Recently I had participated an on-line discussion on the topic of the recent unfortunate incidence of 3 people dying in the same road race (story here).  Naturally, just as with Meb’s New York City Marathon victory and all the media attention that followed for his “legitimacy” of being an American, many articles, even once again with the well-known newspaper, jumped the occasion and posted the head-lines such as “Is Running Safe?” (one such article here) and many, many more on-line discussions, such as the one I myself participated, at various running message boards that followed.  One “runner” pointed out: “Don’t say that to me now.  I’m running my first marathon this weekend.  Should I still do it?”  Even though, I'm sure, there's no such intention, all it does is to create this negative "aura" about running.  I've had this abnormality of the heart, shown on my EKG (apparently my heart lies a bit too tilted) ever since I was 10-years-old.  I got involved in running since I was 13.  My dad used to tell me that, if I run too much, I might end up dead!  All these articles and discussions just reminded me of my dad's "warning".

This discussion, however, got me really curious.  I had been involved with “Beginning Women’s Running Class” with MDRA (Minnesota Distance Running Association) in the past 5 years.  I had put together a reading material for the class and, in it, I put down the statement, based on the reference from Arthur Lydiard’s book “Jogging with Lydiard”:  “In 1973, cancer killed 351,924; accident killed 116,297 in the US.  Diseases of the heart and blood vessels killed 1,062,160! (sorry for the outdated statistics but chances are; the figure is probably worse today than back in 1973!)…”  With obesity being the national epidemic, I automatically assumed that the figure would be probably staggering today than 3 decades ago.  How ignorant of me however; I was very wrong.

It was 1961 when Arthur Lydiard was approached by a few obese businessmen about the speech he gave at the Tamaki Lion’s Club dinner meeting.  He said that the heart is a muscle and, like every other muscle, if you work on it, it gets bigger and stronger.  And the way to “work on your heart” is to do a lot of work by running far.  “That,” Lydiard claimed, “is why Peter Snell, as someone who races twice around the track, would go out and run 22-miles on weekend for training…”  These business people had had a heart attack previously and, like everybody else at the time, were prescribed to “do nothing strenuous” otherwise it might kill them.  Interestingly, it is a concept still lives in regards to some of common running-related injuries.  “If you have a weak arch,” most common doctors would tell you, “wear supportive and stability shoes (to support that weak arch)…”  On the other hand, Arthur would have told you; “If you have a weak spot, you’ll have to strengthen it…”  That’s exactly what he did with weakened hearts.  He had them to go see their doctor first to make sure.  And gradually and sensibly increase the pressure by the heart by jogging further and further, to take more and more pressure...

It was now 1963 when the renowned track coach from University of Oregon by the name of Bill Bowerman brought 4 of his star runners who broke the world 4 X 1 mile relay record, previously held by Arthur’s runners, and visited New Zealand.  Bowerman was 50-year-old hardy ex-football player.  Fit and healthy…so he thought!  One Sunday morning, just as Bowerman gobbled down bowlful of oatmeal for breakfast (I remember, on my first meeting with Bill in 1986, he used this as a sort of an excuse for a poor showing he had on his first “jogging” experience), in came Arthur Lydiard.  “A bunch of us are getting together to go for a ‘jog’…  Would you like to join us?” he said.  Naturally curious, Bowerman happily obliged. He was first surprised and impressed with a type of crowd he had there; a bunch of old men and young girls mostly.  They were to “jog” 5-miles.  As they took off, in less than a half a mile, Bowerman was left behind and “almost” alone.  “Then came Andy Stedman,” Bowerman told me with a mixture of fond-memory and embarrassment when he told me this story.  Stedman was the oldest of the original joggers, by then 76-years-young.  Bowerman continued “…and he said; ‘I see you’re having a problem, Mr. Bowerman.’ I didn’t say anything,” he said, “because I couldn’t!”  He chuckled and said, “That was fine until he said; ‘I know a short-cut…???’  That did it!” 

This experience absolutely shocked Bowerman.  He was scheduled to go back to Oregon after a few weeks stay with his athletes.  He changed his flight schedule and decided to stay 6 weeks.  During this time, he “jogged” everyday with Lydiard and his “joggers”.  By the time he went back to Oregon, he was 10 pounds lighter, with the waist line 4 inches slimmer, and full of enthusiasm with this new idea.  Back in Oregon, Bowerman started probably the first ever “jogging class” in the US soil.  Lots of ordinary people, many of them housewives, gathered together to get instruction from famed track coach.  Bowerman produced first a simple red pamphlet of 20-page long, explaining what “jogging” is all about and how it counters “heart diseases” and, well, how it should be done (Bill was very much a technical person).  Later it became a small paper-back book called “Jogging” translated in several different languages later.  Now the rest is history…

We know the statistics of runners: According to the report from Running USA, the number of “running population” of 35,904,000 in 2008 was an increase of whopping 18.2% from year 2007! (* note: although the definition of “running population” here only means those who run 6 times a year)   According to the information at marathonguide.com, total number of marathon finishers increased from 299,000 in the year 2000 to 382,000 in 2005.  In other words, the number of “running population” is still on the upward swing.  So here’s my question:  When was the height of heart diseases and how did this jogging movement contribute?  I would still need to do more research on this and dig in deeper but here’s so far what I’ve found out:

There are number of reasons for this decline; awareness to proper diet is definitely one major reason.  Fight against smoking is another.  Advancement of modern medical technology must have helped save thousands of heart attack patients.  Unlike isolated lab research, real life situation is always combination of many factors working together – you can never be able to isolate one factor as THE cause.  But you cannot deny a strong influence of world-wide “jogging movement” ignited by Lydiard and Bowerman that played a role in the decline of the number of heart disease victims.  In the 1967 version of “Jogging” written by Bill Bowerman and Dr. W.E. Harris, it reads: “…men who did little walking had almost twice the mortality rate of walkers. Men who rarely engage in sports also have nearly twice the mortality rate of more active men.  The report suggests that a substantial reduction of deaths from myocardial infarctions (=heart attack) might be achieved through a relatively small increase in physical activities of the inactive men…”  In essence, it wouldn’t necessarily take a highly sophisticated and scientific research to show us that what we know as aerobic exercises would greatly improve the quality of life and increase longevity.  Some may even go as far to say that those who exercise and smoke have better chance of surviving a heart attack than those who don’t smoke but don’t exercise. 

