Soccer talk

Disclaimer: If you did not watch the Women's World Cup you thoroughly missed out and this post may not make much sense to you... then again it may not make sense if you did watch the games so I guess read on if you so desire.

In the wake of yesterdays heartbreaker, I want to talk about something at the very core of sporting experience; winning and losing.

Anyone seen the movie Miracle? (if not, again you're thoroughly missing out)


Great moments... are born from great opportunity. And that's what you have here, tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here tonight. One game. If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, WE are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players. Every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time is done. It's over. I'm sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw 'em. This is your time. Now go out there and take it.



I totally love this aspect of sport, this idea that as an underdog you can rise up and meet a challenge. However, yesterday Japan did not "go out there an take it." In fact, subjectively, they really didn't earn the win. In a way the US women, and karma or whatever outside powers you believe influence sport outcomes gave it to them. That's not to say the US didn't want it. I got the sense that the USA team wanted it more (I'm probably bias) eventually leading to their psychological demise. Bad luck messes with confidence, as apposed to injustice (like in the Brazil game) which makes you fight. Having nothing to lose is one of the best ways to bring out a “winning spirit,” but having everything thing to lose is terrifying. What is so crazy about soccer is you don't have to be the more talented team, or the more cohesive team, or the more supported team, or the team with the bigger heart. The ball simply has to somehow get in the opponents net more times than it gets in your own. Obviously, it doesn't hurt to have the advantage of skill and possession, urgency and desire, but in the end there are thousands of confounding circumstances that lead to an outcome. That's the game, that's life.

At first thought, individual sports like running give you a sense that you are in control of outcomes. Your fitness can be directly reflected in race outcomes. But, the longer we are around the sport we realize races and training going as planned is the exception not the rule. We have breakthroughs when we least expect them and heartbreaks when we can least afford them. Our sport is arguably just as frustratingly unpredictable as any other. But that's why we get up in the morning, that's why we compete.  If the favorites always won, the polls were always right on, and races went solely to those with the talent and superior training why would we ever step up to line? Predictability is something coaches and athletes strive to understand but at the end of the day, what we like to refer to as "luck" is what keeps us coming back. Even though the chances that things come together at the right time and the right place are much more rare then the chances something falls apart, we can't help but believe that it can and will happen for us, if not today than next time.

Chasing my one in ten, my "tonight"
Laura

Gone Country

"Yeah, that came out a little country
But every word was right on the money"

Blake Sheldon, Honey Bee

 

Country music.  It's like an olive, you either love and embrace it or are repulsed by it.  While I understand the repulsion (trust me, the song Courtesy of the Red White and Blue makes me sick to my stomach),  there is an honesy and truth to many of the songs that intrigues me.  A friend once told me her favorite music was country music because it was so much like real life.  I admit my life isn't all beer, mud, and tractors.  Still, I tend to agree with her setiment, country music for me at least seems so genuine.  You don't have to call alabama home to be "singing sweet home alabama all summer long."  So tis the season.  The sun is shining, the water is glistening, and I'm kicking up dust on the trails with my ipod blaring the country.

Some of my favorite country song lines:

She has future plans and dreams at night
When they tell her life is hard she says that's alright

-Faith Hill, She's a Wild One

We call them fools
Who have to dance within the flame
Who chance the sorrow and the shame
That always come with getting burned
-Garth Brooks, Standing Outside the Fire

I wanna walk and not run, I wanna skip and not fall

I wanna look at the horizon and not see a building standing tall
I wanna be the only one for miles and miles
Except for maybe you and your simple smile

-Dixie Chicks, Cowboy Take Me Away

We're getting stronger now, found things they never found
They might be bigger but we're faster and never scared

You can walk away and say we don't need this
But there's something in your eyes says we can beat this
-Taylor Swift, Change

So how do you wait for heaven
And who has that much time
And how do you keep your feet on the ground
When you know that you were born
You were born to fly

-Sara Evans- Born to Fly

There's a time to listen, a time to talk
And you might have to crawl even after you walk
Had sure things blow up in my face
Seen the longshot, win the race
Been knocked down by the slamming door
Picked myself up and came back for more
-John Michael Montgomery, Life's a Dance

And my latest fav:

 

Never gonna grow up, Never gonna slow down
We were shinin' like lighters in the dark
In the middle of a rock show
We were doin' it right, we were comin' alive
Yeah, caught up in a Southern summer, barefoot, blue jean night
-Jake Owen, Barefoot Blue Jean Night

Till next time, y'all keep on chasing summer 

'Tri'ing it, not buying it

This may be news to some of you but I made my debut in the triathlon late last summer.  Since my mileage was extremely limited due to injury I spent some time in the lake teaching myself (not all that successfully) to swim, and on the sidewalks with a commuter bike.  Naturally, my dad was appalled by this type of triathlon training (when in my mind it really wasn't meant to be triathlon training but a mental health prescription until I was literally back on my feet) and so he arranged for me to borrow a wetsuit and bike and signed me up for a low key triathlon in August.  I finished the half mile swim and the bike and run of course without looking too much like a newbie (minus a little blood trying to unclip my pedals and the cup of Gatorade I dumped on my head) again mostly because my dad was on top of things.  So, since then, I've been using the excuse of not have a good bike to train on or access to a pool in the winter (which isn't exactly true) to justify my running focus.  That is, up until yesterday.

