Bad hair lessons

From carrots (and buckets(?)) to bad hair...

A lesson I learned today.  An old friend, recently retired, contacted me saying she had to postpone a coffee meeting due to a very bad hair week.  No problem, I said, I understand.  Then she told me how she needed to spend $500 on her car, which just made her want to tear her hair out!  Don't do that, I suggested, otherwise it escalates...the bald patches will mean your bad hair week will suddenly become a bad hair month, or possibly two.  The lesson I learned: if you're having a bad hair week, don't pull it out.

Ruminations II

a short addendum...I've learned that any percentage of infinity is itself infinite.  Well, that makes sense if we're talking strictly about percentages of infinity per se.  But if we're talking about a physical object as a percentage of the distance of infinite space, then that object cannot be infinite, it must represent zero percent of the whole. At the very least it is undefinable.

"I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I had bad dreams..." Hamlet.

Swim, easy spin on exercise bike and some light weights this evening...a very finite workout.

Ruminations on the infinite carrot

I see that Mar has covered off the track workout this evening in her blog, which more or less mirrors my own thoughts, except that rather than think about the Pose method, I thought more about keeping my upper body relaxed and stable, and keeping my knees low while pushing the hips forward to extend my stride - I know I always go faster when I do that.  

But, the mind wanders...!

In my first posting I referred to the "infinite carrot", which I understand actually has its origins in the law of real property.  I won't go into why that is, but a few nights ago, while caught in that beautiful reverie between sleep and wakefulness, I considered a paradox about the nature of infinity I haven't yet come across before, at least to my recollection.  I am well aware of Zeno's paradox and other conundrums relating to the nature of infinity, but this one came to me:  in an infinite universe (a hypothetical one) no portion of that universe represents more than zero percent of the whole.  This makes no practical sense, and yet consider that even something a trillion trillion light years across is but a drop in the bucket in an infinite universe.  In fact it is less than a drop in the bucket - it is mathematically nothing - zilch.  There is no way to represent that distance meaningfully as a percentage of infinity.  Funny.  So here we have an example of a mathematical truth (as it seems to me) that does not reflect physical reality, and yet is provable according mathematical axioms (again, as it seems to me).  

But then before the reverie became too entwined, I recalled that Georg Cantor, one of the great progenitors of the mathematics of the infinite was said to have gone insane considering the subtleties of infinity, and so it faded; and so do I decide that that is enough ruminating for now...

Seattle revisited

I realize I omitted Deborah from my list of results.  I guess she spent so much time complaining about Alan's comments at the border crossing, I forgot she ran the race!  Kidding of course! I'm sure I just lost her vote for MLA.  But to compensate for my omissions, I do recall that she was hoping to make up for not being able to run Victoria due to sever asthma at the time.  She thought she was mentally more prepared for Victoria, and so was very disappointed at not being able to run then.  She did think she was likely at least as physically ready for Seattle, though, and I think she was satisfied with her result.

The Art of Proper Rest

I'm making up for some lost time, and am posting twice today.  Here are some thoughts about resting properly for training, which for me has in the past been largely mysterious.  Resting appropriately has always required more discipline than pounding out continual hard mileage, which has always been easy for me to do. But when done properly, my performances have definitely improved overall by incorporating a more principled approach to rest.

Some approximate quotes:

"I really see that a lot of guys don't know how to rest properly." Bruce
Deacon, Olympic marathoner.

"When I'm really feeling good, I back off my training, because I know I've
achieved what I need to at the time." Luca Segato, alternate to the Olympic
road cycling team in 1988.

"When peaking and racing a lot, one is careful not to train too much between
races.  That's how to extend you're peak."   Nathael Sagard, Olympic cyclist
1992.

"I've really noticed that what really kills guys' performances is too much
intensity for too long."  Rob Breathet, National duathlon champion 199?.

These are all things these people have said to me personally.  What have I learned from these comments? Simply put, I have learned -- and really only in the
last few years -- how important rest is generally and how to take periodic rests that are of
significant duration, like 3 to 4 days or more with zero - I mean zero -
training.

