Archive for the 'Athletics and Fitness' Category

Who are hares to condemn tortoises? Responding to the Times critique of slow marathoners

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on October 23, 2009
in Athletics and Fitness and Sports
. 8 Comments

The New York Times revisited the issue of the “slow marathoner” today. Called by many the “Oprah effect” after the talk-show host walked/jogged through the Portland Marathon more than a decade ago, there’s no question that thousands of slower and less athletically able types have come to the marathoning world in recent years, often spending three times as long out on the course as the winners. Some are disgruntled by these torpid but determined newcomers, and the Times article tends to take the side of the woman quoted here:

“It’s a joke to run a marathon by walking every other mile or by finishing in six, seven, eight hours,” said Adrienne Wald, 54, the women’s cross-country coach at the College of New Rochelle, who ran her first marathon in 1984. “It used to be that running a marathon was worth something — there used to be a pride saying that you ran a marathon, but not anymore. Now it’s, ‘How low is the bar?’ ”

In September 2006, I posted my defense of slower runners. I’ve run a dozen marathons — and several longer ultra races — and have a lifetime marathon PR of a 3:13 (a 7:24 pace), but not even a frisson of contempt for those who need twice that time to finish. From my 2006 piece:

I’ve spent years and years around very competitive and talented athletes. I’ve worked with cross-country coaches and ultra-marathoners; I have friends who have qualified for the Olympic trials in distance events. To a man and to a woman, I’ve never heard them sneer at the slower recreational athletes who only long to finish. Real runners don’t judge and condemn others. Our reasons for running are myriad, and running to set a personal best time is never the only, or even the best, reason to run. If some folks want to trot and sweat for six hours so that they can say “I ran a marathon because I’ve always wanted to”, how does it diminish my accomplishment in running the same race significantly faster?

Running has brought me tremendous joy and fulfillment. It is a source of incredible pleasure in my life. I judge myself not by my weight, or whether my six-pack is defined, or by my latest time, but by the amount of delight I take in my workouts. I try and bring that peace and happiness home from the roads and the trails, and I try to make it manifest in my relationships with others. Running is like that for many people, whether or not they ever run a marathon, or whether or not they ever break four, five, or even seven hours.

Adrienne Wald, who takes more than four hours herself, ought to know that.

Perception, Intention, Pornography, and Competition

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on October 28, 2008
in Athletics and Fitness, BDSM and Porn
. 25 Comments

A few years ago, I wrote a post about healthy competitiveness, fantasy, and violence. I’m revisiting that post this morning in light of some of the recent posts I’ve had up about both relationships and pornography.

In July 2005, I wrote about running with my friend Mark:

When I race my friend Mark down the front stretch of the track at Arcadia High School, I’m not thinking “I’m going to kick his ass!” I’m thinking “Damnit, I’m going to keep up with you if it kills me!” Of course I love beating him (which happens one time in five, mind you), but after every hard interval together, we touch fists and say “Good job, brother.” I don’t want to dominate or humiliate him; our competition is a friendly rivalry. Deep friendship — even love — can comfortably co-exist with a real desire to defeat the very person one loves in a game or athletic competition.

The point I only made obliquely then, and would like to make more explicitly now, is about the way in which this anecdote displays that “love-of-self” and “love-of-other” can be fundamentally compatible. When I race Mark, I want to defeat him. I want to win, which will require him “not winning”. He and I have crossed the line together a time or two, and that feels great, but like most sports fans, I don’t consider a tie to be the grandest of accomplishments. What I want, when I race Mark, is to surpass him. He wants to do the same to me, of course. (It took me years to get comfortable with competition, and I still only fel safe being “ruthlessly competitive” with the folks whom I love and trust.)

Is it a failure of empathy on my part that leads me to want to beat Mark? If he is going to be disappointed even in the slightest by his failure to win, shouldn’t my regard for his feelings trump my own desire for victory? Of course not. After all, each of us has beaten the other many times in our workouts (he has the better record); each of us knows the disappointment of the loss is slight. But if one of us were to “throw” an interval to the other out of charity, the one who was the recipient of the gift would be angered and betrayed. To concede a race is not generosity, it is condescenscion at its most appalling. It says to the other “I think you’re too fragile to handle defeat.” It fails to honor the maturity and the dignity of the other. “Friendly competition” is that where each of us each believes three things about our rival:

1. He is playing by the same rules
2. He is capable of distinguishing between competition on the track and animoosity off of it
3. He is sufficiently emotionally resilient to handle defeat.

Unless I know these three things about the person I’m racing, I don’t feel I can give my maximum effort.

