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A friendly reminder that fees for 2024 are now due.
VRR charges a nominal membership fee as it does not receive any sponsorship but needs to cover such costs as public liability insurance (~$1,000), tea and coffee for Tans, 12 TTT and milestone tee-shirts, plaques for milestones and trophies. The Blue Bucket at the Tan for voluntary donations helps also helps to cover costs.
The membership fee for 2024 is unchanged at $20 for individuals, $10 for juniors, $40 for families (2 adults plus all children) with country members (greater than 100k from the GPO) half of these fees. Junior members are those aged under 18 years as at 1 January 2024.
Payment via EFT is preferred, to:
VRR
Westpac
BSB 033-034
A/c 628622
Please include your full name and membership number in the reference field.
For completeness, please also send a confirmation email with the subject “VRR Membership Renewal” with your details to vrrcontact@gmail.com.
Alternatively, you can pay by cash (no cheques!) in a sealed envelope with your name and membership number at the Tan and pass it to me or one of the Committee. If you need one, a membership form is available at www.vrr.org.au/membership/.
See you at the Tan!
Many thanks and happy running
Rowan Cole – VRR treasurer |
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President’s Tan Talk – February 2024
Perfect weather for running greeted VRR members and friends at our February Tan Time Trial.
Members were advised that this year’s Angela Taylor Memorial Run / Walk would be on Sunday 21 April 2024 at Albert Park Lake. The distance is 5k or 10k. We encourage VRR members to run, or to volunteer to be a course marshal. We created the run after Constable Angela Rose Taylor was killed in the Russell Street bombing in 1986. The event has grown steadily over the years, with last year’s Run / Walk having almost 1,000 participants. If you are available to marshal please let me know by text on 0411191115.
A tale of two hearts: How they’re different for men and women. Did you know that men’s and women’s hearts are very different? Not only are women’s hearts on average 26% smaller than men’s, meaning they have to work harder to achieve the same output, they also have different texture and shape, different resting heart rates, and different risk factors, requiring new research to better understand the differing risks, and how they are best managed. The article below is a very interesting read, and for runners who push ourselves to the limits, it is handy information, in managing how we manage our efforts.
In conversation with a VRR member on Saturday about keeping records of running times and performances, and injuries and treatments, I observed that I had running diaries going back to the 1980’s. Tarquin Oehr then observed that he has records going back to 1968!! (Good to know that my GP is such a thorough record-keeper!!)
Enjoy your month
Michael
VRR President |
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VRR PHOTOS
VRR photographer, Helen Myall takes great photos at each Tan Time Trial event..
ALL the photos are posted on Facebook.
To access Facebook you can use your internet browser and type in the following address:
www.facebook.com/VicRoadRunners/photos |
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VRR member, Leigh Fatchen has run 400 x 8km tans and 17 x 4km (to Dec 2023)
Leigh’s best consecutive sequence has been 113 TTT’s straight.
Leigh knows his way around the Tan!! |
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We’ve honestly lost track of how many marathons that VRR member, Jane Sturzacker has run.
There would not be a huge number of people in the world who would have run more marathons than Jane..
One characteristic that Jane takes to every, single run, is her smile.
VRR life member, Kevin Browne has been quite sick recently, and Jane has been the focal point for keeping everyone up to date on Kevin’s progress.
Thanks Jane. |
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VRR member, Luke Price has been using the monthly TTT to measure his summer training for playing Aussie Rules football.
At the February Tan, Luke was saying that he has shaved nearly five minutes off his 4km time.
Luke has also managed to motivate a few of his footy mates to join with him on the 4km TTT.
Thanks Luke! |
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VRR visitor, Joshua Stone, is one of Luke’s footy mates.
With everyone running with their eyes closed, I’m not sure if it’s the blind leading the blind?
Anyway, Joshua you and the other guys are very welcome. |
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The first Saturday of the month is a real family affair in the Oehr household.
Tarquin (father), Christine (mother) & Lucy (sister) all join with Alice for a run around the Tan and then a family reunion over a post-run tea/coffee. |
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VRR life member, Graham Edwards, besides being one of the founding members of the VRR, is also the person who toils away before each Tan preparing the results sheets and after each Tan compiling the results.
We are very grateful for his contribution to the club’s administration in a role that is vital but not particularly visible. |
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February 2024 TTT Results
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A tale of two hearts: How they’re different for men and women
A recent study from Deakin University investigated the risks for cardiovascular disease (CVD) that come from the foods we choose to eat.
Drawing on data from a global disease burden study from 1990 to 2019, the researchers estimated how much death and disability could be attributed to hearts sickened and damaged by different foods.
The interesting thing: The dietary choices that drove the risk of heart disease were different between men and women.
A diet high in red meat for women and a diet low in wholegrains for men “were the two leading individual dietary risk factors for diet-related CVD burden in Australia”.
On the upside, the study found, over time, a decline in heart disease deaths and disability related to dietary choices.
Looking closer at this decline, the researchers found that a diet high in sodium for women and a diet high in processed meat for men had the lowest decrease in CVD burden.
