Wear(y)ing Of The Green

I got to see more than my fair share of green this St. Patrick's Day, when I awakened with the need to clear some accumulated gunk from my sinuses, throat and airway. I am not certain how you feel about breathing, but as a former childhood asthmatic I'm quite fond of the act, especially when I consider the many unsavory, often permanent, consequences of the alternative.

Rather than sit miserably at my office and risk passing whatever bug I might have to my three co-workers, something all-too-common with people who see themselves too indispensible to an organization's well-being, I'll sit miserably at home and risk passing it along to my wife and dog. Poor me, I get to listen to Miles Davis instead of the Diane Rehm Show today.

Suzanne says I probably shouldn't have run last night. There's a part of me which thinks she may be correct. But, it's more likely my gunky, junky throat comes from doing (running) business in a bar, where cigarette smoking is allowed, on Monday evening. Not the 90-plus minutes of easy running, walking and elliptical trainer which I did yesterday. I spent a little too long in a bar with some cigar smokers some months ago, and ended up with the same junky throat a couple of days later. It's a minor setback on the road to recovery, but I know what I did wrong. It's nothing that time (rest, if my dog decides to let me) and good over-the-counter drugs cannot cure.

Sometimes a health issue is an outcome, sometimes a correlation. And often a simple one. We look for the big solutions to what's killing us as a runner or athlete, when all it takes is looking at the smallest part of our daily routine; what we do, eat, drink, or inhabit the other 23 (or less) hours of the day we aren't running.

I'm not certain if that makes sense to the person inhabiting the very big world outside of my stuffy head, but it does me right about now.

NPR Mornings

"...every day on the street I study their faces; the ones who rush on through the crowd, towards their own quiet worlds, their separate places, somewhere I'm never allowed; 'cause I've always been one to say what I need, then the next thing it's done and I'm watching 'em leave, and I'm thinking, 'I wish I could be alone but not lonely...'" - Mary-Chapin Carpenter (2001)

...so, a week out from what initially was to be my target fall half-marathon, I decided to take what I like to call an "NPR morning." Now, for me, NPR means two different things: National Public Radio, or No Planned Run. Depending on the weather conditions it can be both, but it definitely means a large part of the morning spent with coffee, thick tomes of "mindless reading," & Suzanne. If the weather is beautiful there can be a run plugged in on the front end. If not, then I climb into my sweats or warm-ups, make a large pot of coffee & turn on the stereo to listen to our local public radio station. This time the weather was pretty, save for the sudden drop in temperature. We decided to go to the coffee-and-baked goods joint at the mall.

Minutes after we settled into our booth I saw a local runner/coach walk in, bundled up post-run in his warm-up outfit. I got up to refilll my coffee as he ordered a pecan sweet roll at the counter. I walked up & said: 'you realize that stuff will kill you, right?' He responded with much the same kind of retort I would have given in his position: 'since I ran 6.8 miles this morning I think I'll be fine, thanks.' We chatted for a few moments, then I went on to get my coffee.

A couple of minutes later he stopped by our table, presumably on the way home. My wife asked how the Sunday morning run group he headed up was faring; he mentioned the past couple of weeks were good, but that this week was a little on the light side.

She said, 'how light?'

He said, 'one. It was only me this morning.'

I can sympathize with his situation. I've run with large groups of people & I've trained solo. I cannot say I like one state more than the other; depending on the day, the weather, my mood, & my physical state, I can absolutely dig a group run...or a group run can be akin to nineteenth-century dentistry. It's kind of the reason I keep my iPod charged up & ready; in spite of the potential dangers of blasting Kanye West into my skull at half-volume while cruising the road behind the local airport, the music does what a good running companion would also accomplish.

"Iron sharpens iron, So one man sharpens another." - Proverbs 27:17, New American Standard Bible (1995)

While Suzanne has learned to suck it up & run solo, she often wishes for my own sake that I had a regular training partner. I could & would gladly accept a runner who runs anywhere from my pace to a solid minute per mile slower, if nothing else but for the "easier" effort days. If there's someone running with you, especially someone a little slower, you're more likely to back off the intensity to meet their effort. Since the end of the summer, I've been blessed with a couple of good athletes during my twice-weekly track workouts. Their efforts keep me honest, & mine theirs. But they have their own weekend training & work schedules, so I don't have company on the long run I would truly enjoy.

