Teach Me To Lose, Coach

lose (transitive verb) 1. Miss and not know where to find. 2. Be deprived of; be parted from. 3. Cease to have. 4. Cause or suffer defeat in (a game). (intransitive verb) Suffer loss; be defeated.

"just learned to play this tune. i think you might like it," said the text message on my wife's cell phone.

Suzanne asked me to surf over to YouTube to check out a bluegrass song yesterday morning. After sweating my way through my long run of six miles (still on the mend, my friends!) and pushing my (seventh) anniversary present (a push mower!) around the back yard I was in no mood to spend excess time wrestling with a video which may be little more than a slide show with music in the background.

If the song is really that good I might want to buy it.

I decided instead to use the streamlined (and user-friendly) iTunes interface. What came through my speakers was a nice, hopeful but sad song. I instinctively thought of the joke: 'What happens when you play country music backwards? You get your job back, your house back, your spouse back, and your drinking problem is resolved.'

Then I considered the source. My young relative is struggling with the recent dissolution of his marriage. There's no doubt in my mind he's hoping for a "happily ever after" reconciliation. I've been there; at least the songs he's listening to are more musical than the ones I used to buck myself up almost two decades ago. No sooner do I get out of iTunes and go to my social media account to see what the rest of the world is up to, and find another friend's thirty-year marriage has gone to the rubbish bin.

Then, my phone pings a text message: The mother of my good friend Aaron Boudreaux passed away the previous evening after a struggle with cancer. Nothing you can do but either mull over the fleeting nature of our existence or go stand in the sunshine and appreciate it. Back to the yard, at least for another couple of minutes.

After my wife went off to spend the morning with the grandchildren I turned on the television and channel-surfed through the mens' and womens' college basketball tournament, as well as a spring one-day classic cycling race. The sprint finish of a spring classic, or even of a one-to-three-week stage race places victory and defeat, struggle and suffering, failure and success out for all (who care to understand) to view. Especially when the guy who finishes second or third, nipped at the line because of tactics, pounds their fist on the handlebar in disgust.

Earlier, before the cycling, I surfed over toward Ted Turner's classic movie channel. I'm not an old black-and-white movie fan but the title, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," naturally earned my attention. The book is (supposedly) a classic, as well as the film. I regret that to this point in time I had neither read the book nor seen the movie (either in the original black-and-white or the re-make), so I can't comment about the entire story. I happened to catch the last fifteen minutes of the film, which definitely is not a "feel-good" finish. The ending of this movie is as gloomy as the end of "The Graduate." Why the young reform schooler didn't go for the win is beyond comprehension, especially to his schoolmates and the masters at the school...until you follow (playing in the young man's mind as he approaches the finish line) the struggle of the young man to remain true to himself. In fact (and my wife reminded me this morning) it probably had to do with the small scrap of power or control he had over his destiny, the choice of whether to follow his will or the will of others.

So, do coaches teach their charges about loss?

I was thinking about the types of loss; from the simple and often silly "hidden in ones' sock drawer disguised as..." loss, which if we're lucky turns into an eventual find...usually after we spend money to replace it, to the very painful and very permanent departure of a loved one. Teaching about loss and losing happens it's one of those "oh, by the way" things. More often than not the role of the coach is thought to be like the role described in Kenny Moore's screenplay "Without Limits," the story of Steve Prefontaine and the relationship with his coach Bill Bowerman. One of the goal-setting sessions early in the movie (didn't make the "Memorable Quotes" section of the Internet Movie Database, but...) is a great rhetorical statement of the coach's role:

Bowerman (Donald Sutherland): What do you think a coach does, Pre?

Prefontaine (Billy Crudup): He teaches you to run.

Bowerman: To run a store? A business?

Prefontaine: To run a race.

Bowerman: In order to...?

Prefontaine: ...to win.

Bowerman: Yes. That's what I thought.

So few coaches teach how to lose because loss is more common in life. We all run the race, but there can only be one winner: the rest of the participants who were not the first across the line have lost. Race organizers and teachers and coaches can go ahead and put a silver lining on the dark cloud by giving age group awards, grading on curves and looking for the positives, but coaches need to teach, from personal experience and by illustrative example, that loss and losing varies in pain, in duration, and in permanence. The most painful and permanent losses are the ones from which the individual athletes decides not to learn, and decides cannot be remedied.

It's only a loss if you continue to allow yourself to be defeated.

(P.S. My condolences to the Boudreaux family. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. B. Rest in peace.)

A Coaching Legend on Training in the Heat

One of the first running books I acquired was a cast-off from one of my present athletes. He purchased it to see what great advice & counsel he could glean from its pages, but was immediately scared off by a couple of the formulas printed at the front end of the text. I gladly lightened his load, sat down for a brief read one fine weekend, & subsequently informed him of his folly.

It doesn't take a degree in physiology or a USATF Level III coach certification to understand or appreciate Dr. Jack Daniels seminal work, Daniels' Running Formula (Human Kinetics). In fact, if a runner did not want to invest in Timothy Noakes' Lore of Running I would recommend Daniels' work as an 80-percent (plus!) solution to the (as I wrote previously) one running book only question.

In fact, Daniels is (probably) one of the few former Olympian & Olympic medal-winning athletes who have gone on to coach (24) NCAA national individual champions, (7) NCAA national team championships, (110) collegiate All-Americans, and (4) Olympic marathon medalists. In my humble opinion, those are bona fides.

So, I'm shamelessly borrowing some his advice to Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team In Training participants on running in the heat.

