The New York Times' Jane Brody has written about health and fitness for decades. I remember buying one of her tomes at a discount book barn back in the mid-1980s, and by then she was a household name. So I'm going to give her a free pass on constantly referring to all runners as "joggers" in today's column.
But I wonder about some of the advice she dispenses, presumably for former armchair athletes finally ready to leave the bench. She recommends people stay hydrated with water first and use sports drinks only if exercising two or three or more hours. That could be interpreted as running on water for a half marathon or more, and I wonder in summer heat, where electrolytes evaporate from sweaty bodies more quickly, if that's a sound strategy. She also states that nearly every marathon is marked by someone "keeling over" with a heart attack...given the hundreds of 26-milers now, that stat seems a little high to me. Maybe every major marathon?
7 comments:
I ran my first Boston-Qualifier in Cleveland in 2004 on nothing but water on the race course. No gu, no gatorade, no bananas. Just a lot of water. I felt strong, finished strong, and qualified by almost 4 minutes.
I do not think that you need sports drinks or gu for your salts during endurance training, as long as your every day diet can meet your needs and it isn't 85ยบ+ out there.
I do however think that it can be benificial if you have trained with it, which is how I do things now. I don't usually worry about training with gu until I'm running over 20 miles at a time, and rarely stop for water or anything else during a run until I am up over 16 miles.
whew, that was a tough read. the whole "jogger" thing threw me off, as did her generalizations that she purported to be solid fact.
re: water vs. gatorade, you can do just water, if your diet makes up for it. I know a super-fast marathoner who is currently attempting to condition his body to do a marathon on nothing but water. i prefer to use crank e-gels, e-caps and water to keep myself well-hydrated and well-electrolyted (is that a word?).
Tough call on the water vs. electrolyte debate. I use sports drink with gu and salt tablets as well, but I know the body can go without as well if trained properly.
At least she is not advocating a Alberto Salazer no water or anything approach to marathoning.
I'm quite certain I had a heart attack around mile 21 of San Diego. Actually, I'm positive of it.
I think it all depends on what you train to do - if you train with water, then you can probably run fine with only water - if you use elecrolytes when you train, your body will be asking for them during an event. My favorite quote from the article is this one: "the marathon is a race for only a few young, elite athletes". She forgot to mention that those few young, elite athletes become addicted and then become many older marathoners.
has she run an endurance event herself?
opinions and noses...they are all so unique. :)
so, how was your jog today?
I can't get over the jogging aspect of her article. It drops her several rungs lower on the credibility scale in my book. It's like me writing an article to train swimmers on swimming the "froggie style" stroke.
With all this pent up energy, I might just go put on my jogging shorts and my jogging shoes and go out and RUN!
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