laz on aging

June 11, 2015 i know what my experience has been after training for marathons and ultras for more than 40 years.... i have not developed any immunity to the effects of aging. i have the same ailments as my non-running peers. and the same holds for the people i have known in running over all these years. what is different is the effect these ailments have. i will state unequivocally, that a lifetime of running is the best preparation in the world for the issues of aging. or even the things that can hit when you are younger. you are better equipped to face the discomforts and to fight your way thru rehab. when i walk into the dr's office for a checkup, and see all those people with the same issues struggling to go from their car to the door with a walker, being wheeled in on wheelchairs and gurneys, with their amputated legs and oxygen tanks in their laps, i thank my lucky stars that some mental defect compelled me to run for all these years. i don't expect running to make my life last one day longer. it has dam well made my life better. (later) i failed to mention that your drs will love you. when they go from patient to patient hearing them whine about how hard it is to walk 20 steps; the guy who is troubling over how to break 48 hours for 100 miles is a breath of fresh air.

Lisa B on Comrades

Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 12:48 AM

Hi Brett,

John Morelock's training advice is very good.  I agree with everything he said.

Since Comrades was my favorite running experience ever, I'd like to add some thoughts.

My training pace, marathon times, and weekly mileage were similar to yours when I ran Comrades in 2010, though cumulatively I did more long runs and more back-to back long runs on the weekends, not necessarily to train but because it was just something I did on the weekends. Another difference is that I also had done longer ultras for 10 years before this race so I knew how my body and gut would react to the pace and distance.

That said, your sub-9 goal is perfect.  I never was much of a marathoner, but I could run 3:30 with a decent effort, and I finished Comrades in 8:34.  It was a down year that year.  I don't know if this year is down too, but if the years alternated as usual, then it should be.  You probably already know that there is A LOT of uphill even in a down year!  Really it's just the last 20 miles or so that have sustained downhills.  There is a lot of quad strain in a race like this so practice your downhills!

One or two very long runs (= or > 50km) might be helpful especially if you have fueling to figure out.  Definitely do not run them at race pace.  My personal goals for training runs are that I am completely or nearly recovered by the next day, at least good enough to run some more, if slowly.  So, slow and easy.  Sleeping and eating well will help you recover.  Personally, I never tapered before a training run, though I often allowed myself the luxury of a short and easy run the day before, usually to get chores done around the house or something, knowing I would be out training for a long time the next day.  My husband prefers the one very long run on the weekend (30-40 miles), whereas I prefer long back-to-backs (20 mi Sat/Sun).  Neither is inherently better.  Your preference.

You are wise to learn how your body reacts to food and fuel in training, as you will need both to maximize your potential during Comrades (no matter if my good friend laz says you don't *need* anything).  Comrades can be hot and you will need to hydrate and take in some calories unless you want to join the casualties alongside the race course in the latter half.  You will learn the art of grabbing the water "satchel" by the first 5km.  I recommend grabbing one water and one Energade if you can/need, at least after it warms up.  Just let the volunteers slap it into your hand.  Don't worry about dropping the satchels.  They are easy to grip;  they are not water cups.  They are excellent for racing!  Puncture a hole with your teeth and squirt it into your mouth and on your body if it gets hot. In 2010,  the boiled potatoes offered on the trays were coated thickly in salt.  I am a big salt lover but even this was so much it made me gag.  Test them before tossing them back.

The training and fueling are just like any other race though.  There is nothing unique at Comrades in this regard.  Just that it can be hot, and a little early in the year to be well heat adapted.

These things are just my ideas and thoughts based on my one experience there.  But if I may advise....  :)

Wear layers of clothes to the start line.  You're going to be there awhile.  We FROZE our butts off in hats, sweatshirts and scarves.  Wear one of your favorite local marathon shirts as a top layer.  This is the layer you peel off and hand to a child on the side of the course.  You will never feel better giving away your shirt.  Hand off your hat and gloves as it warms up.  The aid stations will be packed with volunteers and spectators and with your USA bib showing, you will be singled out and cheered for.  This will be your primary mental fuel for the race!  The aid stations also serve coke and candy.  Take both if you can (at least take a handful of candy), and run through the aid station and past the spectators there.  Beyond those spectators you will see the children and their families to whom you can hand the candy (and the coke if possible).  You will know what I mean.  You will see the children.  They are there to witness the runners because they dream of running Comrades some day, but the candy is an extra special treat they rarely enjoy.  Take one piece for yourself and give the rest away.  Each time you do it, it will take 1-2 seconds away from your finish time, but giving away your candy and coke will be your primary calorie and hydration fuels!  The kids' smiles alone will carry you to the next bowl of candy 5 km down the road.  Watch out for the teens on bikes asking for your watch though....  And when your finish is "in the bag" and you know you are going to make it, start giving away other things.  Water bottle, wrist bands, anything not important to you.  Finishing "light" will be the primary fuel for your finish line kick!