In conclusion to my comment to the message board mentioned earlier, I said that: “…despite the unfortunate incidence of 3 people dying in the same race, as tragic as it may be, we should be celebrating for the fact that we are actually WINNING (as Arthur would have put it).”  I wish media picks up such a fact by looking at the bigger picture instead of knit-picking a single incidence and jump up and down and scream as if the sky is falling.  (* note: actually, one of the most sensible articles on this topic that I read is the blog by Russ Tucker at "The Science of Sport" here)

Here’s another concern (not trying to be a pessimistic which, believe me, I am not): most of us know that women’s running is a huge business now.  The population of women’s running is increasing a lot more quickly than men’s.  It is quite obvious even around my own neighborhood.  There is a big population of ladies in their 40s and 50s running here.  Including my wife, who would turn 45 this coming weekend, who runs with a half dozen ladies around here several times a week.  They jog about an hour or so; go down to a coffee shop and chat a bit; and walk about a mile back home.  They even do that through Minnesota winter!  When I go for a run, I see a whole bunch of ladies out there running.  For men, I see a couple of old guys, maybe late 60s to early 70s, hobbling around (besides me…) and one guy who is probably in his early 40s.  I hardly ever see a younger man, or even in their 40s or 50s, out running.  For all those ladies who run here, I am pretty much the only husband who runs.  I saw two other husbands running once each in the last 2 years but that was pretty much it.  So what would become of us (middle-aged men) in 20 years from now…???  Would we get away from becoming a victim of cardiovascular diseases simply by paying extra money for organic foods?  If my neighborhood represents the norm (now I don’t have the answer to that), I will bet we would see more healthy women than men in 20 years from now and their already-higher longevity will become even higher than men’s.  I know, statistically, there are pretty much equal proportion of men and women, throughout various age groups, participating road races.  But what I’m talking about here is the actual “training”.  If my highly unscientific observation is correct, there are probably a lot more men jumping to participate road races unprepared (or less ideally prepared).  No wonder we see more “sudden death” during road races among men than among women!  And this actually leads to my final point.

In fact, my biggest concern in regards to the recent unfortunate incidence of a couple of young and seemingly healthy people dying in Detroit Half Marathon is actually the way they might have prepared themselves for these distance races.  I have been very curious about the recent trend of more and more people jumping to run (or “try to complete”) a marathon, or even a half marathon, so quickly and their average time getting slower and slower; and the way they prepare for these marathons.  It amazes me that so many people seem to just jump to run a marathon after only a few month of “training”.  Some of the recent running methods, if you call them that, such as that of run-walk, seem to enable an individual to cover greater distance more quickly without actually training their body fully (fast-food mentality???).  In other words, it seems to almost stretch your body to basically bite off more than it is capable of chewing.  And also this trend of “Run less to run faster” idea.  With Lydiard, for athletes, running 7-days-a-week was a pre-requisite.  For “joggers”, he cut some slack and gave one off-day.  Today, people don’t even want to run 3 days a week.  They want to “cross-train”.  Or they don’t want to do “junk miles”…  And they want to run 26-miles???  On the other side of the coin, some program insists three 20-milers for marathon preparation regardless.  One young man I knew insisted that he was “determined to do three 20-milers” one month before his first marathon (because he kept missing it).  He ended up hurting his knee before he even got to do the first 20-miler so he didn’t even get to the start line.  That might have saved him; otherwise, he could have been another one of statistics…???  As Dr. Paul Thompson admits here in this interview with Runner’s World, running 26 miles CAN BE a stressful event.  Training means a series of breaking-down tissues and re-building them back up.  It is this re-building phase that makes the body stronger.  This pattern would have to be tailored to the individual’s reaction to stress; it should not be simply based on any given schedule or pre-determined bogus numbers.

1) Arthur Lydiard giving a pep-talk before jogging: Garth Gilmour Collection

2) Bill Bowerman leading a group of Oregon Ducks throughtthe Bute: image by Joe Matheson

3) One of the first-ever jogging classes in the USA by Bill Bowerman in the typical misty Oregon weather.  Bill is on the right, talking to one of the participants: image by Joe Matheson, Portland Register-Guard

4) The start of 2007 Tokyo marathon--for the next year's race, for 35,000 spots, 270,000 people sent the registration.

5) A graph representing Death Rate in USA in each decade since 1900 with Jogging Influence added to it

6) Bill Bowerman's "Jogging" published in 1967 (thanks, Walt Chadwick-san!)

7) Kids running in action

8) The number of road race participants and the ratio of men (in blue) and women (in red) since 1987: graph from Running USA

9) "Run For Your Life--Jogging with Arthur Lydiard" by Garth Gilmour, published in 1965

10) Two who started it all and saved the lives of thousands and even millions -- Bill Bowerman (left) and Arthur Lydiard (right): image courtesy of Lydiard Foundation