The Science of Getting Slim

My mother once told me “never look a marathon in the eye” and as I started training for one, I realized why: marathons are so unbelievably long that crapping your pants becomes your number one worry.  Sadly, yet hilariously, that’s something that happened to my dad during a 10-k race (about 6 miles), but his misfortune taught me about the horrors of the marathon.

His problem was overworking himself.  That is why the first step to running a marathon is to take it easy and have fun.

Step two is labeling a map of the all the bathrooms near the course.

So here is a marathon: 26.2 miles of varied elevation with hundreds of people throwing off sweatshirts and thermal pants, with streets lined with doe-eyed spectators holding up signs of encouragement.

And here’s the problem: you have to be prepared to run those 26.2 miles.

It’s a problem because entering a marathon without training will not be a fun way to spend five hours, which is why so many people never run one.

I know, I know: 26.2 miles. It is a terrible distance.

Sadly, would-be marathon runners often think about the distance more than the achievement. Televisions and media coverage usually show a few top runners collapsing before the finish line with sickly looks, and that’s all those runners win—exhaustion—oh, and a medal; the reward doesn’t match the work.

But you must always remember that anyone can run that distance: thin, large, tall, small, old, young, beginning runners as well as medaled champions, teens, grandparents—anyone. The human body is built to run.  It’s embarrassing how many races I’ve lost to 50, 60, even 70 year olds.  A marathon does not require a GPA.  It does not care if you skip classes before 10 am, and it certainly doesn’t care about the car you drive or the way you dress (I’ve seen people run in bunny costumes so trust me on this).

So why should you run a marathon? Even though I said running one is fun, and it is, the real reason is to test your limitations.  As we age, our bodies weaken when we don’t use them.

In Men’s Health magazine, Adam Campbell writes “For years, aerobic exercise has been touted for its many health benefits; it’s no leap to suggest that it can reduce your risk of nearly every known disease.”

Training for a marathon is an amazing way to engage in aerobic exercise and bolster your self confidence, lower your stress, and actively engage in life.  You’ll never know the feeling of a deep breath at mile 18 if you never get to that mile, and believe me—you want that feeling.

You want that feeling because it makes you crazy to have thought you never wanted that feeling.  Your perspective changes as if you finishing reading (and understanding) a book on literary theory or incorporating a new invention into your life or how you feel when you receive a letter in a mail from that crush you never went after because it would be weird to turn a fulfilling friendship into an awkward moment: we’re all morons if we never try something new.

Break away and breathe, the marathon awaits you.

David J. Darner

While it’s fun to feel healthy and have an active life, there’s no denying that exercise is hard work, and hard work is well… hard.

It’s hard because exercise isn’t without its risks. The stress of getting to the gym, the park, or even your treadmill that’s 10 feet away makes exercise less about working out than working it into your schedule.

Perhaps the most notorious constraint of exercise is fatigue.  We tell ourselves, “Worked out hard on Saturday? Skip until Thursday!” But that’s a more psychological approach to fatigue.  The real danger is the physical issues that can come from neglecting workouts.

When avoiding working out becomes more about “ow that’s sore!” than “aw, that’s boring,” you need a recovery plan.

Don’t neglect injuries! Running, Soccer, Tetherball—you name it—can get risky from pain if you’ve injured yourself. Instead of waiting for injuries to correct themselves—diagnose them, treat them, and heal them.

Among the most common areas of injury are the ankles, but the range in their seriousness is wide. For example, this past month I was running through a forest while it was raining.  As the newly green leaves shaded me from most of the moisture, the trail was still very muddy and clouded with debris.

I trotted along until I stepped into a small hole covered by muck, like a soldier falling into a booby trap. I suffered a severe sprain, but I thought I was tough enough to limp home.

My after-workout treatment was a simple heating pad and quality television because, to me, it was just a mere ankle sprain, the type of injury that is more of a nuisance than a life threat. But I was surprised to still have pain after treating it.

Turns out using heat was the worst choice on the remedy list for ankle sprains.

This is because treating sprains with heat, like I did, complicates the injury by loosening an already over extended ligament. Heat is only supposed to be used for sore muscles, where the heat increases blood circulation and relaxes the sore, tightening muscles; unfortunately my injury wasn’t with my muscles, but my ligaments. And more unfortunate was my need for physical therapy because of the way I was recovering.

I visited the Ashton Physical Therapy Center off Cherokee Avenue in Alexandria and spoke with physical therapist Tricia Ashton.  She told me “If you’re recovering from a muscle injury, use heat; if you’re working on tendons and ligaments, use ice.”

“The difference,” she explains, is that “muscles don’t have the same blood supply as tendons and ligaments.” We continued to talk as she studied my injury and I found out that if I had sore muscles and a ligament issues, I could still use heat, but I would need to apply ice to my ankle if I wanted it to heal.

‘Trish’ taught me that a sprain in the ankle or other joint area occurs after your body abnormally moves a joint. It can be a lateral sprain, where the toe points inward and strains the ligaments on the outside of the ankle, or a medial ligament sprain, where the sole of the foot faces outward and damages the inward ligaments.

Further questioning about my ankle revealed the role of ligaments and tendons as “connections” for muscles as they form around the bone. Damaging the ligament damages how the muscle can be used, making it a very serious injury if you were to overextend one as it jeopardizes the stability of your movement.

What I had was an acute lateral ankle sprain.  To treat it, Trish told me to used RICE, which is as medical director of sports medicine at University of Wisconsin Craig C. Young writes, “Rest, ice, compression, and elevation.”

So how do you know when to see a doctor about a worsening injury? First, keep in mind that when diagnosing injuries, a key move is observing your initial recovery.  My sprain worsened from how I was treating it, and I was confident it wasn’t soreness since I was experiencing pain for weeks after.

Time is the key diagnostic tool here. Look for pain persisting well after the initial discomfort and to note any signs of “swelling of the ankle, pain with active ankle movement, inability to toe-raise unilaterally [side-to-side movement] with symmetry, and a [limp],” says university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Michael T. Gross.

So remember: negligence may be fine when you’re ignoring a workout, but not when you’re ignoring pain. Everyone get’s injuries! Just don’t ignore them or you’ll cripple yourself!