 25 km per week goal.

Also, for me at the moment, I can't put dates on any running goals.  I know that I need to go from running 2 days a week to running 3 days a week, to 4, to 5.  And I know that I have to progress from this week's 3 minutes running to 1 minute walking, to running 30 minutes straight.  (Then to a typical run being 60 minutes, etc.)  But I don't know whether my calf will simply re-injure, and what work load would cause that.  So I have to explore the progression with caution.  (Grr!)  But I'm making progress.  My treadmill running at the last physical therapy visit suggested either that I'm getting tired towards the end of my 32 minutes (and my running form gets worse), or that I need to keep the speed up on the treadmill (because my form gets worse when I slow down too much -- and I had tapered my paces for the last couple of 3 minute sections).  I prefer the latter explanation :-)

Detail: Setting goals for your workouts

0 What to do when you're snowed in?

For some reason, snow is on my mind lately.  Since it's time for a weekend warrior* post, what can you do when, for whatever reason, you can't get out for your usual workout?  The wrong thing is to do nothing.  That way lies never getting out again.  On the other hand, pretending that you can go ahead and do your usual workout is also not a good idea.  Granted I could dress for a run in the current weather (near freezing, light winds).  But I really can't run through 2-3 feet (50-100 cm) snow, and I'm absolutely not going to go running down the sort-of plowed parts of the road (with the cars taking uncertain aim at me -- folks here are not used to driving on snow, and there's almost nothing you can do about the ice that is increasingly common).

So, what to do?  Well, first off, prehabilitation exercises are a good idea.

More generally, if health is your aim for your exercising, do anything that is good for your health.  Maybe this means visiting Pubmed and finding out more about what a good diet is, or what good exercises are.  Since this is a research-oriented site, it'll be tougher going than many.  Still, being a research site, you'll be able to see the original scientific claims -- vs. the drastic and dramatic things you might see in your local media outlets.

A related option is to look up more about what kinds of things you should be eating.  Again, I like pubmed or webmd -- places closer to the research.  Your snowed-in time could be a chance to get hold of some recipes to cook up things you know you should be eating, but have never liked much.  (I've lately discovered that spinach can be ok -- just not if done in the way I grew up with.  Salads are ok.)

It's also a good time to do the strength work that you know you should be doing, but don't normally do because you're out swimming/running/biking/... instead.  Strength does matter.  And it matters more the older you get.  In my physical therapy, it's developed that I also have a particularly weak right hip.  Much more so than the left.  And it's the right calf that has the problems.  These two facts are probably not unrelated.  What it means is that to rehabilitate my right achilles+calf, I have to do work on my right hip.  We've also discovered (no surprise, I've been very 'right-legged') that my left quadriceps is much weaker than the right.  So I have to work on strengthening the left quad.  And the right everything else (which surprised me -- the only thing on my right side that is stronger is the quadriceps).

Lest you be concerned about bulging muscles or the like, no worries.  Strength is a fairly different matter from building big muscles.  And I'm not referring to building olympic-class strength.  But getting strength around your body, so that all muscles and muscle groups are easily up to the tasks of doing the other things you like (running around with your kids/grandkids/..., or walking around the woods looking at birds, or ...), is a big plus.  And it is distressingly easy (see my hip exercises above) to be in a position that you are doing a lot of compensation for a week muscle here by making some other muscle work too hard.  That works for a time, until the muscle that's making up for the weak one decides to give up.  Or, where I found it first, some other muscle gives up and gets injured.  Get everything in to good condition and strength.

Related to the strength work is flexibility.  Your muscles are strongest when they have a full range of motion.  (Again, I know this because I have some extremely inflexible muscles.  And I've been working on them.  I'm looking forward to finally getting back out and giving a try at some real speed.)  So if you can't get out for your workout, do a good set of stretching exercises.  Pay particular attention to your tightest muscles.

* I'm not sure how widespread this term is.  Weekend warrior means the people who are at a desk job 5 days a week, and then go out on the weekend and act as if they're at least at the Olympic trials, if not the Olympics themselves.  Tend to be noticeable on Monday as they're the ones limping down the hall.

Detail: What to do when you're snowed in?

0 Running progression

Let's suppose that you have decided to become a runner, and are looking at how to progress from being a walker to being a runner.  The first part should not be neglected.  Before heading off to becoming a runner, you should work on being a good walker.  I'm not referring to speed for this, or for pretty much anything else I say.  Rather, it is consistency that matters.  Before starting on your running program, I think you should be comfortable with regular healthy walking.  So you should be comfortable with going out 4-5 times per week and walking for 30 minutes before considering doing running.

Most people, runners perhaps more than most, like to ignore walking as a means of exercise, and as a requirement for fitness.  The thing is, walking really is a good exercise in its own right.  Depending on your current condition, it will get your pulse up nicely.  If it does, then it is already giving you good aerobic exercise.  Regardless of that, it is a weight-bearing exercise.  If your aim is health, then these are your primary concerns.  If walking gets your pulse up to the 65-75% level (see my heart rate calculator for some estimates of that), then it is sufficient.  In fact, more than sufficient -- it is likely the safest, healthiest, way for you to get your pulse in to that aerobic training zone.  Running means a big increase in your landing forces -- several times body weight.  If your body hasn't yet adjusted to the forces involved in walking, running can be an invitation to injury.

