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