The Mysterious Marathons of Kip Litton

Kip at the 2009 Manchester Marathon

I have been following with fascination the letsrun thread on Michigan dentist Kip Litton for thousands of messages it seems. This week there is a resolution and satisfaction with the publication of an article in the New Yorker magazine by Mark Singer, although the answer is never clear as to why Kip Litton did what he did. Basically Kip Litton is a cheat. Marathons have seen many cheaters through the years, most famously Rose Ruiz in the Boston Marathon  Kip Litton is a little different. He traveled around the country in a quest to run a sub 3 hour marathon in every state, except it seems he did not really run the full marathon most times. He even made up whole marathons, marathon websites, and fellow competitors to add to his list of completed marathons. The way Kip Litton "ran" the marathons was even more fascinating. He would start minutes behind the rest of the field, with his number covered be a shirt or sweatshirt, a cap pulled down over his ground-facing face so that he might not be recognized. Then he would appear at the end of the race, often after a change of clothes and shoes without registering at checkpoints and without his picture being taken by race photographers. His chip time from a later start would often place him in front of age group racers who never saw him on the course. The runners at letsrun outed Kip in a lengthy detective game of looking for him in race photos. The question remains, "Why would he do this?" Some answers are found in Mark Singer's article. You can find the article in this week's edition of the New Yorker magazine (on newstands-not online). My favorite part of the article is when Singer interviews an unrepentant Kip at a Wendy's after this years Boston Marathon no-show. Kip is ironically sittingunderneath a poster of Dave Thomas stating, "When it comes to VALUES, I've never been one to cut corners." Then later Lady Gaga is singing, "Pokerface," as Kip gives away no secrets. Superb! 

Kip at the finish. The one place you can usually find him.

Here is where you can find more information about Kip Litton and his cheating ways:
Pat Price over at Writing about Running gives a good summary of the New Yorker article.
An earlier Writing about Running article from 2011 The Outing of Kip Litton
The infamous Rojo says he might start a Kip Litton thread but only 1 and only 1 thread on Letsrun

The Study of Kip Litton blog which has photos and videos of Kip's misdeeds 

Kip? or just someone in a Kip pose?

I did run one race in which Kip presumably cheated in 2009. That would be the Manchester Marathon in NH. Kip finished 15th overall in 2:54:06 just 18 seconds and one place ahead (both overall and age group) in front of my friend and teammate Michael Wright. Mike never saw Kip on the course as Kip started further back in the pack. I have told Mike about Kip, but he is unconcerned even though it cost him a place in his age-group. Kip did negative split the race, which is hard to do on this hilly marathon, but possible. I also ran a negative split, running the first half in 1:46:30 and the second half in 1:42:52, however it was my second marathon in a week and I was suffering from imbalances caused by what I now know was caused by a labral tear in my hip. I was also trying out new inserts in my shoe the morning of the race. In looking at the Brightroom photos of the race, there are 16 pictures of me running, and only 2 of Kip. There is one other photo of him identified, but the runner is in completely different clothes and even a different colorered number, but the runner has the classic Kip heads down pose-either someone is having fun with the photo or maybe that is Kip and he his chip on registering the photo. Mike Wright has 18 photos online. There was a photographer on a bridge taking pictures of the marathoners. It would have been hard to avoid the photographer if you were truly running the whole marathon.

Update: I checked out the picture above further and it is runner 1345 who happened to be a female runner who completed the half-marathon. It is not Kip, so Kip had only 2 photos taken during the race. I assume one is the finish and one is at the half-marathon. He then successfully "avoided" the race photographers for the rest of the race. What I find humorous is that someone found the picture of #1345 in full head-down Kip pose and placed the photo under Kip's name on the Brightroom website. Someone has a sense of humor!

Kip "head-down" pose

1345 in a Kip-like pose

but not Kip according to the results!

But still I question how can #1345 a woman finisher in
the 1/2 marathon in 2:26 be wearing the same glasses
as Kip in this race?
I guess she is just Kip's female doppelganger. They run in the same way with the same
expression.

Update 2

Peter Larson over at Runblogger confirms that he has no video of Kip Litton at the 6 or 20 mile mark of the 2009 Manchester Marathon. Peter Larson had students taking video of the race participants for a foot-strike study. http://www.runblogger.com/2012/09/my-unexpected-connection-to-kip-litton.html He was able to get video of 95% of the participants in the top 300. 

After 23 months, a long run!

The week didn't go as planned. I had been looking forward to Wednesday's workout for months and I could only go 2 miles, but Friday made up for it. I just decided to go further while I was feeling good. I had been told the cortisone shot in my hip would take a week or two to cut down the inflammation, so Friday was one week.

