ARTICLES IN THE LOPERGRAM

August-October, 2003
Rosemary Selberg, Editor

(Click here for the text-only version)

CONTENTS

• 2ND ANNUAL IRIS FESTIVAL 10K AND 5K RUN-WALK
• MARKING THE MILES -- BY JIM WALLING
• CLINIC REPORT
• RACE WALKING
• TALKING SPEED
• TALKIN WALKIN
• NEW FOR 2003-2004: FITNESS BUDDIES!
• NEW ADVICE TO RUNNERS: DON'T DRINK THE WATER
• OWN YOUR OWN CHAMPIONCHIP?
• UPCOMING RACES
• INGROWN TOENAILS

Frank Ramos

A Loper, a runner, and a gentleman, passed away on June 29th.
He will be remembered for his friendly smile, his modest attitude, and his determination; and will be deeply missed by all of us who knew him and admired him.

Welcome to all our new members! And welcome back to all our returning members! We are off to another exciting year of running, walking, and fitness. We will be training for the Los Angeles Marathon in March 2004. If a marathon is beyond you, Jeanne Fortier will help you train for the smaller races. If a race of any kind is not on your agenda, she has many other activities planned to get you in shape. With the Lopers club, you will meet lots of great people and have fun along the way. We do work hard for our goals but the rewards are endless.

Each of you will be placed with a pace leader according to your own personal pace. You will get to know your leader and learn to depend on their guidance and experience. If your pace changes, you will be put into a different pace group.
Almost every Sunday morning, we will have a guest speaker. That person will provide information on key subjects of interest to you runners, walkers and fitness enthusiasts. The topics are everything from the correct shoes to wear to the food you put in your stomach.  This issue of the Lopergram includes results of new studies regarding the question of how much water to drink before and during long distance runs or walks.  We also will have a stretch warm-up in the morning before and after your work-out.

To make it even more fun, we have ice cream socials and pancake breakfasts planned for you to enjoy after your exercise routine. Over the years, we have found the social activities with fellow members to be an important part of the support provided by the Lopers Club. It has resulted in long-lasting friendships in many cases.  As President of the Loma Linda Lopers, I am delighted that you have made the commitment to train with us for the marathon, half marathon, or any other goal you may have in mind.
Welcome aboard!

Welcome back to all you experienced runners and walkers, and a special welcome to all the new members! You are about to start in on a program that will help you to realize your dreams whether they are to run/walk a marathon, get in shape, lose weight or meet new friends – it can happen for you with the Lopers . The key to being successful is to not give up.

The Loma Linda Lopers is completely run and organized by volunteers from the club. You will find that Lopers love to run/walk and they like to talk about that sport to anyone who is willing to listen. Experienced Lopers are very willing to share their knowledge and help you to become the very best you can be at the sport.

We are very excited about this year’s clinic. The program starts at 6:30 A.M. Hal Orshall will be the master of ceremonies and get the morning started off right. Hal is an experienced and dedicated runner with many marathons under his belt.  The morning program will also include guest speakers who will give you information on a variety of topics from gear to preventing injuries and everything in between. Plan to be at Gentry Gym at 6:30 so that you do not miss out on the fun and the important information.

Ernie Acebedo is the pace group leader. He has organized an excellent staff of pace leaders. These are the people who will give you the individual help and attention you will need as you put in the miles out on the road. Your pace leader will be with you all the way.

Once you hit the four-mile mark you will start having water stops available to you out on the road. Bill Carter is responsible for getting up extra early and setting out the water stops and the turn around signs. Make sure you read the article about hydration and over-hydration. When you return from your run/walk Chuck Harget will have snacks and water ready for you.

You will find that the Loma Linda Lopers are a fun and friendly group. Many of us do marathons: some of us run, others walk. Many of us do 5k’s or 10k’s. Many of us do not get involved with competitions and are only interested in physical fitness. So you see, there is something for everybody.
Again, welcome and we look forward to meeting you and helping you to realize your dream.
 

