Speed and Body Weight

I have been asked the question; “How does body weight affect speed?” several times lately. Most of us know that a few extra pounds will affect our running performance, but just how much and in what way?

Extra body weight affects our running performance in several ways. Depending on how much extra weight one has it can affect “running efficiency” by causing one to shorten their stride or alter their upper body’s normal position over the legs in order to handle the weight. Endurance is affected because the muscles tire more quickly the more weight they have to handle. VO2max, sometimes referred to as aerobic capacity, or the measure of the body’s ability to consume oxygen and supply it to the muscles for fuel is affected. While most of us cannot afford to have our VO2max tested, it can be approximated using Dr. Jack Daniel’s VDOT chart. This chart combines running efficiency with VO2max to give an approximation value based on ones time for a given distance. It is not quite the same as VO2max but it can be used as a close approximation. The reason that it differs is that while two people of identical size, sex and weight may have an identical VO2max they may differ as much as 15 minutes in a 10K race because one has a much better running efficiency than the other one.

                                           Below is a part of Dr. Jack Daniel’s VDOT Chart.

Let’s say that an individual is at 185 pounds and a body fat percentage of 23%. This would put him at the outside edge of healthful but by most people’s standard somewhat overweight. An elite male runner would have a body fat percentage of about 4-6% and an elite female runner about 6-10%. Now let’s say that since our 185 pound male is not going to be an elite runner he only wants to get down to 12% body fat. Assuming that his muscle and bone structure remain the same this would take him down to about 162 pounds. Now let’s say that he recently ran his best 10K race, on a flat course, in a time of 1:03:46 putting him at a VDOT of 30. Six months later he is a lean, but not extremely low, weight of 162 pounds. We can predict his new 10K time by using the formula for VO2max of ml/kg/mn i.e. milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. Using VDOT as VO2max or milliliters of oxygen we multiply 30 by 84.1 (body weight in kg’s) and get a product of 2522.73. If we now divide our answer of 2522.73 by our new body weight in kg’s of 73.63 we find a new VDOT value of 34.26. According to our

chart he should now be able to run a 10K in an approximate time of 57:26 or 6 minutes and 20 seconds faster than his previous time. He lowered his race time by approximately one minute per mile by loosing 23 pounds. In his case, that works out to about 2.66 seconds per mile, per pound of body weight. Of course this is not really that linear but only an average.

The example above only put VO2max into the equation if he also improved his running efficiency and gained more endurance because his muscles didn’t have to work as hard for the same distance his time would probably be reduced at least another half second per mile or more per pound of body weight, and all this without doing speed work. Now add speed work to the equation and the sky is the limit! Well almost!

There are other factors that go into this i.e. if you could loose 23 pounds immediately you could not expect to get all of this result right away as you would still have to get your legs and your nervous system used to going this pace. However, you would reap about 80% of this benefit almost immediately and the rest would come in as little as 4 weeks. I hope this has inspired some of you to loose a little of that extra weight that you really don’t need. By the way when you are loosing weight quickly, and running at the same time, you can expect to feel a little sluggish at times, as it is hard to keep the glycogen in your muscles and loose weight fast. If all you are loosing is a half-pound to a pound a week you should be fine. Any more than that and you will probably find that you are feeling tired a lot of the time and your legs feel like they have lead weights attached to them. Either way it is well worth the sacrifice in the long run to get rid of any excess weight.

Other benefits of loosing those extra pounds:

1. You should be able to increase your weekly mileage with less risk of injury.

2. You will have more energy for other activities.

3. You will look and feel great!

4. You may sweat less.

Happy Trails,

Russ

Don't take Life for Granted

At the age of 62 my father was still playing slow pitch softball. That same year he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I loved that my dad was still active at the age of 62. Over the next 14 years the disease gradually took its toll on my dad’s body. He slowly went from being active and mobile to having to have help dressing and walking. The muscle rigidity made his Trapezius muscles in his neck feel almost like iron. He had a hard time sleeping for very long at a time. The disease finally took his life through pneumonia at the age of 76.

In watching my father fight this disease, as gracefully as anyone can, I remember thinking how hard it must have been for him to hang on. He would try so hard to be able to just walk on his own. Seeing this made me resolve to try and never take my health for granted and yet I did just that. I let myself go over a period of four years, three of those years being the last three of my father’s life, going from 176 pounds to 212 pounds. I did not have the energy to walk even a mile with my wife. I did not feel like playing ball with my son or even playing golf riding in a cart. I had gone back to school and two years after starting school my father died. I finished school with my BS degree in Electronics Engineering. That is when I knew I had to make a big change so I decided to train for a marathon.