Walk before you run is a very good training idea.  If you're finding it somewhat embarassing, or whatever, to be working on your walking, feel free to supplement it with strength work, prehabilitation, flexibility work, or just telling yourself that you're not merely walking -- you're scoping out good routes to go running on.  But walking really is the starting point.  I'd post a progression if I knew of any.  (Contributions?)

But then there's running.


Again, first be solid at the stage 0 of running -- be comfortable walking 30 minutes straight, 4 or more times per week.  And establish this by actually going for walks of 30 minutes (or more) at least 4 times.  And the day after the walks, still be comfortable and not have complaining muscles/joints.

Once you're to the point of being truly comfortable with a nice 30 minute walk (maybe a chance to say hi to the neighbors), then my idea is to include a bit of running in with your nice, healthy, 30 minute walk.  Some people, particularly younger people, will be able to start later in the progression.  That's ok.  On the other hand, some people, particularly older or people more over their healthy weights, will want to start at stage one.  That's fine too.  The thing is, where you start doesn't matter in the long run.  When I started, I started with 50 yards at a time.  A few years later, I ran 50 km on trails.  The starting point doesn't matter.  Being consistent matters.  Getting out for your next workout matters.  Doing a lot in today's workout doesn't matter, and can actually be a bad idea.  If it means you don't get out for your next workout, it's a bad idea.

The progression I give below is my own, so apply due grains of salt.  It is derived from Jim Fixx's The complete Book of Running and the RRCA beginner programs.  Fixx, I think, did better for starting from a true beginner -- someone who might find 30 seconds running (call it 50-100 yards/meters) a challenge.  The RRCA, I think, does better for the later stages of moving up to the straight 30 minutes running.  You'll find quite a different progression in Alberto Salazar's Guide To Running, which takes a full year to go from 30 minutes walking to 30 minutes running.

In terms of rate of progression of the stages, an attentive coach is a real help.  If you don't have a coach, then you're your own coach.  The thing your coach (you) need to look for is how comfortable your runner (yourself) is the day of and the day after each of the workouts.  A healthy young person might start at stage 6-10, and then progress one stage per week.  A not-so healthy not-so young person might take 2-3 weeks for each stage.  Again, no problem.  It is what it is.  And regardless of what you do, the fact that you're doing something is a big plus to your health and fitness.

If you find that going one week per stage is too fast, then mix up the progression some.  Let's say that you're 'stalling' at stage 2 (Hank?).  We'll take that to mean that stage 2 is ok, maybe with some effort, but doing a full week of stage 3 is too much.  One option is just repeat stage 2 until those runs become easy.  If that's 4 weeks, so be it.  Each of the 4 weeks you're doing something good for your health.

A different option, after you've established that 1 week at a given stage is no challenge, is to do one workout this week from the next stage.  So do 2-3 of your workouts at stage 2, but one at stage 3.  If your body is ok with this, then in the next week, do 2 workouts from stage 3.  As best I've been able to establish from first hand experience and second hand (coaching), each of the stages I list is about as big a jump as the others.  That may seem surprising, in that it suggests there's as big a jump in effort in adding 30 seconds running (from stages 1-2, or 2-3) as for adding 5 minutes (stages 9-10).  But, honest, it squares with what I've experienced myself, and my runners have told me.  (I also recently re-experienced the fact that from stages 10-11 is definitely as big as 11-12, and that's only 1 minute more running in the 30 minute workout!)

One last qualifier: Some people hit a plateau as they progress.  It seems unpredictable where the plateau will be.  But, for a week or three, it'll feel like the workouts aren't getting any easier.  That's fine, just hang on whatever stage it is until they do start to ease up.  If they're getting harder, drop back a level.  The main thing, again, is to get out and do something.  If you back off a level or two, that's fine.  The converse will be the weeks when the next level is super easy.  Now, if you're not getting out 3-4 times per week, you'll probably need to take more time on each level.  2 times is noticeably less effective than 3.  On the other hand, 2 is far better than 1.  And 1 is still tremendously better than 0.


Stage 0: Walk 30 minutes straight, 4 or more times per week

For the following, do 3-4 times per week, with 36-48 hours between workouts.
stage  Run-walk   Repetitions  Running time
1      0:30-7:00    4           2:00
2      0:30-5:30    5           2:30
3      0:30-4:30    6           3:00
4      0:30-4:00    7           3:30
5       1 - 5       5           5:00
6      1:30-4:30    5           7:30
7a      1 - 2      10           10
 b      2 - 4       5
8       2 - 3       6           12
9a     2:30-2:30    6           15
 b      1 - 1       15
10a     2 - 1       10          20
  b     4 - 2        5
11      4 - 1        6          24
12      5 - 1        5          25
13      9 - 1        3          27
14     14 - 1        2          28
15       30 minutes running

Detail: Running progression

0 Feet and shoes and injuries

Some very interesting videos and links on last weeks weekend sports article.  One theme being that running barefoot is much more natural than in shoes, and some interest from folks in making the switch.  The latter could be a problem.

