It's never too cold

It's been a little cool here in Boulder lately, with highs generally not topping freezing, and several 0 degree mornings. This has, naturally enough, led to a certain amount of complaining that "it's too cold to train."

I have never subscribed to that philosophy, being Northern-Minnesota born and bred. Our XC skiing races were never canceled until it was -29 degrees or below. Thus it bugs me a little bit when people try to say that it's too cold to train. It's never too cold to train.

On another, related note, I very much like this column in the NYT. It's called "Personal Best," and it often has very interesting topics. I will continue to post whenever I find something interesting on the site.

Destinations v. Journies

The age old comparison of the journey versus the destination: which is more important? Now that I'm working towards a specific goal race (assuming I get into the race in the first place) it's become a more interesting and important question to me.

On one hand, if I'm going to run the race I want to run, at the pace I want to, I have to focus very closely on that goal, the destination. If I don't keep that in mind, and convince myself that I can do it, then there is no chance I'll succeed. Every day, week, and month has to be planned with the ultimate goal in mind. If I lose sight of that, I won't run the race I plan to .

On the other hand, by doing that, I risk losing sight of why I run in the first place. That was detailed in an earlier post, probably some time in mid-November. And if I lose sight of why I run, I won't enjoy it any more. I run simply to run, because I love it. But the constant straining towards a goal risks upsetting that.

I'm sure every runner has methods of mixing up so as to not lose sight of running for racing. I have a few methods I like to use. At least two, sometimes three days a week, I leave the watch behind, don't really plan a distance, and just go out for a run at whatever pace feels good to me that day. When I can, I'll take trips in order to run in to places (last summer I did a run in Rocky Mountain National Park, as well as several in the Indian Peaks Wilderness). I like to keep it fresh. Most of my runs take place in familiar locations along often-repeated routes, but changing it every so often keeps me interested in the scenery, and not just the act of putting one foot in front of the other for what might be as long as four hours.

I think I take the position of many when I decide that the journey, not the destination, is often the most important part of any process, whether it's a trip or a training program. If we focus too much on the destination and not enough on the journey itself, we risk missing the destination entirely. If I don't run my time for the half this summer, but enjoy the training process and still love to run at the end of it, I'll consider that a success.

This was put more succinctly on my favorite TV show of all time, Firefly (curse you fox for cancelling it!)

"Why don't you care where the ships are going?"

"Because the journey is the worthier part."

New Beginnings

I started my second semester of grad school in EE yesterday. My schedule is very odd, and I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to mesh it with my running schedule yet. Tuesday and Thursday I am pretty much swamped from 8-6. It's going to be rather difficult to get a run or two in around the lab sessions that I both take and teach. On the plus side, MWF are pretty free days for me, so I should be able to get enough in on those days.

On the theme of new beginnings, I'm also beginning my next six-month training period. My goal race for this is the Gary Bjorkland Half Marathon on June 21st. For those who don't know, that's the half marathon that corresponds to Gradma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota. Having grown up watching the marathon (and half) every year, and never having run it, I'm looking forward to finally putting my name in the lottery. Granted, I'm not certain to get in, but being a first time runner, from out of town, and with the possibility of posting a good time, I have a better chance than many.

My goal pace is 6 minute miles, putting me at a final time of 1:18:40 or so. I figure this is well within my reach, since I'll be coming down from altitude for the race, and I know I can post a 10k of that pace up here. That still won't put me all that far up in the standings, though. I believe the winner last year came in at around 1:05.

So in the interest of posting a good time, I'm focusing on this race for the next 6 months. During the next 3, I'm going to increase my mileage from where it stands now (around 40 miles a week) to around 70. I don't even need to increase my mileage that much each week to do so. Around 6% a week will get me there right on time.

We shall see how that works. My coach is of the opinion that I haven't even come close to touching my potential yet. The friends who know me as a runner think the same.

As my friend Sonya (who's blog is linked at right) says "You have to believe it so much you get goosebumps every time you think about it."

Highway 61 Revisited

Yes, I know it's a Bob Dylan album. But, for Christmas, I returned to my home: Minnesota. I grew up (and started running) on the shore of Lake Superior. This specific break, my parents were not living in the house I grew up in, but rather 20-some minutes up the north shore, off the fabled Highway 61. They live between the 5 and 6 mile mark of Grandma's Marathon (I plan to run the half marathon this summer, if I can scrape up the money to fly home and do so). In any case, this meant that I went for several runs up Highway 61.

One in particular sticks in my memory, and in my right arm. I was scheduled for a two hour run the Saturday I got back. When I got up, it was about 35 and raining. By the time I was ready to run, it was about 40. At that temperature, I decided to wear shorts and go out for an 80 minute run.

Unfortunately, what I didn't know was that I went out with the wind. By the time I turned back, 5 and a half miles up the road at 40 minutes (right at the starting line of the marathon) I was soaked to the skin. On turning around, I realized that the temperature had dropped, and the rain had turned to snow. By the time I got back to my parents' house, I could no longer move either of my hands.