Yesterday I ran out of excuses.  The lake is warm and I (more accurately my spoiling parents) invested in a more than sufficient bike.  I surely have the quads for the bike, and the heart for the run, and I can always pick races where the swim doesn't matter (because let's face it I was not born a fish).  So what's the hold up?

I like to think of myself as an open-minded, versatile athlete, but deep down I'm a runner.  I love other sports, soccer and nordic are definitely a part of me and there are days when I wish I had played basketball and volleyball, and ultimate ( I don't know why but softball never appealed to me), but I've learned that time and energy are limiting and priorities must be made to get the things you want the most.  The triathlon scares me because it reminds me of those sacrifices and it makes me question what is most important.  The thing about running that makes it unique from an other sport is that anyone can do it anywhere at anytime.  If you're creative enough you can find a way to get a run in, free of cost, all you need is your willing self.  There are no special outfits, no special equipment, or special facilities, even the special shoes are optional.  As soon as you start introducing all these special additions, for me at least, it begins to lose that element of pure competition; one man's talent and effort directly against another's.  In nordic skiing, races are won and lost based on the affordability of wax and wax technicians.  In soccer you pay to play with and against the best players and to have the best coaching.  Balls are not all that expensive, but tell that to kids in Africa spending hours sewing together banana leaves to kick around.  Triathlons take this to the next level.  Have you seen the helmets they wear?  Anyone know what just the pedals of a racing bike cost?  I realize that some economic performance enhancement is possible in running but compared to any other sport it's a matter of God-given gifts, hard work, and motivation.

All that aside, I'm at the point in my athletic career when I need a new challenge.  I miss the technical aspect of learning to nordic ski and hurdle barriers.  Never say never, but it's fair to say without a sizable head start, I won't ever be the first one out of the water but that means there is a workable margin for improvement.  And, for the time being, those arrow-bars and pedal clips will surely continue to expose me as an amateur.  At the moment I'm kind of in a "let's see what happens" experimental stage of running anyway, so I figure now is as good of a time as ever...yeah, so I guess it's official.  I, Laura Roach, am a triathlete with a fancy new bike to seal the deal.

One last concern; for some reason it seems as if the connections between the triathlon world and running world are few and far between.  Anyone know the reason behind this?  Being in the running world all my life, I feel a bit out of place at a triathlon, as if there is a some major competition between single sport athletes and multi-sport athletes.  Maybe it's just me.  Hopefully, everyone (including myself) can look beyond my running bias, because I'm sick of being a traitor and having to commit my loyalties.

Bringing my chase to the water and the road,
Laura

Acclimating

As biology major we were always reminded that adaptations are based in heredity and occur over generations due to natural selection.  If we are going to be technical, humans haven't noticeably adapted in a very long time.  In kinesiology we use the word adapt all the time to describe the bodies ability to change itself to become more suitable for the environment in which it is performing.  What we really are referring to is acclimation.  This is something humans especially athletes are doing all the time; we are exposing ourselves to environmental stress in order to 'practice' surviving and ultimately thriving despite this novel stimulus.  The goal is for harsh conditions to become the new normal and the old normal to become the new easy.  If you have grown up in Minnesota you get this.  30 degrees on Halloween is worthy of snowsuits, but 30 degrees in middle of January is without a doubt t-shirt skiing weather.  Maybe it's just me but sometimes I forget the principle still applies early on in the summer.  I have been on a few runs the last couple weeks in which I have for no clear reason felt like I was 60 years old, 50 pounds overweight, and running for the first time in my life...okay maybe I exaggerate but the point is acclimation takes some time and it's not easy.  Running in heat and humidity places a different demand on water balance, circulation, respiration, perspiration, and all metabolic processes.  In addition, our central nervous system fatigues in response to increases in core body temperature to prevent us from working our bodies into a heat injury.  The temperature threshold at which we fatigue is much lower after training in cool weather compared to after acclimating to a warm climate.  We acclimate weather just as we acclimate to hill running, or high mileage, or taking icebaths, or doing pushups.  Acclimation is definition of all things training.  It's what makes us tough peripherally and centrally, physically and mentally.

I'm working on a class assignment on the Making of East African Distance runners.  What is it about their environment that molds these people into incredible talents?  Straight from Paul Tergat, "it's really hard work simple as that, there is nothing magic."   Here is a great video  on Kenyan training, also try searching chasingkimbia, and Iten running.  I may write more on the subject later, but my point is that athletes need to be stress innoculated, a term used in the book On Combat by Dave Grossman.  Our best races or training sessions often seem easy.  This is not because what we do it is easy, it's just because comfort and effort are relative, just as 30 degrees F means nothing out of context.

