Someone Likes Fruit

Ultramarathoner Michael Arnstein calls himself "the Fruitarian." He eats nothing but fruit. I would elaborate, but I think these videos speak for themselves.





I don't even know where to begin, so I think I'll just stop here.

"Colonoscopy Gone Wrong"

For some folks, marathons -- or even ultramarathons -- aren't enough. They crave something more EXTREME. (As if the risk of incontinence and death isn’t sufficiently hardcore.)
Sure, there’s Tough Mudder, but we know it ain't all that.

And yes, we’ve discussed the Death Race before, too. That’s a whole ‘nother level of extreme. Still, each Death Race is capped at 24 hours, and participants are always within sight of an aid station.

But the Barkley Marathons? They’re just fucking insane.

Held once each year, the Barkley “Marathon” is actually a multi-day, 100+ mile footrace through the backwoods wilderness of Frozen Head Mountain in Tennessee. Through 2010, only nine people had completed the race under the 60-hour cutoff. The Barkley course record: 55 hours and 42 minutes. (Compare that with the course record for the famous 100-mile Western States Endurance Run, which is just over 15 hours.)

The Barkley Marathons have been described as “Brutal. Terrifying. Inhuman.” Also: “A colonoscopy gone wrong.” (Sounds a good deal worse than "Fight Gone Bad," right?)

What makes it so bad? No trail, for one. A cumulative elevation gain that’s nearly twice the height of Everest. Native flora called saw briars that can turn a man’s legs to raw meat in meters. The tough hills have names like Rat Jaw, Little Hell, Big Hell, Testicle Spectacle—this last so-called because it inspires most runners to make the sign of the cross (crotch to eyeglasses, shoulder to shoulder)—not to mention Stallion Mountain, Bird Mountain, Coffin Springs, Zip Line, and an uphill stretch, new this year, known simply as “the Bad Thing.”

Most folks don’t make it very far into the race. But if you quit, you face a “three-to-four-hour commute back into camp -- longer at night, especially if you get lost. Which effectively means that the act of ceasing to compete in the Barkley race is comparable to running an entire marathon.”

Read all about the Barkley Marathons here. Me? I stopped reading once I saw the words “Testicle Spectacle.”

Racing Animals

Remember the whole Art De Vany / Dan Lieberman dustup over whether humans are -- from the standpoint of evolutionary biology -- "born to run"?

The (frankly crappy) Time Magazine article about Paleo stirred up the pot by pointing out that De Vany (like many other Paleo luminaries) believes that "no caveman ever jogged for miles while pursuing dinner or being chased by a predator." Rather, humans are best suited for "short bursts of cardiovascular exertion that may also include hauling a heavy weight, as you might after a successful hunt."

But Lieberman and his fellow barefoot running advocates (Christopher McDougall included) take the opposite view: Humans, they say, have a unique knack for endurance running because our genetic ancestors engaged in long-range persistence hunting.

We can run all day, the theory goes, because there was once a caloric advantage to it. Our two human legs, packed as they are with long slow-twitch muscle fibers, make us better runners over long distances than most quadrupeds. And our three million sweat glands give us the ability to cool our bodies with perspiration. An antelope, by contrast, sprints -- for up to 15 minutes -- while wearing a fur coat and relies on respiration (panting) to release the heat that builds up with exertion. Add to the mix our ability to organize and strategize and, well, you can see how persistence hunting might actually work.

So who's right?

Outside Magazine just published an article featuring nine elite marathoners who put the persistence hunting theory to the test. Powered by their own feet, they chased a pronghorn antelope -- the world's second-fastest land animal -- to see if they could wear it down and kill it.

By the end of their attempt at persistence hunting, the marathoners had each covered 20 miles -- not quite a marathon, but close. Did they succeed in bagging the antelope? Read the article and see for yourself.

Regardless of the results of this test, my take is that John Durant is right: To a certain extent, both camps are right. Yes, humans evolved to be capable of covering long distances -- but the optimal way to improve your overall fitness is through intermittent sprinting and lifting heavy stuff. After all, "high-intensity training and strength training can improve performance in endurance activities, but the reverse doesn't hold.  You can get better at marathons by doing CrossFit, but you can't get better at CrossFit by running marathons."

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The Sumo Marathoner

It's been a goal of his since elementary school.

Four-hundred-pound three-time national sumo wrestling champion Kelly Gneiting is in the books as the heaviest man to complete a marathon. Yesterday, he crossed the finish line at the Los Angeles Marathon in just under 10 hours, beating his previous PR of 11:52:11.

"I'd like to see the Kenyan improve his marathon time by two hours," he joked.

Gneiting jogged the first eight miles and walked the final 18, saying afterward that he lost track of where he was after mile 10 because he felt delirious. Gneiting said he realized that he was at mile 15 only because his friend met him there with clean socks.

He finished the 26.2-mile race despite heavy rains and strong winds. For much of the race, he was also forced to obey traffic signals and walk on the sidewalk because he was walking far more slowly than the 13-minute-per-mile-pace used for calculating street reopenings.

"I was really struggling in the last five miles," he said, "but I said to myself, 'If I have to crawl, I will.'"

I'm not at all convinced that long-distance running was the optimal form of exercise for Gneiting, and he may not be much of a runner, but he's still a hell of an athlete:

"I honestly think I'm one of the best athletes in the world," he says. Bold overstatement, maybe, but this man who weighs nearly a quarter ton can do the splits, then bend at the waist and shoulders until his forehead touches the ground. He can reel off four consecutive sets of 25 pushups.

And whatever you think of a 400-pound man's decision to run/walk 26.2 miles, you gotta give the guy credit for demonstrating a level of grit and determination that few of us have.

