Do I Consider You A Marathoner? Why Not?

Some of my running friends are in a bit of an uproar over this morning's New York Times article.

There are a number of runners who chafe at the thought of slow, plodding penguins having the nerve to call themselves marathoners. They believe slower participants have diluted the challenge of the marathon distance & lessened the cachet of their identity as - gasp - a marathoner.

Once you read the article, you'll realize something seriously missing. There are no 'elite' marathoners quoted in the article. I think in their case a marathon is "another day at the office." To the elite marathoner, slow participants are a non-issue. It's the folks who are slightly more slow & plodding than they - John Bingham calls them "slightly fast runners" - who are kvetching like a bunch of whiny, wounded animals.

While the trend is for marathon finish times to become more slow, as cited by Running USA, that may be more due to the democratization of the marathon than anything else. Remember that concept of selectivity we all learned about in college psychology? That was the same reason more students in graduate school scored no lower than a "C." Grad school was more selective to get in, & the grades reflected that very fact.

So, when Mr. or Ms. Marathon Race Director opened their event to the lumpenproletariat, the great unwashed run/walking masses, they spread out the total range of the bell curve a bit more. Of course, I don't think all of the race directors are pleased with the unintended consequences of larger fields of slightly slower participants...it means more time for the course to be closed off for safety reasons. Some events have taken to instituting cut-off times. Which is all right, in my opinion. If you can't make the cut-off, you'll look for another event where your chances of finishing is better. If I were a penguin looking for a marathon & saw a cut-off faster than my best effort, I'd find another event & say, 'their loss. Sucks to be that RD.'

Frankly, I haven't mastered the marathon yet. My best effort is in the high-threes, my worst in the mid-four range. I marvel at the elites as well as the three-hour folks. I'm not going to think any less of a person who wants to go out & do a marathon. But, what I'd like to see is running programs/coaches work over an extended period of time with their charges.

First, coaches need to be honest with the athlete about the social stigma which exists about plodding/walk-running/penguining...whatever the faster people want to call slow-paced participation.

Then, work with the person; get them off the couch doing 5Ks for six months-to-a year, then 10Ks, then half-marathons. After a couple of years of consistent training and racing shorter distances, then put them on a conservative, mostly run-based training program focusing on a marathon that has entry-level marathoner-friendly conditions...preferably a small one.

I'd personally recommend something as small as the Tallahassee Marathon, (next years' RRCA Southern Region Marathon Championship) which has about 250-300 participants, or Melbourne's Space Coast Marathon, which is on a very flat course. I'm not saying they can't do Chicago, New York, Honolulu, Disney, Marine Corps or any of the big name ones, but I'd rather see them get their first marathon in on a course where they can learn the art of marathoning, rather than be treated like children of a lesser god by wanna-be elites, fairly fast runners, & Runners' World/Slowtwitch/Let's Run.com forum posters, the gatekeepers of marathon/road running purity.

A Thought On Tapering

...or two. I guess this train of thought started last Wednesday evening during our "easy" 60-minute run on the beach. Quite frankly, it felt like a bit of a slog for a good portion of the run; just couldn't get comfortable. The heart rate wasn't going sky high...in fact, it seemed quite reasonable. Just a little bit of lead in the legs. When we got back to the start I had to admit I was glad we kind of went off the beaten path; heaven knows I'd have been tempted to slap it into B-for-boogie...and might have felt like ten pounds of used kitty litter afterward.
That kind of feeling has persisted for this past week, & almost two. I'm certain lots of it has to do with a subconscious effort to conserve energies for the day. But it's not like I'm really going into taper mode. Friends who know I'm (about) three weeks out from the Ironman have hinted, 'yeah, you should be starting your taper next week...' Trouble is, I am not certain what I'm supposed to be tapering from.
The bicycle crash, by necessity, forced me to back off about 30-percent of my intended training volume. I've had to limit my swimming to twice a week, & at an intensity which is just comfortable enough to not strain the trapezius, deltoid, or latissimus muscles on the left side...unfortunately, life has managed to make up for the lost efforts. If you've ever tried to get out of a Mercedes sedan on the passenger side, it requires a certain degree of assistance from the left arm to help roll you out. So, when I whine about wanting to drive it has as much to do with physical comfort as it does with personal autonomy.

