Sacramento Health & Fitness Blog

   Are marathons recession proof?
   John Mansoor, race director for the California International Marathon, looks around the country and sees plenty of growth in marathon fields despite the country's economic woes.
   The Houston Marathon attracted a record field of 22,000 for its marathon, half marathon and 5k on Jan. 18. For the first time in its 10-year history, the Green Bay Marathon, set for May 17, has set a cap of 10,000 runners for its four races (marathon, marathon relay, half marathon and 5k.
   The CIM grew from 5,400 entrants in 2007 to 6,400 in 2008, with about 5,400 actually starting the Dec. 7  race and 5,193 finishing.
   Mansoor's goal for the 2009 CIM, set for Dec. 6: 7,000 entrants.
   What's going on?
   "It's very dramatic; all these events are selling out, and selling out with big numbers," Mansoor said. "Every time we've had a recession, running actually improves."
   Which brings us to Mansoor's theory.
   "The reason may be people laid off from work now have time to be fit," he said. "For good or for bad, they now have time on their hands.
   "It appears what they do is try to go out and make themselves a little healthier because they're no longer making themselves wealthier."
   Mansoor said marathon entry fees -- early registration for the 2009 CIM costs $80 -- is inexpensive compared to other forms of entertainment.
   "That's real cheap for that kind of three-month or four-month activity that would keep you going toward that goal," he said.
   The discipline required to train for a marathon might come in handy in finding a new job, too.

 

Here's a hilarious YouTube video that makes its point about exercise so slyly.

 

OK, so if your Sunday afternoon is going to be devoted to burrowing into the couch to watch the Super Bowl, why not do something healthy beforehand?

Here's just a sampling of what you can do this weekend:

* Total Body Fitness, the leading XTERRA and triathlon folks in the area, will be holding a mountain bike skills camp Saturday at 9 a.m. at Granite Beach on Folsom Lake. Cost: $60. It runs pretty much all day. It's worth it just to learn braking technique alone.  

* How's this for a deal? Fleet Feet Davis (615 2nd Street, Davis) is holding an 8 a.m. training run Saturday, followed by free waffles and, for the first 60 participants, a free pair of DryMax socks.  

* Those wacky runners at Sacramento Hash House Harriers -- the "the drinking club with a running problem" -- will chase the "hare" for about 5 miles and then down some pints on Saturday. It starts at 1 p.m. at Carlisle Woods Park.

* If you're looking for a half marathon (maybe as a final training run before next week's Davis Stampede), try the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon Sunday at 8 a.m.

 

 

Why is this man smiling?

 

Turns out that 1974 British Medical Journal study on a new affliction, "Cello Scrotum," was a hoax perpetrated by a rogue researcher with a junior high school mentality.

Read the researchers' mea culpa here.   

 

Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, hold the ... nutrition?

That's a possibility, according to John Stanton, Ph.D., chair of food marketing at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Stanton posits that "frills" in hamburgers -- you know, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, the only healthy part of it -- will no longer come gratis. Want a pickle? Be ready to pony up more coin.

His prediction isn't that far-fetched. Look at the airline industry, charging us for peanuts now.

"In the long run consumers will accept the added costs -- we always have," Stanton says in a news release.

What's next? Restaurants charging us for salt and pepper shaker access? 

   Interested in running in a new race, across a bridge with breathtaking views, without having to put in a lot of training miles?
   Keep March 28 free.
   That's the day John Mansoor, race director for the California International Marathon and co-race director of the Lake Natoma Four Bridges Half Marathon, hopes to hold an event on the Folsom Lake Crossing Bridge.
   The bridge, which crosses the American River near Folsom Dam, is scheduled to be finished by then. Mansoor said Folsom city officials approached him about putting on a race, which he envisions as a 2- or 4-mile event, as part of the grand opening.
   "We're going to doodle on that a little bit, see if we can pull that off," Mansoor said. "Very spectacular bridge scenery, by the way. At some point, you're going to get a pretty good view of Folsom Prison.
   "You're going to get a good view of the dam, too."
   The bridge's proximity to the prison has Mansoor wishing Folsom officials had named the bridge after Johnny Cash, the legendary singer whose 1968 concert at the prison and his "Folsom Prison Blues" song brought wide-spread attention.
   "I would also be a fan of trying to call the race the Johnny Cash race," Mansoor said. "That's the most famous thing that's ever happened in Folsom.
   "Everybody in the world knows about that."

