in running long distances a sort of religion or who have substituted running for other negative addictions in their lives they may have left behind.

Some would protect the veneer of invulnerability by stoning the messenger. It would seem more prudent to put aside one’s personal prejudices on behalf of running and objectively consider the evidence Ken Cooper presents. Extreme emotional involvement and objective consideration don’t mix well.

Before disparaging Ken Cooper’s research because it seems odious to our own self-interests, it would behoove us to consider all research carefully so we can better modify and thereby perpetuate our running programs.

Let’s consider a series of facts:

1. Criticizing Dr. Ken Cooper because he’s saying something you may not want to hear is unfair and unwise. Cooper is arespected and careful researcher. He isn’t a hotshot shooting from the hip, hoping to hit the media attention jackpot. When he speaks, many of us listen because we’ve come to respect the fact that he doesn’t speak to hear himself talk.

2. Long-distance running (and especially extremely long-distance running) is an unnatural act. Sure, a lot of people do it, but that doesn’t make it any more natural than sticking dried leaves in your mouth, setting fire to them, and then inhaling the smoke produced.

There is a swell theory about why marathoners tend to hit the wall around 18 to 20 miles. The theory is that this distance is hardwired into us through evolution. Primitive Hunting Man had a range of 8 to 10 miles per day from the tribe’s center. Go out 8 to 10 miles on the hunt, then return 8 to 10 miles, with or without game. Considering that the Primitive Hunting Man had noasphalt highways to travel, an 8- to 10-mile range sounds about right. What happened after the day’s 16- to 20mile hunting trip? Man’s natural resources (glycogen) gave out, and the hunter became exhausted, that is, he hit the wall.

Let’s face it, running 26.2 miles, or 50 miles, is not a natural act. Yes, human beings were built to sweat more efficiently than other animals, which is one of the reasons hunters could run game to exhaustion, but only to a point. And yes, human beings were built upright so they could see farther, which often included the far horizon, about which they were curious; but they didn’t necessarily get to the far horizon and back in one day. True, the Tarahumara regularly run great distances, and they are indeed a primitive people, but they do so as part of a traditional ball game.

After thousands upon thousands of miles of running and observing and questing and questioning, Dr. George Sheehan beMay/June 1998

came one of the foremost proponents of the theory that long-distance running is an unnatural act. But the pursuit of unnatural acts is a very human trait. With every unnatural act, however, there is the promise of dire consequences. Sail off the edge of the world? Dragons who live down there’ ll eat you. Seal yourself in a tin can and lob it toward the moon? You’ ll die. There isn’t any air out there.

3. Youdon’thave to bea great thinker to agree with the statement that “not all running is good running,” although you don’t have to travel too far to get arguments on that point. Some runners will, indeed, argue that all running is good running. But they’re wrong. Anyone who has run for any length of time can explicate on this point.

4. Notwo people are constructed exactly the same; ergo, the same running program will affect different people in different ways. What is biomechanically agreeable to one runner will cripple another. There are enough examples of this limping around.

5. Cause-and-effect as practiced in the real world does apply to running. Run too many miles, and an overuse injury sets in. Rest too little, and overuse and burnout sets in.

6. More miles does not equal more immunity from disease. In fact, there is a point beyond which more miles equals more susceptibility

to disease. While scientists like Ken Cooper work on this interaction slowly and logically, the rest of us can rely on years of simple observation. Ask Bill Rodgers what used to happen to him in the final weeks before a major marathon. His immune system would become compromised, and he would suddenly be open to virtually any little bug making the rounds, which inspired him to avoid bugsat all costs. Who hasn’t pushed the personal endurance envelope only to break down and succumb to any germ that came along?

By the same token, it doesn’t take a Nobel Prize-winning scientist to realize that the more we break ourselves down in training, the more susceptible we are to whatever comes along, from flu bugs to certain cancers.

7. Long-distance runners, some of them better than most of us, do die prematurely from heart disease. Itisn’t widely advertised, but some years ago, four hardened veterans of the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run were diagnosed with various forms of heart disease—in spite of longrunning aerobic programs that were off the charts. One of them, the lovable Dick Collins, died of a heart attack on February 18, 1997, at the age of 63. Even more sobering, however, was the 1997 death by heart attack of Jim Pellon, 47, who had “buckled” 12 times

May/June 1998