Lace Up Those Shoes, Kiddies

I don't get the phone calls as often as I used to.

I could guarantee at least half-a-dozen phone calls between February and May from the parents - or grandparents - of potential youth running prodigies.  And the phone message, give or take a few words, always sounded like: 'I found your name on the (blank) web site, and I see that you do track workouts on (day of week).  My (child) runs for (coach) at (school), but I want to help them improve at the (race distance).  Please call me back with more details about your program.'

So, I'd call back and graciously decline their offer to potentially coach the 'next great American runner.' Lake Wobegon syndrome ("...all the children are above-average") notwithstanding.  To me, youth coaching is a trip to the dark side of the Freudian pleasure-pain calculus.  Think Clarence Thomas at a confirmation hearing.  Bill Clinton defining 'is' during a deposition.  Lance Armstrong in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

My (nearly) hard/fast guideline is that I will not coach anyone younger than 16.  If the kid can't drive themself to the track, I want no part of working with them.  And if they already have a coach, well, I'm not going to take another guy's/gal's kneecaps out, just to have another young athlete.  I've had family members recruit me within earshot of the other coach (a personal friend).  We had a good laugh over that one after the parents were gone.  The scariest thing about running, especially when youth are involved, is that a family member can screw up more than one person's career at a time.

Kids should be encouraged to take up running as sport.  It's one of those activities which needs little more than a place and decent shoes.  The list below contains most of the Road Runners Club of America guidelines for youth running, based on developmental principles of training and racing for young distance runners written by Larry Greene, Ph.D. and Russ Pate, Ph.D.

My sport is your sport's punishment.  Every time I've seen youth baseball players do sprints or laps around the field for screwing up a double play I want to shriek in horror.  First and foremost, running should be fun.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it; if it looks really broke, make very small adjustments.  Once upon a time, a family member made a wise-crack about my run form (back when I played baseball); they said I appeared to have been impaled by a broomstick.  Strangely enough, my father recalled this observation during the height of my (healthy) racing career.  A proper (erect) form and reasonable stride length, taught early on, will eliminate bad habits and potential injuries later.  There are other little things which can be discouraged, like excess arm movement, twisting the upper body, or over-striding.

You might not be the best, but you can be a good one.  Strangely enough, the over-emphasis on awards, trophies and personal accomplishments also seem to scare away many adult runners.  The goal is to develop the habit of life-long activity and participation; middle school, high school and (some) college competition can/will come soon enough.  Personally, if not for a college coach who encouraged me to "just go out and have fun," I might not have even considered racing.

We're all individuals, exactly the same as the next person.  In the same way that one marathon training program - or race distance, come to think of it - is not the best fit for every runner (differences in time to train, time to recover, resiliency), it's important for adults and coaches to allow for different abilities and physical maturity levels within the group.  Around age 12-to-14 training distances and durations can be slowly increased, leading to systematic and competitive training.  I was questioned the other weekend about the optimal training volume for 5K racing, at which point the father of a young man who was working out with the group looked at me in a shocked manner.  I then had to remind him my answers and guidance focuses more toward adult runners, and that in the case of his son I would have to err on the side of slightly less intensity and duration.

I am thankful that running is the most egalitarian of sports:  Simple persistence and patience can turn any individual into a more-healthy, more-active, and more-engaged person.  As a well-known running writer has often said, 'there is no limit where running can take you.'

The Dog - Best Friend, Best Training Partner

My workday routine - once I get into the office - includes two activities which my co-workers and supervisor have seen fit not to infringe upon or drastically modify. First of all, I make certain the coffee is brewed - since my supervisor and several co-workers also drink coffee that's probably the reason I'm not hindered.

The second habit includes reading my favorite comic strips. One strip I enjoy a great deal is "Frazz," drawn by Jef Mallett. The main character, Edwin "Frazz" Frazier, looks like a grown-up version of "Calvin" from Bill Watterston's "Calvin and Hobbes" strip. Frazz loves a teacher, works at a school, runs, bicycles, swims, writes songs... It's a fairly neat parallel of (my) life and Mallet's art.

