Dan Chebot Wins Jay Mountain Trail Race

Dan Chebot (NNHS Class of '05) defended his title at the Jay Mountain Half-Marathon Trail race in Jay, Vermont, on Saturday, finishing nearly 13 minutes ahead of second place.

The Jay Mountain Marathon (30.5 miles) is considered one of the toughest trail marathons in the country and features 4500' of elevation gain (and loss), a river crossing, three miles of running in a stream, and enough mud, rocks, and brambles to satisfy the most ardent woodsman. Added in 2006, the half marathon (19.5 miles) has most of the hazards and obstacles of the full marathon course, including having to race Dan, who was the only person to average better than 10:00 miles on either course.

Full results of the Jay Mountain Half Marathon

Here is an excerpt from Dan's race report:

"My tactic was to take it out fast to separate out my competition and then make sure I was in first at the top of the mountain. This strategy worked a little too well, as the only person who tried to stay with me (he was about 50 meters back for the first 25 minutes) died horribly and came in half an hour behind me. At the top of Jay peak (which I walked up, again) I knew that I pretty much had to just get home safely in order to win because I could see a half mile behind me and there was nobody in sight. Coming down off the mountain the race director changed the course to add this ridiculous mile+ loop that was 95% through ankle to shin deep mud....."

Congratulations to Dan!

Running Twice a Day

"My son is worrying me with running. He is going to be a senior in High School next year and he's putting on the mileage more than ever this summer. He seems to be increasing his mileage slowly as to not run a lot more one day than the previous, but I'm afraid he has more of a chance of injuring himself than improving himself.

Right now he's running twice a day, adding to about 8 miles all together. Should he stick to once a day? Do most varsity high school Cross Countriers run twice a day over the summer?"


No, most varsity high school runners do not run twice a day during the summer. I believe it is pretty rare for a high school runner to run twice a day at any time of the year, although there are exceptions (individuals and programs). I'll say more about that later, but first...

...It sounds like the real concern is that your son might be over-training. To make a judgment about this, I think it's important to look at his current training with a broader perspective.

How does his summer running this year compare to last year? Assuming he ran last summer, I think that increasing his average from last summer by about 10-15 miles a week is safe.

How is his enthusiasm for non-running activities? Does he still have time to enjoy other things, or has running become all-consuming? I think that enjoyment of other things in life is a pretty good indicator of appropriate training intensity. If he's too tired to do anything else but run, then he's almost certainly training too hard.

How is his appetite? is he having any difficulty sleeping? Healthy training is accompanied by a healthy appetite. Inability to eat or sleep normally is another sign that training is becoming too intense.

You also mentioned your concern about injuries. Obviously, if he has any injuries, staying healthy and not aggravating them should be the primary concern, even if that means taking time off or doing alternative exercise for a while

Now, let's talk more about running twice a day.

It seems to me that there are three good reasons why someone might want to run twice a day:

1) To commute to work or school

2) To start or end the day with an easy run to relax and loosen muscles and promote recovery from harder efforts

3) To achieve a pure increase in volume of training with no loss of intensity

I have had successful experiences with reasons #1 and #2, but have never been able to use doubling as a way of increasing the number of hard miles during a week.

My opinion is that if your son is not commuting, then the only positive reason to run twice a day is reason #2. I wouldn't dismiss that out of hand, because it really does work well for some runners. However, for maintaining training volume, I think he would be better off running his 8 miles (or 6 miles, or whatever his daily mileage is) in single runs on most days.

I want to end on a positive note. I think that an enthusiasm for running long distances is potentially a very positive thing. But I also believe that, like any other great enthusiasm, it can become obsessive. I think the best inoculation against this kind of obsessive running is to keep other interests and sources of self-esteem active, and to make sure that running itself has a social context -- so that running at a conversational pace with other people plays an important part in one's training.

Basically, if your runner has a healthy approach to eating, sleeping, and being social, then I think the chances are good that running is in its proper place.

