bob | 
07 26th, 2010| 
A breakthrough piece of research just published on the history of 100 mile trail run participation in north America. Dr. Marty Hoffman is an avid ultrarunner himself, having completed numerous 100 milers including several Western States 100 finishes. I have had the pleasure of training with Marty this past spring and can attest to his passion for not only the sport but its impact on the body. He, along with colleagues, have published a volume of research papers detailing the impact of ultra running on the body - good and bad - and suggested implications. Just Google his name to see his work. Anyways, this is an interesting first-time look at how many people participate in 100 milers and how the sport has grown and changed since the early 70s when Gordie Ainsleigh got it going with his “unplanned” attempt to finish the Tevis Course (WSER) in under 24 hours on foot. Just click on the cover image above to link to the full article.
Five TARC members (by our count) have been selected in the Western States 100 lottery to run June 26th, 2010. Congratulations to Bob Crowley, Bruce Giguere, Sherpa John Lacroix, Jeff List and Michelle Roy.
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The Human Body Is Built for Distance
Does running a marathon push the body further than it is meant to go?
The conventional wisdom is that distance running leads to debilitating wear and tear, especially on the joints. But that hasn’t stopped runners from flocking to starting lines in record numbers.
Last year in the United States, 425,000 marathoners crossed the finish line, an increase of 20 percent from the beginning of the decade, Running USA says. Next week about 40,000 people will take part in the New York City Marathon. Injury rates have also climbed, with some studies reporting that 90 percent of those who train for the 26.2-mile race sustain injuries in the process.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/10/04/health/1247464987589/barefoot-running.html?emc=eta1
But now a best-selling book has reframed the debate about the wisdom of distance running. In “Born to Run” (Knopf), Christopher McDougall, an avid runner who had been vexed by injuries, explores the world of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, a tribe known for running extraordinary distances in nothing but thin-soled sandals.
Mr. McDougall makes the case that running isn’t inherently risky. Instead, he argues that the commercialization of urban marathons encourages overzealous training, while the promotion of high-tech shoes has led to poor running form and a rash of injuries.
Barefoot Running Video
“The sense of distance running being crazy is something new to late-20th-century America,” Mr. McDougall told me. “It’s only recently that running has become associated with pain and injury.”
The scientific evidence supports the notion that humans evolved to be runners. In a 2007 paper in the journal Sports Medicine, Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, and Dennis M. Bramble, a biologist at the University of Utah, wrote that several characteristics unique to humans suggested endurance running played an important role in our evolution.
Most mammals can sprint faster than humans — having four legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.
Why would evolution favor the distance runner? The prevailing theory is that endurance running allowed primitive humans to incorporate meat into their diet. They may have watched the sky for scavenging birds and then run long distances to reach a fresh kill and steal the meat from whatever animal was there first.
Other research suggests that before the development of slingshots or bows, early hunters engaged in persistence hunting, chasing an animal for hours until it overheated, making it easy to kill at close range. A 2006 report in the journal Current Anthropology documents persistence hunting among modern hunter-gatherers, including the Bushmen in Africa.
“Ancient humans exploited the fact that humans are good runners in the heat,” Dr. Bramble said. “We have such a great cooling system” — many sweat glands, little body hair.
There is other evidence that evolution favored endurance running. A study in The Journal of Experimental Biology last February showed that the short toes of the human foot allowed for more efficient running, compared with longer-toed animals. Increasing toe length as little as 20 percent doubles the mechanical work of the foot. Even the fact that the big toe is straight, rather than to the side, suggests that our feet evolved for running.
“The big toe is lined up with the rest, not divergent, the way you see with apes and our closest nonrunning relatives,” Dr. Bramble said. “It’s the main push-off in running: the last thing to leave the ground is that big toe.”
Springlike ligaments and tendons in the feet and legs are crucial for running. (Our close relatives the chimpanzee and the ape don’t have them.) A narrow waist and a midsection that can turn allow us to swing our arms and prevent us from zigzagging on the trail. Humans also have a far more developed sense of balance, an advantage that keeps the head stable as we run. And most humans can store about 20 miles’ worth of glycogen in their muscles.
And the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body, is primarily engaged only during running. “Your butt is a running muscle; you barely use it when you walk,” Dr. Lieberman said. “There are so many features in our bodies from our heads to our toes that make us good at running.”
