From Apes to Marathoners

Bipedalism, opposable thumbs, and a giant brain are the big three differences that separate us from the rest of the food chain. The benefits of the latter two for tool making, hunting, etc. are obvious, but the first isn't totally understood. Usually it is attributed to one of the myriad of benefits that is associated with walking, but there are some that believe running is the real evolutionary driver behind bipedalism.

This is an argument that has been around for a while but recently has gained some strength in scientific data, particularly with a recent article in the Journal of Experimental Biology showing the benefit of short toes (a trait specific to humans) for running. Specifically, while shorter toes provide no measurable reduction in energy usage during walking, they do cut it by 20% for running.

This efficiency wouldn't help much with pure speed, but it provides a great benefit for running endurance, a trait that humans are particularly well suited for. How would this help hunter-gatherers? One of the authors, Daniel Lieberman, points to persistence hunting.

Basically you chase an animal over dozens of miles, slowly wearing it down until it collapses either from exhaustion or overheating. No need for sprinting, just a long, steady, fast gait. This practice is rare now but it was one of the earliest forms of hunting (predating even simple tools like spears).

So contrary to what you people continue to tell me, it turns out that humans may be designed to run marathons after all.




some more running nerd lolz

Texas Roadhouse Boycott

This weekend I once again pulled off a new half marathon personal record, it's been a good year for me. This time down in College Station I finally beat an 8 minute/mile pace, but not without some serious suffering along the way. Along with this being the coldest race that I've ever run, 33 degrees with 25 mph winds gusting to 35 mph, I made the mistake of eating at Texas Roadhouse the night before.

Turns out that Texas Roadhouse does not serve pasta. At all. I understand I was at a steakhouse, but how hard is it to throw a dab of spaghetti on the menu. Even I can cook spaghetti. Or maybe a veggie burger. Anything that isn't 90% fat and/or protein would have been acceptable, alas this was not a choice.

I asked the waitress if they could figure something out, she was very quick with a seemingly-prepared, negative response; apparently some runners had already come through that evening with the same questions. They did have some pasta on the children's menu, Mac & Cheese. A little unconventional I think to myself, but at least it has carbs.

I order two sides of this and a Caesar salad, and the arrival of these dishes is about where the wheels came off.

The salad was damn near inedible. Within the sea of Iceberg lettuce there was a tiny bit of Romaine, but that clearly was of the best-consumed-immediately, on-sale-special variety usually shrink-wrapped in a bin near the front of your local Kroger's and ignored by anyone that has ever eaten outside of McDonalds. Of course they made up for it by applying the dressing with a fire hose. How a steak restaurant can survive with poor salad skills is beyond me, but the hour wait to get a seat in the restaurant tells me that they are not having a lot of issues keeping business.

At least I have the Mac & Cheese to fall back on. The only problem was I felt like I was coating my throat in butter as I consumed it.

Me: (uncomfortable look) "This Mac & Cheese sure is...creamy..."

Waitress: (wide-eyed grin) "I know, isn't it great?!"

Me: (speechless, just stares)

In the end I finished nearly half of one of the sides of Mac & Cheese (ignoring the other) and some minority portion of the Caesar. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for either I still felt the butter in my gut all 13.1 miles the next morning.

So, regardless of the effort they expend to create that extraordinarily outlandish redneck environment, Texas Roadhouse is now under an official personal boycott due to the overall lameness of their food. It's rare that I ever boycott a place based on a single meal, but I'm making an exception in this case.

Clydesdale on the March

In runner slang, a Clydesdale is a big guy (or girl) that runs, usually over 200 pounds for men.

Like their namesake, Clydesdales are known neither for their speed nor their stamina. Accelerating a 200 lb. mass is much more difficult than a 130 lb. body, and the constant lifting and dropping of so much weight is notoriously bad for joints. This puts most Clydesdales, including yours truly, in the mid-range category, neither sprinters nor long-distance runners. You find us most often doing 10k (6.2 mile) runs or half marathons (13.1 miles), I'm rather addicted to the latter.

Nonetheless, I've gone off and signed up for a full marathon. Seattle, in June. It's just so painful looking at the map of a full marathon and then signing up for just half of it, this time I failed. There is still a great chance that I'll wimp out and just run the half, but for now, I'm scheduled to run the full.

A bit of positive news, I ran the Austin half yesterday and, for the second year in a row, got a new PR (personal record) there. This year I finished in 1:46:08, cutting a full 2 minutes off of last year's time. That I keep getting PRs there doesn't make much sense since Austin is all hills and that usually makes a race quite a bit slower. I do love hills, that could be part of it, or maybe I'm just stronger than usual this time of year.

I have 3 more halfs scheduled for this season as well as the full marathon in June, so time should tell.

Remaining schedule:

• College Station Half- March 1
• Big D (Dallas) Half - April 5
• Nashville Half - April 25
• Seattle Marathon - June 27