Update: Sorry for leaving off the links.
Long video
Journal article
And, a shorter video

If you watch the longer video, you'll see that a person who was used to running in shoes their whole life, when running in shoes, had a big spike in landing forces as you go from the first instant of touching the ground to the first instant of the foot being off the ground.  It hits near maximum forces almost immediately on touching down, which is bad news for your body as it means a shock to the systems.  Someone who has never run in shoes doesn't have the big spike.   There's a smooth rise to the maximum, and then smooth fall to takeoff.  Clearly this is a better thing to do, hence the interest in barefoot running.

But there's a third profile -- what happens when someone who has always run in shoes starts to run barefoot.  They have exactly the same spikes in forces barefoot as they did when running in shoes.  Except that now there's no shoe taking up some of that force for them.  This is a recipe for injury -- your body will be experiencing new forces, and be unprepared for them.  The one person I know personally who tried the minimalist shoes went promptly to injury (stage one in about a week, stage four in a month).  She did an abrupt change to the new shoe, not a transition.

More to the story of course, and it touches on my current rehabilitation.

First, though, injury stages.  The idea is that there is a progression of injury.  If you catch them all in stage 1, you need never miss any of your good, healthy workouts.  Stage 1 is where you notice an issue while you're doing the workout.  You can still carry out the workout.  Stage 2, you notice the issue during the workout, and have to start backing off (run shorter, lift lighter weights, etc.)  Stage 3, you have pain even after the workout is over and cannot do your normal workouts.  Stage 4, you cannot do even a light version of your workout and have pain well after the workout.

Corresponding to those stages is an increasing length of time to recover.  In stage 1, you might just need to take a couple of days easy, but still be getting your workouts in.  In stage 4, you'll need to take weeks to months off for a recovery.  Since I'm in the exercise for the health benefits (my days of looking towards a 4 minute mile are long past :-), months off because of injury are a very bad thing. 

Once you've recognized the injury, there are two things to do.  Rehabilitate it.  Find out why you got it in the first place and then figure out how to prevent it recurring.  Last year I had a recurring calf/achilles problem.  Rest and stretching (the latter having been recommended by my doctor) and some heel drop (Alfredson) exercises (recommended by an MD friend who is a runner and has similar problems to mine) didn't do it.  So at long last I went back to the doctor and got sent off to physical therapy.  The leg is definitely improving with the therapy, so that's progress.

The second part, though, is to figure out what caused the problem.  I don't have a good smoking gun for this.  My strong suspicion, which strike the physical therapist as reasonable, is a change of shoes.  It's an unfortunate reality that you can't run in the same pair, or even the same model, of shoe forever.  I did run in the same model for 12 years, which was pretty good for duration.  But spring of 2008 I did a lot of racewalking (not in a global sense, but compared to what I had ever done before).  That lead to a stress fracture.  The podiatrist said to lay off the racewalking (I'd figured that part out myself :-) and to go to a particular store that had the technology to match me up to the right pair of shoes for my running form.  The technology said that I was definitely a neutral runner.  That means that my weight moves pretty straight down the middle of my foot, as opposed to veering towards the inside (overpronator) or outside (supinator).  I'd actually been running in shoes more for an overpronator than my (observed) neutral form.  So the new shoes were for a neutral runner.

And there, perhaps, is the injury source.  After 12 years of running in one type of shoe, even though a different type is more natural to my running mechanics, I'd become adapted to the other style.  That might mean that, for example, some of my lateral stability muscles in the ankle/foot are weaker than they need to be in order to run consistently in the neutral shoes.  It happens, I'm sure not a coincidence, that the rehabilitation exercises are working on those lateral stability muscles.

My current answer, checked with the physical therapist (it's not just in my field that I think people should check with those who have studied more of the subject at hand!), is to work on the rehab exercises, and to get a pair of shoes that is more in line with my former style.  (The exact model is no longer available, but something of the same sort is.)  I may alternate between the new style and the old style.  The new style do feel more comfortable, which is a good sign in a shoe.

The lengthy bit there about my own injury/rehab is also by way of illustration of injury that you might expect from a sudden change to minimal or no shoes -- a much larger change than I made.  A true minimal shoe, for instance, has no heel.  That's one of its virtues, eventually.  But it also means that your achilles tendon will be stretched more than usual, and that makes for big new stresses.

A second thing is that in order to run in minimal or no shoes (I've run barefoot off an on since childhood, quite often so in childhood) you must land with the front of your foot touching down first (forefoot landing).  If you've been slamming your heel in to the ground first for years (as flatmates of one commenter last week do), you are quite possibly going to rapidly head to injury, as my acquaintance did.  On the other hand, you can start practicing forefoot landing even in your usual shoes.  Better, perhaps, is to start walking around the house or flat without your shoes on and practice bringing your forefoot down first.

On yet another hand, one of the more certain ways of creating an injury is to try to make a rapid change in your running mechanics, even if the form you're trying to change towards is generally better.

Detail: Feet and shoes and injuries

0 Preemptive rehabilitation

Call it 'prehabilitation' since it seems that having a catchy new word for your idea is important in doing health and fitness writing.  This is an idea of mine, about something to do before or concurrently with the start of your aerobic or weight-bearing exercise program.  The idea is, most of us live our regular life without exercising our bodies much.  Especially, without challenging them much.  In my routine work day, for instance, the heaviest thing I life is a book or maybe 2 books.  Desk jobs are good for that reason, and they're bad for that reason.