Here is the kicker, though, environments are not static and climates (usually) can't be controlled.  I haven't looked it up but something tells me that Iten trained runners haven't taken home too many titles in the Antarctic marathon.  Rapid change is the greatest stress of all.  As stated in the wise philosophy of Grey's Anatomy ; ) "Change. We don't like it. We fear it, but we can't stop it from coming. We either adapt to change or we get left behind. It hurts to grow, anybody who tells you it doesn't is lying, but here's the truth sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same. And sometimes, oh, sometimes change is good. Sometimes change is everything."

So with that, I'll be chasing flexibility,
Laura

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

Endurance

What is the personality trait that all consistently successful endurance runners have?  (I highlight the word consistently because as you may know anyone, even a lazy, undedicated, 7th grade girl can have a jaw dropping race or season or two before realizing the importance of hard work)  It may sound obvious, but I'm going to go with endurance. 
  
en·dur·ance, noun ;

The ability or strength to continue or last, especially despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions; stamina

Sure there are plenty of desirable traits for success in running, like courage, self-confidence, discipline, optimism, ambition, and unwavering faith, but weaknesses in any of these areas can be made up with the ability to endure.  All respectable runners no matter their flaws have a stick-to-itness that make them great. 

It is something you're born with, but also its something you develop and grow, and it's something that never ceases to be tested...Can you go that extra mile? Can you find one more gear? Can you get out of bed and out the door each and every day?  Endurance is the 3rd lap of a mile, miles 20-through 25 of a marathon, a 70 mile week during the dog days of summer, a snowy long run in April,  The tenth 200 heat during a cold and rainy Thursday night track meet ;)  Endurance doesn't always come easy but for some (the craziest among us) it often does.  Lap three is where they thrive.  Its were they finally have a shot to break those more physically talented.  I believe endurance is directly correlated to passion.  By passion I mean the intense relationship with the sport, sharing all the same qualities of true love like "when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.” Chris ~ age 7  and "what makes you smile when you’re tired.” Terri ~ age 4.

Part of endurance and love is the ability to forgive and forget.  There was an interesting article in Runner's World highlighting ultra-endurance runner Diane Van Deren whose brain surgery to remove part of her temporal lobe and hippocampus allowed her an extraordinary ability to forget previous pain and live/run in the moment.  Like running lap three without the doubts and insecurities of laps one and two.  Click here to read her story.

By no means do runners and endurance athletes have a monopoly on this invaluable trait.  In fact, it is the very characteristic we celebrate this holy week. While I confess the whole saving us from sin thing still confuses me, I completely understand the act of enduring sacrifice in The Passion of Christ.  For me Jesus's death and resurrection symbolize a love so deep that he could endure physical and mental abuse and betrayal and still carry his own cross and remain resolute.  Though Jesus was killed, he could not die. To this day he still remains in the hearts of Christians and non-Christians alike, still enduring, still inspiring passion and love.

Happy Easter!

Chasing always,

Laura

Down in the DOMS

This weeks physiology lesson: You are doing something wrong in your training if your glutes are more sore leading up to your first steeplechase of the season than the day after it.

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is a result of a muscular mechanical hyperalgesia (increased sensitivity to pain) that occurs a day or two following unaccustomed eccentric (contraction while lengthening) muscle contraction.  The cause of this hyperalgesia is not yet known but there is pretty good evidence that the vasodilator bradykinin that is produced during eccentric heavy exercise such as running signals an increase in receptors involved in the production of nerve growth factor (NGF).  NGF is elevated 12-48 hours following the exercise a comparable time course to DOMS.

This all would be super interesting if you could apply it toward training in a way in which you could exercise the muscles to be accustomed to the activity so as to not produce the strong physiological reaction on race day.  You would do this by setting up a schedule periodizing your training to introduce concentric activity in increasing increments with recovery time (12-48hrs) to allow NGF and other inflammatory markers to recede before introducing another intense workout or competition.

That's Training and Conditioning 101.  Of course I need it dumbed...DOMed (so sorry, I promise no more awful puns) down even more.   I know that I am most sore about 18 hours following a hard work or race.  This means, preferably, I should not do anything DOMS-worthy two days before risking my reputation as a decent steeplechaser.  No matter how horribly unprepared I am for going over barriers and waterjumps, I should not spend 2 hours perfecting my form on Thursday evening if I'm racing Saturday morning...excellent, now I know.

More than a physiology lesson though, I think I need to include a little more psychology in my running.  Sure it didn't help my chances that I went into this Saturday's race a bit sore, but that doesn't explain the frustration that surrounds my running these days.  I've always thought of myself as a consistent runner. Sure, I've had disappointing races but for the most part I always knew what I was capable of and how to get it done.  But that was when I had a coach and a team to run for.  These people more than gave me encouragement and friendship, they kept me honest and patient.  Before running on my own, I never realized the value of having someone tell me that "this is the last one" actually means that this is the last one unless I want to be super sore during my race.  Discovering these little roles my coaches have played in my running has given me insight on what it means to be invested in my athletes' training and how I have to be that much more careful when trying to coach myself.

Transitions are hard and as an athlete I'm not necessarily as patient as they come.  I have a lot of things to learn before I can compete on my own at the same level as I did with a team.  I am learning quickly though.  DOMS may get in the way of what I want to do today, but its a pretty good sign that I am making myself stronger for tomorrow.

So for now I'm chasing patience.