Free Your Ears And Your Run Will Follow

My (wife’s) iPod crashed last week...right before a workout.  It wasn't a ‘good news, bad news’ situation.  It was more like a ‘good news, bad news, really bad news’ thing. 

Good news:  I had many of my favorite music files tucked away in my smart phone. 

Bad news:  The iPod required a reset to factory specifications.

Really bad news:  My computer was stolen a couple of weeks back; not only did I lose three years’ worth of training data, blog posts, articles, research and photos, but nearly two thousand MP3 files and podcasts, which were not in my iTunes account.  Thus, many of my favorite songs in that “sweet spot” tempo of 80-to-90 beats per minute would either need to be reinstalled from source CDs, or were gone forever.

I’ve written on many occasions how fickle technology can be toward the running athlete.  The more dependent we become on the technology to tell us what we think we need to know, or to make us happy during the run, the more earth-shattering it seems when everything “goes south.” 

My views on using personal music players vary from ambivalence and pragmatism to pity, depending on the shirt I’m wearing at the moment:

If I’m in running attire at a race the view is closer to ambivalence.

If I’m in a red or zebra-striped polo shirt I’m busy reaching for my notepad.  (My friends know what I mean.) 

I don’t run on the roads with a music player, but I’ll sing to myself when I run outside.  I tell my wife, for much the same reason I train on a treadmill, I want to control as many of the variables as possible.

One of the reasons people run with a music player is to dissociate, or to drown out the “stop already” messages the muscles, lungs and heart send to the brain throughout the course of a race.  Other runners use music players to reinforce run tempo (one reason they are prohibited in triathlon).  But there’s more that happens between the ears and the earphones of the individual runner when music is involved.

We have an internal clock which controls how well we move in the forward direction; run rhythm, stride length, run speed, and so on.  When fatigue sets in we need to grasp for some sort of cue to align with the “clock” in our head and normalize ourselves: music, lines in the road/on the track, telephone poles, etc.  The tempo of the music in the player may…or may not…be aligned with the "right" tempo for the individual runner.  Unless you’re a complete obsessive-compulsive it is highly unlikely your music is set aside in beat-per-minute playlists.  (In the interest of public disclosure, I do notate my BPM on my tracks.) 

That most likely means you are thinking more about what’s going into your head than what you’re putting out via your legs.

Do you sing in the shower?  Do you sing while cooking? Or folding clothes? 

And if you do, do you ALWAYS sing at the EXACT tempo at which the song was performed?

If you answered ‘no’ to the last question you may not need a music player to improve your running.  You can most likely sing your way to a better run performance.

Satoh and Kuzuhara (2008) assessed the time and steps of subjects walking along straight and curved paths while mentally singing a familiar song.  They were asked to listen to the song, clap hands while listening, sing the song, clap while singing the song, sing while walking in place, walk while singing, then walk while singing to themselves.  Analysis of the gait (degree of arm swing, the height of the knees and the smoothness of turn) was performed by a trained observer.

The patients reported feeling improvements in foot progression, ease of arm swing, knee raise and turning and fixation of walking speed. Qualitative evaluation of walking indicated higher knee lift, larger arm swings, smoother turns and less inconsistency in gait.  There was a significant improvement in the time and steps while walking a straight path and turning.  The researchers believed improvement would be more dramatic in the event of worse gait disturbance.  The study participants were able to use mental singing to recover normal pacing when pace was disturbed.

Athletes who moderate their run mechanics by the use of music will most likely benefit from simply singing to themselves during the run rather than placing their safety at risk by using a music player.

Doing Business That Makes Me Smile

“…So why didn’t you run the race this morning?”

Barb, my friend, posted this message on my Facebook wall, which I read minutes after coming home from a two-hour trail trek. Since the questioner is a close friend, dignifying the query with an answer was almost mandatory. “I had a commitment which had to be honored. Suzanne’s not here to support me. Besides that, I’m not in racing shape.”

Barb’s response came back while I was cleaning up: “You could have run the 5K.”

“No. I could not. What needed to be done, needed to be done at 9:00. Besides, I don’t race unless I feel ready to race.”

