Monday, March 3, 2008

Monday some miles..

As I started my run today I have to admit that not wearing a watch or HR monitor and running on an unfamiliar route had my mind reeling. How was I supposed to quantify what I had done? How would I tell all of you lurking blogophiles how far I ran and how fast I am.. my ego was in a tizzy! What is there to prove that I actually did run? I have nothing but .062% more capillaries and .01% less fat to show for it!
Made me think a little more about not thinking so much about the things that muddle the truth. Miles of course make champions. My leg muscle fibers didn't respond to XX number of miles though.. they respond to stress and stress is not measurable with a tape measure or a GPS. Chuck is maybe saying that we should simply stress our bodies and let it tell us when we are done. If you think about it- it is kind of silly to say that next Wednesday I am going to run 13 miles and that will be the perfect number of miles to stimulate my fitness. That's naive. For me to run 100 miles is to run an arbitrary number of yards simply because the number looks good on paper. 99 miles is only 2 digits, while 100 is 3 digits.. and my i-pod's volume goes to 11. I think if one is to choose a nice round number to run it should be 200 kilometers. 125 miles has more anecdotal foundation for creating elite runners than a measly 100... but I digress. To walk out the door and run until your legs and bones and lungs tell you that you are done is the correct way to do it. Run until you're tired. Then the next day run until you're tired again.
The "caveman" metaphor is great, but only if you avoid trying to over think it. Which is the point to begin with! When I started my run this morning my mind was reeling and I was trying hard to THINK about what I was going to do, how I was going to do it.. but the point of the exercise is to stop thinking and just run.
At a certain point though- it does become imperative to start thinking about the structure and the intensity of training. What Chuck is saying is not an all encompassing blanket statement for all periods of training and all athletes. It's an exercise in exercising the muscle that matters the most- the one between our ears. So, I ran today... and then I'm going to do it again tomorrow and some day I'm going to be as good as I want to be because of that.

8 comments:

JP Flores said...

the last sentence of your post captures it all for me.

BRFOOT said...

I loved Chuck's post. My only issue is if I'm running an out and back kind of route, that I've never run. How do I know when to turn around???

Matt said...

Sounds like a couple of heavy-weights playing a nice civilized game of tennis. Great stuff - loaded with information for us blogophiles (great, hilarious line!). Obviously there needs to be a balance: there's certainly something almost transcendent about LSD over and over - I picture a very lean long-hair sipping tea post devotion - it's religious. But there's obviously something transcendent about "not knowing;" ignorance is bliss.

Keep it coming!

Yancy Lent said...

I think it’s a matter of purity. Chuck presents the most pure “for the love of running” approach. I think the approach is romantic but it’s not enough for me. I expand running beyond the physical act and continue it on the spreadsheet charting my progress, plotting my schedule and looking at where I can make improvements. I also run alone, and have no way gagging my current effort. I’ve run with human running metronomes but I don’t have it. I need the feed back of the watch to let me know where I stand. So maybe we’re one step up; cavemen with a watch. Last note; I think you can have it both ways. Start the watch just don’t look at it.

Chuckie V said...

Yancy,
Perhaps my caveman analogy was not the one to bring into my original blog...and believe me, I understand (and condone) the use of science and measurement, but I think the main thing I was trying to get across to Tim was to also train (and free) his mind. Cavemen did this, whereas we seemed to be enslaved to preconceived notions handed down to us by others: parents, siblings, teachers, society, etc.

I don't mean to get too philosophical, but the mind, in the end, is what controls the body and it needs to expand its horizons in order for the body to do the same.

Mark Allen was the KING of this...

He'd start every year by training the body (with the help of a watch and a heart-rate monitor and a lot of motivation) but would then get to a point where he'd ditch everything for a while and head to the desert for a solo retreat, where he'd train his mind. He was also untouchable on race day and yet his lab results were nothing special.

beth said...

chucke & lucho-
i love the idea of running "just for fun" and last week it was beautiful out, i saw a mountain (not by boulder standards) i had never been to, and decided to run up it. thing is, i went over the 30-minute t-run "prescribed" in my training plan for the sake of fun and the love of running. and it was the best run i've had in months and i don't know exactly how far i went, what my HR was, or how long it took

this actually sparked a "conversation":) with my coach/boyfriend (i know, mixing training & love not always cool) about how i need to have several of these workouts a month and it is a part of my enjoying training. going places i've never been and not knowing how long or where it will take me. basically, f the plan.
his point, very legitimately, is that sometimes my "f the plan" workouts happen a little too much and they almost always result in more rather than less training.


but, then there's the side of me that planned to run 40 minutes easy after master's today and somehow my watch stopped at exactly 42 minutes. zero seconds. and 42 happens to be my lucky number...

BRFOOT said...

Chuck I agree with almost everything you said. Being from Washington and having had the opportunity to walk an unknown number of miles up here. Methinks the Cascades, particularly the North Cascades are the most stunning mtns. But on a scale with "Oh my God" and "Holy Shit" as endpoints I guess it really doesn't matter.

Yancy Lent said...

Chuckie,

After re-read your post and comments, I get what your saying and I'm sold, and its this approach is currently lacking in my training. It's actually expanding on my favorite part, the mental escapism. I just need to tailor it a little to listen to my body. Come to think about it, maybe that's the problem; like in relationships. I'm talking a lot or yelling at my body/self to do better and not taking the time to truly listen. This is all very cool. Thanks!