There's plenty of opportunity to make excuses - want to go to the beach, for a drive, to sleep in, to spend time with family - when the days are perfect. Then, before you know it, you've got a bunch of those "too-days." "Too-days" are those days when it is too hot, too cold, too windy, too dark, too early, too late, etc., to go run. The best way to not get sucked into those "too-days," I've mentioned before, also has to do with two - train with an additional two persons. A training triad of three accounts for the inevitable need to take care of something else which has suddenly popped up in one person's life, yet keeps the remaining two members accountable to each other.

Those "NPR mornings" are a nice way to earn what my friend (and Marathon Nation coach) Patrick McCrann calls "spousal approval units" (more on this topic at a later date) & treat your body to a little extra (planned or unplanned) rest, both of which which can make all the difference in your training regimen.

To Bear The Brunt Of The Barefoot Run...

...we're talking something akin to Shakespeare's sound & fury here, folks.

Everywhere I turn, during every run I take with other runners, someone talks about either the barefoot running or the minimalist shoe mania. I'm certain using the term mania is accurate, because the proponents, even the ones who have minimal knowledge of biomechanics or sports performance, are all in a barely-controlled lather. Naturally, when a National Public Radio news program comes out with the results of a research article published in the journal Nature, that's when you know the manic have turned mainstream.

Daniel E. Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist, & others looked at the foot strike patterns of runners who wore shoes, & compared them to the patterns of runners who did not. Since our ancestors didn't have K-Swiss K-Onas, or Nike Frees, or Newtons, or even Asics Speedstars, it's safe to presume they were better built to deal with traveling the world (whether at high or low speed) barefoot. Here's the abstract from Nature:

'Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. For most of human evolutionary history, runners were either barefoot or wore minimal footwear such as sandals or moccasins with smaller heels & little cushioning relative to modern running shoes. We wondered how runners coped with the impact caused by the foot colliding with the ground before the invention of the modern shoe. Here we show that habitually barefoot endurance runners often land on the forefoot (forefoot strike) before bringing down the heel, but they sometimes land with a flat foot (midfoot strike) or, less often, on the heel (rearfoot strike). In contrast, habitually shod runners mostly rear-foot strike, facilitated by the elevated & cushioned heel of the modern running shoe. Kinematic & kinetic analyses show that even on hard surfaces, barefoot runners who forefoot strike generate smaller collision forces than shod rearfoot strikers. This difference results primarily from a more plantarflexed foot at landing & more ankle compliance during impact, decreasing the effective mass of the body that collides with the ground. Forefoot & midfoot strike gaits were probably more common when humans ran barefoot or in minimal shoes, & may protect the feet & lower limbs from some of the impact-related injuries now experienced by a high percentage of runners.'

You've heard of driveway moments if you've listened to NPR long enough. Those are the moments when a report is so good you sit in the driveway & don't get out of the car until the report is done. Well, I nearly had a Tourette's Syndrome moment; I was still several miles from the house & grateful my windows were rolled up so nobody could hear me curse.

First - if your study is funded by a company which makes minimalist shoes (Vibram, to be exact!) you're not going to bite the hand that feeds you (or, your lab assistants; Lieberman says he received no personal income from the company). We also know the dictum of research universities: publish or perish. If someone's going to pay for research I can publish, so much the better.

Second - while Lieberman states he is a marathoner, the NPR interviewer does not tell us whether he is a three-hour guy or a five-hour guy. Yes, there is a difference between the running style of faster runners & the less fast ones. A person who is walking will naturally strike first near the heel & then roll forward onto the ball of the foot. Slower runners & joggers also tend to do the same, as a natural extension of the walking gait. As the speed of the run increases, the runner tends to do either one of two things:

They pound the heels into the ground because they're overstriding (a result of experience in sprint-focused sports such as football, basketball and baseball), which causes shock-related stress & the injuries which result, or...

They adapt; shortening the stride & strike closer to the midfoot or the forefoot.

