Recreation Through Endurance

I'm getting some extra reading in today of The Perfect Mile. 1/4 mile track, 4 times, 4 minutes. 3 runners, who all disappointed their countries in the 1952 Olympics, each simutainiously announce he will be the first to break a barrier considered unbreakable.

The ancient Greeks who invented sporting competition in 776 B.C. with the first Olympics believed what it took to make a great athlete was "a sound mind in a sound body" or "Mens Sana In Corpore Sano." They may have been wrong though. In The Body Bears The Burden (no, I haven't read it, but it did come up on my Google search of the topic), it talks about endurance sports being a form of childhood trauma reenactment.

Lance Armstrong as raised by a poor single mother and suffered ridicule as a kid.
Wes Santee's (one of the 4 minute contenders) father beat him when he didn't get his farm work done fast enough.
Greg LeMond was sexually abused.
Floyd Landis had a religiously oppressive childhood (though I don't believe he has hard feelings towards it).
The Flying Scotsman, Braeme O'Bree wrote a book about his self-hatred while setting cycling records.
Haile Gebrsellasie, who has been called "the best long-distance runner in history," was raised in a one room, mud hut with 9 siblings.

I'm unable to find a good list of cases, but I've noticed when hearing about runners and cyclists that a large portion of them come from rough backgrounds. It's true that to be good, you have a train hard and religiously, but maybe more than training, you need an angry desire to win.

Also check out Business Time, Jenny, and Issues.

When I'm pushing the pace on my running and it really starts to hurt, I tell myself "This is where the money's made!" Slowing down may feel better, but running harder will pay off more. It's all part of my avoiding-convential-wisdom training method, and an easy mantra that anyone can use to put in that extra effort.

...then I read something like L.S.L.D. from another anti-conventional cyclist. 120 miles in one day? ...and some is on trails. But if I were to name someone that could do it, Travis would come to mind. We're both dedicated and see more potential in ourselves. We both like going long and hard, but we're different is ways also. I'm more competitive and willing to challenge certain friends (Brent: ignore that last statement). Travis is still up against himself and winning. We both have drive to improve, but his is much more unfiltered, which is the only way you're going to log 120 miles single January day.

...and that's where the money's made.

On tonight's group run, we were talking about "last year's" events. One runner said he had to realize that we were talking about last fall because, being a student, it's still the same year for him. I pointed out that if he keeps up his running and continues with endurance sports, he won't use the word "year" anymore, he's say "season."

Regardless of your (non-team) sport, we're between years right now. The off-season. After the fall races that took all summer to prepare for are over, it's cool to ease up for a month or two, just in time for the holidays. Then comes the new year, it's resolutions, and time to start thinking about a new race schedule.

...so far, old news. Here's where I start to differ from the conventional wisdom.

There's lots of articles on off-season training, like here, here, and here. They have some common themes such as base and strength training. Speedwork is not in the equation. One article says "So as far as intensity, I would work at a RPE (rate of perceived exertion) of 3 to 5 (on a scale of 1 to 10)."

I'm not a coach, nor do I have years of experience in these sports, but it seems to me that this isn't a good time for that. Wouldn't it be better to train extra hard? Granted, some may get worn out mentally from constant high efforts, but doing well in early races should pump a person up for future races. The colder weather is great for running and powering up hills or speedwork without overheating is a plus. It's also good for swimming, since it's sometimes a warm pool sounds nicer than being in the cold. Biking, not so much, at least not until I can find a way to keep my feet warm. I think the extra clothes must wear me out faster also since my 21 mile ride felt more like 40, but maybe I can just tell myself it's more intensity.

Still, with races moving up in the season (First Hilbert is March 9), training through the winter seems like the way to go. Have I been doing this? Sort of. I could say I've had high-intensity days, but just 2-3 each week. Please note thought that this opinion is coming from a relatively inexperience racer, but someone that's trying to get better.

Exercise is good for you. It promotes good health through a strong heart, increases calories burned, maintains bones and muscles as we get older and a bag of chips, except for the chips. Training and racing for endurance events and practicing skills and techniques, um, takes a lot of time. For what? The hell of it I guess. Maybe because it's fun. Bragging rights, perhaps. Oh yeah, good stories too.

Today I had my bike loaded up for a froze-toes ride on my day off. Getting in lots of miles on days like today is tough, but still it'll pay off next race season, or so I can hope. On my way to ride, I had to wait at a stop light for a middle-aged woman to limp/hobble across the street with many bags of groceries while wearing old, ratty clothes and I thought about how fortunate I am, not only to physically be able to do these things but also that I can afford to. I didn't feel sorry for the woman or guilty for my situation, but to acknowledge there are people that may need help in life. There are also lots of people that help those that need people to fight for them, whether it's poverty, disease, or soemthing else, I just don't happen to be one of them. There are some that do though: Cycling for a cause from my birthtown.

