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."

Staying The Course During The Perfect Storm

Betsy called me one afternoon, not long after a note landed in my e-mail.  When I get both e-mail and a phone call it's usually something important, dramatic or entertaining.  This particular call was a blend of all three categories.

"Do you have any idea what the USA Track and Field rule is about runners going off a race course?  I know we've always used the old 'it's the runner's responsibility to know the course' dictum, but I can't seem to find any rule."

When it comes to triathlon I can cite the USA Triathlon competition rule to chapter-and-verse level.  But USATF doesn't have a large presence around here, save for the fine folks of the Road Running Technical Council.  Those are the people who tell me what to tell race directors who want race courses measured.

So, I ran back into my living room library and pulled my gently-used copy of the USATF Competition Rules.  Once you get to the mid-point of the book - Rule 65, section 7 - USATF talks about what happens when racers leave the course: "65.7a. No competitor, after leaving the track or course, shall be allowed to rejoin a race either for the purpose of gaining a place or to pace or to assist another competitor." 65.7c then states: "In any track event of 20,000 meters or more, or in any road race, a competitor may leave the road or track with the permission and under the control of a judge or other authorized official, provided that by going off or returning to the course the athlete does not lessen the distance to be covered."

So, as long as the racer doesn't cut the course - and is supervised by an official or judge - then leaving the course is only a little inconvenience.  It's not like the world, or the rest of the race field, will hit the "Pause" button until you return to the course. In the case of most recreational runners this is not an earth-shaking situation. It stands to reason that 99 percent of the time we're going to follow the runner directly in front of us...and hope like mad the entire lot of them didn't screw up. It's happened before; naturally, it's another good story.

However, for the elite runners, the fast guys and gals looking for a medal and/or a paycheck, that's the equivalent of working on a PowerPoint presentation for two-or-three hours, only to have the file go "toes-up" minutes before the meeting is to start.  (I've had that before.)

Frustration only starts to describe ones' emotions. Train like mad for a potentially-nice pay day, and have a police officer turn the wrong direction or a course marshal "fall asleep at the switch?"  Churchillian blood, toil, sweat and tears.  For naught.

It's one of the reasons I took up course measurement. It was either that or spend thirty minutes at the packet pick-up begging for a course map, then studying every little detail. I absolutely needed to know the direction, the turns and the finish line...or at least where it was supposed to be...on race day. An extra 800 meters during a 5K will teach you that lesson.

Every athlete I have trained has heard me talk about the particulars of their upcoming race course, if I'd raced it in the past, to the smallest detail. For a short distance race, such as the 5,000-meters on the roads, it can mean a couple of extra seconds toward a personal best time. In the case of a half-marathon or longer, it can mean the difference between injury and a good day. Especially if you know the specifics of the terrain.

USATF Competition Rule 134.1 states: "Running courses shall be adequately marked at strategic points to keep the competitors on course. Each turn and intersection shall be clearly marked in such a way that there will be no doubt as to the direction the runner should go to stay on course."

As a course director for run portions of multisport events, I believe there's not enough a race director can do or place; whether it is chalk or paint on the asphalt, cones or barriers in the road, signs along the shoulders, and obnoxious human beings. Multiple back-ups are sometimes necessary to make certain nobody turns too early or wrong.

Of course, there are differences between road racing and multisport, especially when it comes to running. A set of headphones at a USAT-sanctioned event may earn at least one, and up to three, penalties, depending on the vigilance of the transition workers and referees. USATF strongly discourages their use for safety reasons, to include the ability to hear volunteer instructions.

The perfect storm of a half-informed lead driver, a briefly-distracted course marshal and a slightly under-marked course can ruin the runner's day. A study of the course map and a pre-drive of the course can make for a good "umbrella."

Grab Some (Yur)Buds?

Rare is the moment I laud the use of headphones while running. They might be great for staving off boredom during treadmill workouts at the gym, but I do not like them - not one bit - on the ears of the athletes I train. Call me a kill-joy. Call me old-school. But I'm the coach; it's my prerogative to say what I do and do not like.

I don't like my athletes wearing headphones on the track because they cannot hear what I need to tell them about the specifics of their workout, their form or their effort. The last time I recall that particular form of feedback was called "coaching." I don't like my athletes wearing headphones during races because they cannot react to anything around them. Headphone-wearing runners turn into to the pace blaring into their ears rather than to the pace of the pack of runners beside (or in front of them). The last time I recall that was called "racing."

Working with the Road Runners Club of America for a little over five years, I learned the litany of safety reasons which clubs were told about the potential dangers of headphone use. Add to the "tune in, turn on, and lock in the pace" mentality of most headphone wearers at races the sometimes benign, sometimes life-threating approach of racing wheelchairs and strollers, faster runners, and intruding bicycles or other motor vehicles. You can end up with something as inconvenient as a trip-and-fall or as permanent as death.

And really, it's not the headphones which are evil. It's the way we tend to use them.