I ran my first marathon in March of 2000. When I crossed the finish line I could not imagine running another one, but a few days later I decided that I could do better and why let all this training go to waste on just one marathon. I ran that first marathon at a pace of 12:12 per mile for a time of 5:19:49. Just two and half years later in October of 2002 I qualified for Boston with a time of 3:33:40 at an 8:09 pace. I ran Boston the following April. I was hooked on running. I knew that I needed running to keep me healthy and sane! Even if I came down with some debilitating disease like my father I would at least go down fighting and take every advantage of my health as long as I possibly could.

Now I am 60 years old, just two years younger than my dad was when he was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Other than a few aches and pains that tend to slow me down a bit, I seem to be in perfect health. At the present time I am recovering from three broken ribs sustained on a trail run three weeks ago. I am also rehabbing a chronically sore left heel and have five more weeks of physical therapy to go through. Hopefully this will work so that I won’t have to have surgery. Either way I will do my best to stay as active as I possibly can. As long as I am able I will continue to run and if I can’t run then I will cycle or swim.

My mother was taken from me about a year after my father passed. She died at the young age of 64 from a stroke, heart attack combination. She was obese and had diabetes, which tends to run in her side of the family. I remember being upset when she died because she did not take care of herself. I had been running for about four months when she passed. I was hoping that she would be able to hear about me finishing my marathon. Hoping that it would spur her on to try and work on getting healthy again.

I have a brother who has been diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. He has, for the most part, taken his health pretty serious. It is possible that his occupation as a stone mason had something to do with developing his disease but it could also have to do with living about four miles from one of our nations worst nuclear disasters, when he was a young teen, at Rocky Flats Plant on Mother’s Day 1969. I happened to be away at boarding school 30 miles to the north of where we lived in Golden, CO at the time. My sister also suffers from respiratory problems and another brother had asthma when he was young.

The point of all of this is, that because of my family's health problems I am very conscious of how precious my life and health are. I don’t want to take anything for granted. Anytime something could happen to take that away from me, but as long as I can do something about it like run, cycle, hike and swim I will continue to be as active as I possibly can. Running is my first love, but I enjoy being active in any way I can.

One of the best things we can do for our health is to do 40 minutes or more of some aerobic activity at least 3 times as week. This will help keep our hearts, minds and bodies as healthy as possible. I love to go beyond that for my own enjoyment, but for health reasons all that is necessary is the small amount mentioned above.

Don’t take your life for granted. My brother and sister would love to be able to run or cycle if they could. I run for them and for myself because I can.

Happy Trails,

Russ

Trail run, fall, Broken Ribs, Oh My!

Sooner or later, if you do enough trail runs, you are going to fall. It is just a matter of when, where and how badly, but you will fall. To be perfectly fair most falls really aren’t that bad. I mean, at most you usually walk or run away with a few scratches or bruises, but are still able to carry on and finish the run without much fanfare. So if you know that you are going to fall sometime why on earth would you want to do trail running?

As I said earlier most falls have minimal impact as far as injury goes. As athletes we seem to develop a natural way of protecting ourselves when we fall. I have fallen on the road as well as the trail. Admittedly I have not really fallen all that often when you consider how many miles I have run in the last 14 years.

There is just something about being out in nature, running the trails, keeping your mind occupied with reading the ground for each step that gives you a feeling of freedom like no other. It is like you are one with nature and you're home at last! A true sense of belonging with all of your senses at a heightened level! It is the call of the wild!

Yesterday I did my second trail run of the year as my first was on New Year’s Day. The run on New Years was mostly on dirt road, but the unevenness makes me count it as trail and there was some small part of it that was on single-track trail. It was not particularly challenging in that there were really no rocks, tree roots and bushes to navigate.

Here I am five months later doing what would be called a technical trail run. At least 75% of the trail was technical in nature, meaning that one has to read the trail for foot placement, adjust balance regularly and constantly be alert for tree roots, rocks and uneven ground. This is especially important on the downhill sections as momentum has it’s own set of risks.

I had about a 40-minute late start from what I had planned, because even though I had set my alarm for a 4:45am wake-up, I had forgotten to arm it! I woke up at almost 5:30 on the nose and quickly went into action getting ready. That was the time I had hoped to be at the ranger station to get a same day wilderness permit. It seems that whenever I start a trip in a hurried manner that somehow that carries over into the whole day. Note to self: Slow down and relax. It isn’t worth the stress. Anyway I got to the trailhead about 30 minutes later than I had planned, but had to drive and rush faster then I had wanted to.

