Murray blogged about his preparation for 2011 Comrades on Runner's World.It was his first and like this year's run also UP. Truly inspirational! We will be posting his blog entries as part of our build up to Comrades 2013.
The pursuit of rest and by default success and happiness.
MARCH 29, 2011
My last post dwelled on the intricacies of ass-clenching, shaving, strapping and looking like Tutankhamen’s bondage partner or doppelganger. The past two weeks have dealt me many highs and lows from a personal, professional and a running perspective.
If this is a blog about running the Comrades, why are there references to my professional and personal life? Because, Comrades is personal and it craves sacrifice and obedience and let’s face it, it is your daddy. Comrades is 90 kilometers of Darth Vader whispering in your ear ,“Luke, I am your father and who’s your daddy, I am’. At the end of Comrades, I think like in the movie we are supposed to hug and make up but I’ll wait till I get there.
Comrade’s wants your body, mind, soul, wallet and personal life. When triumph or tragedy strikes in your life, you either eat miles of tarmac or eat the tub of ice cream instead. Everyone is different, sometimes a run makes me feel better if it’s a work problem, or if it’s an injury I might go for the ice cream and beer and maybe even a smoke.
I entered my last Marathon with a great sense of trepidation. I was dealing with the rehab of an injury and had been clenching my bum for all its worth. The clenching seemed to work, as I set a new personal best on an admittedly fast course. Unfortunately, my quads felt like a few wise guys had taken a set of baseball bats to them in the days following the race.
Either way, I ran a personal best marathon, my Mom came on holiday unexpectedly, I finally have a website, and on the negative, work could be better, and I ‘ve had some weird injuries since my marathon. As far as March goes, it’s been average interspersed with chocolates from Paris.
Fear and achievement are our prime motivators as Comrades runners. Fear is what kicks you out of bed after not enough sleep to wrack up your weekly mileage quotas but fear as the green hobbit Yoda says ‘fear to the dark side leads’.
I ran on the dark side as we all do, I ran when I should not have been pounding the tarmac, when an extra day off would make all the difference. Or when you miss your alarm clock and you do a long run on your own and 12 kilometer’s out your knee stops like a hamster wheel when the hamster falls off… There you are again, that lost-looking poodle, or looking like a hairy-legged sweaty prostitute who has a predilection for neon shorts, socks and fluorescent takkies, stranded on some nameless piece of tarmac.
The pursuit of happiness is a fundamental tenet enshrined in the US constitution. We as Comrades aspirants and all athletes, but especially we the after-hours athletes can adopt it. We all started to run for competing reasons: freedom, time, health, wellness, stress relief and weight-loss. My primary motivator was initially weight-loss, and if I am honest it is still a primary motivator and Comrades just allows me to run further every day.
Our pursuit of happiness is having days when you run when nothing hurts, when you are faster than falling rain and the road just simply wants you to run faster, longer, stronger, like an insatiable lover, I would imagine? These are beautiful days that we cherish as runners: unfortunately, I have had too few of these days lately. Maybe it’s because we are addicts and our primary drug is endorphins.
Coming back from injury is a slow process, as I have come to learn it requires hard work, weird manoeuvres, looking odd, having people touch you and manipulate you and yes, I have had a man prod my ass and stomach muscles lately. My injury was caused by overdoing it and I have exacerbated it lately because of fear and endorphins that allow you to run further and longer than you should.
My pursuit of happiness is bonded with running and the goals I have set for this year. In order to achieve these goals the pursuit of rest is what I need most.
Injuries, ailments and illness
At the same time as building strength and endurance, hard
training breaks down the body. Over-use injuries are common (muscle
strains,
joint and bone injury) while the body’s tolerance to infection is
also lowered by a weakened immune system.
Heading into winter, and getting closer to Comrades race
day, it is every runner’s nightmare to get injured or ill. Careful
training and
a healthy diet can go a long way to minimising the risks, but
fetching your
kids from crèche or sharing an open plan office with a bunch of
wheezers cannot
always be avoided.
Again, without opening any debates on certain diets, fancy
shoes, marketing gimmicks or individual personal experiences, it is
probably
right that some facts, fallacies or legends be brought to the table
– not to
convince you otherwise, but rather help you make your decisions
regarding your
own health and well being.
So here goes:
- There is no cure for the common cold. But there
are probably as many remedies as there are sufferers of the
common cold. This
is a virus, so antibiotics won’t help either. In this area,
prevention is
better than cure. And the best prevention comes from good
hygiene (and this may
include not hugging, kissing or shaking hands with your closest
friends or work
colleagues).
