Dedicating A Run To A Friend

I lost a friend a few weeks ago, prior to the Cradle To The Grave 30 k.  My friend put a bullet in his ear after almost a decade of a series of unfortunate events; divorce, passed over for a deserving promotion, asshole for a son, then laid off after 15 years with the firm he literally saved millions of dollars for due to his design expertise and foresight. I decided to dedicate my 30 k run to my friend.  I thought of him every inch of the run and towards the end, I thought that no matter the pain I was enduring, it was nothing compared to the pain he endured, and that eventually drove him to taking his own life.  Not the right answer to the problem, but it was his choice.  In what seemed like a short period of time, I had run 18 miles, and it was the best run/race I have had in the past two years  There is something edifying about going out and beyond yourself by turning your thoughts and concerns towards others.

Going Up In The Not-So-Nice Area Of South Central Los Angeles

Hi Larry,

I spent quite a bit of my youth in South Central; 14th Street and Central Ave.; just down the street from the Coke-Cola plant.   Here is a link to a picture of the CC building:http://bigorangelandmarks.blogspot.com/2008/04/no-138-coca-cola-building.html

My Dad had his warehouse between Griffith and Paloma with 14th Place two doors down from us.  We were right in the middle of it, aka the bowels of hell.  14th Place was the stomping grounds of the Clanton 14 gang who started off as a bunch of zoot-suiting low life during the Depression and went downhill from there and redefined the term "low life scum".  Eve and I did a Google flyover the other day and the warehouse is still there; in fact it looks totally unchanged and untouched.  All the housing that the vermin called home is now gone, replaced by manufacturing and warehousing facilities. 

My Dad's partner had been there for years prior to them going into business together.   Evidently Ralph Walker had some sway/influence with the local knuckle-draggers because we never had a break-in or any vandalism to our property.  The younger low-lifers never gave me much trouble but I always carried in my belt a 3/4 x 8 inch capped pipe nipple with a lanyard on one end and lead filling in the other.  I could tear down wooden crates faster with that than a 16 oz framing hammer.  Whenever I went to the corner store or down to a local "mama's" hamburger stand, I had it with me and only had to take it out once.  It sent a strong subliminal message that even the single-digit IQ punks could understand and certainly saved me from at least one ass-kicking.

Yes, it sure would be interesting to hear what you friend's son would have to say about serving a mission in that area ("shit-hole" is the first term to come to mind, but I will refrain).   Hopefully they can find some spirits there that really yearn for some truth in their lives and want out of that....ok, place, and a better life.

Cheers,
Bart

email response to John Keith, former speed skating buddy from California, now living in Thailand

5/24/14

Nice to hear from you John!  Yes, it certainly has been a long time since we saw each other.  Bob Nelson and Eric Williamson have kept me somewhat up to date with your achievements, but they hadn't mentioned your new joints.  However, very glad to hear you keep yourself active and moving.  As God once said to Abraham "Lech Lecha" or "keep moving", applies to all of us.  As I tell people, "as long as you keep moving, Grim can't catch you!"

 

Too bad your local skating group didn't snag you as a skating coach.  They are missing out on a wealth of knowledge and experience.  But you did the right thing; just walk away from it.  Their loss.

 

Mt. Baldy was one of my favorite places.  Certainly are some nice summits around LA and I am always thankful that my parents made the sacrifice on their part so I could grow up right on the southwest boundary of Angeles National Forest.  That entire range of mountains hold a special place in my heart.

 

Yes, Dick Hunt keeps on rolling.  He was like a big brother to me for several years.  All of us were extremely fortunate to have the peer group we had in skating.  Bill and Jack Disney, Stan, Buddy, Dick, Bob Olson, Roy, Jack....dear me, the list goes on.  I consider myself very fortunate, very lucky to have those great people around me, you included, that encouraged me and supported me, either through word or deed, to strive to be better.  Those were not easy years for me, and I am so thankful to God for the group of people I had to look to and at times, to lean on.  I am one lucky sob.  If you can pdf and email the picture mentioned of Bill Sedwick and me, I would really appreciate it.  After my Mom passed away, my Dad remarried a couple years later to a woman who's picture appears in several encyclopedia's under "Two Faced Lying Bitch".  When my Dad health began to rapidly decline she destroyed most all the old skating pictures, ISU-US record documents, etc. .  I was able to salvage a few things but most of it was lost.  It been reported that the TFLB was last seen circling above San Diego on a broom spelling out "Surrender Dorothy" across the horizon.

After returning stateside in 1980 it took several years of hard work to get myself reestablished and not much time for anything else.  Once settled, I began running and cycling a bit.  A cycling accident in San Diego (stressed out single mother in a Toyota sedan hit me head on) put me in the hospital for 2 weeks and that's the last time I had a road bike under my ass.  To many crazy effers on the road.  I still ride a bit on the mountain trails and forest roads in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I like the odds better when trees and rocks don't move.  But running is my real passion and I do plenty of that.  Boston  Marathon three times and about 20 other marathons total; several AG wins and a best time of 3:05.  Not bad for an old bastard.  The trails here are awesome so I do mostly trail ultra's (anything longer than the marathon distance) and off road events.  Did several years of backcountry skiing and mountain climbing but gave both up when Eve and I began going together.  She worried to much about such shenanigans and rightfully so.  Had a couple of close calls; an avalanche during a ski trip to the top of Mt. Charleston, then an asshole short-roping me on a repel during a descent on a climb in the Spring Mountains.  Eve merely confirmed what the great outdoor Buddha was trying to tell me.