If you don't use muscles, they get weaker.  If you're several years past the last time you exercised regularly (and not just some sort of exercise, but exercise that challenged your arms, and legs, and abdominals, and ... on down the list), then I think you are liable to have some areas that are not currently in good shape.  What that means, as I've coached beginning runners, is that you're liable to start your exercise program and have some real complaints from your body about it.  You can ignore real complaints, for a while.  The 'while' is however long it takes your body to make an injury out of the complaint.  The easy conclusion -- that you're "just not cut out to run" (or swim, or walk, or ...) -- is the wrong one.  The better conclusion is that your shoulders were used to not having to work, so when you made them do so in the pool, for the first time in 15 years, they complained.  The swimming itself is not a problem, but having let your arms get used to the idea that they only needed to lift a book or two every so often, and then ask them to pull you through the water, was the problem.  Same sort of thing for many other sorts of pains beginners encounter.  (There are also many that have nothing to do with this.  This is, alas, not a cure-all, even if it does work at what it tries to.)

Hence, prehabilitation.  I have had to do rehabilitation, at one time or another in my life, on my knees, shoulders, and back.  These seem also to be three major areas where people encounter problems.  Since they are such common areas for problems, I suggest that doing rehabilitation style exercises is a good idea -- even before you're injured.  Especially before you're injured.

As always, check any exercise advice out with your doctor, or, at the very least, a certified trainer in the sort of exercise you are trying to do.  I'm serious about this warning.  



This is an idea of mine about exercise -- not about sea ice.  If it's about ice, there's a fair chance that I'm right, even if I'm disagreeing with a sea ice expert.  On exercise, well, I've tried to read a lot and listen to people's experiences.  So I've got a fair number of ideas, and they're probably not too bad.  Usually.  But I'm not an expert here.  The fact that I've never seen this suggestion in any of the books I've read, or heard it from another coach or trainer concerns me that the reason is that it isn't actually a good idea, rather than I happened to have been creative and thought of a good new idea.

In terms of which exercises to do, I can't provide much guidance myself.  So, again, check with your doctor, letting them know that this is the line of thought.  For shoulders, for instance, one of the exercises is to take a weight (start with 1 lb, a can of veggies works fine for this purpose) in your hand and arm straight down at your side.  Lift your arm straight out to the side, up to the point that your hand is shoulder level -- no higher.  I've you're recovering from a torn rotator cuff, as I was, this is challenging.  Complete the set of 10-15.  If you haven't torn your rotator cuff, and this is hard -- you need some serious prehabilitation.  Work to the point of being comfortable with 10-15 lbs (5-7 kg).  It'll take time.  And, note, this is not the only exercise you should do for your shoulders.  There are several more, just of this sort.

A simpler exercise that anyone and everyone can do, pretty much anytime and anywhere (ok, might look a little funny in the wedding party), is to stand on one foot.  Just that -- stand on one foot.  If you're not positive about your balance, be near something stable you can grab on to if you need to stop from falling over.  You want to be able to do this for 60 seconds, easily, without having to grab anything.  When I started it up again most recently, I could make about 15.  Work on both legs.  One is probably much more stable than the other.  But you want to be getting 60 seconds with each.  Once you've made progress on that, try it with your eyes closed.  (I get 3-5 seconds this way at the moment.)  What you're working on here is your awareness of where your body is, and what your balance is.  Apparently, since I did it, you can be really lousy at this and still walk/run/swim/....  But it's easier to do those things if you have better balance. 

A different reason I like this idea is a problem many beginning runners have.  They're fired up and want to go run every day, now that they've committed to doing exercise.   And then I (and most coaches, especially anyone certified by the RRCA) tell them to start with running only every other day.  There goes some momentum on making their change.

So I'll suggest that the thing to do on your non-running day is some other sort of good exercise.  Maybe prehabilitation is a good idea for you, maybe it's the weight room, maybe yoga, ....  There are many options here.  But in terms of setting your schedule and getting habitual about your exercise, there is a big plus to having a particular exercise time.  And then you decide which exercise it is that you're doing for that day. 

I'll invite contributions of sites that give good prehabilitation-oriented exercises.  We're not aiming at the 'how to put on 30 pounds of muscle in 30 days' or 'how to lose 30 pounds in 30 days', but some basic, conservative exercises that people with injured shoulders/knees/back/... could benefit from, and that someone who isn't injured could also do and benefit from.

Detail: Preemptive rehabilitation

0 Today, I shall attempt to register a pulse

Pushing 30 years ago, a Garfield cartoon had my subject line as its punchline.  Yet, as with many a punchline, there is a good point included.  One of the biggest mistakes people make in starting to exercise is to try to start with major activities "I'll run a marathon in 4 months", or even "I'll train every day."  The longer it has been since you last exercised regularly, the more sense it makes for you to start with informational things.

