The Running Thread--2024

[jpholic]

Has anyone tried muscle scraping on their hamstrings/quads? My right hamstring is always very tight from having pulled it several times in college. This hamstring is the one that will tend to cramp up on long runs. I am hoping to make it through the marathon this year without having it cramp up. My son, who is a pitcher in college, swears by scraping on the muscles in his throwing arm. So I am considering in seeing his sports doctor and getting my hamstrings scraped. Just wondering if anyone else has tried it out and if they found it useful.

I do scraping at home. It's painful but I can tell a difference with recovery. I have a calf muscle I am constantly battling with. I do some needling, scraping and PT visits to do my best in keeping it healthy.

 

[GuinnessRunner]

Just wondering if anyone else has tried it out and if they found it useful.

I have also had it done by sports PT for injury recovery. He would do two sessions per week and I was not supposed to run for 24 hours after the treatment because of how hard it is on your muscles. Like others, I would look like I got hit with a baseball bat after the treatments. I think it absolutely helps as it's essentially similar to super aggressive massage in breaking things up in the muscle that keep it from releasing fully and using the extra blood that goes to the now damaged area to help heal it) but be careful in timing it out around your training. I did buy a blade and have done my calves at home, but it wasn't as effective. Probably because I couldn't get myself to scrape as hard as when someone else is doing it.

 

[Zutroy]

Whenever I hear someone say that a “sports doc” or “sports PT” did something like scraping, I’m assuming they mean a chiropractor.
Scraping is not evidence based medicine, and is just a new name for the Chinese practice of gua sha, which allegedly helps with the flow of chi. Most PTs I know will do certain treatment modalities like physical manipulation or cryotherapy, but their main focus is on fixing the root cause of the injury through strength training and form correction. If someone is just treating symptoms with unproven and unscientific methods, then I’d be suspicious. But again, chiropractic school doesn’t require an entrance exam and has 100% acceptance rate. Compared to med school, which has a 5.5% acceptance rate and requires taking the MCAT.

 

[DisneyParrothead]

When do big races order everything to prepare for inclement weather? I did RnR San Antonio this morning, and the weather was ALMOST perfect. Gray skies and chilly, which is great when I’m running, but not at the finish line. It was starting to rain too, and no Mylar blankets at all . It was mid-40s and my sweaty self ran back to my hotel to get out of the rain faster, and keep warm.

 

[GuinnessRunner]

Whenever I hear someone say that a “sports doc” or “sports PT” did something like scraping, I’m assuming they mean a chiropractor.
Scraping is not evidence based medicine, and is just a new name for the Chinese practice of gua sha, which allegedly helps with the flow of chi. Most PTs I know will do certain treatment modalities like physical manipulation or cryotherapy, but their main focus is on fixing the root cause of the injury through strength training and form correction. If someone is just treating symptoms with unproven and unscientific methods, then I’d be suspicious. But again, chiropractic school doesn’t require an entrance exam and has 100% acceptance rate. Compared to med school, which has a 5.5% acceptance rate and requires taking the MCAT.

Since it was my sports medicine doctor who referred me to them and both the Atlanta Falcons and Braves send their players to the same PT group for treatment, I figure if they can trust it for the athletes they are paying millions of dollars to in order to keep them on the field, then I figure it's safe enough for me to try. I would also say most sports PTs or sports chiropractors I have seen are actually 10X better at spending the time at figuring out the root causes for injuries (typically muscle weakness or imbalance) and addressing them then the sports medicine groups I have seen who have been very focused on simply relieving the symptoms. I've never been any place where scraping or ART isn't part of a broader plan of attack.

No problem with your opinion on chiropractors, but know that things have evolved and changed. My father who was an M.D. and Chief of Medicine at VA Hostipal in Mississippi used to share the same view as yours until he did more research and reviewed chiroractic treatments and realized it absolutely had a place in the ecosystem for treatment. In addition, there is more study work being done on this and similar treatments, like ART. Here's a link to one published by the NIH on ART https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34999574/ and another to a study on scraping https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articl...ent study showed that,scraping area (Table 1). Both also site prior studies on the topics. Certainly more scientific studying can and should be done and it's possible there are similar studies showing no effect. No intention of debating studies or critiquing them as I am not qualfied to do so. But I did want to higlight that there are scientific studies showing the benefits of these techniques.

 

[jmasgat]

Does Garmin factor in elevated heart rate due to being drenched by a passing car plowing through a puddle? And the subsequent "high energy" response to the driver? No? I didn't think so.

Ah well, maybe next software update. Back home and dry.

 

[jrsharp21]

Does anyone use insoles to help out with supination? Trying to find some but not sure which to try out.

 

[kps7795]

I am rather disappointed that I was not selected for the Chicago Marathon lottery. Did anyone here get in?

 

[huskies90]

I am rather disappointed that I was not selected for the Chicago Marathon lottery. Did anyone here get in?

My daughter (who lives in Chicago) and I both applied. Both not selected.

 

[Mr_Incr3dible]

Since it was my sports medicine doctor who referred me to them and both the Atlanta Falcons

Not sure "it's where the Falcons go" is a ringing endorsement of late....

 

[Mr_Incr3dible]

Coming back from lunch, I was behind a Subaru with a number of mouse ear magnets with 13.1 and 26.2....

 

[DisneyParrothead]

Not sure "it's where the Falcons go" is a ringing endorsement of late....

Sounds better than being in Boston. My doctor wanted to refer me to a podiatrist because “he treats the Harvard athletes.”