A likely trivial piece of advice:  watch out for the "cats eyes" reflectors in middle of the road.  Despite being warned about them in advance, I tripped on one and biffed it hard on a downhill.  (Three comrades stopped their race and helped me up and made sure I was ok.)

I highly recommend the pre-race bus tour of the course.  It can get long, but it's worth it.  The kids at the Ethembeni school are already practicing their songs for the tour.  Bring a donation if you can.  Hear them sing the Shosholoza song and sing it again with 20,000 comrades at the start line.  There is nothing like it.

Comrades is a beautiful and difficult course, but running Comrades is so much less about the race itself and so much more about the whole experience.  Run your heart out there, but also let your heart be filled and fueled by the South African people, who are some of the warmest and most welcoming people I have ever met.  Comrades is, by far, THE BEST running experience I have ever had.  I hope your experience is the same.

John M useful Abbreviations (Mar 25)

RHGT Ran and had a good time
RBGLOC Ran but got lost on the course (
RBNON Raced but no one noticed
RCCWOADWEERCW Ran counterclockwise on a day when everyone else ran clockwise
JTFBH Just thankful for being here
PTRVOS Paused to rid village of snakes
GADR Goal adjusted during run
GDDR Goal determined during run
G? Goal?
SATSITSIMSS Still adjusting the settings in the springs in my smart shoes
PPLE Performed prefrontal lobotomy enroute
HPLE Had prefronatal lobotomy enroute
SUATWSL Showed up at the wrong starting line
ADODTSS A day of doing the survival shuffle
DBTASC Delayed by topless aid station crew
DBBASC Delayed by bottomless aid station crew
DBFASV Delayed by favorite aid station voting
DBIRLI Delayed by in-race live interviews
DBWOC Delayed by wildebeest on course
DBMJCROAST Delayed by Michael Jackson court replays on aid station TV
WCWKD Water crossing was kind of deep.
WWC What water crossing?
IMBIT_ I'm much better in the rain (snow, sleet, sand, mud, heat, parking
lot,...)
FTNZBF&K Failed to notice zero between "5" and "k"
FWWFWISHBR Frolicked with wood faeries when I should have been running
ASASAT Achieved status as statistical anomaly today
JRTBH Just running to be humbled (humiliated, hugged, happy, hep,...)
DBDR Delayed by damsel(dude, dork, deer, dinosaur,...) rescuing
LKLCM Larry King Live Called Me
JADITW Just another day in the woods
SAHE Served as horrible example
SASE Self addressed stamped envelope
RBHE Raised (lowered?) the bar for horrible examples
EWLJAPEB Experimented with lime jello and pear energy bars
LTBOM! Lions and tigers and bears! Oh, my!
GTSSTWA Gave the sweep something to worry about
ADORRD Another "Day of Race Registration" Disaster
RWSO Ran with shoes on
RWSOTRF Ran with shoes on the right feet
RWSOAT Ran with shoes on and tied
RWSOATT Ran with shoes on and tied together
TIFTD Trained insufficiently for the distance
TIFTT Trained insufficiently for the time
SIRISWYIP Strange, I ran it so well yesterday in practice
OFNWDID?!

YMMV...

Brian R on Treadmills

Well I'm finally lured into posting after several years. This question about treadmill physics comes up periodically. When it does the (quite innocent) propagation of misinformation kicks in. I can provide the answer. Note that RayK is likely to disagree with me. He's a far more accomplished athlete. I am the trained physicist (PhD in optical physics to be exact).

When you run up a hill on the road, you do work (use energy) against gravity to increase your potential energy. This work is not efficient, so you generate a lot of heat in your muscles as well. When you run on an incline on the treadmill, you do work on the treadmill motor to create heat (instead of going up a hill and attaining potential energy). Again it's not efficient, so you again get hot and sweat. (A clever scheme would be to recover some of the work you're doing on the treadmill to charge a battery or supply electrons to the grid.)

