Key Words: God, Cauterization, Glutamine
Word Count: 998 ... worth it, I hope
Likely Next Topic: Chicago Travel?!?!?!!!
".... Hitherto shall thou come, but no further...." Job, Chapter 38, Verse 11
This passage from the King James version of the good book was made famous, well, by God, but our modern, sometimes agnostic and secular world, was reaquanted with it by Dan Brown in The Da Vince Code (Silas, that giver of a bad name to albinos everywhere, found a flagstone with this verse under the Rose Line, then clubbed that poor nun with it ... as a pale person, I assure you, you need not fear me).
This verse summed up week nine of Houston FIT, particularly mile 12 of 15. I don't know if it was the heat, the lack of training (I've missed four of the nine weeks), or the solitary nature of the run, but I was utterly beaten on Saturday morning. I bemoned "Why won't it just end" shortly after the Luke's Locker aid station; I normally reserve such cheery outbursts for mile 22 of the marathon! I will say no more about the run, other than I had time committments to keep, and had some hard decisions to make to keep them. I'm happy to say I finished the run healthy, and kept my time committments; I had just put on my dry t-shirt when the seminar started. As for my nagging hamstring injury, I am ready to declare myself healthy enough to run with reckless abandon, though admit that I am behind when it comes to the training schedule.
Tonight I ran three miles at Memorial. More of those pesky time committments kept me from running more miles, but as I was shooting for a marathon pace run (10 min/mile), it was just about the right length according to our training schedule.
Now the important part .. I really hope you make it this far. If you don't F YOU :) Kidding. Jokes. Here's the secret to staying healthy when marathoning; I knew it all along and have reconfirmed it with my speedy recovery from the hammy injury (speedy since I started treating it, as I'll detail below). First, a little back story ...
Many years ago I had to have an abscess cut out. Abscesses are nasty little puss wads that your body walls up simply because it doesn't know what to do with them. Many times, if you don't leave an abscess open, it will fill back up with puss, so I was left with a nice open wound on a part of my body post-op (just don't ask me to show you the scar :o). For about four weeks, the wound healed very slowly. My doctor cauterized the wound twice in the name of reminding my body to heal, but the progress remained slow. So I did what I do, I read .. a lot. I learned that every cellular division is driven by an amino acid known as Glutamine or L-Glutamine depending on your nomenclature. This amino is traditionally known as "non-essential" because your body can produce it. Europeans, being crafty and European and all, realized much ealier than the American medical establishment that there are times when the body cannot produce enough; thus it's current clasification as a "conditionally essential" amino acid. So I said, "Maybe I don't have enough Glutamine in me to heal this wound."
Now friends, I admit, I could be falling into the trap of causality. That trap being, "I want something to happen, so I'll do X, that something happened, so X must have worked!" Wrong, voodoo logic. Regardless, after about one week of glutamine supplementation, the wound was healed. It had barely made any progress through four weeks of normal healing, but then sealed up in only a week's time of glutamine supplementation! I am convinced that the glutamine was the source of my healing.
Fast forward to two weeks ago. I know running puts your body under huge stress, and I had a hamstring injury; why couldn't a lack of glutamine be slowing the healing? I started taking 500mg of straight glutamine supplemant after long runs, and took a protein supplemant everyday that has about 3000mg of the stuff. I can say that my problems seem to have gone away, and my legs feel about as good as they have in quite a while.
Causality? Could be. A deficiency in Keith body that other's might not have? Could be. The point though is there is little downside to glutamine supplementation, and big potential upside. My PhD friends might point out that there is fear that glutamine supplementation could cause an undiagnosed cancer to spread like wildfire (remember, every cellular division, including cancerous ones, need glutamine). The only study I've ever seen on the topic (a well constructred breast cancer study) showed no increase in metastasisation due to glutamine supplementation, so the fear seems, at least, somewhat overstated. Again, we're not talking about lots ... let's just top off the tank to make sure that, as you tax your body, you are getting enough of this critical amino acid.
GNC 100% Whey Protein supplement has a good amount of glutamine in it, or you can simply buy the supplement at the same place.
I encourage all you marathoners to consider trying it. Start slow, of course, making sure you have no ill effects. Perhaps you just consider taking it after long runs? Maybe, if you already take protein containing glutamine, you just make sure you take it daily, and maybe hit it extra hard after high milage. You just might find yourself healing faster and feeling better than you have in a long while!