So if we’re born to run, why are runners so often injured? A combination of factors is likely to play a role, experts say. Exercise early in life can affect the development of tendons and muscles, but many people don’t start running until adulthood, so their bodies may not be as well developed for distance. Running on only artificial surfaces and in high-tech shoes can change the biomechanics of running, increasing the risks of injury.
What’s the solution? Slower, easier training over a long period would most likely help; so would brief walk breaks, which mimic the behavior of the persistence hunter. And running on a variety of surfaces and in simpler shoes with less cushioning can restore natural running form.
Mr. McDougall says that while researching his book, he corrected his form and stopped using thickly cushioned shoes. He has run without injury for three years.
Children of the Marathon Recall a Forgotten Time
Unlike most 8-year-olds touring New York City, Wesley Paul began his sightseeing on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, standing elbow to knee with 4,822 strangers.
Paul was ready to run the 1977 New York City Marathon, and while the magnitude of the moment did not faze him — it was his fourth marathon, after all — the scale of his surroundings did.
Having come from Columbia, Mo., and not even 5 feet tall, Paul gazed in awe at the nearly 700-foot towers of the bridge. “I didn’t know people could build stuff like that,” Paul, 40, recalled recently.
Paul ran without parental supervision across five bridges and five boroughs — watched by relatives standing on sidewalks — to finish the race in a startling 3 hours 31 seconds. He is the youngest marathoner recorded in the marathon’s 40-year history but not the only child to become infatuated with a distance many adults find torturous, even life-altering.
Scott Black was exhilarated in 1979 as a 9-year-old. “People were holding out their hands, cheering me on,” Black, 39, said. “I remember there being TV cameras on me, a blimp for a portion of the race. I remember the crowds going crazy.”
Howie Breinan was exhausted but euphoric when he finished in 3:26:34 in 1978, also at age 9.
Howie Breinan - Age 9
“I was hurting at the end, but I also remember the feeling of running in the park,” Breinan, 40, said of Central Park, “and what kind of a crazy boost of adrenaline I got from the fans.”
The adventures of Paul, Black and Breinan offer a glimpse into a forgotten aspect of the running boom of the late 1970s. Preternaturally self-disciplined, they were among about 75 children (ages 8 to 13) who tackled the early years of the New York City Marathon in a time of novelty and naïveté.
Organizers were uneasy about young runners, but it was not until 1981, records show, that age 16 became the requirement. New York’s official minimum age became 18 in 1988, after an advisory set by the International Marathon Medical Directors Association in the early 1980s, and reasserted in 2001.
With no conclusive study, physicians still debate risks to children who compete in marathons, like muscular-skeletal injuries, stunted growth, burnout, parental pressures and the ability to handle heat stress.
Mary Wittenberg, the chief executive of the New York Road Runners, said her organization endorsed children running only shorter races. “We are all about people running and being physically active for their entire lives,” she said.
Some marathons — Houston and Twin Cities in Minnesota — allow teenagers or admit younger runners on a case-by-case basis. Los Angeles has a program for schoolchildren ages 12 to 18.
“There’s no real medical data to say that kids should or shouldn’t run,” said Dr. William O. Roberts, the Twin Cities Marathon medical director.
“If it’s a kid’s decision to do it, they train well and they’re supervised, then there’s no harm to it.”
Paul, Black and Breinan began running as a chance to spend time with their fathers. Fathers themselves now, their perspectives have changed.
“I wouldn’t do anything differently,” said Black, a senior trial lawyer for the Securities and Exchange Commission. “I find that running has defined me as a person; a lot of my self-esteem has come from it. I don’t regret anything. That said, as a parent, I wouldn’t push my kid to that.”
Paul’s concerns were more safety-related. “I don’t think I would let my 8-year-old run New York City alone,” he said. “It’s just a different environment.”
The three have not run the New York City Marathon since the 1980s; they sustained injuries before they were 20, then concentrated on their studies. Only Breinan, who teaches chemistry and coaches cross-country at Glastonbury High School in Connecticut, still competes (in long-distance trail runs). He ran six marathons and six 100-kilometer races as a teenager and younger (3:18:29 was his New York best, in 1979).
As a child, he could not sit still, his mother, Eleanor, said; his daily run helped him channel his energy. “I got lost in it,” Breinan said. On weekends he loved going with his father, Edward, and his training buddies, who were swept up by running’s popularity.
Paul’s father, Ailo, was his only training partner while growing up in Missouri. “I was in a place where there wasn’t anything to do,” Paul said. “No cable, Nintendo, Wii. It was either go out with him, or that’s it.”