 

We always look forward to the Nutrition Action Healthletter, especially its "Food Porn" feature in which the editors of the Center for Science in the Public Interest give nutritional breakdowns of caloric foods.

This month: Chili's Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie.

The Healthletter says a slice of said pie has 1,590 calories, 37 grams of saturated fat and 910 milligrams of sodium. Not surprising, given it contains caramel, chocolate galore, hot fudge and, of course, ice cream.

Wow, that's a triple threat for metabolic syndrome!

So, let's hear it, readers: Will you throw nutrition to the wind and indulge?

  

 

AP Photo/ Nathan Bilow

Maybe it's because I live in Davis -- a college town -- but when I went to the gym recently more people on the treadmill had the TV turned to the X Games than "The Bachelor."

One look at those extreme winter athletes makes an old dude such as me think, "Hope they've got good insurance."

Turns out, that extreme winter sports is a boon to orthopaedic specialists, enabling them to pay for that second home in Tahoe.

Snowboarding is the leading cause of winter sports injuries, sending 149,388 people to hospital emergency rooms, doctors' offices and clinics in 2007, according to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission. Skiing resulted in 131,454 injuries and snowmobiling caused 34,699.

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has released the following tips to stay injury-free on the mountain:

•Cold muscles, tendons and ligaments are more susceptible to injury. Do some light exercise for at least 3 to 5 minutes, then slowly and gently stretch the muscles to be exercised, holding each stretch for at least 30 seconds.

•Do not try to imitate stunts seen in televised events. The people in those events--even the X Games, which appear to be less formal than events like the Olympics--are professional athletes with years of training. If you have children who watch these events, make sure that they understand this.

•Never participate in extreme sports alone. Many extreme sports enthusiasts have a coach or responsible party overseeing any activity. Have a partner who can assist you or go for help if you get injured.

•Wear appropriate protective gear, including goggles, helmets, gloves and padding, and make sure equipment is in good working order and used properly.

•Take frequent water breaks to prevent dehydration and overheating.

•Avoid participating in any sport when experiencing pain or exhaustion.

•For warmth and protection, wear several layers of light, loose and water- and wind-resistant clothing. Layering allows you add and remove clothing to accommodate your body's constantly changing temperature when outside or in a cold environment such as an indoor ice rink.

•Wear proper footwear that provides warmth and dryness, as well as ample ankle support.

•When falling, try to fall on your side or buttocks. Roll over naturally, turning your head in the direction of the roll.

•Pay attention to warnings about upcoming storms and severe drops in temperature to ensure safety.

 

The Davis Stampede half-marathon, 10K, 5K and kids fun run is one of my favorite races of the year -- OK, except for that one year when the wind was gusting at 20 mph.

Anyway, the 27th running of the Stampede is Feb. 8 and race director Dave Miramontes at Change of Pace is offering some enticements to increase registration.

Here's the deal: If you register two people for the Stampede, you'll get a 1-month free membership at the Davis Athletic Club plus a gift certificate to Chipotle. Burritos for everyone! Please note, though: This offer is only good through Sunday, Feb. 1.

They put on a great race -- nice to have that sweat check on cold mornings, by the way -- but a great race plus burritos? Sign me up. Here's the link to register.

So, as I was struggling to change a flat tire in the pouring rain on the Yolo Causeway last night, cursing my piece-of-#%&* hand pump, I thought of a way I could make my first million and augment my paltry newspaperman's salary:

Start a AAA road service for cyclists in the four-county area (Sac, Yolo, Placer, El Dorado). Hey, we've got lots of cyclists and, of course, we know how to change tires and do minor maintenance in transit. But how many of us really want to do it? I mean, our fingers already are frozen and our nerves frayed. Plus, changing it in the dark by the light of my front headlamp is a challenge for a technologically challenged soul such as me.