One of the things an overuse injury does, once a runner can run again, is encourage a focus on quality. Junk mileage, miles for mileage sake, miles to impress ones’ fellow runners; all that egomania gets kicked to the curb. Quality workouts come to the fore. Rest and recovery become important. Races transform into as much of a celebratory event as a test of heart.

After fifty-plus weeks of progress from no running, to twenty minutes, thirty, forty-five, and right at the edge of sixty minutes five or six times a week, I HAVE to keep running fun.

I recently downloaded a copy of Christopher McDougall’s 2009 book, “Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen,” for a number of reasons. I’ve slammed barefoot running as a sort of snake oil fix, and I wanted to read straight from the source material many barefoot running enthusiasts cite as their inspiration. (My suspicion is many barefoot zealots choose to go buffet-style rather than accept the entire menu.) But before I use the broad brush to paint a Picasso-like mural of barefoot true believers, I figured I’d hear the man out. As Bob Dylan once sang: “…don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”

I read through the first hundred pages or so without difficulty. Reading “Born To Run” probably won’t fill you with the compulsion to throw out your Asics Cumulus altogether, or replace them with a pair of Fila Skele-Toes.

Or perhaps it might.

But it’s a very fun read into the mindset of a couple of cultures so different from our own, that of the Tarahumara of Mexico’s Copper Canyon, and that of the ultra-runner.

So, why do people run barefoot? Why do they run ultras? Why do my grandkids love to run and play? What caught my attention in the first hundred pages or so is McDougall’s discussion of famed distance running coach Joe Vigil’s observations of the Tarahumara during the Leadville 100 trail ultramarathon in the 1990s:

“…the real secret of the Tarahumara…(they) remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation….perfecting the art of combining…breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.…You had to love running, or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everything else we love—everything we sentimentally call our "passions" and "desires"—it's really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. We're all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known.”

If nothing else, what I’ve learned so far from McDougall, from Vigil, from the Tarahumara - and from the guys who spend their Saturday mornings on the wooded trails, miles from the nearest 5K road race, is that running is art. Stephen Stills sang, “I don’t do business that don’t make me smile.” While I understand there are many of my friends who are driven by the pursuit of beer glasses and applause of companions, but if “breath and mind and muscles in fluid self-propulsion” doesn’t bring a smile to our face, we might as well forego the application paperwork and the cotton t-shirt and hand our $25 to the beer vendor.

If it isn’t fun, why do it?

Time Is The Final Currency

Suzanne and I drove home the other day from what I would call the fitness equivalent of the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour." Between the two of us, we visited Gulfport and Biloxi, MS, and Gulf Shores, AL, participating in two events. Naturally, this meant being awake and functional before the crack of dawn to carpool with friends to the venue/s.

In between Johnny Cash tunes, a couple of Suzanne's friends found out her age, as well as mine. They also marveled at her fitness level and appearance as of late. I like when people look at my wife. Why not? That's what I like to do.

We talked about the observation later in the afternoon. We don't see our health as fantastic. In fact, when we compare ourselves to many individuals near our age we consider ourselves somewhere closer to the median. I guess that's where that theory of relativity kicks in; if you spend much of your free time with active persons you're more likely to fool yourself into thinking it's the norm. But if you have a lot of friends or associates who aren't necessarily athletic you soon find out exercise is not the norm.

Research done in 2010 by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics found 22 percent of American men and 16 percent of American women over the age of 15 engaged in sports, recreation or exercise activity; almost an hour and 20 minutes for women, just a little under two hours for men. That averages out to somewhere a little under 20 minutes a day for the entire population of America.

In 2008, the US Center for Disease Control recommended that adult Americans get anywhere from 75 to 150 minutes of aerobic activity (depending on the intensity), combined with at least two days a week of activity designed to strengthen and work the major muscle groups. If you divided those activities up it would be anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise five days a week, and two days (CDC recommends multiple sets of between 8 and 12 repetitions of any exercise requiring some muscle strength) of muscle strengthening activity, which can range from weight training to resistance bands, to hard yard work, to yoga.

Yoga, huh? I've tried yoga. For me it's more an exercise in frustration. To each their own.

Even with such a low standard, why don't Americans get in a reasonable workout?