Don't take my lack of recent articles as inactivity. It's quite the opposite. After 2 weeks of 2008, I'd had over 200 miles of riding, which equates to almost 5000 miles in a year. That won't happen of course, but it's fun to think about.

The real news is a developing story that I can't talk about just yet. It's very exciting for you local riders, but the details aren't worked out enough yet to announce it.

In meantime, here's an article my sister sent me from Chicago. It compliments my semi-joking line I've used: "There's only two types of people that don't like mountain biking. Those that have never tried it and those that weren't introduced properly."

The idea of breaking that 100 miles barrier under certain conditions can be kind of fascinating. Whether is a century ride, the SM100, or Jay's Douthat 100, it's can be something to tempt the possibilities.

Last summer, during the peak of my craziness, I told Liz about an idea I had. Over a 4 day weekend, I was going to cover 100 miles. But instead of taking the easy route, like 2 long road rides, I was going to spread it out equally, time-wise, over 4 disciplines. I told her that if I did 3 hours of each, I thought I could do it. If things went well, it would include 55-57 miles road, 30-32 miles MTB, 20-22 running, and 3 swimming. She stared at me blankly and said "Are you listening to yourself?" I never tried it.

On our 70 degree January week, as my 3 day weekend turned into a 4 day weekend, I was able to tip the scale on the bike. I just finished up my 105th mile of riding on some very, very tired legs. Ok, I'll admit, over half that was in one day on the road. It also gave me some perspective on what my 4-discipline century would take. I'm not sure it's possible for me, though the idea is still fascinating.

I tore through Into Thin Air by Krakauer. Like, Into The Wild, you know the ending before starting the book. It's a climbing disaster on Mount Everest where several guides and clients die after taking too long to summit then get caught in a storm without supplemental oxygen.

Also like Into The Wild, the reader is forced to ask "Why do people do things like this? Risk their fingers to frostbite, finances without guarantee of succeeding, marriages to obsession, and sometimes their lives." The author goes on to say

"I'd always known that climbing mountains was a high-risk pursuit. I accepted that danger was an essential component of the game--without it, climbing would be little different from a hundred other trifling diversions. It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier. Climbing was a magnificent activity, I firmly believed, not in spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them."

The idea of Man vs. Nature is romantic, especially when man conquers. Mother Nature, though, in all her beauty, just doesn't care if one lives or dies. Mount Everest and the rest of the Himalayas are still growing taller, being forced higher by the earth's shifting plates. No matter how many people summit or die on that mountain, it will go on existing and growing much longer than any of us will.

Krakauer goes on to say:

"Until I visited the Himalaya, however, I'd never actually seen death at close range. Hell, before I went to Everest, I'd never even been to a funeral. Mortality had remained a conveniently hypothetical concept, an idea to ponder in the abstract. Sooner or later the divestiture of such a privileged innocence was inevitable, but when it finally happened the shock was magnified by the sheer superfluity of the carnage."

Why then? I'm not a climber so I can only speculate. Maybe, though, just maybe that 5 miles above sea level, for a short moment, they can be 6 feet taller than the rest of that cold mother we call nature.

You know those Valpak envelopes you get in the mail with the coupons? I don't pay a whole lot of attention to them, but I'll look through them occasionally. What gets me though is the coupons for flower shops. I don't really know why, but they bother me, maybe because they make me feel guilty or something.

Well, I decided it was time to do something about it. I called the shop and asked them if they would discontinue advertising in this way. After a short discussion, the woman hung up on me and I didn't accomplish anything.

I was pretty bothered about it since I expected at least some sort of concession. I guess that old saying isn't true: "Only you can prevent florist fliers."

Now that New Year's has come and we're all starting out on our next set of adventures in this life called 2008, we can think about what we did accomplish last year, what we didn't accomplish, and what we want to accomplish this coming year.

I look back at what may be my best year I'll ever have and see some goals I achieved and some I didn't. I didn't finish in the top half in Tahoe, I didn't finish in 3:45 at OBX, but I did complete the SM100 and had 3 top-3 tris.

When you consider what you want to resolve to do in the coming year, make specific, actual goals. "Riding more" is not a goal. "Riding 200 miles each month" is a goal. "Trying to finish that hard race" is not a goal. "Finishing that hard race" is a goal.

Put something on the line. Tell people about it. Risk failure.

...and if you don't cross the line in the sand you're drawn, stop and think about everything you did to get there and you should still feel like it was a success.

Happy New Year's Resolutions.