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
This is the second of a series of follow-up articles expounding the themes presented in the primary article "Josh McDougal Is A Perfect Example Of What is Wrong With High School Track". As with all follow-ups, they would be best understood by first going over any preceding writing. This particular article will serve to present the activity of running in a context whereby we can begin to see the forces which propel this natural human endeavor towards pain, injury, ill health, and frustration. My hope is that as such, running can be approached in a new framework, a framework that will set the basis or pattern for any running or training regimen. The ideas to be presented in this article are fundamentally no different than those offered in the preceding articles. However, they will be laid out in such a way as to offset much of the prevailing misinformation that has unleashed a mass of damage onto the activity.
Economy can be usually understood as that aspect of humanity whereby goods are produced, transported and consumed. It is vital to life upon the earth, and often understood in terms of its relation to nations or certain particular goods and services. Human economies are often interconnected. The rise of one can lead to the rise of another and vice-versa.
As I came to observe running and the sport of track and field, I found that this activity was wedged between two kinds of economy. However, in this case, the economies are mutually exclusive, antagonistic to one another, and even in conflict with each other. In regard to running, the rise of one of these economies leads to the fall of the other. The expansion of one will spur on the shrinkage of the other. The vitality of one will drain the life out of the other.
Part 1: If the Shoe Fits - Beware of It
Part 3: Breakdown or Breakthrough
Part 4: Eat a Lot – A Lot of What?
Part 5 : Mind and Body – For or Against One Another?
Part 6: Shoeless and Clueless
Part 7: Darth Vader - The Master Breather
Part 9: LANCE ARMSTRONG - MOVE OVER!
As I write this piece in July of 2005, I cannot help but to follow the Tour De France - Lance's last great competition. I came to understand that Lance was the beneficiary of not one, but two teams. The first of course was the team of bikers that work solely to protect Lance from the winds and hazards of the road, such that he could finish off his competitors one by one. It is however the second team that caught my attention. They work to train the first team and design the equipment. In biking, wind is the enemy, or as they say "drag". Meticulous attention is paid to every detail of the biker's equipment in order to counteract drag. The shape of the helmet might take minutes off a biker's time. The lean on the bike is studied such that a perfect angle is established through which the biker can shave the maximum amount of time off of his race. Even the shape of the fabric of the biker's shirt can mean the difference between a win and a loss as it faces off with drag. Naturally, the design of the bike with its myriads of contours is worked and reworked to perfection or as close to it as possible. Needless to say, the more I observed how the second team paid attention to every fathomable detail of design, I began to feel jealous. I asked myself, "Why we do not pay likewise attention to human design when it comes to running?" As runners, we have an undeniable advantage. We are in fact the design, and an incredible one at that. Lance may be paying millions of dollars for his team of trainers and designers, but it is nevertheless no match for the team that designed us if we consider God and the angels. And of course, they did it all for free.
The first economy can be termed "running economy". We may have even come across this term in running books. It is just another way of pointing to efficiency in running. We run efficiently when everything clicks. We conserve energy, and apply it appropriately as needed. Energy is devoted solely to the activity. All motion is in accord with our forward movement. For example, we do not jump vertically in the air with each step. That would cause us to expend energy unnecessarily to counteract gravity. Rather, we move horizontally with a forward lean. Shaking our heads back and forth wastes energy while running. Swinging our arms all around our bodies would do likewise.
While running economy is not the traditional type of economy that we have come to know through the flow of goods, and services, it is nonetheless an economy of sorts. It involves the consumption of food, water, and oxygen, the production of energy, and the movement of energy throughout the body in order to stimulate activity. When this economy is undertaken properly, running will bring only benefit to the runner, as opposed to injury, illness, or even the kinds of heart attacks that joggers and runners sometimes succumb to during the activity.
If we are really to be mindful about running economy, we must be far more serious about our own human design than Lance Armstrong's hired hands are about the design of a bike.
RUNNING IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH
Recently, President Bush, on an International Visit to the UK, took time off from meetings to go biking. His ride caught the attention of the world as he slammed into a policeman. Why was he biking? Undoubtedly, Bush bikes because he wants to continue exercising. Previously, he had been an avid runner. However, as we had been informed, Bush began to develop leg problems due to his "running" combined with the fact that he is aging. Do we not hear such language over and over again? I got such and such a problem from "running". It's almost like saying that I got lung cancer because I was smoking.
One year ago, a study out of the University of Utah by Bramble and Lieberman made the case for running as that which distinguishes us at least physiologically in our humanity. Their writing was entitled "How Running Made Us Human". In it, they demonstrate how the body is in fact anatomically designed for the purpose of running. To quote one paragraph:
"I Run, Therefore I Am"
Bramble and Lieberman examined 26 traits of the human body - many also seen in fossils of Homo erectus and some in Homo habilis - that enhanced the ability to run. Only some of them were needed for walking. Traits that aided running include leg and foot tendons and ligaments that act like springs, foot and toe structure that allows efficient use of the feet to push off, shoulders that rotate independently of the head and neck to allow better balance, and skeletal and muscle features that make the human body stronger, more stable and able to run more efficiently without overheating."
In reality, when running is performed in accordance with human design, there is essentially no possibility for any harm at all to come to us. Running injuries never come from "Running". They arise from both ignorance and alteration of our fundamental human design.