What on earth does this have to do with pornography? In my review yesterday of the Price of Pleasure, I noted that the anti-pornography documentary makes a compelling case that contemporary erotica is more and more likely to be focused on violence and degradation. (Even when I did regularly watch pornography, I found the harder, BDSM-oriented stuff to be distasteful. Without offering too much information about my own inner world, for all of the darkness I’ve put myself through, I’m clear that power imbalances are not particularly erotic for me. Power exchanges in the bedroom haven’t, in my experience, been either particularly healing or particularly interesting. Light-hearted reciprocity tends to be what makes my socks roll up and down. Your mileage may vary.) Continue reading ‘Perception, Intention, Pornography, and Competition’

Kinder, gentler, softer, slower: on the shock of running a 2:04 half

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on June 08, 2008
in Age and Athletics and Fitness
. 2 Comments

Thoughtful posts will appear this week, I hope.

For now, it’s a quiet Sunday night, and I’ve got the chinchillas out in their “nursery.” I ran a half marathon this morning, the Valley Crest trail race out in the Santa Monica Mountains. It’s a tough dirt course, very hilly, but I’m still disappointed in my time. Though I pushed myself up each and every hill as best I could, I managed only a 2:04 — thirty-five minutes slower than what I was running less than a decade ago. I finished in the middle of the pack, and though I felt fine at the end, I was incredibly frustrated at my inability to generate more “leg turnover” — or speed.

Yes, it’s harder to be fast in one’s forties than in one’s thirties. But I’m also running so much less than I was in the late ’90s, when I was single, newly sober, and trading one set of addictions for another. I haven’t stepped onto a track to do speed workouts of any kind in more than five years, but it wasn’t so long ago that I was pounding out 10×800 repeats on a local track before dawn. I was never as fast as I wanted to be, but could usually manage to finish in the top 10% of the men in most of the races I entered.

And yet, as slow as I am these days, I wouldn’t go back to that old way of living. For me, that kind of training was monumentally self-centered. Yes, I was very fit. Yes, I was sober (and at my fastest, celibate), and it was clearly important that I go through a process of replacing one set of addictions (sex, alcohol, etc.) with another (running). I still run, but four days a week instead of six and 25-30 miles a week instead of 60-70. And I finish well back in the pack in the races I run these days instead of contending for, if not an overall win, at least an age-group placement.

I’m reminded again that my wife, my animals, my students, my friends, my colleagues, my mentees, and my large and wonderful extended family don’t need me to be fast. They certainly don’t need me to go back to 4% body fat, and they don’t need me to excuse myself from function after function because I’ve got training or recovery to do. I still make time for running, because running keeps me sane and happy; the addiction to endorphins continues. But I’ve learned that athletic pursuits must take a back seat to other obligations. I have no intention of ever ceasing to exercise regularly, but I also have no intention of having my wife or my future children become “running widows.”

I wrote a long post with a long title about endurance sports and communal obligations here: Tennyson and Sharon Olds, Ulysses and Telemachus: a very long post about endurance athletes, independence, and the single body alone in the universe against its own best time. I note that my inner Telemachus is winning out over my Ulysses these days. And I am kinder, I am gentler — and, I note with rueful acceptance, softer and slower.

Knees, feminism, and young warriors: the relief of Michael Sokolove’s new book

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on June 03, 2008
in Athletics and Fitness, Books, Sports and Youth
. 2 Comments

Back on May 8, I wrote about The Uneven Playing Field, a long article by Michael Sokolove that appeared in the New York Times magazine. The piece was excerpted from his then-forthcoming book, Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women’s Sports. The book has been published; my copy came last week and I finished it this morning, just moments ago.

I was anxious to read the book, particularly because I was more than a bit troubled by the title. Historically, when a man talks about the need to “protect our daughters”, you know trouble’s coming. “We’ve got to protect our daughters from the lesbian menace, boys!” “We’ve got to protect our daughters from abortion-promoting, Wicca practicing, bra-less, unshaven, radical feminists!” Though I know some paternalistic language creeps into my own writing, I do make a conscious effort to avoid obvious tropes like the need to “protect daughters”, recognizing that very phrase has been associated with everything from homophobia to the lynching of young black men. One wishes Sokolove had chosen a different subtitle for what ends up being a terrific, pro-feminist book. (I suspect, but have no evidence, that it was his publishing house who came up with the “protecting our daughters” line as a marketing ploy. Nothing sells like anxiety, after all.)