Not long after I started to follow the strip, Mallet had a week of strips which involved Frazz's girlfriend's dog, "Mario," a rescue greyhound. (And to think the comic strip couldn't get any better...) The most memorable conversation that week had to do with the speed of greyhounds versus human beings. A youngster from the school asked if humans were faster than greyhounds. Frazz replies greyhounds are faster than humans, but humans can run a marathon faster than a greyhound. The child says, "so greyhounds are also smarter than humans." "One would consider the baggie a clue," laments Frazz.

I've occasionally laud my greyhound, Rubin, in blog posts for teaching me the benefits of rest and habit. But, as time has progressed, I cannot help but consider the dog - in the vast majority of cases - to be not only man's best friend, but potentially, man's best training partner.

Several coaches have rhapsodized about training "accountability groups" containing at least three members. The natural reason for having three persons in a training group, naturally, is so the individual athlete need never train alone, except for those rare occasions. Think about it - the odds of having one training partner fall ill, or their family member fall ill, or be on travel, sudden change of work schedule, and so forth - is usually pretty good. But, the chances of having EVERY other training partner in the group suffer from such obstacles grows more unlikely. There is at least one day a week where I feel a little beat up, or I need to be in at work a little more early, etc. So I might try to talk myself out of 25-and-50 workout opportunities a year, which means a one-in-seven or a two-in-seven chance of leaving a partner in a lurch. Then, what are the chances of both other people ill, beat-up, constrained? It's probably right around two-in-one-hundred.

You statisticians or mathematicians out there, please feel free to jump in.

Dogs, on the other hand, don't HAVE to worry about work. To Rubin, every day is Saturday. He's ALWAYS up for a walk, even if the weather is stormy. He might not want to go outside (to do his business) in the pouring rain, but he'll go if I pull on my rain gear.

So, if you've got a dog who likes to run and a route which is amenable to running together, the odds are very high you've got a willing training partner.

Not every breed, however, is built to deal with long-distance running. My mother's German Shorthaired Pointer, Bogie, taught me this lesson almost two decades ago. I had driven down to her home in Jupiter Farms, FL, for a visit. One afternoon, I told her I was going out for a run. She suggested taking Bogie along as company, not suspecting:

First, I didn't know the neighborhood as well as we initially thought.
Second, how far I was capable of running before realizing point number one, and...
Third, how lost I could get myself because of points number one and number two.

Some 90 minutes and nine miles later (as I learned while driving the next day) Bogie and I returned home to a very worried mother-slash-"dog mama." Bogie immediately shoved his face into a bowl of cool water, I grabbed a very large glass of iced tea. He lay down on his bedding in the corner of the living room; I put my legs up in the recliner while enduring the maternal inquisition. The next day, the question, 'Bogie? Want to go for a walk?' was met by a tucked-tail slink out of the kitchen back to the living room.

Greyhounds, I learned, are pretty well good to go where walks and warm/cool-down efforts are concerned. Otherwise they prefer to play the "I'm retired" card for distances longer than a quarter-mile. There's also a terrier or two I've encountered who, if you could control their lateral direction, would probably keep most distance runners on their toes for an extended period of time. I've met herding and working breeds who absolutely love to run and seem to go forever. My friend, Charley, has a couple of Australian Shepherd-types who think nothing in life is greater than to go out running on trail with the local hash kennel. The only problem, naturally, is once the run is over...especially this particular kennel. It's not a proper trail without a water crossing. "The wet dog is the lovingest," was the final line of a poem by Ogden Nash.

Truer words were never inscribed on paper.

When it comes to race day, however, that's where the lines are not only drawn, but the ugliest darned fault lines develop. The race director, especially for a Road Runners Club of America-affiliated club, is constrained by the insurance guidelines which keep Fido from pawing the starting line next to their owner. Then, you have the "keep your dog leashed" crowd, the "my dog is well-behaved" crowd, and the "how dare you risk hurting your dog by making them run in this heat" crowd. Nobody wins; everybody goes home grumpy.

Last spring, a young lady asked if her dog could participate in one of the area's major run events. She said the dog had been her training partner to that point in time, and she figured it would be fun for them both to participate in her first race. I knew the RRCA insurance constraints and the risks which could happen in the pack. However, being "only" a guy who knew a few things about a few things, I suggested she contact the race director so she could get the (bad) news from him directly. I didn't hear any follow-up, but she did thank me for my gracious response.

