These Days

These days are a bit of a blur & time is rolling along quite fast. I am in the thick of exams, running as a means of relief and not so much for performance for a few weeks...not enough time to write for pleasure.

Next up on the plate is employment. Coincidentally, it is my next exam on Tuesday and what I'll be doing for the summer, as of May 3rd.

From "La Blogotheque"- Music by The Tallest Man on Earth

Tallest man on earth - These Days (Nico Cover) - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

slow down!!!! and smell the flowers

I spend a lot of time moving through and over nature. Although I try to take in the views, I mostly just give it a furtive glance, more intent on the act of moving than really appreciating what is around me.
While I have no intention of slowing down on my runs, this incredible video is a sampling of what I miss. I need to figure out a way of taking it in, perhaps our little rooftop garden will give me a little taste?

My Father's Garden from Mirko Faienza on Vimeo.

I had a funny analogy come through my head, about how an athlete's fitness is like a garden to a gardener.

Before I start, I want to lay a ground rule, pesticides and chemicals, yes, much like drugs and doping, work. The results are quite clear on this. When fed the right mix of chemicals and drugs, plants grow big and strong, the fruit or vegetable can grow to unnatural proportions and they can taste quite good, but I am more interested in an organic garden. One with natural plants and vegetables, that don't have a glossy sheen to them.

Okay, so let the forced analogy begin:

1)Nature v. Nurture--just like athletes, some seedlings just come from better stock. This is a reality of sport. No matter how hard I try, I will never set a 100 meter world record and I can't imagine a scenario, even with heavy chemical induced "fertilizers", can I imagine how that would have happened. So just how some plants will simply produce more beautiful flowers, or juicier tomatoes, no matter how many variables you control for, some athletes will simply turn out differently than others, even on exactly the same training plan, using the same equipment and living in the same condition. Some will be bigger, more resilient and juicier.

That said, you can and should control the variables. If you ensure good, fertile "soil", such as a solid nurturing training environment, a steady, natural, healthy food source, lots of water and sunlight, then your plants and fitness will grow in a good and healthy way. While we all want the perfect tomato, or most vibrant plants, the truth is there can only be one most beautiful plant. Most flowers look quite pretty and most vegetables taste quite similar, so just because a plant won't be the absolute best plant in the world, it doesn't mean that you can't make something quite beautiful or delicious out of it.

2)Seedlings--once you plant the seeds, or introduce the athlete to sport/play, you need to leave them be for a little while. There is nothing a gardener, or parent/coach can do for them at this stage. The main role is simply to clear the path, drop them in the right environment and watch them grow. Some seeds may never germinate, this is fine and even when they do start to bud, it isn't until the plant grows into something more substantial, that the gardener can really influence it. The same goes for kids in sport, or when an athlete first begins. Drop them in sport at a young age and just let them play at first, they will grow into good strong athletes on their own. It is isn't until the later stages that they really need a coach to oversee them. As I said above, do control the variables that you can. Make sure to drop them into a fertile bed, with all the right conditions and they will turn out just fine. The gardener should keep an eye on the program, trying to catch flaws, weeds and negative outside influences early, they should water the plants, but not over-water them and they should also keep a growing log, to monitor the progress. Once they start to really grow and bloom, then the gardener can and should step in. This can mean propping them up, pruning them a bit, continuing to weed the garden and choosing the exact right time to cultivate them and unleash them on the world.

3)Competition-interesting, much like athletes, good stock plants seem to breed from competition. Plants grow bigger and stronger trying to fight their way to sunlight and for resources. This is even more true where there is an abundance of vegetation, it is the competition with the trees, or plants around them that force the plants to grow. It is the same with athletes, their skills respond directly to the stimulus around them. If they aren't pushed to grow, then they will likely stagnate, only ever having to grow to a certain height. The same goes for your fitness, to grow, you have to push the comfort zone a bit, challenging it.

4)Organic matter--Interestingly, athletes, like plants, grow on the decomposing matter of other plants/athletes. All training knowledge and experience comes from what we have learned with previous plants/athletes, as well as our own experience/fallen leaves and branches. Similarly, athletes grow off of the lessons that they learned competing against other athletes. The more organic material an athlete has, in the form of experience and knowledge, gained from their own falling plants and that collected from others, the bigger and stronger the garden will grow.

5)Variety--while plants need a regular cycle of care, they also thrive off of variety. If you have a monoculture, you are unlikely to really maximize the full flavour of the vegetable, or the brightness of the flower. The same goes for training, if you did the same workout day in and day out, you might get fitter, but you wouldn't be maximizing your potential. You would also risk sucking all the nutrients out of the soil, making the environment bland and the ultimate outcome bland as well.