I love women’s sports. I’m married to a former high school soccer star who, like many of the women profiled in Sokolove’s book, suffered a career-ending knee injury. In my wife’s case, that knee injury cost her what had been the promise of a division-one scholarship. I’m particularly passionate about soccer — for its purity, its deceptive simplicity, its abhorrence of timeouts, and its endless capacity to surprise. Sokolove’s book is mainly about soccer, the sport that more American girls play than any other, and about the epidemic of knee injuries that has brought so much pain and devastation.

In my May 8 post and the Times excerpt, you can read about some of the research that explores both why young women suffer more frequent catastrophic knee injuries than men, as well as about the many proposed solutions to the problem. I’m happy to say, after reading the book cover-to-cover, that Sokolove repudiates the idea that girls are less interested in or less able to play sports than boys. The troglodytes seeking to repeal Title IX will find no comfort within the pages of “Warrior Girls.” Sokolove, whose previous books have all been about male athletes, including a much-admired sociological study of baseball and young black men, writes as someone passionately committed to athletic competition — but even more passionately committed to the well-being of the athletes themselves. Continue reading ‘Knees, feminism, and young warriors: the relief of Michael Sokolove’s new book’

On “Warrior Girls”, knee injuries, and the tangible costs of adolescent perfectionism: some thoughts on Michael Sokolove’s article

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on May 08, 2008
in Athletics and Fitness, Body, Favorite Posts 2008, Mentoring, Sports, The Martha Complex: perfectionism in adolescent girls and Youth
. 13 Comments

The New York Times has a preview up today of a long article coming out on Sunday in their magazine: The Uneven Playing Field. It’s by Michael Sokolove, and based on his forthcoming book Warrior Girls: Protecting our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women’s Sports. (I’ve pre-ordered the book, and will review it this summer when it comes out.)

In this lengthy adaptation on the Times website, Sokolove writes about what he sees as the extraordinary number of knee (ACL) injuries that are being sustained by female athletes, soccer players in particular. His thesis:

(the epidemic is) part of a national trend in the wake of Title IX and the explosion of sports participation among girls and young women. From travel teams up through some of the signature programs in women’s college sports, women are suffering injuries that take them off the field for weeks or seasons at a time, or sometimes forever.

Girls and boys diverge in their physical abilities as they enter puberty and move through adolescence. Higher levels of testosterone allow boys to add muscle and, even without much effort on their part, get stronger. In turn, they become less flexible. Girls, as their estrogen levels increase, tend to add fat rather than muscle. They must train rigorously to get significantly stronger. The influence of estrogen makes girls’ ligaments lax, and they outperform boys in tests of overall body flexibility — a performance advantage in many sports, but also an injury risk when not accompanied by sufficient muscle to keep joints in stable, safe positions. Girls tend to run differently than boys — in a less-flexed, more-upright posture — which may put them at greater risk when changing directions and landing from jumps. Because of their wider hips, they are more likely to be knock-kneed — yet another suspected risk factor.

The rate (of ACL injury) for women’s soccer is 0.25 per 1,000, or 1 in 4,000, compared with 0.10 for male soccer players. The rate for women’s basketball is 0.24, more than three times the rate of 0.07 for the men. The A.C.L. injury rate for girls may be higher — perhaps much higher — than it is for college-age women because of a spike that seems to occur as girls hit puberty.

At this point, my heart was sinking. Was this going to be anti-feminist ideology dressed up as professed concern for the health of young women? Was Sokolove trying to scare parents into pulling their daughters out of competitive sports? I even wondered if Sokolove was some sort of shill for the anti-Title IX crowd, trying a new tactic in their never-ending crusade to roll back a policy of equal funding for women’s sports. As a passionate sports fan, married to a former club soccer star, I have a deep and abiding commitment to women’s athletics — particularly the “beautiful game” of what the rest of the world calls football.

Happily, reading the article to the end (it is ten pages long) makes it at least fairly apparent that Sokolove is committed to women’s sports. Rather than imploring parents to pull their daughters off soccer teams, he writes sensibly and knowledgeably about the causes of what is undeniably a common problem: catastrophic ACL injuries among young female soccer players. The chief culprits have nothing to do with inherent feminine weakness. Rather, they are two-fold: poor bio-mechanics and the exhausting “club” system in high school and college that leaves many talented girls playing a demanding sport literally year-round. Continue reading ‘On “Warrior Girls”, knee injuries, and the tangible costs of adolescent perfectionism: some thoughts on Michael Sokolove’s article’

Learning to rest within the run: on mindfulness, the mountains, and taking a tumble on El Prieto

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on May 01, 2008
in Athletics and Fitness
. 2 Comments

For the first time in a year and a half, I had a good hard fall while running this afternoon. (For those who know the area, I ran from the Windsor road parking lot up to the Sunset trail on Mt. Lowe via the El Prieto trail and the Millard campground.) Flying down El Prieto, my mind wandering on to a variety of topics, I caught my right foot on a rock and went sprawling. I had just enough time to twist over to absorb most of the impact on my right shoulder, but my right wrist and knee also hit the ground very hard.