Word Count: 998 ... worth it, I hope
Likely Next Topic: Chicago Travel?!?!?!!!
".... Hitherto shall thou come, but no further...." Job, Chapter 38, Verse 11
This passage from the King James version of the good book was made famous, well, by God, but our modern, sometimes agnostic and secular world, was reaquanted with it by Dan Brown in The Da Vince Code (Silas, that giver of a bad name to albinos everywhere, found a flagstone with this verse under the Rose Line, then clubbed that poor nun with it ... as a pale person, I assure you, you need not fear me).
This verse summed up week nine of Houston FIT, particularly mile 12 of 15. I don't know if it was the heat, the lack of training (I've missed four of the nine weeks), or the solitary nature of the run, but I was utterly beaten on Saturday morning. I bemoned "Why won't it just end" shortly after the Luke's Locker aid station; I normally reserve such cheery outbursts for mile 22 of the marathon! I will say no more about the run, other than I had time committments to keep, and had some hard decisions to make to keep them. I'm happy to say I finished the run healthy, and kept my time committments; I had just put on my dry t-shirt when the seminar started. As for my nagging hamstring injury, I am ready to declare myself healthy enough to run with reckless abandon, though admit that I am behind when it comes to the training schedule.
Tonight I ran three miles at Memorial. More of those pesky time committments kept me from running more miles, but as I was shooting for a marathon pace run (10 min/mile), it was just about the right length according to our training schedule.
Now the important part .. I really hope you make it this far. If you don't F YOU :) Kidding. Jokes. Here's the secret to staying healthy when marathoning; I knew it all along and have reconfirmed it with my speedy recovery from the hammy injury (speedy since I started treating it, as I'll detail below). First, a little back story ...
Many years ago I had to have an abscess cut out. Abscesses are nasty little puss wads that your body walls up simply because it doesn't know what to do with them. Many times, if you don't leave an abscess open, it will fill back up with puss, so I was left with a nice open wound on a part of my body post-op (just don't ask me to show you the scar :o). For about four weeks, the wound healed very slowly. My doctor cauterized the wound twice in the name of reminding my body to heal, but the progress remained slow. So I did what I do, I read .. a lot. I learned that every cellular division is driven by an amino acid known as Glutamine or L-Glutamine depending on your nomenclature. This amino is traditionally known as "non-essential" because your body can produce it. Europeans, being crafty and European and all, realized much ealier than the American medical establishment that there are times when the body cannot produce enough; thus it's current clasification as a "conditionally essential" amino acid. So I said, "Maybe I don't have enough Glutamine in me to heal this wound."
Now friends, I admit, I could be falling into the trap of causality. That trap being, "I want something to happen, so I'll do X, that something happened, so X must have worked!" Wrong, voodoo logic. Regardless, after about one week of glutamine supplementation, the wound was healed. It had barely made any progress through four weeks of normal healing, but then sealed up in only a week's time of glutamine supplementation! I am convinced that the glutamine was the source of my healing.
Fast forward to two weeks ago. I know running puts your body under huge stress, and I had a hamstring injury; why couldn't a lack of glutamine be slowing the healing? I started taking 500mg of straight glutamine supplemant after long runs, and took a protein supplemant everyday that has about 3000mg of the stuff. I can say that my problems seem to have gone away, and my legs feel about as good as they have in quite a while.
Causality? Could be. A deficiency in Keith body that other's might not have? Could be. The point though is there is little downside to glutamine supplementation, and big potential upside. My PhD friends might point out that there is fear that glutamine supplementation could cause an undiagnosed cancer to spread like wildfire (remember, every cellular division, including cancerous ones, need glutamine). The only study I've ever seen on the topic (a well constructred breast cancer study) showed no increase in metastasisation due to glutamine supplementation, so the fear seems, at least, somewhat overstated. Again, we're not talking about lots ... let's just top off the tank to make sure that, as you tax your body, you are getting enough of this critical amino acid.
GNC 100% Whey Protein supplement has a good amount of glutamine in it, or you can simply buy the supplement at the same place.
I encourage all you marathoners to consider trying it. Start slow, of course, making sure you have no ill effects. Perhaps you just consider taking it after long runs? Maybe, if you already take protein containing glutamine, you just make sure you take it daily, and maybe hit it extra hard after high milage. You just might find yourself healing faster and feeling better than you have in a long while!
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