Your resting pulse is actually one of the better things to know before you start your exercise program.  It isn't a matter that if yours is 44 you don't need to exercise -- you have to do the exercise to get the health benefits.  Keeping an eye on your resting pulse is useful in two senses.  First, as you get in to better shape, your resting pulse will generally drop.  Not talking about going to 44 from 90 in a couple weeks, but you'll see it edge downward over time.  What causes this is that as you do aerobic exercise, your heart starts shoving out more blood with each pulse.  So you don't need as many pulses to keep plenty of blood moving[1].

Second, one of the biggest errors beginners  make is to train too hard, too often.  (This also means you even if you used to be in excellent shape, but that time was more than a few months back; sadly it also means me as it's a while since I was really doing the sort of exercising schedule I'd prefer*.)  As you make this mistake, you'll see your resting pulse rise over time -- and the time scale for the rise is a matter of days.  If your resting pulse has climbed by 10%, it's probably a good idea to go easier on your aerobic work today.  If it's up 20%, you definitely want to back off the aerobics and do something else good for your health.

Of course there is more to getting started than that ...


One thing, by the way, that I strongly recommend is something it seems few people like to do, but has been one of my most valuable things.  Namely, keep a record of what you do and how you feel.  Particularly when you're getting started, marking down what your resting pulse is each day is a good idea.  Now you don't have to be elaborate, and you don't have to be terribly accurate.  'walk/run for about 30 minutes' is fine.  'felt like dogmeat afterwards' is also fine.  You'll probably want to figure out why you felt like dogmeat later -- maybe there's a pattern.  One reason I've found it useful is just that business of figuring out what it is that caused me to have a bad workout.

But a more universal reason is, as you keep getting your good workouts in, you'll see changes in what you feel is a difficult workout.  Early on, run 1 minute, walk 4, repeat through totalling 30 minutes may well earn the comment "very hard workout".  A couple months later, it'll be run 4 minutes, walk 1, repeat to a total of 30 minutes that earns the same comment.  This is progress!  Congratulate yourself!  Seeing that progress is one of the crucial ingredients to staying with an exercise (or any) program.


[1] Something many folks who do aerobic exercise have heard is some nonsense about how you 'only have so many beats in your heart', so the person who doesn't exercise refuses to do so because he doesn't want to 'waste' his pulses on exercise.  Two realities: a) your heart does not have a limit to how many times it can beat and b) even if it did, exercising would be even more important to do.  Suppose your resting rate is 72 beats per minute with no exercise; you raise it to 160 for 30 minutes of exercise each day (average), but your resting pulse drops to 60.  The exercising person's heart beats 14,280 times fewer each day.  That's about 14%.  If that limited number of pulses theory were correct, the exerciser has added about a decade to his life expectancy!

* I hate it when my advice applies to me!

While I will generally be mentioning running as the exercise, that's just because it's the one I like.  Substitute any aerobic activity you like anywhere you see me say 'run'.  And, even if your target is to run, start with walking (which is where I am anyhow).

One important question you probably can't answer by yourself is "Is it medically ok for me to start this sort of exercise program?" 

Some informational matters to start with, or questions to answer:

1. What is my resting pulse?
2. What is my current weight?
3. Where could I go run?
4. Is there anybody I know that I could run with?
5. Are there any running clubs in my area?
1. that are friendly to beginners like me?
2. that have beginning runner programs?
3. that meet at a time and place convenient for me?
6. What time of day, or days of the week will I be most likely to exercise at? (The same time as you're normally picking up your kids from school/practice/friends/... is not such a time :-)
7. Do I have appropriate equipment?
1. Where could I buy some?
2. How much do I really need to get?
8. What are my most likely excuses for not doing my workouts?
1. What can I do to remove those obstacles?
2. What are some good answers I can give myself when I try to pull out one of those excuses?

I'll suggest a couple things on this last, and be happy to respond on the others (and things that I didn't mention) if people make comments.

One thing is, everybody, and I do mean everybody, has days when they don't 'feel like' doing their planned workout.  It just happens, and that includes for experienced marathoners no less than beginners.  So it's good to have in hand some answers that you'll believe about why you're going to get out the door and do your run (or go to the basement, ...).  "I'm doing this for my health", "I'm doing this to wear my skinny jeans." are a couple popular answers.  But think about what is meaningful for you. 

The obstacles are, again, very dependant on the person.  I've discovered that if I have to go hunting for my shoes and such, I'm unlikely to get my workout in.  More importantly, I'm definitely an evening runner, so I should plan for evening runs.  But evening means after work.  I've discovered, also, that if I come home and sit down for a bit (maybe catch something on TV, or read something good, or talk to my wife about our days, ...), it's almost certain that I'm not going to get out for my workout.  So two of my answers are a) keep my running gear handy and, preferably, near the door and b) go straight straight back out for my workout when I get home; do not sit down.  It's also a good idea to have your own answers for 'if it is cold out, I will ...', 'if it is rainy out, I will ...'. 

Detail: Today, I shall attempt to register a pulse

0 Fitness blogging

ERV (Abbie Smith) has suggested blogging about our fitness activities, and with it being the new year and folks having made resolutions about health and fitness, it seems like a good idea.

