Happy Feet

It's been too long since my last post, so I'm just going to churn one out.

I've been thinking a lot about how my relationship with running has changed over the years. And I wonder if it's what most former sprinters/jumpers like myself go through. Sprints and jumps were signals of power. My college intramural long jump was 4m07 (13ft4" while in high school I could jump a solid 14ft). 400m was at 70''99 (in high school, I bested 67''). At HKUST, I placed first in both events at an interdepartmental meet so even though I'll never be Alyson Felix who ran 49''89 at the Beijing 2015 World Championship, I have a small piece of my history to be proud of.

As running short distance races becomes less realistic and taxing on the body, I've slowly converted to longer distances. From the beginning, I took a track athlete's mentality to long distance running. I look at pace as a performance metric. I push myself on long runs and in every active thing that I do.

And that "tough as nails" attitude has merit to it. But it's taken me eight years to realize that this has also led to my many injuries at a great cost: knee surgeries, depression, body dysmorphia, tendon and ligament strains, shin splints, negatively comparing myself with others, etc.

Does placing first (or bettering someone you're mentally in a competition with) always matter? No. I will never be Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. However, I can learn a lot from top athletes when it comes to attitude and perseverance. (Side note on Fraser-Pryce: this 100m Jamaican national record holder is 5'0'', runs a killer 10.7'', and has a million dollar smile and a beautiful personality!)

Mardy Fish had an insightful article on a recent Player's Tribune which, essentially, highlighted that there will always be someone better than you:

My dissatisfaction with the status quo — that had been so helpful when there were 20 players ranked in front of me — crossed over into something more stressful, and then destructive, I think, when that number became reduced to seven.

The idea that I wasn’t good enough was a powerful one — it drove me, at an age when many players’ careers are winding down, to these amazing heights. But it also became a difficult switch to turn off. I was, objectively, doing great. And looking back, I wish I had been able to tell myself that. But doing great wasn’t something that my frame of mind back then had time to process. All I could focus on was doing better. It was a double-edged sword. 

Fish, Fraser-Pryce, and Felix are all athletes I look up to. They're winners, but more importantly, they recognize that being the top dog is not everything in life. Filling your life with non-material meaning and purpose--that's what matters. And in your journey of self-improvement, do it on your own terms, find joy in the process, and fill it with love. I've always believed in "unselfish" self-improvement; making yourself a better person should be to the benefit of your community and your loved ones.

Flash forward to my current self. I'm running 12-16 miles per week. Other amazing distance runners are running 40-50 miles or more. But it's just unrealistic for me to put in any more than what I do now as I'm still recovering from surgery. I haven't re-adapted myself to the mechanical stress those distances put on the body. So when the dastardly Shin Splints wafted on the horizon as I first got back into training, I slammed the breaks and decidedly eased back into it with more discipline.

And that brings me to my favorite new element of training: the easy, long run. I used to dread this element of training (fire trails at Berkeley!) but that was because I was running them too quickly. In order to train an aerobic base, you have to run farther, slower. And, as a sprinter, that never made sense to me. "Tough as nails" and "pushing your limit" and "past the lactate threshold" were a sprinter's bread and butter. We're always thinking "faster" and, very often we're thinking: "fastest."

But do you enjoy the scenery when you're running faster? Can you smell the air? Greet a passing jogger with "good evening" or "hello"? Smile and wave at the little kid that waves at you?

Most recent 6+ mile run (Ocean Beach -> Land's End Trail -> Golden Gate Park)

Since I somehow tricked Marvin into doing the Berkeley Half Relay with me, I've coerced him to doing long runs with me too. To my bafflement, he'd never run more than four miles before and now we're running 6+ miles together (ranging between 9:30-10:00 pace). On these long runs, I'm always emphasizing conversational pace. And while running slow can be boring and 1+ hours of just running can feel like a waste of time, I also enjoy the company and the mini-conversations we hold. I'm happier when I run and try to enjoy my surroundings--not to mention, the Bay Area is B-E-A-U-TIFUL. And we've also quickly begun to see the effects the long run has on our faster, moderate-paced runs. Marvin was able to run a sub-8 paced 3 miler while I've begun to hover at 8:10-15.

With 100 miles logged on my Adizeros, there's still a few weeks of training to go... but I might just be a believer in the easy, long run now. I feel that the theories are solid:

• It increases aerobic capacity by stimulating capillary development
• It increases speed/energy production by stimulating mitochondrial development
• It increases aerobic energy availability by increasing myoglobin content in muscle fibers

I believe that this is really about stress adaptation and growth. As a sprinter, I've never really had a "base aerobic fitness" since my body tends to favor anaerobic activity. But with enough consistent adaptation, maybe a half marathon is in my future, after all?

I still have a soft spot for short-distance interval training though. See ya on the track. ;)

Recently Read: The Martian (Andy Weir, 2011)
Currently Reading: Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig, 1974)
Currently Listening: Rivers (Thomas Jack - Hugel Remix)