Ultramarathon Daily News | Mon, Sep 23

Ultrarunning Mag: Get to know Rod Farvard.

IRF/TWIR: As Justin mentioned, results from all corners of the world. Max King podiums in Scotland, a runner passes away in South Africa, Ash Watson is a bad ass, and I’ll be keeping an eye on Katie Kaars-Sijpesteijn while simultaneously hoping I’m never asked to announce a race she’s in.

Trailrunner Mag: How Tim Tollefson reframes failure. Great lessons from a guy who focuses on one major event each year.

AP: Seriously, RUSADA, f*ck right off.

TrailSisters: An open letter to myself. Great advice.

There were sections of this course the reduced me to a quibbling, pathetic little boy forced to ride his bike without training wheels. When I realized the Monster doesn’t negotiate with spoiled whiners, I had to make a decision: put up or shut up.

—Report from the Mogollan Monster 100.

FastWomen: Can Coburn and Frerichs repeat their steeple performance at World Champs? I’d love to lean more about Katy Jermann, and more results from women’s athletics around the world.

LetsRun: What would happen if there were a $5M prize purse for a hundred miler. (Real answer: The LR message boards would melt.)

CTS: The important of emotional energy and how to boost it for increased performance.

Marathon Investigtion: A cheater admits to her wrong doing and offers some insight into her mindset. Interesting stuff.

I didn’t get a chance to release the Michael Carson interview on Friday…I was busy in the bathroom with butterflies for our first xc meet of the season. The kids did great and were all smiles when asking about the next race.

Mountain Outhouse: 100 miler results, upcoming races, and a rant about Ironman’s new partnership with Aleve.

And my own little rant…I understand the concern about partnering with a pain killer that’s had deleterious effects for some people. I do. Many of us recall Erik Skaggs’ run at Waldo back in ’09 when “Vitamin I” was overused and landed Erik in the hospital for a week. That opened my eyes to the dangers of overusing NSAIDs for sure.

But here’s where it gets tricky, and even mentioning it has the potential to label me something I abhor (an ex-drinker) but it’s important: How can we shun pain killers and their sponsorship decisions while simultaneously cheering for and promoting beer and alcohol sponsorships? If we’re looking at overall society while also recognizing the vast number of recovering addicts in ultra running, we need to consider and accept that one drug is far and away more harmful than the other and stop the double standard. My point is not to change any sponsorships, but rather to be consistent with what we support and recognize the inconsistency.

And somewhat tangentially, the same goes for the current push to stop everyone from talking about weight, food, and diet issues because some people have suffered or are suffering from disordered eating. Certainly alcohol-related health issues, deaths, violence, and societal concerns have far outweighed those from eating disorders, but no one is asking for everyone to stop talking about alcohol (including your humble author), so why the double standard? Let’s talk about this.

9 Responses to "Ultramarathon Daily News | Mon, Sep 23"

Koop says:

September 23, 2019 at 7:31 am

Here’s the difference between an NSAID sponsorship and an an alcohol sponsorship.

From the IM press release when Omission Brewery was a sponsor- ‘Our beer is brewed with traditional beer ingredients, specially crafted to remove gluten, giving athletes the ability to celebrate their incredible achievements with a great-tasting beer that fits their healthy and active lifestyles. ‘

From the IM press release with Aleve- “Whether during training or after the big event, these athletes need safe and effective solutions that allow them to address the muscle aches and pain that could hold them back from being their best. ”

In one case, the race has a proper use of the sponsored item. “You are finished, go celebrate with a beer’

In the other case, the race is advocating use of a sponsored item that known to be dangerous in the context that they are promoting (training and racing).

If in the beer case, IM said ‘Go get smashed and drive a car’ that would be irresponsible. No one would question the irresponsibility. It is clear that drinking and driving is a dangerous. It can lead to injury or death.

With an NSAID saying ‘take this for minor pains during training/race or after a big event’ is just as irresponsible. It is just as clear that taking NSAIDs during or after a hard run/race/event is dangerous. It can lead to acute kidney injury, kidney failure or death.

Reply
1. eric schranz says:
  
  September 23, 2019 at 8:38 am
  
  We definitely do not agree on the harm caused by each drug and I don’t agree that the medical community views them the same.
  (And I’m not using “drug” as a pejorative…just a word to identify two substances.)
  
