Sacramento Health & Fitness Blog

The California International Marathon on Dec. 6 reached its 7,000-entrant limit by the deadline on Sunday.

So you runners who -- do'h -- forgot to actually fill out the online form and fork over the entry fee are plum out of luck, right?

Not so fast.

Race director John Mansoor (pictured) says the CIM board meets tonight and is likely to approve at least 200 additional spots for tardy runners. To be put on the waiting list, email runcim@jhu.edu. pronto. There will be a price to pay for tardiness, though: Mansoor says the entry fee will be raised to $200 (from $100, plus bus fare). The "penalty fee" will be donated to charity, Mansoor says.

"We capped out a 6,000 last year and then we got a lot of people just desperate to get in," Mansoor says. "I can't believe this, but it's happening again. I've heard from people who are coming from Canada who already bought their airline tickets, already made their hotel reservation but didn't enter. It doesn't make sense.

"Last year, we did 200 additional entries for charity. We donated that money to the (American River) parkway for the improvement of the running trail. We'll probably do at least 200 charity entries again this year, if not more."

Marathon relay entries also closed at 850 and Mansoor says that the relay will not be expanded. 

More than 7,000 runners in the marathon field is impressive, but Mansoor says the race has become so popular that it could swell to as many as 10,000. But such an expansion, he says, would mean some changes in the race.

For instance, there would have to be "wave" starts every 15 minutes, the faster runners going first. That would mean keeping the race course open a half an hour longer than the current six hour time limit, but Mansoor says community officials are open to the idea. 

The other change would be to ban personal vehicles from parking anywhere near the starting line in Folsom and having all runners take buses to the start line. That's a  practice nearly all big and medium marathons already employ, but it would without a doubt  lead to some grumbling from bus-averse runners. 

To encourage runners to take the bus, the CIM will route the shuttles around the car traffic and designate an "express route" on the newly opened Folsom Lake crossing bridge. 

"We're also going to stop personal vehicles a little further away from the start line and force them to get out of their cars and shuttle them in that last way," Mansoor says.

If you're a parent who has an active kid, this latest study will hardly come as a surprise: Sports-related injuries such as bruises, scrapes and broken bones accounted for 22 percent of hospital emergency department visits for children ages 5 to 17.

So says the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which analyzed incidents in 2006. Here are the highlights:

• Boys had three times more visits to treat sports injuries than did girls (147 visits per 10,000 children vs. 50 visits per 10,000 children).
• Teens were five times more likely than children to be treated for sports injuries in emergency departments (154 visits per 10,000 15 to 17 year-olds vs. 30 visits per 10,000 5 to 9 year-olds).
• Some 81 percent of all visits were for bruises, sprains and strains, arm fractures, or cuts and scrapes to the head, neck or chest.
• Only 1.3 percent of visits resulted in hospital admissions, mostly for leg and arm fractures. In nearly 99 percent of visits, the children were treated and released.

Personally, I'd like to see the figures specifically for teenage skateboarders. It's got to be off the charts.

A new study by Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Havard Medical School shows that the amount of weight a women gains during pregnancy -- and weight before getting pregnant -- impacts her daughter's risk of obesity decades later.

Analyzing data on mothers' recalled weight and pregnancy weight gain for more than 24,000 mother-daughter pairs, the study found that the heavier a mother was before her pregnancy, the more likely her daughter was to be obese in later life. An average-height mother who weighed 150 pounds before pregnancy was twice as likely to have a daughter who was obese at age 18 as a mother who weighed 125 pounds before pregnancy

 "If we can help women reach a healthy weight before they start a family, we can make a difference for two generations," says lead author Dr. Alison Stuebe, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina, in a press release. 

The ideal weight gain during pregnancy, according to the study, was 15 to 19 pounds to ensure the lowest risk of obesity in the daughter. Women who gained more than 40 pounds during pregnancy were twice as likely to have daughters who were obese by age 18.

A condensed version of May's forum titled "How to Stay Healthy in a Sick Economy," sponsored by Capital Public Radio and The Bee, will air Friday at 10 a.m. on KXJZ (90.9 FM).