 

Otherwise, thoroughly enjoying life in the mountains of North Carolina.

 

Please keep me posted on your ride in Tibet.  A real epic it sounds like to me.  Avg 16,000 ft!  That's total badassedry John.  Nutrition wise your are going to need a bit more cals at first but it will subside the more time you spend up high.  You may want to double the recovery drinks at the end of the day.  The S-Caps will really help, figure one per hour on the tough climbs.  After a while you will figure out what your body needs; becomes like second nature. Be patient and go easy on yourself.  Be careful of the migraine type headaches and the feeling of confusion.  I've had cerebral edema once and it sucks and it's nothing to mess around with.  Keep me posted.  Proud of you John!!

 

Cheers,

 

Bart

Cradle to Grave 30k

5/20/14
 
Ran a trail 30K in Pisgah National Forest this past weekend.  Won my age group by 20 minutes and finished in about the middle of the starting field.  Pretty tough course (quite a few runners dropped out) but I really enjoyed it.  I must have passed 20 runners during the last 8 miles of the race.  Feeling much healthier, finally.
 

Comments to Elder Chad Boore who serving his mission near Kingsport TN. at the time

May 19, 2014

I heard once that McDonald’s was the new age cowboy, or as referred to among the Blackfeet as the "jaevligtoskenpaaeiku" or "he who rides the bovine".  Now we have photo documentation. 

The bowling picture you sent me (looks you were having a great time) reminds of the last time I bowled with my Dad.  We took Susanne and Beathe (my daughters 8 and 6 at the time) with us and went to a local alley just west of La Canada. Dad bought us (just for me and him, not the girls) a beer at the beginning of each round.  I hadn't had a beer in probably two years or more, and I hadn’t held a bowling ball in over 12 years.  I bowled 78 on the first round, 84 on the second, broke 100 on third round.  On the fourth round, and while downing the fourth beer, I bowled 222!  A new PR!  Probably would not have passed the test if I had to pee for USADA.  Beer is hard on your kidneys but apparently could be considered a Performance Enhancing Drug (PED), or in this case a BED, (Bowling Enhancing Drug).  I will confess to Oprah next time I am on her program.

That's my one and only bowling story.

Nose Breathing - Secret Weapon By Lisa Engles

Nasal Breathing – Secret Weapon
by Lisa Engles -track coach Silicon Valley Triathlon Club