  Reply
Colin C says:

September 23, 2019 at 8:08 am

Great job poking the bear with alcohol! My extended family has a long history of addiction (both alcohol and “other”), so I’m always vaguely aware when drinking. I know that lots of us have a (not-so) secret love of being the “weird-runner-who-goes-waaaay-too-long” and maybe some of that anti-establishment streak also goes against the “alcohol is ALWAYS evil” mentality that parts of our culture has. Trouble is, alcohol actually has hurt many of us, our family, and our friends. Are we still stuck in our high school/college mindset when alcohol made us (just me?) feel like a badass? I definitely think there’s a difference in enjoying the taste vs. needing the buzz, but I wonder if the European MUT scene has the same weird relationship to beer/alcohol sponsorships…

Reply
Koop says:

September 23, 2019 at 9:13 am

Seriously? You think that the potential harm for a beer at the finish line of an Ironman (or during the race for that matter) is the same as popping an NSAID?

If so, that viewpoint is factually incorrect. You can find LOADS of research on both.

I get your personal prerogative. I have immediately family, friends and even athletes that are alcoholics and drug addicts. I am also not a fan of many alcohol/beer sponsors in sport. But, to equate the two on danger to the athlete level is head scratching.

Also, by perpetuating the notion that X is just as harmful as Y, it trivializes the risk in the public’s eye. That perpetuates the problem.

Reply
1. eric schranz says:
  
  September 23, 2019 at 9:43 am
  
  No, no, I wasn’t clear. My apologies.
  I’m referring to the abuse of each. Using either as intended isn’t dangerous, it’s when athletes take NSAIDs too far or society promotes alcohol and causes problems.
  
  Reply
Pete says:

September 23, 2019 at 1:12 pm

Totally agree with Koop’s analysis on the use of NDAIDs during endurance events. & don’t forget the linkage between NSAID use and exercise associated hyponatremia. Here is a link that is very a propos to the Ironman:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16679974

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Paul says:

September 23, 2019 at 6:13 pm

Bayer isn’t sponsoring the Hawaii Ironman so that it can increase Aleve sales in Ironman Triathletes anymore than they would advertise during the Super Bowl to increase sales in NFL players. The target audience here is the general public not ultra-endurance athletes.

Same thing with the beer. Beer advertising on sporting events has been around for decades. I don’t see any difference between beer sponsorship of a race compared to other sporting events. If someone is opposed to beer sponsorship of a race, they should be opposed to beer sponsorship of MLB, NFL, etc.

Finally, I consider myself at least somewhat tuned to issues in the running community. I’ve never heard a call to stop talking about weight, food, and diet. I talk about it all the time with my running friends and have never been censured. Runners World regularly has articles on weight loss and diet. I suspect this is a case of giving way too much weight (pun intended) to a couple loud voices, that are largely unheard outside of certain social media circles.

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Matt says:

September 24, 2019 at 6:39 am

Except that the general public generally doesn’t follow Ironman races either on television (in the small market they exist) or in print. They wouldn’t be putting their money into it if they didn’t think the core group–athletes–could in some way become better consumers.

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David VS says:

September 24, 2019 at 1:16 pm

I’m curious if anyone has seen research on beer as a nutrition/hydration source during races? Occasionally, there are articles on beer in recovery (seems mixed conclusions, like much of nutrition research). But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything looking at in-race of beer as a fuel. I completed my first Hundred Miler at Pine to Palm recently and consumed 3 Coronas between mile 43 and mile 67 when my stomach didn’t want to take in much else. A Corona at mile 50 actually kick-started my appetite back into gear as there was a quick 2 mile out and back to the same aid station where I was then able to consume some more substantial calories via soup and quesadillas after the Corona calories got in my system. I imagine there is a dulling of top-level performance if I was aiming for a podium finish, but I’m a mid-packer and the priority for me becomes fueling by any means possible. And heading into the night, I definitely began to feel the caloric benefit at 67 was outweighed by the sleepiness detriment, so there’s a timing and dosage marginal returns curve to fueling-by-beer. But the beers at 43 and 50 were absolutely a boost.

I agree with most of the other key points that have been made here. On NSAIDS, I’m generally averse to taking pills and try to avoid. But I’d be grateful for any of your favorite links on research to their use in recovery or in situations like stage runs/races. In August, I did the Kilimanjaro Stage Run (8 days, 160 miles, 30k vert gain) and to make sure a runner’s knee thing or some ankle sprains and bruised hip didn’t slow me down, I took 400mg daily of ibuprofen, usually at dinner after the day’s run. But I’ve read anectodal articles that suggest outside of the context of “needing to go at it again tomorrow” like in a stage run/race, the inflammation is actually a good thing and a key agent of recovering/rebuilding tissue and we shouldn’t want to send those inflammatory agents away too soon. On the flip side, I hear about chronic inflammation (like in a runners knee case) causing scarring and something that should be aggressively treated with ibuprofen in a short 2-3 day burst. Would love to read any research on this topic.

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