That's Not Fair!

It was Friday afternoon and although it was nearly six p.m., the temperature was stuck at 90 degrees. I hadn't run a step that day, but my legs were dead, the victims of a five-day stretch that included a long run, a track workout, and -- just the day before -- a tempo run done in similar heat that had extracted most of the fluid from my body for the purpose of extruding it uselessly through my pores. Since the high humidity kept most of that sweat from evaporating, it didn't help much.

In other words, on Friday I wasn't feeling especially chipper as I pulled the car into the Parking Lot at the Battle Road Park Headquarters. After some half-hearted attempts to introduce some flexibility into my stiff legs, I started my afternoon run at a stumble, and gathered momentum only with great effort.

After a mile and a half, feeling slightly better but still not what I would call "energetic," I overtook two fellow travelers. One of them was older and somewhat stout. The other was a teenager, wearing sneakers. They had stopped to rest, but just before I reached them they started jogging again. I pulled over to the right of the trail and went by. And at that moment -- at the moment when the difference between my pace and the pace of the boy and his aged relative was most contrasted, the man said distinctly, and in reference to me, "That's not fair!"

I kept going, but I thought about that comment for the rest of the run.

I could see where it came from, that comment. From where he stood, what I was doing looked pretty damn effortless. I mean, it probably seemed like I was just loping along like a deer, without effort or concern. That's what it looked like.

From where I stood, or ran, rather, I felt like it was taking a LOT of effort to run at a pace that wasn't especially fast, and would be an embarrassment to any self-respecting deer who happened along the trail. And if I did happen to be running at a fair pace in some absolute sense, well, hadn't I earned the right to do that by taking running so seriously all these years and putting in all those miles? I mean, perhaps I did start out with some genetic pre-disposition to being able to run seven-minute miles all day long. What exactly wasn't fair about running fast when that had been the whole point of my training for so long?

And then, just as my pot of resentment and indignation came to a boil, it occurred to me that I had whined in almost the exact same way a few days earlier. I had been watching and listening to a pianist who was sight-reading a rather difficult piece. I remember thinking the same thing: "That's not fair!" I didn't say it out loud, but i was sure thinking that it looked like the coolest thing in the world to have the ability to translate marks on paper into music.

I don't suppose that the piano player was born with the ability to sight-read, but even if he had started out with a genetic pre-disposition to it, what exactly wasn't fair about the realization of that ability? The bottom line was that I was witnessing the end result of a long process to master something difficult.

And yet, however unreasonable a feeling, I reacted the same way as the pair who saw me running on the trail.

You know, it ISN'T fair. As the human family sits around the Christmas tree of life opening gifts, not everyone gets the same color scarf. In fact, some of us get the shiny new electronic gadget, and some of us get socks... or books... or equally practical. It really isn't fair that I get to enjoy running and other people don't. And if I work at it, well what else would I do? Sit around watching TV while pondering how my mitachondria would be humming along happily, if I were actually doing something?

Better, I think, to enjoy what talents one has and bear oneself humbly, if possible, as the custodian of those talents. And if that means that no one can tell or cares the amount of effort that goes into using and maintaining those talents, well isn't that the way it should look?

Alan Webb American Record

While Alan Webb was busy is Belgium running an American Record 3:46.91 for the mile, I was on an airplane flying to San Francisco for a reunion with college friends. I didn't hear about Webb's race until Sunday night when I talked to my daughter on the phone. I didn't have any access to the Internet until I returned yesterday and could finally watch the video and read the reactions of the (online) track community.



When I first heard about the record, I formed a mental image of Webb charging down the straightaway as tens of thousands of Belgians cheered him home. I wasn't quite prepared to see the race take place on a modest six-lane track with perhaps a couple of hundred people in attendance. As I re-watch the video, I'm struck by the small-town feel -- the people in lawn chairs, the little girl sitting with her dad in lane six on the final turn, the car parked on the infield. This isn't just a small meet, it's a tiny meet.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that. One could argue that, for setting records, small meets are best since Webb and his team were able to control all the aspects of his pre-race preparation and focus on the task at hand. Still, it makes the race itself seem strange and out of context, kind of like seeing a world-class violinist playing for spare change in a subway station.