Several years ago I was at a small neighborhood 5K race; while standing on the corner cheering for my wife and several of my friends I saw a runner turn the corner and approach the third mile. She was running on the right-hand side of the road (not following the tangent, but that's another story altogether); I was standing on the sidewalk on the left. I could clearly hear the blaring from her MP3 player earbuds, at a distance of approximately 10 meters away. That meant she had to have the volume up at eardrum-bleeding, "Spinal Tap"-like volume.

Last year, I saw a product at the Rock n' Roll/Mardi Gras Marathon expo which drew my attention, especially in light of the RRCA work. At the time I was trying to write a white paper on headphone use, so the idea of a company like Competitor Group putting on an event with bands at every mile, yet selling headphones at the expo, seemed a little incongruous. I told the expo booth rep for Yurbuds who I represented and expressed my gentle skepticism about the product. He kindly provided me some print information and the website address so I could draw my own conclusions. However, I didn't want to try the product.

When I planned my visit this year I told my wife I would look closer at the Yurbuds product, especially after they developed an Ironman-branded version of the headphone adapter. If you have a product which gets to be Ironman-branded, you've pretty much made the big time...well, the chance of your product getting more exposure is very good.

The rep fitted me for a pair of the Ironman-branded Yurbuds, which are designed both to funnel the output of your music player, or computer, or whatever device has a 1/4-inch headphone jack into your ears...and allow ambient noise from your immediate surroundings to be heard. He then told me to let him know when I could hear the music and the ambient room noise. He showed me where the volume was set on his iPod; I could hear AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" comfortably at a volume level somewhere around the mid-point. I could also have a normal-volumed conversation with the rep. While sold on the Yurbuds, I did worry if I had a placebo effect; what would happen back home in my neighborhood?

I put the Yurbuds to the test last Saturday while my wife and I were at the gym. Rather than watch Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" I decided to talk to her in the middle of my 60-minute elliptical trainer workout. I asked, 'is there something which sounds different about this conversation to you?' She then realized she was not shouting, nor was I. Even this morning, during the walk from the gym back home, I could hear the singing of the neighborhood's mockingbirds, as well as John Mayer. You might not particularly care for my taste in music, but I think you get the picture.

It doesn't mean everyone should pay 20-to-50 dollars for a set of headphone adapters - they're comfortable, they keep the phones stable in the ear during strenuous activity - but if it helps folks turn their volume down on their MP3 player at races, without killing the user's listening experience, then I'm all for it...as long as they're not dawdling in front of my training group, in lane one on the track, or directly in front of me on race day.

The Will To Prepare

Any major marathon, especially one like any of Competitor Group's Rock n' Roll series, has no lack of interesting stories and "did I just see?" moments. I'm lucky; as an average guy who has friends in high places, the perspective is a little different than the average race participant; I'm grateful to have friends who spread the tent wider when I'm in the mood to do a little bit of work. And when I'm injured, I'd rather be doing something constructive. Last time I got seriously "injured" was not long after I started doing triathlon, decided to tempt gravity one Sunday morning, and ended up writing blog posts like the one-armed bandit I envisioned myself to be for that six-week period of time.

An injured, rehabilitating runner often has two plans of action. The first and least effective plan is to go into isolation. It's less painful to avoid answering the "what happened?" and "how long will you be that way?" questions, but eventually we need to get out among those going "shanks' mare." I've said many times "running hurts; not running hurts more," it's easier to feel better while we are getting better by giving back to the community of which we are a part.

We were walking through the race expo at the New Orleans Convention Center to get my race staff credentials on Friday afternoon; I saw a slender gentleman with salt and pepper hair. I had one of those Darth Vader moments: 'a presence I haven't felt since...' Ah, but there are plenty of people in this life who look like someone else, so I shrugged it off. I almost said something to Suzanne, my wife; she probably would have told me to go catch him...trouble is he knows her better than he knows me. You see, Suzanne decided to have one last beer at the bar in the Hyatt in San Francisco after the RRCA convention two years ago. Frank Shorter was the banquet speaker that evening, and was holding court in the bar. He called out to Suzanne as she walked in, something along the lines of "where's your husband? Why didn't he come down?" Okay, I was tired of hanging out in my "misplaced college professor" attire.

Next morning, while walking into the staff hospitality area, I realize the gentleman I thought was Frank Shorter actually was. He was chatting with the elite and guest runners; he probably would have recognized my wife if she had been there. Again, like the last time I was close enough to say hello, I decided to not be a fawning fan. Many folks love to have those photo moments - I'm not one of them, for a couple of reasons. The first one is that it seems so contrived. I would much rather have sat with Shorter over a couple of beers and let him talk about Munich and "Pre" and how good we have it now in the highly-democratic era of participatory running, where all you have to do is have desire, the entry fee - and in some cases, a little luck - to get into most major races. The second one is I rarely prepare for the possibility. Travel light, travel fast; that's the code under which I live. Sea stories are more portable than scrimshaw.