I encourage everyone to use this month to begin the practice of
nasal breathing. You can think of nasal breathing as the `secret
weapon’ in your bag of training tools. Over the past five years,
I’ve used this technique both personally and with my athletes to
create incredible performance breakthroughs.
There’s one hook to nasal breathing: you have to be willing to set
aside your ego and allow your body to adapt to this technique. Which
means, for a short period of time it will seem as if you are getting
worse, instead of better with your running. This is precisely why I
introduce this technique during the off season. If you commit to
regular use of nasal breathing during every run that you do between
now and January, you will reap the rewards of this secret training
weapon.
So what is nasal breathing and why is it so good for you? Nasal
breathing, just as the name implies, means to breathe only through
your nose during endurance activity (running and even cycling).
We’re all born into this world as nasal breathers which means that
we don’t possess the voluntary ability to breath through our mouth.
Mouth breathing is a learned response that is triggered by an
emergency stress. If an infant’s nose becomes obstructed, it begins
to suffocate and starts to cry. The crying forces air into the
mouth and through the lungs. Mouth breathing becomes a way to get
large quantities of air into the lungs quickly in order to deal with
survival. Once the emergency is over, the infant returns to
breathing through its nose.
We LEARN to breathe through our mouth as infants, and become
conditioned so that under the first signs of stress, including
exercise stress later in life we shift to our emergency mode of
breathing— through the mouth.
There are several important reasons WHY nasal breathing is so
beneficial to you and your overall performance in triathlon. They
are: 1. Our nose is made to breathe with 2. Nasal breathing
disarms the bodies stress response 3. There’s a direct correlation
between nasal breathing and heart rate (exertion levels). I’ll
discuss each briefly below.
Our Nose Is Made To Breath With
While this may sound like an obvious statement, the more important
implication is that our Mouth Is NOT made to breathe with! To give
you a quick anatomy lesson, the nose, with it’s intricate design,
allows for optimal respiration during rest and exercise. The inner
nose is made up of small ridges called turbinates which act as
turbines to swirl air into a refined stream that is suitable for
oxygen exchange. The entire passageway of the nose is lined with a
protective mucus membrane that keeps it moist and wards off
infection. The mucous membrane in combination with small hair like
cilia act to clean and filter incoming air. The air is warmed,
cooled, or moistened depending on the conditions, by our nasal
passage.
The mouth on the other hand, is a more direct emergency route. It
bypasses all preliminary phases, and the cold, dry, unfiltered air
is allowed to enter directly into the lungs.
The Nervous System Response to Nasal Breathing
When we breathe air directly from the mouth into the lungs, a
survival response is triggered in the nervous system. As a result,
a fight-or-flight reaction is activated causing the release of
adreneline and cortisol which are both degenerative hormones. They
contain waste products called free radicals, which are believed to
be the leading cause of aging, cancer, disease and death. In
addition, the body responds to this stress by Storing Fat and
burning sugar. So if we can train our body to handle more stress
without responding to it as an emergency (via nasal breathing),
we’ll have taken a huge step in the fight against fat, aging and
disease.
Breathing through the nose stimulates the parasympathetic nervous
system which calms the mind and rejuvenates the body.
The Correlation Between Breath Rate and Heart Rate
Probably the most frustrating and difficult aspect of nasal
breathing for beginners is that initially, it feels like you’re
breathing through two, tiny cocktail straws . The passage way from
the nose to the lungs is much smaller than from the mouth to the
lungs, so until you’ve developed a strong diaphragm that is able to
effectively pull air into the lower lobes of the lungs, you will
feel like you’re not getting enough air.
I see this as a blessing in disguise. By this point in the season,
most of us are over trained and NEED to slow down. Nasal breathing
will force you to slow down in the beginning, giving your body the
appropriate rest that it needs and deserves after months of hard
work. As with any muscle, the more you use it the stronger it
becomes. Through nasal breathing, the diaphragm will become a
stronger, more efficient muscle, making nasal breathing considerably
easier with time and practice.
Due to the need for longer, deeper breaths, one of the inherent
results of nasal breathing is a slower breath rate. There is a
direct correlation between breath rate and heart rate so that a
slower breath rate will entrain a slower heart rate. The average
athlete who consistently uses mouth breathing will have a breath
rate of anywhere between 30-40 breaths per minute during exercise.
During nasal breathing this number is generally cut in half! This
has an incredible amount of significance when you realize that
simply though nasal breathing, you can lower your breath rate which
will in turn, lower your heart rate at any given intensity. The end
result being that during a race, you’d have more in your energy
reserves to out-run your competitors!
So now that you understand why I’m such a proponent of nasal
breathing and how it will ultimately benefit you, I invite you to
spend this coming month playing with this technique.

Bart's Readers Digest Version of Skating Career

I began skating when I was 13 years old at the Pasadena Winter Gardens in CA.  About half the Olympic team in 1960 and 1964, came out of Southern California so it was an ideal time for a youth to come up through the ranks.   In January 1963 I headed north to Edmonton, Alberta and spent two seasons there skating on the 400m track.  The second season I did very well breaking the North American records for 3,000 and 5,000m.  Based on those performances I received an invitation to join coach Johs. Tenman  in Hamar, Norway to train with his team, Hamar Skoyteklub under Hamar Idrettslag.  I jumped at the opportunity and arrived in Hamar on September 15, 1964.  Seems like last week.   It was a brutal transition from Clarke Stadium in Edmonton to racing in front of the big crowds in Norway but when you are young, insane and full of testosterone anything is doable.  Almost 16 years later I my closed my business, sold the house and came back to the US for good.  

Doctrine and Covenants, Section 101, verses 77 through 80

“According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;

That everyman may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that everyman may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.

Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.

And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.”

Doctrine and Covenants, Section 101, verses 77 through 80

The story of Emil Zatopek is quite interesting, be sure to read this one. "Horrible Extremities of Pain"

Rock Running Editor's Note: The story of Emil Zatopek is quite interesting, be sure to read this one.

"Horrible Extremities of Pain"

Emil Zatopek was simply the most remarkable athlete in the history of long distance running. Born and raised in Czechoslovakia, a country with little running history, he was a self-made man who conquered the world. In the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Zatopek won the magic distance triple-the 5000 meters, the 10,000 meters and the marathon, setting Olympic records in all three. The marathon was his first, and his time of 2:23:04 was a world best for an out-and-back course. As the second finisher came into the stadium 2 1/2 minutes behind him, Zatopek was happily chatting with his wife Dana (gold medalist in the javelin) and munching on an apple, while the air reverberated with the cheer "Za-to-pek! Za-to-pek!"

Zatopek's method was the interval system, though he apparently knew nothing of Gerschler and Reindell when he adopted it. His own common sense led him to intervals; he eventually proved that they worked for marathoners as well as for the 400-/800-meter runners that Harbig represented. Zatopek says he began running repeated, fast 100-meter sprints when he realized long, steady training runs could not instill the speed that competition requires. At first, people thought he was crazy. "You can't train for 5000 meters by running the 100," they argued quite logically. "True," Zatopek acknowledged, "unless I run 100 meters 50 times," which he proceeded to do while the other Czech distance runners looked on in amazement.