So, what we'd do for BAA is, as they do with AAA, is have cyclists pay a yearly fee, give them a card and an emergency number to call and have support vans at the ready with everything needed to repair flats, bent rims, chain issues, whatever.

The key, of course, is to have the repair crews act swiftly. No one wants to be left out in the middle of nowhere for a long spell. But, judging by the time it took an incompetent like me to change the aforementioned tire, it might've been quicker to make the call to BAA and wait.

OK, I know there are flaws in my get-rich-slow scheme.

But I'm open to investors. All you venture capital dudes out there, call me.

 

We're suckers here on the blog for studies involving mice, and this one from the University of Southern California, published in The Journal of Nutrition, caught our eye.

It seems the practice known as "caloric restriction" -- a growing movement that posits that you'll live longer if you severely restrict your food intake -- doesn't extend life, at least in our rodent friends.

Check that: Caloric restriction works in obese mice, but not lean ones. The study's author, Raj Sohal, professor at the University of Southern California's School of Pharmacy, says it can be a dangerous practice for humans. (You know how they are in SoCal, never too rich or too thin.)

Says Sohal in a statement: ""Today there are a lot of very healthy people who look like skeletons because they bought into this (caloric restriction philosophy."

Read the entire study here.   

Don't let a little rain stop you from taking advantage of the multitude of fitness events out there.

Here are a few:

We've already told you about the Arden Arcade Run (free!) on the American River Parkway Saturday. Details here.

Speaking of free, Total Body Fitness racing, which puts on lots of triathlons and cycling competitions, is holding its TBF Mountain Bike Family Day at Granite Beach (Folsom Lake). It starts at 9 a.m.

Are you taking the kids down to SoCal for that Disneyland/Legoland amusement park extravaganza this weekend? You can also have them participate in the Keebler Kids Marathon Mile on Saturday at Legoland in Carlsbad. Then, the next day, the little ones can watch mom and dad run the Carlsbad Marathon or Half Marathon.

 

 

Drug companies go way beyond sales calls to persuade doctors to prescribe their products. Two UC San Francisco doctors sifted through the evidence in one criminal case and have laid out in detail how lectures, meetings, speakers, ghost writers and other tactics helped turn an anti-seizure drug into a "blockbuster" seller for a wide variety of conditions. The company involved, Warner-Lambert, was later purchased by Pfizer Inc., which pleaded guilty to criminal charges and paid $430 million in fines in 2004 over the marketing of Neurontin. In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this month, the two California doctors argue that the Neurontin case shows that tougher controls on research and research funding are needed. Their article is here.

 

 

News10, in a weather promo during last night's airing of "Lost," made me chuckle. Its teaser said to tune in to the station's "microcast" to "find out if it's raining and whether you should move your morning run to the afternoon."

Two things:

1. Just look outside. That'll tell you whether it's raining.

2. What's wrong with a little rain?

Running in the rain -- provided it's not a downpour -- is a pleasure, not a burden. This morning is a great example. There was a steady rain in Davis during my 6 a.m. jaunt, but nothing a rain jacket couldn't stop. Plus (and this is a big plus) it was 50 degrees out with no wind.

Those are great conditions for morning running. It was the first time in a week I haven't had to wear gloves. And I wore just two layers -- a base and the jacket. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

One point:  Remember to dry out your shoes afterward by stuffing them with newspaper -- The Bee, of course.

See, there still is a use for "old" media. You can't dry out your shoes with an online news source! 

 

A new Cochrane Collaboration review of medical literature shows that positive results of studies tend to get published -- and publicized -- more often than those showing a negative result.

In other earth-shattering news, the sun rose in the east this morning.

Cochrane Collaborative researchers found that trials are 1.78 times more likely to be published "if they are perceived as important, reveal a positive effect or offer scientifically significant findings." Cochrane's research found that just 41 percent of negative trials showing a drug or treatment either has no effect or possible bad effects were printed.

Snark aside, there's a serious downside to the publication of primarily positive results from studies, according to Kay Dickersin, director of the U.S. Cochrane Center at John Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. .