Paul first ran with his father at age 3, when the family briefly lived in Queens, and he credits Ailo for motivating him.
“Most of the time, he was trying to prevent me from overdoing it,” said Paul, who set more than 15 world and national age records. “For me, it was always just a matter of internal challenges, doing something that nobody else had done.”
His Olympic aspirations waned at 14, when he developed tendinitis in his knees from Osgood-Schlatter disease. According to a July 2000 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that injury can be a consequence of excessive training, for both children and adults.
Paul still ran a 2:38 personal best at 15, in the Houston Marathon. The next year, he fractured his knee when a car backed into him while he was running. He never recovered. “I don’t think it was an unhealthy situation; I know that there were people out there that thought that it was,” Paul said. “The moment I said I didn’t want to do it anymore, my parents were fine with it.”
Black began running when he was 6. One day, his father, Martin, a guidance counselor at the College of Staten Island, dropped him off at a stop sign and suggested he run the quarter-mile home. Black repeated the ritual, and soon his father entered him in local races, even petitioning in public hearings for his entry. Black ran the New Jersey Shore marathon when he was 8.
At 13, he had put himself on a strict high-carbohydrate diet, and at 14 ran his personal best in Philadelphia, 2:53:49. He ran New York three times in high school, never training more than 50 miles a week.
“I think people thought it was weird and cool,” Black said. “I felt special among my friends because I was not a gifted athlete in terms of skill sports.”
Martin Black has often asked himself if he pushed his son too hard. “It seems to me pretty obvious that it’s impossible to get a kid to do something like that if they didn’t want to do it,” Martin concluded, adding that his younger son, Eric, “retired” at 8.
“We never thought that Scott was going to be a world-class runner,” he added. “If Wesley Paul was in the race, he wasn’t going to beat him.”
While Black and Breinan were featured in the local news media, Paul was featured in running magazines. In 1979, Paul had a children’s book published about him. By then, he had become a celebrity in Taiwan, where his parents lived in the 1950s after moving from China. There, he and Ailo put on running clinics and started clubs.
Paul ran more than 40 marathons before he was 16. Now a partner at the law firm Michelman & Robinson, he says he has only a half-hour to run, and prefers treadmill interval workouts. At 6 feet 2, he also competes in recreational basketball leagues, while sponsoring three teams of his own.
Pre-adult injuries have not completely stopped Paul, Black and Breinan. “I have bad knees now,” Breinan said, insisting that running was not to blame because he also played other sports.
Black developed a stress fracture in his hip before the London Marathon in 1991, and that was that.
“I could run up to a certain distance without having pain, and beyond that, I said I’m happy that I could still run,” he said.
Sunday’s New York City Marathon makes him sentimental and sad. “Every year, it’s very hard for me to watch it,” he said. “Every year, I say, ‘Why don’t I do it?’ It’s not worth it. I’m afraid I won’t be able to run anymore.”
Paul has no qualms about sitting out. “We’ve done it,” he said. “There’s no question we could do it again if we wanted to.”
Trail Animals has been growing steadily since its “re-birth” in November of last year. We’re up to nearly 150 active members from literally all over the globe.
What we have found is over 2/3 of our membership are trying trail running for the first time - new to our sport. There was a day when TARC of old was 100% ultra runners (50K, 50M, 100K, 100M) - but not anymore. Although TARC boasts some of the most gifted ultra runners in the nation as members, our demographics have changed.
Today, trail running has become an attractive alternative to road running for many valid reasons. Below are a few tips for our beginners and a couple of resources to investigate further. As always, we look forward to seeing yo join us on the dirt, no matter what your skill level!
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Trail runners, generally are attracted to off-road routes’ natural settings and the peace and quiet of a far off mountain path versus the bustling noise and confusion of a city street. Not only mentally refreshing and de-stressing, trails are less physically punishing than their concrete counterparts.
Trail running tends to be easier on the body than the road, mainly due to uneven terrain which makes every step different. Long and short strides, shifting left and right forces you to use more stabilizer muscles in the lower legs and hips, plus you core is engaged dramatically. On a road run you repeat the same muscle movement and stress the same ligaments over and over.
To overcome rough trails, you have to learn to slow down or walk over especially technical or steep sections, not only to avoid tripping but also to allow muscles to recover and keep you moving efficiently.