When you run downhill on the road, gravity is working on you, expending the potential energy and you are ultimately dissipating that energy as heat in your leg muscles. When you run downhill on the treadmill, the treadmill motor is working on you (but not efficiently so it's also getting hot) and you are dissipating that work as heat mostly in your leg muscles (instead of allowing the treadmill to impart potential energy by lifting you up higher and higher).

This partly explains why the gentleman takes the cover off his mill to let it cool.

Both scenarios rely on your ability to apply force via friction between shoe and running surface. Take that away and you face plant.

The important message, important enough to post, is that *hill running on a treadmill is "equivalent" to hill running on roads*--up to the caveats that there is usually no appreciable wind on the treadmill and the treadmill surface is more compliant than the road surface. You can't directly set the pace on the treadmill by adjustment of your effort, so the psychology is somewhat different of course.

Qualified, polite criticism always welcome.

Rasmussen Report: Weight Loss and Running

Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2013 11:05:39 -0800
From: Marcia Rasmussen
To: Ultra List
Subject: Rasmussen Report: Weight Loss and Running

Apparently it's true. Losing weight does indeed make you a faster runner. It also allows you to run more miles without your legs falling off. And it would appear that running more miles is another thing that makes you run faster. Thus, we have the results of my own personal Rasmussen Report.

I have spent a lifetime (at least, the part I've lived so far) wrestling with fat. Anytime I let down my guard, it sneaks up on me during the night. Seriously. I've weighed myself at night. And in the morning, I'm mysteriously two pounds heavier. How does that work, exactly? John says it's variations in the earth's gravitational field. I'm not so sure.
Anyway, Vol-State 2013 gave me time--9.2 days, to be exact--to take a long, hard, gut-wrenching look at the issue. I was 140 pounds at the time (I am 5'4") and it was obvious to me that the extra weight made a difference in my running and seriously increased the impact on my legs and feet. High mileage has a way of making these things incredibly obvious! I came home from Vol-State with a serious, tunnel-vision resolve to lose about 15 pounds.

So that's what I did. Five months later, I'm hovering around 125. I have not been this small since before I began ultra running. I guess I'm bragging; I feel really good about this. But what I really want to communicate here is not so much a (yet another) long discourse about myself, but an observations of the changes at weight loss has made on my running.

I decided to do the RED FAM thing for December. I thought that would help motivate me to reach my intended goal of 2000 miles for the year. In order to do that, I would need to average about 11 miles a day for the month of December. After the first week, I'm thinking, "Holy moley! I can run FAST again!" (When I say "fast," I just mean something like a 10-minute mile. But it's faster than I've been able to run in the past decade or so.)

In any case, it seems to me that running 10+ miles, day after day, can give a serious jump-start to your running ability.It also seems to me that getting down to "fighting weight" not only allows you to run faster, but it cuts down on so much of the impact-related stress that it allows you to run significantly more mileage. And the mileage, in turn, makes you able to run FASTER AND FARTHER.

Not that this is anything new. It's just that I am surprised at the extent of the change. It's like getting a glimpse at being a YOUNG RUNNER. That's pretty cool, since I never really was a young runner. I'm seriously hoping that this is enough motivation to keep me from gaining back the 15 pounds when all the Christmas goodies appear.

Bah! Humbug!

Marcia Rasmussen

Nick Marshall on Ron Bentley and early 1970s ultrarunning

As the folks out in Oklahoma try to slog on through the night in our 24-hour national championship, it seems appropriate to hearken back to an earlier landmark event of this type.

So gather 'round children, and I'll tell you a tale of ancient history . . . .

Toward the bottom of this message is a link to a short 4-minute video on Ron Bentley, filmed in January 1974.

I doubt if the name Ron Bentley rings a bell with even 1% of the readers on this UltraList.  However, when I first became interested in ultras, he was a giant in the sport.  In the past I'd only read about Bentley and seen a few photos of him, so I was delighted when England's Andy Milroy informed me a few days ago of the existence of this video, showing Ron being interviewed soon after his greatest race, a 24-hour which unfolded 40 years ago.

To place things in context, we need to go back decades, long before most readers here were ever active in the sport.

At age 65, I am far from being the oldest member of the UL.  However, I'm pretty sure that in terms of when we all began running organized ultramarathons, no one else here has a personal resume dating further back than mine.

