Posts in the Races Category at , Page 10

The Highs and Lows of Running – Persevering, Shifting Focus, and Staying the Course

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Cait — 25 Comments ↓

Are you sick of hearing about the US Olympic Marathon Trials yet? Not completely over-saturated juuuust yet? Good. Sorry, bear with me because I’m a teenie bit obsessed. And if you keep reading I promise even if you’re not a total running nerd (like this girl) I think there are some things you can take away.

The highs and lows of running. I’ll tell you right now, there are about six runners (okay more if you count the ones who knew going in they weren’t necessarily ever going to make the Olympic team but just excited to be there…I mean that in itself is a huge deal!) riding some SERIOUS highs after yesterday’s race…but those numbers are heavily outweighed by the runners who came up short of their goals. The hardest place to come in is 4th…mentally you go through every single second of that race and try to figure out if there was ANYTHING you could have done differently to have changed the outcome.

Six runners are riding incredible highs. How many are experiencing some serious lows? This is not to be a pessimist, merely a realist. Running is a very tough sport, even the men’s winner Meb Keflezighi says, “When the camera’s not watching, when the newspapers are not there, we work very hard at what we do. It’s not easy … there are so many obstacles as distance runners that we face … We work very, very hard at what we do. When the opportunities come, you take them … If you believe and work hard and do the right thing, (then) God has a good plan for me.” (Even third place finisher Abdi Abdirahman has been overlooked in recent years despite being a top runner for years.)

Distance running takes an incredible amount of work and dedication. The majority of that will go unnoticed; if you never did it only you would know, save the eventual outcome if you continued not to do it. Even if you do every single thing right, you could wind up with an injury right before the big race, you could feel totally flat after the gun, or get to mile 16 and have to stop because of cramps. You NEVER know. This isn’t just for the marathon distance, but to a degree everyone who toes the line is an equal. The heavy favorite is not a lock-in and an ‘unknown’ is one race away from an underdog upset. Ask Billy Mills. Heck, ask Meb.

The DIFFERENCE though between the Meb Keflezighi’s and Joe You’ll-Never-Know is persistence in the face of this. The difference between Dathan Ritzenhein and Joe I’m-going-to-give-up is being able to turn those incredible heartbreaks into motivation to keep on going, “Maybe I’m forcing it. Everybody wants me to be a marathoner, and I want to be a marathoner, but right now maybe it’s not in the cards. Maybe it’s just not there. Maybe I’ve just got to turn my attention back to shorter distances.” [Article source] Yes at the Beijing Olympics he placed 9th but he also once held the American Record for the 5k and has immense talent in the 10k and half-marathon as well. “I’m going to turn my attention back to the 10k,” he knows his chance of still going to London are far from gone. It’s just that his focus has to shift.

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I’d like to pull our attention back to 36-year old Meb for a moment. Going into the race if you read some of the articles or even worse message boards, there were some pretty cruel nay-sayers. Now, I love Nike as much as the next person, but if you happened to take a look at the shoes Meb was rocking on Saturday they were hardly a brand you’d associate with elite runners.

Meb was being sponsored by Sketchers. That kind of says it all. Though, he held onto the belief in his ability as well did his coach for 18 years, Bob Larsen. Meb is open that had it not been for his coach’s belief his own may have wavered.

The highs and lows of running. Even the strongest athlete faces times where they are unsure if they can or should keep going. In those moments of doubts it helps to cling to the memories of the highs and find a person who still believes in you. A coach or friend who understands what running gives to you and that if you gave it up you’d probably look back with a regret.

This applies to all runners, not just the elites. You don’t have to be vying for an Olympic team or Gold Medal to contemplate hanging up your shoes. There are highs and lows of every level.

The sting of a bad race. The gash of a string of bad races or seasons…or years.

Injuries. Getting through an injury is just as much a mental test as a physical. Dathan Ritzenhein was out of running for 6 months last year, some of that time he couldn’t even cross-train. But he kept going and was THIS close to pulling off the incredible. Actually he still DID pull off something incredible and there is no reason to ignore that. Alberto Salazar, Dathan’s coach, looks back and says, “Even if he had just made the team by the skin of his teeth, what’s he going to do in London? In the 10K, he has a chance to do some great stuff.”

Maybe you don’t even compete but have been out with an injury for an incredible amount of time and think it may just be worth it to not even try to get back.