So revolutionary was Zatopek's training, so astonishing its intensity, and so phenomenal his racing results, that word of his daily regimen quickly outstripped its actuality. It was widely rumored that he was doing 60x400 meters in 60 seconds, a workout that almost surely surpasses man's ability, as more than one world-class runner discovered in trying to duplicate it. Yet when people saw him racing, they were willing to believe almost anything. The sight of Zatopek on the track was positively riveting. No one has given freer vent to racing's agony. He tilted his head, furrowed his brow, wagged his tongue out of his mouth, rolled his shoulders, twisted his arms across his body, and appeared on the brink of an epileptic seizure. Red Smith wrote that spectators "still wake up screaming in the dark when Emil the Terrible goes writhing through their dreams, clawing at his abdomen in horrible extremities of pain." Few noticed that his running form was perfect from the waist down.
Even today, much contradictory information persists about Zatopek's training. We know for certain that he trained prodigiously and largely on the track, but without a stopwatch and certainly not at anything approaching a 60-second pace. In fact, by the standards of today's track training, much of his running would be considered quite slow.

It was the quantity of Zatopek's interval training that produced results. His training for the 1948 London Olympic Games, in which he won the 10,000 meters, consisted of daily workouts of 5 x 200 meters, 20 x 400 meters and 5 x200 meters. Immediately prior to the London Games, Zatopek reportedly ran 60 x 400 meters for 10 days in a row. Four years later, feeling that he needed even more training to ensure a triple victory in Helsinki, Zatopek began running 5 x 100 meters, 20 x 400 meters and 5 x 100 meters twice a day.

If the training sounds repetitious and boring, Zatopek's approach was anything but. Interval training appealed to him because he found it infinitely variable. He tried hundreds of different combinations of repeats, distances and speeds before he settled on the ones that best suited him. He was willing to experiment with all manner of training. He would run through knee-deep snow in his army boots, he would sprint from telephone pole to telephone pole holding his breath, he would run with Dana on his shoulders (which resulted in his suffering a hernia condition). He was a human dynamo off the track and on. Gordon Pirie, who idolized him, once visited Emil and Dana at their home. "These two used to romp like children or like beautiful young animals in their perfect fitness of body," he wrote. "Once, in fun, he threw her into a stream. Unfortunately, her foot hit a rock and she broke an ankle. I have seen him and his wife hurling a javelin full-tilt toward each other. The trick was to catch it in the air above their heads and return it as fast as possible. A dangerous game, and they Loved it.
"One secret of his success was that he never let himself get bored. He would jog for hours on the same spot, reading a book or listening to the radio. Everything was fun to him. On wash days at home he piled all the dirty clothes in the bath and then ran on them for hours. His mind was always as active as his body."

Ultimately, the specifics of Zatopek's training are less important than his spirit and determination. He won because he was unwilling to acknowledge boundaries. He pushed training for distance running light-years beyond anyone before him, saw it not as drudgery but as a daily experiment, and raised it to the level of art. Typically, Zatopek found nothing unusual about his abilities or his training. His philosophy was as matter-of-fact as it was Promethean. "When a person trains once, nothing happens," he said. "When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in ways more than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower becomes no longer a problem."

Since the day Emil Zatopek toed the 10,000-meter starting line at the 1948 Olympics, distance running has not been the same. Such a sweeping statement can be made of no other man.

Zatopek's amazing 100 x 400m reps
In spite of the great success of Kolehmainen, Nurmi, and Hagg, interval training didn't really take off until after World War II, and it was not a Finn but a notable Czechoslovakian athlete, Emil Zatopek, who perhaps did the best job of convincing the athletic world at large that intervals represented an unparalleled training technique. Zatopek used a somewhat unusual interval combination: he ran relatively short repeats, often no more than 400m in length, but instead of blazing through these relatively short interval distances at high speeds, he ran them at close to his lactate-threshold velocity, ie well below both 10k and 5k race speeds (3).

The hard-working Czech was known to rattle off 100(!) of these 400m reps per day, alternated with 200m recoveries. Scientists later reckoned (op cit) that Zatopek reached lactate-threshold speed at about 85% of his vVO2max (ie at a pace of about 72 seconds per 400m), which meant that on a 100-work-interval day he was completing about 40k of work intervals in just 120 minutes or so. (Before you become completely incredulous, don't forget that there were 99 'recoveries' injected into such running to make the 100 x 400 scheme more palatable.) Zatopek's pattern of churning out high volumes of moderate-quality (below 90% VO2max) training was echoed, albeit on a less grandiose scale, by the American runner Jim Ryun in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Interval training made its way into a scientific journal for the first time in 1959, when German exercise scientist H Reindell and colleagues described specific interval training carried out by top athletes and formulated some basic rules for interval work (4,5). Sigfried Hermann, an athlete described in Reindell's book, specialised neither in Zatopek's 'large bag' of slow intervals or Nurmi's 'short stack' of scalding reps; he engaged in what could be called 'variable-pace' interval training. A 3:40 1500m runner, Hermann would - within a single workout - run four sets of 6 x 200m, with rests of 50-60 seconds between the 200m work intervals and eight minutes between sets. Sigfried completed the first set at a tempo of 30 seconds per 200 (or 98% of 1500m speed), the next two sets at almost-exact 1500m race velocity, and most of the final set at 28 seconds per 200 (about 105% of 1500m race tempo). The German whizzed through the very last interval of the last set in 25 seconds, which was 118% of his race velocity over 1500m.

