Race Report: WC 50--There's No Cure for Stupid

This fall has been less about racing per se and more about setting myself up for 2018, when I have three big (for me) races on the calendar, plus hopefully an attempt at the Bob Graham Round (fingers crossed that trip comes together).  But racing can be part of training as well.  Races are good opportunities to experience stimuli that you might not be getting in your weekly training, either in terms of distance or intensity, and they can be a nice gauge of fitness as you shape your plans and goals moving forward.  My experience in September at Mountain Madness fell into the former category.  I travelled to North Carolina two weeks ago for the latter.

My sister and her family have lived in Charlotte for about 12 years now, only about 20 miles from the US National Whitewater Center, which is a really cool facility for aspiring elite kayakers and rafters.  Since opening in 2006, the center has grown to include rock climbing, zip lines, high ropes courses, and many miles of mountain biking trails, and they now host all sorts of events and races.  The WC 50, now in its fifth year, is the ultramarathon entry into the Whitewater Race Series, and a race I've wanted to run for some time due to its proximity to family.  The dates worked this year for a quick trip down for my nephew's birthday party and an early-morning jaunt in the trails.  I expected a low-key day out; I had no idea of the competition, but looking at previous results, I planned on running a relaxed effort near the front and seeing where my fitness level would get me.

We started in the dark, at 6am, on a fairly warm morning--temps were already nearing 70 degrees.  The race started out with a short "parade loop" around the whitewater course before heading into the trails for the first of three 10.2-mile loops.  I set off at a relaxed but quick tempo and was immediately at the front of a field of about 100.  By the time we hopped onto the singletrack about five minutes in, I was out in front with one other runner and it looked like we'd be on our own most of the day.  We ran together at a nice pace; the miles were marked with signs tacked to the trees, and we were clicking off splits in the 7:40/mile range on some fairly technical but runnable mountain bike trails.  It was a bit tough monitoring our footing with just headlamps, but it was fun running at speed through the darkness, and the early miles passed by quickly.  We ran together throughout the first lap.  The second half of the loop had a few significant climbs, though we kept up a solid tempo.  The mile splits suddenly had jumped up to over 10-12 minutes per mile, but I think this was due to incorrect markings as opposed to any change in our effort or actual pace.  (This sense was supported by subsequent laps, when we would again run 7:30-7:40 pace on the early "miles", followed by 10-12 minute "miles" later on.)  Regardless, we rolled through the first 11+ mile lap in about 1:39; I grabbed my Orange Mud handheld and ran on through the start/finish aid station, while my companion--a strong local runner named Chase Eckard--took a quick break with his crew before catching back up within the first mile of lap 2.

We kept the effort steady and chatted through the early part of the lap.  Chase said, "When do you think Karl will catch us?"  I knew that Karl Meltzer, the winningest 100-mile runner of all time, had been in town for the pre-race dinner, promoting Made to Be Broken, a film about his record-breaking run on the Appalachian Trail.  I hadn't realized he was racing, although I had considered the possibility.  For some reason I had assumed that if he was racing, it would be in the 50-mile, which had started at 5am on a course that incorporated our entire 10-mile loop plus an additional 7 miles on each of three 17-mile loops.  

"Oh, is Karl racing?" I asked.  

"Yeah," said Chase, "he started off at the back."

I have no idea why--partly because of my pre-race assumption, I guess, and partly because we were leading the race and why would I be leading a race against Karl Meltzer?--Chase's comment simply reinforced my notion that he was in the 50-mile.  I wasn't sure if he would run the opening 17 miles of his race in under 2:40 on this course, so by my twisted logic I wasn't clear if we were actually ahead of him or not at this point.  "Well," I said, "if we finished our first lap before he did, we might be ok; he might catch us later in this lap.  But either way, we'll pass him when he does the extra seven miles on lap two."  Chase didn't really have much to say about that, which given that Karl was actually in our race makes perfect sense; in retrospect I must have sounded like a freaking moron.

