Growth

Last week, we planted some vegetable plants in a seed starter for our small garden in our backyard.  Like a little kid learning about plants, photosynthesis, and growth I've been curiously observing their daily growth.  The tomatoes came almost instantly, then the basil, and now the peppers are just breaking the surface.  I'm not sure exactly what about it I find extraordinarily fascinating, but plants generally amaze me.  They take energy from the sun and convert it into growth for themselves and for all living things. What I find even more marveling is that growth is more than about how fast and how much a plant can produce. Depending on the environment different growth patterns are optimal.  The first seed to sprout is not always the one which grows to produce the healthiest fruit.  Similarly, the tallest stalk may not have the structural integrity to hold heavy leaves.  The plants that grow the biggest may or may not be more successful, again, depending on the context of what it means to be successful and the predictability of the environment in which it grows.  Natural selection is about trade-offs.  Late springs or short growing seasons will favor smaller more fruitful plants, however, given the time to develop a large surface area for converting energy from the sun, plants will have more resources, catch up with and even surpass the smaller plants, and produce more or more fit offspring for longer.  Depending on the context patience may or may not pay off.

 

Of course, for me, the connection between these plants and athletic arena is impossible to ignore.   In reality "citius, altius, fortius" doesn't always classify the best growth for plants or for athletes.  Early specialization has been described as nothing short of a death sentence for young talent, and personally I don’t disagree.  However, just like with the plants it depends on the environment and the context of the sport and the individual in question.  For example, for young women in certain sports their prime is before they hit puberty.  In my opinion these sports are detrimental to the emotional and physical health of these athletes in the long run, but if success is defined as Olympic teams and medals there is no denying that some athletes need, like the tomato plants, to break the surface first.  

In the context of young male athletes there is no better example of genetic variation than looking at high-school boys between sophomore and junior year.  We don’t add lean muscle mass until we are stopped growing, so boys still growing at this time are often written off as the losers of the genetic lottery and spend their days either desperately trying to put on weight in the weight room (unsuccessfully until their bones are done growing) or are turned off to sports prematurely.  Look at the same guys in college and they have now traded places with the studs from middle school and high-school.  As much as it would suck to be that second-string varsity in high school, I would definitely rather be him than try to be the basketball center whom at 6 ft as sophomore never grows another inch and by senior year is outgrown in height and muscle by any college recruit.

It is much the same in the context of running.  Guys and girls are really on the same physiological playing field until puberty hits.  I consider myself lucky to have hit puberty much earlier than most good high school runners.  During my lightest “boyish” years in 7^th and 8^th grade, I was too shy and innocent to really know my potential.  The hindrances of my maturation were disguised by my developing work-ethic and experience. Most other girls were not so lucky, the dreadful effects of womb making came slightly later after they experienced the effortless success that comes along with running against women with chests, hips, and, god-forbid, estrogen.  Estrogen is the enemy of acute prosperity, but the friend of chronic posterity.  Estrogen alone explains the abundance of dominant middle-schoolers in high-school cross country that dwindle into barely more than a dozen at the state championships as seniors.  Of course the opposite occurs on the boy’s side, as testosterone is nothing but advantageous to performance.

I want, however, to make clear my appreciation for estrogen.  True it is counter-productive to all of my performance outcome goals in running, but it is essential to helping me develop and grow as a runner and as a woman.  Besides preventing stress fractures and allowing me the option to one day make babies, it has grounded me and taught me humility, consistency, and longevity.  Maybe I have self-selected these values because my individual nature requires them to survive in my particular environment and had I been born with different gifts and in a different environment these values would not do me nearly as much good.   Maybe, like the plants we use what we have to get to where we need to be.  Maybe that is the definition of healthy growth, and maybe it is what fascinates me as I intently watch my seedlings grow.

Growing for the long chase,

Laura