It was a good 10 degrees warmer than I was expecting when I got to the trailhead at 6900’ elevation. Still plenty cool but it didn’t take me long to break into a full sweat with the altitude and incline of the trail. As usual the first 10 – 20 minutes of altitude running and or hiking brings a bit of an uncomfortable feeling in the lungs. Even though my heart rate was not all that high my lungs felt like I was running a 5k. I knew that my body would soon acclimate and that this feeling would diminish in time.

I arrived at Horse meadows, about 1.1 miles into the trek feeling ready for a very short break. I paused just long enough to get a fairly long drink from my bottle and continued the upward journey. Soon I was into the only open spot where there was no tree cover at all for the next half-mile or so. This part of the trail was also pretty rocky and made it a little harder to run so I just walked most of it at a fairly fast clip. After half a mile I entered one of the more dense parts of the trail as far as plant life. Very lush and green even in this very dry year. I stopped to take a photo or two.

Next stop was the scenic lookout of the backside of Mt San Gorgonio, also called “Old Greybacks,” just past the summit of Poop-out Hill. It really isn’t that tough of a hill as far as hiking goes, although I only ran a small portion of it! Here I stopped to take another picture of “Old Greybacks.” This was a little more than 2 miles into the trek.

 Next came a very runnable mile section of trail as it is mostly flat and or slightly downhill. I really enjoy this section of trail both out and back. Soon I came to a steeper section that most runners will hike on the way up and some will even have trouble navigating it while running downhill. It is a very technically fun section to run down.

At about 3.6 miles I came to a split in the trail. Strait ahead is the way to Dollar Lake and San Gorgonio summit. To the left is a break spot called “South Fork Meadows” and here the trail continues up to Dry Lake and SanG summit. There is a bit of a creek to ford at this point and a couple more just beyond it. This year it was no trouble as we have had a very mild winter and very low snowfall. From here it is another 2 miles to the far end of Dry Lake, and overall a steeper climb with not as many runnable parts of the trail on the ascent.

About 45 minutes later I reached my destination of Dry Lake Campground (9100’) and here I took a picture of Dry Lake with SanG in the background. Some years the lake still has water in it this time of the year and other times it is just a mud hole or even dry like this year. I show a picture of this year and another picture taken just one week earlier from another year for contrast.

I had a bit of a chat with several campers that had just broken camp and were making their way back down. Seems that almost everyone in the mountains are in a good mood and very cheerful. I petted their dog that was a very friendly Pit Bull mix and we all started back. I was soon out of sight and hearing distance, as I did not have a 35-45 pound pack on my back.

10 minutes later I tripped but caught myself by running very quickly to get back my balance. I thought to myself that I was doing pretty good as most people would probably have fallen on that one. Then 5 minutes later I was sprawled out on the trail trying to catch my breath and get my composure as I was pretty shaken up. I had taken a very sudden fall at about a 9-minute per mile pace on an 8% grade section of trail. I remember thinking, as I was going down, that I needed to try and avoid the rock in the middle of the trail, but it all happened too fast and I landed on my right side on top of a rock which was about the size of a big loaf of bread rising out of the ground about 3-4 inches. It took me a good minute to get to my feet, and then I walked about 10 feet to a big rock to sit down and gather myself. After about another minute or two I decided to try and continue running. I knew I possibly had broken ribs but they could also just be bruised. I ran another 1.5 miles back to South Fork Meadows. I tried running down the steep section just past the meadows but the pounding was just too much and I had to slow down and walk. I did manage to run a little bit of this section and then some more relatively flat but soon I just knew I had broken my ribs and decided I needed to walk the rest of the way back to the car.

Even walking was tough, as every time I had to stabilize myself from lateral movement it hurt. I made it back to the car then back down the hill to the edge of Mentone and Redlands. I knew it was going to be a long wait at urgent care, so I decided to get something to eat at Mc Donald’s.  Not something I would normally do these days! LOL.

After what seemed like an eternity I was x-rayed and then saw the doctor who confirmed I had two broken ribs. She said that one was completely fractured but only displaced a little and should heal well. The other above it had a hairline fracture and would heal nicely. She also said I needed to make sure that I took several deep breaths every hour, even though it hurt, to make sure I did not get pneumonia as the shallow breathing would make me more susceptible to that. Then she asked if I wanted her to clean up the scratches that I had on both shins. I told her no, that the one on the left was from the day before from a giant Frisbee and the other was from today but that I would clean and dress it. She laughed and asked, “How old are you?” She then looked at my chart again smiling as I said 60. She then shook her head and muttered, “awesome!”

A week later I saw my doctor who let me know that the radiologist reported that I actually had 3 broken ribs. 

So what do I take away from this? Number one is that I will certainly trail run again as soon as possible. Number two I should have toned it down after the first stumble, especially since it was my first technical trail run of the year. Live and learn!

Happy Trails,

Russ