Letters

cco SRE ARES

Ijust finished reading the November/ December Marathon & Beyond article on the Jasper Banff Relay, and I enjoyed it very much. Many thanks for providing such an interesting and personal view of the Relay. I have been a JB race volunteer for over 15 years, the last 5 as a member of the race committee. At the time of the article, our Web site was not up and running, and so only the e-mail address for the Relay was mentioned. The Jasper Banff Relay Web site is now on line at http://www. jasper-banff-relay.com. The site includes (and will continue to expand with) information on the race, how to enter, what to bring, entry forms, maps, and so on. James Dawe webmaster @ jasper-banffrelay.com

I enjoyed your article about the Jasper Banff Relay very much. You managed to capture the spirit of the event and portray it to your readers. It had all of the elements all of us who have run “The JB” have experienced: the ecstasy, the humor, the elements, the disappointments, the bears, the camaraderie, and so much more. As I read the article, it brought back memories of my many experiences at the Relay over the years.

The Jasper Banff Relay is one of those “special” events in my running ..-no, my life! Tam not exactly sure of the reason for its place. It just is! Every time I’ve participated in the event, I swear I will not do it again; however, when the call comes asking me to participate the next year, agree without hesitation! The JB has become a “right of passage” and is a measure of my humanity. Several years ago I was medically unable to participate, and I spent a miserable weekend at home, imagining what was transpiring several hundred miles away in the mountains. I even found myself checking the weather reports and calling the media outlets for news of the race. It was awful!

Thank you for portraying so effectively something so special!

John McGee Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

GETTING HIGH

I just finished reading the latest issue of M&B—again, very interesting and useful articles, and entertaining! I have a request for a future article. Having moved from the Detroit area to Mexico City just over a year ago, I’ve naturally had to deal with an adjustment to the 7,000-foot altitude for running and racing. It’s been a very slow adjustment. I’ve seen very little

LETTERS ® 117

published on the subject of altitude running, training, or racing. I would really like to see an article that covers this. Dale Johnson Mexico City, Mexico Editor’s note: We have a story in the works on altitude training and racing by a Colorado runner/ writer with first-hand … er. . .first-lung experience. Keep an eye out for what our writer promises will be a very revealing—and startling—article.

VEGGIE MARATHONERS & KID MARATHONERS

The “vegetarian” article in M&B 1(5) was disappointing and ludicrous. As defined by Ms. Eberle on the first page of her article, vegetarians do not eat meat, poultry, fish, or seafood. Why, then, does her article, supposedly for the benefit of vegetarian runners, preach that one should eat tuna or seafood for their protein, include meat for iron and zinc, canned fish for calcium, fish for vitamin D, more dead animals for vitamin B12, ad nauseum? Some vegetarian! Unfortunately, the vast majority of registered dieticians truly believe this crap. Why not seek out a nutritionist who really knows something about the subject?

This is akin to having someone who warns that your knees have only so many miles before your legs fall off write an article espousing ultra training. Just for the record, I have been a vegetarian my entire life, 52 years. I’ll not profess to watching my diet or eating especially healthfully,

but I have never eaten a piece of meat. And my legs have not fallen off, even though they’ve taken me over 200,000 miles under my own power. I’ve completed 110 marathons and 120 ultras so far sans flesh. It is possible. It’s not even difficult. Real vegetarians do not eat meat or fish or poultry.

Regarding children running marathons: My two children ran marathons with me before they were 10, and it was nothing but a positive experience for all of us—perhaps one of the best child-parent bonding experiences. I slowed down three to four minutes per mile from my then-sub-7:00 pace to run with Heidi, age nine, and Erik, age eight, and I can remember those marathons much more fondly and vividly than my sub-3:00 barnburners. Both children, by the way, have since run occasional events, including marathons, as 20-something adults. It did not burn them out.

I do not advocate urging kids to push too hard or to train excessively, but I strongly advocate supporting a self-motivated youngster to achieve a goal. In our case, it created such strong bonds that it even helped me win a child custody battle.

Del Scharffenberg Portland, Ore.

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