April 27, 2008 Gribbon, Moore share their Boston Marathon experience Last Monday the Boston Marathon was held; and since they have changed the qualifying times and added some great prize money, the number of entries has increased. I read some of the results and saw two runners from San Marcos who finished. Danny Gribbon and Gina Moore both ran the Boston Marathon last Monday. Gina has run this marathon a number of times and just keeps adding to her list of accomplishments, such as running a marathon in every state (50 states) as well as other countries. Congratulations to these two good runners. I talked to one of our faculty members in the Physical Education Department, Reenie Smith, who also ran. She said she trained a little differently preparing for Heartbreak Hill, which is actually a series of four hills that come at the wrong time in a marathon. At about mile 22 - just when the legs are starting to feel the effects of those miles - the hills appear. Even the eventual winner commented on the difficulty of the hills. Reenie said runners often run hills to get in condition to run Heartbreak Hill, but go about it the wrong way. She talked to a runner who said she should try running on flat ground for a number of miles and then run the hills after that, to make it similar to where the hills are found at Boston. She said runners around Austin are always running up or down hills; but the idea of running on flat ground and then trying to run hills was a little different. Even though her legs started to cramp up in the later stages of the race, she thought that the specific training for hills helped her. Another item in the paper that caught my attention was a short article about the spring season and the appearance of snakes coming out. If you run in town, this is not much of a problem; but if you like to get out for runs on the country roads for a little scenery, this can be something that a runner needs to think about. I have only met a few snakes on the road during runs, but each time it was a run that sticks in your memory. One specific time on a very hot day during a ten-mile run we were on a dirt road, and a pickup truck had stopped in front of us and started yelling and jumping around. We couldn’t imagine what the fuss was about. As we got closer we could see a rattlesnake slither across the road. The impressive thing was that his tail part was on one side of the road and his head was on the other side, which made that one big snake. It had been sunning itself alongside of the road; and since we were almost finished, our attention was not really on the possibility of snakes near us. We would have run right in front of it; and while I hope it did not want to bite us, our running by so close might have startled it enough to make that a possibility. Needless to say, the remaining three miles were much faster and our minds much more alert. One other time I was running back to get the car, since my partner had sprained his ankle and was not able to continue. I headed back to the car, and for some reason happened to look down just as a coral snake appeared just where my foot was about to set down. I am not sure how a person can jump in the middle of a stride, but it can happen without much thought into how it gets done. That event will also have you pick up the pace a little and look ahead a bit further, just in case there are other sunbathing snakes on the road. I remember Ros Hill telling me about the time he put his glasses in a tree while he ran on the old Freeman Ranch Road. As he finished his run and was picking up his glasses from the tree, he thought he saw movement down by his feet. Putting on his glasses, he found that he was standing next to a good-sized copperhead snake. While these are very isolated instances in running and are not very common, it is just something to think about if you are running in a country setting. Just think, in Florida some people find alligators in their kitchen. A snake sunbathing on a country road is nothing compared to finding an alligator in your kitchen. Dr. Maurice Johnson - better known around San Marcos as “Moe” - is a professor in the Department of Health, P.E., Recreation and Dance at Texas State University - San Marcos. Moe has been a fixture in the San Marcos running community - both as a runner and race organizer - since way back when Moby Dick was a minnow. His column on running and fitness appears each Sunday in the Sports section of the San Marcos Daily Record. • Recent “Running With Moe” Columns • Home • About the Club • Current News • Club Runs • Places To Run • TX Running Clubs • Running Links • Useful Stuff Upcoming Races • Race Results • Country Roads 10K & Kids Run • ARA-Moe’s Better Half Marathon • “Running With Moe” Contact Us!