Ryan Shay, Olympic marathon hopeful, dies in New York

In case you missed the news from Saturday, Ryan Shay died while participating in the US Olympic Marathon Trials race. Shay collapsed after five miles and died before arriving at the hospital. The cause of death is not fully known, but he was known to have an enlarged heart and that likely played a role.

Running a marathon (which he has done before, and quite more than we'll be endeavoring to do), while possible for anyone (or near anyone I believe) should not be regarded as a small task. If proper training is pursued then the race can go well, but everyone who takes on the task of training or racing in a marathon should be sure that they are, and feel, physically capable of the pursuit. I don't plan on paying for my steak dinner post-race in January of 2009, but I can certainly think of worse situations. Read this great New York Times story on Ryan and the race, train well, and be well.

And I'll see you in Houston, if not before then.

Hydration, dehydration, hyponatremia and risks of running a marathon

Probably, since you have your eye to run a marathon in early 2009, you took special notice of the news story that a Michigan man died while running the Chicago marathon. Or at least you took notice when you heard that the race was stopped early and 300 participants were hospitalized because of the heat.

It turns out that this unfortunate man passed away from a heart condition, but it serves us well to take notice of some of the risks associated with running a marathon. It will serve you well to learn much in the next 14 months. Proper hydration may be one of the more important lessons. Probably a good place to start is with this Washington Post article. At least for me, reading about a physiological phenomenon often has little impact (no offense to any physician, exercise physiologist, or Beth Leuck who may read this post) but reading about the honest mistakes of a real person and fellow runner make clear the need for me to learn and get this right.

So what risk is there with hydration and running a marathon? While you've certainly heard of dehydration (which is severe and leads to much fatigue and physiological stress) it's unlikely that dehydration will result in a fatal condition for most runners. In the end, you won't likely be able to continue running and will probably stop to drink some water anyway. Heat stress or any overheating-related condition is more likely, but also you are likely to stop running and therefore stop the cause of the problem. (And this isn't something for discussion yet).

But hyponatremia is a different problem. Hyponatremia is drinking too much water, also known as water toxicity. Because your body balances water volume with salt (a rough generalization), reloading your body with water must also take into account how much salt (or electrolyte) must be reintroduced. This happens naturally over the course of days because the food we ingest normally carries sufficient volumes of the various salts we may desire. But during a 5 hour race we can easily deplete our water and salt levels through sweat and only replace one (by drinking water alone) or replace both in an inappropriate manner (by drinking gatorade, which has electrolytes, but may not be exactly what we need).

So, what can we drink? Or what should we drink? Well, there seems to be no exact answer. That is to say that I can't prescribe how you should hydrate, though maybe someone here can. But the answer may indeed be as simple as: drink when you are thirsty. That simple? Well, learn about how to train in a healthy manner, and train in that healthy manner. It is said that in life, you'll likely die how you've lived. It is certainly true that in running a marathon, you'll race how you've trained. You've got plenty of time to try and see what works and doesn't. You've got plenty of time to pay attention, learn from your body, and train it and the rest of yourself to run in a safe and efficient manner. And if you do, you'll conquer many goals and fears, not the least of which are the potential risks of running a marathon. And when you've trained well and are ready for the race. Read again how to race, since many before you have made serious mistakes and not all have been novice runners.

Train well and enjoy running. I expect you'll have a safe and enjoyable race.

my training so far: football

after experiencing 9 years of haunting nightmares of an ill-fated pass, jack-nut finally exhumed the "exceedingly high pass" deamons and the big T curse in the first ever tackle football game in cordoba Argentina. Throwing 16 for 25, 3 TD and O INT helped put the "blanquitos" in front, winning 18 to 12.
Its definitely unconventional marathon training so far.
scott jackson

We can't go all of September without any conversation

So how is the training going? I know that Shelby has run a 32-minute 5k and that Tigger has a regular running partner and has been running 3-4 times per week. I haven't had so much success, but I hope that you have. Chris's brother, Ben, may run Houston with us as well. I welcome that on almost every account... but I don't know if he can be a member of the Centenary Track Club.

