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The Prognosis is Pain
"There's always going to be pain in life. Suffering's optional."
Tallulah Bankhead
The first days of my track seasons feature the usual: a welcome speech, attendance, paperwork that's either in or missing, the standards and procedures speech, the gear speech--and maybe a dash of rah-rah. It's only later, when I pull aside my distance training group, that I say, "O.K., let's talk about pain." Caveat emptor, the thinking goes. They deserve to know what they've signed up for.
No one, obviously, joins a team with the singular thought, I really want to be mediocre. But in this sport of the longer miles, mastery at any talent level is a harsh mistress. A week or so after Day 1, we've completed the March of Attrition and left by the wayside those too shocked or disheartened by pain to continue. "Pain is the purifier," Cerutty once famously proclaimed. "Love pain," he exhorted. "Embrace pain." Cerutty didn't mean it this way, but for many teams, pain is the purifier, though in the sense of gut-checks for those with uninformed expectations or qualified commitments. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood-those kind of hard choices. So when the pain of normal distance running has done its work, and when the squad is smaller, the training begins in earnest.
Of course, the pain being described is not the kind that results from traumatic or chronic injury. It's different. For years now, there have been attempts to gentrify that particular condition, to instead call it "discomfort" so as not to scare athletes and parents unnecessarily. But with young adults, discomfort is for a social faux pas such as spilling milk on yourself in the cafeteria or getting a new friend's name wrong-repeatedly. Our four letter word works more honestly with runners, as long as it's understood for what it is: temporary-the kind of pain that goes away once you stop. Some runners have been known to drop out of races altogether to halt that kind of pain; many others are known to merely slow. For coaches, the difference is critical.
To keep things simple, I tell my squad that middle-distance runners are divided into three groups. In the first group, I explain, are runners who either fear pain (those who most likely suffer a low pain tolerance) or those who actually believe, due to parenting or attitude, that pain should always be optional. That makes them fairly normal as Americans, but it doesn't bode well for middle-distance success. "The good news," I tell them, "is that pain tolerance can be increased-if you're willing."
"There's another group," I go on, "those who understand pain as part of the deal." I explain how the majority of committed runners fall into this category. Pain for them is a means to an end-and so they find ways to put up with it. They give pain its due, and hold on with thoughts of accomplishment and pride and responsibility to teammates. They make deals with that devil.
"But there's a third group," I say, and then describe a small, enigmatic percentage of runners. "These folks are unique." For them, pain is not a means to an end. It's a measure. Those runners don't make deals with the devil. They are the devil, and they toy with pain. They want to see how much of it they can take, how much of it they can master. Those oddballs are Cerutty's dream.
More than one willing and hopeful runner, whether neophyte or veteran, has been daunted by the realities of pain. So most coaches help them out by explaining that reacting poorly to pain is not a moral or a strictly physical failing. Dr. Tim Noakes and others have provided some cover by describing the true workings of runners through the Central Governor model. It can get complicated, so I simply provide the summary: pain is not a condition, like mumps; it's merely a signal. You can make choices about those inevitable signals, I tell them. You can train yourself to higher fitness levels so you delay the signals. You can also develop strategies for dealing with the messages. Take your pick-or better yet, pick both.
Wandering eyes suggest it's time to wrap up the words. Soon enough, that information will be wedded to actions. I think of Matt Fitzgerald nicely summing up the mind/body challenge in How Badly Do You Want It? "In a race, the job of the muscles is to perform. The job of the mind is to cope....The muscles can only perform to the degree the mind is able to cope."
It's a cogent reminder of the multiple layers of mastery required to get the job done. Earlier this fall, I had sat in on a presentation by Coach Aris of Fayetteville-Manlius at the annual NYS APHERD conference. The question had been posed about how he creates such incredible team cohesiveness in his cross-country groups year after year, season after season. Coach Aris paused a moment to consider the question, then, in so many words, said that such unanimity of purpose doesn't come, as many like to think, from the pasta parties, the team camps, the car washes. What bonds our runners, he said, is the pain that is willingly shared by those runners.
Interesting. Pain as not simply the purifier, but pain as the necessary unifier.
Mine were headed out for practice on one of our indoor classics, intervals of two hundred meters up a steep hill and then another .3 miles around its top, with legs already stressed. Nothing about it is easy. With me perched atop their drumlin's steep rise and offering encouragement, they grimaced and puffed their sets of three while the late Fall sun sank below naked treetops and then set. At dusk, they trudged down their last hill to begin the run home, weary but satisfied. "Honestly folks," I asked, intercepting one group. "How do you feel?"
They looked at each other, smiled and said, "Good. We feel good."