My first ultra was in 1974, and the running world was vastly different then.  The opportunity for people to try races longer than 26.2 miles was extremely limited.  According to my records, there were only 13 ultras held in the United States in all of 1974, and four of them were shorter than 50 miles.  Of the other ultradistance competitions to choose from, there were seven 50-milers and a pair of 100-Ks.  That was it.  One of the 100Ks had an option to continue on as a stage event for a 3-day 300-K (which future Ultra Hall of Famer Park Barner and racewalker extraordinaire Alan Price did), but the longest continuous distance offered in America that year was only 62.1 miles.  There had been a couple 100-milers held in the past, but there wasn't a single 100 put on anywhere in the U.S. in 1974.

At least the few races we had back then were not all concentrated in the same place, although they were almost all clustered on the east or west coast.  The 13 ultras were held in 9 different states:  there were 3 in Maryland; 2 each in California and New York; and one apiece in Washington, Georgia, Ohio, Virginia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

My ultra debut was in the C-&-O Canal 100-K.  It started at the base of the Washington Monument in D.C., and headed to where the C-&-O Canal towpath begins in Georgetown; and then followed the towpath along the Maryland side of the Potomac River for 60 miles, to a point opposite Harpers Ferry, W.Va.  Seven men entered the race, and six completed the 100 kms.  I finished in 2nd place, behind Park Barner (a clubmate of mine from the little Harrisburg Area Road Runners Club), who won in 7:52:43.

If present-day ultrarunners feel as though they occupy a small pond, compared to an ocean of runners doing shorter events, back then the entire running population was merely a pond, and with ultras forming no more than a tiny puddle.  Of the 13 ultras held in 1974, the JFK 50-Mile was the only event with over 40 starters.

It was almost an entirely male preserve, too.  That whole year, only 5 females finished any race longer than a marathon.  In Santa Monica, California, Eileen Waters became the first woman to ever break 7 hours for 50 miles, smashing her world record for the distance with a 6:55:27.  In the same race, Donna Gookin also came in under the old mark, at 7:12:51.  At JFK, Nancy Keplinger persisted through a horrendous ice storm to finish that 50-miler in 13:48:05.

(In its first 12 years, JFK was held in March.  That is, until the hyperthermic conditions of 1974 wreaked havoc on the race, with 84% of its field dropping out due to a daylong deluge of wintry sleet and freezing rain.  After that weather disaster, race founder Buzz Sawyer switched its annual date to November.)

Oddly, while I noted that only 5 American females finished an ultra in 1974, Waters, Gookin and Keplinger were the only women to do so. That's because the only other representatives of their gender in this tiny group were a couple little girls, as sisters Linda and Suzanne Bottlik, ages 11 and 9, trotted through the Southern Pacific AAU 50-K in California in 5:32 and 5:38, respectively, shepherded along by their father!

Lest people get a mistaken impression of the toughness of ultrarunners back then ("Gee, we all run lots of 100-milers nowadays, and that's way beyond what those oldtimers used to do. . ."), it needs to be pointed out that although the sport was in its infancy here, its pioneers were primarily men in their 20s and 30s who were serious athletes.  They came out of a roadracing tradition, and the competition in these "short" ultras was frequently both fierce and fast.  Quality, not quantity.  It was only for a lack of opportunity that this small band wasn't doing 100-milers, too.

The most dramatic example of this fact is evident from that year's national championship 50-mile.  Held on a relatively hilly loop in New York's Central Park, only 12 men finished the race.  However, 7 of those 12 runners broke 6 hours, with the great Max White winning in 5:28:15 and Park Barner taking second.  In other words, the race was open to anyone in the whole country who was an AAU member and wanted to run . . . but if you showed up and took 6 and a half hours to cover the 50 miles, you were going to find yourself in the back of the pack!  (Similarly, when I ran the National 50 in Central Park in 1976, the race that time had only 17 finishers, but my 5:51:38 was only good for 5th place, and nine men in all broke 6 hours.)

Meanwhile, despite the paucity of available ultras here, the U.S. was still more advanced than all but one country in the the rest of the world.  Continental Europe had some annual mass 100-Ks, but these were mostly hiking treks which a few runners would also do.  Japan was dormant.  South Africa had its enormous Comrades 56-miler, but its national apartheid policy kept that a segregated, whites-only event which was shunned by all but a few foreign runners.

It was only in the British Isles that ultras had flourished.  The 52.5-mile London-to-Brighton was the most hotly-contested ultra in the world, and during the 1960s Ted Corbitt ("The Father of American Ultrarunning") had travelled to England five times to do that premiere event, as did some other Americans who lacked many ultra options in our country.