Later on that afternoon, once the temperature had climbed from the mid-40s at 7 in the morning to somewhere closer to the mid-60s...and maybe a little higher, I marveled at the back-of-the-pack marathoners as they finished. All right, at least they made it to the starting line healthy and got to have their finish line moment underneath the oak trees in City Park. But I saw so many of them who looked like they prepared for a much colder day on the course. There were guys in sweats. There were guys in wind pants and warm-up pants. There were more ladies in CW-X tights than at which a person could shake a stick. And long-sleeved tops. And music headphones. At a Rock n' Roll series event. With bands at every mile...and impromptu entertainment added.

I talked with my wife and my athletes during the week before the race and recommended a few clothing items for race day. I even bought my wife a pair of arm-warmers at the expo, in the hope she would wear them instead of a long-sleeved top...which she did. She bought herself a pair of comfortable padded socks on the recommendation of her girlfriend, another one of my athletes, whose claim to fame is finishing the infamous 2007 Chicago Heat Wave, er, Marathon, before Carey Pinkowski finally shut the course down.

But, when I stood by and listened to some of the questions which were asked to the information desk volunteers at the expo, I couldn't help but wonder whether race participants are being spoon-fed and don't know how to prepare themselves for a race.

The Internet puts our location information out (on course) for our family to see where we are, not to mention weather forecasts for five or more days in advance, places where we can park without getting ticketed or towed, dates, times and locations for where we can pick up the information, which we also can download from parts of the same web page. We have mapping programs which provide elevation profiles we can download to our GPS units. And yet, we really prefer someone else to tell us exactly how to prepare and what to do.

Three-time Boston Marathon "bridesmaid" Juma Ikangaa said: "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." Maybe we don't want to find out how good we are? Is this so we can lay the responsibility for our shortcomings at someone else's feet? I'm not certain. Once again, as part of the democratic society we enjoy as runners, we are also saddled with the responsibility to use the freedom to run wisely. For me, running wisely is running prepared for the conditions, the natural and human terrain, and within our limitations.

After seeing many of those finishers, and hearing many of those questions, I cannot wait to get back into running again.

X and Y: When Men and Women Run Together

One of the things I like about triathlon is the (relative) evenness of the playing field. While men and women don't necessarily compete against each other, the physical challenges of triathlon (endurance) narrow the gap to a degree that is smaller than running. The women are closer to the front of the pack here than in running events. I've also seen a more-even balance of women and men in the transition areas. If I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me. This is an observation from my experiences so far.

Still, when it's time to train, it's ideal for men and women to remain separate...unless it's an easy day for the guys and the women are in the mood to hammer. One of the Carmichael Training Systems coaches wrote about the hazards of men and women training together; she mentioned that while she was looked highly upon by her male training-mates, she was more fatigued and in danger of overtraining because she was hammering all of her rides.

I was listening to an interview with Desiree Ficker (BTW, is that her on the Inside Triathlon mag cover?) on a Competitor Radio podcast; she talked about "dropping the bomb" (ramping up the pace) during a workout or a race, as well as her male training-mates' fears of "getting chicked." I started to laugh when I heard the term, but it seems she's not the first person to use it.

So, are men fearful of getting beaten by women? I can say yes, beyond a doubt. Men don't want to be beaten in a race, much less in a training run. And it doesn't matter if the woman is a better athlete; the male (highly-fragile, easily-bruised) ego REFUSES to accept the (often-painful) fact that a woman, or any woman, can or will be better than him at anything. On the other hand, I've had one or two female athletes who didn't know the meaning of "this is training, not a race..."

One was truly a mentally-tough athlete who refused to quit, ease up or slow down. My coach and I had a lengthy talk about it once, where he reminded me that I am much the same: It would take realizing a bone was sticking out of our leg before making the decision to quit. Funniest thing, though, when I talked to her about it we both agreed that we would have asked a question on realization: "Whose bone?" Checking her heart rate in between sets was always entertaining...I could NEVER, ever, ever get her to think about recovery. However, she would be one of the first persons I'd call upon if I were putting an event team together, because I knew she'd give 110-percent without fail.

Some guys just are not smart enough to accept feminine advice. My wife is the kind of runner who can go for miles and miles at a nice, steady, aerobic pace and rarely fluctuate from it. I can't run with her because she's slower than I, though. I've tried before and hurt myself too badly. However, she's gone out on long runs with a couple of older gentlemen, who immediately drop the Fickeresque "bomb" at the beginning of the run, then die at six miles...not a good sign if you're preparing for a marathon. I've tried to tell the guys to go out at Suzanne's pace in order to get those eight to ten miles in without dying prematurely. I have the feeling I sound like John Belushi in Animal House every time I hear how hard they went out at the start and how bad they died at the end: '...you think they'd listen to me, but noooooooooooooo...'