Other things that struck me: Webb crosses the line, jogs a few steps and then, upon seeing the time, does a little sprint into the infield. Whoa. That tells me Webb's legs weren't immobilized by vapor lock. I would tend to agree with him when he says to the camera that he thinks he can go faster.

The interview itself is rather extraordinary, especially if you compare it to the 30-second interviews that NBC runs after races. In the FloTrack video, Webb is obviously excited but also fairly coherent as he talks about all the hard work and preparation that went into the record. He is also appropriately respectful to Steve Scott, whose 25-year-old record he has just broken.

Amby Burfoot has a nice column on the Runner's World site about Webb's interview, which he feels should be required reading for high school athletes and coaches.

FloTrack also manages to get a few words from Webb's coach, Scott Raczko, and agent, Ray Flynn, both of whom look like they're not quite sure they want the attention at that moment.

So what next for Mr Webb?

His immediate focus must be on the World Championships in Osaka. By running all these fast times this summer, Webb has established that he is a medal threat. If he does not medal, American track fans will be hard on him. They will say that Webb has always been more about times and less about titles. And then they will wonder about 2008 and the Beijing Olympics.

And then there is the world record. Webb has made no secret that he would like to take a shot at Hicham El Guerrouj's mark of 3:43.13 which is over eight years old now. It took Webb 6 years to go from 3:53 to 3:46.9; dropping nearly four seconds more is not going to be a walk in the park. Still -- with slightly better pacing, perhaps it's not out of the question.

Anyway, one has to love Webb's enthusiasm and emotional involvement. He still wears his heart on his singlet every time he runs. When he has a good race, he reacts with screams, smiles, fist pumps, and little sprints. When he has a bad race, his features and body language tell the whole story.

Perhaps he does not have the cool, calculating demeanor that wins tactical races in (and in front of) big crowds. But when he's feeling it, he can run fast... faster than any American ever. We should probably be happy with the Webb we've got.

Thursday Tempo

Normally, there would be hundreds of walkers, joggers, and dogs circling the Chestnut Hill Reservoir at 6:30 on a summer evening, but tonight we're lucky. Heavy rains earlier in the afternoon and a persistent gloom have kept away most of the fair-weather exercisers. Our only obstacle will be negotiating a path through the flock of geese that have parked their feathered behinds in the middle of the gravel path and now eye us with deep suspicion.

Noah and I have driven out from Newton to do a tempo run -- a sustained run of about twenty minutes at "lactate threshold" pace -- about 20s slower per mile than our 5K race pace. For Noah, it is his second tempo run of the summer. He's looking for company after his first run turned into a mental struggle. It's a funny thing about this kind of workout -- it is much, much easier to run fast and relaxed with a training partner than to negotiate the faster-than-normal-training pace by yourself. I haven't done a tempo run all summer, but I've done a bit more speed than Noah. Tonight, I hope to start a progression of tempo runs over the next several weeks, and I'm hoping to latch on to Noah's superior speed and let him tow me along.

When it's not crowded, the reservoir is an ideal venue for this kind of running. The loop is about 1.6 miles around and almost perfectly flat. Mostly, the surface is hard packed dirt or gravel, and on a wet night like this, it's nice and soft.

After a warm-up and a couple of strides, we set off clockwise, taking a somewhat risky path through the geese. My goal is to run at about 5:45 pace, but do the first mile a little conservatively, in case that's a little too fast. The key to a tempo run is to run at your lactate threshold pace, not faster. Running faster (especially at the beginning) usually reduces the amount of time that you run at the proper pace, so it's fool's gold. This isn't an interval workout, it's a steady run.