This variable-pace interval training, performed above and below actual race velocity, was mirrored in the early 1980s by famed British coach Frank Horwill, the founder of the British Milers' Club and mentor of two-time World Cross Country silver medallist Tim Hutchings. Horwill, however, liked to use the different paces on separate days of training, a scheme he called 'multi-paced training'. Peter Coe later based Seb Coe's overall training on Horwill's multi-speed foundation. Variably-paced intervals were also employed with great success in the 1980s by Said Aouita of Morocco, who held world records for both the 1500 and 5000m and ran at speeds ranging from lactate-threshold velocity all the way up to 1500m competition speed within the same session, with interval distances ranging from 200-3000m.

January Poem

Winter
Damn
It’s cold

Isn’t that beautiful?  I thought it sums everything up; short, sweet, and to the point!

Poem: Antigonish

Poem of the Month :  “Antigonish”

William Hughes Mearns (1875-1965) was an American educator and poet.  A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, Mearns was a Professor at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy from 1905-1920.  Mearns is remembered now as the author of the poem “Antigonish” a well known rhyme, composed in 1899 as a song for a play he had written called  The Psyco-ed.  The play was performed in 1910 and the poem was first published as “Antigonish” in 1922.  The poem also appeared in the movie Identity.

Yesterday upon the stair
I saw a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!

Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

“Antigonish” (1899)

What is the best Fartlek?

RE: what is the best fartlek? 6/30/2009 10:24AM - in reply to OrvilleAtkins Reply | Return to Index | Report Post

When I lived in Norway I was taught that fartlek was totally intuitive or instinctive. There was no set schedule other than starting off easier and picking up the pace with shorter quicker distances as you went. The determining factors were how you felt at the time along with the terrain and footing. The way I was coached you would determine the success of a particular fartlek training session by how you felt at the completion. You should feel invigorated and not exhausted. Obviously this is not something you learn overnight and I believe some people never learn how to take full advantage of what fartlek has to offer. As a sidebar, I believe there is something lost in the English translation. In Norway and Sweden there was as much emphasis on "lek" or play, as there was on "fart", speed or motion. In Norwegian or Swedish, fart is a word used to describe motion, and it can be either slow, fast or any velocity in between. The word for "speed" in Norwegian is "hurtig" or "hurtighet". So to be correctly translated, from a running perspective, the English term should actually be "motion" or "velocity variation" play. Hope this helps you discover a very enjoyable and beneficial way to train. All the best. - Bartman

Efforts, Achievements, and Perspective

(email June 26, 2009)

Mark,

In the early 1990's a friend of mine from Utah was involved in an expedition to Mt. Everest.  John made it as far as the "Hillary Step" and had to turn back because of the deteriorating weather and fatigue.  You might say he made it to the 23 mile mark of a marathon.  As the month of May developed it turn out that this was the only chance he was to be allowed before the team was required to leave Base Camp.  Because he "went for it", John's life was changed for the better.  He has since become a very successful business man and motivational speaker.

I know how you feel about the marathon experience. It can be devastating, if we allow it to be.  I had a similar situation years ago getting ready for the speed skating season and the Olympics trials.  Sometimes things happen completely beyond our control and all we can do is make the best of it.  But it is never wasted.   The total experience, the training, the mental prep, the constant self analysis, the commitment and effort, all these things change us; and change us for the better.  Life has a slightly different trajectory after such a commitment than it did before.

That aside, we are extremely proud of you that you "went for it" and did not let the weather force you off track.  Some might say you should have altered your plans, but your goal was to PR, not just run another marathon.  As one friend of mine once said, "it is not fail to try and fail, and try and fail again; we fail when we try and fail, and fail to try again."  Once you are fully recovered, I have this strange gut feeling that you are going to be a total pain the ass to beat this summer and through the fall.  Be kind to yourself and make sure it happens.

We are really sorry to hear about Julie.  Please send her our most heartfelt best wishes for her complete and speedy recovery.   Surgery can really take a lot out of a person, but fortunately in her favor she was in very good condition going into this.  Patience is rarely a strong point for most runners, and this will take time to bounce back from.  She needs to listen to her body, and you can help her with this, and not demand more of it than it is able to handle.   The last thing she needs is an injury on top of all this. As a follow up quote to my article "The Art of Running", Mark Wetmore once stated, "We try to learn to pay attention to sensory data.  There is no machine or device that is as accurate as that, if you learn how to read it.  It's hard to learn how to read it; some people never learn."   In the context of what he was talking about at the time, some runners are living so far in the future with regards to what they hope and dream to achieve, that they are never in the 'now time' long enough to pay attention what their body is telling them today.  Again, I think you are well qualified to give some excellent advice to her in expediting the process.

Stay in touch.