The government survey data says something I've always felt: We invest our time, finances, and resources into the things which are the most important to us. It makes it easier to understand why people buy workout club or gym memberships and never step foot in the place.

Many persons who do invest in a gym membership or a treadmill or an exercise device think exercise is a zero-sum game. If I don't have an hour to invest in a workout then I'm wasting my time. For many of them it's impossible to block out an entire hour or more to dedicate to a workout.

Ever consider whether the workout can be split into two or three sessions throughout the day? What if I can do a 30-minute workout in the morning before I go to work, and a 30-minute workout in the evening once I return home? Some physiologists have opined that anything less than 20 minutes of aerobic activity is probably not going to provide a benefit, especially in the case of weight training. No lollygagging in the gym.

So what are the benefits of splitting up a workout into smaller pieces? A little bit is always better than nothing. Personally, I can hit the road for a 30-minute run before I go to work, and get at least three-and-a-half-miles in. I haven't beat myself up too much; my body is still burning calories during the day, and I'm stimulated when I hit the office as much as if I sucked down a cup of coffee. Even better, if something suddenly comes up in the evening which requires my non-running presence I'm less likely to feel guilty.

Are there down sides to splitting runs?

The first drawback may be an endurance limitation. Running two 30-minute pieces a day may work well for a runner focused on races up to 10,000 meters, but anything longer may be a disaster. For longer events the training runs are still going to be long. Time-crunched runners can still split runs in their training plan which will take longer the two-and-a-half hour physiological limit for distance training. Two-and-a-half hours of running on Saturday, followed by an hour-to-90 minutes on Sunday, is more likely to keep my wife and family members happy as marathon training grinds into the later weeks of the plan.

In our household, the dirty clothes already multiply at an astounding clip. Two runs a day means dirty running attire accumulate at twice the rate. Add to that pile of stink sweaty shoes which need to dry or need time to dry; you'll either spend time shoving newsprint inside the shoe, money to maintain a running shoe arsenal, ingenuity in finding ways to make wet shoes less wet in as little as eight hours...or you'll develop a tolerance for damp running shoes.

Lastly, splitting runs in two means more attention to the (brief) recovery period available. When running twice a day run efforts ideally vary between hard and easy, or all of the efforts are easy. A good diet, portable self-massage devices, regular hydration and even sports supplementation also become more important during the period between runs.

Time, as David Crosby wrote, is the final currency. We can only spend what we have available at a particular moment. It doesn't necessarily mean the time we have during a day for running is absolutely limited to one unbroken 60-minute period. With a little discipline and the desire to do what is absolutely necessary, even the time-constrained runner can achieve the goals they've set for themselves. It all boils down to will.

Small World After All

I wanted to get out of my system some thoughts related to running, fitness and travel, more or less, inspired by or experienced during my visit to Singapore.

First: Not only does (as Jefferson Airplane and Crosby, Stills and Nash remind us) everybody smile, but some even speak the same language. Even more amazingly, some out there even look like me...or at least like some on-line newspaper editors. People have asked over the years whether I had a twin living somewhere else in the world. While I'm flattered, okay...I'm not that good-looking, I don't think I'd want to see another person who looks exactly like myself. Well, maybe someone who looks like me, but they better have a personality.

So it seems everybody apparently has a twin - or our conscience makes us see someone who looks like someone we know. Are they a 'doppelganger' or evil twin? I'm not certain.

Even funnier is when we travel thousands of miles away from home and hearth, only to run into someone we already know. And didn't expect to see.

Suzanne and I were enjoying a cup of green tea at a food stand in the Chinatown neighborhood of Singapore. We had several hours to kill before our hotel room was to be ready, and there wasn't a Starbucks in sight. We're both fans of people watching, and the Chinatown district is definitely a target-rich environment for such activities.

At first, I thought I was hallucinating. Walking past, in t-shirt and jeans, was a guy who looked strangely like one of my school instructors. He had gone on to another assignment, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for him to be somewhere else in the world at a particular place and time.

"Pheabus!"