Most British ultras were in the 35- to 50-mile range, but every couple years the British RRC would host a special longer race.  In 1969, it was a 100-miler, and John Tarrant ran the second fastest time in history, a 12:31:10, which trailed only the world record of 12:20:28 set in 1953 by South African Wally Hayward.  Meanwhile, the 50-year-old Ted Corbitt placed 3rd with a U.S. 100-mile record of 13:33:06.

In 1971, the British RRC held another top quality 100-mile, and this is when Ron Bentley rose to great prominence in the ultra world.  He won it in 12:37:55, the third fastest time in history, beating John Tarrant (12:51:38) in the process, while his brother Gordon Bentley claimed the third spot in 13:14:17.

This long-winded intro brings us up to Nov. 3-4, 1973, when the British RRC held their next big extra-long ultra, a race in which Ron Bentley broke Wally Hayward's world record for 24 hours.

Here's a link to the short video about it:

        http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/atv-today-15011974-long-distance-runner/MediaEntry/20607.html

This brief look at Ron Bentley was filmed two months after his 24-hour world record.  The mark he had to beat at the time was the 159.3 miles Hayward had run in England twenty years earlier.

Bentley's 50 and 100-mile splits were 6:08:11 and 13:09:52.  He passed Hayward's record at 22:59:38.  At that point, he stopped running, and switched to a slow and painful walk, covering only 2 more miles in the final hour.

In the video, Bentley seems like a fine chap, and a bull of a man.  I'd read before that he was built like a fighter.  He looks the part, yet the shots of him on the move show an impressive running form.  He'd be a fairly intimidating competitor to race against, with his powerful physique.  Most runners don't have his upper body!

The food intake cited in the video is questionable, to my mind.  I suspect the filmmakers may have asked him to set up everything he possibly could have had available at trackside during the race, not what he actually consumed:

3.5 gallons of a kind of glucose drink
3 jars of honey
4 pounds of solid glucose
a loaf of bread
5 tins of soup
2 jellies & a custard
12 chocolate bars
4 pints of tea
1 tin of pears
½ a tin of oranges

He does comment that he lost 14 pounds in the course of the event.  That's a slight exaggeration, but not far off, as he dropped 8% of his body weight over 24 hours.  Beforehand, he was weighed in at 156.5 pounds, and afterward he weighed 143.8, for a total loss of 12.7 pounds.  So it's hard to believe he lost that much weight, if he also ate as much as the list above contains.

The race was on a cinder track (tough surface for an event lasting so long!) but had mild temps for a race in November in Britain, with a low of 52 and a high of 61.  But, it was also damp and had a chilling wind at times (6 PM start); but what had to make it very tough was that there was a cold downpour at Hour 19 of the event, and part of the track was 2" deep in water for several hours after that.

Of particular U.S. interest is that this same race gave Ted Corbitt the only opportunity in his career to attempt a 24-hour event.  Ted entered the race with a goal of 150 miles.  For any other 54-year-old runner that would seem preposterous, but in Ted's case 150 miles sounded reasonable.  He'd run 13:33 in his only 100-miler just four years earlier, and then done 5:34:01 for 50 miles at age 51, and 5:35:03 at age 52.

Unfortunately, while Ron Bentley triumphed that day, the result for the American was a disappointing performance.  Ted hit 50 miles in 6:50:41, but struggled from there.  He passed 100 miles in 15:22, but deteriorated more the rest of the way, eventually settling for 134.4 miles for his 24 hours' work.  Our national record at the time was very soft (since hardly any Amercans had ever done a 24-hour), so Corbitt's distance actually established a new U.S. record, but he was nonetheless disappointed with the outcome, as it fell so far short of his goal for the day.

(Sadly, unbeknownst to Ted, at this point he was approaching the end of his elite competitive career.  He ran a couple quality ultras after the 24-hour in England, including doing a 5:53:09 for 50 miles at age 55 in November, 1974.  That was his last hurrah, however, as he subsequently developed breathing difficulties which reduced him to only very slow jogging or walking, although he continued to walk occasional ultras into his 80s.)