The 2003-4 L.A. Marathon Clinic has arrived!  Just when we begin to lapse into the lazy days of swimming, hiking and eating ice-cream, it’s time to get motivated again.  I am always happy to have the Lopers to get me moving on Sunday mornings and to set some new goals and renew my commitment to fitness.  Once again I will be coordinating the Thursday Night Walking Group at the Drayson track and I look forward to introducing any Loper (walker or runner) to the highly efficient, and fun, walking technique of Racewalking.  The group meets every Thursday evening at 6.  We enjoy meeting new walkers, so why not join us, meet some new friends, find a walking partner and maybe learn a new way to walk.  We have several veteran marathoners in the group and we are delighted to share our experiences (the good, the bad, and the ugly!) with anyone willing to listen.  If you have any questions about Racewalking or the Thursday Night Walking Group, please give me a call at 909-864-0258 or email me at voyager@empirenet.com.

The following are Lopers in our walking group who placed at Fontana Days:

First Place Age Group:
Flo Dabney, Jay Fisgus, Jane Adams, Jim Joy and Rosemary Selberg

Second Place:
Jenny Dean, Dorothy Joy,Constance Koenig, DeAnn Exkenwiller and Ruth Artz

Third Place:
Joyce Scott, Doug Adams and Jeanne Fortier
 

It’s another new marathon clinic and many of you have returned from last year yearning to set a new Personal Record (PR) at this year’s LA Marathon.  Most all of you who have returned from last year and have maintained, or somewhat maintained, your fitness should have no problems with speed training.  Those of you who are training for your first marathon, or have not been running regularly for at least the last 3-6 months, should wait to take on speed training until you have let your muscles and tendons adapt to the rigors of running (2-6 months depending on present physical conditioning and age).

I am often asked, “How fast do you need to be to benefit from speed training?”  Really it is not a matter of how fast you need to be to benefit from speed training but only whether or not you have enough of a base fitness level to benefit.  Those who will benefit the most are those who have been running 20 or more miles a week during the last 3-6 months.  For those of you who are really interested in being a faster marathoner it is advisable that you try and gradually increase your total weekly mileage to the range of 35-40 miles.  One can still benefit from speed training without this much mileage.  It is just a recommendation.

Notice I said gradually.  Just as we gradually increase our total weekly mileage in the basic clinic program we also need to increase our total weekly mileage beyond that to get the most benefit possible and increase our Aerobic Capacity.

One needs to be extremely careful in trying to increase both distance and intensity at the same time.  It is more advisable to increase your distance first and then add the speed later.  However, if you want to do both at the same time you can.  Just be sure that you increase each very slowly.  Probably only 1 or 2 miles a week at most in distance and keep the total speed distance to 10% or less of your total weekly mileage.  For instance if your total weekly mileage is 20 miles you should keep your speed work to only 2 miles.  If you were doing 440’s (1/4 mile) you could do up to 8, which would total 2 miles.  Like wise you should only increase your weekly mileage about 10% a week.  In the previous example this would be 2 miles.

What do we do in speed work?  We usually run repeats or intervals of short distances of from 220 yards (1/8 mile) to 880 yards (½ mile).  Repeats are run a little faster than intervals, for the same distance, because with repeats we usually have complete rest between the repeats of about 2-5 minutes depending on the distance.  With intervals, instead of complete rest, we jog slowly during the interval for a period of time equal to the time for the quicker run or we jog or walk quickly for about half the distance traveled in the speed portion.  Because we have so many of differing levels in our group we mainly do repeats at our speed group but we occasionally do runs like 5x2minutes easy/3 minutes fast.  This is an interval type run but using time instead of distance.  Some people record how far they traveled to keep track of their improvement.

Come check us out!  The Loper Speed Group meets every Wednesday evening at the Drayson Center Outdoor Track at 7:00pm until October at which time we will probably return to our usual 6:30pm time.  Please come about 15-20 minutes early to get in a few laps of warm-up first.  We have refreshments such as Gatorade and Fig Newtons after the workout.

You can see our next few months schedule on my web site http://runningmania.tripod.com.

That old saying, “ where does the time go” is so true. This year marks my 10th year being a Loper. It’s not until I get out the albums and look at the pictures of all the friends, the events, marathons and all those medals hanging in the hallway that I realize where the time has gone. It has taken me 10 years to finish 20 marathons, 35 half marathons and 40 10ks, 5ks, etc. I have so many good memories of these past 10 years and I hope to continue to make more. However I’m not getting any younger. I have told my friend Ruth, who is 21 years my junior, that when I can no longer walk a race, I would like her to push me in a wheelchair (Think of all the calories you’ll burn, Ruth!). My mother walked a 5K when she was 80 and came in first in her age group. Of course there were no others in her age group. She is 89 now and still displays that medal.

