Running: everything is relative

No, I'm not going to write about the theory of relativity here. Sometimes, ok many times, I wish I could move my body mass faster, and ideally at the speed of light, but I'm already busy enough fighting aging and keeping improving my times. And even a percentage point is good enough!

I want to highlight one marvel of our sport: there are millions of runners around the world and everyone sets his or her own goal. From competition to pure pleasure, either running solo or as a team or in a group, either running on his own or joining a club, from racing hard to jogging, from 60-meter to no limit, from under 10 seconds sprints to multi-day challenges, from running on a track to asphalt, concrete, trails, sand, mud, snow, ice, the variety that our sport offers is endless.

You may want to run to meet people if the rest of your life is lonely. Conversely, you may want to run on your own, to take a break from overwhelming people interactions at work and want to reconnect with yourself and Mother Nature. You may run to escape an addiction, or you may become addicted with running. We can even use different words such as jogging, trotting, shuffling, crawling, cruising, pushing, flying, it is rarely just about sprinting. The only thing which defines running as opposed to walking is that you don't have to have either foot on the ground, you can indeed fly and have both feet up in the air at some point. I like this simple yet powerful fact about our sport.

Back to the title you must wonder: why is he putting the topic on the table now? What prompted this philosophical title? Two things. First, after the Turkey Trot 10K (yes, it has been a while...), I looked at the age-graded results and, while I was in second position out of 8,000 finishers which isn't bad, I was intrigued by the women in first place. She was 88 and was given a 111% for running a 1:04 10K. I was actually surprised by the 111% and, indeed, that was 20 minutes faster than the current world record for the Women 85-89 age group, wow! In running, everything is relative...  The only issue with this one was that this person was actually 40, not 88. And nothing to be bragging about for my pole position in this ranking: first the real fast guys were running their own 5K invitational race; second, this was mostly a fund-raising and family-oriented event so many were not here to compete seriously. Yet, if you feel age gives an unfair advantage to those in their 20s or 30s, it's good to know that there is an algorithm out there to level the performances (see the age-grading rules and these age-adjusted 10K times). Yes, everything is relative in running, everybody is welcome to participate to their own ability or purpose and this is a way to compare your performance with your peers. To make your running experience and achievements relative to others'.

The second reason I'm thinking about this aspect of our sport is my own experience this week. After my yearly December break to recharge both my physical and mental batteries before a new ultra season, I resumed running last Monday with an easy 16-mile run and 64 weekly mileage. While I couldn't wait any longer before getting back on my feet, resuming training is always delicate for me as I want to rush back despite Agnès' warnings. Beyond the pleasure of being out there, the opportunity to burn the extra calories that the holidays spoil us with, the eager to go for long runs as I was off this week, a pain in my right calf helped bringing me reason for ramping up more slowly. Yet, one primary reason driving my weekly mileage was to meet my 100-kilometers-a-week goal. Although I did it last year without planning for it, I made a resolution last year that I wasn't going to be locked into such a goal again and, despite the 6 weeks of forced rest in June and July to fix my broken shoulder, I was close enough to do it again, and break or fail on my sand-bagging resolution... ;-) The point is that this goal became one of the reasons and drivers for running extra miles while my body was just suggesting to go back home and rest instead. When all goes well, that's why it's so important to have some precise goals such as a particular distance, time or race in sight. Or SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Action-driven, Realistic and Time-bound (e.g. run one 50K in the next 6 months and train seriously for it).

So, given that running isn't measure in an absolute way, what was your own reasons to run this week? What were you shooting for in 2012? What are you aiming at in 2013? It's resolution time, I will share my running season plans early in January but I want to hear from you in the meantime!

Marshall Ulrich: Running long on empty

A long due post and review of a book which I bought last Spring and read over the summer. Overall, a book for the hard-core ultra-runners. If there was the equivalent of the Motion Picture Association for ultrarunning, I'd assign a Restricted to it (with Chris McDougall's Born to Run and Scott Jurek's Eat and Run in the PG-13/beginner category). Yet, a great book, easy to read, a captivating account of a trip across the USA on foot and many useful tips for those of us who want to keep pushing the envelope always further.

Marshall is a phenomenon in the world of endurance. Not just running: he also climbed numerous remote mountains including the mythical Mount Everest and the seven highest summits of the seven continents, and placed in many of the most competitive adventure races. And not just endurance in physical exercise: Marshall had his share of intense and shaky personal life and emotions, though his child and adulthood. A model, or let's say example, of extreme determination and pain resistance. He has a wikipedia page, a website advertising his public speaking engagements, coaching programs.

While the book is mostly about Marshall's run across the US in 52 days, it is a memoir linking this race against the clock and injury to many other milestones and anecdotes of Marshall's life and personal journey into extreme endurance. While it's fascinating to follow Marshall's physical and mental struggles through this challenge which he called his ultimate ("this was the last thing on my tick list"), this isn't an introduction to ultra running, it's for the mature audience... Now, if you have several years of ultra experience, you'll relate to the concept of rumination (p 135), time compression (p 149), and may be ready to leverage a few training, nutrition and hydration tips (e.g. p 166). As a fan of Vespa, I liked to read about the confirmation of the power of fat burning (p 67). Now, and even after having ran 77 ultra races and 120 more in training, I still have hard time putting my arms around the following two mental strength tips. The first one is that, if you experience pain in one part of your body, you just have to think (and believe...) that this part doesn't belong to your body anymore, hence the pain neither (p 132). Sure! The second one corresponds to the state that ultra legend Yiannis Kouros (holder of 134 world records!) frequently experiences of feeling his mind floating outside his body and watching him run (p 130). A way to detach yourself from your physical pain, of course! And that discussion about extreme pain control happens half way in the book so you can imagine what the second part of the book is about...

Again, an amazing life story about pushing the limits of the human body and mind, and a few inspirational and useful tips for the ultra braves! ;-)

I used my Sustainable running label for this post but I don't believe Marshall's running regimen can work for everybody, for the common mortals... While Marshall's track record proves that this extreme mileage is sustainable for him, Running on Empty is more about sustained running, running for 50 days at a 10 minute/mile pace in spite of adversity, unmerciful weather, hectic relations with sponsors, financial hurdles, uncertainty, doubt, pain, injuries, mental and physical fatigue... Hopefully not something you'll have to do everyday if you picked running as a hobby! ;-)

Here is a link to a great video clip summarizing Marshall's philosophy about ultra running and pain management (the video server seems down for the holidays though...). More videos can be found on Marshall's website or YouTube.