As Gary sat down to chat with us, he said he had the same 'no, that can't be...' thought as he walked by. Naturally it's fun to have a bit of "old home week" without talking about what was going on at "home." But Gary and I always had that sort of rapport during the two years we worked together; my office was always open for him to come by and chat about any topic under the sun, work included when necessary. He told Suzanne it was one of the things he valued about our working relationship; the fact I didn't talk about work or the service...or even running...all of the time.

What causes single-mindedness? For some persons it's perhaps a devotion to a particular cause. Others take up an interest in order to fill a space which opened up in their lives because of the departure or loss of another interest. Occasionally you get the contrarian out there who's bound and determined to focus on one thing just because they know it's going to upset everyone around them.

Occasionally I've been accused of a focus solely on running. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The overwhelming majority of my friends are runners, swimmers or triathletes; fitness and exercise might be the common bond between us, but the closest relationships are with the friends who have some common ground outside of running. Those who eat, breathe, and sleep a single endeavor are perhaps a little dull, at least in the minds of the rest of the world.

Take some time to look for your "twin."

The Smartest Person In The Room

'Aceptese este consejo aunque sea de un conejo.' (Accept this advice even if it comes from a rabbit.) - Witticism posted by Dr. Luz Paredes Lono, Hillsborough Community College, FL, Spring 1998.

"...Can you take a look at something for me?" I limped toward my local running specialty store proprietor, Paul, as he walked up the front stretch of the track. "I'm watching one of my athletes and something looks a little unusual."

He says, "Sure. Don't tell me what you see, though," and watches the two female runners running along the back stretch.

Paul turns and mentions a couple of things about both of the ladies, then returns to his group of youth runners and their stretching routine.

"Thanks. I must be reading too much into what I see," I call.

Coaching, like teaching and other disciplines where science and art intersect, can either be a solitary or a collegial endeavor. Whether coaching is their vocation or an avocation, the odds are good every coach doesn't possess an encyclopedic knowledge of 'everything there is to know about training runners.'

Most coaches know what we don't know, but there are times we don't know the degree of what we don't know. I can research and learn more about those things; sometimes the learning curve is smoother if I make a phone call, make a visit or send an e-mail to a friend who's had a little more experience with the topic. If they are in a profession (or a business) in which their knowledge of a topic means the difference between success and failure, why should I over-work myself?

I can refer my athlete/s to "the smartest person in the room."

A 19th century German writer and politician coined the term 'realpolitik,' which described the acquisition, maintenance and application of power or authority in a practical, goal-oriented manner. My friend Paul occasionally refers interested adult runners to me; I point runners in need of good shoes to him. It has not always been an equitable state; I do not have to depend on coaching to place food on the table and keep a roof over my family. But, we both are well-aligned in our goals: We both want to help people become and remain lifetime athletes.

And that's the smartest thing we both can do.

We Don't Think All That Much

As I was driving home from work on Friday afternoon I observed what I consider one of those "things which might make you go 'Hmmm...'"

Take a look at the cars around you the next time you're on a road trip or sitting at a crowded intersection. In much the same manner as a picture tells a story, like deciphering the ribbons and service medallions to figure the story of a military service member's accomplishments, we can learn much about our fellow travelers:

Where they live. License plates usually are a narrow-down, but not always. Extra hints can come from drivers with vanity license plate tags (Florida has probably the widest variety of vanity tags of all fifty states.). Sometimes you get a sneaky, esoteric vanity tag owner who gives their tag a more subtle meaning (a fast car with "B4NE1,"). Gives the DMV workers something to think about.

Marital status, number and gender of kids, animal and religious preference. The "cartoon character eared" family line-up is probably the strangest one I've run into, with the Native American kokopelli and the Polynesian-themed turtles being the coolest.

Where they or their kids go/went to school/college. Occasionally you get couples whose loyalties are split between two rival schools, which adds the Lincolnesque "house divided" identification. But there are vehicles and drivers ahead of me on the roadway who I knew were more likely dedicated to the "institution of higher football;" often proven by an action which reinforced their lack of academic (or financial?) wherewithal to get in. Okay, maybe not; common sense does not always equal common knowledge.