6)Seasonal-There are no plants/people who can flourish all year. Just like a garden, you want to maximize your time in bloom, but if you push it too far, you dry up all the resources, making it hard to grow the next year. Instead, there is a fallow period, where you replenish the soil, a germinating season and a blooming season. It takes years of this cyclical pattern, mixing combinations, changing soil types and a bit of luck to maximize your garden's potential.

7)Weeds/Environmental--weeds are like bad habits, they are persistent and they leach important nutrients. A good coach/gardener will try to clear weeds away, since the athlete/plant is generally helpless on their own to correct these weeds. Also, no matter how perfect the environment, or how perfect the stock, environmental factors, such as frost, or pine beetle, just like sickness, or accidents, can wipe away years of hard work. You can try to protect from the damage, but life and setbacks just happen sometimes. You have to be accepting of that when it happens and patiently start over. You already have experience with growing fitness/garden, so you don't start at square one, but you can't skip a step either.

8)Pollination--while I will avoid getting into a eugenics discussion (see point 1 about nature), don't forget that outside sources, like bees, are important to help pollinate the garden. They spread knowledge and can help with the overall health and vitality of the area, some level of symbiosis exists. Just be careful, some external sources, which initially seem friendly and important can quickly become a pest that overtakes the garden and chomp the leaves, sucking life out of the garden.

Interestingly, while I keep making reference to coaches and gardeners, some will correctly observe that nature does great job on it's own. Plants grow tall and strong, they develop in abundance and it is all quite beautiful. I agree, while left on it's own, human physical potential will grow and flourish, developing the traits and attributes necessary for that environment. Humans did it for millennia, what I am talking about is an unnatural setting. Competition and sport is not a natural environment and we have more "weeds" or distractions than ever. Sport is an environment encased by parameters and rules, we are not always doing natural motions or activities, so you need to control for certain variables to be able to flourish in this unnatural setting.

Okay, so I am sure I butchered some analogies, just like I am sure I would butcher a garden, but you all get the point.

Runner's World homework?

For those of you who like to read elite runner profiles and interviews, there are two good stories up at Runner's World (yes, that's right RW) at the moment. So tonight's homework assignment is to read them!
1)A Brief Chat with Ron Hill. Is on British marathon and "streaker", Ron Hill. He is an interesting guy, the second man to break 2:10 in the marathon, former Boston marathon winner, he helped form modern run wear and claims to have not missed a day of running since December 1964 (*some of his "runs" have involved crutches and one leg, but that is some impressive commitment).
All the barefoot/minimalist die-hards will like the story, since he touts the benefits: I've always been a big believer in minimalist shoes. It's all a matter of angles. Big shoes have too much wobble to them. That increases the strain on your ankles, knees and hips. You're much better off with your feet close to the ground--almost barefoot. That's how humans evolved to run, and through evolution we're well designed to run barefoot.

Anyway, for more on this runner have a peek. Definitely a man with a passion for the act, business and sport of running.

2)THE KING OF PAIN A (rather dark) profile on Ultra-running stud Scott Jurek and his challenges the past few years. This preamble sets the tone of the article: No one knows how to push through a bad patch better than Scott Jurek, one of the better known ultramarathoners. But recently, Jurek has endured a string of painful setbacks that have him questioning everything—even if he wants to keep running.
I have never met him, but have definitely admired his accomplishments as an athlete. Winning Western States 100(miles) 7-times, along with numerous other ultra races is impressive and I hope that he finds his mojo again. I would love to race him on form. I have no idea how much of the article is journalistic license and how much is true, but you don't often get to read this much on an ultra runner, so take the time to have a look. His reasons for choosing veganism are interesting, much less idealistic than I would have assumed (you know what they say about assumptions:"ass u me").

How often...

....do you check your email? I am an addict. In fact, it extends beyond email, I constantly loop from Gmail, to Twitter, to Facebook, checking out various blogs and news sites in between. I am an information junkie, desperately seeking that one piece of new beta, that little surprise that creeps in. I hit refresh, I click on hyperlinks, digging for more nuggets, casting my web wider.
Do I have to check as often as I do? no, definitely not. With the speed that info travels, I would likely find out within a few minutes, but I am addicted to information.
Although I generally go to sites that reinforce my world view, occasionally I come across something that challenges me. This is one of the information nuggets that I mentioned. (Why I love the internet, after writing this blog post I read this article: "My (Probably Crazy) Plan To Give Up the Internet" by James Sturm over at Slate.com)

Anyway, what does this have to do with running? not a whole lot. What it does deal with is how much info is out there. If you want to have your opinion validated, it is quite easy to find an answer that will do it. It all depends on how you go about your search.
When it comes to training searches, there is a sea of information on the web (and in books, magazines, newspapers etc...), ranging from fact, opinion, experience, trends and the just plain weird. I agree that being informed is incredibly useful and I love to look for that information nugget, the little tip that might help me go faster. I also find some of it quite entertaining, but mostly it is repetitive, variations on the same themes.
The problem comes when I spend all my time looking for nuggets, when the answers are generally quite simple, "run more...run faster"!