ANYWAY, we ran together until about the 16-mile mark, when Chase blasted away on a long downhill stretch and I eased off a bit, resisting the urge to really open up this early in the race.  Instead I took in some calories, slamming down two GUs in rapid succession (my first calories to that point, I realized, even with the fat adaptation I've got to be a little smarter about that) and settling into a nice solo rhythm.  I caught a few glimpses of Chase on some longer stretches, about a minute ahead at a couple of spots, before we started in on the climbing again.  I didn't expect to start racing for a few miles yet, but suddenly he appeared in front of me near the 20-mile mark, walking at the top of a long but runnable uphill.  We exchanged a few words of encouragement as I made an easy pass.  By the time we reached the end of lap 2, a little over a mile later, I already had about two minutes on him, and I was feeling good.  Barring disaster, I felt like I had it in the bag.

Disaster is exactly what happened about 25 minutes later.  I rolled through the opening miles of the final lap feeling a little tired but generally relaxed and strong.  My splits were within shouting distance of my first two laps.  I passed the 4-mile mark of lap 3, about 25 miles overall, in 3:52; doing some quick calculations (and taking into account the longer "miles" in the second half of the lap), I was looking at about a 4:55, maybe right around 5 hours if I slowed down a little.  I briefly stepped off the trail to fertilize the soil, not realizing I was near one of the myriad switchbacks on the course.  Somehow I got turned around and ended up on the wrong end of the switchback.  After a couple of minutes of running, I started getting a sinking feeling in my stomach.  The trails all looked the same, but some of those turns were looking too familiar...as if I had just run them...and then I came around a corner and arrived back at the one-mile mark.

Well, that was just too much.  I sat down on a log by the side of the trail and had myself a little pity party; after a couple of minutes I started walking backwards towards the start, ready to throw in the towel rather than run another nine miles.  After a few minutes of that, though, I felt pretty stupid, having travelled all the way down and then not even bothering to finish; I thought about Jim at States last year, sighed, turned around, and trudged back over the same three miles I had just run.  I finally cruised into the mid-loop aid station about 40 minutes behind schedule.  The volunteers were all very confused--none of the leaders had actually gone past me--but after I explained what happened they were sympathetic, as they had seen Chase and I up front all day.  The told me Chase was now running second to Karl, which is how I came to finally realize that Karl had been in the 50K all along; they poured me a shot of bourbon, which at this point I figured what the hell, and sent me on my way.

Speedgoat Karl on his way to the win.
photo: US National Whitewater Center

I actually felt pretty good the rest of the way, and managed to pick off one or two other folks en route to finishing in 5:41, officially 6th but in actuality 5th (looking at the splits, the 5th place runner is credited with a second lap of 1:21--fifteen minutes faster than anyone in the race ran any other lap on the day, and almost 30 minutes faster than either his first or last lap, so there's no way that's legit, but whatever).  I felt fine afterwards, and actually wasn't even all that sore the next day, so it confirmed at least a decent level of fitness.  And for the first hour or two I didn't even care about what had happened; I basically shrugged afterwards talking to Karl and said "That's trail racing, shit happens."  But after a little while the disappointment really set in.  I had put over seven minutes on Karl after one lap; on lap two I had given back barely 30 seconds.  I had basically tossed away probably my only chance to beat a legend like Karl--and not some outside chance; the race was basically over--by being a fucking idiot.  

Name	Lap 1	Lap 2	Lap 3	Finish
Karl Meltzer	1:46:24	1:36:51	1:45:31	5:08:47
Bill Shires	1:49:18	1:38:57	1:51:36	5:19:51
Chase Eckard	1:38:55	1:39:11	2:04:08	5:22:15
Paul Halaburda	1:48:07	1:48:39	1:55:29	5:32:16
Stephen Spada	1:49:17	1:21:36	2:27:01	5:37:55
Jason Friedman	1:38:57	1:37:24	2:25:31	5:41:52

In retrospect it was the perfect commentary on my ultra season for 2017.  I did fine, winning a couple of small races that I fully expected to win; I came into every big race (Rocky Raccoon, Cayuga Trails) in great shape and then had great performances sidetracked by weird shit happening.  Only difference was this time I brought the weird shit on myself.  A fitting ending to a frustrating year.  Fuck.

