Pretty hardcore, right? My big brother sent it a few days back.

So when I found this article yesterday, a certain phrase came floating back into my head.

Ed McDaniel had been a runner for years before he started to go blind. Now, some twenty years later, about five percent of his central vision remains (…Money for the Blind). He is still apparently an intrepid trail trekker. Last October, he competed in his first marathon– running the entirety behind his white cane.

And here I’ve been holding back because of the snow and ice. Kind of makes me feel like a wimp.

Why do I smell so bad?

If you’re a long-distance runner, you’ve probably asked yourself this question. Perhaps you’ve been asked by loved ones; my own darling is uncharacteristically indelicate when it comes to my musk after a long run.

I say long run because I’m not talking about the normal sweaty body smell that I have after 5 miles. I’m talking about the stench that I have after 20 miles in the sun. It’s entirely different from normal sweat. It’s like I’ve been bathing in vodka, like my sweat will kill bacteria and remove stubborn grass stains.

I never thought much of it. This is what my body does when it’s been pushed to the limit. It wasn’t until I came across this article on Kevin Sayer’s site that I found out that this is an indicator of something unusual.

When we go on long (long, long) runs, we deplete the glycogen stores in our livers. Dehydration, excessive strain, and low carb intake speed up this process. Eventually the body no longer can rely on carbohydrates for energy, so it turns to the fat we’ve built up. This state is called ketosis. Ketones are produced as a waste product of fat-burning, and this acid starts to pollute your blood. It’s not dangerous (see here) until the ketone levels get too high, when their acidity can damage organs. Even a slightly elevated level of ketone, however, can cause muscle damage (Eades). It’s one of the reasons why elite runners tend to be disgustingly skinny.

Exhibit A: Paul Amey, kickass triathlete

If there’s a lesson in this, it’s to eat your GU– and please, never run long mileage on a low-carb diet. Americans have developed the idea that carbohydrates are bad and fat must be lost. But runners particularly need slow-burning carbs, and plenty of them, if they want to recover quickly and minimize muscle loss.

And not stink. That too.

My blog is usually non-topical on purpose. I try not to cover the stuff that you read about in Runner’s World or the the things you hear on TV. This is because, well, you’ve already read/heard it.

However, I did feel the need to discuss a certain Chilean miner running a prominent marathon in America’s largest city.

Edison Pena competed in the New York Marathon, finishing in five hours, forty-one minutes (he could only train so much underground). Pena remarked on the warmth and hospitality of the sideline supporters; this is how we know they weren’t New Yorkers. These fans waved Chile flags for Pena’s sake, which he said pumped him up enough to kick the end of the race.

It’s easy to be cynical, to say that an obscure Chilean miner was trying to extend his fifteen minutes of fame. But reading what Pena had to say on the marathon, and on his training, I think that Pena’s tapped into the running spirit. One statement in particular stood out to me: He said running was his salvation — his way of proving how much he wanted to live.

It reminded me of similar stories told by famous athletes, such as Dean Karnazes or Philippe Croizon (“J’ai decide de vivre”). And of course the less dramatic examples. I think a lot of non-famous runners can identify with Pena’s sentiment. Though we never had such a literal death bearing down on us, we understand.

There’s another kind of death, one that happens to you when you spend day after day the same exact way, when you’re never challenged and never try. You give up on your dreams, and just kind of fade away. Running is for so many a way of staying one step ahead of mediocrity, ahead of stagnation. In other words, a way to live.

This past Saturday, I participated in a company-funded 20-miler that took me all around Philadelphia. A Nathan rep was present, and generous enough to supply everyone with some sort of hydration device. Brooks was also present, giving out free stuff and using cornstarch to show off their very cool DNA technology. Also present was Anne Mahlum, founder and president of Back on My Feet (the organization which puts on The Lone Ranger Ultra).

There was a time when I wouldn’t have thought twice about a 20-miler. It wouldn’t even have been the long run of my week. But that time was over half a year ago; concerning long distance, I am out of practice. I’ve been putting in relatively low mileage, running with my high-school racers and then doing extensions afterward.

I was therefore a little apprehensive. The longest run I’d done since the ultra was 10.5 miles. I knew that the jump to 20 was going to be… uncomfortable.

What I did not know was that I was actually jumping to 23 miles, or that I would do it with Maggie, a pleasant– but inconveniently skilled– marathoner. She was in much better shape than I, and running alongside her forced me to keep my pace up.

(Good luck in the Philly marathon, Maggie!)

Anyway, my body held up well under my recklessness. I used this run to test my HPL #020 pack, and I think that the steady hydration contributed to my success. Or at least, it contributed to the fact that I could walk around later that day.

I got into this argument with some friends recently. Most of us were runners, and most of those vehemently defended their perception of running as a sport.

Others denied it the title for reasons as superficial as its lack of a court, gear, and most tellingly, a ball. All sports have special equipment. And most non-runners would agree that running requires no skill. This latter idea abounds amongst the participants of “real” sports like baseball, football, and soccer. After all, anyone can run, right?

This debate got me thinking, and I came to the conclusion that running is not a sport.

Put down your pitchforks and extinguish your torches. I do not agree that it isn’t a sport for any of the silly reasons above. My argument rests on the fact that sports by definition require competition. And any time running involves competition, it becomes racing. So, while racing is a sport, running is not.

Please don’t get me wrong. Many runners feel compelled to defend running as a sport because they feel the label gives it validity and recognizes its difficulty. After all, many argue that it’s not a sport because they think that it doesn’t require skill or that it isn’t difficult. These are preposterous. I, on the other hand, argue that running is potentially harder than any sport, and that it is so precisely because of the characteristics that distinguish it from that time-honored title.

In any sport, the competition is between you and someone else. Your might against theirs. And there’s always a point where your might proves greater or lesser. At that point you need exert yourself no more. The demands placed on you are limited to your opponent’s abilities.

Wrestling, for example, is a sport that I highly respect (real wrestling, not the WWF crap). It locks its participants in a contest of wills, and it typically involves a long, wearying struggle– things that distance runners can understand. The difference is that it’s over as soon as you prove to be the stronger or weaker competitor.

In serious distance running, however, the demands placed on your are limited to your own abilities. When you run (whether training or racing) to the upmost of your abilities, your only limit is full-body failure.

There is no interpersonal competition in running– we specialize in beating ourselves into the ground. To do that, we need no gear, no ball, no ESPN covers. We don’t even need talent. All we need is to push ourselves harder than the rules, harder than the boundaries allowed by any sport.