I managed to do well through the long bike ride on the IM FL course, so there's little to worry about there. Even running, when the shoulder feels good & hasn't been over-stressed, is all right. The heart rate is good. And now, the weather has become almost nice. So it's not like I'm really going to cut back on volume that much...or intensity...not until next weekend.

At that point it's going to be little more than a single hour of a single activity. Spend a little more time with the feet up, with the coffee pot, with the good book, with the light jazz or baroque music. Definitely. I'll revert back to one of the things I said before...just kind of be like my greyhound: eat when I can, go out when I want, & rest otherwise.

So, I'm not really tapering as much as maintaining.

It's Your Fault. Trust Me. I'm A Doc.

Before becoming a "documentarian/running bureaucrat/anal-retentive measurer/backyard shade-tree coach" I worked as an analyst in the human factors, medical, education & communications world. Until seven years ago I hadn't developed any real taxonomy by which to break down root causes to things. I just worked by feel.

After I entered my (Navy) educational internship I was enrolled into a human performance technology course track at a local university. One of the first documents I read was based on the work of Thomas Gilbert, considered to be the father of human performance technology. Gilbert was a disciple of B. F. Skinner, the human behaviorist. Think pigeons pecking metal plates in response to a flashing light in exchange for seed. Think Walden Two. Fortunately, Gilbert was thinking more humanistically.Gilbert believed all barriers to worthy performance (not just doing something, but doing something of worth to society) could be broken down into six areas; three at the organizational level, three at the performer level. Other theorists borrowed the Pareto (80/20) principle; 80 percent of performance deficiencies were caused by 20 percent of possible root causes. They believed 80 percent of performance barriers were organizationally rooted. In other words, as Gilbert wrote in his 1978 book, most workers go to work wanting to do a good job. Management screws it up by unclear communications, inefficient processes, & disincentivizing worthy performance. If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)I've always had the tendency to look more at the organizational - in my own case, coach-rooted - barriers to an athlete's performance first, and then the worker - or athlete-rooted - barriers...or I've left them alone entirely. Unless the athlete places 100-percent trust and confidence in me there's not much I can do to control an autonomous, adult, post-collegiate, recreational athlete. (I prefer to think I was more accountable to my coach; he might beg to differ.) Sometimes we want to say to the athlete, 'I don't think you want to work that hard...you don't want to train to perform that well...' The coach's job is to do what it takes to prepare the athlete to execute the plan, given their state of fitness, on the day.Lately I've been reading & noting the guidance Brett "Doc" Sutton provides to amateur age-group as well as professional triathletes he trains as part of Team TBB. He's had some great success in the ITU, 70.3 & IM world, has coached swimmers, trained racehorses & world triathlon champions. He's able to read the athlete & see through the b.s. His brand of coaching blends tough love & stoking the inward fire, for want of a better term on my part.Doc's way of looking at a problem is simple:"...in every thing, we break it up into three steps. We don't believe in making it more complicated than that, what ever it is. You come with a problem that has five or six points? "The Doc" sends you back to the corner & says 'bring me back three & we will find a solution.'"Let's take a day where an athlete doesn't perform up to their expectation. Rather than blame the coaching, the weather or the course, what about the pace they ran in the first mile, where they staged themself in the starting corral, or the warm-up that was not done? As "Doc" says, 'no discussion...we reap what we sow.'Timing or scoring issue? Get scored fourth place in your age group when you know you were third? Some sports don't allow the opportunity for 'argument, no pity-partying , or you get your head punched off by the opposition within the next ten seconds.' Sometimes you need to 'make the very best out of a...hand that is dealt. That is your hand; how you play it is up to the individual. Some get inspired, some crack.' Don't place yourself in a position to be vulnerable to the frailties of human judgment. 'Don't like it? Don't race. This is your sport; can it be done better? Well of course. But that is not on the table on race day.'