Their favorite athlete, team, sport or sports governing body. I bet NASCAR fans go into a tizzy at the end of the season, hoping and praying their favorite driver doesn't move to another team. Triathletes, especially those who participate in those events which start with an "I," always seem to have at least one sticker for every venue at which they've participated. I jokingly used a derogatory term for these persons after seeing car after car loaded with stickers for Wisconsin, Lake Placid and Louisville...in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Panama City.

Their political stance, to include support of present or former successful/lost causes. Come on, guys...the election was over years ago; in some cases we're talking ten. I peel that sucker off the glass the day after the election results are announced, win or lose. Gotta feel sorry for those poor Minnesotans who waited six months to figure out whether Coleman or Franken won.

Their sense of humor...which often ties directly or indirectly to all of the previous categories. Every once in a while you see a bumper sticker which transcends most of the topical areas. My favorite had to be one I saw years ago while living in Tampa: "Cat Lovers Against The Bomb."

A smart person equipped with a notepad and a smart phone can probably gain enough intelligence on the modern middle-class driver to wreak havoc on their life, all in the course of a 60-second period of time...the time it takes to pull a snapshot. But what kills me is this: The people who display their identity, affinity, proclivity, and "derivity" so openly on their motor vehicles are usually the same persons who complain about the invasion of the internet, the World Wide Web, service providers, and the government (at varying levels) on their privacy.

Sometimes, we just don't think all that much. Not about how weather conditions like heat and humidity affect our running performance. Not about adapting our workout intensity, duration, location or time to account for those conditions. Not about wearing clothes and accessories during our workouts which can reflect heat from above and below. And, most of all, not about hydrating during the day, rather than just during the run.

I went to run a 5K road race - on a lark - mere hours after I wrote a blog post about hydration. I hadn't drank much after an early morning visit to the gym, and I didn't even think about what possibly could go awry during my warm-up. In fact, I had the pre-race jitters and the feeling like I should make a run for the porta-potty. However, I knew once I started sweating things would be all right.

Boy, was I wrong.

I was parched by the time I approached the first aid station; usually I'll take a cup to pour on my head, but this time I needed two in me. Simply put, I forgot all about my own recovery and pre-race advice and counsel... Seven months is a long time between races; sometimes we forget the simple things - hydration, nutrition, warm-up, pacing, and patience - in that period of time.

As George Clinton of Parliament/Funkadelic said: "Think. It Ain't Illegal Yet."

I Got A Feeling Somebody's Watching Me

I think it was a Thursday evening about a week ago. I had crawled off the couch & headed to bed after an evening at the track & my late-week recovery protocol of rehydrating, eating dinner, and watching Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food." I love "MvF": Some of the items Adam Richmond encounters can be enough to make me want to eat...or not. More often than not, it's eat. Suzanne hates the show, however; she believes the challenges glorify gluttony. However, I consider Richmond an object lesson in how NOT to live my life - on the edge of a heart attack. I do keep a mental checklist of the dining establishments he visits for future business travels.

Suzanne was watching YouTube videos while I engaged in vicarious voraciousness. She pointed out an interesting video analysis of the running form of American and Kenyan marathoners a mutual friend of ours sent her. I took a look at it the following weekend, after another friend sent me the link via e-mail. The front end of the video explained a sub-two-hour marathon could be run by an American marathoner if they were to become more biomechanically efficient, specifically in the amount of vertical travel taken during each stride, the range of motion of the hips & the angle of the foot as it strikes the road surface.

I'll agree to a certain degree that biomechanical efficiency (an observable variable) is a very important aspect of good road racing, but it's not the only important aspect. Cardiovascular fitness, thermal regulation, hydration, nutrition, mental conditioning - some measurable & observable variables, others hypothetical constructs - can all be included as necessary cards in a "winning hand" for distance runners.

But the greatest runners in the world can be sidelined by poor nutrition or hydration; Anthony Famiglietti, for example, was literally shut down by years of lousy diet & had to do a complete work-over in order to regain his competitive mojo. Steve Prefontaine didn't have the highest VO2 max score, but was still a dominant track runner, in the U.S. I bet you can probably think of a fellow runner who "crushes" workouts, yet folds like a house of cards when they toe the line on race day.