While not every runner appreciates the presence of a canine on their morning (or afternoon) run, it can be said that nearly every canine appreciates the chance to be in the presence of a runner. And having that always-joyful, never-complaining, almost-always-available running partner can even help us get that first step out the door on the days when we really don't feel like it.

No Inner Child Left Behind

There are a number of careers I've considered...after I retire from the one which pays the overwhelming majority of my bills. Frankly, none of them have to do with (making a living in) education or coaching. I have many friends who spent the vast majority or entirety of their careers in the K-12 realm, many of them asked the rhetorical 'why in heaven's name would you want to go into teaching?' question during the years I spent in undergrad study. Naturally, I provided the wide-eyed true believer, Christa McAuliffe "I wanna make a positive influence on the future" answer.

But I could really see the handwriting (spray-painted, probably!) on the wall, as did my professors. I was vehemently opposed to standardized testing even during my undergrad time, which was reinforced by my self-imposed reading regimen of books like Joseph Sacks' Standardized Minds, as well as the raft of Maxine Greene, Paulo Freire, Ira Shor, & John Dewey articles/books willingly loaned to me by my professors. It never made sense that a person who taught for six hours a day, then worked an additional three to six hours a day, should be judged on their ability to make a positive influence on learners who they might worked with for two hours a day (in the case of middle/high school teachers).
It kind of feels like being a coach of adult runners. I can work with a person for 90 minutes a day, three-to-five days a week (depending on the schedule & their interest), but I'll never have the complete control over the other 160-plus hours which are taken up by their rest, real employment, home life & need for something that appears to be a normal social life. So, if the runner is doing well at races & achieving their personal goals, I cannot help but be pleased. If they're not doing well, & unwilling to make changes because it doesn't fit what they want to do with the rest of their life, I probably (in a perfect world) should not be looked upon as a bad coach.

That's another good reason for me to not deal with youth runners. I work with young adults fresh out of high school now, & the only difference between their 17-to-22-year-old intellect (which probably differs little from that of my nephew who did NOT graduate from a "little technical college on the banks of the Severn River") & my intellect when I was their age...I think I was a little less stoopid. Well, maybe not stoopid, but maybe less derisive of my elders. Ah, but I digress.
When you're dealing with - coaching - youth runners, you often (unlike the middle/high school History teacher I aspired to be) deal with a second wanna-be athlete, living vicariously through the accomplishments of young Johnny/Susie. They want instant, unparalleled success worse than their kid does. Truth. Admit it. How many times have you seen the "my kid is a..." bumper sticker on the back of the car? I realize it's not just a thing which lasts through elementary school (my father tells stories about the latest run or triathlon I've completed every so often, too...), but I think the little league parent syndrome is more common between ages 5 & 25.

You could be deeply involved in the training of a kid, & the parent is asking the opinion of another coach. Personally, it would drive me up the wall. Kind of like bringing a barista into the local coffee shop with you, and asking them what they would do to make the cappuccino you just sweated bullets over better. Come a little closer to this little steam nozzle & I'll make you another one. How 'bout that?Besides, the day coachiing looks, feels, smells, acts, or tastes like work is the day I get the hell away from it.

Priority Male

When you are an athlete, and even more so when you are a coach, your life revolves around coming attractions. Vacations are tied into races, accommodations are considered worthy or unworthy based upon their adaptation to training, air travel is preferred over driving, aisle over bulkhead seat, and so on...

Suzanne's better on this than I am. She'll drive to visit her parents on a Saturday when I can't seem to get away from running a track workout. The 'rents are pretty understanding about it. They know I'm passionate about the sport.

And really, the psychology of performance translates quite well from the world of sport to the world of everyday work/life. Think about these points:

1. Choose your parents wisely.

- - As a whole, we all bring pretty much the same general stuff to the table. The little things we get from our parents can make a difference.

2. Attitude is everything.

- - Toxic teammates are a bummer no matter what the situation. There's not enough salary in the world that can make a person stay in a place where they're not happy. However, the wrong persons stay too long and the good persons leave too soon.

3. Have a Plan "B," a Plan "C," and a Plan "D."

- - Success means the ability to adjust the plan as circumstances arise.