While the vast majority of us are recreational athletes & not making dollar-one from our pursuit, we can still borrow the mindset & adapt the mental toughness of the professional. Sometimes that means looking in the mirror for the first cause, then going on from there.

Georgia On My (Tri Suit) Back...

For the small number of people who really want to know how the coach fared on his training day in Augusta, GA this last weekend, here we go. I'll provide a brief commentary on the host city, the courses, my performance, some possible root causes/lessons learned and what I might try in order to not have a repeat on a grander (and I dare say, a more painful...) scale in five weeks.

Augusta - Venue
Augusta is definitely Old South, with dry town-style blue laws & that roll up the sidewalk, put out the cat at five o'clock feeling. If you're looking for a race venue in which to party during the days immediately before/afterward, this is definitely not the race to choose. However, if you can handle walking down a tree-lined main drag on a Saturday morning to a bakery for coffee, danish (there are only two Starbucks' in town; one's in the Marriott) & a quiet read of the local newspaper/USA Today, this is your kind of place. Even Monday morning traffic didn't come down Broad Street en masse until about nine o'clock, while we had breakfast at a breakfast joint which did open during the week. Yes, there are dining, drinking & clubbing establishments which open later, but don't expect a boatload of early morning joints nearby.

We stayed at the Ramada Inn, about six blocks from the headquarters hotel, three blocks from the swim start, & approximately 1.2 miles from the transition area. What it lacked in facility quality & neighborhood location - the freight train line, which awakened us at least four times nightly, reminded Suzanne & me of our first place - it made up by proximity to the run course just plain good-hearted attitude of the staff working there.

The courses were, in the opinion of this race guy, fairly good. I truly enjoyed the point-to-point swim in the Savannah River, as well as the rolling, often-tree-lined bike course in the vicinity of Jackson & Aiken, SC. The run course was, however, a mixed bag. If I had been the course designer, I probably would not have run the course over the train line four times each ten-kilometer loop. Yes, I'm being a whiny-butt, because I know what happens every time I try to run over a very uneven piece of pavement when I've been moving for the previous four hours. Can you say calf or leg cramps?

Swim - 1.2 miles - 35:00
Swimming in the 72-degree waters of the Savannah River was nice, even though the water was quite murky, with seagrass, sticks & the like. After the first couple of hundred yards I was forced to either do the side stroke or the breast stroke. If your shoulders aren't used to swimming, even a two-millimeter wetsuit (great for flotation when compared to no wetsuit) can pose difficulties. A couple of panicky moments here & there when I caught a little too much water, as well as the drat! I knew I should have used the tinted goggles moment when the sun finally burst through...all I could tell was I was going in the right direction - downstream - but seeing specific signs was another story altogether.

(Talk about a fun swim venue - you probably could have walked on the levee for the majority of the swim & watched your athlete do their thing.)

T1 - Unlike most other 70.3 events according to what I've been told, this event had wetsuit strippers at the transition area. Nice. The downside was the strippers were in the grass; by the time my wave (23rd of 25) arrived in T1 the nice grass had turned more into nice grass and mud. So, I ended up with a nice coating of Georgia grass/mud/dirt on the back side of my bright yellow tri-top. I know. Waah, waah, waah... I didn't know there was junk all over my back until the bike course, when some 40-44 woman I passed told me.

Contrary to my first triathlon efforts, my time in T1 was fairly short, probably about three minutes at the most. However, I did the same thing I've done in every other event. I broke my right little toe during my first triathlon trying to get into my cycling shoes...it's happened every time since then. When I told my wife later she freaked out. Hey, it's only a little toe. I have nine others.