But, back to the video:

Later, a gentleman is administered a muscle manipulation, stretching, & massage treatment modality, after which he is sent out on the track to run 400 meters. He runs eight seconds faster than his personal best time for the 400. I don't want to "throw stones" at the company who developed the video, but an inquiring mind like mine thinks there are some confounding variables here. Did the gentleman in the video run faster directly because of the muscular and myofascial manipulation, or was this perhaps because someone was paying attention to his effort?

I'm no genius, but I vaguely recall from my Educational Psychology course/s back in college a little concept called the "Hawthorne Effect." For those who might not be familiar, there were some industrial psychology experiments done during the 1920s & 1930s which had to do with changing the lighting (brightness) in a Western Electric plant. The Hawthorne Effect suggests workers were more productive & more motivated because someone was taking an interest in their activity. I bet that little effect exists even within my own athletes.

For example, I cut my track workout short the previous Tuesday because my achilles' tendon & heel were began to ache. However, I had my athletes do the last two repeats of the set. One of them has the tendency to tighten her shoulders up & swing her arms a little wide; we work to relax & drop the shoulders at speed on a regular basis. As she came midway into the turn, about 125 meters into the repeat, she looked at me walking the opposite direction at the outside lane of the track. Immediately, her arms & shoulders relaxed & her pace increased slightly. I couldn't help but chuckle as I watched. I asked her about her form change at that point. She said, "yes, right about the time I saw you and heard your voice I knew to relax the shoulders."

"In fact, during the middle of the 5K we raced in late September I could hear your voice inside my head telling me to relax...especially during the first mile when you were still close by, & when I was approaching the turn-around on the course & could see you."

Sometimes it's the training, the technique, or the modality that helps the runner to improve. Other times it's the coach - or knowing the coach is nearby. And watching.

...Of Course, There Was A Line

Brief observations from yesterday's arrival & check-in:

1. Never, ever trust an elderly gentleman who says he's never been to a particular place in the world. Odds are very good he's pulling your leg. I had the supreme good fortune to have my check-in nerves soothed by a couple of Johns. Really, both of these gentlemen were named John. After signing my life away to WTC and promising I would never even think of the phrase lawsuit at the same time as I participate in IM FL, I sat down with these two gentlemen to receive my numbers, my chip, my cap and all the other good stuff. John asked where I was from, to which I replied: 'Pensacola, just up the way.'

"Never heard of it."

"You're kidding," I said. As I began to mention the relative distance from PCB, Destin, FWB & other locations on Planet Earth, I saw the slightest twinkle come to the eyes of both Johns. At that moment, I laughed and said, 'ah, so THAT'S why I feel that tugging sensation at my ankle...pull my leg, will ya?' We had a great conversation which lasted probably about ten minutes after that, got the necessary business completed, and went on my merry way.

2. Wal-Mart is the same no matter where you go, except for the layout. After a late luncheon at Pineapple Willy's we made the command decision to acquire some light snacks, social beverages and ibuprofen, and quickly. A four-buck Abita Amber will do that to you every time. Fortunately for us, there's a Wal-Mart approximately a stones' throw from the hotel.

Nothing changes from store location to store location. Trust me on this one. Go to the web site People of Wal-Mart.com and you'll understand what I mean. I swear I've seen each of those people in each location I've ever visited. Well, it was a little different for this trip, as you had pre-race triathletes going through the grocery and personal care sections, too.

The dichotomy was pretty funny. There was a lean, hawk-faced, serious-looking gentleman in front of Suzanne and me (was in the 10 items or less line) with six bottles of PowerAde, two packages of lettuce hearts, two packages of tomatoes, a package of frozen chicken filets, two sweet potatoes, and a few other salad makings here and there. There we were with a box of ibuprofen, a box of Clif Bars and a 12-pack of Corona. The Brasilians behind us, I think, were somewhere in between the two extremes, well, at least they were smiling. Suzanne asked if they were here for Ironman...of course, they spoke little English. I held up my wristband and smiled. They held up theirs. Suzanne wished them luck...which they didn't catch. I told them Bom Suerte, pidgin bastardized Spanish/Portuguese for good luck, to which they smiled.

"...every body every where smiles in the same language..." - Wooden Ships (Jefferson Airplane)