Twelve weeks to Bandera.

Running and Your Heart, Part IV: Running and Mortality

photo: mpora.com

At long last, here is the final post in the "Running and Your Heart" series.  When we started I thought I'd finish this series in about 4-6 weeks.  Now it looks like we're pushing past 6 months.  Hopefully it will have been worth the wait.

So over the past several months we've (rather infrequently) investigated the relationship between long-term endurance exercise and the heart.  We've discussed normal heart function, cardiac adaptations to exercise, abnormalities that can arise from these adaptations, and the impact of marathon and ultramarathon running on coronary artery disease.  (As a brief aside, one of the theories that I discussed in the last post--that the increased coronary calcification seen in marathon runners is quite possibly hard, stable plaque that is less likely to rupture and cause actual problems--has since been supported by some recent studies.  Alex Hutchinson, whose work is generally spot-on, has a good summary of these articles in Runners' World.)  What I've tried to stress is that we should not be alarmist about these issues, but that we should not be naive either in thinking that our running makes us immune from heart disease.  Rather, we need to be aware of the potential problems that can arise from long-term training and be able to address these possibilities with our physicians in a responsible way.

OK, that's all well and good.  But when we start seeing articles with titles like "Fast Running is as Deadly as Sitting on the Couch, Scientists Find" and "Excessive Running Could Kill You", it's natural to feel a bit concerned.  We know running, on the whole, is good for us.  Since Jim Fixx gave us his seminal work The Complete Book of Running in 1977, detailing how running saved him from what seemed to be his genetically destined early cardiac death, we've taken it on faith that diligent training leads to longer lifespans.  But with all the studies in the past decade that have been hinting at correlations between long-term marathon running and paradoxical heart disease, is it possible that we're taking things too far?  Have we reached the point where all this running is actually shortening our lifespans?  (And wait a second, didn't Jim Fixx die pretty young after all?)

Much of the recent concern over the possibility that too much running might actually be bad for you centers on a couple of ideas.  One is the relationship between long-term marathon running and coronary artery disease, which we discussed in detail last time.  Just to sum up where I stand on this: I think it's pretty unambiguous that people who train vigorously for marathon-and-longer distance events for many years do have a higher incidence of coronary artery calcification than those who do not, and that the cardio-protective benefits of regular aerobic exercise require much less mileage and less intensity than many of us (including myself) are actually doing.  However, as I pointed out in the links above, not all coronary calcification is created equal; while you'd certainly prefer less calcification than more, and no calcification to any, the calcific plaques demonstrated in asymptomatic long-term runners are not the same in terms of composition (and possibly long-term risk) as those we'd associate with smoking, uncontrolled hypertension, diabetes, or other native disease states.  Even if we assumed that we may be at higher risk of suffering a serious cardiac-related event as a result of strenuous running (by no means a reliable assumption), I don't think the data support the conclusion that this risk outweighs the mortality benefit of the decreased incidence of high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer that runners consistently demonstrate over their more sedentary peers.

The other idea that has received a lot of publicity in recent years is the so-called "U-shaped mortality distribution."  This concept is based largely on the work of James O'Keefe and other researchers involved in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, as well as Duck-chul Lee, who in 2012 presented a rather controversial abstract at the American College of Sports Medicine conference.  According to their research, when plotting mortality (the dependent variable) on the y-axis against mileage (the independent variable) on the x-axis, the data shows the highest mortality values at the lowest and highest ends of the exercise spectrum (i.e., a "U-shaped" distribution):

The "U-shaped" mortality curve.
figure: American College of Cardiology 

In other words, those runners logging much less mileage--as little as a mile a day in some cases, and certainly less than 20 miles a week--saw the greatest benefit in mortality, while those running more mileage saw little to no mortality benefit at all!

