Me Against The Watch

Before I start talking about the main topic, I have to confess this time of year, with a lead-in to another Olympic Games, is a sports junkie's dream.  It has been good for my recovery.  I’ve initiated my own little ‘occupy the couch’ movement with the US Olympic swimming and track/field trials, topped by the Tour de France as the background. 

While many of the participants of the larger ‘occupation’ movements were nebulous in what they desired, I have two goals:  The first goal is to let the lingering tendonitis in my ankles and knees completely heal.  It’s simple:  The only way to recover from an overuse injury is not to overuse what gets injured.  The second goal is to motivate myself into a frenzy of smart training once the Olympics are over.  It’s still going to be infernal, but I have a gym membership and a flexible schedule, so early morning and late evening training is not a problem.

Track and field events, and the Tour de France cycle race, have more in common than the average television spectator might guess, for a number of reasons:  When there are preliminary and semi-final heats at a track meet, the goal of most every athlete is to finish either in a position where they automatically qualify for the next round or in as fast a time as possible to be selected.  Does the athlete necessarily want to finish in first place?  All they need to do is exert just enough energy to qualify, save their energies for the final heat when a win means something. 

During the years when Lance Armstrong won seven Tours de France, he didn’t win every single stage.  He’d win a mountain stage here, and a road stage there; he would finish consistently close enough to the front of the pack every time he was on the road. 

There were races during the Olympic Trials, like the final of the women’s 5,000-meter run and the 3,000-meter steeplechase, where the leading runners not only had to win (or finish in the top three) to qualify, but also had to push the pace of the race in order to make the Olympic qualifying standard.  Some of the athletes collaborated with training partners and co-competitors to ensure a fast pace.  Others felt the need to go “off the front” and do it alone. 

Road stages of the Tour de France (and other cycling races) are a collaborative effort between teams and individual riders, both to push the pace or to hold the pace back…depending on their own best interests.  But there also is what is known in cycling as the race of truth.  Many stage races, including the Tour de France, begin with a short prologue individual time trial and also have one or two longer individual time trials during the course of the event.  The ‘race of truth’ sorts the good from the great athlete.  A rider can win a grand tour without being a great individual rider but there’s no way to win without being a good individual rider.  The time trial exposes every weakness in training, more so than the typical mass-start race.  There’s nobody to hide behind; no teammate to help pick up the pace should they falter. 

For runners, it’s more difficult is it to run a race going off the front alone without a supportive pacer than as part of a pack of individuals with near-identical fitness.

I trained under a coach who (i know) adjusted my training efforts based on recent racing results.  I never did time trials on my own because I ran at a level where I was out of reach of the really good runners and ahead of the slower ones…after the first mile of a race I was usually in “no-man’s land.”  But, when training a runner who is focused on, say, the half-marathon or the marathon, I like to schedule a 5,000-meter time trial on the roads to judge their fitness and make adjustments to their training paces.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be an organized 5K race (although I prefer a certified course), and it might not be until somewhere around six-to-twelve weeks out, but I prefer a course which resembles the terrain or conditions for their target event.

The goal of the time trial is either to run it at a slightly faster pace than the previous time trial, or to run it at the same time, but with a lower perceived effort.  If the athlete’s previous 5K time trial was at a pace where a few seconds of improvement will move them to a higher Daniels’ VDOT score, and subsequently faster training paces, I prefer the “same time at less effort” result.  Just like “heat racing,” the goal is not to light the fuse for a fantastic short race effort six, eight, or ten weeks out from the longer target event, but to develop the runner’s confidence; hiding an “extra gear” inside their head which they can save for race day.  It's the sum total of good runs, rather than a single great workout surrounded by a bunch of crappy ones, which are going to help define a running performance.

Bad Workout? It's All In Our Mind

The latest books I've read have not been without their own degree of controversy. Much like the reading (running) public stepped to one side or the other of the line drawn in the sand over barefoot running and Christopher McDougall's "Born To Run," they seem to stand on the same kind of dividing line over Matt Fitzgerald's newest work, "Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen, and the Greatest Race Ever Run."

Sometimes you have to look at the subtitle a little more closely. While Fitzgerald writes, with the assistance of two decades worth of research materials, about Scott and Allen, it's...well, it's not all about them. Iron War also tries to explain what made them different in 1989, and what makes endurance enthusiasts different now.