Monday: 3 miles Mine Falls Trail Race 5k (5 seconds slower than the previous week)
Tuesday:  0 miles running 8 miles cycling
Wednesday: 2 miles (then two mile walk home) Today was the day I had planned to do my first workout post surgery over 8 miles. It was the one year anniversary of my surgery. My hip joint was too tight. I was going to do 10 miles, but had to stop and walk home.
Thursday: 0 miles running 16 miles cycling
Friday: 13 miles running, hip felt better and so I did my first run over 8 miles in 23 months.
Saturday: 0 miles
Sunday: 0 miles I was heading out the door for a run, when I got a call reminding me that the Coldplay concert in Boston was in a couple of hours, not the next day like I thought. No running, great concert!

Total 18 miles running

There is a running man in this video I took of Coldplay performing "Charlie Brown."



"We'll run wild,
We'll be glowing in the dark."

Active Isolated Stretching with Phil Wharton

Coach Jay Johnston posted some videos of Phil Wharton leading his Boulder Running Camp participants through an active isolated stretching routine. Back in the 1990s, I had a VHS tape of the Wharton's explaining and going through this AIS routine. I lent it out about 10 years ago and never got it back. I did the routine many times a week for a few years and got looser than I have ever been, however it did not improve my hip/lower back which I now know was mostly due to a labral tear. It was nice to go through the routine again. I could still do most of it from memory, but there were some new tips I forgot or that have been developed since the earlier video. This wasn't the whole routine from before, but still it is a good reminder of how to stretch with a rope using the force of an opposing muscle to create the stretch and holding it for only a short amount of time to keep your muscles from having a stretch reflex. Jay Johnston says that Running DVDs will be producing a DVD/download with full instructions in the fall.

If you want to give it a go, here is the three-part video series. I particularly like the change for the hip flexor stretch. The rope used to be used to pull the leg being stretched back. Now you use your hands and the rope is used to hold the forward leg in a 90 degree angle, something I found hard to do with my hands in the previous version. I felt the hip flexor stretch much better than before and even better than in the kneeling video I posted yesterday.The stretching starts at about 2 minutes.






Here are some foot and ankle routines. The second video show some strengthening that I haven't seen before.



'

I have picked up a few of the Jim and Phil Wharton's books through the years including The Whartons' Stretch Book, The Whartons' Strength Book: 35 Lifts for Over 55 Different Sports and Everyday Activities,  and The Wharton's Back Book , however I found I had the most success when following their instruction on a video.

Problem Solving for the Hips from the Gray Institute

This video comes from the Gray Institute newsletter. The instructor is Lenny Parracino. There is a lot of quick, direct, and powerful instruction in the video and while it looks like a regular hip flexor stretch, there are a lot of variations that could make this more powerful.


This is the description from the Gray Institute:

The hip is a very powerful region of the human body, when it works well we appreciate its power. When it’s restricted, we feel its loss of transformation and subsequent compensation. On one end, due to the hip region being so powerful it can adaptively get ‘tight” and eventually stiff by exercising more than resting/recovering. On the other end if we live a more sedentary life especially prolonged sitting, the hip region becomes adaptively tight and eventually chronically stiff. This lack of balance (too much movement or too little movement) can lead to many compensations most commonly low back pain, knee dysfunction and/or overall loss of daily function (picking up objects from ground, getting in and out of car, etc.). This can be simplified as an energy leak in the power center causing compensation or symptoms elsewhere. To help balance this very important power center, please join the Gray Institute to learn a very powerful technique to unlock the commonly locked hip region. You will feel the results immediately!

Here is a previous post I made Warming up runners through three planes of motion that has an embedded video of Gary Gray of the Gray Instittue addressing the issue of hip tightness He completely explains all motions of the Hip Joint and how the different motions interact. He talks about how tightness of the hip capsules can restrict motion in all three planes of motion and begins mentioning how to address restrictions of the femur in the hip capsule which can create body disfunctions and bad motions throughout the body.

Another shot to the hip

In a few days, it will mark one year since I had my left hip operated on and although I think the operation was very successful, it has taken a lot longer than I expected to get back to full running health again.