These are the studies that have prompted most of the terrifying headlines you've read in recent years, and these are the studies I want to talk about today.  Not to argue with their data, but to try to help us understand why some of the authors'--and the media's--conclusions are not necessarily as dire as we've been led to believe.

Lee et. al. demonstrated a 20% reduced risk of mortality for runners vs. non-runners over a 15-year follow-up period--great news!  However, the study appeared to show that runners averaging more than 20 miles per week had not only higher rates of mortality than those running less, but that their mortality rates approached those of sedentary, non-running peers.  However, these findings were based on the researchers' adjustments for various conditions, including body mass index (BMI), smoking, diabetes, and hypertension.  What does this mean?  When comparing different groups of people, researchers can run into a problem with what are called confounding variables.  These are differences between groups that might affect what you're trying to measure.  In this case, the researchers were trying to determine the relationship between running mileage and mortality.  Of course, there are many different variables that contribute to one's mortality risk, and without accounting for these variables, it's difficult to ascertain whether differences between groups of data is due to what you're actually trying to measure (running mileage) or to something else that you're not measuring.  So the researchers performed what's called statistical correction to take these variables into account.  Simply put, they eliminated the effect of as many of these confounding variables as possible, trying to answer the question: "If all other things are equal--if all of these groups are made to be the same in terms of their rates of obesity, diabetes, blood pressure, etc.--then what effect does mileage run have on their mortality risk?"

Let's be clear: there's nothing underhanded about this.  Statistical correction is a perfectly legitimate (and in most cases necessary) part of scientific research; it's how we attempt to discern cause and effect in situations with many different variables in play.  In this particular case, however, we run into a problem.  The reason that running might have a benefit on mortality is that it makes you healthier overall.  That is to say, vigorous runners are less likely to be obese, to have high blood pressure, or to suffer from diabetes.  If you eliminate these benefits as "confounding variables," it only stands to reason that the mortality benefits of running disappear from the data as well.  The problem with this study wasn't that the authors tried to correct for confounders; it was their classification of the benefits of exercise as confounding variables in the first place.  Alex Hutchinson was all over this pretty much right away, and in 2013, cardiologist Thomas Weber pointed out the problem in the journal Heart:

"One possible explanation for the U-shaped curve...is that the authors adjust for body mass index, hypertension and hypercholesterolaemia. Running has been shown to lower those risk factors in a dose-dependent fashion with no sign of negative returns until at least 50 miles/week. Arguably, adjusting for all these factors is akin to adjusting for low-density lipoprotein (LDL) values in a study analysing the survival benefit of taking statins to treat hypercholesterolaemia. Put simply, this editorial represents a selective interpretation of the available data, at the best."

What Weber is saying is, if you were studying the impact of a drug for cholesterol on mortality, and you had two groups (one which took the drug and one which didn't), it wouldn't make any sense not to look at the differences in the cholesterol levels between these two groups--how else would you expect the drug to improve mortality if not by impacting cholesterol levels?  Similarly, if we grant that running makes us healthier because it protects against hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, then those are very likely the reasons it would have a mortality benefit; removing those effects from the analysis doesn't make sense.

Indeed, when the final paper of this study was published in 2014, the researchers eliminated the statistical correction--and the U-shaped mortality curve seemed to vanish!  Instead, the authors, now concluded,

"[R]unners across all 5 quintiles of weekly running time, even the lowest quintile of <51 minutes per week had lower risks of all-cause and CVD (ed: cardiovascular disease) mortality compared with non-runners. However, these mortality benefits were similar between lower and higher doses of weekly running time. In fact, among runners (after excluding non-runners in the analyses), there were no significant differences in hazard ratios of all-cause and CVD mortality across quintiles of weekly running time (all p-values >0.10)."

That is to say, running even a little bit lowered mortality risk, and this lower risk appeared constant regardless of the time or distance run per week. Perhaps not surprisingly, this received significantly less media attention than the earlier version of the results.