Bicycle - 56 miles - 3:10
The first 20 kilometers of the bike leg went by quickly; I was probably at 30 km/hour (20 mph) average for it. The first climb on the course did not come until about the 18-mile mark, when I heard the first signs I did not want to hear; grinding noises from my chainring area as I started to pull my way up the hill. That's a certain sign I've got a chain issue, caused by a dry chain...not enough lube...exposed to rain the night before while in transition. Stupid! Should have taken my bottle of chain lube to transition & that extra half-hour of TLC; probably would have saved me a good ten minutes of ride. By the end of the bike leg I was limited to probably four gear combinations which did not make a lot of noise. The last 15 kilometers were the price paid for my folly, as I dropped my chain off the small chainring not once, but twice...the second time on the last incline leading back into Augusta.

When we looked at the course profile, the first reaction was one of shock & worry; there were some serious elevation changes on the course, a couple of hundred feet in difference, in three separate locations. Fortunately, the scale of the course profile was skewed in favor of showing all of the elevation...only three of the climbs were tougher than three percent in grade...and only one was tough enough to make me get up out of my saddle for the climb. Looked at my heart rate on the climbs &found I was expending no worse than 77 percent of maximum heart rate, which means I was probably at the high end of aerobic threshhold.

It was on the bike where the first signs of wheels falling off were noticeable, just after the 40 kilometer marker at the second of two U-turns on the course. I almost overcooked the first one about ten kilometers earlier, but managed to pull it back in. The second U-turn was snug enough to slow me down good. Pushing the pace to get back up to speed (into a steadily-increasing headwind) caused a beauty of a calf cramp, one of those cramps that you cannot pedal through & can barely unclip out to let it rest for about ten one-legged pedal strokes.

(Another one of those rides where I wish I had a basket to pick up all of the stuff which was discarded on the course. Danny Turner said he saw a wad of money on the road...dude, you didn't stop!?)

T2 - much shorter than the lead-in from the swim, thank goodness. Yes, I had to walk the bike through the entire transition area, but since there was low grass, smooth gravel & carpeting it was fairly quick & painless. Took the time to kill off the 20-ounce bottle of Gatorade Endurance Formula I picked up at the third bottle exchange - part of the 60 ounces of fluid taken on the bike course to supplement the 60 ounces (40 of Accelerade/Hammer Gel/water mixture, 20 of straight water) I carried on board - and hit the head.

So the answer, Mimi, is: No. No peeing on the bike. I waited until T2.

Run - 13.1 miles - 2:22
Regardless of whatever plans you make, the run leg of a triathlon is uncomfortable. It all depends on how you define uncomfortable. Compared to my previous half-iron experience, this was not so much a kick in the groin as a slap very, very close to it. The first & second miles were just plain awful, but I knew that was going to happen. That's why (most) people do transition runs, or bricks. The warmth of the run course in downtown Augusta made it almost necessary to play it cautious; I already planned to walk through the aid stations which were located about every two kilometers on the course in order to take enough fluids to forestall cramping. Things seemed to work well until mile four, then the wheels fell off. They did not fall off like my previous half, where I walked for a solid hour; they fell off closely enough to the wagon I could pick them up & replace them. And replace them, I did. Every other block for the next three miles; I tried to go further than a block, or as far as I could until the cramp would start, then I'd take a minute or a block & walk.

(How many stoopid people do you know who take a cell phone on the run at a triathlon?)

Every run course, every race course, has a point on it where the crowds are sparse or nonexistent, the view is dismal, & your body begins to debate very loudly with your mind. My point was somewhere between the sixth & seventh mile, on Reynolds Avenue, heading back toward the Augusta Rowing Club. The bad news was I developed a major cramp in my left hamstring, the kind that makes you literally pitch off to one side, hopefully into something soft & comfortable. The good news was that it stopped me dead still rather than pitching me off into the bushes along the roadway. The real good news was that a fellow participant gave me the one Hammer Endurolyte capsule she had left...which perhaps made the difference between walking/jogging the next 6 miles & just walking the next 6 miles.

