Sunday, August 29, 2010

Is distance running an "extreme" sport?

Is distance running an “extreme” sport? - I want to raise the question, is distance running, especially long distance running beyond the marathon distance, an “extreme” sport? With races carrying names like Mountain Masochist, H.U.R.T., Hardrock, the Death Race, Badwater, and Hellgate, it is easy to think so. This way of thinking about distance running is also reflected in the terming of longer than marathon distances as “ultra marathons” or “ultras.”

So what’s so extreme about distance running? In my opinion, not much.

Race director and self-proclaimed “extreme ultra runner” David Horton, insightfully points out that much of this kind of terminology is simply effective marketing. Concerning the naming of races he says:

“Picking a good name is very important. Names like Hardrock, the Death Race, Badwater, Hellgate, and the Masochist, conjure up images of pain and agony and suffering . . . what every runner likes. When we started the Masochist, we had difficulty thinking of the appropriate name. My wife said I should call it the “Masochist” because you all are just a bunch of masochists anyway. She was and is right. Folks that know that I teach at Liberty University, a Christian university, often ask me why I named one on my races, Hellgate. Simple . . . Hellgate starts at the Big Hellgate Parking lot next to Big Hellgate Creek. Names can have an effect on the success of the race.”

If Horton is right that these kinds of race names are effective marketing tools, the question remains: why? Why do at least some runners identify with the image of running as something extreme, painful, or potentially dangerous? One reason is harmless enough: people value achievement. We like accomplishing things, and part of what makes accomplishment valuable is a challenge. People also like to think of themselves as tough, and like to be thought of as tough by others. Again, harmless enough.

Some runners, however, take the imagery of “pain agony and suffering” too seriously. I have been in many races (of both short and longer distances) where I saw runners recklessly pushing themselves beyond their abilities.

This attitude, however, is thankfully the exception rather than the rule.

In contrast to Horton’s claim, most distance runners don’t see themselves as “masochists” or think of running as an “extreme” sport. Most runners think of running as a pleasure and a joy.

When I first started trail running, I would sometimes talk to runners who ran races of 50 or 100 miles or more. When I asked them how they did it, I was surprised by the answer I invariably received: “it’s easy,” they said. I remember thinking “easy! How could running such long distances be easy?” But I was intrigued.

I later discovered they were right. The dirty secret of “extreme ultra running” is that it can be much easier than the marathon. How is that possible? That’s the secret I intend to tell…

1) Surface - Most long distance runs are held over trails rather than roads. Since dirt is softer than asphalt, runners’ feet land with less impact. Also, on roads, each footstrike is the same, which leads to repetitive stress injuries, but since trails are uneven, each footstrike is unique, which spreads the impact stress over a greater area. Trails also generally have more hills than roads, which work runners’ legs and feet differently than the flats, giving muscle groups time to rest.

2) Pace - Long trail runs are covered at a much slower pace than road races. For example, although I race a road marathon (26.2 miles) at around an 8 minute per mile pace, I run a trail 50 miler at about a 15 minute per mile pace. Big difference!

3) Walking - Most trail runners intersperse walking and running. For example, if the course is hilly, a runner might walk the uphills and run the downhills and flats. Peter Gagarin, in A Step Beyond: A Definitive Guide to Ultrarunning, captures this approach to running long distances. He points out that “Marathoners hope to avoid walking, since it is seen as a sign of failure. So the last thing they do is practice walking. Ultrarunners look forward to walking, since it’s seen as a sign of being smart.” He adds that “If you are the macho type who thinks walking is for sissies, well, that’s all right. We need a few people like you to get ahead at the start. Then when you crash and burn at 30 or 40 miles, it will give us a real psychological lift to go cruising by.”

4) Innate endurance - Human beings have greater endurance than we typically think. Compared to other running animals (like cheetahs) we are lousy sprinters, but over long distances we perform remarkably well, and can even outrun other endurance animals (like dogs and horses). Some recent studies suggest that endurance running may have played a role in human evolution. One concluded that, “fossil evidence… suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about 2 million years ago, and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form.” Because Americans live in a sedentary culture that relies heavily upon technological forms of transportation, we rarely test our endurance potential, but it’s there nevertheless. In places where running is part of the traditional culture (like parts of Kenya and the Sierra Madre in Mexico, for example), running long distances is regarded with much less incredulity.

So that’s all there is to it… The secret of so-called “ultra” running, is that it’s a relaxing way to spend a day on the trail for those of us who find running really enjoyable who want nothing to do with the “pain and suffering” image that is, in my view, too often associated with a great and really fun sport.

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