I got the wind knocked out of me, and I lay there, alone, for a stunned moment. The ritual after a fall is always the same: turn off my stopwatch (always the first thing, as we must have a proper time for the run at the end), then start checking for injuries. There’s always that moment of great fear that I have seriously hurt myself, and will be stuck on a trail until someone comes along. And of course, the greatest and most immediate anxiety is that I won’t be able to run again for a while.

Since I started serious trail running ten years ago, I’ve had maybe a dozen minor falls and four or five fairly serious ones. A serious fall is one which causes me to miss at least one day of running as a consequence. I’m not unaware of the far more significant dangers. I was raised on the legend of my grandfather’s beloved first cousin, Walter “Pete” Starr, who famously died from a fall in the Sierras in 1933 after authoring a still-serviceable guide to those mountains. In April 2000, my running buddy Dave Trinkle died in a fall off the Mt. Wilson trail after (typically) ignoring warning signs about a decaying area of trail. These men are often in my mind when I’m running, especially by myself, in remote or dangerous areas. Mind you, I don’t take major risks! But there are dangers in the mountains that I love, and both family lore and my own memories of Dave remind me constantly that I have an obligation to balance that passion for running on dirt with some common sense.

I wasn’t hurt at all today, other than some scrapes and bruises. I did take the lesson of the fall seriously, however. I usually fall going uphill, when I’m less attentive; normally, I’m very careful on descents (which is normally when serious accidents occur.) Today, I fell because my mind was elsewhere. And as I got up gingerly and brushed myself off, I said “Okay, God, I get it. I need to pay attention.” I’m a good pray-er and a lousy meditator. As I ran the final three miles back to the car, I watched my foot placement very carefully. I also recited the one meditation that consistently works for me, from Psalm 46: Be Still and Know I am God. I say the line three times, and then drop the last word, repeat the shortened line three times, and so forth until in the end I’m just reciting, over and over again, “Be.” (I dispense with the “and” and the “know” at the same time.) It works when I’m quiet on the couch, and yes, it works when I’m running.

In one of his most famous poems, former U.S. poet Laureate Richard Wilbur wrote about the legendary Boston marathoner Johnny Kelley. His description of how Kelley worked the course was perfect, a reminder of how it is that I want to run — and indeed must run, if I am to stay safe, sane, healthy, and alive:

Legs driving, fists at port, clenched faces, men,
And in amongst them, stamping on the sun,
Our champion Kelley, who would win again,
Rocked in his will, at rest within his run.

I long for nothing more than to be rocked in my will, and at rest within my run. To remember how to do that well, I apparently need the occasional fall.

Of sweat and scent: in defense of infrequent bathing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 01, 2008
in Athletics and Fitness, Body and Vanity
. 11 Comments

I will be posting on various things in the week to come. I’ve got reviews of a couple of books to put up (including Men Speak Out), and will try and say something intelligent about Planned Parenthood, race, and the complex legacy of Margaret Sanger.

But it’s Saturday, and if I post at all on the weekends, it can’t be about anything too serious. My wife has been in Europe (doing various volunteer things) since last Sunday, and I miss her. She’ll be home in two days time. The stereotype of the generally neat married man who reverts to appalling slobbery when his spouse goes off for a few days is a time-honored one: yes, things are looking a little chaotic around the homestead these days. Newspapers and magazines on the floor; laundry arranged in sensible; adequately folded piles; coffee cups resting on any ledge they can find. And Hugo, unbathed as yet today.

I’ve let go of so many bad habits over the last few years. An earlier incarnation of Hugo on his own would have seen me in a home littered with filled ashtrays. Liquor bottles would have poked their heads out of the trash as well. Bits of clothing and long strands of hair, forgotten and discarded by those whose visit had had but one purpose, would have lingered under chairs for weeks or months. On these scores, all is different now. Continue reading ‘Of sweat and scent: in defense of infrequent bathing’

Fat is not a moral crisis

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on November 19, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Body, Feminism and Food
. 15 Comments

Zuzu has a fine post up this morning: Rejecting the Frames. It’s a follow-up to this piece at Feministing which sparked a heated — and at times — ugly comment thread.