Many competitors, I've observed, get caught in the weekly routine of Monday
and Friday easy with consistent training on the other days for months on end
without a significant break.  They think they are resting because they are
taking two easy days a week, when in fact over months of that routine, those
rests become effectively like no rest at all.

What inevitably occurs is declining performances and discouragement.  And
I'm certainly a good example of someone who has in the past gone months and
months at a time without significant periods of rest.  But I have since learned how important
periodic rest of significant duration is.  As a basic rule of thumb, I go with three days off
every five to six weeks with a couple of days easy after that before re-building,
regardless of whether it's a peaking cycle or not. This doesn't mean to say
I'm personally any great example of athletic performance, but I have managed
a fair amount of consistency when applying that general rule. This prevents
injury and illness, and simply rejuvenates the body for
another period of training.

In addition to the 5-6 week rule, timing the rest for a proper peak is
critical.  A lot is said and written about tapering, but in my experience a
proper taper is far less critical than those four days you take off two to three weeks before the event you want to peak for.  After a high mileage training base has been built that includes a good combination of distance and interval work, and you then take 3-4 days off with some easy re-building for a couple of days days after, you are certain to be flying in the two to three weeks following. 

Unless you are in a deep well of overtraining that requires even more rest, you are practically guaranteed of flying after these two to three weeks. For example, after a fairly high mileage month in December last year, I took four days off completely in early January, and predicted I'd be stiff and tight for the first 8km race a week after my break, but that I'd be flying for Mill Bay at the end of January.  That's exactly what happened - two to three weeks afterward I really started feeling good and  made a  significant jump in running times over the previous year, running 32:56 at MillBay, my best time in 10 years. 

With well-timed rests I managed consistent performances all year right up until the Seattle Half marathon yesterday, my 5th Half of the year, all of which I ran between 1:13.28 and 1:14.06.  In 2005 I managed to peak for running in Jan/Feb, and for duathlons in July-August.  Admittedly my cycling didn't peak until July/August, after the duathlon Nationals in June, which tells me I must adjust my cycling training for 2006 for the du nationals in June.

Having said all this, I probably still don't rest enough at appropriate periods of the year. Nonetheless I have learned how crucial it is to good performances which, like I say, has really only become clear to me after years of pounding out mileage and resting appropriately largely only by accident.

Seattle Half

Several members of the Island Road Runners made the trek down to Seattle for the half marathon on Sunday, including Alan, Deborah, Marcel, Brent, Helena, and myself.  I left early Saturday with Alan and Deborah, Marcel and Bev, crossed to the mainland on the 7:00 ferry, crawled through the border, and arrived in Seattle about noon. Helena and Blair, and Brent and Brenda left separately at other times. 

For the sake of brevity I'll skip all the various shopping, dinner, crashing monorail, highway accidents and other stories, and fast forward to the race (!) But I will remark that the hotel room Mar booked for us on the 31st flr of the Westin provided a spectacular view of the harbour and the space needle on a generally beautifully sunny weekend.

Start time being 7:30 am,  Marcel and I did our warmup from the hotel room.  We were a little worried about the cool temperatures, but after our warmup, I realized I could wear shorts if I rubbed some oil into my legs, which I discovered worked quite well for the Shawnigan Lk half as well. 

After a rousing (?) rendition of the American anthem, the gun sounded and the pace went out leisurely.  After about 400m and hearing one or two guys explaining how they were on 1:17 pace, I thought I'd better get to the front and begin pushing the pace.  After hitting the front for another 500 m, I saw that I'd taken about 5 others with me and we were quickly separating from the pack.  One fellow, the eventual winner, began driving it faster than I wanted to go and I let he another couple go. At about 5km Nick Hastie, triathlete from Victoria, came up with about three others. With three guys up the road, I was wondering if I was destined for about 8th spot.  I was  hoping to go faster through 10km, given that it was mostly flat for that part, and was a little disappointed when I went through with a couple others in 34:30 approximately, although admittedly I was not pushing all that hard.

But despite the next 11km containing numerous very hard hills, I managed to maintain my pace and, after pulling clear of a couple others guys, Nick Hastie and I ran together until the finish.  It came to a sprint finish for fourth and Nick managed to get a stride or two ahead of me.  It was nice to run with him, as we shared frontrunning continuously and basically were stride-for-stride even for the last 11km, which was fun. 

