Dr. Andy

Reflections on medicine and biology among other things

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

"Any idiot can run a marathon

but it takes a special kind of idiot to run an ultra."

How true. Here is a story of an idiot "running" a marathon. I put running in quotations because I'm not sure a time of 6 hours and 39 minutes qualifies as running, given that it is slower than 15 minutes per mile on a relatively easy course. Not to be elitist, but if it took me >6 1/2 hours to finish a marathon I wouldn't be bragging to the world about it.

And big surprise she had to make emergency bathroom stops after this tidbit:
my friend Laura (who is in my workout group) and I walked down to Denny's for a pre-race breakfast. It's important to stick to a familiar routine before a long run. I usually have a poached egg, whole wheat toast and coffee. I tried to get a similar meal before the race, but a helping of greasy hash browns and some bacon were too good to pass up.
As a general rule if something would give you diarrhea at baseline, running a marathon is not going to improve matters.

On the other hand, this tells about some really special idiots and presents a pretty fair portrait of an ultra, instead of the doom and gloom near death exaggeration most accounts of ultras in the mainstream press contain.

My friend Smokin' Joe paced the last 40 miles or so and got to experience a beautiful sunrise from the top of a mountian.

1 Comments:

At 4:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My Dr. Andy, aren't we being elitist today! To expect that one should actually show up PREPARED to competently complete an event...
tisk, tisk...

By the way, there is no way this author walked "briskly" as a typical walking marathon time is around 6 hours...:-)

 

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