The topic of the two posts (and this third brief, powerful one from Jill) is fat, the so-called “obesity crisis”, and the feminist response. Zuzu:

One of the things that bothers me… (as well as the whole “Diets Don’t Work!” mantra, which also usually puts in an appearance) is that it puts the focus on the individual fat person rather than on the treatment that the fat person is having to deal with. Indeed, this is a good example of the “personal is political” phenomenon as it was originally put forth: our weights may be within our individual control, but the way society treats us because of our weight demands a collective solution. Being turned down for insurance because of your BMI isn’t truly a personal problem, it’s a political one — why should insurance companies get to draw arbitrary lines to deny coverage, and by the way, why is it we still don’t have universal health care, again?

And your doctor’s berating you about your weight may seem like an individual problem, but the fact that fat hatred kills demands a collective solution. But if shame keeps us off-balance and justifying why we weigh what we weigh, or why we should (or shouldn’t) do something about that, then we never really think of the problem as being bigger than ourselves.

The self-justification also sets up a certain group (those who engage in healthy behaviors) as more worthy of being left alone by the Obesity Crisis™ Watchdog than those who don’t. But why should healthy lifestyle be the ticket to being treated as a human being? I shouldn’t have to do a damn thing to claim my right to being treated equally other than exist. Who the fuck has the right to deny me that just because I like to have a piece of cake every now and again, or because sometimes I eat too much or don’t exercise?

Amen, zuzu.

I was at my boxing gym early this morning for my regular Monday meeting with Pepe, my trainer. I know lots of other folks who work out there, and as I was packing my bag, getting ready to leave, a casual acquaintance of mine and I started talking about our Thanksgiving plans. As we said goodbye, she said laughingly, “Don’t eat too much this week. Oh, wait, go ahead — overeat! You’ve earned it!”

I was fairly groggy this morning, and didn’t think about what my friend said until I read Zuzu’s post. The language of “earning” is used a lot in fitness circles; it’s an economic and a moral term. And it’s got some fairly troubling implications. Continue reading ‘Fat is not a moral crisis’

USATF bans headphones; glory be!

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on November 01, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness
. 23 Comments

This is great news: USA Track & Field, the national governing body for running, this year banned the use of headphones and portable audio players like iPods at its official races.

As a veteran of 14 marathons and countless other road and trail races from 5-50K, I’m proud to say I’ve never taken two steps with music. And I’ve been jostled and pushed and run into more times than I can count by oblivious nincompoops who can’t hear my “on your left!” as I try and squeeze past them. Running with headphones in a major race is like yakking on your cell phone on the freeway — both deserve the bans that they are now receiving nationwide.

And I may sign up to do the famous Grandma’s Marathon:

Coming up with a way to enforce a headphone ban — if enforcement is even possible — has been a challenge for race organizers. Some have already taken a hard line, like the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn., in June, which had a field of about 7,000 runners. Race officials collected iPods at the start and then mailed them back to competitors. Still, 30 maverick runners who broke the rules and used headphones were disqualified.

“We proved that it is very possible to enforce,” said Scott Keenan, the Grandma’s Marathon race director. “If other races are allowing it, then shame on them.”

Scott Keenan is my new hero.

Yeah, I’m curmudgeonly on the topic. But I feel very strongly that part of running is listening to one’s body, listening to one’s breath, listening to the sounds of the city or of nature around you. Wearing headphones to do a marathon is like wearing headphones to a wedding. Now, that’s just one fella’s opinion, and others may differ. But that doesn’t mean that wearing headphones doesn’t affect those around you, and it does place you and other runners in danger.

And the danger is real. See my post here.

My hero…

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 26, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness and Sports
. 0 Comments

… this morning is Haile (Heila) Satayin of Israel. At age 52, he finished 19th in the marathon at the World Track and Field Championships this weekend, in a blistering 2:22 — run in high humidity. Satayin, a Jewish native of Ethiopia who made his aliyah in 1991, has qualified for the Beijing Olympics, where he’ll be by far the oldest marathoner in the field and almost certainly the oldest Olympian. Mazel Tov, Haile!

The older I get, the fewer still-competitive athletic heroes I have. And though I can admire men and women younger than myself, I’ll admit I can only truly look up to those who have a few years on me. And no, this doesn’t mean I am an exuberant Barry Bonds fan.

A note on my first vegan marathon

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 03, 2007
in Animal Rights, Athletics and Fitness, Food and Veganism
. 9 Comments

The San Francisco Marathon I ran this past Sunday was the first marathon I had trained for as a strict vegan. I’ve been flirting with veganism for years, but it was only at the beginning of 2007 that my wife and I made the decision to remove all animal products (including dairy, eggs, honey) from our diet.