Trail runners often require more recovery between workouts because they recruit more muscles to stabilize the body while moving over uneven terrain. Perform core-strengthening exercises on a ball, focusing on abdominal and hip stabilizers to help develop connector tissue while giving your joints a rest from the impact of running.
Between hard, hilly trail runs, include several flat, short, easy trails for active muscular recovery. Running pace on the road versus the trail is quite different and should never be used to judge your transition to the dirt. 10K at eight minutes per mile pace may feel easy and comfortable on the road, but the same distance on trails may take twice as long.
Given the varied terrain and rolling topography of most trails, gauge your workout on a basis of time or distance instead of pace. Heart rate readings will also tend to fluctuate more dramatically on the trails as you travel over varied ground. As your trail running advances, add distance and intensity gradually to avoid injuries and burnout.
For more information on trail running check out one of these sites:
To commemorate the running of this weekend’s first attempt of the TARC 50 Miler, member Don Allison offered his reflection on the first running of a 50 miler in the Blue Hills, years before the TARC 50 Miler was conceived. Don is the author of A Step Beyond: A Definitive Guide To Ultrarunning and past publisher of Ultrarunning Magazine.
Solo Skyline 50 Mile, Circa 2002
By Don Allison
Every Boston area trail ultrarunner knows about the Blue Hills trail reservation, where seemingly endless trails crisscross the 7,000-acre park. Howie Brienan’s Don’t Run Boston 50 Km is an annual rite for ultrarunners in training for the upcoming season of races.
Having begun to train in earnest at the Blue Hills in the late 1990s, I took to occasionally completing a full out-and-back on the blue-blazed Skyline Trail, which cuts nine miles across the spine of the Blue Hills reservation, from abutting Route 93 at the southern end in Canton all the way to the northern end at the skating rink parking lot off Willard Street in Quincy.
I’ve had some epic runs on the Skyline Trail, including actually staging a one-time race, the “BUST” 50 Kilometer (Boston Urban Streets and Trails) in 2002 that ran on roads from downtown Boston to the Quincy Rink, followed by a full out and back on the Skyline Trail. Another time I was caught out on the trail in December, miles from my car, when a fast-moving, raging snowstorm hit, obliterating the trail and reducing visibility to a couple of feet. The wind was measured at more than 60 miles per hour at the weather station that day. On another occasion, I fractured my thumb after a fall on a slippery downhill, losing my eyeglasses in the process. I was for forced to slog back on the trail holding my thumb to stop the bleeding, and then drove to the emergency room, hardly able to see a thing without my eyeglasses!
So in 2002, training for the Angeles Crest 100 Mile (which never happened because of forest fires), I set out at 7:00 a.m. from the Quincy rink parking lot, attempting my longest-ever Blue Hills run. Taking a “vacation” day, I planned the run for a weekday, when the trails would be far less crowded than on a weekend day in the summer.
I completed a full out and back on the Skyline Trail (across 138 and all the way to the end), with a side trip to the auto road (then up and down the road to the top) added in, approximately 21 miles. I felt great, as the air was cool and I was handling the steep climbs easily. I had a radio/MP3 player to keep me company, and was back at my car well before noon, where I took a 10-minute “lunch” break.
By then it had warmed up to typical summer-time conditions, as I set out to repeat what I had just accomplished, an effort that on almost any other day would have been more than enough for a long training effort. With 21 trail miles on my legs, this time the going was a lot tougher, as the climbs that felt easy the first time around were much tougher, especially the long uphill after crossing Route 28, heading north .
I remember stopping at the Mobil service station on route 128 to buy a sports drink; after nearly eight hours on the trail, I was really feeling it. Sitting on the curb, I wondered if I would even be able to make it eight more miles back to my car in Quincy.
However, as I continued I started to revive and was actually feeling good as I neared the car. Calculating that I would need another eight miles to make it an even 50 for the day, I asked myself if I could actually add the four miles out to Route 28 and then back again. Heck, I was going to have to be doing 100 the next month, so I should be able to complete 50 in training, right?
Before I gave myself too much time to think about it, I headed back out on the trail. Funnily, I did not feel all that bad, perhaps because it had cooled down, and because I knew I did not have to go all the way back out to Canton again! At about 7:15, 12 hours and 15 minutes after I started, I emerged at the trailhead, my Skyline Trail 50 Mile completed.