The Centenary Track Club, by the way, is a very real fictitious organization chartered by JLowe, Jacknut, and myself in the late 1990s. A private and elite organization we have been but we have decided that anyone embarking on such a mission as the Houston marathon who completes the marathon is more than qualified for membership into our esteemed club. Even better, we think that if you set a reasonable intermediate training goal (you should have several intermediate training goals that are within your reach, yet force you to push yourself in training, to keep you striving towards your final goal) then the Centenary Track Club will reward you with an honorary Centenary Track Club t-shirt.

I hope that your training is going well or at least getting on course. If not, I hope that a free gift from such an elite and esteemed institution will serve as appropriate motivation for your running week.

So, how is the training going, and what sort of training goals have you set for yourself?

On shoes

I bought a new pair of shoes last week. Two really... well, actually three, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I bought a pair of shoes for about $20 (discounted from $99 to $69 to $49 and again, what a steal!) and, more importantly, that these shoes don't fit like most of the shoes I normally wear.

What I'm trying to say is that after wearing these shoes for less than 24 hours I had significant foot, shin, calf, and knee pain because these shoes were new and different and because my legs had not been able to adequately adjust to them. Since I've felt this before, specifically due to marathon training, I knew what was happening and knew both what to expect and how to handle the problem. Left unsolved, this would likely have resulted in some sort of lower leg injury. To treat my legs all I had to do was stop wearing the shoes. All this is to say that you, dear reader and runner, are likely to experience this same event in the next 18 months and that some reading ahead (and hopefully helpful advice through discussion) may prevent the occurrence--or at least ignorance of events that leads to overwhelming fear--should you have a similar lower leg injury.

So learn from the links on shoes, ask around (to us or your local running store expert), and learn on your own since an abundance of opinions generally accompanies an abundance of minds.

My general thoughts are these: the way a shoe feels on your foot is often a good indication what the shoe is doing to your foot, stronger legs make for less-injured legs, less shoe makes for stronger legs (though unlike Tigger, I won't fully follow the barefoot man's advice), more pairs of shoes means less chance that your shoes go bad and cause injury, $90 is about as much as a pair of shoes should cost. Of course there's more to finding the right shoe that what I say here just as there's more to understanding what I've learned about shoes and my feet than what I say here.

And eventually my feet will become accustomed to my new shoes. Good thing, too, because they're good looking.

everyone will have these kind of runs every now and then

so today at 8 pm, i was dead tired. I didnt get great sleep the night before, and my total walking for the day was somewhere around 50 blocks or more. I was hungry. My friends were going to a movie, and others were hanging out eating. The temperature was 2 degrees outside... granted thats celsius, but its still too cold.. plus it was dark outside, and it was friday... but i had to get my run in. Every fiber of my being wanted to stay inside and rest, but somehow i managed to get to the closet, where i proceeded to put on the running shoes and get on the running attire. Every one of us will have times like this... its definitely not easy, but the more u decide to get in the run, the more easy it will be to make the disciplined decision next time.

Training Logs

Running, especially long-distance running, is a quite simple sport. That's probably obvious by looking at it. You don't need much more than your own body, a decent pair of shoes, and some cold water. Most of us have these already. Something else you'll need to succeed will be a distinct goal, accountability, and persistence. We've got these as well, though each will need to be honed if we want to get the most from our training. One tool that aids these is the running log. To many, running is not so much a competition with others as it is a competition with oneself. [Jason may find comfort in this during the many months preceding his team's loss.] A running log is a good way to keep track with what you're trying to achieve and what you've already achieved. It's also a good way to look back and see what did and didn't work. Most importantly it's a good way (when shared) to keep up the accountability with your training partners.

We've had a few suggestions for training logs, and I'm open to all ideas, but I'll throw out here a few things I'd like some feedback on. Here are four online logs we can try. Some of these I've used and some I haven't. Some feed through RSS and may be able to feed directly into our blog (how cool would that be?) and others are simple to share with others who want to view your progress. While I keep researching our options, check these out and tell us what you think.

Cool Running
Nike
Road Runner Sports
Running Journal

Additions:
running-log.com
the running log
athleticore
runnerslog