And this happened at a point where at least three of the aid stations on the course were beginning to run out of cups, cold drink & sponges. I had to forego aid on the southern side of Broad Street because there were no cups whatsoever. (If you're in a later wave of a large triathlon event, consider yourself warned.)

Finish - 6:20:22
Compared to the last half-iron triathlon, I finished two minutes faster...on a less-challenging swim but a more-challenging bike. If I said I was not hoping for a quicker time, you could call me a liar. But I'm pleased with how things turned out (especially the way I feel days later - sleeping without waking up to cramps from the nether regions are a plus).

Lessons Learned/Training Foci:
Swim - more full suit-swims & resistance training - strengthen the arms for longer wetsuit swims and decrease fatigue. Able to make 1.2 in hour, so no need to panic on longer swim, just do one stroke at a time and stay focused.

Bike - check function (air/lubrication/gears/brakes) both during check-in & pre-race in transition. 90-minute bottles worked wonderfully; set-up either one 6-hour bottle or two 3-hour bottles for IM. Use aero bottle for water. A couple of 3-hour-to-4-hour road or trainer rides should work well to get comfortable in saddle.

Run - carry electrolytes of some sort in fuel belt; don't trust race course to have enough good stuff. Use HEED/Perpetuem and/or Endurolytes. Long, easy-paced (8:00min/mile) runs/ short transition runs over next weeks.

Ask Coach: Pre-Workout Snacking

What is a good pre-workout snack? I tried some Raisinets before a recent workout, but wanted to get your opinion.

Take this as a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do; nutrition is one of my weaker areas, & something which I constantly strive to improve. I think something a little less “simple sugary” – a banana or a slice of whole-grain or rye (see the article below!) toast with peanut butter & jelly (or honey!) – will stave off hunger, provide beneficial fats/protein, & not die out on you at 7 p.m.

Through the spring & early summer I had a serious fling with the mini Clif Bars, they have 100 calories per bar, & are loaded with fiber & good (natural) nuts, grains/soy, fruit. But they were so good I probably took in too many calories - a couple of hundred calories of snacking a day is fine; a couple of hundred calories of snacking three or four times a day on top of meals can do some damage. I probably took in more calories than I thought I was burning in my workouts.

Without looking at the nutritional data – if you’re looking at nutritional data to justify your snack, it’s probably not worth putting in your body, anyway - there are natural sugars in the raisins, caffeine in the chocolate…and God knows what other chemicals from the processing. So, two out of three are not bad; better than Little Debbie cakes. There was a time I would scarf on one or two of them (Oatmeal, Devils’ Food, Raisin…all evil!) a couple of hours before a track workout. Most of the time I found the short-term sugar rush was NOT worth the crash which occurred on the last set of the workout.

While I'm in the mood to talk about hunger suppression and bread, I saw this article the other day (Isaksson H, Fredriksson H, Andersson R, Olsson J and Åman P (2009), Effect of rye bread breakfasts on subjective hunger and satiety: a randomized controlled trial. Nutrition Journal 2009, 8:39, August) and thought it rather interesting:

Several studies report that dietary fiber promotes the feeling of satiety & suppresses hunger. However, results for cereal fiber from rye are essentially lacking. The researchers investigated subjective appetite during eight hours after intake of iso-caloric rye bread breakfasts varying in rye dietary fiber composition & content.

The first part of the study compared the satiating effect of iso-caloric bread breakfasts including different milling fractions of rye (bran, intermediate fraction (B4) & sifted flour). The second part investigated the dose-response effect of rye bran & intermediate rye fraction, each providing 5 or 8 grams of dietary fiber per iso-caloric bread breakfast. Both study parts used a wheat bread breakfast as reference & a randomised, within-subject comparison design. Appetite (hunger, satiety & desire to eat) was rated regularly from just before breakfast at 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Amount, type & timing of food & drink intake were standardized during the study period.