This is distinctly aimed at the adults and parents, rather than the middle school or jr. high students I try to write to.  Of course, parents, it's an excellent thing for your kids to be active starting yesterday, if not sooner.  Doesn't make a lot of difference what it is they do.  If it's pick up soccer/football, that's fine.  Basketball is great.  Running around the yard/track/field is also just fine.  If the kids run fast for a little, then walk, then run fast again, that's great, too.  No need for the under 13s to worry about extending how long they run at one time.

But, parents, you do really need to be getting activity yourself, and you need to be more particular about what you do.  As many of the beginning runners I've coached over the years have said, they want to be running around with their children and grandchildren -- not essentially stuck in a chair for the last 30 years of their life as some of their parents had been.  The books* Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D. illustrate the point nicely.  Imagine a curve representing your fitness/health/capacity for doing stuff, versus your age.  It climbs rapidly in your childhood and then works more slowly towards a peak in your 20s or 30s.  What happens next is very much in your hands.  You can do no exercise, and see a steady decline from that peak towards death over the rest of your life -- spending your last 30 years perhaps below the level at which you could go for walks with your children or grandchildren.  Or you can exercise routinely and spend almost the entire rest of your life up at a high level, able to walk with your grandchildren and even run with them.  Age does have its say -- you won't be able to run the 20 minute 5k of your 20s and 30s when you're 60.  But you'll be able to go cover that 5k in comfort into your 70s.



*They have separate editions for men and for women.  My wife and I have both, but there's very little difference.  The book has both much good training advice, and, perhaps more importantly, many inspirational examples.

You do need both strength work (Crowley and Lodge recommend 2 days a week) and aerobic exercise (5 hours/week, though you do have to get there from wherever you currently are).  I have a lot to learn on doing strength work properly, some (non-running!) injuries have left me with some training issues for strength stuff.  Aerobics, I'm more comfortable about.

My preferred aerobic activity is running.  For most of the health benefits of aerobic activity, it doesn't matter which one you choose -- getting your pulse up and breaking a sweat gives you the health benefits.  One exception, which is a particular concern for women -- but men shouldn't ignore this -- is osteoporosis.  You need to do weights, or do weight-bearing aerobic exercise.  Unfortunately, that means walking or running, not biking or rowing, and absolutely not swimming.  Now the biking, rowing, swimming are all excellent aerobic exercises, so do do them if you like them.  But add in some time where your entire body weight is being supported by your own muscles, rather than the bike seat or the water.

Aside from that detail, the best aerobic exercise is the one that you like the most.  If you like it more, you'll do it more regularly.  And the benefits come from doing it regularly.  Similarly, the best time of day to do the exercise is the time of day that you'll be most regular about doing it.  I am not a morning person, so even though it would be a good idea to avoid summer afternoon heat, I run in the evenings.  A friend is very much a morning person, so does her runs at like 5 AM, which may not be the best idea when it's cold and windy.  But that's the time of day she's most likely to run.

Again regardless of which exercise you choose, the benefits come from regular training, not from racing.  A friend likens training to putting money into your health bank account.  Racing makes a withdrawal.  The longer and more difficult the race, the bigger the withdrawal.  For this reason, I'm not a fan of people starting their running career by getting off the couch and doing a marathon.  You haven't made many deposits into your health account by training regularly for very long, and then make a massive withdrawal.  In general (and I've done a marathon, and an ultramarathon myself), if you're doing a marathon, it isn't for your health.  So ... think a bit about your purpose in doing it.  I have done a couple of these long races, but not for my health.

I do like to use shorter races, anything from 50 meters to 10 miles, as goals to help me have targets for my training.  I also like to mix up the distances that I'm training for because the training is a little different for a 5k than a 10 mile.  I also mix up whether I'm looking at track, road, or trail/cross-country races.  The variety helps avoid boredom.  On the other hand, there's no need ever to go to a race.  My doctor has been running for over 20 years and never gone to a race.  And, even if you do race, there's no reason ever to do a marathon.  Get up and do something good for your health, on a regular basis, and you're set.

Most people are most regular about their training if they're meeting up with someone to do it.  Finding a friend about your level and interest in your sport is perfect.  Or, find a club devoted to the sport you'd like to get going with.  For running, that's Road Runners Club of America for nationwide listings.  Be choosy about the club you go to -- try them out and see if their attitude fits ok with yours.  I'm a member of two clubs.  The one, I go to more often when I'm in good training and thinking about racing a lot.  The other, I go to regardless.  They're less focused on race times and how fast you are.  As they describe themselves (ok, I wrote that description when I was the web master): PGRC (Prince George's Running Club) is a bunch of folks who run and walk around. We cover the range from folks just starting out slowly to some who are very fast. New people, regardless of speed or 'seriousness', are always welcome. You're also welcome to come run with us even before you join!.  If you're in the Washington, DC area, check them out on the web at PGRC.org.  Most areas have multiple clubs, so your chances of meeting up with one that suits your taste is pretty good.  And do keep in mind that it is a matter of taste.  If you like racing, go with a club that emphasizes that.  If you don't like racing, go with a club that doesn't emphasize it.  But meet your taste preference.

Abbie encourages us to write about what it is we do, but since I'm not currently doing much running, I'll kind of leave it here.  Even though not running, I'm still exercising -- moving to the bike or pool, climbing stairs at work, and walking.  The walking, I'll be taking as an opportunity to scope out more routes for me to go run on.  Then, when I've fixed up my calf issue, I'll be set for doing many more running routes, with more variety.  (And, since I've borrowed my club's measuring wheel, a good knowledge of the distances I'm covering.)

