Janathon 2013 Day 7 - Could do better

Walk - 3 miles, Time - 50m, Weather - damp cold, and grey

Last night my plan was to go for a run before breakfast but sometimes good intentions are only that: intentions. I woke up feeling headachy, low, not quite the ticket,  and far from the picture of an athlete at the peak of his prowess (disclaimer I have never looked like that). I really didn’t want to do anything much in the way of exercise but I had a get out. I am a firm believer in rest days and taking things easy on at least two days a week. So going for a walk was just fine.  I would like to report that as soon as I got out and felt the air on my cheeks my spirits lifted and a spring returned to my step - but that would not be quite true. It wasn’t bad but neither was it good. it was merely mechanical.

However I carried on with my reading of the Stoics and today’s quote emphasises something common to any activity, any skill that needs mastering, and certainly to Janathon: the need for consistency. It is as true of running as it is the study of philosophy.

Yet this conviction, clear as it is needs to be strengthened and given deeper roots through daily reflection; making noble resolutions is not as important as keeping the resolutions you have made already. You have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good...although I have great hopes for you, I do not yet feel quite confident about you. And I should like you to adopt the same attitude: you’ve no grounds for forming a ready, hasty belief in yourself. Carry out a searching analysis and close scrutiny of yourself in all sorts of different lights. (Seneca, Letters XVI)

No grounds for complacency there and it is something we should all heed as well as Lucius. I have said many times: running is about honesty. The time you take and how far you can go shows you exactly your level. There are no excuses and your level is exactly as high as it deserves to be. In other words you must always look at what you achieve with a clear eye.

For myself, today, I need to look closely at my change of plan and be honest with myself whether it was acceptable or whether it was backsliding. I will only really know tomorrow.

Honesty in Sport, Drug Taking in Sport

When I recently wrote recently that running was essentially honest, i.e. the figures did not lie and your times tell you precisely how good a runner you are, I was not talking about high level competition where money and prestige hang on racing results. Sport really is two different things: there is the recreational activity, where you challenge yourself and hope to find out more about your own nature. In the fullest sense it is amateur (no matter how methodically the task is approached) - it is done purely out of love and a sense of personal satisfaction. Then there is elite sport, which is a profession. People obviously come into it from love but once they reach a certain level it becomes a job and the results matter to other people as well as themselves. They become part of a system which exerts its own demands

In professional sport there is an ethos of doing all you can to develop an edge over other competitors and if there are not strict rules and adherence to those rules the line between right and wrong, honesty and lying can become blurred. If the main criteria is any advantage you can gain and you think other people are getting away with things that are not right what is there to stop someone going over to the dark side?

These questions are now as pertinent as ever. A couple of weeks ago came the news that Kenyan athletes were being investigated for doping. No! I reacted. I just did not want this to be the so. I had bought into the idea that Kenyan dominance of middle and long distance running was a mixture of genetics, a life time of running to get around, plus diet and good coaching. I really wanted to believe that it was all a combination of talent plus people like Brother O’Connell, who coaches David Rudisha. Nothing else. I wanted and still want the good story - but who knows if that is now the case.

What is no longer in doubt though is the sorry state of cycling during the reign of Lance Armstrong.  The USADA has finally published its case and fully exposed the culture of systematic doping and deceit.The reasoned decision and supplementary material are available here and the case is overwhelming. I have already spent too much time reading it with a sense of fascinated horror. Even though I already knew the broad outlines of what had happened, even though I have assumed for years that Armstrong must have doped to win seven Tour de France titles (think about it - if he was beating people who we know were taking drugs, either he was a different species of being or he was taking the same, or better stuff. None of his physiological test point to him being superhuman), there are still revelations and human stories. Stories about how nasty, vindictive and bullying Armstrong was and stories of the toll on other members of the team.

Take this excerpt about  David Zabriskie:

Bruyneel was respected by Zabriskie whose father had died a few years before, his life shortened by drug addiction. Zabriskie had sought refuge in cycling. Long hard training rides were cathartic and provided an escape from the difficult home life associated with a parent with an addiction. He had vowed never to give in to the temptation to use, never to end up like his father, furtively using drugs to feed his dependency and eroding his physical health.Barry was about five years older than Zabriskie; however, Zabriskie had been on the USPS team a year longer. The group met at or near a café, and the conversation proceeded in English. Bruyneel got right to the point. He and del Moral had brought two injectable products for Zabriskie and Barry, something known as “recovery” and the banned oxygen booster, erythropoietin (known as “EPO”). Zabriskie was shocked.This was the beginning of David’s third year on the team and he had not realized he would be required to dope. He realized, of course, that some cyclists in the peloton and likely some teammates fueled their success with banned substances. However, until now he had been largely shielded from the reality of drug use on the U.S. Postal Service Team.Zabriskie began to ask questions. He was fearful of the health implications of using EPO, and he had a slew of questions: would he be able to have children? would it cause any physical changes? Would he grow larger ears? The questions continued. Bruyneel responded, “everyone is doing it.” Bruyneel assured that if EPO was dangerous no professional cyclists would be having kids.David was cornered. He had embraced cycling to escape a life seared by drugs and now he felt that he could not say no and stay in his mentor’s good graces. He looked to Barry for support but he did not find it. Barry’s mind was made up. Barry had decided to use EPO, and he reinforced Bruyneel’s opinions that EPO use was required for success in the peloton.The group retired to Barry’s apartment where both David and Barry were injected with EPO by Dr. del Moral. Thus began a new stage in David Zabriskie’s cycling career – the doping stage. Cycling was no longer David’s refuge from drugs. When he went back to his room that night he cried.