This weeks mileage:
Monday: 3 miles Mine Falls Trail 5k race.
While it was a very hot evening and I did run fasert than my two previous times on the course this year, I felt like I was fighting my body and hip the whole way. I have so much respect for out of shape or recovering runners these days. I was completed knocked out after finishing the race and it was not even at a pace I am used to doing marathon races in. I have felt better finishing marathons than I felt after this effort.
Tuesday: 0 miles running/ 8 miles biking
Wednesday: 5 miles running-3 miles walking home.
 I should know that when I am moving like a 100 year old man on the first mile of a run that I should just stop and go home. I tried to loosen up, but it didn't happen and my body just stopped at 5 miles. Even walking wasn't comfortable.
Thursday: 12 miles biking
I got so fed up with the tightness around my hip that I called my surgeons's office. When I got to his assistant she wanted to know what was wrong. She asked what the doctor had said about my hip post surgery. I told her that he said there was minimal arthritis for someone my age. Then she said, "Well this might be as good as it is going to get!" WHAT? Then she pulled up my records and pictures and said that, "No, my hip looked pretty good." She signed me up for a cortisone shot in the hip for the next day. She said that they would work from the inside out, first check out the hip, then the ligaments around it, and then most likely my psoas. I feel like it is the ligaments and psoas that keep tightening up on me so that is a good start. I also set up an early September appointment with the surgeon.
Friday: 8 miles biking
I went for the shot down at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. It was an injection of Marcaine (numbing agent) and Celestone (cortisone). I was told that the cortisone may not work for a week or two in bringing down the inflammation but that the shot may dry out or take moisture out of the joint. This is curious, because when I had a cortisone injection 1 1/2 years ago to check if I had a labral tear, I felt great for about 5 days and ran two fast 8 milers, unfortunately the next day the medicine wore off and I had to walk home in the middle of an 8 miler. That is what confirmed the labral tear, so I thought the cortisone worked quickly. Anyhow, unlike the first injection, I got a reaction from this one. That evening I had a big headache and my face was all hot. All my joints on the left side that often go out of whack, lit up and I did not sleep at all that night.

Saturday 8 mile bike then 8 mile run (fastest 8 miles since surgery a year earlier-by almost 3 minutes and I was holding back-and even faster than those two 8 miles from the last injection).
I got up after no sleep in the morning and worked on the computer. After awhile I had this incredible urge to stretch my hip. It was almost jumping at me. I got up and did half of the stretch I felt like doing and "POP" went my hip. From then on, my hip felt loose and juicy. It did not feel stuck at all. I was tired in the afternoon and went for a bike first to see if the hip was really loose and to get it working. Then I went for an 8 mile run. I felt fantastic. Everything was in balance. Did all the joints aching the previous night mean they were letting go of tension and then the hip let go with the pop? I had a real loose stride and had to slow down the run so as not to overdue things, but it felt great. I just rolled down the road and felt like a real runner again. I could have kept running when I was done and I had no limping or soreness upon finishing. I don't know what happened, but certainly there is less pressure and confinement in my hip so it can move better. I have also been taking Aleve at the doctor's suggestion. If I could run like that for the rest of my life, I would be a very happy person.

Sunday: 8 mile bike- 4 mile run
The run was rougher today. I made a good effort yesterday and so I  and the muscles around my hip were tired. I think the hip joint was good, but some of my muscle imbalances were back. I look forward to see how this will play out in the next week or two.

Total miles: 20 miles running / 44 miles biking

One of the readers of this blog, Mike down in Texas, told me about this quirky book he had been reading on Vitamin D called  THE MIRACULOUS RESULTS OF EXTREMELY HIGH DOSES OF THE SUNSHINE HORMONE VITAMIN D3 MY EXPERIMENT WITH HUGE DOSES OF D3 FROM 25,000 to 50,000 to 100,000 IU A Day OVER A 1 YEAR PERIOD a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that the Kindle edition is now free on Amazon so if you are looking for a thought-provoking read this may interest you. The author is somewhat a free and radical thinker with a lot of creativity. He makes some interesting observations and tests his ideas on himself. I have been reading the book and finding it interesting, particularly since I was found to be low in Vitamin D this year already. The author talks about his theories and makes claims that large doses of Vitamin D can help tired out ligaments and joints recover. 

Update:
This new book from the author of The Entrepreneurial Patient blog is a must read book for anyone with hip problems and is thinking about about arthroscopic hip surgery or has had arthroscopic hip surgery for a labral tear or FAI.

Oh Canada: Olympic Team in Pursuit of Jerome Drayton's Record

Jerome Drayton winning
 the Fukuoka Marathon in 1975.

Here CBC's Scott Russell talks about the optimistic hopes for Canada's marathon runners heading into the Summer Olympics in London, England and their pursuit of Jerome Drayton's Canadian marathon record of 2:10:09 set while winning the famous Fukuoka marathon in Japan back in 1975. Drayton was also the winner of the 1977 Boston Marathon. This video shows some training in Kenya and a rare interview with the enigmatic Jerome Drayton.



Here is an old video showing Drayton winning in Boston in 1977.