"If positive results are published more often than negative, what we think we know isn't really what we know. We might think a drug works, when it really doesn't work, because the negative results haven't been published," said Dickersin in a press release.

And, yes, smarty pants, the Cochrane study was, indeed, published in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library.  

   For years, I hated getting on a treadmill. The only time I'd use one was on a business trip, when weather or location made heading outside for a run a bad option.

   But things change. My wife Lisa and I bought a treadmill about a year ago, hoping it would give us more flexibility as we juggled jobs, workouts and a young son.

   So far, we're more than getting our money's worth. The once-dreaded treadmill has allowed us to maintain a decent level of fitness, and prompted our 3-year-old to proclaim "I need to exercise."

   I still prefer the lure of the roads, and the nearby bike trail, to running in place without any scenery. But the treadmill has earned my respect, and reminded me there are a lot of different ways to stay fit.

   Has anyone else embraced a workout they once dreaded?

 

   The smoke-induced cancellation of the Western States Endurance Run last June left many in the ultrarunning world going through withdrawal pains.

    No 5 a.m. start in Squaw Valley? No afternoon gathering in Foresthill? No all night-vigil at the finish at Placer High School in Auburn?

    For those who can't get enough of the 100-mile race, the road to the 2009 Western States is just around the corner on the calendar. The first training run, a 20-mile jaunt from Green Gate to Placer High School, is scheduled for Feb. 21.

    Interested runners should meet at the Placer High Stadium at 8 a.m. for a bus ride to Green Gate. Cost is $20, which you can pay that day. And you don't need to make a reservation.

    A three-day training camp covering the final 70 miles of the course, conditions permitting, is scheduled for May 23-25.

    Now, if race officials can just avoid the fires that forced the event to be cancelled for the first time in its 35-year history.

   "We knew it was always a possibility," race director Greg Soderlund said. "The air quality, that's what shut us down."

   Race officials gave the 390 runners entered in the 2008 event the option of coming back for the 2009 race, set for June 27-28.  There were 340 takers.

   The cancellation also rendered moot the race's annual lottery to get into the run. The previous lottery attracted 1,300 applications for 300 spots.

   "There's a lot of people that are going to have to go somewhere else in 2009 that were probably hoping to apply to Western," Soderlund said..       

    What runners in the field need now is a fire-free race week.

    For more information on the race, visit www.ws100.com.

   

Don't know whether to keep or toss that box of Famous Amos peanut butter cookies or Keebler peanut butter crackers?

The Food and Drug Administration has a Web site set up for the recall.

 

 

ABBA, a group of outgoing Swedes who probably aren't at risk for early dementia.

Here's yet another reason to envy (or emulate) those outgoing, happy-go-lucky types:

They might have a lesser chance of developing dementia. That's the word from a new study published in Neurology, the journal of the  American Academy of Neurology. Researchers survery 506 older adults in Sweden and asked them about their degrees of sociability and extroversion and anxiety levels, then followed up to see if they developed dementia.

The results:

People who were not socially active but calm and relaxed had a 50 percent lower risk of developing dementia compared with people who were isolated and prone to distress. But the dementia risk was also 50 percent lower for people who were outgoing and calm compared to those who were outgoing and prone to distress.

"In the past, studies have shown that chronic distress can affect parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, possibly leading to dementia, but our findings suggest that having a calm and outgoing personality in combination with a socially active lifestyle may decrease the risk of developing dementia even further," study author Hui-Xin Wang, PhD, with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, said in a press release. "The good news is, lifestyle factors can be modified as opposed to genetic factors which cannot be controlled. But these are early results, so how exactly mental attitude influences risk for dementia is not clear." 

Estimates are that one in seven Americans aged 71 and older has some form of dementia. The number of Americans nearing that age is expected to double by the year 2030. .

Reuters
Even the "evil" Kim Jong Il will wave, but apparently cyclists can't be bothered.


Is it just me, or are runners friendlier than cyclists?

Them thar are fightin' words, I know, to many who exercise on two wheels instead of two feet.

