The latest issue of Canadian Running had a nice little article on local running legend Bill Roblee, who is the race director for one of my favourite local races – the Lunenburg 5k (known affectionately as the muffin run because the post-race spread features hundreds of homemade muffins... mmm). What the article was talking about was how, last November, Bill celebrated a 25-year running streak. Can you imagine that? 25 years of never missing a single day of running. It’s staggering – and his stats are practically cosmic in scale: 121,331km; 125 pairs of shoes; over 400 races; 102 marathons.
No matter what, Roblee gets ‘er done. It’s amazing.
Actually, reading the article made me feel a little guilty. I was reading it on Tuesday, right after I’d decided to dump my run. Here Bill was going out for a mile even when he had a fractured foot, and I couldn’t get my ass out the door because I was tired and unmotivated and because it was rainy and windy. One of Bill’s comments in the article cut like a knife: “I’ll run today because I might not be able to run tomorrow.” It reminded me of a little bio I saw on Alex Bilodeau during the Olympics, who said that when he’s feeling unmotivated and the weather sucks and he doesn’t want to train, he thinks of the challenges his brother faces daily and reminds himself what a privilege it is even to be able to train. And that gets his ass out the door.
It didn’t work for me.
But the whole thing raises a question: is taking a day off just lazy, or is it smart to let your body rest when it seems to ask for it?
I’ve heard somewhere that a lazy runner is a smart runner – to a point. Your hard workouts won’t transform your body if you don’t have enough rest – and you risk injury if you push beyond fatigue, listening to the numbers and streaks instead of your body. Maybe I’m just fooling myself, but I feel like I’m able to tell the difference between when I’m simply being lazy and when my body is trying to communicate its need for rest.
So once in awhile, I’ll just dump a scheduled run. Sometimes I’ll even take two days off in a week. I like to think it’s because I’m working so hard in my Wednesday and Saturday speed/vo2 max/threshold workouts and on my Sunday long run that my body needs the rest more than the junk miles. But it’s not like streak runners like Bill Roblee don’t work as hard – I bet most work as hard or harder – I guess it’s just that they’re compelled to formulate different priorities.
I think, though, there is no shame in being a bit lazy. In fact, I’ve found that a little lazy helps me to perform better in races, which is more of a priority for me. Even so, I can’t help but feel a little wimpy in the face of Bill’s incredible streak.
It’s inspiring – but not inspiring enough to get me out the door every day.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Of Apes and Running
Okay. Now, I’m no creationist – I’m all for evolution – but sometimes evolution gets abused and ends up sounding about as facile an explanation for the way things are as saying “that’s just the way God made it.” I mean, really – how many more simplistic, when-we-were-apes-in-Africa explanations can we take before the whole theory gets branded as absurd?
Whoa. Let me back up a bit. What’s got me all ranty is an article in the latest Canadian Running magazine. It’s an article on the phenomenon known as runner’s high – and it’s a good article. It’s just that the research this article cites indulges in the worst kind of speculation about evolution. For example, at one point, it asks a complex question -- why do we produce endorphins and anandamide when we run? – and gives a stupid answer: well, according to some German neurologist (who is obviously better at generating data than explanations), when we were apes in Africa, we had to run to catch our meals – so, naturally, we developed chemical responses to the pain of long-distance running – and we became groovy running apes.
Sounds like bullshit to me.
It gets worse when it starts talking about vultures on the savannah and carcasses and hyenas and ungulates... oh my.
Oh, and why are we more apt to experience the self-transcending high when running in a group? Yup. You guessed it – when we were apes in Africa, we hunted in groups. That must be it. For some reason, the author loves these “primitive” explanations, calling them “attractive hypotheses.” Really? I’d prefer something new. I mean, heck – why not go back even further: when we were amoebas swarming in the primeval ocean, we got a real kick from swimming together. Those amoebas who shunned the group died – the rest felt groovy in a group. Boom – group activity was selected for.
Seems just as likely an explanation to me as the whole apes hunting in groups thing – and just as meaningless.
Oh well.
Good thing I don’t need to know all the antecedent conditions to runner’s high in order to enjoy its effects.
I think the article is strongest and most interesting when it leaves apes and scientists behind and talks about runners, especially when it explores the spiritual flavour of the running experience. In the end, though, it’s just something you have to go out and experience for yourself. There isn’t a single sequence of words that can convey the experience – words can only remind you of it... or entice you to try it.
And it’s an experience worth seeking -- that much I believe.
Whoa. Let me back up a bit. What’s got me all ranty is an article in the latest Canadian Running magazine. It’s an article on the phenomenon known as runner’s high – and it’s a good article. It’s just that the research this article cites indulges in the worst kind of speculation about evolution. For example, at one point, it asks a complex question -- why do we produce endorphins and anandamide when we run? – and gives a stupid answer: well, according to some German neurologist (who is obviously better at generating data than explanations), when we were apes in Africa, we had to run to catch our meals – so, naturally, we developed chemical responses to the pain of long-distance running – and we became groovy running apes.
Sounds like bullshit to me.
It gets worse when it starts talking about vultures on the savannah and carcasses and hyenas and ungulates... oh my.
Oh, and why are we more apt to experience the self-transcending high when running in a group? Yup. You guessed it – when we were apes in Africa, we hunted in groups. That must be it. For some reason, the author loves these “primitive” explanations, calling them “attractive hypotheses.” Really? I’d prefer something new. I mean, heck – why not go back even further: when we were amoebas swarming in the primeval ocean, we got a real kick from swimming together. Those amoebas who shunned the group died – the rest felt groovy in a group. Boom – group activity was selected for.
Seems just as likely an explanation to me as the whole apes hunting in groups thing – and just as meaningless.
Oh well.
Good thing I don’t need to know all the antecedent conditions to runner’s high in order to enjoy its effects.
I think the article is strongest and most interesting when it leaves apes and scientists behind and talks about runners, especially when it explores the spiritual flavour of the running experience. In the end, though, it’s just something you have to go out and experience for yourself. There isn’t a single sequence of words that can convey the experience – words can only remind you of it... or entice you to try it.
And it’s an experience worth seeking -- that much I believe.
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