Home from Houston

Whew! It's c-c-cold here back in Spokane!

David and I are back from Houston. A good time was had by all. I met Jeff on Thursday and we worked for 3 days on the Badwater and Western States research. There is now a nice summary of the 2006 Sodium Balance study in the Science Section of the Badwater website. We still have more to do and have set some reasonable deadlines for data analysis and writing up the articles. The Western States CPK-Na study is interesting as well. More to follow!

David ran the marathon and finished in 4:07. It was a nice long training run for him after a tiring 9 days of business in Tucson. I worked with the medical team at the finish line. Jeff, Mark and I were the "lab" running iSTATs on runners. John Cianca, MD (center) is the Medical Director and runs a very well organized medical team. Mark (front) is taking over as Medical Director of the Seattle Marathon this year.



The temperature took a sharp turn downward the night before the marathon. Over the weekend it was predicted to be in the high 70's and there were appropriate warnings for the runners to adjust race plans accordingly (i.e. run slower or be flexible with goals). But then, the temps dropped into the 50's and 60's and the conditions became "ideal" for marathon running. There were large electronic signs on the way to the start line in the morning notifying runners that the conditions that morning were "optimal" and there was a "green flag" to go ahead and "run as planned."



I'm sure the cooler temp was a relief for the runners, but it was definitely a bonus for the medical staff as well because runner casualties increase significantly in the warmer temps. We couldn't have been luckier!

The wet bulb globe temperature readings were taken every hour throughout the race. Here's the apparatus we use to take temperature readings that take humidity into account.



While there was a steady flow of tired and sick runners through the finish line, the numbers were low and there was nothing serious. John runs a very efficient medical tent, and of course, the weather helped this year too!

Congratulations, David!