Pressure. Stress. Loss. Highs. Lows. All runners have them. Sometimes you do need to take a step back and think about WHY you do it. Reassess and shift your mental focus. True, you just might not wind up meeting a goal you’ve been chasing for years, but in the end it comes down to what your life would be like without all of those miles. Would you rather be that person? If so, that’s okay, but if you know if your heart you’d miss it and harbor regrets, then keep going.

Run without regrets. And if you’re not able to run yet…cross-train, visualize the goals that lay ahead, and take it one day and then the next. Your goals may have to change and evolve but you can keep moving forward.

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Cherish the highs because they are far and few between…not pessimism but realism.

Our sport is made of highs and lows. Being a runner means having the strength to keep going after the lows.

1) What’s one of your running highs?
I enjoy setting a PR. 🙂

2) What was a low? Or stretch of lows?
Does it sound too cliched to say being hit by the car and riding the sofa for months and months wondering if I’ll be able to walk again? 😉

3) Why do you keep running?
For the sake of my own sanity. Obsessive Compulsive Runner out.

The 2012 US Olympic Marathon Team

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Cait — 17 Comments ↓

I’m not usually one of those addicted to Twitter, but this morning had me doing the instant updates. Thanks to NBC’s little monopoly over any live video feeds of the US Olympic Marathon Trials, going viral was how most of us could get any word on what was going on in Houston.

By now the world knows; for the women the team is Shalane Flanagan, Desi Davilia, and Kara Goucher. For the men it’s Meb Keflezighi, Ryan Hall, and Abdi Abdirahma.

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In what has to be the deepest women’s field to day, we see a 2008 Bronze medalist in the Olympics not even make the team. Over the last nine miles it came down to a four person race for three available slots and in the end it was Amy Hastings who, while putting in a valiant effort, was left with the heartbreaking 4th placing. Still, if you look at the progress she’s made in recent years you can’t deem it a failure…more that the field was just THAT good.

All the pre-race bettors were pegging Shalane, Desi, and Kara as the top three favorites but the marathon is a long race and there are no sure things. In the end, I’m partial yes, but I’m overjoyed that Kara Goucher will be making another trip to the Olympics.

For the men, the word beast has been flying around regarding Meb Keflezighi’s race. At 36 years old plenty of people were saying he was too old, past his prime, and out of the game. Ryan Hall appeared to be the one to beat, in fact there was some article was quoted as saying, “Hall could walk the last .2 miles and still win.” Ummm…I don’t think that was accurate regardless, but everyone likes to cause a stir.

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A late race surge by Meb proved you should never count out a champ and while it may have been a while since Meb’s distance running dominance days, he’s proven he’s back and those days aren’t behind him…he’s now got a marathon PR no less. Ryan Hall hung on for second, and Abdi rounds out the team…but what is almost hard to look at is the post-race finishing picture of fourth place, Dathan Ritzenhein. He missed third by a mere 12 seconds.

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I have to admit I was really pulling for him to make the top three…the poor guy has had one heck of a year between injuries and infections. He’s one of the most mentally tough runners I’ve ever seen and I really hoped his day would come. Though, as Meb proved, he’s got years ahead of him and while the sting is incredibly raw now, surely it will act as motivation in the future.

As in any huge race, there are those that rise to the top and really step up their game…whether or not it’s a top three birth to the Olympics or not. Just in getting to the starting line these runners have much to be proud of. I don’t know about you but they’ve all supplied plenty of inspiration and motivation to make every day count!

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1) Any thoughts on the Trials? How did your pre-race picks or anyone you know end up doing?
I did call the women’s race right. 😛

2) Did you look for online updates or are you waiting for the race videos set to go on in a bit?

3) Most inspirational piece you can take away from these races?
I’m torn between Meb and Kara. Meb, so many people said he had no shot in heck…but he never gave up and pushed it baby…he’s a beast! Kara, she’s been through so much this past year, but I knew going in that she’s got the heart of a champ and runs with no regrets…if it was in her legs today I knew her heart would pull her through.

A Runner Needs to Be Confident…

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Cait — 18 Comments ↓

Ryan Hall, less than a week away from the US Marathon Trials, recently wrote, “I constantly remind myself that resting takes confidence. Anyone can train like a mad man but to embrace rest and to allow all the hard training to come out takes mental strength.” And it’s true.