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Fatal Race

It feels weird to be posting about this tragedy right after writing about the so-called "Death Race." But this is bugging me.

Near the finish line of yesterday's Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half-Marathon, one of the runners collapsed and died. Peter Hass, a Bay Area resident and president of a pet toy company, was just 36 years old, and appeared to be trim and healthy.

You'd think that a race sponsored by one of California's largest health care providers would have medics at the finish line, ready to respond to such a serious medical emergency, but then you'd be wrong:

Witnesses say that Hass didn't have a "fighting chance," since medical staff and paramedics didn't arrive for another 20 minutes. 

After Hass fell to the ground, race volunteers pleaded for help. An announcer made repeated calls for medical assistance, yet only runners standing around came to Hass' aid and performed CPR, according to media reports.

I understand that Kaiser Permanente didn't organize or manage the race -- a company called RhodyCo Productions did. But given the not-insignificant numbers of runners who suffer cardiac events and other injuries, you'd think that an enormous healthcare consortium like Kaiser Permanente would have (and could have) done more to ensure adequate medical care at this event.

Long distance running can be rewarding to some, but as I wrote last October, too many people blindly assume that it's low-risk, too, when in fact:

[M]arathoners – beginning with the very first one – keep dying mid-run. And not just the couch potatoes who push themselves too hard -- we're talking about ostensibly “healthy” runners (like this guy and this guy). Yes, only about 1 out of every 50,000 marathoners die of heart attacks during races, but almost half a million people finished marathons last year, so statistically, we're seeing roughly ten or more fatal mid-race heart attacks per year. And how many more die during training? (Incidentally, how come CrossFit -- which hasn't yet experienced a single reported fatality -- is invariably described as "controversial" and "dangerous," but long-distance running is viewed by most people as normal and healthy?) 

Did Kaiser Permanente and/or RhodyCo fail to take the proper precautions because of simple negligence, or were they lulled by "experts" and shoe companies -- into the (incorrect) assumption that endurance events are "heart-healthy"?

I Like Beating Dead Horses

Apparently, the problem with barefoot marathoners isn't that they'll hurt their feet. It's that all marathoners -- regardless of footwear -- increase their risk of heart attack:

Medical directors at the Twin Cities, Boston and New York marathons said they have not seen any injuries more serious than a blister among the small number of runners who go barefoot, noting that they have more serious issues to worry about, like cardiac arrest.

(Mark Sisson recently wrote about this topic here.)

What? You need another reason not to run a marathon? Here one more: BLOODY NIPPLES.

(Source: New York Times & Buzzfeed / Photo: Martineric)

Run for Your Lives

Last year at about this time, I got it in my head that I should run a marathon. The idea popped up suddenly, the plan fully-formed: I’d slowly accumulate more and more mileage in my Vibram FiveFingers, building a base of endurance á la Arthur Lydiard – and then ramp up using a tried-and-true training program like Hal Higdon’s. I could shoot for the San Francisco Marathon, or maybe enter the lottery for the New York City Marathon. My head quickly filled with grand plans.

And then, I remembered: I find long-distance running boring as hell. (I'm not the only one, right?) And I hate the interminable post-run recovery period.

I have nothing against runners. I admire their perseverance, sacrifice and drive. And personally, I still enjoy running short-to-moderate distances. I'll still pull on my FiveFingers and log a few miles every now and then, when I feel like it. But long-distance training takes a toll on my body that just ain’t worth the hassle. And frankly, with CrossFit workouts scheduled every other day, I’m not sure my aging legs could take the extra pounding. And so, after chucking the marathon goal out the window, I stopped doing my occasional long mid-afternoon runs. I didn't see the point.

Nonetheless, every once in a while, a devil perches on my shoulder, enticing me with whispers about the benefits of marathon training. Wouldn't it be an awesome accomplishment to run 26.2 miles? Don't you want a nice, shiny finisher's medal? Aren't pre-race spaghetti dinners yummy? Don't you miss slurping down Gu? And wouldn't it be fantastic to have saliva smeared all over your face?

Thankfully, I now have more than enough ammo to shoot that little fucker down. Namely:

• Marathon running increases the risk of heart disease.

• In fact, research shows that marathon can damage your heart for several months post-race. During a marathon, "over half of the segments of the heart lose function... The reason turns out to be an increase in inflammation and a decrease in blood flow through the muscle."

• Long-distance running also causes damage to your brain, blood cell counts, spine, muscle fibers, connective tissue, liver, kidneys, gall bladder, testosterone level and cholesterol ratios – and it elevates markers of cancer, too.

• Chronic cardio is inefficient for weight loss/management. Instead, it makes you hungrier. For carbs. Sugary bingeing ensues.

• Even if I don't get chubby from running, I'd still rather work on building power and speed through intense (but brief) sprinting sessions. It's hard to believe, but I actually have better things to do with my time than to run for hours. And to be honest, I'd rather have the body composition of the sprinter on the right than the marathoner on the left:

• Compression pants -- even my favorite ones -- make me itch.

• You may very well shit your pants.

• Lastly, marathoners – beginning with the very first one – keep dying mid-run. And not just the couch potatoes who push themselves too hard -- we're talking about ostensibly “healthy” runners (like this guy and this guy). Yes, only about 1 out of every 50,000 marathoners die of heart attacks during races, but almost half a million people finished marathons last year, so statistically, we're seeing roughly ten or more fatal mid-race heart attacks per year. And how many more die during training? (Incidentally, how come CrossFit -- which hasn't yet experienced a single reported fatality -- is invariably described as "controversial" and "dangerous," but long-distance running is viewed by most people as normal and healthy?)

In sum, long-distance running can seriously mess you up. I've given up my marathon dreams, and not just because God hates runners.