Moderated by Jeffrey Callison, host of the public-affairs show "Insight," the forum features doctors specializing in primary care and integrative medicine giving information on nutrition and dietary supplements, as well as mental health professionals and such health mavens as Fleet Feet Sacramento's Dusty Robinson and Davis Farmers Market guru Randii MacNear. (Yes, even your humble blogger is on hand to represent the health and fitness media perspective.)

By the weay, the next free Health Forum will be Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Sacramento State Alumni Center. The subject: "Would It Kill You to Plan for Your Death?" The subtitle: "A painless way to approach the inevitable."

Now there's a subject to die for.   

For the fifth straight year, Mississippi reigns as the fattest state in the union, with a whopping 32 percent adult obesity rate, according to the nonprofit Trust for America's Health. California fares better at No. 42 with a 23.6 percent obesity rate.

Yikes! In chilhood obesity, California is at 30.5 percent, ranking 28th.

Read the study's press release here.

Todd Starnes, the former KFBK radio news anchor now working for Fox Radio in New York, has written a weight-loss memoir with a catchy title: "They Popped My Hood and Found Gravy on the Dipstick." (Check amazon.com for availablity).

Starnes will be in Sacramento on Saturday, July 11 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Creekside Town Center, 1256 Galleria Blvd. in Roseville.

When he worked at KFBK, Starnes' weight ballooned to 300 pounds and he suffered a heart attack. He chronicled his bypass surgery on the air. Since losing weight and moving to New York, Starnes has run in the New York Marathon. 

 A new Mayo Clinic study, published this month in the journal Gastroenterology, reports that celiac disease is four times more common today than it was 50 years ago.

Celiac, an immune system reaction to gluten in the diet, affects about one in 100 people, according to the Mayo research.

Says Mayo gastroenterologist Joseph Murray, "We also have shown that undiagnosed or 'silent' celiac disease may have a significant impact on survival. The increasing prevalence, combined with the mortality impact, suggests celiac disease could be a significant public health issue.

"Something has changed in our environment to make it much more common. Until recently, the standard approach to finding celiac disease has been to wait for people to complain of symptoms and to come to the doctor for investigation. This study suggests that we may need to consider looking for celiac disease in the general population, more like we do in testing for cholesterol or blood pressure."

So, you think your business promotes helth and wellness among employees? Maybe there's a health club onsite and fitness programs?

Sure, that's nice.

But here's what I want my employer to buy me -- a treadmill desk.

Hey, it only cost $4,899.

My previous posting about an altercation with a motorist at 15th and Q streets in midtown Sacramento prompted quite a response from the cycling community.

Reader Gregory Wilkins, who recently moved from Dallas to Folsom, says he's been hassled by motorists and cops on his bike to such an extent that he carries a DMV booklet with him.

The way Wilkins tells it, being a cyclist in Texas is dangerous (hey, isn't that where Lance Armstrong is from?)

"I moved here to ride my bike and be left alone," he says. "In Dallas, I have been harrased for being a commuter for 25 years, (riding) 1.500 miles a month. I'm a chef, and it keeps me in shape and happy. The DMV book in Texas has less than a half page and the drivers think in Texas that bikes are only legal in parks and on sidewalks.

"I have been shot at three times, chased, (had) beer bottles thrown, dogs sicced on me and a lot of middle fingers."

Reader Diane Craig says that California might want to adopt the New York City model of "green pavement markings to indicate where cyclists should be...(Some have) proposed the idea of 'advance boxes' so that cyclists in a right lane bike lane can stop ahead of where motorists stop.

"In a regular intersection, this would ensure that the motorists (1) see the stopped cyclists and (2) allow them to proceed straight ahead after the light turns green, (3) before the motorists turn right, into or in front of them. I think we need a statewide consistent bicycle marking policy. I like green."

 And here's this from David Allen, of Roseville, a League of American Bicyclists instructor: 

"I've found that horn honkings and verbal commentary are related to motorists not knowing where I'm headed. The more I eliminate ambiguity in my riding, the rarer such interactions occur. How do I do this? By riding predictably and communicating often.

Unless we can drum up some guest bloggers from among The Bee staff ("Anyone, anyone? Bueller?"), the blog is going no vacation for a week.

See you June 30.