Detail: Fitness blogging

0 Racing again

Saturday I got to meet a barn owl and a red shouldered hawk.  Both were amazingly calm for all the runners who were milling around.  The owl was looking around at all the dogs, deciding whether they were snack sized or not.  (Concluded 'not', though I think a couple of dogs caused some serious calculation.) Fun to watch an owl look around.  They were out as part of the parks and planning commission entertainment for the Jug Bay 10k (and 5k, and 3k walk). 

I and a fellow club member were out for the 10k, with our plan being to run 1 minute, walk 1 minute.  This being a much flatter course than last week's cross-country, I was able to follow the plan pretty well.  Passed the mile 5 marker in 49:45, vs. last week's 8k (a touch shorter) in 54:25.  My rule of thumb for the cross country course worked out pretty well -- about 10% slower than a flat course.  Finished the 10k in 61:23, which also satisfied my check list for the conservative goal at my February 10 miler.  Needed 72 minutes to be in line with the 2:00 goal; this time also meets the more aggressive notion of a 1:45 10 mile, having needed 63 minutes for that.

Bad news, good news being that my calf/achilles acted up again.  Bad news being that it did so.  The good news being that I've now got a better line on what, exactly, is the problem child.  The major muscle in the calf area is the gastrocnemius.  That is the one I had been focusing on when doing my stretching and Alfredson exercises.  Day after the race with the calf complaining as I started to walk, I stretched (as my doctor had advised) the calf -- the gastroc.  Didn't feel any response, no complaint, no difficulty.  So finally I stretched the other muscle down there -- the soleus.  That is where the problem is (now).    I may well have just rehabilitated the gastroc earlier.  Either way, the soleus is what needs the work now.  It's a little harder to stretch, and a little harder to do the Alfredson exercise for.  Not a lot, but enough that I'd been slack about doing it.

To go back to the more typical theme of this blog, I'll observe that probably a fair number of the people running with me were scientists.  In particular, in earth sciences (lumping geology, oceanography, meteorology, glaciology, paleontology, ...) it seems very much the norm that scientists are physically active in one way or another.  Running is not the only sport.  We also have tennis players, swimmers, basketball players, bikers, ....  Team sports are harder to manage later in life, so most people are doing individual sports, even where we like team sports.  But, whatever it is, we get out and do something.  And this is true whether the person does field work (which would require a degree of physical fitness, just to carry out the job) or sits in an office (as I and my coworkers do).  It might be that scientists in other fields don't do as much sport as earth science types do.  I don't know of any research on it.  But we folks interested in the earth also seem to like to run/walk/bike/swim/... around it.

To turn back for a minute to the running ....  In terms of final race times, this 10k was very slow for me.  When walking, I averaged 16-17 minutes/mile (10-11 minutes per km), which is normal for my walking.  In running, I was around 7 minutes/mile (4.5 minutes per km).  If I were in good shape, which is the goal, I'd have run the whole 10k at about that pace.  For my current training level, with the current goal (that 10 miler, 16.1 km) run/walk is the way to get to the finish of a workout or race in best health.  Best health then means I can get out for the next workout, and the ones after that.  It's getting out consistently that is the key for training.  Given the achilles/calf issues, the next workout is tonight -- swimming.  Rest the calf and work the lungs.  The lungs (cardiovascular system) have a long way to go as well. 

Plus, one of these years I'll be doing a sprint triathlon.  My plan being: don't drown in the swim, don't fall off the bike, and then pass a lot of people in the 5k.

Detail: Racing again

0 Racing

Yesterday I ran a good, challenging, and distinctly muddy 8k cross-country race.  It's one of my favorite races.  My training, which I've been sparing you, has not been going well, so injury rehabilitation notes are at the bottom.  September was good.  The last Saturday I walked/ran the 5k according to plan, and finished in 28:25.  Not a great time compared to if I were in reasonable training, but a lot better than a few months earlier.  The following Monday, I forgot about a certain gravel path being irritating to my calves, and the fact that I've been on the edge or over it for calf problems (maybe it's Achilles), and went running on the path.  That did seriously annoy the calf/Achilles, which the race hadn't, and October was mostly given over to non-running (and, unfortunately, non-exercising). 

I had, of course, signed up for the cross-country race right before nailing the calf.  On the other hand, even when I was in very good shape (for me), I walked some of the cross-country course.  In years of moderate training, the walk fraction goes up.  This year, it was going to be even more walking, I decided.  It was.  I flew on the downhills (though I can't run for very long at the moment, when I do, I can carry a good pace), took it easy on the uphills (walking more slowly than I would if the cardio system were in condition), and mixed on the flats.  Not a lot of flat to this course.

The plan worked out pretty much.  I did not injure the calf/Achilles, and I did finish the race.  I feel invigorated for getting out and doing more exercise, and, in one of those ironies of peoples' psychologies, am more willing to do 'just' swimming/biking/rowing/....  Final time of 54:37 (my watch -- I didn't start at the front of the pack!)  Which I mention more for establishing it so that when I talk next year of my improvement, you'll know the base.  It would not be unreasonable to improve by 10 minutes in the next year.