When I was racing I loved it, don’t get me wrong. The excitement building up, the little buzz that rushes through you RIGHT before the gun goes off, but I HATED tapering. The extra energy left me bouncing off the walls (at least inside my mind) and I’d get antsy. I’d want to run more than the workouts prescribed, I didn’t, but I suuuure as heck wanted to.

Self restraint as a runner seems like an element that comes with age and experience. It’s important but I think it has to be learned on your own, sort of like you have to just let the new runners in our sport discover this lesson the hard way. You can tell a person something all you want but it doesn’t really hit home until they see what happens when you DON’T listen. Trial by fire I guess.

Some people it takes a few fires before they get it. Another major factor in learning self-restraint is exactly what Hall stated, and that’s confidence.

* It takes MORE confidence in your ability to back off when you need to.
* It takes more confidence that you’ve put in all the necessary work and then taper before races than it does to doubt that you’re not quite ready and try to pound out one more workout before the race.
* It takes more confidence to rest or stop a run/workout short if you’re on the verge of an injury.
* It takes more confidence to be patient.

And here we’ve worked our way to patience. Patience in both racing and workouts.

Now, I’m a big fan of Prefontaine and running gutsy, I like an honest race pace as much as the next person, but there is a difference between going out hard from the gun because you can and just blitzing out like a bat out of hell and running a kamikaze mission of sorts. The blow-up comes a mile or two later and the monkey jumps on your back.

Going out too fast for you ability is lacking patience and to a degree confidence. Sure, it’s easy to let nerves and excitement carry you away and go out too fast, but after that there’s a lack of confidence. You are afraid that if you don’t try and go out hard, try to gap the field NOW, you’re never going to win. Or you’re never going to be able to keep up or run the time you want…you’re trying to build a cushion in case you slow down later.

That doesn’t work. Have the confidence to be patient, go out smart and pick it up as the race progresses.

Patience comes into play for workouts too, you shouldn’t be racing your workouts. If you go to the well every time out you’re going to be too zapped to race well. In an interview I did with Ryan’s wife Sara Hall, also a professional runner, she admits to struggling with this in the past, “I’m also going to make a conscious effort to run my hard workouts at the appropriate energy level. I’m notorious for ‘racing my workouts’ because I really enjoy running really hard, and I’ve been in the camp
for a while that ‘faster is better’ and ‘a lot faster is even better’.” Coming off her Gold at the Pan Am Games in the Steeplechase and going forward she’s working on that, “But I’m going to try to communicate with Dena [Evans] what pace exactly I need to run and try to run that instead of running all out, whatever time that is. It takes confidence and self-control, but I know it will pay off in the long run.”

Be confident in yourself.

Patience takes confidence. And a runner needs confidence.

1) How have you learned to be confident as a runner?

2) Do you like or hate tapering for a race?

3) How do you exercise patience and confidence in both races and workouts?

All About the US Olympic Marathon Trials – So Many Incredible Athletes to Root For

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Cait — 23 Comments ↓

We are fast approaching the US Olympic Marathon Trials…the gun will be going off in Houston on January 14th. If you’re a running fan it’s hard not to get swept up in all the pre-race buzz. Lots of sites have amazing coverage; Running Times, Runner’s World, Flotrack has a great video series featuring the Hanson’s Group, and Hungry Runner Girl has some great stories as well.

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It’s been a big year for the marathon in general, without going too far into the debate of what should or shouldn’t be counted as a record this year’s Boston Marathon was, in a word: Epic. For the women Desiree Davila was THIS close to becoming the very first American woman to take the race since 1985; regardless she set the American Course Record with 2:22:38. She further established herself as one of THE women to beat in Houston as well as the tough as grit, rise to the top stories we all love to read about.

On the men’s side, sure they weren’t Americans but Geoffry Mutai and Moses Mosop ran mindblowingly fast times: 2:03:02 and 2:03:06 and if Boston’s course were certified to be deemed World Records they would have been.

What’s more is the marathon in general has spread like wildfire amongst the general public (seems like everyone wants to run one these days!) but the elites who previously were 5k or 10k track runners have decided to take the plunge. Honestly it’d be easier to name the Nation’s top harriers who have yet to run one; between Shalane Flanagan, Kara Goucher, Lauren Fleshman, Desi Davila, Dathan Ritzenhein, Ryan Hall, and Meb Keflezighi I think we’re nearly covered. I’ll apologize for the myriad of top harriers not mentioned I know there are too many to rattle off!

