Adam’s training journal
With less than two weeks remaining, it looks as if — knock on wood — I will make good on my New Year’s resolution to run every day in 2009.
I originally defined a “run” as a minimum of four miles. But when I banged up my ribs and forearm in an ill-fated snowboarding experiment, I cut that number down to three miles for a week in March. It was, I confess, a compromise. But given that I spent that week at 10,000-foot altitude, was running on mountain roads that didn’t possess a single foot of flat terrain and could not take a deep breath without excruciating pain, I think I did pretty well to keep running at all during that time.
As 2010 prepares to make its entrance, I don’t know whether I’ll try to keep the streak intact. But I do know that I’d like to maintain my general level of fitness.
The biggest potential obstacle I see is a ski vacation I’ve planned in January. Other than the obvious joke at my expense — no, I won’t be snowboarding again — any words of wisdom?
Dr. Prescott prescribes
I’m glad to hear you’re finally coming to terms with your middle-agedness. As a 41- year-old, you’re wise to leave snowboarding to those who cannot remember life before there was an X Games. In that same vein, a recent study published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that acting one’s age may be the best way to avoid injuries while skiing.
Researchers in a mountainous region of Switzerland gave questionnaires to 782 skiers who’d been treated at local trauma centers and 496 comparable skiers who hadn’t. What, they wanted to know, distinguished the one group from the other?
The injured skiers, it turns out, were largely men. And their average age was 40.
Chances of injury increased when, as the study authors put it, skiers had a high “readiness for risk.” In other words, if they opted for moguls and jumps instead of groomed blue slopes, watch out.
The study also found that risk increased significantly with new ski equipment (which could lead to overconfidence and increased risk-taking) and old snow (think crust and ice). Interestingly, the uninjured skiers admitted to a higher rate of drinking on the slopes. But please do not take this as an endorsement for mixing Jell-O shots with powder shots.
Improved equipment has helped cut the number of injuries to about 2 per every 1,000 skier visits. Quick-release bindings and easier-to-control parabolic skis have been key advances. And there’s simply no excuse not to wear a helmet.
As long as you ski like the responsible father of two that you are, you should be able to avoid last spring’s misadventures. But I’ll keep my cell phone on just in case.
[ask-drp]
