Revisiting A Parent's Perspective - Part 5: Mind and Body – For or Against One Another?

Red Hook, NY - We are competing in a curious time.  It seems as if the higher echelons of our sport are competing against the traditional paths.  While one of our harriers going pro is still the outlier, our top female harrier this year is coming off of homeschooling through her middle school years.  In addition, our top male harrier has been competing for the club team Rolling Thunder since he was eight years old.  And finally, the state's next rising talent, has been running CYO meets for years, coached by her father.

So does this mean that High School coaching is dead?  Not even close.  But it does raise some questions.  Questions that have been raised before, when another Home Schooled athlete was the talk of the town.  In 2005, Josh McDougal captured just about all the long distance state records, culminating with a 8:48.11 for the 3200y, and a 14:07.55 for an on-track 5000m run.  Now almost ten years later, the questions come back.

In 2005, one parent set out to answer those questions, submitting to TullyRunners an article entitled, "Josh McDougal is a Perfect Example of What is Wrong With High School Track."  The parent's name was John Raucci, a father with two son's running for Red Hook High School.  Over the next season, we will be re-releasing his original articles, which almost a decade later, prove fascinating.  You can note, that some of the ideas are a bit dated, but some of the things are spot on, before they came to be the accepted standard.  I hope you enjoy the article as much as we have.

 

Josh McDougal is a Perfect Example of What is Wrong With High School Track

by John Raucci



I was at the Albany First Night Run where my two sons Joe and Dave ran. After the race, two Bethlehem High cross country and track graduates, Pat Shaffer and Evan Savage, came up to me and started conversing. Both were injured and unable to run in their freshman year of college throughout Cross Country and now into their Indoor Track seasons. Pat, at that time, told me something that went through me like a knife. He said, "Josh McDougal is the perfect example of what is wrong with High School Track". I assumed he meant that, the High School system by which we train and compete, is flawed and ends up in the destruction of many kids' careers - especially the more elite runners. I train the kids at Red Hook and some from Rhinebeck in the off-season, and I have been doing so for the past 5 years, and I knew that Pat was correct. Now, Josh is beating people who were ahead of him two and three years ago by 2+ minutes. Recently, he defeated Alan Webb and came within seconds of Tim Broe in a nationally acclaimed 4K race. He has been relatively injury free although not entirely, but far better than the non-home-schooled kids. He seems to improve gracefully whereas many others seem to grapple with injury and/or settle for small performance gains. That at least appears to be the trend.

I decided that night that I must write this article as an offering to all runners, coaches, and parents of runners in New York. The purpose of this article is to make us conscious of issues that are at the moment a blip on the screen - those issues that I believe lay behind Pat's statement. This article is not written in conjunction with anyone else including Josh, nor is it endorsed by anyone at the moment. It is simply a compilation of my own thoughts, experience, and research over the past five years. Long distance runners are of a special breed. They work hard, and receive little recognition.

I live an hour south of Albany. On the three local news stations, there are consistent and daily videotape highlights of football and basketball. It took the Saratoga girls to win a National Cross Country Championship to squeeze out 10 seconds on the Nightly News - the only 10 seconds devoted to running that I saw all Fall. How much work did it take to win that championship? How many hours day and night, winter and summer, did those girls train on those lonely upstate roads? I bet one could not count the investment, the dedication. If such athletes cannot be given recognition at least in relation to their effort, I believe they should be given good information, the kind of information that will help them reach their potential. It is in that spirit that I write this article.

As I see it, there are five problems with the way we train our runners, not only in New York, but also throughout the nation. None of the five are easy to correct because running, like so much else, is encumbered by cultural standards that not only impede progress, but also lead us to sickness and injury. The five problems thrive because of our culture. In any case, bringing the five to light is a first step to health and realization of potential. The five are as follows: the problem of running shoes, the problem of breathing, the problem of anaerobic activity, the problem of nutrition, and the problem of mind/body integration.


Part 1: If the Shoe Fits - Beware of It

Part 2: Hold Your Breath

Part 3: Breakdown or Breakthrough

Part 4: Eat a Lot – A Lot of What?

 

Mind and Body – For or Against One Another?
 

Among all that we have brought up within this article, nothing is more vital and at the same time more elusive than the issue of the integration between the mind and the body. I find myself somewhat reluctant to deal with this issue because it is so very foreign to Western Culture. As a result, we come to hear bits and pieces of what in reality is the substance of life. By substance I mean that neither one word nor deed can ever come about without the coming together in some way of the mind and the body.

Mind and Body were created to exist in a certain orderly fashion. Ideally, the mind being invisible and internal is in the position of cause. Ideally, the body being visible and external is in the position of effect or result. Mind and body are separate entities with differing purposes. The mind concerns with the wider picture, others, the world, and our place in the world. The body is concerned with its own comfort and security.