Yes, there are biographical pieces on Scott and Allen (which for this writer drew a parallel to other freakishly-good athletes like Michael Phelps and Lance Armstrong), but Fitzgerald looks at the sport of triathlon and the type of person drawn into it, especially the ultra-distance multisport events which were born of a bar room argument after the Honolulu Marathon thirty-plus years ago. He asks not only what drives the elite endurance athlete, but also what keeps their foot on the accelerator when the vast majority of us are begging to mash the brake pedal?

Or, as I began to think, why is it we tend to have crappy workouts when we are rushed for time; when we shoehorn in that speed workout in between the morning budget meeting and the afternoon conference call? Samuele Marcora says it might be more in our mind than we care to admit.

Marcora believes fatigue is more a perception of our mind than a physiological state. Watch runners break into a sprint for the last 200-to-300 yards of a race when they looked like they could not run another step just a half mile before. Timothy Noakes' central governor model of exercise performance says the brain makes a conscious effort to limit energy expenditure in order to save fuel for the heart, brain and lungs. But Marcora says the anterior cingulate cortex in the brain, the area responsible for control of our heart rate, breathing, autonomic responses, and conflict resolution, is the "boxing ring" for the struggle between the part of us that wants to quit and the side that wants to keep going.

Why do we feel physically fatigued after a sustained period of sedentary office work, like reconciling a budget spreadsheet (or sitting in a foreign language class)? The anterior cingulate cortex is engaged when we engage in an activity - even mental - which involves sustained attention to detail.

That might be another reason folks hate treadmill running so much. All that data - time, pace, distance, heart rate, calories and the like - is displayed before the runner. We start to do the mental gymnastics of how much longer before the end of the treadmill program, etc., and the little voice in the head begins to remind us of all the other things we need to get done...right away.

Even those runs which get shoehorned in between the rush-hour drive time and the drive to the youth soccer match can be affected by the other "noise" in our heads. The mental to-do list makes us more tired on our run, which makes us get down more on ourself because we're not running as well as we would like.

Sometimes it just pays to know "when we're training well we're probably not training well." It's not the "mark-a-star-on-the-training-calendar" runs which do us the most benefit...it's the ones where we want to beat ourselves up mentally which make us stronger.

Peripatetically-Pleasing Publications

Today I took a day off work and spent a couple of hours at my local auto dealership. "What book to take with me?" I asked myself, walking out the door.

Come on. I'm not going to sit and watch cable television news channels. I stood transfixed in front of my living room bookshelves; it's not good for a September-born guy to be forced into choice...especially not with 300-plus titles stacked in the living room alone, and definitely not when a five-minute delay can mean the difference between sitting for two hours...or for three hours...in a lounge drinking coffee and eating doughnuts. In the case of this guy, less time is always better.

I chose a book I hadn't read in probably six years.

It was a tight spot which made me think, while traveling to Toyota Town, of another triad of tomes to tranquilize the (temporarily terrifying) tendency to tarry in tranquility near the tube:

Running and Being - Dr. George Sheehan
The late cardiologist and unofficially-but-near-universally-proclaimed philosopher-king of running wrote this book in the late 1970s, and many of his observations in this book were printed (often in toto) in Runners' World magazine. Like most folks who have the temerity to risk talking smack about Steve Prefontaine, reviewing a book like this - especially in the negative - is only going to get you in deep trouble. Reading Sheehan, especially for the young, inexperienced (in life) runner, is like reading the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard or the Brazilian liberation educator Paulo Freire. You aren't going to read great portions of this book, not unless you didn't want to learn anything. I've borrowed portions (the bag) for blog posts, as well as for biomechanical analyses (neuromas) to pass to my athletes.

This book goes best with (at least!) one pot of good coffee.

Ultramarathon Man - Dean Karnazes
I almost ran over Dean Karnazes in the lobby of the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf during the Road Runners Club of America convention two years ago. I was running to the ballroom to have lunch with my wife; he was running to the bathroom before his lunch presentation in the ballroom. Suffice it to say I am pleased we didn't make contact. Karnazes is probably a solid three inches shorter than I and built like a...well, you've all heard the analogies.

He's also an entertaining speaker and a very good writer. Suzanne raved about him on the trip home; the only presenter other than Frank Shorter she mentioned by name. And when an avowed non-fanatical runner like my wife mentions someone - by name - it truly means something. What strikes me about Karnazes' first work is not so much the screenplay-like way he chronicles his relationship with his family, his painful beginning in ultramarathon (I can smell the rotten cantaloupe!), and his quest to stretch the limits of human endurance...blended in with cell phone ordered pizza delivery, minibuses filled with goldfish crackers, and banana bread. Trust me; you'll never look at banana bread in the same way after this book. Some of my friends have read his follow-up works and proclaimed them as a little less entertaining than the first, but I've already subscribed to the "sequel rarely meets the first work" mindset. This work is well worth acquiring. I may change my mind after I read his 50 marathons/50 states/50 days chronicle, though.