One of the dumber moves I've ever made. . .

To the right is a pic of me after that run. You can't really see it in this pic, but it was snowing heavily by this point and I was covered in it. By the end of the next day we'd gotten some 10 inches or so. My hands are quite literally stuck to my sides. I had to mold them into position in order to get that pose. Even now, I can still feel the damage I did to my right arm.

For the rest of the trip, I didn't get a whole lot of running in. Among other problems, we had two decent snow storms during the vacation, which precluded running for those days. Add to that taking Christmas off, and I didn't have a whole lot of time to train. The trip back in a car didn't help either.

However, once I got back to Boulder, and once my family left, I quickly got back into it. On Friday, I went out for a "40 minute" run. Having a fair amount on my mind, the 40 minutes ended up being 56. I went out 4 miles in 30, and came back in 26, for an average pace of 7 minute miles.

I'm back . ..

A personal example

As an example of what I've been talking about: last week, I ran a 5k here in Boulder (the Colder Boulder, winter analogue of the Bolder Boulder, though much smaller). I'd had a pretty difficult week, between school and my personal life, and wasn't even sure I wanted to run. When the morning dawned, it was windy, far from ideal conditions. I decided I'd be happy if I finished.

I felt good, and decided to go for it. Figured given the weather conditions, breaking 20 would be a good accomplishment.

I ran through the first mile in 5:47, feeling good. The second mile turned uphill, into the wind, and passed much more slowly. I had trouble breathing, because the wind was robbing me of air every breath I took. But I managed to get through the two mile mare at 12 flat, and decided then that I could pull of a sub-19 that day, a post-surgery PR for me. Any way, as soon as I said that, my breathing eased up, my legs loosened up, and I crossed the line at 18:58. And you know what? I felt amazing.

The next day I went out and ran the same pace for four miles, as I mentioned in another post.

In any case, here's a pic of me on my way to that PSPR:

Philosophical running

It was snowing this morning when I left to meet the BBTC group for our weekly long run. Fortunately, however, there had been little accumulation up till that point, so we could get our run in without worrying too much about injury.

Days like this are my favorites: temperature was about 25, a brisk but not annoying wind, snow falling steadily to heavily. I don't know what it is about the snow, but sometimes it makes me feel more like I'm flying than running. It seems as though, instead of moving, you are standing still, and the snow is flying towards you. The crunch of your footsteps on the frozen trail is the only sound in the world. It is one of my favorite experiences.

As usual for Saturday mornings, I ran with Jessica and Pete, leading to inevitable interesting conversations. I realized today just how much I enjoy running with the two of them, and with Jessica in particular. There was one point when, unintentionally, for about 5 minutes, none of us said anything, but our strides locked in step, so that instead of three footfalls each stride, it sounded as though there were only one person running. We kept up a healthy banter otherwise, and were remarkably casual about the run, stopping several times to decide which way we were going to head next. We reached a new level of camaraderie this morning, giving each other nicknames and just generally joking.

At one point, though, our conversation switched to a more philosophical note. I talked about the NYT article (see the previous post) and how important the mind is to running. From there, we moved on to the nature of reality, and our perception of reality. I mentioned my basic precept, my axiom as it were: "I am." Or "I exist." Going from there we discussed whether intelligence can in fact effect reality directly, without the intervening physical manifestation of a body movement or something similar. Can we, as humans, effect the reality around us purely by thinking? There is mounting evidence, some of a very scientific nature, some of pseudo-scientific, that suggests we can.

I personally am not sure. I'm a skeptical scientist by my nature, and I have trouble accepting that notion, but it does seem to be possible. What is certain, what we all agreed on, is that mental perception is very important. If you believe you can, or cannot, do something, it's very likely to be the case.

In that case, it's important, in athletics and in life as a whole, to cultivate a successful mindset. Or, to make a habit of success. "I can't" becomes an forbidden term, as far as achievement goes. Of course, this needs to be within reason, but a mindset of expecting to do well, expecting to run that PR, knowing you will run that PR, is critical in actually doing so.

Again: cultivate a successful mindset. Make success a habit.

Interesting Article

My mother sent me this article the other day, from the New York Times. I find it very interesting, and possibly useful. It's essentially on the power of the mind over the body, but there's far more to it than that.

December 6, 2007

Personal Best

I’m Not Really Running, I’m Not Really Running...

By GINA KOLATA

BILL MORGAN, an emeritus professor of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin, likes to tell the story, which he swears is true, of an Ivy League pole vaulter who held the Division 1 record in the Eastern region.

His coaches and teammates, though, noticed that he could jump even higher. Every time he cleared the pole, he had about a foot to spare. But if they moved the bar up even an inch, the vaulter would hit it every time. One day, when the vaulter was not looking, his teammates raised the bar a good six inches. The man vaulted over it, again with a foot to spare.

When his teammates confessed, the pole vaulter could not believe it. But, Dr. Morgan added, “once he saw what he had done, he walked away from the jumping pit and never came back.”

After all, Dr. Morgan said, everyone would expect him to repeat that performance. And how could he?