People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little. James Hilton.
*I came across the quote in "The Heart of the World: A Journey to the Last Secret Place" by Ian Baker, a book that I am finding quite interesting. It is a true account of a search for Shangri-la in the heart of the Tsangpo Gorge. It goes from riveting adventure, to sluggish culture and history. I read at nights, so some the accounts of Buddhism and the region, although very interesting, can be tough going when I am mentally tired, but the tales of the journey are well worth it. I would recommend it if you like stories of "seeking paradise", anthropology and adventure, which I do.

****In case anyone was wondering, a lot of these posts are just "brain dumps". I find I have to write something to help me get productive. Studying the Law of Evidence is just as exciting as it sounds (actually, there are some surprisingly interesting ethical/policy questions involved), so I am trying to write to get the ball rolling....

Framing issue

"I am so tired"-athlete
"I have so much work"-law student

I find the power of words to be quite interesting. The two sentences above seem to be badges of honour that people in the two worlds that I live in are quick to share with others. They are also universal statements. They echo around the halls of libraries and pool decks/gyms/tracks everywhere, and they cross international boundaries, translated into the local language. I also realize that they are not confined to my current worlds, but will likely float in the air wherever I go.

There are variations on them, i.e. "I am slammed", "I am knackered", "I am rooted", "I am swamped," but they all convey the same message.

They can be used as a form of gamesmanship, touting the actual amount of work that the speaker has been doing, but they are also passwords, a secret code to enter the club of athlete or student. They are symbolic of a shared sense of suffering.

While I know that being an athlete and a law student can be a hell of a lot of work, I find that these two little sentences to be incredibly grating. I find them to be entirely self-defeating, they are a also a self-fulfilling prophecy and even worse, they are contagious.

The moment one person shares either of these two sentences, the game is on. Both worlds are (largely) populated by driven, competitive people, so you either have to respond in kind, or feel paranoid that you aren't doing enough...once the game has started, you have to explain exactly what it is you are doing and why it is a hell of a lot of work, which creates an equal, or greater response.

Interestingly, some take pride in under shooting their response, saying things like, "I didn't find it that bad," or, for an athlete "I am just doing base training." This under-valuing is a secret form of one-upping. Its underlying message is that I don't have to work as hard as you.

Once those words have left someone's lips, their whole demeanour changes. Their shoulders often slump, their face gets heavy, they seem suddenly weighed down with the magnitude of the work ahead of them. As Seth Godin said "Anxiety is nothing...but repeatedly re-experiencing failure in advance. What a waste."

While I am not immune to the fatigue, or work game and everything can be very overwhelming at times, I like to consider what I do a choice. By saying and repeating how much I have to do and how tired I am, I feel like I am missing out on something because of these states. I am missing out on social activities because of the workload, or going a bit faster or harder in training because of the fatigue.

While this may be true, looking at it as a choice, part of a bigger picture, a plan to reach some other point, or just enjoying the experience for what it, seems to make the task that much more enjoyable and thus, manageable for me.

I have to remind myself this, as exams approach and a low grade anxiety rumbles through the halls and race season is upon us...

Some weekend reading, written by others

I will post some original content this weekend, but for now, here are two worthwhile reads:
A fascinating interview with the people who manage the new world x-country champion, Joseph Ebuya. LetsRun.com chat with Ricky Simms and Noah Ngeny. While I am sure there is some hyperbole in the text, it offers some great insight into how the Kenyan system works and some background on how an athlete works their way through the system and onto the world stage.
The second read is Anton Krupicka's latest blog post, 100 Summits of Green. He just completed his goal of running 100 summits of Green Mt in Boulder CO in a 100 days (through the winter). He is well known in the ultra world for his mega mileage (up to 200+ mountain miles a week), biblical looks and either winning big ultras, or being injured.

Two runners, from very different worlds, competing in very different events, but equally compelling perspectives on running.

If you are dying to read some of my thoughts on running, I have an article in the latest edition of Canadian Running--"Speed Goats: Trail-race Training Made Easy"