This book goes best with (at least) one cup of Starbucks and a slice of cherry cheesecake.

Every Second Counts - Lance Armstrong (and Sally Jenkins)
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is reported to have said, "you cannot step into the same river twice." And Armstrong (Jenkins) appears to have learned this over the course of the four years covered in book number two. Whether it's Armstrong who read about Dithyrambos - "he who walks through the second door" - or Jenkins saw the parallel, it's hard to say. Considering we are talking about a guy who's repeated a few things (Tour de France victories, relationships, lawsuits) more than once in his time, I'm certain he even appreciated the analogy.

Every Second Counts is a fitting follow-up to It's Not About The Bike, which talked much about what got Lance to the first yellow jersey in 1999. This time, however, we do get to see the rough edges and shortcomings. Armstrong long has considered himself - unlike very many of his yellow wristband-wearing fans - no saint. He provides an honest, almost sensitive assessment of life as man, father, athlete, survivor, businessman, and icon, things which definitely affected his marriage to Kristin. As of late, much has been made in the press and several recent books about doping...and Lance's way of dealing with sources who allege his use.

I read Every Second Counts around the same time as Brad Kearns' fawning How Lance Does It, Floyd Landis' Positively False: How I Won The Tour De France, and David Walsh's From Lance to Landis. The only title which still sits on my bookshelf of the previous three is Walsh. If I had only read It's Not About The Bike I think I would have a negative opinion of the seven-time champion. I have doubts about whether he was completely clean, but it's only a sliver. Yes, a Kierkegaardian one.

This book goes best with a tall, cold Shiner Bock.

Saint Nick Has Strange Timing

A second attempt at measuring the half-marathon/marathon course shot down the tubes. The RD called me 15 minutes before I was scheduled to head out the door and get my calibration rides. "You looked at Weather Channel yet?" I saw the forecast for the day didn't look all that good, with a band of showers preparing to roll through...followed by a healthy drop in the temperature. The rest of the week isn't looking all that good, either. Ironically, Friday morning seems to be the only good day for the week. I've got it off, but I bet good money it's not the best of days to be on any of the roads, especially near the mall. Of course, given this economy that might not be the case.
While Suzanne was taking care of details for her little soiree last night I had the opportunity to get out and shop. Part of the rationale was painfully obvious: I hadn't done a lick of real shopping without her. Well, I needed to get a bite to eat and recover from the morning's spinning class so I could turn around and do my swim workout...and I had just a sliver beyond the four-hour window my body likes between food and workout. Good enough reason to hit the mall, go to the World Market and see what cool stuff was hiding in there...followed by Bed, Bath & Beyond. Not terribly romantic, but practical & helpful...when it comes to my wife, helping her life is as good as I can get.
I've purchased some books on-line, too, but they might not arrive in time for Christmas...how embarrassing would it be to have to say 'happy Christmas, honey...sorry you don't have any gifties...it's all the Postal Service's fault.' In the case of this wanna-be IM guy, it would be just one more justification for me to see legal papers. Never a good thing. I also bought a book for me, so there's more mindless reading during the down days.
Suzanne got me some stuff I really needed this year...which is not all that difficult, because she could gift-wrap a bag of gummi bears and I'd be overjoyed. So far it's a pair of Gap jeans (yay!) and the biography of Michael Phelps I almost bought for myself on Amazon.com. Talk about a massive sigh of relief on both of our parts; Suzanne thought I already had a copy. I don't always jump on the celebrity biography bandwagon, because I hate having a bio on a luminary, then find out more dirt occurs to them later in life. Call it the Lance Armstrong Syndrome, if you like...more grist for the follow-on biographer, I guess. More money for the celebrity, too.
But I have a great deal of admiration for Michael. Why does it seem (rhetorical question follows:) that the great athletes - or many of them - come from sh!tty childhood situations, where their fathers were either absent or a$$holes? Okay, there are world & Olympic champions, great athletes, who had the continual love & support of both of their parents, so it's not a broad brush stroke.
All right. Enough ranting. I need to go for a walk and burn off some of the excess beer I took in at last night's holiday/cancer remission celebration/karaoke-thon...as well as the previous evening's holiday party.

