
For Runner With M.S., No Pain While Racing, No Feeling at the Finish - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/sports/for-runner-with-ms-no-pain-while-racing-no-feeling-at-the-finish.html?hp&_r=0
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peterwwillis
To me, this article is not about running or a runner. It's about MS. Sadly, it
doesn't really go into how MS affects the 2+ million people around the world,
or why this story is important.

My best friend has MS. She's had it for half her adult life. She actually has
it "good", in that she looks normal and can function through life virtually
the same as most other people.

But there are some exceptions, such as the debilitating, random, lightning-
like pain that strikes her. The occasional year or two when she can't walk
without the use of a cane. The hot summers that make her body almost
completely immobile and intensify pain. The fact that she can't dance for more
than an hour or two before her cognitive ability reduces to basic motor
functions. That there's basically no medication that helps her except for
high-strength muscle relaxers that dull the symptoms.

But you know? Besides all that, she has it "lucky". She can run without
falling down. She doesn't need a wheelchair or a breathing machine. She even
just had her first child with her new husband. But there's the real
possibility that at some point, like many other MS sufferers, even feeding
herself could become an impossible task, to say nothing of caring for her own
baby girl.

I am not this teenage girl, and I can't know how she feels. If it were me, I
would be scared of the disease progressing more rapidly by pushing my system.
But she's clearly decided that in spite of that she's going to run as hard as
she can while she still has the ability. I hope she keeps running and wins
every damn competition she can.

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j4pe
I also wish they had interviewed the runner more deeply. I'd speculate that
her advantage is almost entirely mental. Middle-distance races inflict pain on
the whole body - guts, arms, neck, everywhere - the legs are by no means the
only part under stress. The quote about not knowing how much time she had left
was also telling: not many high school runners have that kind of motivation,
and motivation to train and race is 90% of the competition at that level.

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revelation
Other than this article seems to proclaim, running success is not predicated
on ones resistance to pain, but is rather very strongly correlated with
maximal oxygen uptake or VO2max (and in cross country, possibly the
genetically predetermined makeup of your muscle fibers).

So instead of taking the othering approach of suggesting her success is the
result of her M.S., let's take the rational route and suggest it is a
combination of good genetic potential and, most importantly, effective
training.

~~~
kirse
_running success is not predicated on ones resistance to pain_

For her age group, it generally is. It's rare to find a teen runner who has
developed that SEAL-team-like mental resilience to blow through all pain
barriers. At the elite level, sure, it usually becomes a matter of genetics
handing out that last sliver of advantage. Even at the elite level though
(generally 800m+), you still see feats of mental insanity narrowing the gap
between actual performance and "genetic max" [1]

Have you ever run competitively?

[1] Obvious example: David Rudisha running his blistering 1:40.91 800m in
London 2012, all 8 runners in that race were sub 1:44 and 7 set new personal
bests.

~~~
revelation
I'm not talking about getting those last few seconds in an 800m event.
Obviously, at that point VO2max becomes a blunt instrument of little worth.
The point still stands, though: aerobic capacity (as indicated by VO2max) is a
_necessary_ (even if not sufficient) condition to be even listed on the same
page with these people. No pain endurance in the world can get your feet into
the door.

Of course, all the boring training doesn't make for a nice story.

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andrewcooke
huh. i have ms and run. i have not noticed this, although i do have problems
"restarting" (when you stop and then need to start running again, it's hard
when you're tired). i admit i've never pushed myself to the point where i
collapse when finishing - that must take some will-power because it gets
progressively harder to control what your damn body is doing.

unfortunately the disease is very unpredictable. in a sense, it's just random
"deleting" of nerves. so each person has different symptoms.

anyway, good on her; i hope she's stable enough (things don't get worse) for
this to continue (on the other hand, if it were me, and re-mylinization
(recovery of damaged nerves) improved my control, i'd take that over running
fast...)

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danso
This is a classic story of overcoming-adversity, but the astonishing part is
that it's not about a great athlete continuing to win after M.S., but a _poor_
athlete becoming great _because_ of M.S. (and due in part, of course, to the
girl's new perspective on life):

> _Her trajectory as a distance runner has been unusually ascendant._

 _“When she was diagnosed, she said to me, ‘Coach, I don’t know how much time
I have left, so I want to run fast — don’t hold back,’ ” said Patrick
Cromwell, Montgomery’s coach. “That’s when I said, ‘Wow, who are you?’ ”_

 _At the time, Montgomery was one of the slowest on her team, completing her
first 5-kilometer race in 24:29; by last November, she had run a 17:22,
placing 11th in the regional qualifier for the Foot Locker national cross-
country championships._

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cyanbane
I wish the article would have asked her specifically if she felt that she was
able to accomplish this because of the numbness from the M.S. or because of a
new found motivation from the diagnosis. Something only she could answer.
Either way, I hope her all the best in college.

~~~
topherjaynes
That's a really great question. I know it's her coach saying this, ‘Coach, I
don’t know how much time I have left, so I want to run fast — don’t hold
back,’, but hoping it's the latter. Either way, made me feel fairly lazy about
not getting out of bed and running this morning

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epaladin
While I understand the attitude of wanting to try as hard as possible while
there's still a chance to, I hope she's not actually doing more damage while
not being able to really feel what's going on. How do you not destroy your
ankles in cross-country while not being able to feel your feet?

At the same time I respect the attempt to triumph over adversity. Took me ten
years to get a sub-20 5k, and I'm about the same height and don't have MS.

~~~
andrewcooke
i think she's track? as i said in my comment, every ms patient is different,
but in my experience you need to be running on pretty flat ground because
you're basically relying on rhythm (it says this in the article too -
restarting after stopping is hard because you really need to think about what
you're doing, but once you have a rhythm, repeating is easier). for me, kerbs
are a nuisance.

also, the damage can be very specific and subtle. i currently have
pins+needles / little feeling in the ends of my toes on my left feet. but i
can feel my ankles fine. my thighs, on the other hand, are a random patchwork
of feeling and not. and what you can feel and what you can control are often
not the same (it seems like nerves that control and nerves that feel are
different, and damaged separately, in crude terms; on the other hand you loose
the feedback loop).

it's actually very interesting if you can get a little removed from it all
(which you do after a year or so). it's amazing how much redundancy there is,
for example.

ps running (exercise in general) is encouraged. seems to help the immune
system and the inflammation response. in fact, i "got" ms late, after running
for most of my life, when i took a year off with a chronic injury.
coincidence? who knows...?

~~~
001sky
This is quite insightful. Thanks for posting.