When I started “ramping up” my training in May in preparation for the marathon, I was curious to see how my body would respond to 50-60 miles a week of running while eating vegan. I was encouraged, of course, by the example of a variety of other vegan athletes — especially Brendan Brazier, the Canadian 50K champion. I began to use his product, Vega, and I was able to have a long chat with him as we jogged the Mall in Washington in April.

But Brendan, as amazing an athlete and animal rights activist as he is, is more than a couple of years younger than I am. He’s also a professional, and I’m little more than a middle-aged weekend warrior. I hit 40 just as I began this now-concluded training season, and worried that my ageing muscles wouldn’t get replenished on plant-based nutrition alone. Of course, there was no way to find out if an average guy like me could train and run on a vegan diet without trying… so try I did.

After this past Sunday, with another slow-but-steady 3:52 in the bag, I can now say definitively that eating and training vegan is possible. (I wish I could say that eliminating all animal products from my diet made me magically as fast as I was in the late ’90s!) Because I was eating lighter, I was able to sleep less and feel rested — as my body didn’t have to work so hard to digest animal fats. That meant I could get up at 4:30AM, do a middle-distance run, and then give seven hours worth of lecture without feeling utterly exhausted. In that sense, eating vegan did enhance my performance.

I drank my Vega and my hemp protein supplements, but didn’t live on bars and processed “vegan junk” food. I ate a lot of nuts, a lot of dried fruit, a lot of whole wheat pasta. I began to eat vegetables I had once scorned, developing a genuine passion for kale. (I still don’t love broccoli.) I dropped some body fat, but kept my weight at a healthy level. No one told me that I looked gaunt, and I didn’t feel as if I were in a constant state of self-denial. My cravings for meat grew fewer (though every once in a while, I would still feel a pang of longing as I drove by my favorite taco stand). Those cravings are almost gone now.

And here’s the kicker: our household food budget went down. Yes, we bought a lot of organic veggies at Whole Foods (and when we could, at the local farmer’s market). But I also ate out less — instead of buying lunch, I packed it. A packed lunch made up of plant-based food bought at Whole Foods was still cheaper than a processed meal purchased on campus. When people tell me “I can’t afford to be vegan”, I note that my savings off being vegan this spring and summer were enough to (almost) pay for a very nice hotel room in San Francisco this past weekend.

Yes, I’m proselytizing. For reasons of human health and animal rights, I’m a passionate believer in veganism. It ties in to my feminism and my Christianity; long before I embraced a cruelty-free diet, my faith and my belief in women’s rights had convinced me that I am called to do justice and mercy in every action I take. Training for my fourteenth marathon as a first-time vegan was an opportunity to match my language and my life. And saving money in the process was a terrific bonus.

Cheryl Cannon smoked me yesterday: a note on marathoning and sexist marketing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 30, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Feminism and Sports
. 9 Comments

On Saturday afternoon, my wife went on a shopping excursion along Maiden Lane and Post Street while I relaxed in the hotel room, resting and snacking and preparing for Sunday morning’s run. A front-page article in the Chronicle naturally caught my eye: For a relaxing girls’ getaway, try a marathon. Written by long-time Bay Area sportswriter C.W. Nevius, it’s a frustrating but still interesting exploration of the boom in women’s running in the past decade. Excerpt:

“It’s a tidal wave,” says Amby Burfoot, executive editor of Runner’s World magazine and former winner of the Boston Marathon. “Thirty years ago, less than 5 percent of marathon participants were women. Now it is 40 percent.”

And higher. Race officials say the San Francisco Marathon is split almost exactly in half — 50 percent women, 50 percent men.

A group of five women from Fort Collins, Colo., represent the demographic perfectly. Tiffany Green, Connie Le, Kris Baugh, Erin Thomas and Stephanie Rogers are all in their 30s, married with children, and here on a running vacation.

“It’s girl time,” says Green. “We’re using this race as a reason to get away.”

This is not news, and it’s something I blogged about after I ran a marathon in June 2005. Nevius explains one reason for the change:

The new marathoners make it on a much lighter workload. Cheryl Cannon, down from Sacramento to run the marathon, says she rarely logs more than 40 miles in a week. Cannon, 42, started running only five years ago, but this will be her sixth marathon. Like many women, she runs with a regular group, which meets three times a week to jog 6 miles.

“We go out there and chat,” she says, “and the trees don’t repeat the gossip. We’re all in our 40s, have kids, and in much better shape than our husbands.”

That’s a good point. While big running events are booming, participation by men has actually gone down. What’s the reason for that?

“First,” says Burfoot, “it’s not a strength or skill sport. And second, success is measured in discipline, determination and consistency. Those are traits that women are all good at.”