The milling fractions study showed each of the rye breakfasts resulted in a suppressed appetite during the time period before lunch (8:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.) compared with the wheat reference bread breakfast. At a comparison between the rye bread breakfasts the one with rye bran induced the strongest effect on satiety. In the afternoon the effect from all three rye bread breakfasts could still be seen as a decreased hunger & desire to eat compared to the wheat reference bread breakfast.

In the dose-response study both levels of rye bran & the lower level of intermediate rye fraction resulted in an increased satiety before lunch compared with the wheat reference bread breakfast. Neither the variation in composition between the milling fractions nor the different doses resulted in significant differences in any of the appetite ratings when compared with one another.

The results show rye bread can be used to decrease hunger feelings both before & after lunch when included in a breakfast meal. Rye bran induces a stronger effect on satiety than the other two rye fractions used when served in iso-caloric portions.

Ask Coach, Kona, and Good Ab Days

Ran into the above cartoon as I was pondering my swimming prowess (or lack of it) yesterday morning. Wonder how many would-be triathletes would take up the sport if there was an "Arm Floatie" division (kind of like the Clydesdale/Athena division, or the Fat Tire division...) at the local event. The only saving grace I can think of for my own pitiful skills, outside of what I mentioned yesterday (10-percent of a typical triathlon), is obvious...I can only improve.

And it is true. I know because I'm not as horrible a swimmer as I used to be nearly two years ago. Someday I hope to be able to no longer use the 'I grew up in the freaking desert' excuse for my lousy swimming. I might find another one, or I might just resign myself to the knowledge that, unlike dolphins, I can type 60-plus words-per-minute. Take that, Flipper.

Seems one of my athletes has a girlfriend in her early fifties, who has not run consistently until this last year. They ran a 5K course near their house, finishing in a little under 40 minutes. The conversation continues: 'I could see her putting in 35-36ish without much problem. With proper training, I see (but haven't said, of course) a 30ish in her future. What do I do with her now? Track? A steady plan? She's not a competitor at heart, just a happy participant, but I know she'd like to progress. Advice?'
I didn't mention I felt "a happy participant" was a great goal - heaven knows with the number of cranky people I've seen after a 5,000-meter road race, we could use a few more happy participants. So, I suggested 'steady running. Let her go out, run & enjoy herself. If she gets the bug to compete & thinks she needs to improve, then you point her in the general direction of your "friendly neighborhood Jedi master." If you push she might rebel. If I push she might rebel. Let the incentive come from within.'

Sounds like one of my local triathlete friends will be paying a few more large bills between now & October 10th; he qualified for the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Kona, Hawai'i. Talk about the flip side of the coin; yesterday a friend misses the privilege of finishing her second Ironman by eight minutes on the bike, today three knuckleheads at that same triathlon decide not to accept a Kona slot (For those of you who may not know, Kona is Boston for tri-geeks. You either pay lots of money to get a charity slot or you work your butt off & qualify.). Some times the circumstances beyond your control are in your favor, I guess. Congratulations, Mark. I guess Steven and I will be riding the IM Florida course about the same time you're making your way back toward Dig Me Beach.
One of my friends has motivated me to try & achieve the goal of having "good ab days." For lack of a better definition, I guess that means getting some definition in the abdominal area...which means getting rid of some of the adipose deposited in the general vicinity of my mid-section for starters. To facilitate these metabolic (diabolic?) changes, it seems necessary to profoundly cut back on french fried darn near everything. That's a lot easier than it looks, especially if you're the type who doesn't take lunch in with you.
Most fast food joints have menu offerings like Henry Ford's 'Model-A Dictum:' You can have anything you want, as long as it's deep-fried.

