Going the Distance: Applications of Distance Running to Science

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00:00:18;19 MH: Hi, my name is Melissa Hendershot, and I am a graduate student at UCSF.
00:00:22;21 Today I am here with Chris Garcia,
00:00:24;29 who is a professor and Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at Stanford University.
00:00:28;28 Chris is a dedicated professor, but he also
00:00:32;06 spent thousands of hours training for and running ultra marathons.
00:00:36;01 So, welcome Chris. Thanks for joining us.
00:00:39;15 CG: Thank you.
00:00:40;16 MH: First of all, can you just tell us a little bit about what an ultra marathon is and what that entails?
00:00:45;17 CG: Technically an ultra marathon is any distance race longer than a marathon.
00:00:53;14 So ultra marathons can be anything from 50 kilometers, which is a pretty popular distance,
00:00:58;15 to a hundred miles, and, you know, there are races in between 50 milers, 100K's,
00:01:05;23 so that is what defines an ultra marathon.
00:01:09;13 MH: When did you first start running seriously?
00:01:12;23 CG: Well, I was always an athlete. I was a tennis player growing up. A pretty serious tennis player,
00:01:19;17 and then in graduate school I started running, and I started running marathons on the East Coast,
00:01:26;21 and actually rode a single skull for a while when I was in graduate school.
00:01:32;00 And then when I moved to California for my postdoc,
00:01:35;04 I started getting more serious about running and doing triathlons.
00:01:40;12 And I did a lot of triathlons when I was in San Diego doing my postdoc at Scripps,
00:01:47;08 and you know I had always heard about ultra marathons
00:01:50;09 and I'd always had a predilection for distance.
00:01:54;26 And I knew that ultra marathons were a big thing in the Bay Area,
00:02:02;23 but you know, like 15 years ago when I was just hearing about them,
00:02:05;25 they weren't as popular as they are now.
00:02:07;16 So it was kind of an urban myth, these races where people run a hundred miles, and so...
00:02:15;03 I felt like that was something that I could potentially be decent at.
00:02:23;02 And it kind of escalated from there.
00:02:25;26 MH: What was your first ultra?
00:02:28;00 CG: So my first ultra was... actually a postdoc in my lab had run some ultras
00:02:36;06 and she got me to sign up with her
00:02:38;13 to run a race in the Marin Headlands called the Marin 50K.
00:02:41;24 It went through the Headlands and through the trails.
00:02:44;26 It was just a.... It was almost like an out of body experience.
00:02:49;18 It was just running through the fog over there
00:02:52;09 and along the coastal trail, and through the rainforests, and it was from the first time I ever did it,
00:03:00;22 it was just... that was it. I was hooked.
00:03:03;04 And that was almost 12 years ago.
00:03:04;11 MH: How many ultra marathons have you done? Do you know?
00:03:08;27 CG: Yeah, I have done a total of 80 or 82, or something like that,
00:03:14;26 and amongst those 80-some races,
00:03:18;21 I think I have run about 13 100-milers, probably 25 or 30 50-milers,
00:03:27;29 and 10 or so 100K's and a lot of 50K's so kind of
00:03:33;08 very long distance races you run fewer of because your body just can't take that many.
00:03:38;18 MH: How do you train for the races?
00:03:41;27 CG: So during the week I do normal distances. I'll run 6 or 7 miles, maybe four times a week.
00:03:53;27 And actually I do a lot of cross training.
00:03:57;10 I swim a lot. I swim with Stanford Masters team a lot in the mornings, and I also cycle a lot.
00:04:04;26 And so I have like a 25 mile loop that I do to get to work just to sort of take the pounding off my body.
00:04:12;00 But then on weekends, there is usually a long Saturday run, that is anywhere from 20 to 30 miles
00:04:17;20 with a group of people I have been running with for a long time.
00:04:20;09 They are great friends, and a big part of why I am doing this, and that is a Saturday morning staple.
00:04:28;02 And then as we are sort of ramping up into race season now,
00:04:31;26 you'll back it up again on Sunday with maybe a 15 or 20 mile run.
00:04:36;11 So the key to doing ultras is the long run.
00:04:39;17 And the long run can be anywhere from twenty to forty miles.
00:04:43;03 And then backing it up with a long run the next day.
00:04:45;20 And so, it comes in large chunks. So for me, going into a 100-miler,
00:04:53;22 I might max out at like and 80 or 90 mile week for a few weeks,
00:05:00;28 but average total maybe 60 or 70 miles a week.
00:05:04;09 Some people run 150 miles a week, the real elite ultra runners will run 150-200 miles a week.
00:05:11;17 Some people can get away with less. And so it is a very individual thing.
00:05:17;11 MH: How do you manage to push yourself past the feelings of discomfort and unhappiness?
00:05:26;06 CG: That is a good question. You just keep going. You realize when you first start doing these races,
00:05:32;09 you really doubt what you can do, and you fear failure.
00:05:37;04 But then with enough experience, you realize you can get past those bad patches
00:05:43;09 when you are just completely...you just can't go on.
00:05:47;08 If you understand your nutrition well enough, if you know how to manage yourself,
00:05:51;29 hydrate yourself, and you know, you have the confidence,
00:05:56;11 you have done those longer distances before,
00:05:58;07 you can push yourself through it and you recover.
00:05:59;27 It is amazing in these races how many times you go to complete failure,