Speaking of races; Ruth, Tracy, and I just completed our 6th RockNRoll marathon. It is very walker friendly and I would highly recommend it. Not to mention what a great excuse to go to San Diego for the weekend. We also are doing the RockNRoll half marathon in Phoenix next January. It is the inaugural RockNRoll Arizona race and just sounds like it will be another memory maker.

Fontana held their half marathon and 5K race on June7. Lots of Loper walkers participated and many took home awards. It is so exciting that walkers are coming out and getting involved in these races. The Redlands Run was held on May 4. Many of us did the 10K. (see picture)The 2nd annual Iris Festival, which is sponsored in part by the Lopers, took place on May 18. It was a beautiful day for a race and a huge success.

You know, years ago almost all participants in these races were runners. Not any more! In most races now, it’s about half runners, half walkers. Race promoters are finding that the entry fees and participation of the new legions of walkers are building their events, bringing in more sponsors, supporting their charities and helping to make the races more enjoyable for all participants.  Keep walking!

For those of us who have decided that we don’t want to do a marathon this year; or for those who wish to decrease weekly mileage while maintaining a high level of physical fitness; or, my personal favorite, those of us who are not aging as gracefully as we had thought--do I have a group for you!

I am going to start a group this Loper season called “Fitness Buddies.”  We will train for 5K’s & 10K’s (walking and running).  We will also have weeks for biking, hiking, yoga and hopefully swimming (I’m still in the process of trying to work that one out).   The LA Marathon has a bike tour that members could train to enter as well as the Redlands Bicycle Classic public races. There are many local 5 & 10-K’s that we will train for including my favorite, Mission Inn!  Redlands and San Bernardino have mini-tri’s which members can work towards entering.  I will also hold yoga classes which will focus on core strength and flexibility.  I would like to also incorporate some hikes in the local area.  Members can work towards their own personal fitness goal and make some new friends along the way.

Since I have struggled with health problems for the past two seasons, I have finally decided to listen to my doctor and do something different.  I have completed 14 marathons and it is time for me to expand my horizons.  I have completed two mini-triathalons (5-K run/walk; 9 mile bike; 200 yard swim) and have become hooked on them.  I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I finish, and the best part of all—NO PAIN!

If you are interested in becoming one of my FITNESS BUDDIES, join me every Sunday after the Warmup.   I will talk more about this group during the first two weeks of the Loper training season beginning August 2, 2003 or you can call me in the evenings at 798-8154.   I am also looking for your input and ideas to make this group really take off!
 

Editors Note: This article presents the results of some recent research on a subject important to all long distance runners and walkers, how much water should we be drinking during a race. As the first paragraph points out, the advice most of us have received has been “as much as you can hold”. Here’s another point of view.

Every athlete, every fitness enthusiast has heard the advice to drink plenty of water. Drink as much as you can. Don't wait until you are thirsty. By then it may be too late. You may be seriously dehydrated, risking dizziness, collapse, even death. "Stay ahead of your thirst," athletes and would-be athletes are told.

But now USA Track & Field, the national governing body for track and field, long-distance running and race walking, says that advice is wrong. In what it calls a major revision of its guidelines, the organization says endurance athletes, who may be consuming huge amounts of water over the course of a long event, may risk seizures, respiratory failure and even death from drinking too much.
Instead of drinking as much as they can, the new guidelines say, runners should drink when they are thirsty. People in long races like marathons may want to weigh themselves before and after long practice runs to see how much they lose from sweating and drink that amount when they race, and no more. The guidelines are at www.usatf.org.

Dr. David E. Martin, an exercise physiologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta, called the change revolutionary and overdue. He is a co-author of a new advisory statement on fluid replacement in marathons written for the International Marathon Medical Directors Association. It was a supporting statement for the track and field advisory.

Dr. Martin said the old advice was leading to water gorging, with people stopping at every water stop, downing water cups and so diluting their blood that their sodium levels plummeted, a condition known as hyponatremia.

The problem occurs in any endurance event that gives people the time to drink and drink and drink. It emerges among people who hike the Grand Canyon, in those who compete in Ironman Triathlons and, most notably, in marathons.