Still, the amount of emerging talent in the marathon is what’s been almost more inspiring. We have athletes like Molly Pritz who establish themselves on the radar in break-out races; she was our top American at the 2011 NYC Marathon in 2:31:52…this was her first marathon! Amy Hastings’ years of hard work and perseverance have all come together at the right time, and we can’t discount the women for who this is hardly their first experience at the Trials: Deena Kastor (hello Olympic Bronze for the Marathon!), Blake Russell, Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Tera Moody who was the feel good story of the last US Trials. Again, I know I’m missing people.

For the men, personally how can you not root for Dathan Ritzenhein after all he’s been through and overcome? Injuries are part of our sport but they take an insurmountable amount of motivation and belief to get through them…especially when it feels like one thing right after the other. Tim Nelson and Brent Vaughn from the Oregon Track Club, the aforementioned Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi are never ones to count out.

The Hanson’s Team have established themselves as the guys we all want to see do well because for so many years they were flying under the radar…again, check out FloTrack’s coverage. But, for each runner’s story we HAVE seen there are so many more we haven’t.

There’s Michael Wardian I wrote about and I just saw that twins Drew and Kyle Shackleton are going into the race running for the Michael J. Fox Foundation to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease Research. They’ve already amassed $20,000 and have a goal of raising $10,000 more by the 14th! Seriously please go check out the link and make a donation!

I’ve read about a woman entrant who moonlights as an exotic dancer…I’m not kidding. Remember that lots of these runners have ‘regular’ duel lives with jobs and families all while putting in all of those miles.

Again, how can you not get swept up in this? There’s still a bit over a week to go and daily more stories emerge…come gun time, who will you be rooting for?

1) Name your picks for the top three who will make it to the Olympics?

2) What’s the best story you’ve read or seen so far about a runner going in?

3) Does all this make you want to go run a marathon…or not? Hehe.

4) What’s your weekend plans?

My Podiatrist is Pinched for Training Time: Staying Race Ready With Less Time

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Cait — 18 Comments ↓

“So, I was talking to my podiatrist this afternoon.” No, this isn’t the intro to some corny joke, we’re at a runner’s blog so naturally this sentence should roll off the tongue and everyone should nod knowingly because they were doing the exact same thing a few days ago.

Back to what I was saying, I was seeing my podiatrist and we got to chatting afterwards. He’s not so much a runner because of ankle issues but is really into cycling. This year he’s going to take part in an especially grueling bike race, it’s 140 miles and a killer climb…he mentioned the exact incline but I’m fuzzy on the number, sorry.

Now the man is a doctor and has two young children too, so he was a little nervous over whether he’d have enough time to actually put in the amount of training necessary. Typically you need to ride the bike longer than you do running (it’s about a 3:1 ratio of bike miles to running miles) and that could mean hours and hours dedicated to a long ride. Runners can relate to the multi-hour long runs too.

I told him not to worry too much and he also mentioned that he’d read that one of the top cyclists is bucking the traditional training method focused on volume and more on shorter, intense rides. I piped in and told him, “Look, if you’ve only got an hour to train, do intervals, jack your heart rate up there. You can do it, you’ve just got to make those shorter rides count.”

The good news is that he’s already built himself a strong base, he’s got years of cardiovascular fitness to draw upon so from here it’s more a matter of maintaining that. Maintaining your fitness is far easier than building, and this holds true to running.

You’d be surprised at how well you can keep that endurance so long as you are still consistent and get in your regular, weekly long run. From there, if you’re limited on time then pick two days and pound the intervals. The other days of the week still put in the steady cardio but it doesn’t necessarily have to be an epic amount; realistically most of those days are going to just be recovering from the last hard workout anyways. You could even split the workout time up into two shorter sessions; a ride/run in the morning and then at night.

Hmm, I wish there was some kind of sale going on at his office today...nope.

The key thing is keeping your heart rate elevated in the correct level. Even on those recovery days you’re going to still be working, and not totally plodding along. Then when it comes to the hard days, do a short warm-up and remember to cool-down but for those intervals really get after it. Aim to feel like you’re working on a level 8 or 9 (scale of 1 to 10, 10 being all out)…we know what it feels like to work hard.