Third - the report was not an injury study, & Lieberman has no hard science to support his theory. Besides, my shoeless ancestors weren't running on Gonzales Street in the East Pensacola Heights, which is a slab of concrete. It is more likely they were running & walking on grass or dirt trails, which meant they had a better surface in the first place on which to run.

So, before you go throwing those running shoes into the rubbish, follow the money behind the research. Take a closer look at your stride mechanics. You can't, & probably shouldn't change, but a small part of your running mechanics. There are little tweaks you can do, but beyond a certain point there is the risk of serious injuries which can make you Once A Runner. If you decide to try a minimalist shoe work into them gradually (once again, the ten percent rule of thumb!) to see whether your muscles, tendons, ligaments & bones can handle the change.

Barry White? We're Talking Barry White!?

While R&B/disco great Barry White has no longer been with us for three years, there's still an opus of work which has not seen the light of day. Well, not any longer. His long-time friend & producer saw fit to release a three-disc collection of alternate tracks, unreleased tunes & (to borrow from Steve Taylor) some stuff which initially didn't make the cut...just in time to celebrate what would have been Barry's 65th birthday.
The interview on NPR's Morning Edition brought out some really neat stuff which could relate to your own training:

1. If you're smart enough - knowing your strengths & limiters - you can take anything & make it your own.

One of White's greatest songs was originally supposed to be a country song, called 'My First, My Last, My In-Between.' Expand what comes between the first & last to everything, hey, Barry, this turkey just might fly! NPR's Steve Inskeep & White's producer then went off the rabbit trail & into the weeds, mentioning the potential of taking a song as simple as Mary Had A Little Lamb & Barry Whiting it. I almost had to pull the car over, I was laughing at the sound in my mind.

The smart athlete considers a training plan more as a road map & less as an itinerary, because we are all an experiment of one.

2. Do One Thing. Do It Well.

When you listen to Barry White's songs, they are all about love between two people. There are no break-up songs, no songs about fighting or the hard parts of a one-to-one emotional relationship. Okay, that's why I could never stand to listen to more than one or two Barry White songs at a sitting. It was kind of like doing lunch at an all-you-can-eat pizza joint; the first plate was fantastic, the second one pretty good...after that it's self-abuse.

Focus on a particular range of distances. Try the others if you like, but keep it in perspective. While you can not suck at most everything, you aren't going to be good at everything...all at one time.

So, here's to you, Barry. We can learn how to be good athletes, and good people, perhaps, by listening to your stuff every so often. Oh, yeah...I never thought I'd hear a better version of Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are, but somehow you did it.

Strong Convictions

Listening to a Public Radio International program, The World, a researcher is trying to help reconstruct the voluminous amount of un-shredded (but hand-torn) data left behind by the East German Stasi (state security service) after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. To this point, the information has been picked out and rejoined by hand; the best reconstructionist on the project to this time can put together the contents of one bag (presumably the size of a full-sized grocery bag) in a single year. Yep, that's a needle in a haystack in a barn full of haystacks. The researcher is trying to find a methodology, using scanner and computer technology, to subdivide the material into smaller piles so reconstructionists can have an easier time.
In the case of a single person's life (if they were considered a dissident) that's probably thousands of pages; probably millions of pieces...and in the best case, all together in the same bag. I guess the first question would be to someone looking from the outside, 'who cares?' But, if you're the person whose life was adversely affected by the decisions of a handful of bureaucrats, you'd probably be screaming for justice, or at least something that resembles closure. It might not make everything better, but it certainly would provide that AHA! moment that would better explain why something went wrong for you, given all of the available information to the contrary.

Basing strong convictions on exceedingly small amounts of data are never really good. Yes, there is that faith thing, but it usually pales in the face of the scientific method. If you're out and running little more than five easy miles at a stretch a couple of times a week, the odds are good you're not going to be able to run a terribly fast five kilometers. Stepping to the line without the prerequisite speed work, the right kind of tempo work, long aerobic running, or sufficient rest in your training plan is like trying to read a smudged, torn-up document...or applying make-up while the bathroom mirror is dirty and smudged. Your results are probably going to be less than stellar; you'll miss the gist of the message.