Hyponatremia is not a problem for elite marathon runners, Dr. Martin said, because they go too fast to drink too much. "Running at a five-minutes-per-mile pace," he said, "there's no way you can drink enough to get hyponatremia."

Those runners, he added, have their own water stations, the elite water stops, where they have their own sports drinks that they have chosen in advance.

Instead, Dr. Martin said, the problem is with slower runners, who may take as long as nine hours to run a race. They may be running with groups of friends, raising money for a favorite charity. Or they may be tourist runners, people who plan vacations around marathons.

"We're worried about this increasingly large group of people, taking courses in how to run a marathon, going to shoe shops to learn how to run," Dr. Martin said. "What has been told to them is the party line. Make sure you drink. You can't drink too much. Carry water with you or you will get dehydrated. Don't worry about heat, just drink more. That's wrong. It's wrong, wrong, wrong."
What about the risks of dehydration, leading to heatstroke as the body temperature soars? Grossly exaggerated, medical experts say. Most athletes who collapse at the finish line suffer from postural hypotension, a drop in blood pressure when blood pools in the legs, and not from heatstroke.

Examining information on illnesses in marathons since 1985, Dr. Martin and Dr. Tim Noakes of the University in Cape Town in South Africa, write in the advisory statement, "It has been difficult to find any studies in which dehydration has been identified as the sole important causative factor in even a single case of exercise-related heatstroke." But they reported that they found 70 cases of severe hyponatremia.

Many start the race overhydrated, having fallen for what Dr. Heinz Valtin, a physiologist at Dartmouth Medical College, deems a medical myth: that dehydration is always lurking and must be fended off with more or less constant sipping of water.

In a paper published in November in The American Journal of Physiology, he said he could find no scientific support for the common advice for healthy adults to drink at least eight glasses of water a day and that the benefits that have been claimed — weight loss, relief of constipation, less fatigue, increased alertness and so on — have no foundation in rigorous studies. "In my opinion, the vast majority of healthy people do not need that much water," he said.

Dr. Martin agreed, saying: "People have been carrying bottles of water with them. Some people actually get water intoxication syndrome. They feel lethargic from drinking too much. I worry about the sanity of those people."

For Christmas, my husband bought me the WDW ChampionChip, as I did my first WDW marathon in January '03. I had already registered for LA. I emailed LA several times, with my chip number. When I picked up my packet, they had a chip in it. I returned it, and the lady at the racewalk desk took my chip number and reportedly entered it in the computer.

When I looked at the LA marathon website after the race, my time was blank (like those who didn't participate). I emailed LA marathon office but didn’t receive a reply. (hint one, don't use their "contact us" button. Rather, enter the email address in your email program. They never responded to the former, only the latter).  I finally called and after several attempts, touched base with Jane Jones. Finally, they were able to track down my time. I think that the ChampionChip mat picks up all the chips, even those that they don't have as registered. Now, I have an official time and I went from  “Did not finish” status to 3rd in my age group.

Sometimes, in an effort to avoid catching their nails on the front of their shoes, runners and walkers will clip their nails very short. Shorter nails are better, but only up to a point. IF you cut your nails too short the nail may begin growing back into the surrounding skin: when that happens you’ll experience the sharp, stabbing pain of an ingrown toenail. People also frequently make the mistake of cutting their nails on an angle, rather than straight across. Nails cut on an angle tend to grow wrong.

If you develop an ingrown toenail, you shouldn’t ignore it as it can easily become infected. Provided it hasn’t grown too deeply into your toe, you may be able to head if off by treating it yourself. Take a tiny piece of tissue and wad it into a spiral shape; it should be just small enough to fit under your nail. Place the tissue under the nail that’s growing inward, far enough down that it will gently push the nail out. The tissue will prevent the nail from growing further into your skin. You may have to replace the paper if it gets too wet from a bath or a shower. Remove the tissue once the nail has grown out normally.

On the other hand, if you’re suffering from an ingrown nail that has been growing deeper and deeper into your skin, you’ll have to see a doctor. He or she may need to surgically remove the nail to prevent infection.

To prevent ingrown toenails you should:

Tom and Dave Learn...
Never Push Over a Porta-Potty While Someone is Using It.
    CLEAN UP IN AISLE 3.