After the success of Jim Vermeulen's XC Journal in the many falls of Cross Country, we've asked again for him to provide some news and notes once a month. Think of these as the thoughts that cross the mind of your average coach. Up from Section 3, we present you with "Thoughts From Three."
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"No struggles, no stories."
Russ Ebbets
You don't have to go far in the library of how-to-become-a-distance-runner before you trip over some tome on individualized training or proper mechanics or the latest on how to develop a 'right stuff' mentality. No one's yet come out with The Book of Pain.
I had a runner in an early-season outdoor track 800m event. She had not raced since December-a complicated tale of small but cumulative issues that ended her indoor efforts mid-season. So, there were lingering questions, and chief among them was how to manage her first race in a long time in a field that contained the previous year's 1500m state champion. We talked about that. I suggested a race strategy that contained both a simple A and a simple B plan. One or the other, we hoped, would work. At the track, I wished her and her teammates in the race good luck and stepped back onto the infield to watch things unfold. Regardless of outcome, it was going to be hard.
The first two hundred meters went according to both contingencies. With an initial burst off the line, she avoided a lot of jostling and settled in behind her expected competitor who was already speeding away with a fast start. But I had warned her about that, which was accounted for in Plan A, so when she thought, stick with her as long as possible, nothing unexpected had occurred. They zoomed the backstretch and circled around turn two, already pulling out from the field. That was where my runner made the mistake of becoming a little too settled in the race. The gap increased and perhaps her mind started overcalculating because, momentarily, she began to feel tired for no good physiological reason. Then came the fleeting thought of giving up on the pace. Coming down to the start/finish, though, she checked the clock, and her too-slow halfway target time had, interestingly, the effect opposite of what so many experience. All she thought about was picking up the pace and staying relaxed. And then an interesting strategy mentally presented itself. She decided to think about it as a 400, as if I had just started the race instead of being one lap in. She powered around curve one.
The science reveals that almost all humans, with prolonged physical effort, experience the same pain threshold. Interesting. The couch potato and the seasoned distance runner both begin to feel pain at the same level of exertion. The critical difference, of course, is that the unfortunately unfit are destined to get to that level a lot faster than the trained athlete. Any neophyte modified-track competitor can quickly prove the point. Increased fitness delays the arrivals at those challenging exertion points, so it's the level of physical development brought to the task at hand that matters-which just seems common sense. Were it only that simple. In such a case, persistence, by itself, would have future Olympians sprouting like spring flowers after a warm rain.
"Pain is the purifier," declared the great Australian coach, Percy Cerutty. A come-late-to-the-party health guru, it's assumed he meant the body being cleansed and strengthened through a disciplined lifestyle and focused hard efforts. Many, though, are pretty sure he was actually preaching changes to the mind.
At the 300m to go mark, my runner told herself there were obviously no more laps to close the gap, just the meters remaining in that final one. This was it. Now or never. So, in a race notorious for its steadily decreasing velocities--and in the third 200m that most consider the hardest part of the race--she forced herself to increase her efforts to hold pace-or even push it a bit. She knew that was going to hurt.
In athletic efforts-distance running in particular--there is nothing dramatic about the arrival of pain. It advances as a result of the immense number of calculations being executed by the mind based on continuous information delivered via the nervous system. The Central Governor model of Tim Nokes and the "perceived effort" template of Samuel Marcora were pioneer efforts to explain the complex interplay of body and mind during athletic exertions. And integral to that interplay is the phenomenon of pain, the body's tool as both a signal and as an attempt to control effort. Knowledge of those paradigms is why experienced coaches will tell their young charges, in so many words, that pain is only a message, not a condition. The scientists who study habits talk about inflection points, the moments when stress or trauma can make things turn. Distance runners know those moments as intensifying pain.
When the moments intrude, runners need answers. Some figure out how to make the right answer a routine or habit. Cue, routine, reward-the chronological loop that habit scientists believe rule so many intuitive aspects of our daily lives also applies to pain. You want a developed habit that can override the body's homeostatic urge to keep physical exertion out of the perceived danger zone. Those body-mind calculations declare: this is hard and getting harder, so how about slowing it down a bit-and here's a little more pain to bolster our argument.
The 200 meter mark on the back side of the track meant waiting teammates to cheer her on. And while most runners admit that only the voices of coaches or a few friends ever register, she heard this one teammate in particular yelling, "It's about mental attitude!" The odd comment penetrated. First, she thought, I'm tired, but that quickly changed to I'm going to chase her down.
Cue, routine, reward. The missing element that the habit scientists now understand necessary for this loop to actually work is belief. For a distance runner, the cue is the arrival of pain in the moment of a hard practice or competition. But even for the well-practiced runner who has developed a 'routine' to face that pain(e.g. body movement monitoring, positive self-messages), there needs to be something more when the high-stress pain intensifies. And those moments exactly describe the heart of distance running, an internal crisis you must overcome if you want to master the distance. The belief needed to soldier through the pain for the reward of a well-run race or to 'win' a hard workout can take varied forms. Runners can believe in their preparations(i.e. "Trust the training."). Runners can believe in the bonds that insist you don't let your teammates down. Runners can even believe in the belief that their coach has in them, an underappreciated dimension of the athlete-coach relationship.
Around the final turn, the gap to her competitor took on more significance than the finish. My runner thought, I'm almost there, I need to push to pass her. After that, it's going to be a battle, but I can do it. As the two circled into the final 100m, she drew shoulder-side to her competitor, then passed, and then opened her own gap. The finish loomed and thoughts changed. With 50 meters to go, I could see the clock. I wanted a PR.
So I went for it...
Race pain is faith personified. Conventional wisdom says it's passion in the moment that gets the job done, but passion goes nowhere unless guided by belief there is a destination worth achieving. Runners who do not believe in their training, who forget their responsibility to teammates, who do not, ultimately, believe in themselves and their capabilities--those runners will suffer little. They will have backed off long before any significant pain arrives. One of the great ironies of distance running is that pain is reserved for those who have enough faith to stick with their discomfort, to push at it, to even, in the case of some oddballs, perhaps revel in it a bit. Imagine the significant difference in possibilities between the participant who recoils at the emergence of effort-pain and the other who thinks all right, now we're at it.
Where did my runner's pain go in the final meters? It went nowhere. It likely intensified. But other elements of racing became more important. There are the necessary long miles and the steady accumulation of seasons that get competitors to where they are in their running lives. And then there are the moments when the two great elements of distance racing-disciplined training and belief-align perfectly.
Those moments always require managed pain, but for that to happen requires belief. Without both, there is no personal excellence and, ultimately, there is no sport.