When I read testimony like that I think of the cyclists as the poor bloody infantry. They have taken all the heat and guilt and been the ones who have been punished. In the meantime the team managers and doctors carry on as normal. It was the system which was corrupt. Cyclists believed there was no other way (sure they could have walked away from the sport but that is very difficult if you have staked everything on being a top professional).

We might think top sportsmen are at the apex of achievement and satisfaction (and surely some are) and they are to be envied and emulated (and again surely some are) but the are just as much a part of a system, with its own pressures and responsibilities as anybody in any other line of work. Their highs may be more dramatic and the requirements more intense but they are still bound by a culture and responsibilities. Sometimes those demands are just too great, as I believe they were for cyclists in the Armstrong years.

We tend to view sports individualistically i.e the way a person performs and the choices they make and then investing some of ourselves in our favourites and then make black and white judgements. But we only see half the picture if we ignore the context and don’t recognise the system. In cycling I do not think everyone who doped was a despicable cheat. Instead I think some good people got caught up in something beyond their control. All sport should be simple but sometimes things can be complicated, especially if money is involved.

Which brings me back to the difference between recreational and elite sport. the tremendous privilege we have as amateurs is that it is actually us as individuals. We do what we do for our own satisfaction and for no other reason. We can choose how much we want to be part of a system e.g. if we join a club and what type of club, or we can run on our own. We are honest because it makes no sense to be otherwise. All that matters is a sense of achievement and increased self-knowledge. 

We should constantly celebrate our freedom

Running is Overwhelmingly Honest

It's one of the things I keep repeating: "running is honest', "running is honest", "running is honest". (Imagine I am panting this as a sort of mantra). It is all about personal truth and recognising that whatever dreams you may have about your own special qualities you are never any better than your time. The clock tells how good you are and how you compare with others and it is not susceptible to special pleading. There are no excuses - that is exactly how good you are. How you react is different and a matter of temperament and priorities. You can believe you are capable of much more and so train harder and smarter to improve, or you could accept it and say that you don't (or can't) spare any more time or energy and are happy to be as good as you are within the constraints you have imposed on yourself. Both responses are good, both are honest.

What you cannot do is lie. You cannot make up your times and pretend to be speedier and more athletic than you actually are. It not only goes against all morals and cuts against the reason for putting in the miles. Real runners should not lie. Running is about proving things to yourself. There might be an element of display, talking to others about your times and what you have done, but that happens out of obsession rather that boastfulness. In essence you are trying to find-out your capabilities and that is all that matters.

Running is honest and humbling. You know where you stand in the order of things, The shape of achievement is like a teardrop with most of us in the middle or bottom. For some people, with an inflated opinion of their own abilities (who believe that are born to be special) or a deranged need to be seen by others as exceptional, this is a problem. They might like running but find it is hard to cope with being demonstrably average. So some (I am sure it is a very, very tiny number) are tempted to lie and cheat, ignore the morality of the sport and move to the dark side.

There is a fascinating piece in the New Yorker about a middle aged dentist, Kip Litton, who has gone to enormous trouble to create the persona of a very fast masters runner. Many sub 3s marathons complete with intermediate chip times. However there are few race photos and little corroborating evidence from other runners. There have been doubts and  after investigation disqualifications.The evidence is overwhelming that his times are fictitious but there is still a mystery as to how he did it. He went to enormous trouble to pull off the illusion and even created his own race with other imaginary competitors. But why? I can only guess that he  had some pathological need to be seen as more than a small town dentist leading an average life. I suppose every activity will at some point attract such fabulists.

So what of politicians why would they lie? (Sorry if that seems like a dumb question). They deal in images and pictures, in describing a world that is all sunshine (if their policies are fully implements) and broken and rusting (if the policies of their opponents are implemented). Speeches are full of generalities and suggestion, with the aim of emotional connection rather than reasoned, evidence supported argument. Not quite telling the full truth is a stock in trade. However there is a line between that and telling an outright lie, which is usually observed, even if things are sometimes a bit blurry and sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between a misrepresentation and a falsehood. It is all part of the game. But there seems a chasm in integrity between fudging policy details  and telling a flat-out lie about yourself and your personal history.

