The Importance of Easy Going:
Even More So When It Comes To Beating the Heat
Last weekend I took on that rite of summer, that beast of a race, the Vestal XX. For a long time I have described the race as hilly, hot, and humid. It's my annual write for alliteration.
This year's Vestal race was indeed warm, though not as hot as in other years (remember '97?). On this June 16 it was sunny and humid. The hills hadn't changed. I felt sluggish warming up, though one would hardly have known it as I arrived at the starting line in a cheerful mood. My love of running is exceeded only by my love of racing with a good crowd on a beautiful day. Exchanged greetings with Tom C., some thoughts and a handshake with Earl S. and Ron H., agreed to work together with Charlene L., and we were off.
Tom soon took off as if he had a train to catch, and then James O. and Earl were gone too, along with a racer I did not know (Paul L., from Scranton). I stayed relaxed, drinking at every fluid station, breathing at an easy rhythm and working easy enough to be in the race but saving most of it for later. Charlene and I switched leads several times. I noticed her breathing fast, and when I talked to her about it later, discovered that it wasn't because she was more interested in running for a fast time than within herself -- even though it would mean that she was running too anaerobically -- which might very well have been the case anyway -- but because she was just getting over a big cold. Can't say that I never ran a little ill; have run some pretty decent races too, but usually it doesn't work out well. After the steep uphill that seems to `come' at the 10k mark (every time I've run this course!), I took off. Charlene faded. Well . . . somewhat. She was still first woman finisher.
I am a slim guy. Lots of body surface area relative to body mass allows for good cooling. I don't believe that skinny runners like me even need to rely that much on evaporative cooling (sweating). Of course, one still needs to be acclimatized, and I'm sure I was this day. Now into the second half of the race, I looked ahead and there was Ron. He appeared to be under the weather. Maybe he had gone out too fast. Despite being a very fine runner, and very consistent, this wasn't to be one of his better races. As I passed him, he reported that Tom, who was running just ahead -- evidently, he hadn't caught that train -- was the only master-runner still ahead. I accepted this as encouragement, and the situation as my best opportunity (since an 8K the previous month) to finish a race ahead of a legend. Tom is a legend in these parts, having set the course record (along with other regional course records) twenty years ago -- an amazing time of 63+ minutes. He is still running great, at least he was until recently. He has had to re-prioritize his life and doesn't run as much as he used to. Probably, he went out too fast. I passed Tom, he wished me well, and I never looked back (except once).
Racing is almost all about preparation, about training. Runners who race must know themselves, their ability, which, in a both training and racing situations, includes the ability for self-monitoring. Remember your first race(s)? Racing forces the issue upon us in a big way - forces us to confront just what it is we are made of, what we are capable of, what makes us go, how far we might go. Of course, there's something to be said for knowing about physiology, about training. But most importantly, as far as this article is concerned, is knowing about and respecting our need for rest (or recovery) and easy (also referred to as `recovery') running. Most of the miles we run are easy miles. It's upon which we build our aerobic base. Our need for R(est) & R(ecovery) is little different from the importance we should accord proper race pacing; it's about the discipline of holding back or alternately, `pushing it', such as I was doing in Vestal.
Alternating rest with hard days goes a long way towards more joyful running (that is, compared to trying to run one's hardest practically every time one puts on their trainers). Rest and recovery is at the center of injury prevention. In terms of becoming an improved (faster) runner, resting equates with allowing the body to heal damage to stressed body tissues, and in so doing, to grow new nervous, muscular, and hormonal tissue. And it is through resting that one stores up glycogen, allowing one to run hard and/or long, which in training stresses those systems that would not be stressed if one is not rested. Rest allows for improvement and for performing well in races.
I've been putting this philosophy into practice for only a few years, and am still learning more about how. Last year, coming off a winter of fine speed training and thinking that I would be reaching new time goals I had set for myself, I instead found that I had become stale. I ran some of my slowest races in years. I thought that taking off a couple of weeks, or avoiding speed work for a few weeks would be enough to renew myself. I was wrong. It was only after incurring an injury later that summer that I finally figured out what I had needed -- in this case it was a forced two months. Coming back was like all starting over again, even more so. For now on I'm going to take off a month or two every year, and cross/resistance train year-round.
My first few races this spring were run under the haze of continuing injury. I have also been under greater stress -- mostly due to an irregular and occasionally nightly work schedule -- and have been running less. Or resting more. I dropped out of a half-marathon race on April 14 rather than risk injury, but completed another one that I entered three weeks later. It was run on a flat course, only a little warm and breezy, and I thrived under the conditions (and my own well-rested condition), running as well as I had a couple of years ago. Like a nut, I raced each of the next two weekends, then took three weeks off, half of which time I was ill (due I believe to workplace- and eating- related reasons -- not to my race schedule -- but you never know). I enjoyed the Tortoise & Hare, still getting over my illness, and the next week, the Vestal XX.
Because training and racing is so much based on one's ability, it is to a greater extent than we like to admit to ourselves, a lonely activity. Sure, there are instances of group support and encouragement, non-solitary by nature, important, and wonderfully powerful, but most running is easy running (but not too easy!) or and most of the rest is not-too-hard. We run to our individual abilities, at an intensity that is to our greatest benefit at a given time. Still, being social beings, there is an attraction to de-individualize training -- to do it with others.
I admit to also occasionally running with someone else, for fun and variety on an easy run -- or what I hope remains an easy run -- even though I probably do it less often than most in our runners? club. Yesterday [writing this on June 22], for example, I enjoyed running for an hour-and-a half over the hills and hallows south of Van Etten, having driven there for other reasons. This wasn't a social run, but rather is an example of a long, rather strenuous run a day after racing when I should have been going easy. I was going after nostalgia and beauty on this day. Today I am resting, worse yet, writing this, and tomorrow, a friend, who is a better runner than I, is coming down from the Syracuse area for the (running) camaraderie. He loves running at least as much as I do, so I am sure that he will be trying to run as fast as he would enjoy despite having me along to temper his proclivity. I try to slow him down more than he speeds me up. Actually, our differences are not as great as I am suggesting here, as long as we are not going uphill. But the difference is enough that, if we ran together regularly, it would be to the detriment of both of us. So I do it only on occasion.
Running -- especially racing-centered running -- is a solitary activity/sport (compare it to football or hockey). Of course, it doesn't have to be a sport, but making it so is very much the fun of it. It adds both focus and depth, and does so for a long time running. My suggestion here is that we not allow our drive for greater speed to drive us into a premature and unsatisfying termination of our running or racing career.
--Jeff Juran
| Prev Article | Front Page | Next Article |