Sacramento Running News

Shoes are all up in your news again!

Just last week, Skechers USA announced a $40 million settlement in a class action suit by consumers over exaggerated claims about Shape-Ups, Podded Sole Shoes, Tone-Ups, and Resistance Runners.

This settlement comes almost exactly a year after Skechers reached a $40 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over these same hyperbolic advertisements.

I guess if you are saying “Get in shape without setting foot in the gym” then you’d better be able to back that up with data.

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How much is enough?

In the days leading up to my ill-fated attempt at last weekend’s Gold Rush 100K, a few people advised me to “Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!” Indeed, for a hot day like Saturday, proper hydration was as key to success as pacing and eating.

Even still, advice on hydration–much of it based more on folklore than science–can be confusing as heck.

Water? Electrolyte drinks? Salt tablets? How much? How often? Even after running dozens of marathons and ultramarathons, I’m still struggling to manage my hydration and fueling.

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Galen Farris looking smooth at mile 45. (Photo by Sean Dulany/Freeplay Magazine)

By John Schumacher

Galen Farris and Jen Pfeifer decided to start slowly, respect the heat and try to make up ground in the second half of the inaugural Gold Rush 100k on Saturday.

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After GDR’s Ilona Slupianek tested positive for anabolic steroids at the European Cup in 1977, the GDR began testing all athletes prior to competition to ensure they would not be caught, (Photo: Deutsches Bundesarchiv)

The Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run finally joined the 20th century and added a rule specifically addressing the use of performance enhancing drugs:

“The Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run is committed to keeping ultrarunning a clean, drug-free sport. Use of performance enhancing drugs or blood doping as defined by the USADA is forbidden. The Western States board reserves the right to disqualify a runner based on competent evidence of such use.”

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No wait! Running is better than walking!

Actually, it depends on what your goals are. This article in Slate explains why “Flip-flopping advice on exercise may not be as contradictory as it seems.”

I’m still slightly confused but, fortunately for me, I find running more enjoyable.

While this website is devoted to Sacramento related running stories, it is hard to return to these pages without at least mentioning the bombing at the Boston Marathon.

The alleged perpetrators have been captured or killed, but the road to recovery for those injured in the attacks, and the friends and family of those hurt or killed, will be long.

I watched the news unfold from three thousand miles away and it feels a bit narcissistic for me to be writing about how the attack affected me.

However, last week it seemed that every runner I spoke with talked about how profoundly the attack had impacted them personally and emotionally. This was especially true among friends who had run that marathon in the past. So clearly I was not alone in this feeling of strangely personal grief.

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Apparently, what stands between me and greatness is the quality of my endocrinologist.

There has been a lot of chatter on Twitter and the discussion boards about this article in the Wall Street Journal on Doctor Jeffrey Brown’s treatment of endurance athletes for hypothyroidism and the role of thyroid medication in athletic performance.

Medical privacy rules forbid Brown from naming all the athletes he has treated for that condition. But among those who have publicly acknowledged being treated for thyroid problems by Brown or unnamed other physicians are American runners Ryan Hall, Galen Rupp, Amy Yoder Begley, Bob Kennedy and Patrick Smyth.

I kind of doubt this is the last we’ll hear on this subject.

(Thanks to Tim T. for referring the article. )

Second woman finisher Tera Dube navigates the trails. (Photo by Sean Dulany/Freeplay Magazine)

As we crowded up on the levee near the start line for the 2013 running of the American River 50 Mile Endurance Run, two things were dominating conversations of the old timers: the temperature and the crowd.

It was warm, and it was also humid and still. I spotted a few trash-bag wearers, but most people were lightly dressed—at least for 6:00 AM on an early April morning. It always unnerves me when it’s unseasonably warm at the start of an ultra.

The crowd was huge. There were around 1,100 registered runners in the field, which is much larger than in previous years, and makes this race one of the country’s largest.

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Kim Conley on the way to the win (Photo by Sean Dulany/Freeplay Magazine)

By John Schumacher

Defending champion Tesfaye Alemayehu pushed hard from the start, daring anyone to stay with him in the third annual Credit Union SACTOWN Ten-Mile Run.

Olympian Kim Conley treated the race as a strength workout, taking a longer-term view as she prepares for an upcoming track season she hopes earns her a spot on the U.S. World Championship team.

Both strategies worked well on a mild, sunny Sunday morning, with Antioch’s Alemayehu and West Sacramento’s Conley winning individual titles in an event that serves as USA Track & Field’s Pacific Association 10-Mile Championship and helps raise money for Children’s Miracle Network.

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Now that doping controls are a fact of life at the major, big money races, it looks like the new doping strategy is to run a lot of small money races where there are no controls.

ESPN’s Edurance Blog tackles this issue in a story built around Kenyan Jynocel Basweti’s recent sanctioning for doping.

Basweti was not a big name in marathoning, but ESPN reports that he has won 17 mid-market marathons in the US since 2006, with prize money of up to $10,000.

Sadly, as long as there’s even a little money on the table, cheaters will cheat. Hopefully, some lower-cost drug testing will come along soon so we can get back to not worrying about this.

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