How Much Mileage?

The Washington Post sports section had an article this morning about summer miles put in by some of the top high school cross country runners in the D.C. area. I'm usually of the "no pain, no gain" camp, but these kids were logging up to 100 miles a week to prepare for a race of five kilometers or less.

To prepare for his senior cross-country season at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Mikias Gelagle decided his summer needed to be high in mileage -- and low on everything else.
He got a job at a bakery in June, then quit before his first shift because he feared working would keep him from running. Dinners cooked by his parents seemed too greasy, so Gelagle learned to make basic, high-carbohydrate meals for himself. He stopped going to movies or parties with friends, instead sleeping 11 or 12 hours each night.
For three months, Gelagle, 17, trimmed his life -- and his focus -- to a singular goal: run up to 100 miles each week to build endurance and gain an edge over other high school runners.

I admire Gelagle's single-minded focus--hell, I wish I had three months to dedicate to a single race--but balance is really important in life, too. If you're not a professional, this is overkill. The most I ever logged was 72 miles in a week, and that was while training for a marathon. Getting up to 100 miles might have benefited me as a marathoner, but there wasn't enough time in the week for that. For a 5K, however, so much more is dependent on the quality of your workouts--your ability to tolerate moderate levels of lactic acid for 16 to 18 minutes and, while suffering from that, change speeds to gap your opponents. I can't see how the extra 50 miles makes a difference in developing those qualities, and really makes the kid vulnerable to injury and burnout. I wish him well--and maybe he'll prove me wrong. I hope he does, but reading this makes me apprehensive.

Back To Basics

If I were a philosophy student trained in logic, I would have titled this post "Occam's Razor." But since I only have a BS in journalism, I didn't (and there are those who would argue that an education in journalism is BS, but I digress). The issue is this: Starting five years ago, I began having trouble with nausea and vomiting in long-distance events. I've tried different products, ranging from Spiz to Extran to Perpetuem to Sustained Energy. I've tested all kinds of theories: First I thought it was caloric density that was the problem, then routine hyponaetremia. But (and here's where Occam's Razor comes into play--that notion that when you're given two equally predictive theories, you should choose the simplest) I have to pursue the theory that it's the engineered food products that are causing me the problem. There was a time, a two or three year period, when I rode my bike 100 miles almost every weekend, consuming along the way nothing but normal foods. I learned then that certain foods, such as doughnuts, did not agree with me when I rode, but in general, if I chose simple, light foods, I thrived on solid foods.

In the process of trying to figure out why I was getting sick, I learned a lot about my body. I learned I could ride for hours consuming just 190 calories an hour, well below the 240-280 calories that the experts recommend. I also learned that even though I don't think of myself as a heavy sweater, I can lose 40 ounces of water an hour in hot conditions. So I have a knowledge base to work from, which gives me some help.

As examples of simple "real foods" I'm planning on using in the near future:

-- Last autumn, I rode a couple of centuries relying on a recipe (which I read about in Ed Pavelka's very informative newsletter from the RoadBikeRider web site) for a panini popular even today in the professional cycling peloton. It consists of toasted white bread, dipped in a saucer of wine (to aid digestion, they say) with a spread of jam and soft cheese. Ham can be added if it's not too warm. The panini is sliced in four squares. Made with brie and sans ham, that sandwich comes out to about 350 calories, or not quite 90 calories a square. Two squares in an hour roughly meet my caloric needs.

-- The vegan ultrarunner Scott Jurek uses as part of his training/racing nutrition dates rolled in chopped almonds, a treat that would pack about 60 calories, or slightly less than a single serve packet of a typical gel.

Given that I've had more success using real foods instead of engineered foods, I am cautiously optimistic about my upcoming performances.

Heel Strike in Running

With the growing popularity of POSE and Chi running, I read in online forums and discussion boards about the evils of heel strike (here, for example--and, of course, a lot of interest in different ways of improving form). Well, my name is Jon, and I'm a heel striker. I've never regarded it as evil, and have considered it to be a far more efficient means of propulsion than one of its counterparts, the toe strike. (Toe strikers are painful to watch, and have all the grace of a first-timer on a pogo stick.) I've never understood what people mean by "mid-foot striker," because try as I might, I can't modify my stride, at least while walking, such that the absolute middle of my foot is the first part to strike, at least without going through some ridiculous and unnatural contortions. Same with toe striking. Yet lots of experts--probably many who have more hours in POSE clinics but many fewer miles and palmares to their names--tell us that heel striking is bad, wrong, inefficient, a sure route to injury, a sure way to slow your running times, etc.

I've reviewed the basic principles of Dr. Romanov's POSE method and find most of them very sound (although his crossover into speed skating and swimming leaves the distinct scent of huckster in the air), but I'm still baffled by this notion of the mid-foot strike. (I'm also amused by another idea he promotes, that of trying to use gravity in a vertical plane to accelerate one in the horizontal plane.) How, exactly, does one stride forward, which necessarily brings the heel closer to the ground than the arch or the toe, and yet have the middle of the foot strike the ground first? Does one point one's toe in order to make the foot parallel before the foot strikes the ground? Is one's foot accelerating backward at such a speed that one's foot actually strikes the ground behind the hips? What does this mean? Neither of those anatomical contortions seem to be more efficient than the heel strike.

In truth, I'll bet if you surveyed sales clerks at running stores, they would tell you that 90 percent of runners land on their heels, even the ones who purport to be mid-foot strikers. When I run, I may feel it the most on the middle of my foot, but the outsole wear tells the not-so-sad truth that I strike on my heel.

So, as a response to all of this, I went to my reference on all things running, Galloway's Book On Running, (mine is a first edition) to see what the master said about running. The drawing below encompasses Jeff's attitude on the whole heel strike issue:



  


The issue is overstriding. Overstriders almost by definition must be landing on their heels. Not only does overstriding actually slow you down, it's very hard on your ankles, knees and hips. But landing on your heel with shorter strides, simply is not a bad thing, as Galloway demonstrates above.

I know it will take a lot of convincing, but I'm determined to demonstrate that even the most devout POSEur is a heel-striker, and that it's not necessarily a bad thing.

"Self-Awareness Is A Beautiful Thing"

Those were the words my wife said to me shortly after I made the decision to drop out of The Canadian half-iron duathlon on Saturday. With rising nausea on the final 15-kilometer lap and 13 miles of running confronting me, the race was either going to end with me walking out of the transition area voluntarily or vomiting in the medical tent. When I decided to DNF, I was instantly at peace with it. This is a problem that I can't seem to shake, and the only way to address it is to, well, choose shorter-distance races. I wish it didn't have to be so, but that's how it is. Next year, I'll change my focus.

Now on to happier news.