Back of the Pack

As another marathon season winds up, I find myself asking a familiar question: is it time to incorporate other activities into my fitness routine?

Every year, the answer's been the same. No.

I've always felt that if you want to get good at an activity, do more of it. But that's my perspective.

If you have no interest in finding out how well you stack up against others, by all means, diversify. Walk, run, swim, cycle, play squash, dance. Do any combination of things that will get your heart rate up and burn calories. It can only do you good.

They're talking about it again — that mythical point when you're exercising hard and your mind and body seem to separate and this euphoric feeling comes over you. Runner's high, some folks call it. Hooey, according to others.

Meriam Webster defines it as "a feeling of euphoria that is experienced by some individuals engaged in strenuous running and that is held to be associated with the release of endorphins by the brain."

Last week, researchers at the University of Iowa rekindled the debate with their innocuous-sounding paper Exercise Enhances Myocardial Ischemic Tolerance via an Opioid Receptor-Dependent Mechanism.

In English, that means "runner's high" may not only make you feel good, it may help ward off heart attacks.

Glad my name's not Edward McClelland. The poor guy's in for three hours and 30 minutes of taunts if he follows through on his promise of running a marathon next spring.

He's done more to anger and unite the running community — if such a thing exists — with five little words: How Oprah ruined the marathon. That's the title of his article that ran on Salon.com last Friday, just before the New York City Marathon.

"America's competitive spirit," he said, "has been wrecked by feel-good amateurs like Oprah whose only goal is to stagger across the finish line."

The vast majority of people who run marathons don't do it for the money or the chance to represent their country at the Olympics. They do it to push their limits, to try to shove back the hands of time or because they love picking at the blisters on their feet.

Sometimes they do it because others can't or to raise awareness and money for a pet cause.

I've seen firefighters and soldiers in full gear running marathons. Once in Boston, a guy glided past me wearing a t-shirt that read "Through God all things are possible." He wasn't gliding when I slipped past him at mile 17.

This weekend in New York City, 47-year-old Andre Ditto will be running one of the biggest marathons in the United States carrying a backpack stuffed with almost 15 kilograms college textbooks. He wants to raise awareness about the high cost of textbooks.

If you're still looking for reasons to get off the couch and get active, this study out of the Medical College of Georgia might get you thinking.

Researchers found that overweight children lowered their risk of diabetes and improved their ability to think after just three months of daily, vigorous activity. They studied 200 overweight kids and taught them about the benefits of healthy nutrition and the benefits of physical activity. The kids were split into groups that exercised for either 20 or 40 minutes, getting their heart rates up to 79 per cent of maximum.

While that's not chest-pounding, gasping for every last bit of air exertion, it is pretty strenuous. Like how you might feel after a shift of fairly intense pick-up hockey.

Yet another study is suggesting that you may be wasting your money if you're paying top dollar for running shoes.

This one — published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine — looked at nine different pairs of shoes and found that the low- and medium-cost shoes "provided the same (if not better) cushioning of plantar pressure as high-cost running shoes."

Back in 1999, McGill University researcher Steve Robbins concluded that pricey runners aren't worth the money and may even increase your risk of injury by 123 per cent.

So Lance Armstrong is running the New York City Marathon again this year. The seven-time Tour de France winner entered last year's race to raise money for his charity. He set a goal of three hours and made it by 24 seconds. Said it was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Couldn't run for six months after the race. Turned out what he thought were shin splints that wouldn't go away during the race were stress fractures that took a long time to heal.

After that race, he said he'd never run another. A lot of people who run marathons will say that right after a race — when their legs have seized up and they feel like they can't take another step without shrieking in pain.

This is my 16th marathon, but my first while blogging from the course using a Bluetooth headset.

It's also the first time that a Canadian marathon will be broadcast live from start to finish — on CBC Country Canada and on CBCSports.ca.

It could also prove to be the fastest marathon ever run on Canadian soil. A strong men's elite pack will pose a serious challenge to the current mark of 2:09:55. The women's mark of 2:26:01 could fall as well — three of the elite women have posted times either under or just over that mark.

And while that's unfolding, I'll follow a pace rabbit, a guy whose job is to bring in runners at a time of three hours and 30 minutes, which is good enough for any woman — and any man 45 or older — to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Maybe not the drama of the elites chasing big prize money — but still drama on some level.

I'm beginning to relate to the looks Michal Kapral must get when he prepares for a marathon.

Kapral — a.k.a. The Joggler — gets in most of his training by running home from work at his downtown Toronto office. He's quite a sight in those reserved bicycle lanes — running while juggling three balls.

Kapral is trying to regain the world record for joggling — running a marathon while juggling. He'll make his attempt at this weekend's Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

The current record is 2:52:15, a time that would put him in the top two per cent of all marathoners. He'll need to run at a pace of around four minutes and five seconds per kilometre to make it.

I'll be running that race, too. But without the balls.

So we may be throwing our money away if we buy those magnets that are supposed to ease our aches and pains.

According to a study published in the latest Canadian Medical Association Journal, the "evidence does not support the use of static magnets for pain relief."

Nobody told that to one of the pitchers in last Friday night's baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.