Here is an interesting article outlining how brain science might help Reid Coolsaet achieve greatness in the marathon. It highlights his run in the 2011 Scotia Bank Marathon where he decided to go with the Kenyan leaders and ended up third in 2:10:55 on a windy day. Eric Gillis also qualified in this race for the Canadian Olympic team beating the qualifying time by 0.7 seconds with a 2:11:28 run. Earlier this year Dylan Wykes ran 2:10:47 to beat Coolsaet's time as the 2nd fastest Canadian ever to become the third member of the Canadian team, the first time Canada has sent a marathon team since the 2000 Olympics.

Running for my Life by Lopez Lomong

The American Olympic athletes of the 2008 Olympic Games could not have chosen a better representative to hold the American flag during the opening ceremonies than 1500 meter athlete Lopez Lomong. His story chronicled in the just released book Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games is an inspiring story that explores both the highs and lows of living as a human being on planet earth. At the age of 6, Lopez, was plucked from his mother's arms at an outdoor church service by rebel soldiers and kidnapped along with many other children to be trained as child soldiers for the war in Sudan. Lopez made a daring escape weeks later with his three "angels" as he calls them and ran his way to the Kenyan border where he was placed in the Kakuma refuge camp high on the desert plains.

Lopez became, like many others, a boy without parents, a boy without a country, and a boy without a future.  Lopez and the other "lost boys of Sudan" lived a spartan existence in this camp of up to 50,000 refuges. Living on only one meal a day Lopez looked forward to two things: Tuesday trash day when the refugees might find some old food to eat amongst the trash and playing soccer. So many boys wanted to play soccer that the boys came up with a rule: before you played each day you had to run one lap around the Kakuma camp. It was 30 kilometers around the camp and Lopez would run the 18 miles and then would even skip getting a drink of water after his run so he could more quickly get to the soccer playing.

For ten years this was how Lopez and the other Lost Boys existed, until the USA started airlifting some of these refugees to America for resettlement in our country. My sister took in four Lost Boys from the Kakuma camp and I vividly recall meeting these boys in the extremely cold Boston weather of that December days after their arrival. The world was new and scary to them and full of wonderment. They thought they were shrinking as the cold air wrinkled their skin. Cars, escalators, running water and flushing toilets, and doors that swung on a hinge were all new experiences for these boys. I recall visiting that first time and after awhile wondering where they had gone to. I went down to their room and found them working on their new school homework. One boy was trying to make it through reading and understanding "A Raisin in the Sun." All that these boys wanted was a chance. A chance for an education and a chance to make a difference in the world and they were not going to waste time. They had their priorities straight. They had seen far too much to not know of the great opportunity they had just been presented with. Lopez's reaction to his new home and circumstances was similar.

When Lopez made his way to his new surrounding in Syracuse, New York he too was befuddled by the grandeur and the riches of his new mom and dad. He went from having so little to experiencing so much, but within days Lopez needed to center himself so he asked to go for a run of say about 30 kilometers. His new parents were startled and called up the local cross-country coach and Lopez was soon turned into a runner. His parents backed him 100% in whatever he did and also cemented in him the desire to get a college degree. Lopez started high school with a minimal amount of English words, but graduated and made his way to college and the running teams and eventually on to the 2008 Olympic team where he was chosen to be the American flag bearer. As I said there was no better choice of an athlete to depict what it means to be American.

Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games is a wonderful story worth reading whether you are a runner or not. Lopez's story talks to the better nature of all people as he goes from lost boy to entertaining a president at the Olympic Games. The good news is that Lopez has made his second Olympic team and will be running the 5000 meters for America this summer in London. I do not want to give away too much of the book, but pay attention to a small handmade ring, goat and cow guts, a gimpy hamstring and a sudden ankle injury, Olympic champion Michael Johnson, and his three "angels". Lopez is doing more for others in his homeland of South Sudan. You can find more at his website here.

Other posts on Lopez Lomong:
Lopez Lomong's Incredible 5000 meter debut Awesome race and "incredible" finish. NPR referenced this blog post and my fourth grade students found this "incredible" too as that was a vocabulary word in our class that week!
Lopez Lomong: Everything is Possible
Recovering Children in Africa: Great Stories of Survival and Giving Back

I would also recommend reading War Child: A Child Soldier's Story by former Lost Boy, singer, and peace activist Emmanuel Jal. His story is a little more hard-hitting about the hardships encountered by these Sudanese children. I wrote more about Emmanuel Jal here.

Another wonderful book I read last week by my friend and teaching colleague here in Nashua is called Accepting the Challenge! This book tells about Scott's dedication to a couple of Burundi boys and their families after being relocated from the Kakuma refuge camp to resettlement in Nashua as high school students. It also tells about the boys' dedication to reaching for their goals of going to college.