Paul Ryan is the vice-president running mate of Mitt Romney and obviously wants to present himself as fit, energetic, and eager. In an interview he was asked if he still ran he replied: 

"Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don't run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or less." When what his personal best is, Ryan replied, "Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

Any runner knows this is just not credible. It's not that he might not have been capable of running sub 3 (who knows? He looks very fit) but that if he had done so he would know his precise time. it is not something you forget. You can only run a marathon that quickly after a lot of high quality training. It doesn't just happen. It is the culmination of years of work that dominates large parts of your life and becomes an important part of who you are and how you see yourself. After all that effort as sure as hell you remember your time.

No wonder Runner's World were suspicious and tried to check. In the end they found he had run one marathon in 1990 in 4 hours, 1 minute and 25 seconds. Now that is not bad at all and is a time many people (including myself) would be happy with but it is a world away from sub 3. It is not even the same type of race. It is not fudging your time with a bit of haziness. It is an outright lie

The thing I can't understand is why would he make something like that up. Saying you have run a marathon gets you enough brownie points why would you feel the need to pretend something more? My guess (and it is only a guess based on absolutely no evidence) is that he could not admit to being merely an average runner and was compelled to present himself as super fast. It also suggests he is a fantasist with an inflated idea of his own capabilities. In his dreams he would like to be that quick. So would I but the difference is I know it could never happen. He thinks he can pretend it already has.

I began racking my brains for some British equivalent of a politician who would lie about themselves and thought of Jeffrey Archer and the way he embellished his own biography. The difference is Jeffrey Archer was a genuinely quick athlete who represented Oxford University (although, of course, he was probably not entitled to).

2011 Streak Day 251 (Sun Sept 11th): Make or break

2011 Streak Day 251 (Sun Sept 11^th): Run 4.25 miles Time 40min Weather grey but with patches of blue sky and scudding clouds 

This was make or break Sunday. 

The plan has been to run the Folkestone Half Marathon on 25^th Sept - two weeks away, but with feeling unwell and not having run for two weeks that was looking problematic. If I was recovered enough to survive a decent length run, then residual fitness from the summer should be OK and I would be able to tailor a programme to be able to get round. The question was if?

The first part of the run seemed fine. I hit a steady rhythm and kept going but very quickly I realised there was no power in the legs - no push at all.  The further I went the weaker I felt. I managed to keep going for 4 miles because the route was flat (by the canal) and I adopted a technique of just lifting my legs up, the equivalent of twiddling on a bike. Even so I had to stop a couple of times.

Not too good but not completely without hope. When I finished I was not 100% sure Folkestone was a lost cause but when I got home I knew it was. I completely flaked-out and spent the rest of the day lolling around feeling rubbish. A flat, easy 4 miles had done for me. There was no chance I would be able to do 13 a few days later.

Sadness washed over me because I had really wanted to do the race and meet-up with some wonderful bloggers who, so far, I have only ever talked to on-line. Bah!

But it is my constant refrain about running: it forces you to be honest about your abilities as you can only do what you can do. I knew I couldn't do a half marathon.

P.S. For the first time there is continuity in pictures. The photo in the last post was of a canal bridge. This is looking back towards where I was when I took that photo.

Get Out of Jail Free Card

Whenever I have a day that is mostly futile, when everything is a bit hazy and I don't think I have achieved anything worthwhile, I often find that a run sorts me out. It is not that it clears my mind so that I return with the answer to a problem that previously had me stumped - rarely do I get any magical insights. It is something far more direct: when I am out of the door I am putting in effort and because of that I feel I am doing something good.

In a way it is my 'get out of jail free' card. The simple act of exercising, outside - seeing the world pass, looking at new things and interacting (in a limited way) with other people makes me feel better. Because of that I feel the day has not been wasted, no matter how little is done during the rest of it. But the knock-on effect is usually I approach other tasks with a renewed concentration.

If there is something in the idea of redemption through personal endeavour, the obverse is also probably true in that you slump if you don't do enough.

I recently came across a phrase that tickled me because it so precisely describes one of ways we might not do enough: 'social loafing'. It describes many group situations where people don't give of their best because they think that others will pick-up the slack and anyway everyone else is probably easing-off a bit as well. It explains why work groups are often surprisingly unproductive and brainstorming sessions are mostly futile. It might also contribute a little bit to something like Brook's Law, which states that adding manpower to a late software project makes it even later.

Just discovering the phrase has made me examine my own behaviour and it gives me no great pleasure to admit that I am also prone to a bit social loafing and there have been many occasions where I have not given of my best.

This is not the case when running. When I am out of the door there is no loafing and I am fully engaged in the activity. Whatever distance I run is the distance I run, whatever time I take is the time I take, there can be no short-cuts or cheating. I do what I can to the best of my ability and my diary is a record of honest endeavour.

That is why running is my 'get out of jail free' card - it shows me that I can be honest.