I'm a tiny bit disappointed when we hit the mile in 5:52; to me it felt harder than that, and I hope I haven't over-estimated my fitness. Noah is running comfortably, and we keep the pace steady as we finish the first loop. We hit the second mile at 5:49, and I'm relieved. We're in a good rhythm, and although I am starting to breathe fairly hard, I know I'll be able to finish strongly. Noah takes the lead and accelerates every so slightly. I follow a few steps behind. It's definitely hard now, at least for me, and I'm happy that we're almost done. We can't help picking it up a little bit as the finish of the second loop comes into sight. We traverse the third mile in 5:42, and then it's another minute or so to the finish. I put in a miniature surge to finish within a few steps of Noah, who looks like he could go another mile without serious distress.

What I love about tempo runs is that they are hard when you are running them, but as soon as you finish, you feel you could do a lot more. This is exactly the sensation I'm aiming for -- the evidence that the run didn't get out of control with a drop down to race pace. After changing shoes, we jog a three-mile cool-down. As we finish up back at the car, the rain starts to come down more heavily.

With the tempo run behind us, and the rain settling in, all's right with the world.

"Child's Mathematics"

Well, I'm certainly not the first one to post about the farce that ensued when officials at the Gaz de Paris meet mis-counted laps in the 3000m steeplechase there, but I finally saw the video, and it truly is a disaster.



There's nothing quite so sad as watching the dignity of a world-class distance race unravel like that. It was only a couple of years ago that I watched Keninisa Bekele mis-count laps in an indoor 3000m at the Boston Indoor Games, kick early, and then get passed by Alistair Cragg. What a letdown it was then! What a letdown it must have been for the spectators in Paris!

Thanks to the alert announcers at the Paris meet, we can watch the whole thing unfold with three laps to go. It's like a bad dream.

Wariner, J. - DNF

"I know it's cold, I know it's wet, I know it's Sheffield... And I know you'd probably rather not be here... but a slight stumble is no excuse for stopping."


Video of the men's 400 at Norwich Union Meet
(with extensive pre- and post-race commentary)

The weather in Sheffield, England was pretty awful on Sunday night, as the men lined up for the final event of the evening - the men's 400m. It was raining and it was cold. To make things worse, the runners were kept on the track for a few extra minutes to resolve a problem with the timing system caused by the rain.

In the field was defending world and Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner -- "the finest one-lap runner of his generation" -- as well as Olympic 400m hurdle champ Angelo Taylor, Wariner's former teammate from Baylor, Darrell Williamson, and five others. The slowest man in the field was Oscar Pistorius, relegated to lane 8.

At the starting gun, Wariner stumbled and then pulled up. Perhaps he expected a recall, perhaps he just didn't feel right and didn't want to injure himself six weeks before the World Championships. Whatever the reason, he stopped.

After the race, The British commentators were fairly rough on Wariner. They felt he should have given his best effort, regardless of the conditions. I find it strangely poignant that they acknowledged that it wasn't exactly the biggest meet in the world ("I know it's SHEFFIELD, And you'd probably rather not be here..."), but that didn't stop them from demanding more out of the Olympic champion.

For a runner, the three letters "DNF" are not typically happy ones. It's one thing to be a paid pace-setter, and drop out after you have done your job. Even people who don't have much use for paced races understand that a DNF in such circumstances is excusable. It's another thing entirely when you are the main attraction and, although uninjured, you fail to finish.

I don't want to judge Jeremy Wariner based on one DNF, but he is already being judged -- on an emotional level -- by many fans, certainly those who were sitting in the stands at Sheffield. Suddenly, they might not be rooting for him to break Michael Johnson's 400m WR. Suddenly, they might start hoping that someone upsets him in Osaka at the world championships.

It's hard to be a hero when you have "DNF" after your name.

And what of Pistorius? The rain seemed to affect him, too. He had a lousy start (He always starts slowly, but his start at Sheffield was particularly bad) and finished last in a poor time. He also ran the final turn awkwardly and was disqualified for running in Lane 7. The race did nothing to answer the two questions keeping the IAAF up at night: Are his prosthetics legal? Is he good enough to run against world-class runners?

