Marathon Musings: "Tip Of The Iceberg"

On the drive to work this morning, I listened to a live concert recording of an artist whose best stuff (in my humble opinon) is rarely heard; his most sappy dreck gets lots of "soft rock" airplay, however. Thirty-plus years in the music business, and never once did he look the part of the typical pop star. There was a year where his tunes were on everybody's favorite radio station. He still talks self-deprecatingly about his "'fifteen minutes of fame' at the top" of the music business, a little over three decades ago.

How much alike, the "fifteen minutes of fame" and the marathon. There is no such thing in the entertainment business as an "overnight sensation." Each "minute" of the "fifteen minutes of fame" was more likely the end result of more rehearsal spaces, ramen noodles, rough commutes, and relationship hassles than "right place, right time" situations.

Follow any major marathon from the Rock n' Roll Series to the Marathon Majors, as well as the World Championships and Olympics, and everybody focuses almost solely on the 26 miles, 385 yards of race day. That's the cherry of the sundae, the tip of the iceberg, the nose of the hound dog. Very few focus on the 1000-to-1600 miles of preparation, depending on the training plan, the average citizen spends get to the starting line. That's, on average, six-to-ten days of a life preparing for four hours. And small change. On the average.

I'm not saying, as Bill Bowerman once mused about the non-running world, that we engage in "a frivolous activity." What I am saying, especially about the marathon distance, is that it's not for every runner. About a year ago, my friend Charley recommended I watch the movie "Run Fatboy Run." My wife went and bought the DVD and we watched it one evening. I won't ruin the plot for those of you who haven't seen it, but in 25 words or less:

A guy decides to make himself look good in the eyes of his ex-girlfriend by running a marathon. He's sorely unprepared for the task.

I have friends who, for some insane reason, "jump into" events on little (undertrained better than overtrained) or no training whatsoever. If they were fitness buffs they might probably say to themselves along the way "this was a bad idea." Usually when I see them after the event they tell me, with not only perfect but magnified hindsight, they would never do it that way again.

Naturally, every person is a unique individual, and for every participant in a race there are many reasons to participate:

Some want to beat everyone who's ever run the distance.
Some want to beat everyone who's toeing the line on the day.
Some want to beat their best time.
Some want to beat their last time.
Some want to post a time.

When it comes to the marathon, I'm more in favor of the undertrained rather than the untrained state. While there's a lot of recovery (and the risk of injury) involved with the thousand-plus miles which lay between day one of the training plan and the finish line, I believe it makes the last 26.2 that much more possible...and even a little bit enjoyable.

Back To Basics, With Friends

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.” - Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

In my former life, I worked as a performance technologist. The goal of that work wasn't much different than what coaches do, except I was less teacher and more troubleshooter. Most of that time - when not (desperately) searching for projects - was spent identifying barriers to optimal performance in the workplace. I've talked about the categories of barriers in the past, especially when looking at injury causes (the five "whys?"), so I won't do that now.

My employer decided to transition to Lean Six Sigma a couple of years ago. At the surface it's continuous process improvement like performance technology, except the focus is more on the product and the process and less on the worker. The worker is important, but the view of the big picture comes down to value. If a function provides no value for the company it's likely going to be pared away, cast aside or lowered in priority.

My wife and I talked about Lean this morning, especially priorities and work tasks. I reminded her if a task had nothing to do with what brought income or customers to the business it was probably a waste of time. Naturally, with every rule there exists an exception: There are some things we do which have little to do with core functions. The utility is based on our enjoyment or it strengthens a relationship.

A good example comes from my experience with the Emerald Coast Racing Team: It started as a weekly dinner and chat with my coach and his wife. What began as a nice, quiet evening out at the local pizza pub between the four of us spun into up to a dozen team members quaffing beer and cracking jokes on Friday evenings. The socials took on a life of their own and became more popular than the Tuesday and Thursday night workouts.

When a person who hadn't been to a track workout for three months asked where we were going to meet on Friday night I knew it was time to put the social aside for a time. Not long after that I also stopped booking hotel rooms for road trips when friends of those "once-every-three-month" members "desperately" needed a room. Too much trouble; not enough good karma coming back to me. To borrow from Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the "Star Trek" television programs/movies, 'I'm a running coach, not a social coordinator.' I lost some potential clients but the decision allowed me to return to the basics of coaching runners.

I've a small group of fairly dedicated runners this year, and the coach-athlete relationship over time has developed also at the friendship level. It's easier to speak to a friend in very honest terms, especially when "under-the-surface" issues stand in the way of a good race performance. Not that it's happened with this group, but it's nice to know the conversation goes both ways; sometimes in a tone which could send a "customer" off to patronize another coach.

After a workout about two weeks ago, my wife, Suzanne, mentioned about how we used to meet at a local barbecue restaurant after Tuesday night workouts. We all felt it was a great idea - I'm rarely in a rush to go home immediately after a good workout - so we started to talk about what we wanted. What were the basics we needed for a post-workout meal?

We've eaten in places which were a little crowded, with other patrons watching "Dancing with the Stars" who definitely were not thrilled in the slightest to share their evening with the endorphin-fueled quacking of a half-dozen runners. So, we knew we wanted something a little on the laid-back, runner-comfortable side of the spectrum. We all live anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes away from the track, so we did not want to inconvenience anyone too much by a location too far one direction or another from the track. We suspect we have found that "80-percent solution," a place which lets us blow off a little steam, have a beverage and a bite to eat before we go home to continue our recovery in earnest. And if it doesn't work for us we'll scale it back or find another place at which to decompress.

The best part of group training is - at its most basic - the ability to suffer through together; to pull and be pulled through by each other. And, when it's all over, the chance to laugh about how you somehow made it through.