Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Is it OK to Race White Rock Marathon Two Weeks After Ironman Arizona?

Yesterday, in my Grapevine, Texas office, I had a patient who asked me this very question. He raced Ironman Arizona, which was November 20th and wanted to know if I thought it was OK for him to "jump in and run with a friend" the White Rock Marathon? Really? When I started laughing, he then asked if I thought perhaps a relay leg was OK?

So, after I composed myself I said, "It depends....." So I thought I would give a better, more scientific answer than "Are You Nuts?"

What he really was asking is: How long does it take to recover from a marathon? How long does it take to recover from an Ironman triathlon? How much racing is bad for my body? These are all good questions posed in my office on a regular basis. The problem is that the answer is always, "It depends". Everyone recovers at a different rate. Age, experience and current fitness level are large variables in the equation. I know a marathon runner in town who ran 100 marathons in a less than 10 years; and of course, we have all heard of Dane Rauschenberg who ran 52 marathons in one year for charity and then wrote a book about it! The flip side is that I know runners who can only do one marathon a year without getting hurt and most triathletes only train for one Ironman a year. So what is the magic formula? How much is too much? I think the first thing to think about is what is your goal? If you are just talking about finishing the marathons and not really having a time crunch, then feel free to do up to six a year but realize that having more than two quality runs in a year is very difficult. The Ironman distance should not be attempted more than 2 or 3 times a year regardless of time goals! Now, for those of us who are addicted to the watch, "racing" a marathon is something that should not be done more than twice a year. "Racing" an Ironman triathlon should only be attempted one a year.

Why is this true? Well, simple math. It takes a minimum of 4 months to train effectively for a marathon and 6 months for an Ironman. Then you need at least one day for every mile you ran and three to five days for every hour your triathlon took. That means a month of recovery before you start to train again after a marathon and at least 6 weeks after a 12 hour Ironman. Last time I checked, there were only 12 months in a year; hence, the common recommendation of racing no more than 2 quality marathons or one quality Ironman triathlon a year.
Why do some people recover faster? Age. My feeling is that youth is wasted on the young. I remember being able to run a marathon and get up and go to work the next day. Now I have to take at least one day off and often take two! Experience does help. Your body has been there before, so it knows it will live. Veterans often have a post-race routine down that helps them recover. (Often this includes the anesthesia known as beer!) If your fitness level is high and your nutritional status is good, you will recover faster.

What can you do to hasten recovery? Walk a cool down after the race. Do not sit down immediately even though your legs are begging you to! Take a 15 to 20 minute walk and stretch gently. An ice bath is best, but very few people I know are that tough. A cool bath followed by stretching before you go to bed is helpful. A large amount of carbohydrates and water also helps. Hence the beer phenomenon! A massage a few days after the race will help you recover. More than anything, do not start training again until you are fully recovered. Many injuries occur due to too much, too soon, too fast and too fatigued syndrome!

So how much is too much? Again, the answer is always, "It depends." Listen to your body. Really listen and stop being stubborn or stupid! If you start training and you are exhausted, you are doing too much. If you are spending too much time in my office and less on your bike, you are doing too much. The answer is really simple stupid. Listen to your body and it will tell you how much is too much.

Bottom line: Let your body fully recover from your races and quality times will be recorded. Race only one to two marathons or one Ironman triathlon a year. As for other distances, keep in mind that you need one day for every mile of a running race and at least 3 days for every hour you raced in triathlon. Anything shorter, you better take off your watch and go for the finish instead of the time and prepare yourself to spend some quality time with your local sports medicine physician!

Run Happy! And Recover Well! See You at White Rock!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Can You Name 11 Things to Know About 11/11/11?

Do You Know 11 Things to Know About 11/11/11?

1. Did you know that tomorrow, November 11, 2011, happens only once every 100 years? Cool! And No, I don’t think anyone is predicting that the world is ending on that date!

2. It’s your lucky day! Brush it off as nothing more than a prime number, but some people look to the number 11 for good luck. What makes 11 more special than, say, 4, 15, or 3,856? Numerologists associate the number with balance and congruency, and math whizzes think it’s interesting because of little facts like this: If a number is divisible by 11, reverse its digits and that will create another multiple of 11 (for example, 1,056 is divisible by 11 — reverse it to 6,501, and that’s also divisible by 11).

3. Or is it your unlucky day? For every person on Team 11, there’s also someone who wants nothing to do with what they believe is actually an ill-fated digit. The 16th-century scholar Petrus Bungus said that 11 "has no connection with divine things, no ladder reaching up to things above, nor any merit" — and because of this, many numerologists of his time considered the number to represent pure evil.

4. Wedding bells will be ringing! You don’t need good luck to make a marriage last — you need love, respect, and hard work. But maybe it can’t hurt to get hitched on 11/11/11. In fact, more than 24,000 couples across the United States plan to wed this Friday, according to WeddingChannel.com — compared to about 1,500 couples who get married on an average Friday in November and 2,667 pairs who tied the knot last Valentine’s Day.

To prepare for the influx of marriage applications, the marriage license bureau in Las Vegas has even announced that it is increasing staffing on Nov. 11, according to USA Today.

5. There could be a baby boom, too. At Baylor Grapevine, there are already quite a few C-sections on the schedule for tomorrow! What’s even better than having an 11/11/11 anniversary date? An 11/11/11 birthday. And back in February, some parents-to-be did their darndest to conceive a child who would be born on the lucky day. Couples who enjoyed a Valentine’s Day romp could be in luck, as a baby who was conceived around February 18 could very well be born on Nov. 11.