Play around with the length of hard intervals and the recovery time…do a day more endurance based with longer intervals (sets of 800’s, milers…or do 3 minutes or 10 minutes going hard) and the second day focus more on speed with shorter, faster bouts. This could be 200’s, 400’s, or alternating 1 minute hard and 1 minute easy.

So long as you are CONSISTENT, keep at least one longer run, and get that spike in heart rate you’ve got the staples. Sure, if you’ve got extra time to devote to doing more miles or biking, then by all means go for it…though you want to be smart there and not over-train yourself. In the end training is really personal to the individual and it’s more a matter of finding what works best for you and makes you feel ready come race day.

1) How do you go about coming up with your training? Do you have a coach or do you make your own program?

2) What are some of your staple workouts? Do you prefer the longer intervals or shorter?

3) Are you on a first name basis with your podiatrist? Not that you necessarily want to be, I mean we tend to seek them out with something is wrong!

4) Speaking of corny jokes, do you have one to share this fine Tuesday??

Limiting the Variables for a Winning Race – Same Foods, Same Routine, Set Your Plan

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Cait — 14 Comments ↓

I have a particularly sensitive stomach. I can’t handle too much in there digesting away if I’m going to go out and run. My favorite time to run is first thing in the morning for just this reason. Yes, I know you shouldn’t run on an empty stomach and if I were actually training for something I’d be smart and wake up earlier to have something light for energy. I used to go the oatmeal route and that worked well for me before workouts.

But now that I’m not competing I just eat a big snack before I go to bed and that tides me over. I also like being able to just roll out of bed and into the shoes. I loved morning races not only because they made figuring out what and when to eat all the easier but also they were done first thing and I didn’t have to sit around all day with me, myself, and nerves.

Still, not everyone works out in the morning and races aren’t always going off in the morning hours either. With track season coming up, 99% of the time you’ll have an afternoon or later gun time. Track throws another monkey into the mix because you could be doubling, tripling, quadrupling…hopefully you aren’t doing any more than that, but you get the picture. In order to perform to your best you need to fuel your body with the energy it needs, but at the same time you want it to sit well in your stomach. You want to eat for performance.

You can read the article I did printed in January’s Running Times, ‘Timing Your Fuel’, for some pointers on the best way to go about creating a meal plan that works in accordance with your race time. Spoiler alert: you probably won’t want to wolf down those four chili-cheese dogs.

The thing with race day is you always want to limit the variables: don’t wear a new pair of shoes, eat things you KNOW will sit well, eat at the same times, warm-up at the same times, do the same warm-up routine and drills. Practice and workouts are the times when you test new things out and play around until you find what works for you.

Eating the right foods, as with training and warming-up, is unique to each person so go in with a plan in these areas just as you do a race plan.

1) What’s your favorite time to run and race?

2) What are you pre-race picks? Do you have anything in particular you HAVE to have right before?
I know it’s not nutritionally the best pick, but during high school I’d have to have two strawberry frosted Pop-Tarts…even packed them with me when I traveled to Italy. 😛

3) Do you have a finicky stomach or are you one of those lucky individuals who could wolf down the chili-cheese hot dogs and not taste them a second time through?

Reach For Those Times – Setting Goals and Benchmarks Along the Way

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Cait — 8 Comments ↓

There’s been a lot of talk about goals as of late. As you remember I’m the anti-New Year’s Resolutionist (I’ll make that a term) here but I’m all for goals. If you want to get faster and set a new PR then you have to first VIE for that time, right?

True you could just ambiguously go out there and hope you wind up faster, but it’s a proven fact that setting a black and white, specific target to shoot for will work best. When your motivation may be lagging you have that goal kicking you in the tush. When the middle of the race is hurting so bad you’re contemplating just running straight in front of the shot-put, you think about the time you want and you keep on taking those left turns.

Going a step further, putting it out there, telling people your goal is another way to up the ante. But if you’re not confident enough to do that, or shy, at least say it to yourself, maybe write it down somewhere where YOU can see it.

The other thing is that the time may sound crazy, insane even to you. That’s okay, shoot high (within reason of course, if you’re a girl and say you want to break 4 minutes in the mile, be aware you’d be the first actual female to do that…) and you’d be surprised. Often it is our own mind that puts the glass ceiling on us and gets in our own way. To a certain degree you have to adopt a pseudo-egomaniacal self (you can only bring that side out in your own mind, you don’t have to actually be a Kanye) and tell yourself, “I’m gonna bust X-time” or “I’m gonna freaking own that race, I’m going to win.”

