High-School Running Champs Lose Crown Due to Illegal Undies

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by Mark Hyman (Subscribe to Mark Hyman's posts) Oct 28th 2009 1:41PM

The Hereford High School Bulls lost their championship at the Baltimore County cross country races because one runner was wearing the wrong underwear. Credit: Algerina Perna, Baltimore Sun


Victory goes to the fleetest, right? Not this week. Not in Baltimore County, Md.

A boys' cross-country team sped to victory in a high school championship only to have the triumph overturned for a strange reason: Illegal shorts.

Race officials took the crown away from the Hereford High School Bulls because one of their runners ran the race wearing black compression shorts with visible white stitching under uniform pants. That broke Rule 9, Section 6, Article 1b of the National Federation of High Schools' rules which state: "Items displaying seams stitched on the outside of the garment in a visible contrasting color to the undergarment will be illegal beginning with the 2009-2010 school year."
Nobody seemed happy about a big meet being decided by a runner's flawed choice of undies.

"It's an unfortunate situation. We have the utmost respect for [Hereford]," the coach of another team in the meet said to the Baltimore Sun. "They can take the plaque away, but they can't take away the race," Hereford's co-coach Jason Bowman, told the Sun.

Small uniform glitches leading to big disappointments aren't as rare as one would think in youth sports. In March, a Chicago high school basketball team lost a hard-fought game due to uniforms with bad stripes.

Yes, folks, bad stripes.

North Lawndale College Prep showed up for a game with stripes that breached a rule mandating that basketball shirts be one color from the neck to the armhole to the bottom of the jersey. The penalty for donning the non-conforming shirts was a free throw awarded to North Lawndale's opponent (which it sank). Final score: Centennial 66, North Lawndale (with bad stripes) 65.

ParentDish sports reporter Mark Hyman is the author of Until It Hurts: America's Obsession With Youth Sports and How It Harms our Kids (Beacon Press). Have a suggestion for an article on youth sports? Contact Mark at pdyouthsports@aol.com

Helocopter!

Way more daring than barefoot running!

Tonight's 15 Miler

Finished in about 8:40 pace. I am definitely not feeling fit after 3 days off. Had 15 on the schedule and ended up doing 13 completely barefoot and using the FF's for the last 2. I just didn't feel like runnig over the chip seal at Kellar School. I'll take it.

Weds Workout -- Whew!

Ok I'm whooped. I did 5x2 mile repeats at GMP-15. I recovered to a 120 bpm heart rate between sets. I wanted to quit on the last one but my wife egged me on. I did it but had to put my monkey feet on for #4 and #5. 12 miles total on treadmill. Zero incline at 6:29 pace. I would say it was and 8.5 to 9 degree of difficulty.

Risks of Death in Marathon are Still Relatively Low

Lately we've heard a lot of press surrounding the deaths of marathon runners. A study presented during the American College of Cardiology scientific session in Orlando, Fla., reported that the risk of sudden death during a marathon is 0.8 per 100,000 people. The risk is greater during triathlon events, which include running, swimming and cycling. In the triathlon, the risk of sudden death is 1.5 in 100,000, according to the report. The incidence of sudden cardiac death in young adults has been estimated at 0.9 and 2.3 per 100,000 for non-athletes and athletes, respectively.

By comparison, the risk of dying in childbirth is 13 per 100,000 births. The risk of dying from diabetes is 23 per 100,000 population. The risk of dying in a car accident is 1 in 6,700.

Buckle up. Your much more likely to die on your way to the marathon than in it!

Rethink Barefoot Approach With Transitional Footwear

Here is a different way to think about those transitional shoes.....

The transitional shoes are only part of the story. They can extend your mileage and get you that extra edge or they can hinder your progress. You have to use them correctly or you won't get good results.

My first go at barefoot running failed. I tried to transition using the five fingers and couldn’t make the leap until I went cold turkey. I was stuck in a “not quite barefoot” transitional state. I now think the shoes slowed my transition because of how I used them early on.

Prior to my change, I was using transitional footwear to strengthen my feet. I figured, strong feet were a necessary precursor to running barefoot. In a short amount of time, I was running almost as many miles in my Vibram Five Fingers as I could in my shoes. I was definitely runner farther and faster than I could have possibly run barefoot. In hind site, I had not changed my form to a more gentle technique – well, O.K. I may have been running more gently than I did in supportive footwear, but, I was not running as gently as I do currently in bare soles exposed to the ground. It’s a catch 22! This was the “reason” I was weaing VFF’s to begin with.

By bypassing, both the learning I was close but not quite there. My old running style was present to some degree; with the literal pounding out of more miles than my feet were ready to withstand. I was setting myself up for an injury.

Now don't get me wrong. I wear my VFF’s all the time. But instead of thinking of them as transitional footwear I think of them as spare tires. They are the shoe I put on when I’ve gone as far as I can barefoot first. I only start with them on a run that was preceded by a difficult barefoot run where my soles may have been injured. I just need to let the skin heal. When I wear them I try to concentrate on using my barefoot form. Not my old shod running form! I had to get the technique down first and that was frustrating because it meant a ton of really slow miles first.