Interestingly, during the pre-race introductions, it was Pistorius not Wariner who received the largest ovation. You might say this is just an example of the sentimentality of crowds everywhere, who automatically cheer the slowest runner just for being there. Maybe so, but maybe the crowd knew something. After all, once the race went off, only one of them kept running and finished the race. Pistorius even leaned at the tape, which seemed almost comical considering how far behind he was.

Funny, though. Pistorius didn't look like a man who was beaten. Sliding around the slick track on that miserable night, he kept running hard until he had crossed the finish line. In his post-race interview, he sounded almost happy. Didn't he know it was cold, it was wet, it was only SHEFFIELD?

I wonder who'll get the larger ovation the next time the two of them race?

Weekend Results: USATF Club Championships, Bay State Games, etc.

The USATF National Club Championships were held on Friday and Saturday at New York City's Icahn Stadium on Randall's Island.

Caroline Occean followed up her win in the regional championships by placing 4th at nationals with an outstanding time of 2:09.92, which is a PR for the Newton North grad, I believe. Also in the race was ex-Brookline athlete Vanessa Mazandi, now competing with Nike Central Park TC, who placed 15th in 2:24.20.

Occean also anchored the Greater Boston Track Club's 4x800 (2nd in 9:14.86) and 4x400 relays (3rd in 3:58.73). What a day!

In the men's 800m, Josh Seeherman ran 2:00.31 to finish 24th out of 32 competitors. Josh improved his time from the regionals by 3 seconds, and seems to be back in top form after knee surgery last year. Josh also ran on GBTC's 4x800 relay, which placed 5th in 7:58.58.

Dave Cahill ran 56.81 in the 400m hurdles to place 17th out of 22. Dave's day was only beginning, as he also ran the opening legs for Greater Boston's 4x100 and 4x400 relays.

Results of USATF National Club Championships

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Newton North's Adam Bao won the triple jump in the Bay State Games on Sunday, leaping 43.50. It looks like the Tigers will have a state title contender in 2008!

Newton North's David Plotkin (10:11.28) finished 3rd, and Newton South's Clif Barger (10:19.47) finished 4th in the 3000m.

Dedham's Phil Weltman was 2nd in the 200m, running 22.67.

Bay State Games Results

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I was looking forward to the race between "blades" and "Shades" in the 400m at the the Norwich Union meet in Sheffield, england yesterday. Unfortunately, Jeremy "shades" Wariner stumbled out of the blocks and abandoned the race after 10m. Out in lane 8, Oscar Pistorius (aka "blade runner") ran out of his lane on the final turn and was disqualified.

I'm searching for a video, but haven't found one yet.

Historical Notes for July 14

It was nine years ago today that Hicham El Guerrouj ran 3:26.00 for 1500m to set a world record that still stands. Although El Guerrouj and others have come close since then, one wonders if any of the current crop of milers can threaten the record.

The second-fastest man ever is Bernard Lagat, but it seems unlikely that he will approach his times of a few years ago. In case you were wondering, Alan Webb stands at number 23 on the all-time list.

Will the 1500m record fall any time soon? I would guess not this season.

July 14 is also the anniversary of perhaps the single greatest 10000 meter run in history. On this day in 1965, Australian Ron Clarke lowered his own world record from 28:14 to 27:39, a staggering improvement of 35 seconds under the old standard. In the last century, no one has ever lowered the 10K record by so much. Clarke ran the race in Oslo at the Bislett stadium and took the lead early, as he always did. After a mile he was on his own but even without the aid of pacemakers, Clarke settled into a remarkable rhythm and seemed to gain strength as the race went on. Later he would describe the race as "magical."

It would be 7 years before Lasse Viren broke Clarke's record, running exactly one second faster in the finals of the 1972 Olympic Games. It would take 28 years and eight incremental improvements for runners to lower it 35 seconds.