Similarly, the researchers in the Copenhagen City Heart Study reported findings that seemed to support the U-shaped mortality curve, concluding:

"We found a U-shaped association between jogging and mortality. The lowest mortality was among light joggers in relation to pace, quantity, and frequency of jogging. Moderate joggers had a significantly higher mortality rate compared with light joggers, but it was still lower than that of sedentary nonjoggers, whereas strenuous joggers had a mortality rate that was not statistically different from that of sedentary non joggers." 

and cited Lee's paper in their discussion of the results.  Again, however, these conclusions don't tell the whole story.  While this study followed nearly 1100 runners over a 12-year period, only 40 of these runners qualified as "strenuous joggers" according to the rubric of the study (running at a pace of 9:00/mile or less for at least 2.5 hours/week), and there were only two deaths among this group during the course of the follow-up period--not nearly enough of a rate to draw any meaningful conclusions.  As researcher Steve Farrell pointed out,

"Say that 2 blindfolded men ran across a busy highway and were not struck by a car. Would anyone conclude based on those two events, that it is perfectly safe for everyone to run blindfolded across a busy highway?"

So what to make of all this?  It seems pretty clear that the substantial mortality benefits of aerobic exercise are conferred even after relatively small amounts of running--which is great news for the sedentary population and light exercisers in general--and I'd agree that at some point we reach a rate of diminishing returns, where further increases in mileage or intensity don't offer any additional mortality benefit.  But where that point lies has not been clearly defined, and I think that based on what we currently know, fears of increased mortality as a result of exceeding that threshold appear unfounded.  And generally, most of us who are interested in exploring our physical limits are doing so for reasons that go beyond "living longer."  As Amby Burfoot points out,

"Many aspects of exercise and running also follow a U-curve. This is why many people believe the moderate approach is the smartest path to follow. Of course, you’ll never qualify for the Boston Marathon that way. We all have to make our choices."

Certainly we don't need to run ultramarathons experience all the health benefits of regular exercise.  But it doesn't seem like we need to fear them either.

Race Report: Mountain Madness 50K

It's been a bit of a slog this summer.  After a decent spring and a solid (if slightly unsatisfying) finish at Cayuga I took a much-needed break from training and from my usual LCHF habits.  The resulting gluttony was fun for about a week; after that it started feeling almost obligatory rather than enjoyable.   I started training again about two weeks and twelve pounds later (not joking), and unsurprisingly it took some time to get the ol' rhythm back.  I set my sights on the Vermont 50 mile for my return to fall racing, then downgraded to the 50K when I realized my fitness wasn't quite up to snuff.  My Achilles really started to flare up in early August; by mid-August I was hobbling on most of my runs and wasn't planning on racing at all for quite some time.  Getting off the pavement and back on the trails, as well as back to regular visits with the great Greg Cecere at Momentum Physical Therapy got me back on track, however, and I logged on to register for VT50 two days before the deadline only to be closed out.  (Of course.)  Casting about for an emergency plan, I found the Mountain Madness 50K in Ringwood, NJ on the same weekend as Vermont.  I hadn't run Mountain Madness (or any of the NJ Trail Series races, for that matter) since a rather infamous day in 2009 (which I won't go into here).  I knew it was a more technical course than I'd usually prefer, but I didn't remember it being all that bad, and figured I'd give it a shot.  My fitness wasn't great, but it was time to get back on the horse and kick-start the training buildup for 2018.