The real work in October was doing Achilles rehabilitation exercises.  Specifically the Alfredson exercises (heel drop).  Once an injury shows up, it's important to figure out what caused the problem.  I've been having recurring calf/Achilles issues through the year.  My first time in 13 years of running of having a running injury, especially one that persisted.  I've never been able to identify the source of the problem.  The second side is, particularly if you don't know what caused the problem, rest (hence my light October) and rehabilitate the injured system.  The rehab includes stretching, a lot, and strengthening by way of the Alfredson exercise.  This is going pretty well (knock wood).

The plan for now is to keep my running to only 2 days/week, and 2-3 days of other aerobics.  Continue the Alfredson exercises for the Achilles, shoulder exercises for the previously torn rotator cuffs (while I've had very few running injuries, I've had several non-running injuries like the torn rotator cuffs), and some strength work.  On the running side, 2 days a week is enough to preserve running-specific conditioning and even advance it some if you, as I am, start from a low enough point.  The other aerobic activities will keep improving my aerobic condition, so that by the time the Achilles is fully rehabilitated, I'll have some lung power to support the running.

It's helpful to have a longer term goal in keeping getting out for exercise.  Mine is the RRCA 10 mile championship (DC and MD clubs) race in February.  The cutoff time to count for your team (my club being small, every person who can beat the cutoff is important -- many years we don't show up with enough runners to count as a team) is 2 hours.  So that's my conservative goal.  And I try to avoid thinking about others at this point.  I should be able to beat that goal time with run/walk of 1:1 (one minute run to one minute walk).  The proportion at the race yesterday was unknowable.  (I'm certainly not looking at my watch while running cross country!)  But the time suggests that for me being equally well-prepared (i.e., not very well at all) and on an equally difficult course (the 10 miler is much easier, though difficult for a road race), I would manage about 1:55 on the 10 miler.  That's sufficient for my goal.  And, given that I expect to be in much better shape 3 months from now, and I know it's a much easier course, room for much more aggressive times.  1:45 is a nice round number.  (Ok, I don't avoid thinking of more optimistic times very well.  But it's a good idea.)

If you've thought of using run/walk strategies, I'll suggest my run/walk calculator.  I've been surprised how fast a run/walk can turn out to be.  Oddly, if I'd run less at the 5k, I'd probably have finished faster.  At that point, I could run 7 minute/mile pace, but only for about 2 minutes.  For the 3 minutes I was running at a time in the race, I could only hold 8 minute/mile pace.  As you can see at the calculator those, plus my 16 minute/mile walking pace, equate to a 5k about 1 minute faster if I ran less.

Detail: Racing

0 Saving lives

A while back, I mentioned the fact I'm still walking around and able to write to you is due to modern science.

I've not going to write often about it (this being only the second post in over a year), but, the truth remains that a lot of us are still walking around because of modern science. The single biggest contributor to that is vaccination. There's a very nice video here, from a pediatrician, Joseph Albeitz (h/t Phil Plait) that outlines some of the magnitude of good that vaccination has done:

In looking at vaccination, as he discusses, you're looking at saving hundreds of millions of lives. The list of things that could contend for saving more is awfully short.

One thing he mentions in passing, which I'll spend a little more time on, is herd immunity. There's a feeling out there, a false sense of security, that as long as 'everyone else' is vaccinated, it doesn't matter if your kids are. If your kids were the only unvaccinated kids, that might be true. But, in reality, you're not the only person who might think that way. Your kids interact with many other children. Once the number of unvaccinated children is high enough (depending on the disease it's in the range 10-30%), the disease can establish itself and spread. The 'herd' is immune only if enough people are immune. Once enough fail to vaccinate, you're a breeding ground for the disease. Worse, you're a breeding ground to infect people who did get vaccinated -- vaccines aren't 100% effective in all people. If enough of you are carriers, then the disease can spread to other kids and kill them.

I know that measles is commonly considered a trivial disease. But that 'trivial' disease kills over a million per year (listen to the video). I'm thinking that not killing off a million children each year would be a good thing. Similarly for the numbers of polio victims -- with vaccination, the number who would get it goes to zero. Both of these diseases are like smallpox in an important way -- they only spread between people. If we reached a point where nobody had the disease, as was the case for smallpox, then nobody would ever again need to be vaccinated against it. It would be gone. As the Dr. mentions, they're about 99% of the way there for polio. Measles have farther to go. Both, amazingly, can be eradicated.

Digressing a second, but not really, is my genealogy. One of my direct ancestors died from smallpox. Lived long enough to have kids, obviously. But died 20-30 years early because of the smallpox. As many a person who looks in to genealogy has observed, you see a lot of very short lives when you look back then (1700s - mid 1800s), many of them children who were never even named. Much of the reason for that change is vaccination. That ancestor (Zeboeth Brittain, how's that for a name?) died before the vaccine was discovered -- 1790, vs. 1796 for Edward Jenner's discovery. But I think he'd be amazed at the idea that the disease that killed him could be erased from the face of the planet -- and it now has been. Measles and polio can be as well.

Detail: Saving lives