To understand how great Clarke's record race really was, consider that at that time Clarke also held the world record for 5000m at 13:25.8. In his magical Oslo race, Clarke ran back-to-back 5000m's averaging slightly better than 13:50's. That means he was only 24s, or 8s per mile slower for his record 10K than for his record 5K. To put this in perspective, if today's 5000m world record holder Keninisa Bekele were capable of the same thing, he would lower his current 10000 record from 26:17 to 26:02!!

Clarke was an interesting figure in distance running. He set numerous world records, but fared less well in major championships. He rarely varied his training, which was always long and hard. He did little to peak for races, and that, as well as his habit of always running from the front, undoubtedly cost him an Olympic gold medal in the 1964 Olympics.

He was also denied a medal in Mexico City when he collapsed with altitude sickness in the 10,000 final. He got up and finished the race, but collapsed again after the line and nearly died before being revived after an hour of medical attention. That race did permanent damage to his heart and ended his career.

There is a famous story about Clarke and Emil Zatopek. The 10K world record holder Clarke visited the former world record holder Zatopek in 1966. At the end of the visit, Zatopek pressed a small box into Clarke's hand saying it was a gift. Later, when Clarke opened the present, he found Zatopek's Olympic 10000m gold medal from the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. There was a note in which Zatopek had written, "Not out of pity, but because you deserve it."

Tom Davis Runs 25:20 for 5M at Marathon Sports 5M

NN (and NS) alum Tom Davis took down some pretty big names at the Marathon Sports 5M race on Thursday night, finishing third overall in an outstanding time of 25:20 for the rolling course. Davis overtook Patrick Moulton (who has a 2:15:35 marathon to his credit) with a little under a mile to go, but was himself overtaken by Jeff Hill, who opened a slight gap. They finished that way, taking 2nd and 3rd behind the BAA's Matt Ely.

Brookline's David Wilson won the 17-and-under age group and placed 9th overall with a time of 27:02.

Newton South alum Ben Leipzig finished 18th in 28:08.

Full Results of Marathon Sports 5M

Pistorius to be 'chucked in the deep end '

The most important story in track and field right now is the struggle of Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee and the world's best Paralympic sprinter, to compete against the best able-bodied athletes in the sport, and the struggle of the rest of the athletic community to come to grips with what that means.

For now, the IAAF has cleared Pistorius to compete. That means, as Pistorius says in this article in the New York Times, "I’ve been chucked in the deep end with the best guys in the world."

Pistorius is scheduled to run a 400m in Rome on Friday in a "B" race, and then compete against defending Olympic champ Jeremy Wariner on Sunday in London's Norwich Union meet. Realistically, Pistorius has little chance to win -- his P.R. is only 46.34, after all, far off Wariner's sub-44 speed -- but the fact that he is competing at all is of enormous interest.

Many will feel he shouldn't be competing in an event with non-amputees. The fear is that the prosthetic devices he wears will give him an unfair advantage, and will open the door to lesser athletes competing above their natural level using artificial racing aids. This is not an entirely unreasonable fear. After all, one could imagine such devices imparting artificial assistance, enabling a runner or jumper to perform at an unrealistically high level.

But at least for now, the IAAF has concluded that the devices Pistorius uses, while they provide more recoil on impact than human joints and tendons, do not fully compensate for the mechanical inefficiencies involved in not having lower leg muscles. Ultimately, this issue may be about biomechanics.

One thing that might get lost in all the scrutiny of Pistorius as running machine is the pressure on the Pistorius the very human competitor. Imagine what it must feel like for him to be 'chucked in the deep end' with the world's attention focused so severely on his performance. Imagine the fear of running last, of stumbling at the start. Imagine the fear of simply not being good enough to reach the Olympic qualifying time. This is a human being we're talking about, not an automaton. The pressure on him will be enormous.