00:06:05;14 and you recover, and then you are running along just as if you had started running ten minutes ago.
00:06:11;21 And so it is a constant sort of cycle of ups and downs in these races.
00:06:16;15 MH: What sorts of things do you think about when you are running?
00:06:19;29 CG: You know, it is interesting. Well, when I am running just for training
00:06:26;05 or in the afternoon here at Stanford, like out here,
00:06:29;09 I am usually thinking about problems in the lab.
00:06:32;08 Science. Projects. Issues with people. Managing projects.
00:06:37;27 But then when you run far enough, your mind goes blank and you don't really think about anything.
00:06:43;23 You don't have enough glucose in your brain to think,
00:06:47;17 and, you know, people ask me what do you think about during a hundred mile race
00:06:52;08 when you are out there for a day? Do you get bored?
00:06:54;04 And it's amazing how fast these things go.
00:06:57;04 I barely remember anything that happens in these races.
00:07:00;05 You know, you are just kind of in survival mode.
00:07:02;08 And you are thinking about managing yourself and your nutrition,
00:07:05;12 and so you are just so in the moment
00:07:08;25 and you are not thinking about anything else except maximizing how good you feel.
00:07:16;02 MH: Have you ever had a scientific breakthrough moment
00:07:19;08 while you have been out running on the trail?
00:07:21;09 CG: Yeah, actually a lot of them.
00:07:25;05 I have had a lot of ideas for projects, usually early in the run.
00:07:31;12 And I remember very distinctly when I was an Assistant Professor
00:07:35;17 we were trying to solve a crystal structure that had a very complex packing and symmetry problem.
00:07:42;17 And we were banging on the thing for a week or two, and, well, the project took longer than that,
00:07:53;15 but once we had phases we were staring at the graphics
00:07:56;13 and couldn't figure out the symmetry of the thing,
00:07:58;12 and I took a run around Stanford and I solved the problem in my head. It just came to me.
00:08:03;28 It just kind of percolated up, and so stuff like that happens all the time.
00:08:08;19 MH: How have you found ways to balance having both a
00:08:11;18 demanding profession and a pretty demanding hobby?
00:08:15;18 CG: Well, I am very disciplined with my time, and I don't have a lot of free time.
00:08:23;13 I am usually doing one of two things. I am either working or I am out training.
00:08:31;07 And I get up at 4 in the morning and then I work for awhile, and then I swim, and go to work,
00:08:41;04 and then I go to lab, and then later in the afternoon
00:08:44;05 I usually do another training session and go back to lab, and then go home.
00:08:50;07 I don't get a lot of sleep, and I enjoy it. I love it.
00:08:53;25 I love the immersion. I love my life, and there's not a lot of tolerance.
00:09:03;10 The tolerances are pretty fine between the stuff I am doing,
00:09:05;14 and I always feel like it is on the verge of blowing up, but I feel very fortunate.
00:09:12;29 You know, there's so many things I want to do that it is difficult to find enough time in the day often.
00:09:22;22 MH: Do you see any parallels between running ultra marathons and running a lab,
00:09:27;15 or any skills that you have acquired through your racing that have helped you as a PI?
00:09:31;06 CG: Definitely. It's been hugely, enormously helpful.
00:09:34;22 Just athletics in general has a lot of lessons to learn about doing science.
00:09:39;28 And there is a physicality to science that I think people tend to underestimate
00:09:45;08 that you need to be able to push yourself through barriers
00:09:49;16 to keep going on hard scientific problems.
00:09:51;25 And ultra teaches a lot of lessons about humility and stoicism,
00:09:56;00 staying within oneself, and being in the moment.
00:09:59;00 It has had a great pacifying influence on me, for sure. And also having the long view.
00:10:03;29 Science, if you are working on hard scientific problems,
00:10:09;01 or any sort of important scientific problem,
00:10:11;18 it is generally going to be a long term problem,
00:10:15;06 and you have to have the patience and the foresight to understand that the payoff is in the future.
00:10:21;10 It is in the distance.
00:10:22;08 And it is also in the process of doing the science. It is not just in the reward.
00:10:27;07 So ultra has the same kinds of lessons to teach
00:10:30;26 about enjoying the process, learning from the process,
00:10:36;20 and having the long view, and having the confidence that you can get there if you just persist.
00:10:42;10

This Talk

Speaker: K. Chris Garcia

Audience:

General Public
Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
Student
Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: April 2012

Talk Overview

Chris Garcia has run more than eighty ultramarathons, including thirteen 100 mile races. He explains that running teaches him a lot of lessons about discipline, patience and persistence that can be applied from distance running to science.

About the interviewer: Melissa Hendershott is a graduate student in the Tetrad program at UCSF.

Speaker Bio

K. Chris Garcia

When he is not on a long run or in the swimming pool, Chris Garcia can be found in his lab at Stanford University where he is a Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and of Structural Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Garcia’s lab is studying the recognition and activation of a… Continue Reading