Do What You Love (So Long, Ryan Shay)

Ka mate, ka mate - Ka ora, ka ora - Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru - Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra - Upane, upane - Upane kaupane - Whiti te ra. (If I die, I die - If I live, I live - This is the hairy man - Who caused the sun to shine again for me - Up the ladder, up the ladder - Up to the top - The sun shines.) - "Te Rauparaha Haka (ca. 1820)"

While I feel great sorrow at the death of Ryan Shay, who apparently collapsed and died from a heart condition at the 9K mark of Saturday's Olympic Trials Marathon, I cannot help but also feel a certain degree of joy...maybe jealousy. It sounds morbid, I'm certain, but I cannot think of a better way for an athlete to go out but while doing the thing they love. It sounds trite and of little weight, but you hear this statement all of the time from family and close friends of many athletes and adventurers who meet their end in the middle of exercising their passion.

Once upon a time, when I was a cyclist (recreational) I joked about wanting to leave this physical existence while descending a mountain slope somewhere in Europe; breeze in my face, pavement under my wheels, sun warming my shoulders, the whole click, it's over concept. Lance Armstrong said it a little better (with the help of Sally Jenkins) in his first book, It's Not About The Bike:

"I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the

star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle

at 75 miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line as my stud wife and my ten

children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sun-

flowers and gracefully expire, the perfect contradiction to my once-anticipated poign-

ant early demise."

Perhaps Shay's death should remind us all to (oh, no, here's the typical pithy statement) live our lives to the fullest. Better yet, live our life like we might pass away during the first thirty minutes of it, without a warning. Hey, man, take a chance: Michael Wardian held two marathon world records (running on a treadmill, running with a stroller) but was seeded 102nd on Saturday. He went out and blasted the first five miles of the course in a pace that was somewhat faster than the rest of the field, got himself some serious television time during the first half-hour. After that, who knows where he was? I'm certain the finish listing has him somewhere. But he did what he felt was the best thing for the day.

Know what you want to do. Do it. And if it isn't making you happy, isn't making your life complete, find what it is that will.

The Last Sane Man In The Peloton, Using Facebook

So, what is the difference between when we hear about a black American baseball player and when we hear about European cyclists suspected of using PED? Is there a sense of injustice? Outrage? I guess it depends on whether you think the use of PED tilts the playing field. I guess where I'm so outraged on both issues, Bonds and his suspected steroid usage and the Vino/Rasmussen/Cofidis scandal at the Tour de France, is the complete 'oh, how like life, I $&#*ed up, suspend me from (the ProTour/MLB) for two years' state of arrogance that all these guys have exhibited.

David Walsh's book opened my eyes to the arrogance of the European, as well as the American cycling establishment. I still harbored a faint glimmer of hope (naivete?) that Walsh's writing was the axe-grinding of an angry, little man. Vino's bust for blood transfusion, then Rasmussen getting caught with his diaper (bike shorts?) down around his ankles (Can you hear the message from the Danish Cycling Federation? '...no, the Dolomites are not in Mexico, Mikael...') was the one-two punch of outrage that made me as cynical about cycling as my friend Christian.

How about this for a new slogan, Lance? Can we do this in Spanish for the benefit of your newest protege, Alberto Contador?

Yesterday was the first day back on the "real bike," in fact, it was the first ride on my newest acquisition, a rehabilitated Softride Powerwing 650. I hadn't dialed in all of the measurements yet, but had things as close as I possibly could get them by myself. It's still a centimeter off here and a centimeter off there, but not much different than my first rides on the Cannondale R300 on which I had my topple. The first moments of shifting with bar-end shifters and trying to get down into the pursuit/aero bars were a tad sketchy, but once you find a cadence that's comfortable things tend to fall into place. Having the aero bars are a positive thing, especially while I'm still learning to balance with one arm; I can wedge my forearm against the outside of the elbow/forearm pad to help keep the bike tracking straight. The bottle cages that are bolted to the @$$ end of my seat are going to have to go, however. They're too high, which makes mounting and dismounting almost comedic.

I'd rather have a (Profile Design) bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. Sanity last, eh?

Suzanne and I talk a lot about the benefits of social networking. We don't chatter too much about the pitfalls. While I like the flexibility of Facebook, there are groups and persons I don't want/need to link with. I get more friend requests from persons who I would not be able to distinguish from Adam. My reply usually consists of: 'how do I know you?' It usually kills the friend request...oh, someone lend me a hankie so I can stanch the flow of tears from my eyes!

The biggest challenge in using a social network is trying to describe the benefits of a scalable, flexible presence on the World Wide Web. While Suzanne likes to play with different add-on functionalities, I use one or two, and only have a couple of groups with which I prefer to be affiliated. Different strokes for different folks.