But let me relate something that happened to today as a microcosm for something I've noticed for awhile now:

I was out in the middle of rural Yolo County, near the bypass, on my long run this morning. Not a car or a soul (and sole) was around. In the distance, heading toward me, came a cyclist. It's always nice, on a long run, to occasionally encounter, you know, other human beings. So as the cyclist  approached, I smiled, briefly raised my left hand and said, "mornin'." Spandex boy on the bike  looked right at me and just kept on going, not even a nod of acknowledgment. It's  not as if I was running him off the road or anything.

This is not an isolated incident. I've been snubbed several times by cyclists, but rarely has a runner not nodded, waved or said "hello."

OK,cyclists. Let's get your thoughts. Do waving runners bug you?

The new Running Times magazine arrived today -- much better than Runner's World, IMHO -- and I was not at all surprised to see our own octogenarian runner Helen Klein listed among the top World Masters Association runners.

But I was really impressed by a mathematical chart converting the times of masters runners to the equivalent "open" time and juxtaposed to the world's best. In this age-graded calculation, the 85-year-old Klein had the second best performance of 2008.

Klein's 5 hour 36 minute 18 second performance in the Napa Marathon was adjusted to a 2:11:29 marathon -- nearly four minutes faster than the women's record.

She's an amazing athlete. When I'm 85, I just hope I'm still running. Heck, walking. Still breathing, actually.

 

 

I've been having a heckuva time keeping my hands from freezing on these winter mornings when I'm crazy enough to ride my bike to work from my cozy Davis abode.

One day last week, for five minutes, I couldn't move my fingers enough to disengage my bike lock in the rack at The Bee. Yes, yes. I was wearing gloves -- a Pearl Izumi model, not top of the line but not cheap, either.

So, a few days ago, I decided to make a sojourn to REI and get some thin glove liners, figuring that perhaps an extra layer would help. The store was having a sale and I snagged a pair for 10 bucks.

Well, I'm happy to report that my hands felt much warmer this morning. Still a little cold but not rendered immobile by the cold. (OK, so I exaggerate a bit; they aren't like that frostbite illustration above.)

Was it because it was a tad warmer this morning? Perhaps. But the Weather Channel still told me it was 35 degrees at 6:15 a.m. So, not exactly balmy.

What's your opinion, cyclists? Do glove liners really work? And what do you do to keep your hands warm on those chilly a.m. rides.  

 

  

 

Photo courtesy of the New England Journal of Medicine

Hey, all you medical workers. Wash your hands! You don't know where that patient has been!

This story from National Public Radio about the germs workers accumulate on their hands (see photo above of a staph infection) is troubling.  

 

 

It's just another survey -- sponsored by a battery company, no less -- but it made me chuckle.

Energizer, plugging its "Healthy Lifestyle" program, asked 1,051 baby boomers about the state of their health. Some 73 percent rated their health "good" or "excellent."

Hmm...

Why is it, then, that the National Center for Health Statistics say that 50 percent of boomers have high blood pressure and two in five boomers are obese.

Ah, so you're in good health. It's everyone else who's slovenly.  

 

AP/ Jeffrey M. Boan

Oklahoma running back Mossis Madu right, enjoys a laugh with beefy offensive lineman Trent Williams before last week's BCS championship game. Williams is among the linemen at risk for metabolic syndrome. 

As we gear up for the Super Bowl, we've often wondered whether those rather, ahem, large football linemen are healthy specimens. Sure, we've got bulging biceps and pecs of steel and can move a Mack truck, but isn't there a lot of fat there, too?

Well, a new study by Ohio State researchers in the current issue of the Journal of Athletic Training shows that those beefy linemen are at risk for metabolic syndrome (a condition that can lead to Type II Diabetes adn heart disease) later in life.

Researchers tested 70 Division I, II and III college linemen. Some 34 athletes had at least three risk factors indicating they had metabolic syndrome based on measures of waist circumference, glucose levels, high-density lipoprotein (HDL, i.e. good cholesterol), blood pressure and triglycerides. Only one lineman hit for the cycle (to mix sports metaphors) and had all five risk factors. All but five linemen had elevated blood pressure. 

Of course, once their playing careers are over, these linemen will all lose weight, eat right and become triathletes.