Training this summer hadn't been helped by the weather.  July had been pretty brutal, and while August was relatively mild (although quite humid), September turned almost unbearable, particularly in the two weeks leading up to the race.  Given my fitness level, the difficulty of the course, and the forecast, I wasn't expecting much; I was hoping to run around five hours but figured a 5:30 was more realistic.  The weather did not disappoint; at the 9am start the temperature was already 70, and by the time I finished (many) hours later it would climb to 89 degrees with a good deal of humidity.  I ran the opening few miles with two other runners at the front, a young local named Michael and another runner from Costa Rica who spoke absolutely no English and yet tried to ask us questions about the course as we were running.  (We were not terribly helpful.)  We took turns leading over rolling, minimally technical terrain.  My Achilles was not excruciating, but was tight, and my suspicions that it was limiting my push-off were confirmed when I tripped over a pretty innocuous root and sprawled across the trail, my first real fall in quite some time.  I popped up quickly, though, with just a few minor scrapes, and we continued together until about five miles in, when we came to a five-way intersection where the trail markings had clearly been tampered with.  We ran around a bit, looking for the next markings without finding any, then continued in the direction we'd been heading for about a quarter mile.  At this point we encountered markings that I recognized--we had come back to a hairpin turn at about the two-mile point on the loop; clearly not the right way.  Our Costa Rican friend charged off down the trail again, restarting the loop we'd just run; Michael and I yelled after him to not avail, then gave up and returned to the intersection.  By this time two other runners had reached the same point and were equally as confused.  We spent a couple of minutes looking at the map, trying to figure out where to go.  With no other markings, we headed back the way we had come, the only way we knew to get back to the start/finish, which was also the end of the opening 6.5-mile loop and would serve as AS1.  The four of us came into the AS right at the hour mark, as Rick, the RD, was sending off the 25K runners for their 10am start.  We grabbed some drinks and tried to explain to Rick where the issue was on the course, then started off in a group again to tackle the middle 25K loop.

Our pack of four quickly became Michael and I as we started the first major climb.  The trail was much rockier and steeper than the opening loop, and we power-hiked frequently, passing 25K runners along the way.  We were pretty even running on flat ground; I had a bit of an advantage climbing, but Michael bombed the descents, forcing me to work my way back slowly on the subsequent climbs.  I was being patient, but really wasn't feeling great.  Not terrible, but not feeling a lot of pep in the legs, and certainly more tired than I'd like to be less than two hours into a 5+ hour day.  I pulled into AS2 just before the two-hour mark, only a few seconds after Michael, and left a few seconds before.  I knew the next section would be mostly uphill and thought I might be able to open up a bit of an advantage.  Over the next few miles I felt a bit better, finding a bit of a rhythm and seeming to open up a little gap, but when I checked over my shoulder about a mile outside of AS3, Michael was only about a hundred yards back.  He caught up easily on the tricky descent into the aid station, as we hit the halfway point in just over 2:30.

At this point, I basically felt terrible.  I crammed in some off-brand Coke and a couple of bananas, but really had no motivation to get back out on the trail; the fight had suddenly left me, and when Michael took off I waited an extra thirty seconds or so before leaving the aid station, thinking maybe the impetus of having to give chase would spur me on a little bit.  Long story short: it didn't.  I stumbled badly multiple times over the rocky terrain, overheating the whole way back down and struggling on every uphill.  By the time I got back to AS4 (same location as AS2) almost an hour later I was in full death march mode, and still had nearly eleven miles to go.  I knew third place was not within striking distance, but I had no idea on the gap up to the lead, and didn't really care all that much; I just wanted it to be over.

I felt a little better coming down a major descent about forty minutes later, and started running a bit better again, but a couple of wrong turns sapped my momentum, not to mention my will to live.  I staggered into AS5 at the start/finish at right about the five-hour mark, hamstrings cramping badly, still needing to head back out on the opening 6.5-mile loop again to complete the nightmare.  I'd say I considered dropping out, but that's not really true.  I was basically resigned to my fate: I knew I was going to finish, I just didn't particularly want to.  I took my time in the aid station, knowing that my finishing place was assured and that there was no more aid over this final hour-plus.  After tossing back a bunch of Coke and cramming in some more calories, I grabbed the podcast machine and made my way back into the heat.  The final lap passed uneventfully, if not quickly (almost eighty minutes for 6.5 miles!) and I finally jogged home in 6:18, ultimately only about five minutes behind Michael, who I hadn't seen for nearly four hours.

Not much more to say about this one.  I went in with minimal expectations, and they were met in spectacular fashion.  As the Stranger famously said, sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.  For this race, I think I'll just be happy to be finished with a long, painful day on the trails, take my lumps, and move on to the next one.