Incidentally, in the film it appears Bentley is wearing Tiger Boston shoes (originally named Tiger Joggers; later the same model was renamed the Tiger Nairobi).  They were among the first shoes with nylon uppers, but were racing/training flats that were lightweight and had very little of the "support" that you find in modern shoes.  They were mostly just a flat sole with hardly any heel lift, attached to an almost-all nylon upper, except for thin, flimsy leather strips at the heel counter and toe box.  Although I doubt my old legs could tolerate them now, back in 1973-1979 (until they went out of production) the Tiger Jogger/Boston/Nairobi was my favorite all-purpose shoe.  I added a lightweight Spenco insole to them to provide a little more cushioning, and wore them both for training and racing.  I'd rank them as one of only 3 shoe models (of the many I've tried in the past 40 years) that I actually liked (the others being the Nike Terra TC in the early-to-mid '80s, and the Nike Air Zoom in the late '90s).

Finally, IF ANYONE WANTS TO READ A LOT MORE ABOUT RON BENTLEY AND HIS HISTORIC 24-HOUR, SEND ME AN EMAIL REQUEST AND I'LL SEND YOU A LARGE PDF FILE OF A GREAT ARTICLE ON THE SUBJECT.  It was written by Chris Holloway of England.  Chris just finished it a couple weeks ago, and wrote it to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Bentley's world record, coming up next week.

The article is very long, and I don't recall ever seeing a more comprehensive account of a single ultra.  Holloway tracked down a bunch of people who were either in the race, or helped officiate at it, etc., and who can still recall the day well.  There's an hour-by-hour retelling of the event, plus charts breaking down its statistics, all augmented with some wonderful old photos from the race.  There are individual shots of most of the competitors, including a couple nice pictures of Ted Corbitt and a neat photo of the winner slogging through the water on the track after the downpour.

Also, the piece begins with a biography of Ron Bentley, showing his childhood was a very hardscrabble one.  Born on Oct. 10, 1930, he grew up during the Depression era in a home without electricity, in a family of 11 children, etc.  That's quite a different background from most of us!

Charmingly, though, at the end of the article there's a current photo of Bentley in his track suit, smiling broadly and looking very hale and hearty, at age 83.

---Best,
Nick Marshall
Camp Hill, PA

it is just running for cripes sake by LL

From: lazarus lake
Subject: FW: running mythology
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 13:10:33 +0000

it is just running for cripes sake.

it is what we are designed to do.
we have been doing it for something between 3 and 6 million years....

MILLION.

100 years after the popularization of the automobile
we have come to treat running as an almost supernatural accomplishment.
we actually fear running.

starting up a cross country team has been at times maddening.
before we even reached the total of 3 miles a day in a practice we had parents fearing that running "such distances"
would permanently...

PERMANENTLY

injure their children.

we lost runners whose parents will always believe they narrowly averted crippling injuries.
thank god that all the girls quit.
everyone knows distance running will make a woman's uterus fall out.
it would have been awful having our track littered with all those uteri.

the latest fear is "dead legs"
i am not sure what "dead legs" is but we have parents convinced that running will cause it.

"distance days"
which are really almost days off
strike terror in the hearts of our parents.
the kids are equally terrrified
(they learn it at home)
none the less we had worked them up to slow 5-milers.

last week we did a 6-miler.
and we are not talking about a hard 6-miler.
times ranged from 50-61 minutes.

one kid's dad held him out of practice that day.
running 6 miles he feared would give the kid "dead legs"
and ruin his basketball and baseball seasons.

i decided it was better not to tell the guy
that during most of our practices we covered anything from 4.5 to 5.5 miles much of it at fast speeds
(which is much more difficult than running 6 miles slowly)
it is just broken down into smaller pieces.
apparently almost no one can do math.

i do try to explain that exercise as counterintuitive as it might seem makes you stronger not weaker.

you are laughing at these people aren't you?

let me point out that last week.
last week i saw the hundred thousandth post asking for advice on what to eat during an ultra.
and we are not talking about a multiday.
this time it was 50 miles.
the next time it will probably be 50k.

the sane advice is "if you happen to get hungry you can eat something to make your stomach feel better.
it is not necessary to constantly fuel your body to run."

the advice that caught my eye said "eat the SAME THING YOU EAT DURING TRAINING."
eat during training?

what for so you don't get "dead legs?"

between 1836 and 1869 about 400 00 people
traveled 2 00 miles from missoura to oregon.
most of them walked.
they had no idea that they must eat every 45 minutes.
they had no concept of bonk.
they had no gu.

it is just running.
we have been doing it for millions of years.

MILLIONS.

laz