So it went: winner in 1:11something, second 1:13, third 1:13. 10 (approx), Nick in 1:13.39, and me in 1:13.40.  Nice that it was so close between 2nd -5th, and I really enjoyed the course and the race, as it really felt like I was racing rather than just running.  Great fun! Generally I felt comfortable for whole race and never felt in trouble.  It went by quickly and really enjoyed it.  I've certainly done others that have hurt a lot more than that one, in spite of a very difficult course, which tells me I may not have pushed as hard as I ought to have. Nonetheless, it was just great fun to do it.  Marcel, Brent, Helena, and Alan were all in the low 1:30's, and I believe everyone was reasonably satisfied with their runs. It was a fun weekend all around.

First Post

November 23 - 05
This is Hugh's first post. Typically Hugh likes to look at things from a broad philosophical perspective before working down the infinite carrot to a look at their finer details.  So before beginning his actual training blog, he examines a few broader questions.  Firstly "what is my place in the universe?"; secondly "is God bigger than the universe?"...

Ha ha! No, he'll stick to athletics and training issues (at least for now!). The first question he wishes to examine is "What is an athlete?"

________________________

What is an Athlete?

Many years ago, when I was doing a fair amount of bicycle racing, a cyclist friend, Maurice Torano, a 51 minute 40km TT rider, once posed the question: we are somewhat serious cyclists, but are we really athletes? What does it mean to be an athlete? His position was that, as non-professionals, we weren't athletes, but he and I did not resolve the question.

If one does a www.wikipedia.com search, this is the definition: "An athlete is a person who has above average physical skills (strength, agility, and endurance) and is thus suitable for physical activities, in particular, contests. An ancient Greek word for "contest" was athlos, and those competing in the games were called athletes. In more specific settings, an athlete is one who participates in competitive events such as professional sports. In British English this is almost exclusively limited to athletics. The word can also, although less often, refer to a mental, instead of physical, competitor or possessor of skills."

By this definition one is not an athlete unless he or she has "above average" ability and engages her discipline competitively and, specifically, professionally. A definition is a definition, one might argue, and we must accept that when you define an apple, you do not talk about something that is cubicle and black, or we simply do not communicate the concept of an "apple". Still, some definitions require re-thinking when the concept communicated is nebulous or subject to debate. I suggest the definition of an "athlete" is not satisfactorily resolved by saying that it is about skill level or earning potential, or even necessarily about competition. This is because a) one's natural ability for a given event can be above average, but that person does not train to improve upon natural ability; b) a competitor may earn small amounts or none at all and still compete at very nearly the highest levels in his or her discipline; c) a person may not compete, but still do what "athletes" do.

So, the Wikipedia definition is too restrictive, in my mind. The answer, then, really revolves around lifestyle. In my view, an athlete is born the moment he or she commits to a lifestyle in which the dominant objective is specific improvements in physical performance, tested either in competitive conditions or by some objective measurement. If the physical performance improvement objective dominates one's other lifestyle choices and he or she is willing to test periodically the extent of those improvements, that person is an athlete. Improvements are brought about by consistent training and making lifestyle choices that further improvements or at least are not detrimental to them, like nutritional choices and the sacrificing of other activities that may harm the improvement objective. Testing improvements is done usually under race or competitive conditions. However, arguably "tests" may also be done by measuring objectively time or distance standards in a non-competitive environment. For example, Johnny might train for a year and ask Jenny to clock his 400 m time and see how much he's improved over last year, measured entirely in the absence of external competition; hence "c" above.

So, the key is really whether the person has made significant lifestyle choices that further the improvement objective. For many of us engaging in the discipline of our choice, the question is moot. We simply like to go and train and compete and we don't think too much about whether we are "athletes" or not. Even so, the question does come up: "are you an athlete?", and those of us who do not earn a living at our discipline might mumble a bit and say "mmm, no not really" or whatever humble response we can conjure. But! If you meet the criteria I suggest, then just go ahead and confidently answer that question: "yes, I am an athlete!"