Good Ab Days notwithstanding, the dietary advice & counsel provided by six-time Ironman world champion Mark Allen & Huichol shaman Brant Secunda in their recent work, Fit Soul Fit Body, only made more & more sense. Something that flies in the face of if the furnace is hot enough it will burn anything. Face it, it ain't going to get any easier to become a lean, mean triathlon/running/swimming/bicycling/coaching machine if some sensible chances don't come to pass. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself, or my food.

It's balance, friends, that counts.

Living and Learning

"Let's call all the fun we've had living, living; Let's call all mistakes we've made learning, learning..." - "Living and Learning," Mel Tillis (1971)

(Note: Today's weblog title & the reference lyrics are in honor of my late grandfather, who used to sing & play little ditties like this one, so long ago.)In the business world, perhaps in the last decade...maybe a little longer back than that, there was a focus on transforming businesses into "learning organizations." Training & education managers, formerly the red-headed stepchild forced to share a bedroom with human resources, suddenly became a C-level (or sea level, if you wish to look at it that way, especially if you're at the water's edge...) entity all its own. It was one of the important disciplines in business, especially if you believed what you read in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline.

Ah, those were the good old days. Now, in the age of shrinking (shrunken?) budgets, training & education, as well as the CLO (Chief Learning Officer) have been forced to come back home & share the room with manpower & personnel...human resources. But, it doesn't make learning any less important a part of living. John Dewey once said: 'training is not preparation for life. Training is life...' or something to that extent (shame on me, an education guy, for not knowing the exact quote).

That's the most fun about coaching & training, I think. In order to be as efficient with my training as I possibly can...even more important as I become older & less efficient in recovering from races and workouts as I used to be...I have to read, research, re-read, & re-research what coaches, scientists, & even athletes have found to be the most effective means of training, fortifying, supplementing, recovering, & so on. I like it, it fits well with my personality. It provides me the opportunity to try something a little bit different, or adapt to what I'm already doing, before I try it on any of my athletes.

Doing this involves what I guess the Zen masters might call beginners' mind. You have to wipe out any preconception about a particular topic in order to listen clearly, lest your Charlie Brown filter be engaged. We all have that filter; the one that turns plain, simple language into waah, waah, waah-waah, waah...waah in less than 3.2 seconds, leaving us stupider than before. Turning on that filter not only makes you more stupid, but makes your life much less enriched.

I've kicked myself in the butt on many an occasion for not listening more closely to friends who read an article in Runners' World, Triathlete, Geezerjock, & wanted to share their insights with me. Usually that kick in the butt came after remembering, 'hey, didn't so-and-so tell you about a particular piece of equipment, or a particular exercise that would have kept you from crashing & burning in that event?' Then I have to go back, reclaim beginners' mind, & listen to what I should have listened to before. Well, C.S. Lewis once wrote, 'pain is the megaphone of God,' so maybe it was the Almighty's way of telling me...'(WHACK!) Stoopid...what were you thinking!? Wait, were you thinking!?'

So, there I was, standing in my local running emporium, sweating my behind off, listening to one of my advisors talk to a marathon training group about hydration & nutrition. Normally, I would have shrugged off the vast majority of the information; turned on the Charlie Brown filter. But this time, well, you can blame it on Nikki...she handed me an outline of the lecture. What else could I do but stand at the back of the store and listen in. 'Who knows, dude...' I said to myself, 'you might even learn something.'Since the marathon has been my weakest running event, & the one which will probably determine how well or poorly I do in November, I figured it couldn't hurt. No worse than doing the walk of shame for ten kilometers to keep from blowing up my achilles, which I did in 2007.

It was no surprise to hear the obvious: 'we are in two states...training & preparing for training.' But it never really clicked until then. I learned a good possible root cause for my weight plateau & a few other nutrition specifics. Gee. What a concept.

So, by allowing myself to go to beginners' mind I was able to learn a few things which could make the difference between a bad day & a good day, or a good day & a very good day...both now & in the near future.

"And we'll go on through life together living and learning..."