Respect the Heat - Of all the adversities that distance athletes face, heat is one of the worst. Although not necessarily so, excess heat often leads to dehydration, another major enemy of endurance athletes. It is possible to be adversely affected by the heat without becoming dehydrated, you can also become dehydrated without getting overheated. These two conditions affect the body independently.

Overheating - An overheated body is the result of inadequate cooling. Adequate body cooling depends on evaporation of water from the skin. The fluid must evaporate from the body's surface. So, when the body heats up, it starts to sweat and also starts to send more blood to the skin where it is cooled by coming in contact with the relatively cooler skin. The cooler blood then circulates, picking up heat from exercising muscles, which allows them to continue contracting more efficiently. When cooling cannot keep up with heat buildup, core temperature rises, and body functions start to suffer. When the temperature rises more than just a degree or two, function is adversely affected. When blood flow increases to the skin for cooling, less blood is being directed to the muscles. With less blood going to the muscles, less oxygen gets to the muscles, which affects performance. The body is more interested in self-preservation than in ideal race performance, so it usually chooses to maintain a desirable temperature before it allows you to keep a particular pace which would interfere with cooling. It's either go at a pace slower than you want, or overheat.

Give in to your body under these circumstances - it knows best. Slow down in the heat, if you must be in the heat.

Minimize the Effects of Hot Weather - You can acclimatize somewhat to hot weather, and exercising in the heat will speed up that process. However, it is not advisable to purposely exercise in the hottest part of the day. Rather, seek out the cooler times of hot days - early morning and evening. Early mornings are the coolest part of the day, but are often more humid. Evenings are often less humid, but considerably warmer. It is really a matter of personal choice - higher humidity and lower temperature or higher temperature and lower humidity. Either is certainly better than exercising when the sun is up. Wear light, loose-fitting clothing. Experiment with different types of garments, caps, socks, etc.

Dehydration - Dehydration is most often associated with the heat, but occurs even in cool weather. It is simply the process of losing fluid from the body. Again, the body knows what is best for it; when fluid levels get below a certain desired amount the body slows down in hopes of lowering the stress. If fluid levels get low enough, the body will just about stop functioning and you will pass out. Dehydration is a terrible way to go and must be avoided at all costs. Among healthy individuals, exercise is the most usual cause of becoming dehydrated, as a result of loss of fluid (via sweat) as you work to maintain desired temperature. Different people react differently to the same set of conditions. A loss of about 5 percent will negatively affect performance; more than 7 percent or 8 percent will not be tolerated.

Minimize the Effects of Fluid Loss - First, learn to drink during long runs or walks. Drink a lot with higher ambient temperatures. Your body can absorb about 1,000ml of fluid per hour, so learn to be able to take in that much, if necessary - just over a cup every 15 minutes. Drinking more than about 1,000ml per hour may not be beneficial, if not more than that can be absorbed anyway. If you lose 240ml per km (10 liters) and drink 4 liters in a 4-hour marathon, the net loss is 6 liters (13.2 pounds - 8 percent of a 165-pound runner's body weight - not good).

Some people will have real trouble completing a marathon, others very well may not. But, if it is hot enough, almost everyone will have trouble, and under some conditions, a run must be given up or the approach altered (walk/jog or just walk, which will lengthen the time taken to complete the distance, but which allows for greater fluid intake).

More To Sweat Than Water - As you sweat, you lose water and electrolytes, which is the reason specialized sport drinks have become popular - they provide you with water, electrolytes and energy. Unfortunately, many distance athletes become serious about what they consume only during races, but the body can gradually become lacking in electrolytes if fluid intake during daily training sessions is water only. Get in the habit of consuming a reputable sport drink during practice sessions. This will get you used to that particular drink and will also keep your body supplied with needed nutrients. The trouble some endurance athletes have in competitions is brought on by inadequate attention to what they do during practice, and they go into a competitive effort already partially depleted in some important nutrients.

How To Calculate Your Reaction To Warm Weather - Follow these steps to prepare your own guide to determine how much you need to drink to avoid dehydration during a marathon:

1. Record your nude body weight prior to and following runs or walks of 40 to 60 minutes at the intensity you expect to perform.

2. Record the temperature and humidity conditions for each of these test efforts.

3. If you drink, record exactly how much you drink.

4. Generate a table that presents the rate at which your body loses fluid under different temperature conditions, and what the loss would be over the course of a full marathon.

5. Take the steps necessary to counteract the predicted loss, to stay under a 5-percent loss.

The table below indicates how much slower you might expect to complete a marathon under different temperature conditions (compared to a nice day of about 55 degrees and moderate humidity). Under the indicated temperatures and with abnormally high humidity, these adjustments may underestimate the effect. Walkers will face similar reductions in time, but they have more time to ingest and absorb fluids so the problem should not be as great.

TEMP (F*) - RACE DURATION IN MINUTES
55 - - - - - - -2h10m (130’) - 2h30m (150’) - 3h (180’) - 4h (240’) - 5h (300’)
70 - - - - - - -2m - - - - - - - - 2.5m - - - - - - -3m - - - - -4m - - - - - 5m
81 - - - - - - -4m - - - - - - - - 4.5m - - - - - - -5.5m - - - -7.5m - - - - 9.5m
90 - - - - - - -6m - - - - - - - - 7m - - - - - - - - 8.5m - - - -11.5m - - - 14.5m
100 - - - - - -8m - - - - - - - - 10m - - - - - - - 12.5m - - - 17.5m - - - 22.5m