* Own it like a rapper. You don’t have to start pushing your own drink but build up the self confidence. You have to tell yourself you can do something; and the honest truth is at the beginning you may not even believe it. But you fake it ’til you make it. This is where a coach really comes in handy because they can usually predict your abilities really well, set the bar high enough for you to reach but not so high it’s unrealistic. I’ve been lucky to have a couple really great coaches and I had enough faith in them that if they said I could do such-and-such I just made myself believe that I could. I wouldn’t have had the guts to think I could run that myself, but knowing that THEY knew I could do it gave me the confidence to then accept I must be able to…then you just get out there and get the work done.

* Mini-goals. The end all goal, what you want to achieve by the end of the season probably (and at times it should) seem like it’s too high. That’s what makes you reach, but you also have to remember that you have TIME, the whole season to get there…you’re not doing it today. So set mini-goals, or benchmarks along the way. The mini-goals seem more attainable and they keep you going on the right path. By the time you get to the end of the season it doesn’t look like a quantum leap to your end goal. Also, having benchmarks allows you to adjust and see if things are on track, and if they aren’t you can take measures to get back on the path.

* Patience. This is a huge one, and it’s hard at times in our sport especially when you get excited. But there is such a thing as being too eager too soon, especially in the early season. Don’t do too much, don’t race your workouts, remember you still need easy days, and all the other intangibles. (sleep, nutrition, stretching, etc.) It takes more confidence to be patient actually…trust in your ability and your training program enough to stick to it and ultimately it will pay off in the big, end of season meets.

* Consistency. This one may sound like I’m going back on what I just said, but it’s not. Yes you need to be patient but at the same time it still takes a huge amount of dedication and personal accountability to put the work in. It’s a grind, but that’s our sport.

* Get your head on. Another thing about running and racing is that it is so mental, ask any racer and they’ll tell you that it aint pretty or a walk in the park…it hurts like a beast. Work on the different mental tricks; really becoming a tenacious racer is an ongoing process. Just when you think you’re ‘tough’ you have one of those races or workouts where you think, “Wow, okay, I just broke through to another level.” There will be times when you may admit you had a weak moment, that’s okay, learn from it and remember the feeling of disappointment so that the next time you’re tempted to give up or give in you don’t.

You might have just ended one season, be gearing towards the next and it’s a good time to set the goals you want to achieve. Even if you’re not racing for a team it’s good to have things you want to achieve, push yourself in one kind of way…whether it’s to run a faster 5k or 10k or push yourself to run your longest race yet. Think about it, write it, you can broadcast it, and you can even strut like Kanye about it so long as you remember to keep the ego in check. 😉

1) If you’ve got a season starting, race on the schedule, or a time you’d like to hit, would you like to share? C’mon, don’t be shy.

2) How do you set the bar for your running goals, do you have a coach, do you do it yourself, do you want to try to beat a friend’s time? If you have a coach how do you make yourself believe you are capable of it even if you think it may sound crazy fast?
I was pretty confident in anything my coach said. If they said it then I just told myself I’d get there…and honestly they were for the vast majority right in the end.

3) I want to remind you all this is still anti-New Year’s Resolutionist…mmmk!

If You Had a Nickname What Would it Be and Those Tricky 4 Minute Mile Conversions

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Cait — 6 Comments ↓

I’ve had a few nicknames throughout my life. I remember Pie and Spazz, but nothing that really stuck. I came across a guy who’s been dubbed the ‘Bullet with a Mullet‘. Now, I am hard-pressed to think that a mullet could be cool but I guess if you’ve got it rock it.

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I’ve also kind of been of the school of thought that people who wear or do odd things fall into one of two categories. 1) The guy running around in Harry Potter gear as a cry for attention and is getting lapped by the field. 2) The dude donning a mullet but wins the race. If you’re case 1 you’re just trying too hard to be different just for the sake of being different and begging for attention. If you’re in case 2 and you’re winning and setting the track on fire then I guess you could do whatever you want. I once watched the winner of the Western States 100 Miler log-roll across the finish line. Though, maybe he just passed out at that point and happened to make it over the line. 😉

Back to nicknames, I’m not sure if the Irish born Ciarán O’Lionaird does indeed still let his mulleted locks fly back into the face of his competitors (maybe it’s a tactical thing, he’s trying to blind them as he makes a move) or if he’s cut it now, but I’m sure it gets him some cheers. He just recently broke 4 minutes for the mile and while he might have had a 1500 meter time that converted to that time, he makes a very good point: converted just doesn’t feel the same.