Yeah, right!

   Julie Fingar, the incoming race director for the Way Too Cool 50k and the American River 50, marveled as she tracked the on-line application process for the 2009 Cool race, set for March 14.
   The 450-runner limit was reached in 8 minutes, 54 seconds on Dec. 14, faster than the 11:18 mark the previous year but a tad slower than the 7:33 record set for 2007 registration.
   "It felt like three hours I was watching this thing," said Fingar, who also directs the Sierra Nevada Endurance Run and works as an assistant race director for the California International Marathon.
   "I think I was more nervous than the participants. I wanted the whole technical side of things to go smoothly. Boom, boom, boom. It's like, 'Whoa.'"

   What makes the Cool race so popular?
   About 60 percent of the course is on the Western States Trail, there's a generous eight-hour cutoff that appeals to first-timers and there's a variety of hills and flats.
   "For the most part, it's something that with proper training and mileage, everybody, anybody that wants to step it up can partake," Fingar said.
   But you have to be quick on-line.
   While the Cool race is full, the AR 50, set for April 4, has space for more than 200 runners in its 650-runner field. Entries close on March 17.

-- John Schumacher
www.run100s.com/AR50
www.run100s.com/wtc.htm

 

Many of us religiously keep track our our LDL (the so-called "bad cholesterol") levels for a variety of important reasons.

So, it's a tad troubling that a new study from UCLA is indicating that nearly 75 percent of heart attack patients had LDL numbers that fell within the accepted levels. The current national guidelines consider LDL levels between 100 and 130 milligrams per decileter acceptable. In fact, nearly half the patients studied had "optimal" LDL numbers.

"Almost 75 percent of heart attack patients fell within recommended targets for LDL cholesterol, demonstrating that the current guidelines may not be low enough to cut heart attack risk in most who could benefit," Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, Eliot Corday Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Science at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the study's principal investigator, said in a press release.

Bottom line: Don't rest easy just because your LDL is OK. You can still have what doctors euphemistically call "a cardiovascular event."

How the study was done: Sponsored by the American Heart Association, researchers pored over a database of patients at 541 hosiptials nationside and looked at the cases of 126,905 patients from 2000 to 2006. It accoutned for 59 percent of hospital admissions for heart disease.  

Linda Rapposelli, the Ironwoman triathlete who will be featured in The Bee's health and fitness section Sunday in a "Workout By" feature, speaks of doing yoga after a hard workout.

Here's a video for runners and triathletes wanting to add yoga to the mix. Remember: Only do this after your run.

Most of the running events in the Sacramento area have been around for a while. So, it's interesting when a new race (or, rather, "run" -- there is a difference) comes on the scene.

It's the Jan. 24 Arden Arcade Community Run, a 7-mile loop that begins at William B. Pond Recreation Area, travels to Watt and back. (There also is a 2-mile loop.) It's a free, low-key event, but you can spring for a T-shirt for $10.

Who knows? This may be the start of a tradition. After all, the Run to Feed the Hungry was a small race about 15 years ago. Look at it now.

 

Oh, and the difference between a race and a run?

Well, you can have more fun, less cut-throat competition...unless you're one of those Type-A runners, which includes most of us.  

 

 

Welcome, readers, to The Bee's health and fitness blog.

(Sorry for the graphic image to beign the blog but, hey, let's face facts: We Americans are F-A-T.)

Let's start out with the latest depressing news about American obesity, released just in time to make you feel miserable about already failing on your New Year's resolution to lose weight.

The National Center for Health Statistics issued a report that 34 percent of Americans are obese, elbowing out the merely overweight (32.7 percent). Six percent are "extremely" obese. These alarming stats are based on a 2006 survey of 4,356 adults over age 20.

Researchers measured using the simple body mass index (BMI) -- weight divided by height. If your BMI ranged from 25 to 29, you were listed as "overweight," 30 to 40 "obese" and over 40 "morbidly obese."

BMI is controversial because it doesn't take into account body-fat percentage. For instance, a professional athlete might be listed as obese because he weighs 250 pounds and is 5-11 but has very little body fat. Take your BMI test here.