All the best,

Bart and Eve

Personal Entry: Becoming a Better Person

Personal entry June 22, 2009

Whether it be the sport of running or living the precepts of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the goal of all my efforts are directed towards the same end.  No matter the circumstances or abilities I might possess, or particular station in life that I may be at this moment or the next, the effort and struggle are the same; strive to be better, seek knowledge and truth, and carry on the effort until the very last breath of life leaves my body, I will seek to become a better person.

Reviews, Updates, and Scandals

email  to Joe and Judy Pawlick June 22, 2009)

Hello Joe and Judy,

Busy weekend it has been it has.  Where do we start?  At the beginning I suppose.

No wait, let’s start at the end: 

We got your package already this morning.  The apron is absolutely fantastic! I love it.  I know Eve will be thrilled this afternoon when she gets home.  “Marathon Girl” “Eve”, that was good.  The caramels are tasty, but don’t tell anyone I already had one.   The sand dollars are beautiful.  What wonderful, fascinating creations of nature.

Poirot Review:

It had us on the edge of our seats the entire way.  We loved it.  As usual Mr. Poirot “tormented his mind by agitating his little gray cells unmercifully” and exposed the evil Angel agent.  You have to admit though she, the evil Angel, exhibited great form with the javelin.   It is too bad that OU didn’t have her on the track team last week and maybe they would have won the national championships.  And let’s face it, until she got the point across, the Pokemon gal was bad news on her own by tormenting every person she came in contact with.  I can think of a few people I have worked with at one time or another, who you could visualize on the business end of a spear, maybe in a different location, but on the end of a spear all the same.   So the equation is balanced as far as I can see; “evil – evil = good” and Hercule came through as always.  Like fine wine, even Poirot gets better with age.

Bug and Critter Update:

Yesterday we saw our first black bear at about 30 yards up yonder trail we were running on along Bent Creek.  He was about 3 foot high across the shoulders and as fat as the piggy that went to market.   He walked out on the trail right in front of us, stopped, looked and took off down the other side of the trail.   The best part was, Eve didn’t panic, didn’t mess her shorts and remained perfectly calm.  I was proud of her.  With warm rain falling during most of our 13 mile run, the fog, the bear and the little turtle we saw along the trail, the day in the forest was almost magical.

Racing Update:

We ran the Rhododendron 10K on Saturday.  It was pretty warm; in the 70’s even at 8:30 am.  But we had a good run on a beautiful course.  Eve won 1^st place Women’s Masters, and the Bartman won 1^st place in Men’s Grand masters.  Nice plaques, no cash, great friendly folks taking care of the officiating.

Deerwood Scandals:

Nothing to report. 

Oh, one thing maybe.  The large juniper bush in front of 101 Deerlake that was providing an excellent safety hazard to anyone walking up Deerlake and meeting an oncoming vehicle driven by someone who can barely see over the steering wheel while exceeding the posted speed limit by 15 mph, is now gone.  We asked the landscapers to trim it to back a couple of feet behind the curb and trim the height so a pedestrian and driver could see over it.  They trimmed it alright!  The area looks much better.  But still, since I started the ball rolling leading to the demise of this ugly, out of control bush, I feel like I might have painted a bulls-eye on my back.  In the mean time the Grounds Committee continues to approve the installation of ornamental do-dingies in common grounds without consulting with the Board.  Last week this finally resulted in a special hearing of the Board to resolve a complaint by a neighbor who did not behold the beauty of an illegal installation, that was, of course, beholden by the installer and approver.  Like the Board doesn’t have enough to do as it is.  I hope this will be the end of it but after hearing the evidence provided at the hearing by the Chairman of the Grounds Committee, I am not overly optimistic.  Evidently this has been going on for some time.  I just don’t understand why it is so difficult to live by the rules we all agreed on when we moved in here.  Stay tuned.

The Art of Running

The Art of Running

by Bart Smith

In conjunction with a recent Asheville (North Carolina) Track Club meeting I was asked to participate on a panel of accomplished master runners (ages 40 to 70) where the audience was invited to pose questions regarding our training and racing.  One of the questions posed to the panel was: “What is the pace and duration of your fast, high end runs?”  Each of us took a stab at answering the question as best we could, but one panel member, Mark Ledyard, brought the issue into perspective when he said the mile splits and pace charts were irrelevant to a given day: “I run by how I feel and make the most of whatever the day offers.” 

This indeed, I thought, is what the art of running is all about. The ongoing balancing act performed on the three legged stool of duration, intensity and frequency, leads me to believe that running, and the coaching of runners, is truly, more of an art than a science.

