This is a weekly post for the runners of LoseIt. When I say 'runners', I mean all levels of runners from brand new to seasoned veterans. You can be someone just thinking about your first run. Or someone just start C25K. Or someone who is training for their tenth Ultra-marathon. All are welcome here.
This post is mostly for running-related NSVs, weekly updates, tales of first runs, training or race reports, and questions/advice for runners in the LoseIt community. There's lots of great runners here and lots of experience to share -- that could help other LoseIt runners.
In addition to this, I also will ramble on about some topic related to running to exceed the automod filter on short posts. This week -- the gravity of weight on performance and how such thinking seeps into us all.
Mary Cain and an arbitrary racing weight
This week in article in the New York Times, Mary Cain, an incredibly fast and promising young runner reported her training and career were woefully derailed by the Nike Oregon Project lead coach Alberto Salazar.
I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike
https://nyti.ms/2PQHCLH
Cain, a young world-class runner, reported that when she showed up at Nike for training, a weight goal (114lbs) was used to belittle and openly shame her. An arbitrary ideal racing weight and a berating, unsympathetic Salazar were at the center of her complaint.
All of this ultimately feels tenuously related to my own thoughts of "if only I dropped xx pounds/kilos I'd be faster/better." I'm no elite athlete by any measure - but I feel like I've had an inner Salazar yelling at me at times.
Weight is Linked to Sports Performance
There's a movie dramatization of the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong (The Program) that plays out a different version of this. An incredibly talented, pre-PED Lance enters the Tour de France and gets beat handily by a select group of cyclists. It's no secret, those cyclists have something in common. They work with a sports performance doctor, Michele Ferrari, who used PEDs in their training but also had methods for defeating blood tests and not getting caught.
In the movie, Lance wants in with this doctor. He goes and sees Ferrari and asks to put him on the program. The doc turns him away handily. He says something like, "Look at you, you are too big. Come back when you've leaned out and lost weight."
Controlling your body to get to your goals is very inline with feelings around weight loss. Replace your own feeling of being rejected, turned down, etc with this scenario. Even this guy at the top of his game -- his body isn't enough, isn't right.
Weight Loss is not aware of your Performance Goals
There's an ideal balance of weight and performance that elite athletes train to hit. It should be something that shows in your performance. It should be measurable, demonstratable. Anyone who drops 50 lbs/20kg knows that you get faster.
Ask anyone who drops a lot of weight quickly how their training is going. How is their performance as they are cutting weight. The answer will be a mixed bag. Because weight loss is not aware of your performance goals. It's just weight loss. It very well may sap muscle and lean mass to decrease performance at points. I've seen it. It's periodically very hard to train when dropping weight. You have more energy but the depth might not be there. When you dig down to push on for mile 10, you might find the bottom of the well. You adjust quickly, but if you keep pressing on, it can stay harder and get harder still. The only bad runs I've had have been from deep caloric deficit running.
What was wrong with the training of Mary Cain? Partnership
There's a fine line between being too demanding while coaching and leaving performance untapped. While I am no expert here, and certainly not a professional coach, I think partnering with those you work with is always critical.
Why didn't the goals start with performance results? And only as framed by performance, use weight as one of tools available to the athlete? Why wasn't this a partnership or challenge between the coach and the athlete?
If Mary was given a bigger role in her training I suspect it might have turned out differently. How she improved her performance should have been in a partnership with the coach, and performance specialists as revealed with training results, testing and nutrition. I'm always surprised that the levers that manage performance is treated as something that is like a black box that the subject isn't given complete visibility into it.
Look how empowering realizing that calorie counting and a deficit causes weight loss is here at LoseIt. Open the black box up -- and you untether what you can do.
Whiplash and the tragedy of 'Good Enough'
Some might make a case for harsh leadership and group competition can push talented people to new rarefied air of true greatness.
In the movie Whiplash a young talented jazz drummer in college is shamed, berated, belittled, and tortured by his teacher. This deplorable behavior is rationalized by the teacher as driving true talent to lofty heights -- only available via torment and ego destruction. "Charlie Parker was only made great because when he made a mistake his band leader threw a cymbal at his head." The teacher sees anything less than unrelenting demands and criticism uponthe young drummer as tragic and weak. In a revealing moment of the movie, the teacher says "Good enough" is the worst thing ever said to the young and talented.
The young protege reacts to this strongarm mental abuse by pushing himself to mental and physical breaking points. Ultimately his career details for a period.
One can draw parallels here to Mary Cain's accounts of her training. There is a good level of pressure and criticism and there's a line that can crossed.
Your performance isn't your weight
So why bring this all up here in LoseIt? How am I (or you), some slow anonymous runner like Mary Cain? Or a talented young drummer?
Your weight is linked to your running performance. But your performance is also linked to it is your mental preparation and drive, all your training, your nutrition, and your physical make-up. There are ways to improve that are mentally healthy and those that aren't.
Think about the atmosphere of LoseIt subreddit. There are healthy group Dynamics and bad ones. Is it necessary for optimum performance for you to destroy yourself mentally? No, never.
Ms. Cain you rock! And so do the runners of LoseIt
Mary Cain is really amazing. She was so fast -- a lightning strike. If this can happen to her, if her weight and her size can be used to not propel her forward but derail her -- that's widely telling.
Imagine what social pressure and self-imposed goal weights means to the average runner? It's powerful stuff.
There's progress you can make on your own, without harsh shame, without hard limits. Have at them. Be a great runner on your own terms.
Your Story
Have you seen in yourself or from others a harsh line drawn to make you better? Do you draw those yourself? Does tough standards make you better or beat you down? Do group dynamics build you up or rip your heart out? Is there a good use of these techniques?
Weekly Check-in
How did your week go? Get in your miles/kms? Finish a week of C25K? Run for the first time? Run a race? Have a question or need advice? Let us know!
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