This suggests that women have been slower to give up salty foods and men have been slower to give up bacon and salamis than other foods that were hurting them.
Bottom line, the study findings serve as one more reminder that men and women do it differently when it comes to heart health.
Their hearts are markedly different
Up until puberty, the hearts of males and females are about the same size. This changes significantly with adulthood.
According to a comprehensive comparison of female and male hearts, a woman’s heart is 26 per cent smaller than a man’s. |
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A woman’s heart is 26 per cent smaller than a man’s. And shaped differently.
Gray’s Anatomy advises that the mean weight of the heart is 280 to 340 grams in males and 230 to 280 grams in females.
Still, it’s widely thought that the female heart is the same as the male’s, only smaller.
In 2020, researchers at Queen Mary University of London, used new technology to look at the heart structure of 667 healthy people – 309 men and 358 women – from the UK Biobank imaging study.
When researchers compared numerous measures of heart texture and shape, they found that in men, the heart muscle was dominated by more coarse textures. Whereas women’s hearts had finer grained textures.
They also found significant differences in the overall shape of male and female hearts.
Men had a larger surface area of heart muscle compared to women, even after accounting for body size.
But wait there’s more
A 2020 paper from Stanford’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, found that “the sex differences in cardiac form and function are too complex to be ignored”.
The female heart, they say, “is not just a small version of the male heart”.
What has been long been ignored, they say, is that the female heart “also has a different microstructural architecture”.
Compared to the male heart, the researchers observe, “the female heart has a larger ejection fraction and beats at a faster rate but generates a smaller cardiac output”.
Your ejection fraction is the amount of blood that your heart pumps out of your left ventricle each time it beats. It is measured as a percentage of the total amount of blood in your heart that is pumped out with each heartbeat.
Women have a higher resting heart rate than men, but their hearts take a long time from contraction to relaxation.
The average adult male heart rate is between 70 and 72 beats per minute. The average for adult women is between 78 and 82 beats.
The smaller female heart, pumping less blood with each beat, needs to beat at a faster rate to match the larger male heart’s output.
The female heart needs new diagnostic criteria
The female heart’s differences to the male heart are so marked, the Stanford researchers say, it needs to be seen anew in clinical settings.
The authors conclude that there “is an urgent need to better understand the female heart”.
What’s needed is “sex-specific diagnostic criteria that will allow us to diagnose cardiac disease in women equally as early, robustly and reliably as in men”.
In 2020, a study from the University of Bergen, made a similar conclusion.
The argument went like this:
More women than men die of heart failure. The reason is that only 50 per cent of the heart failure cases among women are caused by having a heart attack, which can be treated with modern methods.
For the other 50 per cent of women experiencing heart failure the cause is generally related to having untreated high blood pressure levels. Over time these lead to progressive stiffening of the heart. |
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Women are more likely to have heart attacks that are not caused by coronary artery disease.
There is no effective treatment for this kind of heart failure yet.
“Men and women have different biologies and this results in different types of the same heart diseases. It is about time to recognise these differences,” said Professor Eva Gerdts, who led the research.
An advantage over men?
Cardiovascular disease develops seven to 10 years later in women than in men. And it’s still the major cause of death in women.
Why does it develop later? Because of the ‘female’ hormone oestrogen, which has a protective effect on your heart.
It helps to control your cholesterol levels. This reduces the risk of fat building up in your arteries. It also helps keep your blood vessels healthy.
When menopause kicks in, and your oestrogen levels begin fall. This leads to fat building up in your arteries causing them to become narrow.
And so, the perceived advantage turns around and bites women.
The net effect of this delayed onset is that the risk of heart disease in women is often underestimated. This might be due to the misperception that females are protected against CVD.
According to a 2010 review from the Netherlands: “The under-recognition of heart disease and differences in clinical presentation in women lead to less-aggressive treatment strategies and a lower representation of women in clinical trials”.
Furthermore, “self-awareness in women and identification of their cardiovascular risk factors needs more attention. This should result in a better prevention of cardiovascular events” |
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VRR LIFE MEMBERS
Stephen Barker, Kevin Browne, Sally Browne, Tony Doran, Graham Edwards, Jenny Field, Peter Field, Vern Gerlach (dec), Peter Gunn (dec.), Don Hampshire, Eileen Helmers (dec), Frank Helmers (dec), Betty Horskins, Graeme Horskins, Mike Kennedy, Lynn Kisler, Greig McEwan, Ross Martin (dec), Vin Martin, John Morris, Helen Myall, Peter Nicoll, Bill Noonan, Brian O’Dea, Rod Opie, Graham Prossor, Melissa Sirianni, Doug Stokes, Brian Toomey (dec.), Stuart White, Robert Wilson, Judy Wines, Tom Worrell (dec) and Val Worrell. |
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Can you ask your running friends if they are receiving their email copy of Stride Out.
If they aren’t, can you get them to send me an email (gprossor@bigpond.net.au) asking to be put on the distribution list. |
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RUN CALENDAR AUSTRALIA
Run Calendar Australia now list VRR runs plus lots of other runs.
Visit their website at runcalendar.com.au
or tweet them – @runcalendarau |
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