Ah, us Americans and being the only country to buck the metric system. We have our miles, our two miles, the rest of the world can deal with the 1500 meters and the kilometer business. 😉 But then we complicate things further when we then throw in the 1600 and 3200 meter races…wait, those aren’t the same as a mile or two mile? Nope, there’s those pesky 9 and 18 meters respectively to account for between the two…wait or is it yards…or something like that. Can’t we all just agree on the same race distances?

Converting from this to that sure makes keeping those lists tricky too, with an asterisk marking the times that were actually 3k’s on the 3200 list, or was that the two mile record sheet? The 1500’s from the miles and the 1600’s…can’t we all just get along and get on the same page…err, track?

My wild little tangent aside, I like the quote from our Mulleted Bullet, “When you have run 3:40, you are just waiting for the magical one to come along because that’s the only one people really care about; nobody really understands that conversion. When you know you are in that kind of shape you just want to go out and get under the 4 minutes.”

I think no matter where you’re from or your system of measurements, even the non-runners are generally able to appreciate that breaking 4 minutes for a mile is a big deal for the guys. Which then brings me to another big question (one to delve into further on another post), men chase breaking 4 minutes for the mile, cracking 13 minutes for a 5k (I’d rank this a level above the mile marker), or dipping under 27 minutes for the 10k…what are similar benchmarks for the women? Would one equivalent be breaking 4 minutes in the 1500 meters for a woman parallel the sub-4 men’s mile? Wait…should we double check that conversion??? 😉

1) What do you think about the converting of times? Do you think we should all conform to one agreed race distance across the board?

2) In talking about PR’s, do you accept converted times or do you think it only ‘counts’ if it’s the EXACT distance?
For me I’d probably just count the actual distance sans asterisk, but I’d say that if someone ran a 1600 and wanted to convert to a mile go for it. Same for the 3200 converted to a 2-mile I think…let’s just go crazy and assume they could keep the same pace for that extra 18 meters. Haha.

3) What are your own personal benchmarks…what are some specific times or barriers you’d like to bust in a race?

Clash of the Genders – Males Racing Relatively Faster Than Women?

Posted on December 18, 2011 by Cait — 12 Comments ↓

Male runners working harder than their female counterparts? Reading this article in the Evolutionary Psychology Journal makes it sound like these professors have come to just this very conclusion.

Before all us runnerchicks get our bunhuggers in a bunch, let’s take a gander at their case evidence and logic. The prose is that the ‘average male’ is running relatively faster times than the ‘average female’ runners; that is to say that if you take the current World Record and leading times and then times that average runners race at, the the men are proportionally closer to these elite times than the women.

This is true despite the fact that the rate of increase in number of females who are now taking part in our sport is vastly more than the men. For example the increase in male participation from 1989 to 2009 in road races was 60% where for the women it was 498%. (for NCAA Track and Field it was 32% for the men and 98% for the women) Though there are other factors that quantify such a leap, namely females being ALLOWED to participate…that and for college, the inclusion of Title IX certainly has upped the numbers.

So going into the study, these professors hypothesized, “In any given race, about three to four times as many men as women ran relatively fast. The stable sex difference in relative performance shown here for non-elites constitutes new support for the hypothesis of an evolved male predisposition for enduring competitiveness.”

Through the study they built their argument into three points:

* Males tend to be more competitive than women and thus push themselves harder. (I have raced against, run alongside, and befriended women who I know have more mental grit than many men. Females may not generally be as outwardly apparent in being ‘out for blood’ but after the gun goes off, there are no favors for friends…everyone wants the win.) The professors do point out that the numbers are higher for females going to races more as pleasure runners, being interested in just finishing and having fun regardless of the time, than for men.

* The number of males who are putting in a larger volume and higher intensity training program is more than for females. (It does take faster paced workouts to lead to faster race times, no doubt, so here it becomes a difference of goals between the sexes perhaps. Are more of the males interested in chasing a PR and then including the uptempo work versus wanting to run sheerly for the pleasure of running?)