The moral of the story? No matter how high you jump, how fast you run or swim, how powerfully you row, you can do better. But sometimes your mind gets in the way.

“All maximum performances are actually pseudo-maximum performances,” Dr. Morgan said. “You are always capable of doing more than you are doing.”

One of my running partners, Claire Brown, the executive director of Princeton in Latin America, a nonprofit group, calls it mind over mind-over-body.

She used that idea in June in the Black Bear triathlon in Lehighton, Pa., going all-out when she saw a competitor drawing close. She won her age group (30 to 34) for the half-Ironman distance, coming in fourth among the women.

When it was over, she ended up in a medical tent. “I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up or both,” she recalled. “At a certain point in a hard race, you’ve pushed yourself beyond the point of ignoring the physical pain, and now you have to tell your mind that it can keep going, too.”

The problem for many athletes is how to make a pseudo-maximum performance as close as possible to a maximum one. There are some tricks, exercise physiologists say, but also some risks.

The first thing to know, said Dr. Benjamin Levine, an exercise researcher and a cardiology professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, is that no one really knows what limits human performance. There’s the ability of the heart to pump blood to the muscles, there’s the ability of the muscles to contract and respond, there’s the question of muscle fuel, and then, of course, there is the mind.

“How does the brain interact with the skeletal muscles and the circulation?” Dr. Levine said. “How much of this is voluntary and how much is involuntary? We just don’t know.”

But since most people can do better, no matter how good their performance, the challenge is to find a safe way to push a little harder. Many ordinary athletes, as well as elites, use a technique known as dissociation.

Dr. Morgan, who tested the method in research studies, said he was inspired by a story, reported by an anthropologist that, he suspects, is apocryphal. It involves Tibetan monks who reportedly ran 300 miles in 30 hours, an average pace of six minutes a mile. Their mental trick was to fixate on a distant object, like a mountain peak, and put their breathing in synchrony with their locomotion. Every time a foot hit the ground they would also repeat a mantra.

So Dr. Morgan and his colleagues instructed runners to say “down” to themselves every time a foot went down. They were also to choose an object and stare at it while running on a treadmill and to breathe in sync with their steps. The result, Dr. Morgan said, was that the runners using the monks’ strategy had a statistically significant increase in endurance, doing much better than members of a control group who ran in their usual way.

That, in a sense, is the trick that Paula Radcliffe said she uses. Ms. Radcliffe, the winner of this year’s New York City Marathon, said in a recent interview that she counts her steps when she struggles in a race. “When I count to 100 three times, it’s a mile,” she said. “It helps me focus on the moment and not think about how many miles I have to go. I concentrate on breathing and striding, and I go within myself.”

Without realizing what I was doing, I dissociated a few months ago, in the middle of a long, fast bike ride. I’d become so tired that I could not hold the pace going up hills. Then I hit upon a method — I focused only on the seat of the rider in front of me and did not look at the hill or what was to come. And I concentrated on my cadence, counting pedal strokes, thinking of nothing else. It worked. Now I know why.

Dr. Morgan, who has worked with hundreds of subelite marathon runners, said every one had a dissociation strategy. One wrote letters in his mind to everyone he knew. Another stared at his shadow. But, Dr. Morgan asked him, what if the sun is in front of you? Then, the man said, he focused on someone else’s shadow. But what if the sun goes behind a cloud, Dr. Morgan asked?

“Then it’s tough,” the runner conceded.

Dissociation clearly works, Dr. Morgan said, but athletes who use it also take a chance on serious injury if they trick themselves into ignoring excruciating pain. There is, of course, a fine line between too much pain and too little for maximum performance.

“The old adage, no pain no gain comes into play here,” Dr. Morgan said. “In point of fact, maximum performance is associated with pain.”

The brain affects everyday training as well, researchers note.

Imagine you are out running on a wet, windy, cold Sunday morning, said Dr. Timothy Noakes, an exercise physiologist at the University of Cape Town. “The conscious brain says, ‘You know that coffee shop on the corner. That’s where you really should be.’” And suddenly, you feel tired, it’s time to stop.

“There is some fatigue in muscle, I’m not suggesting muscles don’t get fatigued,” Dr. Noakes said. “I’m suggesting that the brain can make the muscles work harder if it wanted to.”

Part of a winning strategy is to avoid giving in to lowered expectations, athletes and researchers say. One friend tells me that toward the end of a marathon he tries not to look at people collapsed or limping at the side of the road. If he does, he suddenly realizes how tired he is and just gives up.

Marian Westley, a 35-year-old oceanographer in Princeton, N.J., and another running friend of mine, used several mental strategies in the recent Philadelphia marathon.

She slowed herself down at the start by telling herself repeatedly that she was storing energy in the bank. And when she tired near the race’s finish, she concentrated on pumping her arms. “I thought about letting my arms run the race for me, taking the pressure off my legs.”

She finished in three hours and 43 minutes, meeting her goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. “I am over the moon!” she wrote in an e-mail message the day after the race.