- There is no conclusive scientific proof that
vitamin C supplements can help boost the immune system to
prevent illness, let
alone the common cold. Yet vitamin C supplements are the largest
single vitamin
supplement sold worldwide, an industry valued at around US$ 70bn
annually.
- Side effects of excessive vitamin C consumption include
nausea and diarrhea. Kidney stones have also been linked to long
term excess
use of vitamin C supplements. And there are studies that suggest
that vitamin C
lowers the effect of training at VO2 max level.
- Antibiotics kill bacteria. They may kill the
bacteria that is causing an illness, but they also kill other
bacteria in the
body at the same time, some of which is actually critical to
your wellbeing. They
also cause imbalances in various flora in the body, which can
have countless
other side effects. Yet antibiotics remain the most frequently
prescribed form
of medicine.
- The antibiotic quinolone (specifically
floroquinolone), which is most commonly prescribed for
pneumonia, bronchitis and
sinus infections, can cause severe tendon damage. Quinolones are
claimed to be
toxic to tendon fibres, and further restrict blood flow to
tendons. Assuming
you are sticking to the program, your tendons are going to be
stretched and
strained with all the hill work you are doing too. Quinolones
have been linked
to tendonitis, tendon rupture, as well as other liver, kidney,
heart, brain and
intestinal damages.
- The effects of antibiotics (especially
quinolone) are further compounded when used with
anti-inflammatory drugs.
- Anti-inflammatory drugs such as Ibuprofen,
Brufen and Cataflam – all pretty common in the drug-free sport
of running – significantly
increase the risk of kidney and liver damage. With these organs
already under
strain as you take on an endurance event, you should seriously
consider the
risks before popping these pills. Other effects include cardiac
arrhythmia, ulcers,
insomnia and anxiety. (Anxiety probably due to the other side
effects…)
- Pain killers can have serious side effects too.
Besides masking the pain and leading to further injury, they can
also put
strain on the kidneys and liver. They also often lead to lowered
blood
pressure, nausea, and an increased risk of heart attack and
stroke. Nevermind
the drowsiness and that you might fall asleep under a tree near
the top of
Inchanga.
- Negative ions can not be stored in a hologram.
And even if they could, all that would happen when you wore it
is you would get
a static shock when you touched someone, causing both of you to
lose your
balance. These bracelets do nothing for your wellbeing or
restoring balance to
your body which might have been put out by using your cell
phone. And as long
as you believe that a bracelet with a ‘Made in China’ label on
it can do all
this for you while you bombard your food with radiation in the
microwave, then
you might want to start wearing one of those once fashionable
yellow rubber
bands around your wrist too.
- Magnets, on the other hand, have been proven to
be beneficial to circulation and blood flow. This is due to
haemoglobin being
mildly diamagnetic when oxygenated. However, the level of
external magnetism
needed to be of any benefit to your circulation will require you
to carry a
power generator on your back and a massive electromagnet around
your arm. This,
I assure you, is less advantageous to your athletic performance
than the
associated benefit it may bring to your circulation. The magnets
in small wrist
bands are simply not strong enough to have any beneficial effect
on your body.
- Strapping can offer support to joints, and
limited support to muscles. It should also be noted that the
body, in its
dynamic design, will get used to this external support being
offered, resulting
in weakness in the muscles supporting the area that has been
strapped. But this type of supportive
strapping is extreme, and no benefit can be gained from a single
piece of
colourful fabric tape. And tape applied to the skin cannot
‘lift’ the skin away
from the muscle tissue beneath to improve blood flow or range of
motion. But colourful
strapping does look cool, and it certainly attracts the
attention of your running
peers, who would hate to be beaten by a buddy publicly modelling
their injury.
- The placebo effect is real, and should certainly
not be discounted. So if you believe wearing a band around your
wrist or some
tape on your leg may be beneficial to your performance, or
popping some white pills
will get you through, save your cash and get down to the local
stationery store
and purchase a pack of rubber bands, a roll of packaging tape
and a box of
chalk. All this for under R20.
Now all that said, there are benefits to be found in the use
of certain sports supplements. Even though most of the supplements
you purchase
at your favourite pharmacy contain a label warning that you should
not use them
in instances where you may be tested for performance enhancing
substances, and
most of the claims made by these supplement manufacturers are
grossly
overstated as part of their marketing campaign.
Still, find what works for you, taking into consideration
the medical, physiological and placebo effects of whatever you
choose. And read
the label.
Enjoy the runner’s high!
Regards,
Andrew
Part 1
Part 2