In trying to bridge the gap between the world of the Paralympics and the world of the Beijing Olympics, Pistorius is taking on a challenge much greater than just running 400m. Or perhaps, his challenge is EXACTLY that of just running 400m, and those of us who take our legs for granted never realized how great a challenge that truly is.

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By the way, if you don't think human locomotion is any big deal, check out this story from the BBC about a team of scientists trying to build a robot that simulates human walking:

Robot unravels mystery of walking

Chariots of Fire

It was on this day in 1924 that Eric Liddell, the "flying scotsman," won the gold medal in the 400m at the Paris Olympics. The story of Liddell's achievment, along with that of 100m gold medalist Harold Abrahams and other members of the U.K. olympic team, has been immortalized in the movie Chariots of Fire, one of the finest sports movies of all time.

The movie is a study in motivation. The main story line follows the progress of Harold Abrahams, the son of a poor Lithuanian Jew who enters Caius College, Cambridge determined to single-handedly vanquish the anti-semitism of British society and make a name for himself in all aspects of college life, including athletics. We see this story play out through the eyes of Abraham's (fictional?) roommate and friend, Aubrey Montague.

In the movie, one major obstacle standing in the way of Abraham's pursuit of athletic glory is Eric Liddell. Liddell, the son of a Christian missionary, is the greater natural talent, a man who, when he runs "feels god's pleasure." The movie shows Abrahams being soundly beaten by Liddell in a sprint race, which causes him a deep crisis of self-doubt. This makes for great drama, but it isn't exactly accurate. Liddell and Abrahams never raced each other before the Olympics. Actually, Abrahams had competed in the 100 and 200 in 1920 Olympics, but had failed to make the finals in either race. It was Liddell who changed Abraham's life by introducing him to sprint coach Sam Mussabini. Under Mussabini's tutelage and training, Abraham's improved his start, his sprint mechanics, and his finish.


Abrahams (played by Ben Cross) in training

What most people remember about the movie, however, is the conflict that Liddell (played by Ian Charleson) faces when he finds out a few days before the beginning of the games that the finals of the 100m are to be held on a Sunday. As a strict Presbyterian, he will not race on a Sunday. In the movie, one of the other athletes on the team gives up his place in the 400m so that Liddell can run. Expected to fade, Liddell instead throws his head back and overtakes everyone in the stretch, winning the gold medal and setting the olympic record.

It didn't happen exactly that way. The schedule for the heats and finals of all events were known months in advance. Liddell knew the schedule, and knew that the qualifying heats for the 100 fell on a Sunday. He made the decision to switch to the 400 months before the games, and trained for that event. Also, Liddell had run the 400m before, and his win can't be considered quite the upset it is in the film. Nevertheless, other aspects of the portrayal are fairly accurate. He did preach a sermon during the games on a verse from Isaiah:

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as EAGLES they shall run, and not be weary;
and they shall walk, and not faint

In the movie, as Liddell preaches, we see Montague struggling home well-beaten in the steeplechase, covered with mud and utterly spent. It is one of my favorite scenes of all time.

Movie Trivia

Sam Mussabini, the coach who helps Abraham's win gold, is played by Ian Holm (Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings, and the voice of "Skinner" in Ratatouille). Mussabini was one of the first athletic coaches to use stop-action photography to analyze running form and mechanics.

John Gielgud has a small but important role in the film as the Master of Trinity college.

The music for the film, composed by Vangelis, won the film an academy award for best score. Unfortunately, the main theme has become so overused that one is more likely to hear it as a parody than as actual music.

NNHS Alumni at USATF Eastern Regionals

There were some notable results from NNHS alumni competing at the 2007 USATF East Region Championships at the State Univ. of NY at Albany on Saturday.

Dave Cahill, Josh Seeherman, and Caroline Occean were all competing for the Greater Boston Track Club, and the meet was also a fierce club competition. The GBTC women won the meet, while the men finished 2nd to ConnQuest (Connecticut).

Occean won the women's 800m with an excellent time of 2:14.68. She also anchored GBTC's women's sprint medley team, which placed 4th in 4:36.15.

