Under The (Needle) Gun

I've recently become a fan of two tattoo-focused programs on cable television; not a surprise to my wife, since I also enjoyed watching the three TLC tattoo-related reality series' "Miami Ink," "L.A. Ink" and N.Y. Ink."  The latest two are "Tattoo Nightmares" and "Ink Master," both of which are on the 40-something year-old, (seemingly-) male-interest-focused cable channel Spike.

My wife, to a lesser degree, also enjoys watching these programs.  She's adamant about the fact she will never get a tattoo, but I'm more than welcome to get another one when I feel compelled to expose my tender self to the ministrations (and needles) of artist and machine.  She likes the really good pieces shown on "Ink Master" and cringes as much as I when she sees the "Tattoo Nightmares" badly in need of some sort of cover-up.  I guess art, even if the skin is the canvas, is never really bad; just varying degrees of beautiful.

Art, tattooing...and running...do have a lot in common, if you take a few minutes (and a beverage of choice) to consider the similarities.

Discomfort or pain is the first quality which immediately comes to my mind.  One need only refer back to the ever-quotable Steve Prefontaine, who once said, "A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they’re capable of understanding."  Anyone who has raced on the track, road, or trail; has laid out their muscle, heart and sinew as a near-daily, daily, or twice-daily offering to the racing and training gods can quickly say that the day's run or race is a willful exercise in patient suffering, in much the same manner as a client receiving ink.  Ask an artist where they gain their inspiration, and some will refer to either their own or someone else's physical or psychic pain.  Two words to anyone who might doubt this:  Frida Kahlo.

During the other week's "Ink Master" episode, one of the competing tattoo artists, Jamie Davies, was chided by the judging panel for having no tattoos (exposed or not) on his body.  The panel of three tattoo artists and one rock musician, recommended (before removing him from the competition) he receive a few tats of his own, just to know how it feels to expose skin to needle gun.  How many writers prefer to scribble in journals rather than engage in the (sometimes self-glorifying) act of writing web logs, lyricizing, or performing poetry at open microphone nights?  You might doodle in notepads and sketchbooks, or noodle on guitars, but does it mean that everything you do needs to be laid out for public scrutiny?

There are pieces I've seen people get put on their body which, when I asked them the story behind the ink, they had nothing to say.  Marines who get the eagle, globe and anchor are about the only group...okay, Ironman triathlon finishers, too...where no story really need be elicited.  Except, perhaps, that of "Parris Island or San Diego?"  Or "Which course?"  Yeah, you have that one guy who a couple of years ago said anyone who finished the 140.6 miles anywhere but Hawaii did not merit  being called an Ironman, or sitting to receive the "M-Dot" tattoo until they did.  But he's an army of one in that particular war.

A tattoo, especially a nice one, usually leads me to first ask the story behind the tattoo, then the name or location of the tattoo artist.  If the story isn't compelling - and most of the really good pieces I've seen have one (it usually means the person wants to remember or communicate something special to them) - it doesn't matter who inked you.

But I go back to what we might call the "Jamie Davies Syndrome" when it comes to training and/or coaching.  First, and most important to me as a coach, is to ask an athlete who wants to do a particular event, especially if they're on the verge of entering uncharted territory (like an IM70.3 event when they haven't done a lot of long-distance stuff, or attempting a marathon straight-off-the-couch) "is there a compelling reason to do this event?"  They need to understand the degree of pain and discomfort (physical, psychological, social and emotional) involved to make it to completion.  Good-looking multicolored tattoos which take up half a thigh or shoulder and impress the daylights out of the public will have you sitting on the business end of one or more needles for a few hours.  Marathoners look at my "credentials" as a runner, rather than the outcomes of my athletes, and get a little bit cross-eyed.  My failures as a coach have come from the trial-and-error of other plans on myself; not unlike letting someone else run a gun over my flesh.  A good coach is one who knows and understands the pain you're going to go through, and, most importantly, won't let you go too much of the pain in training.

Don't let the regret of a bad training experience get in the way of a potentially good "story."

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?

What Can That Be Lying In My Drawer? Running Shirts

Suzanne has a couple of bags sitting in the corner of the bedroom; she intends to leave them for pick up by the local thrift store. Guess that means I can finally abandon the fleeting hope of fitting into two or three pairs of walking shorts I've had tucked away for the past four or five years.

I liked those shorts, but I guess there was little to no chance of getting back into them. Not without a crowbar. I'm not going to blame it on the difficult-to-prove fact cotton can shrink over the course of ten years. I'm also not going to blame it on the easier-to-prove fact I'm close to the beginning of a middle-age spread. Not as close as I was last year, but still close.

It's all right. I've got a lot of shirts which should have NEVER come through the front door of my home lurking in my closet. There are a dozen ties which will be out the door faster than you can say "Jimmy Buffett."

Most of all, I have more t-shirts than any one man should EVER have.

I'm not ridding myself of the technical fiber running shirts, nor the ones I earned while running college cross-country. Those shirts still fit me like a champ.

I'm parting ways with the two dozen cotton t-shirts which lay at the bottom of my bottom dresser drawer, the ones from races way past. Which got me to thinking about shirts.

A friend from the local running community once said on a Wednesday evening run the factors he considered necessary for a perfect race: An accurate course. Plenty of beer. Accurate timing and scoring. A good shirt.

Like Socrates, asking the question of what particular quality or qualities makes a shirt good is not going to make you friends with race directors. The vast majority of races where we live either have what I consider to be great or poor shirts. I prefer to judge a shirt on these qualities:

Wearability. This particular quality places some shirts on a very fast track to the donation bag. Long-sleeved "windshirts" and cotton "wife-beater" tank tops are at the bottom of the wearability spectrum. Solid or near-solid-colored short-sleeved (or sleeveless) shirts...even if they're dark...are better, in my humble opinion. And, why do I rarely if ever see a race shirt in a heather gray or a tan? From the race director's view, white is less expensive to buy and less expensive to screenprint. Please. I beg you. Less beer; better shirts. Trust me...I'll be happy.