 

[StarGirl11]

Well Rocket City was a partial bust. Nothing on the race end but just had things combo in a way that nearly doubled my normal pace from 8-9 to 13-14. Hills, plus cold, plus wet is not a fun combo. With a large chunk of the first half being uphill I swear. Ended up making the choice around mile 11 to peel off for the first half finish. While the back half is looked easier on paper it also had some massive hills along with a rolling section through the local Botanical Gardens. So I knew if I wasn’t swept by then I most likely would be swept at that point.

So decided to just take the half so I could get a finish rather then swept.

This made the first few miles of MCM look easy. And I did that in my chair not my cycle.

Also saw Rudy for the first time in a while at the start.

Going into Dopey with no full race on wheels is not what I wanted. But it’s what is happening apparently

Will be back next year. But undecided if I will try the full. Or if I will do the back half and then come back in 26 for the full after having experienced the whole course

 

[Herding_Cats]

Dumb question. How do I put a manual activity into my garmin app after I did it? I missed a couple of nights of refereeing (forgot to start my watch) but I like to track my hours for that.

 

[nancipants]

Dumb question. How do I put a manual activity into my garmin app after I did it? I missed a couple of nights of refereeing (forgot to start my watch) but I like to track my hours for that.

Go to Activities and under the list of activity options there will be an option to Create Manual Activity.

 

[StarGirl11]

So let this be an example of never just be afraid to ask something:

Yesterday afternoon curiosity finally got the better of me. I had always assumed the Revel races wouldn't consider taking us. Because wheels plus downhill equals an interesting time for all. But there was nothing on the website saying they wouldn't. So I reached out to White Mountain (the one race weekend that works with my current schedule for the coming year.) Going, 'Hey, I was wondering if you would take wheelchairs/push rims. I completely understand if it's a no for safety reasons, but I just wanted to ask'.

They got back to me yesterday.

Surprise surprise. They will take chairs but highly recommend driving the course first to make sure I would feel comfortable and safe with it. (Which I do normally anyway.) So looks like a Revel race will be in my future at some point.

The temptation to add White Mountain for next year is high I am not going to deny. But it might be too much at this point. Maybe 2026

 

[MissLiss279]

So let this be an example of never just be afraid to ask something:

Yesterday afternoon curiosity finally got the better of me. I had always assumed the Revel races wouldn't consider taking us. Because wheels plus downhill equals an interesting time for all. But there was nothing on the website saying they wouldn't. So I reached out to White Mountain (the one race weekend that works with my current schedule for the coming year.) Going, 'Hey, I was wondering if you would take wheelchairs/push rims. I completely understand if it's a no for safety reasons, but I just wanted to ask'.

They got back to me yesterday.

Surprise surprise. They will take chairs but highly recommend driving the course first to make sure I would feel comfortable and safe with it. (Which I do normally anyway.) So looks like a Revel race will be in my future at some point.

The temptation to add White Mountain for next year is high I am not going to deny. But it might be too much at this point. Maybe 2026

I really liked Revel White Mountains. I’m not sure if you were thinking about the full or the half. My experience is with the full course. It is probably the least downhill/steep of the Revel series. The first 5ish miles were pretty steep for a good fast start. Somewhere near the halfway point (but before we joined the half marathoner start point), there was an out and back and there was a pretty steep uphill for about 1.5 miles (looks like it was about 200 feet gain), and then you turn around and get to run down it. The rest of the course was somewhat flat or a gentle downhill. I think they may have said some of the miles were ‘rolling’ but I didn’t really notice very much other uphill except for the extreme uphill.

 

[kps7795]

Has anybody had experiences with getting a stitch in your side while running? During my MP Tempo run last night, everything was going great until Mile 6 when I started experiencing this searing pain in my right side. It got so bad that I had to walk. Fortunately, the pain went away after a few minutes. Once it passed, I was able to resume my run at MP until Mile 10 when it came back. Thankfully, this was the end of my workout anyway.

 

[MissLiss279]

Has anybody had experiences with getting a stitch in your side while running? During my MP Tempo run last night, everything was going great until Mile 6 when I started experiencing this searing pain in my right side. It got so bad that I had to walk. Fortunately, the pain went away after a few minutes. Once it passed, I was able to resume my run at MP until Mile 10 when it came back. Thankfully, this was the end of my workout anyway.

Yes! But really only one time that I remember specifically- during a marathon. I had planned to run this marathon at a hard pace.
It was mostly downhill but had some definite hills (which I think is where the side stitch started), it was in Utah in the mountains - not at too high of an elevation, but much higher than Kansas, and my dog had started having symptoms for a serious heart condition about the time I was supposed to leave on this trip. I thought she was dying because of how she was breathing, but medicine was able to get it under control for a few months. I left a few days later than originally planned once she seemed mostly back to normal, but I was stressed because of it.
So - a lot of things could have contributed to the side stitch, but somewhere in the middle of the race and for a few miles, I could mainly just walk. I would do little spurts of running, and I tried to really concentrate on my breathing. Not the most fun experience, and I haven’t really had an issue with it other than that.

 

[Zutroy]

Has anybody had experiences with getting a stitch in your side while running? During my MP Tempo run last night, everything was going great until Mile 6 when I started experiencing this searing pain in my right side. It got so bad that I had to walk. Fortunately, the pain went away after a few minutes. Once it passed, I was able to resume my run at MP until Mile 10 when it came back. Thankfully, this was the end of my workout anyway.

When I was younger and starting to run, my dad taught me to get rid of side stitches through “belly breathing.” Basically, you take deep breaths and fill up your belly and then push it all out. It works, but I never knew why. Apparently there’s an actual physiological reason for it.

During physical activity, improper breathing mechanics can put stress on the diaphragm muscle, which is the pain felt during a “side stitch.” By consciously breathing deeply, you can help relax the diaphragm and eliminate the side stitch.

TLDL: You’re breathing wrong.