Okay, so I looked up Cheryl Cannon’s results online — and two years my senior, she smoked me by fourteen minutes, running a 3:38 and finishing 11th overall among women in her age group. Nevius’ article suggests she runs only for fun and companionship. But her outstanding time, which puts her in the top 5% of her age group, is the result of hard work as well. Reading the whole article, one might have expected ol’ Cheryl to barely squeeze in under the six-hour cutoff. Continue reading ‘Cheryl Cannon smoked me yesterday: a note on marathoning and sexist marketing’

Home, and an initial marathon report

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 30, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Sports and Traveling
. 1 Comment

We’re home from a happy weekend in the Bay Area.

I ran the San Francisco Marathon yesterday morning, finishing in a pedestrian 3:52:44. I’d had a good season of training, but despite the pleas of my good running buddies, I hadn’t done a lick of “speed work” all spring or early summer. And yesterday’s run result reflected both the good and the bad of the last few months of work: I ran at a remarkably steady pace, hitting nearly perfectly even splits for the entire race. I ran the first half in 1:56:16, the second 13.1 miles in 1:56:28. In my thirteen previous marathons, I’d always run my second half at least two minutes slower than my first, so it was nice to show some consistency. (And I can account for those twelve second-half seconds: Hugo had to duck into a bush in Golden Gate park just past the half-way point. I know, far too much information…)

My last three road marathons have all seen me finish in the 3:50s, though I was faster yesterday than I was in my previous two (3:54 and 3:57). And I felt very strong at the finish, crossing the line with a sense that if I had had to do a few more miles, it would have been okay. The walk back to the hotel — a good mile and a half — was relatively easy, which was a relief. So, bottom line: I had a great time, particularly while running across the Golden Gate Bridge, and finished in a time that was consistent with my “heavy on long, slow distance; short on speed work” training regimen. My now eight-year old personal best of 3:13 is safe, assuredly forever.

I can highly recommend Millenium, the superb vegan restaurant we went to on Saturday night. A fine place to fuel up for a marathon; my wife and I shared a delicious tasting menu of plant-based foods that were all locally and organically produced. Millenium is worth a trip to the City.

Perhaps some more marathon reflections later.

Friendship, weight, and the collective rejection of an unattainable ideal

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 26, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Body, Eating disorders and Food
. 9 Comments

I know everyone else in the ’sphere is writing about the major new study on obesity and friendship, but I can’t seem to resist weighing in (ouch) as well.

The opening sentence in the Times report yesterday left me wincing:

Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When a person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too.

My first reaction is fury. Fabulous, another excuse for the shunning and shaming of fat folk. I can almost hear it: “Bob, you know I love you. But the New York Times says that obesity is contagious, and I’ve noticed you’ve gained a lot of weight lately, so I’d rather not spend as much time with you because I’m afraid you’ll infect me.” The phrase “much like a virus” is infelicitous at best and genuinely misleading at worst, and to have it in the opening sentence is deeply unfortunate.

The study’s point, of course, is that other people’s behavior and appearance can impact our feelings about ourselves.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the new study, says one explanation is that friends affect each others’ perception of fatness. When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad.

“You change your idea of what is an acceptable body type by looking at the people around you,” Dr. Christakis said.

I’m not entirely sure that this is a bad thing. After all, we’re all well aware that the media (in its nearly infinite manifestations) has a huge impact on women’s self-image; the endless message that one must be thin and toned has done demonstrable damage. The struggle to emulate movie stars and supermodels, the struggle to achieve an unattainable ideal, breaks hearts and spirits and bodies year after year after year. For most women, that struggle is played out in two dimensions — in private acts of self-denial and in public, shared acts of self-loathing. Poor body image is reinforced by peers (or parents) who make self-deprecating remarks about their own bodies, and it’s reinforced by the common and unhappy practice of “bonding” over mutual self-hatred.

When a good friend or family member begins to gain weight, it’s as if he or she has “opted out” of the destructive pursuit of an eternally elusive ideal. This opting out provides an alternative model for friends and family. Seeing a good friend gain weight can be liberating, as it raises the prospect that if you yourself put on some pounds, you won’t be alone to face the judgment of a hostile and censorious culture. Most of us who teach and practice feminism, after all, are eager to create “feminist communities” in which women and men consciously reject the culturally prescribed ideals for our appearance and our behavior. We know that it’s hard to opt out alone, and much easier to do so when you have visible allies. This study reinforces the importance of those visible allies.

