Dr. Tom Lawton Ran 22 Miles in a Mask To Prove A Point - 08/26/2020

Dr. Tom Lawton Ran 22 Miles in a Mask To Prove A
Point Does wearing a mask really impair your oxygen levels
as some people claim? Recent internet sensation Dr. Tom Lawton went
to extremes to find out. After a prolonged period of not running,
he ran 22 miles in a homemade triple-layer mask, testing his oxygen
levels along the way. His goal was twofold: to prove it’s safe to
wear a mask while walking about and to raise money for
charity. 

 


In this episode, Coach Claire delves into the details of Tom’s
mask experiment, finds out if he thinks runners should wear
masks, what his experience as a critical care doctor has been
like in the UK with the coronavirus, and also what he thought
about recent controversial RTTT guest Matthew Hammersmith who has
been putting on in-person races during the pandemic. Spoiler
alert: Tom is not fully for or against what Matt is doing. Check
out his opinion and see if you agree.


 


Tom Lawton is an intensive care doctor with the Bradford Royal
Infirmary in Yorkshire, England, a healthcare researcher, and
triathlete.  After being fat and wheezy through childhood,
he took up rowing at his university, and hated running with a
passion. Unable to run more than about a quarter of a mile
without knee pain and a loud “slap” accompanying each foot
strike, he foolishly ran (well, mostly walked while sobbing in
pain) the London Marathon to raise money for charity. He then
vowed never to run again.


A decade later and unfit once more, a drunken wedding bet saw Tom
enter the first Ironman Wales. He started running under protest
and arrived at the race having managed training runs of no longer
than 10 miles. Undeterred, he excitedly scarfed down everything
he’d picked up from the expo during the bike section. Alas, at
least one of those things did not agree with him and he spent
most of the run being sick. Nevertheless, he still somehow
managed to beat his London Marathon time, which prompted him to
pick up triathlon training for real.


Since then, Tom has continued to improve and has finished each of
his last six iron-distance races in under 10 hours. However, the
pandemic has put a stop to all that and he has been unable to
train much since January due to a combination of work and the
stress of caring for sick patients. 


Tom desperately wants to get back to training, so he wants
everyone to do whatever they can to keep this virus under
control, and he has become a keen mask advocate. In order to
prove they were safe to wear around the shops, he pushed a bit
more oxygen through one by running to the ICU and back, and has
spent the last few weeks exposed to the Internet’s underbelly in
the aftermath with his aforementioned 22-mile run. 
Questions Tom is asked:

        


5:03 You are a critical care doctor in the UK who has recently
gotten quite a bit of attention for running 22 miles wearing a
triple layer mask to prove that wearing a mask does not cause a
drop in oxygen levels.  Before we get into that story, can
you tell me a bit about what life is like with the pandemic where
you are?


 


6:56 Can you talk a little bit about what the hospital you were
working at was like in April with all the cases coming in?


 


8:20 Was your hospital overwhelmed with COVID patients?


 


8:50 In the United States, a big part of the decision to wear a
mask or not seems to be a very political one.  We Americans
prize our freedom and individualism and some people just don't
like being told what to do, so they don’t want to wear a
mask.  Are you seeing that in the UK as well, that kind of
attitude?


 


10:54 Let's have you tell the story of the run that got shared
around the world.  How did you set it up and what’s the
story?  


 


14:47 Tell me about the mask you were wearing on your run?


 


15:49 How did you measure your oxygen levels on the run?


 


17:02 What kind of feedback are you getting from people? Are
people saying that, “Well, you’re an athlete. Of course your
oxygen levels are going to be great,” or “I have asthma. This
isn’t going to work for me.” Did people say that you’re some kind
of exception? Have you gotten any feedback like that?


 


18:49 You ran to work in a mask, and then presumably you wore a
mask all day at work, and then you turned around and wore a mask
and ran home. Is that right?


 


19:43 What you said before is you ran in a mask just to show that
you could do it, but I’m gathering that you wouldn’t recommend it
and it probably wasn’t great for performance. Is that correct?


 


22:05 I certainly know a lot of athletes who do live in big
cities and run on crowded paths and they wear the neck gaiter or
the buff because it’s easy to pull up and down. And you mentioned
that Duke University study that came out, and it said that the
buffs are actually worse than no mask at all because they break
up the droplets and make them easier to spread. I’d love to get
your thoughts on that.


 


25:01 A lot of people say, “Well, hey, if I’m healthy enough to
go running or I’m healthy enough to go run a race, then I
probably don’t have corona.” What do you say to people who say
that?


 


26:06 We recently had a race director on this show and he was
putting on smaller races, 200-to-300 people at the events, and
with very minimal pre-race, post-race contact, but still, in a
race, and there’s pictures of these races that you’re not six
feet apart, you’re passing people, there’s crowds at the starts,
so what do you say about holding races during the pandemic?


 


28:17 Part of the race director’s argument was there’s a mental
health risk of not going out and seeing other people, and that’s
hard to deny as well. People are kind of going a little stir
crazy, but also some serious mental issues are happening because
we are all stuck inside. Are you seeing that as well?


 


30:03 And on a personal note, how is your training
going?  






Questions I ask everyone:


 


31:37 If you could go back and talk to yourself when you first
started running, what advice would you give yourself?


 


32:10 What is the greatest gift that running has given you?


 


32;59 Where can listeners connect with you?




Quotes by Tom:

 


“There have been a lot of people, especially with this mask-run
context, they need to complain and say they don’t want to wear
masks, and various forms of abuse. And a lot of them are
American, but I’ve had Canadian abuse, I’ve had French abuse,
I’ve had UK abuse, so it’s not just an American thing.”


 


“The purpose of doing this wasn’t to show that you should run in
masks. It was to show that you could walk around the shops
quietly in one, and the running was just to make it kind of more
extreme and make it really obvious that if anything was going to
make my oxygen levels drop, then running for 22 miles should have
made it happen, and it didn’t.”


 


“This disease is about people thinking of others. Most of us
involved in running are relatively young, we’re fit, we’re
healthy. We are not going to die from coronavirus even if we
catch it, but we could spread it to friends, to family, to people
we don’t know who are more at risk, and those are the people
we’ve got to really think about.”






Take a Listen on Your Next Run


Want more awesome interviews and advice? Subscribe to our iTunes
channel
Mentioned in this podcast: 

USA Today Article


abc News Article


Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community


RunnersConnect Facebook page


claire@runnersconnect.net


 


Follow Tom on:


 


Twitter






We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top.


The best way you can show your support of the show is to share
this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your
Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use.


The more people who know about the podcast and download the
episodes, the more I can reach out to and get top running
influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which
hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!