I beat the rush hour traffic on Route 3 in the morning and missed it on the way home too, the commuters having already come and gone. That run turned out to be my peak effort, since the Angeles Crest 100 was cancelled shortly thereafter. I did end up going out to the Olander Park 24 Hour in Ohio, but since that race was run on roads, my extensive trail training was of little use, and I had a poor race. However, I will always have the Skyline 50 Mile to remember.
TARC has an informal training run every Sunday (almost) at 7:00 am in the Blue Hills. If you are a member you’ll get a weekly email from us a few days before telling you where to park and where and how long we’ll be running. Usually we run as a group but if there are enough people with varying skills and/or desires, we break into two groups - long (3-4+ hours) and short (2-2+ hours). The club has over 80 members and possesses a wide variety of interests and skills. Some are ultra runners, looking to train for 50K and longer races. Some are trail runners who like the shorter distances of the Grand Tree Series (5-15 miles). Yet others are road runners giving trail running a try for cross training or because they are curious. All shapes, skills, interests and size are welcome. Men, women and sasquatch, waifs and clydesdales, neophytes and veterans. 
If you are interested in ultra running, a few members are in the midst of training for 100 mile events scheduled this summer and have begun running long every Sunday in the Blue Hills plus will be doing some road trips to Vermont in the later spring.
If you are a cross country trail runner we have many members who run the Grand Tree Series and find training in the Blue Hills ideal.
And if you are new to trail running and curious, TARC is a low key - high fun club so don’t be afraid to come out and find out what you’ve been missing.
That’s how we roll in our neck of the woods.
Based upon this past weekend’s runs (3/8) in Blue Hills, we’re looking at a very promising Spring for trail running. The trails on Sunday were in almost mint condition. Traces of ice and snow, little mud, mostly clear, dry footing. And this after a near-record season of snowfall and a good ice pack. If tomorrow brings the warm up predicted for the rest of the week, this coming weekend (3/15) will be great.
We’ve begun to see new faces joining us every weekend as the weather turns for the good. TARC membership is up to 85 strong, this starting from a dead start last October of three. Clearly trail running has come into its own (and our search engine optimization actually works 
So we hope to see many of you out in the Blue Hills in the next fews weeks. We run every Sunday at 7:00 AM - rain, snow or shine - and send an email out to all members a few days before detailing what we’ll be doing and where to park at Blue Hills. Most of the runs cover parts of the DRB 50K and/or TARC 50 miler course. So a great way to get out and enjoy the beautiful Blue Hills and learn the courses at the same time.
Go run in the dirt.
Be sure to sign up under the Membership page. It’s easy and membership is FREE!
We run from in the Blue Hills Reservation about every Sunday morning at 7:00 am so come join us. Just sign up and we’ll get you on our email distribution list for upcoming runs.
See you on the trails with the other critters!
by: Chris Haley
[Editor Note: This is republished from 1997 - a timeless bit of poetry from our club founder]
I recently paced a runner (a Californian with whom I was not previously acquainted) for the last 32 miles of the 1997 Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run. This was the third time I have paced runners, twice at Vermont and once at Western States. I have also used pacers in my two appearances at Vermont. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, most of the 100 mile trail runs allow runners to be paced (accompanied by another non-entrant runner) for anywhere from the last 30 - 50 miles of the race, depending on the race. This is generally in the interest of safety, as the last thing a race director needs is a delirious runner, 80 miles into a race, wandering around in the woods in the middle of the night. It should be noted, however, that a pacer is not required. Following are the top ten reasons you should give pacing a shot.
10. It will provide a rare opportunity for you to feel faster than the person with whom you are running.
9. You can say you got in a 30 - 50 mile training “run”, although in reality it will be nothing more than a long, slow hike.
8. You can eat all of the great junk food they have at the aid stations.
7. You can fake being a real runner in the race and all the people at the aid stations will tell you how great you look for someone who has run 90 miles.
6. You can tell the person you are pacing to stop whining and they will actually think you are trying to help them.
5. You can enjoy the wonderful sounds of nature - including those of your runner belching and farting.
4. If you’re pacing someone of the opposite sex, it’s probably the only time you’ll get permission from your spouse to spend the night with another man/woman.
3. It’s a good excuse to get away from the kids for a night.
2. You could make a friend (or an enemy) for life.
You may need someone to return the favor someday.
… Congratulations to members Mark Longwell, John Carey and Bob Crowley for finishing, in fine fashion, the 1997 Vermont 100 … Also congratulations to Ann Trason for pulling off her second consecutive Comrades-Western States 100 double victory!