John Kellogg’s Precepts

Several years ago, John Kellogg wrote an essay, “Progressing to Peak Fitness.”  This essay is the best I have ever read addressing progressive running, because this piece gives the most accurate description of what most runners ignore and what all should attempt to achieve. Here is how Mr. Kellogg introduces the concept of intuitive running:

“The science of running has come a long way, but it has an even longer way to go before it replaces the art of running.  This is analogous to listening to a mechanized ‘player piano’ versus listening to a professional musician.  The machine relies on notes only, with at best minimal attention to dynamics...Consequently, there are many people who can play all the right notes but still miss the music.” (http://www.letsrun.com/2005/jkfitness.php)

According to Mr. Kellogg, every runner is equipped with the ultimate lactate analyzer and the necessary sensory devices that will provide the bio feedback required to properly adjust pace and effort suitable to the conditions of a given day.  The operative word here, of course, is “effort.” I believe a recent quote by Ryan Hall illustrates this point: 

“I was always fascinated at Stanford by the fact that we would have a group of eight guys who would train together for every workout and yet when race day came the difference between those eight guys could be as much as a minute, showing that it is not necessarily what you are able to do in practice but was it done at the right effort level. Even though those eight guys were all running the same pace for the workouts, maybe it was only the right pace and the most beneficial pace for two or three of them.“

Guidelines for Self Discovery

So, where does one begin on this odyssey to self discovery of what works and what does not?  Here are a few guidelines that I have gathered through the years and seemed to have worked well for me.

1)      Each and every daily run MUST begin slowly.  When I say slowly, I mean as slow as a walk.  In fact, Eve and I call this pace a "wog"—half walk, half jog. This slow, easy start of each run is where all the systems of the body are given time to come into harmony.

2)      With the help of Danny Dryer (author of Chi Running) I have learned to use this slow start to wisely focus on my posture, relaxation, leaning from the ankles, lifting my feet, and getting the feel of rolling down the road rather than bounding down the road, along with proper deliberate breathing.  The slow start of every run is probably one of the foremost injury preventers for a runner.

3)      Let the pace come to you.  Do not force the effort, but rather allow yourself to gradually get a little faster—over one, two, or more miles. There is no defining point of increase between walking pace at the beginning of the run, and the high-end aerobic pace nearing the completion of a good hard run. 

4)      No part of the run should be labored.  Again, let the pace come to you.  Strive to achieve a feeling of free, effortless running, where once you hit that sweet spot with all systems in sync, you almost have a feeling of floating over the ground.

5)      Strive to learn the difference between smart training, that invigorates and conditions, and hyper training, that takes you over the top and leaves you injury prone.

6)      Please read John Kellogg’s essay.  A good grasp of his precepts will do more to assist you with an understanding of how to best go about performing the type of conditioning, “one that will relax and train a runner (you) but kill a jogger (someone a few seconds per mile slower than you!)”

If you apply these principles to your training, you might allow yourself to discover the runner within you, or as Mark would say, “I run by how I feel and make the most of whatever the day offers.”

End

Post Script:

To all our friends in Las Vegas, we extend our very best wishes, and please know that we miss you all dearly. 

Sincerely,

Bart and Eve.

Random thoughts about the Birkebeiner With Jack and Grete Waitz

(email April 19, 2009 to Jack and Grete Waitz)

Heisan,

Random thoughts about the Birkebeiner: I have wondered what the "real" traditional route would have been when they transported Haakon to Trondelag.  Based on my scant knowledge of Norwegian history I gathered that they were escaping from an area near the present Swedish border and heading to the Birkebeinar strong hold in Trondelag.  In any case the downhill from Sjusjoen to Lillehammer is no joke (ikke til aa spoeke med).  I skied it once and that was enough.  It was nice at the top and got more icy as I neared Lillehammer, until finally I was skiing over blaabaer lyngen.  Interesting trip, cold and clear at Sjusjoen and raining in Lillehammer.  Universal Klister worked very good on skara, ice, korn snow, slush and moose poop.

One more random thought of no consequence: If the Viking Berzerkers were actually using flue sopp in their pre-combat soup brew, should they not be disqualified from Viking history since they used performance enhancing drugs?  At least anything they won (stole) should be returned and slaves and concubines should be immediately conficasted.  Seems logical since the French are still agonizing over a bottle of 10 year old Lance Armstrong pee for the sake of correctness and fair play.  On second thought maybe Fluesopp is not on the WADA list of banned substances, so then, I guess, it would be okay.

The tulips started blooming here about two weeks and the Biltmore Estate had a beautiful display at the Winery.  You guys have got to come visit us sometime and see the Estate. 

Be good and enjoy the spring.

Bart

AP – Runners make their way past Zojoji temple in the Tokyo Marathon in Tokyo, Japan, Sunday, March 22, 2009. … Dan Peterson

AP – Runners make their way past Zojoji temple in the Tokyo Marathon in Tokyo, Japan, Sunday, March 22, 2009. …

Dan Peterson                                                                                
LiveScience's Sports Columnist
LiveScience.com dan Peterson
livescience's Sports Columnist
livescience.com – Sun Mar 29, 10:15 am ET

Most regular runners can tell you when they reach that perfect equilibrium of speed and comfort. The legs are loose, the heart is pumping and it feels like you could run at this pace forever.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison now have an explanation for this state of running nirvana, and we can thank our ancestors and some evolutionary biology for it.

For years, it has been thought that humans have a constant metabolic energy rate. It was assumed that you would require the same total energy to run one mile, no matter if you ran it in 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Even though your energy burn rate would be higher at faster speeds, you would get there in half the time.

Turns out, however, that each person has an optimal running pace that uses the least amount of oxygen to cover a given distance. The findings, by Karen Steudel, a zoology professor at Wisconsin, and Cara Wall-Scheffler of Seattle Pacific University, are detailed in latest online edition of the Journal of Human Evolution.