As men and women on the earth, our task is to bring both our minds and bodies together. And therein lies the key to the realization of one's athletic potential. As John Douillard so beautifully explains, we have to teach the body how to comfortably perform in accordance with and towards the fulfillment of the minds desire. We essentially accomplish that by teaching the body how to perform at higher and higher levels while remaining in a zone of comfort. This corresponds well with Lydiard's experience whereby he sees aerobic activity as the fundamental means behind athletic development. Being in the zone occurs when spectacular athletic feats are achieved effortlessly. In other words, the desire of the mind to perform an athletic goal is brought about in accordance with the body's ability to simultaneously remain at peace.

As the mind and body become one, they will spontaneously center upon something greater, and that something in the highest sense, is goodness or virtue, or for some, the Ultimate or God. In the case of an athlete it means taking all of God's given gifts and using them to the fullest. We run a great race only because God put that ability within us, and we as responsible beings on the earth, bring such an ability to fruition. The good here, the virtuous here, is the realization of one's potential.

At the highest levels of this sport and among many other sports, there is a growing sense of realization related to the power of the mind, working in conjunction with the body, and human achievement. Such techniques as visualization are becoming increasingly popular. However, no one expressed such an association better than Roger Bannister after he broke the Four Minute Mile against all the declarations by experts, scientists and otherwise, who pronounced the body to be physiologically incapable of such a feat. Bannister remarked, "Though physiology may indicate respiratory and circulatory limits to muscular effort, psychological and other factors beyond the ken of physiology set the razor's edge of defeat or victory and determine how close an athlete approaches the absolute limits of performance". The key words for me in Bannister's statement are "other factors". I sense he is also alluding to those invisible and maybe even intangible entities such as Spirit, Mind and Body integration, and perhaps even God.

In America, we tend to compartmentalize and isolate elements because it seems to make reality more sensible. When children attend elementary school, we offer physical education. The words themselves mislead us into thinking that we can somehow educate our physical aspect in and of itself. We cannot. If we take away the mind, we will never educate the body. All education involves the training of the mind and body. Failing to understand this contributes heavily to the kinds of inner conflicts all of us wish to avoid.

When a runner is trained to fight his body, to fight fatigue, this is the path to inner conflict. While such fighting can be viewed as noble in certain circumstances, it nevertheless cannot be sustained over time. "Burn out" arises from such an inner conflict over a period of time. The only way to sustain a long career is to bring the mind and body together so that they are on the same page, such that they work in harmony for the achievement of a goal. In order to realize such a harmony, a serious training is necessary, and as such is as vital as running around the track. The results of this type of training will naturally go far beyond the sport of running. They will carry over into life and human relationships.

What I am saying may seem like just words to some, but there is a depth here that requires time and patience to penetrate. Unfortunately, such a penetration may go beyond the scope of this article, but should nevertheless be approached in subsequent writing. Josh and Jordan seem to be very religious. Religion, in and of itself, is significant, in that it appeals to the mind to think in a certain way, and then sets sight upon the body such that words and deeds can flow in a harmonious accordance with the mind. The practice of Religion can be a way to bring a kind of order within the mind/body dynamic, which is so often volatile otherwise. When I speak of Religion, I speak of no Religion in particular. In my experience, most, whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu etc., seem to do something inside of us that is unique, and beneficial, especially when connected with athletic striving. I sense that Josh and Jordan are running for some higher purpose. And I believe that, as such, this will only serve to enhance their performance as time goes on.


Conclusion
 

I'm guessing there will be many who will say that this article is a lot of hogwash. Others might say it was a long time in coming. In any case, we all have to contend with the fact that someone like Josh, was able to sidestep the mountainous composite of coaching experience found within the New York High School Community, and move up to the level of a national phenomenon before our very eyes. He is surpassing so many runners who have been coached by incredibly gifted and experienced coaches.

I do believe that we have to re-evaluate our methods of coaching. However, I see this as one aspect of something bigger. Track coaches are often the hardest working of coaches of any sport. They are decent people, and I personally have never met one that I did not like. However, they too must contend with a system, which is centered upon competition at the expense of development. In addition, we all have before us the educational and medical communities, which are fundamentally failing to teach even simple basics as to how to breathe or how to take care of our feet, or what to eat, let alone, the concept of mind/body integration. This is compounded by the fact that from everywhere around us, we are being bombarded with the notion that only through stress can we begin to attain high performance levels. Such a notion extends far beyond sports, but to school, the job etc.

So, with that, I conclude that it is up to each of us to raise the consciousness of one another as to what, and what not is good, for our young athletes. And therein lies any value that this article may have. Whether we think of it or not, we must race not only against one another, but also against those elements within our culture which would cut us down in our prime if we don't see them coming.