6. Nov. 11 is also Veterans Day. It may be getting overshadowed this year by weddings and gambling, but Veterans Day is celebrated annually on Nov. 11. The United States honors its war veterans on this day to commemorate the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, which went into effect on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. This 11/11/11, don’t forget to pay your respects to those who have served our country.

7. And it’s Corduroy Appreciation Day! It’s time to don your favorite pair of cords, since Nov. 11 is also National Corduroy Appreciation Day. It’s been celebrated annually on this date for the past few years, as 11/11 most resembles the lines of the fabric. And since this year there’s an extra 11 in the mix, corduroy fanatics everywhere will be celebrating in a big way: According to MSNBC, events include the Chicagoland Corduroy Appreciation Ball in Chicago and the Annual Grand 111111 Meeting in New York City.

8. Break out the origami and heavy metal. Okay, so it’s Veterans Day, Corduroy Appreciation Day, and thousands of couples’ wedding days. But Nov. 11 is also Origami Day in Japan (where the paper crane symbolizes peace), as well as National Metal Day, when VH1 will be honoring heavy metal music (rumor has it, the original lineup of the band Black Sabbath, including Ozzy Ozbourne himself, may reunite for the momentous occasion).

9. It’s a great day to jet set. Come Friday, Americans will be doing more than tying the knot and sporting cords — plenty of people are also going on vacation to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime 11/11/11 deals offered by travel Web sites to celebrate the day. Where is everyone headed? According to Viator.com, the Grand Canyon is one of the top destinations, as well as Paris, New York City, and Niagara Falls.

10. The last 11/11/11 made weather history. Though few people are old enough to remember the last 11/11/11, it was also famous for the Great Blue Norther, one of the biggest cold snaps — a dramatic temperature fluctuation — in U.S. history. For many Midwestern cities, this date in 1911 was only time when record-high and record-low temperatures were broken on the same day.

11. 11/11/11? There’s a Facebook group for that. If you’re feeling like the lone 11/11/11 reveler in your circle of friends, look no further than the 11:11 Facebook fan page. This group of more than 643,000 people from around the world is counting down to 11:11 a.m. on this momentous 11/11/11. Cheers!

Crazy, but I’m sure someone is having a special 11/11/11 race somewhere today! Maybe we should’ve planned that! 11 miles on 11/11/11!

Happy November 11, 2011!

Ps. Most of this was taken from a fun article on http://www.everydayhealth.com/ Thanks guys!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Getting Slower With Age? Sarcopenia is Preventable and Reversible!

So why is it so hard to keep muscle mass when we age? Turns out it is caused by sarcopenia. Really! I'm not making up the term. Sarcopenia is the progressive loss of muscle mass that results from the normal aging process. It has been felt, in the past, that the loss of one to two percent of your muscle mass each year after the age of 40 is inevitable.

Turns out there are lots of things we can do about sarcopenia. One of them is to stop trying to look like a cachectic Holocaust victim and actually build some upper body muscles!! Runners tend to feel like if they bulk up at all in their upper body that it will slow them down. Research actually has refuted this claim over and over, but it is still one of those long-standing running myths. Strength training actually helps preserve muscles and strengthen bones which often improves your running economy and hence makes you more efficient, reducing the amount of energy to run at a certain pace. Win-Win!

Many factors go into the onset of sarcopenia. Chronic disease and environmental factors can accelerate loss of muscle mass, but these are not really controllable. Factors under our control that affect the progression of sarcopenia are motor unit restructuring, protein deficiency, and changes in hormone concentrations. These combine to produce the age related loss of muscle coordination and mass.

Really, it is all about proteins. There are two kinds of proteins; non-essential (those your body can synthesize) and essential proteins (proteins we need to get from foods). Your body seeks a balance between protein production (synthesis) and usage (metabolism) for energy and cell structure. We don't usually lose our ability to metabolize proteins with age, but we do lose our ability to synthesize them. This is where hormone balance comes into play. Things like Insulin-like growth hormone (IGF-1), testosterone and growth hormone. As our bodies age, our hormone concentrations decline. This is why aging baseball players love growth hormone, they think it stops sarcopenia! (Hgh declines after age 40 but there is not good research that proves supplementation will actually help!) What's more, it appears that as we age, we actually require more protein but continue with a similar diet hence we are out of balance.

The hormone decline and protein deficiency one-two punch is largely responsible for sarcopenia, but when you add the most vital aspect - motor unit restructuring - they combine to form a cocktail that results in the physical manifestation of aging. Motor unit restructuring is the product of the inevitable death of neuron cells. Fast twitch neurons (those responsible for precise or quick movements) die off first. When the cell reaches its predetermined life span, it dies. When a motor neuron dies, the muscle fibers that are under its command can deteriorate or atrophy. To prevent atrophy, when a fast twitch neuron dies, a slow twitch neuron nearby attaches itself to the now abandoned muscle fibers, innervating and keeping them alive. This change is known as motor unit restructuring. This is why we become slower and less coordinated as we age.

So how can we thwart this process? Move! Often! Sitting on the couch and leading a sedentary lifestyle is a good way to ensure sarcopenia with age. The best way to cure or at lest slow down the onset of muscle mass loss is resistance training. We recommend our patients participate in daily exercise, but often this is not enough. It will help your cardiovascular system, but resistance training with weights is the only way to reverse muscle mass loss. Couple this with increases protein intake to have the building blocks to redevelop muscles.

So, you want to be able to beat the young pups when you are in your 50's and 60's? Talk to your doctor about any health issues like diabetes or hypertension. Change your diet to higher protein and less carbohydrates. Forgo the pasta dinners and add lean protein! Resistance training with light weights and high repetitions at least 45 minutes, three times a week. Make it a habit you will take into your senior years!

You will thank me when you are still running in your 70's!