Laying off for two days
Yesterday I woke up and felt like my legs were made of uranium neutron star. I did not want to move. I think that being sick last week, and keeping up the miles and not doing too bad on the pace finally caught up to me. This morning, while I feel more spring in my step, I have a little ache in my right hamstring and a dull pain coming from my right shin. Plus I have tons of errands to run, so screw it. Discretion can be the better part of valor, if you’re willing to deal with the crappy feeling you get skipping out on two days of running. At least I get that crappy feeling, but hopefully it will stay at a minimum this week, as I am legitimately fatigued.
So, I got my hands on the Yale/Quinnipiac study which I was a subject in. They are really good about leaving no chance of identifying who the subjects were…dammit. But, here’s the thing, CNN and Time ran stories about it. They sensationalized, as they are supposed to. Sorry folks, you want straight news, then you, yes YOU have to watch and read straight news. They need to sell advertising, and so they need ratings. If they don’t have ratings just reporting things, they will do what they need to to get ratings/circulation. Is it right? No. Is it the way it will remain until you stop watching trash TV and reading about the Kardashians? Yep.
So anyway, with these stories being run, the running community, at least the parts I am part of were all in a huff. More panties got bunched by these articles than I’ve seen in a long time. So much fragility from people who punish their bodies so much. Everything from “this study is dumb” even though the person hadn’t read the article and was complaining about things which the researchers covered, such as small sample-size, factors other than the actual running itself that may have caused the conditions; to “I was a researcher and I would be concerned about the following…”, once again being things the people running the study did account for. So here are the facts of the study, since I got to contribute to this, so I want the world to know my very small contribution to science.
Out of 132 applicants to the study, only 68 met the criteria, and out of that 68 only 22 agreed to the terms of the study. Out of that 22, 9 were male and 13 were female, 2 had hypertension (maybe me) and 1 had type I diabetes. All had previous marathon running experience (I think I was the most experienced at 16 to that point). All had previous best finish times at a mean of 4.2 hours (+/- .6 hrs). The mean finish time for the Hartford Marathon was 4.02 hrs (+/- .64 hrs). 18 participants showed acute kidney injury in their blood samples after the race, and 16 showed AKI markers in their urine as well. Although two participants refused (either couldn’t or wouldn’t give) urine samples post-race.
At no time do the researchers try and say running, specifically, caused this. Although they liken the damage to that seen in different manual labor fields, yet admit that in those areas dehydration and other causes are also likely contributors to the AKI. This was not some attack on running, and it was not (nor did the researchers claim) it was a definitive study on the matter. This was an initial study, because no one had ever looked at it before. They wanted to see if the damage was present and then decide where to go from there. They even said it was an initial study when we all started. The researchers were very clear, and followed informed consent protocols to the letter.
My point is, this study doesn’t really tell us anything, except that we need to look into it more, and that it’s an area worth looking into. While it doesn’t seem there are long-term deleterious effects on the kidneys from running long distances, the fact is any damage isn’t good for you. Could you imagine in a few years with more study they start to zone in on the cause and look into solutions. Maybe this could lead to a breakthrough in how we hydrate, how we fuel, how we train. This could be something that one day turns distance running all sorts of around with new tips and techniques to make us stronger, faster, less prone to injury.
But instead of looking at it that way, many took the headlines about “Marathons cause kidney injury” and stuff like that as a direct attack. Got all sorts of stupid-defensive (not stupid like we used to say back in the day instead of hyperbolic, but like an actual stupid person). Then tried to crap all over good research and something, which in the long-term, will most likely help runners be even better. This is exactly why we can’t have nice things. Take your ego, take your shit, get it all together in a shit backpack and take it somewhere. To paraphrase. You need to stop blaming the “media” when you read things you don’t like. You need to do research for yourselves if it’s that important. You need to stop assuming you know something just because you read a headline, or the first paragraph. Take some time and think, read, listen, don’t just get all immediately defensive about shit.
I’m really glad I had the opportunity to take part in this study, and I like that new knowledge was gained from it, and new studies will likely be born from it. I’m excited about the future possibilities of what can be found from it. Who knows, maybe with all this, one day someone will be able to do some amazing feat no one ever dreamed of, and in a small way I would have been a part of it. It’s too cool. I think in the end, no matter how upset or cynical I may get about things, I always remain an optimist. I always want to believe, against all the evidence, that people will unfuck themselves and straighten this shit out and get this society moving in the right direction. Let’s hope.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run (with AKI) then so can you!
Posted in Uncategorized by Gil with no comments yet.
Leave a Reply