* Males report keeping up that higher training level longer than women. (This could be affected by some factors: certain injuries, life ie: time off for babies, and anemia are all things women tend to suffer from more often than men. It takes consistent training to lead to improvement so these interruptions are doing females no favors.)

End of study findings: “These findings strongly suggest that the sex difference in performance depth can be largely attributed to more men being motivated to engage in the training necessary to run relatively fast.”

I’m going to remain an unbiased party here and say that these are generalizations and there are exceptions on both ends. Numbers do show that the gap between the average runnerchick’s times and those of the elites is larger than for men. I think a part of that DOES come down to women having the self-security to believe they are possible of achieving things.

By nature girls grow up with no shortage of ‘mean girls’ chipping away at the old self-esteem. It take believing in your goals to see them actualized. Self-esteem is one of the biggest benefits of sports for females because here there is an arena where we CAN prove we are tough as nails and achieve feats we can be proud of.

Men and boys may have a leg-up on us in some respects with the self-esteem issue however I don’t feel that needs to be an accepted excuse. Instead, I know there are oh so many runnerchicks who are out there busting their @$$ and I hope in time the black and white numbers will reflect this.

1) What are your thoughts on this study?

2) What do you think may be factors in the discrepancy between the genders?

3) Male or female, when you go to a race what are your main intentions? Do you go for a PR and fast time or do you go the more pleasure runner route and don’t worry about the time?

Beauty in the Flaws and Success in the Failures

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Cait — 10 Comments ↓

My aunt’s an artist and she has a saying, “Accidental art.” It’s not so much a saying as a phrase for life; if you make a mistake take a look at it again and you just might see that this ‘accident’ made it better.

There was a Native American tribe that used to purposefully hide a flaw in every piece of art, pottery, and weavings they did because they knew that humans weren’t perfect and nothing ever is…nor should it be.

Certainly not perfect...

Though, as a bit of a perfectionist, I don’t always remember this. I get so furious when a detail isn’t EXACTLY how I envisioned it in my mind and could waste hours trying to get it just right. Sometimes I need to just let go and reiterate, “Accidental art.”

Still not perfect.

The same goes for training and racing; you can’t always predict how things will go. No matter how much you may plan, envision, strategize, calculate and dream you can’t completely control the outcome. That can be frustrating but it’s a part of our sport and it can be suprisitingly euphoric too.

An athlete at the top of their game could come into a race and just feel horrible, for them it would be additedly depressing; though for the upset underdog who had the race of his life it could be a pincale of their career.

How can we take these supposed failures and make this ‘accidental art’? LEARN FROM THEM.

A bad race could be the ‘best’ thing that ever happened to you if you take away something from it and never repeat a mistake again. You go out too fast in the first race of the season and die a horrible death; championships roll around and you run negative splits and run your best race.

You come to the track and the workout is not going at all how it was planned. You could chuck the watch and get through it knowing that the effort is there, you might adjust the workout (if it was long intervals but you’re flat try doing some speedy 200’s) and aim to get a different kind of benefit. Finally you could just get through it and know it’s more a test of your mental grit. Later try to find out if there could be a reason you felt so crummy (check your recovery, easy runs, nutrition, sleeping, etc.) and see if you could correct that.

Thankfully there is always another workout around the corner and if you ‘messed up’ one you get another chance to redo it. The beauty of workouts are they are just practice for races; if you’re going to make a mistake make it there and learn from it.

However, in the end sometimes you just plain feel like junk and that’s just the legs you were dealt with for the day. It’s that margin of unknown in our sport. While we feel safe and in control with the black and white numbers and times that come with running, we have to acknowledge that our bodies will forever throw at us the element of surprise.

You can choose to wallow in the failures or instead look at it again and make some ‘accidental art.’

1) Are you a perfectionist? In some things or all? How do you try to ‘let go’ of details that aren’t so important?
I’m a perfectionist in things I decide I really care about…sadly for my chemistry classes the same can’t be said there. 😛

2) How do you handle bad workouts or races?

3) Last thing you can admit to failing epically at?
I promised myself I’d organize my mountain of ‘stuff’…I’m not winning there. I can’t say I love all my failures…but sometimes we need to cut ourselves some slack and keep moving on. 😛