While extreme obesity may be unhealthy, it may well be that the negative effects of modest weight-gain are exaggerated. Certainly, the social and psychological costs to dieting are immense. The damage that pursuing the thinness ideal does to men and women (especially women) is colossal. In many ways, the physical and spiritual damage brought on by a lifetime of dieting and self-loathing may be far worse than the threat posed by twenty, thirty, or even fifty “extra pounds”.

I’m a recreational athlete who is married to a recreational athlete; we spend a lot of our social time with other recreational athletes. We belong to a subculture in which exercise and competition is normative, and where discussions of the latest “brick workout” or the benefits of heart-rate monitoring are common at picnics and luncheons and around the dinner table. We reinforce not self-loathing, but a sense that a physically active life is an important one. This doesn’t make us in the least bit more virtuous; we’re simply competitive people who love exercising outdoors. The point is, we’ve created a small subculture in which our lifestyle choices are supported and reinforced. There’s nothing wrong with that, just as there’s nothing wrong with a group of people who don’t enjoy exercise and hate dieting mutually supporting each other as they collectively reject a societal ideal of thinness.

So there’s much about this study that is, frankly, potentially encouraging. But my fear is that the way in which it is being reported, and the way it is being discussed, will morph into still another tool with which to shame and shun those whose bodies don’t meet our societal standards.

A no-doubt dull report on this morning’s run, and a note on why I hate fishing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 24, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness and Environmentalism
. 6 Comments

If there’s one paved run I enjoy more than any other, it’s the run up to Cogswell Dam along the West Fork of the San Gabriel River.

This morning, the alarm went off at 4:40AM, and I was at the trailhead out on state route 39 above Azusa by 5:55. After putting on the sunscreen and the body glide and triple checking my gear, I headed up the road.

It’s about eight miles of paved road up to Cogswell, so a round trip is sixteen miles. I needed more miles today, so I ran about two miles up, turned around, came back to the car, and started over again.

Though it was very early on a Sunday morning, there were already a number of folks with fishing poles — some of whom had clearly camped over night — along the West Fork. The river is stocked with Rainbow trout, Speckled Dace, and something called the “Arroyo Chub.” I like the name, and when I’m in a self-deprecating mood, I apply the monicker to myself. (When you run with folks who are truly rail-thin most of the time, even a few extra pounds leaves one inclined to pick such a label.)

Even before I became vegan, I had no interest in fishing. I can’t imagine an outdoor activity I would like less, frankly. My second wife loved the outdoors, and was an avid fan of camping and fly-fishing. We honeymooned at a remote lodge on the Mackenzie River in Oregon, about thirty miles east of Eugene. We fly-fished every day. I found the waiting around tedious beyond words, and the actual catching of the fish (something I never succeeded in doing, but something she was really good at) to be ghastly. I wanted to be running, or at the least hiking through the woods, keeping my heart rate happy in the triple digits. My ex-wife wanted to stand in the water in waders like something out of “The River Runs Through It” (which, incidentally, was her favorite film). I ought to have known that marriage was doomed.

So today I made my way past the fisherfolk, and eventually hit Cogswell dam itself. Cogswell is a glorious example of 1930s WPA engineering. The last time I was at Cogswell was nearly two years ago, after our record rainfall of the previous year. I was heartsick to see how low the water level was today behind the dam, lower than I’d ever seen it before. It’s only June, and it’s six more months until we can begin to hope for some good rain. I’m so anxious about fires, and anxious about the impact of this drought on the ecosystem. (Of course, my first thought is for the small mammals who are my special loves, but I know the whole danged food chain is suffering right now.)

I was feeling good, so I decided to go over my scheduled miles, and I ran the trail behind the dam for a bit; the fire road continues for about a mile and a half past Cogswell until it comes to an abrupt end. It was only at that dead end that I turned around and headed back. My goal was to cover the distance home at “marathon pace”. I covered the nine miles back in an hour and fifteen minutes, which is right about the 8:20 per mile pace I want to try and run in San Francisco next month. It’s a far cry from what I used to be able to do, but it’s a reasonable goal to have for where I am these days.

Counting the four miles I did as a warmup, that gave me twenty-two miles of running for the day. I was done by 9:25AM, exhilarated and happy beyond words. I drove back down the 39 into Azusa, where I stopped to have Inge the Solara washed by the Azusa High girl’s volleyball team. They did an enthusiastic if spotty job, and while they were hosing and washing and rubbing the car, I ducked into a store and bought myself 24 ounces of coffee. Endorphins last longer, folks, if you add caffeine on top.

So now it’s off to the gym, and then home to some quiet time with the paper. Our son Dudley might get some extra afternoon out time today.

Serious blogging will return this coming week.