Steudel's team tested both male and female runners at six different speeds on a treadmill while measuring their oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output. As expected, each runner had different levels of fitness and oxygen use but there were ideal speeds for each runner that required the least amount of energy.

Overall, the optimal speeds for the group were about 8.3 mph (about a 7:13 minutes per mile) for males and 6.5 mph (9:08 min/mile) for females.

The most interesting finding: At slower speeds, about 4.5 mph (13 min/mile), the metabolic efficiency was at its lowest. Steudel explains that at this speed, halfway between a walk and a jog, the runner's gait can be awkward and unnatural.

"What that means is that there is an optimal speed that will get you there the cheapest," Steudel says.

So, why is a zoology professor studying running efficiency? Steudel's previous work has tried to build a theory of why our early ancestors evolved from moving on four limbs to two limbs, also known as bipedalism. She has found that human walking is a more efficient method of getting from point A to point B than on all fours. It might also have been an advantage for hunting.

This latest research could offer some more clues of how we moved on to running. Steudel explains, "This is a piece in the question of whether walking or running was more important in the evolution of the body form of the genus Homo."

Ramblings, Rambling, and more Ramblings About Some Bad-az Senior Runners

email March 11, 2009)

Hello Bill,

Glad you are feeling better.  Eve is doing fine.  Even though she was a little uncomfortable that night she still did a 2 hour run on Sunday.  The French Broad Dash and Squat seemed to be the worst of it.  I recall a similar experience during a 15k training run many years ago that became a legend of Norwegian folk lore.  In fact this is how the term "brownfield" was coined as the site of an ecological/environmental clean-up in progress.  To say I merely darkened the forest that day is an understatement of obscene proportions.

Yes... I saw that about Charlie.  Isn't that awesome!!!  Charles was at the ATC meeting on Monday night, while you were home playing your flute and drums.  It was not even mentioned during the panel discussion about his honorable mention by Running Times.  Charles was not on the panel, though he should have been.  He did have a chance to answer a couple of questions that were directed his way from Rick Taylor.  What a charming, humble man he is!  Charles is also a vegetarian and he cites his improved health and sharpened mental alertness since making the transition several years ago.  (Warning: Rant about to start), In spite of the meat packing industry funded research recently released by Harvard University, people who have switched to a vegetarian diet, continue to report the same conclusions as Charles.  Our experience has been similar.  The Harvard Diet and Nutrition Center is obviously staffed by a bunch of prostitutes who will get on their knees for anyone with a blank check in hand.  I cannot believe the bullshit they recently published regarding the consumption red meat versus a vegetarian diet.  They even had the testicular fortitude to state that the brains of vegetarians shrink due to dietary causes.  Too bad these dumbasses never heard of Albert Einstein since his vegetarian habits were obviously the reason for his mental malaise.  You have to wonder if some of these researchers keep "do-me high heels" in their lockers, that they slip on when preparing to write their papers.  (Ok, rant done.)

Bottom line: Charles Dotson is an icon for the running community of Asheville, if not the entire state of NC.

As for my standing nationally; I have some bad-az competition.  Doug Goodhue can knock out a 38 min 10k along with his 18 min 5K.  And Doug is in an age-grade ahead of me!!  Doug is awesome, no doubt about that.  In the 60-64 group you have guys doing 17 min 5K's and 36 min 10's.  Of course Ron Wells did his 5K at Carlsbad which always gathers the best runners in the country for the Carlsbad 5000.  Carlsbad is a pancake flat course, but it still has two 180 degree turns, so Ron could probably go 5 - 10 seconds faster under better conditions.  I went head to head with Ron Enos (honorable mention) at the Las Vegas Marathon a few years ago and he finished 3rd, almost 1 minute behind me.  Yeah, the top 3 places at Las Vegas in 60-64 group were within 1 minute of each other!  I passed the second place guy about 2 miles from the finish, heading north towards the finish on Frank Sinatra Drive.  I could tell by the size of his ears that we had to be close to the same age, so when I passed him I was going as fast as I dared to go that late in the race and with still another 14 - 15 minutes of racing left.  I am certain I would gone sub 3 hours that day but the damn 35-40 mph wind shot that down.  Ron ran 2:57 at Boston the following April.

Well, now that your colon is cleaned out, be sure to get your electro-lytes back up and you should be flying in a couple of weeks.

Are you running Shamrock this Saturday or keeping it a low-key-mend-the-seared-sphincter weekend?

All the best,

Bart

Personal Note Regarding Our Running

March 3, 2009 (Personal note regarding our running.)

In trying to define how high aerobic running should be performed, we have come with a few key words for the sake of association with the proper level of effort expenditure.

Fast and comfortable; 1-sentence talking pace; stay in the comfort zone; relaxed; find and stay in the zone; let everything “click” and function in harmony (breathing, stride, cadence, rhythm); train don’t strain; should not experience negative thoughts, back off or bail if you do; don’t leave it on the road; breathing good but never hard; think “moderate effort”; invigorate the runner and kill the jogger; never bog the “governor”;