While I'm on the "anti-white-shirt" rant, don't want anyone to think I'm not patriotic, but shirts for events around Independence Day loaded with American flags, red, white and blue, fireworks, firecrackers, and the like are absolutely NOT wearable. Except on the Fourth of July. Let's start to use a little bit of artistic imagination.

Artwork. How many times have you gone to a race and seen the same artwork recycled from year to year? One particular race has variants of the club's mascot; in their defense, the past three or four years they have seen fit to commission very good artists. But if you do a race over the course of a few years there's only so many ways you can tweak a logo.

There's a race I've run a couple of times in which the awards are what I've heard described by local runners as "shirt-on-a-stick." Yes, it's the race shirt mounted on a wood-frame, much like a canvas. To the event's credit, the artwork is a take on one of those gorgeous Gulf Coast sunsets. However, if I'm running well "enough" I'll have the art on the wall, which means I won't consider wearing the art on my chest. Ah, but it's a white, cotton "wife-beater" so I guess that's a moot point. To the donation bag.

Advertising. Who sponsored this race? In so many words: who paid for this shirt? The location and size of the logos can push the decision of whether the shirt gets to stick around for a few years. One of the first races I ever worked, a college cross-country program fundraiser, was sponsored by a law firm. The printer conveniently forgot to print the firm's name, so we had to send the shirts back for a re-printing. We made the printer pay penance for the crime by printing the law firm's name and information on the sleeve, nice and high.

Some of the local runs seem to have a thing against either too many sponsors - or too many sponsor logos perhaps - on their event shirts. I'm not certain as to particular reasons, except for perhaps aesthetics...or economics.

Speaking of printer screw-ups, the shirt for the local 5K prediction run, one of the largest in the country, had the word "STAFF" conveniently placed on the back about three years ago. What possessed the printer to do that, I'll never know. Perhaps it was due to a communications breakdown. But it's one of those things which makes people hang on to shirts.

Value. Suzanne and I are most likely to hang on to a shirt, regardless of how badly it was designed or how cheaply it was produced, if it came from a race we did as part of a business trip, or an RRCA convention, perhaps a personal best...or personal worst...are hung on to a little bit longer than others. In fact, many of them are neatly folded and tucked away in a closet which I don't go near, save for right before Thanksgiving and right after New Years'. There are a couple of windshirts and rain parkas in the mix, so the shirt type doesn't matter too much.

The race shirt, especially the really good race shirt, is an inexpensive and enduring method of event advertising. Good shirts stay around and draw the attention of runners. Bad shirts draw the grease from bicycle chains and the dirt from automobile hubcaps. Both have a value, but to different communities.

Think about your favorite race shirt. What makes it special? Why is it still in your drawer?

Who Do You Want Me To Be Today?

"When the school bell rings, the learning day is done. It's time to trash the books, and work on having fun. Through the door comes Jimmy, with hopes and dreams of his own. But little does he know that they'll be crushed when he gets home. There's so much he wants to share. But his parents they just don't care. You see his daddy never made it...and momma thinks she could have....Always telling him who they think he should be; now they're left alone with a desperate written plea, that says: To Whom It May Concern: Who do you want me to be today?" (Stuart Hamm, 1991)Athletic coaching is a blend of art & science; the coach, ideally, has learned all of the physiology, psychology, sociology...and maybe even a little early childhood education...either through a formal learning process in a high school or college, or on the fly under the tutelage of their coach. Naturally, the art side of coaching comes to the fore when dealiing with the individual athlete. Each is an experiment of one.

And not every coach is - or should be exactly alike. If it were so that all coaches were, there would be a world of athletes without 'em. It's why athletes (sometimes) move from coach to coach throughout a career; the relationship gets stale or old, or the parties realize what was a great fit at one time wasn't quite so years later...maybe when goals changed or modalities didn't. My coach(es) & I are completely different people, socially, politically, geographically, emotionally, and even to a small degree athletically. They communicate with me a lot differently than I do with my athletes. I try to give the athletes I coach the feedback I felt I needed as an athlete...sometimes it's too much, or at the wrong time. Once again, I guess that's where the human element comes in. If I were the perfect coach I'd be a robot.

I've friends who are coaches, in running as well as in other sporting disciplines, and we've bounced thoughts across each other at times, just to get a sniff test. Some of them are gentle, yet open and a little gregarious. Others are a touch more guarded and cautious. Yet the common thread which appears is that of success on the part of one or more of their athletes. Can you define success without resorting to the hard numbers of wins and losses, lowered finishing times, longer throws and higher jumps?

I used to think I needed to mold all-around renaissance athletes to be considered a good coach. When my coach's coach mentioned something along the lines of 'I just want to build a better machine' I realized the rest of the person - especially when dealing with athletes over a certain age (since I deal with runners older than age 16, I'll say adults) - was probably coming to me already developed. My chance to reinforce (or undo, in some cases) the work of parents, teachers, preachers and other outside influences was pretty much out of the question.
And yes, I know that in the case of school athletics coaches, there is that need to live (as my friend Dr. Ed Cloutier would say) a PG life. But I don't think there's a great divide between a person who lives a more liberal life and a person who is more conservative in their dealings.

Give me a coach who will make me a better engine. I'll trust my family and my preacher to help me in the rest of the categories...if they haven't been successful in influencing me up to this time it might be a little too late.