Cahill finished 6th in the 400m hurdles in 57.80, and also took 11th in the 400 in 52.08.

Seeherman, a frequent contributor to this blog, placed 11th in the men's 800 in 2:03.65, and also anchored GBTC's men's sprint medley team, which took 3rd in 3:41.42.

Interestingly, running the second leg for GBTC was Lexington grad and Boston Globe runner of the year Darius Walker. Walker had earlier won the 100m (10.43), won the 200 (21.59), placed 3rd in the long jump (21-11.75), and anchored GBTC's 4x100 team, which placed 3rd in 42.33. What a day!

Full Results of USATF East Region Championship

The Controversy

I was out of town for a few days attending a USATF Level I Certification Class in Albany, NY. The purpose of these classes is to establish a baseline understanding of all the events in High School and College Track and Field, and a grounding in training theory. It also serves to standardize the use of terminology to describe aspects of the sport in general and individual events in particular.

I had a lot of fun. The three-day class was interesting, the instructors were knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and it was great to meet some of the other coaches and athletes from around the region.

In 22 hours of classroom time, there was only one topic that created any controversy. Can you guess what it was?

No, it didn't involve performance-enhancing substances.

No, it was not a dispute about technique -- whether the spin was superior to the glide for shot putters, for example, or whether the hitch or the hang was better for long jumpers. Nor was there any disagreement about the inclusion of ALL the events in the class. Everyone in the audience was very attentive during the section on racewalking. No one argued that the pole vault should be banned from HS meets. We all enjoyed the videos of hammer throwers.

(By the way, and off-topic, did you know that in Maine, high school meets include a race-walking event? Did you know that some of the best junior race walkers in the country come from Maine?)

No, the biggest controversy had nothing to do with the rules, techniques, or inclusion of any single event. It had to do with the training of distance runners.

The four instructors were, without exception, "fast-twitch" people -- by which I mean that they were people who had enjoyed early success in events that require power and speed. Even the instructor for the throwing events had been a speedy football player.

The person who gave the presentation on training for endurance had been a 4:24 miler in H.S. and had gone to Villanova and run middle distance events for them. After college, he had coached Shenendowah High to a NY State Championship in cross-country.
He talked about training distance runners, and articulated the point of view that even endurance runners (even college 10K runners) should include training for speed every day (this might involve drills or strides, fartlek, or the familiar work on the track. But something for speed every day.

In the audience, there were a number of distance runners, including a coach for a team of professional distance runners with 10K PRs in the 28-29 minute range. He couldn't keep still, and countered with argument that one must train for endurance first, and then for speed. For the next 10-15 minutes, the conversation escalated. There were runners who KNEW that the focus should be on speed, and others who KNEW that the focus should be on stamina. There were those who advocated year-round training of the bio-mechanics required for running fast over, say, 400m, and others who advocated long periods of pure base-building. I think everyone there felt that speedwork (formal and informal) had a place in long-distance training, but there was radical disagreement about what that place should be.

Missing in the entire fracas was a discussion about individual differences in body composition and in the ability to respond to training. Individual runners respond so differently to low-intensity endurance work, that it seems any analysis of endurance training must take this into account.

Overall, it was striking that this controversy has abated little in the last century. In the 50's it was Zatopek running 60x400m five days in a row; in the 60's it was Lydiard having his athletes running 100-mile weeks for six months before sharpening, and since then, athletes have succeeded at the highest level following dramatically different training. Jim Ryun and Steve Scott ran tons of short intervals at mile pace. Peter Snell ran Lydiard's 100-mile weeks and won three Olympic Golds at 800m and 1500m. Seb Coe ran relatively low mileage, but every workout had a pace and a purpose, spanning the gamut of speed from 400m speed to 5K speed. Alan Webb, who last Friday became the third fastest American ever at 1500m, balances speed work with moderate distance runs.

Nobody knows a foolproof formula for training distance runners (plural). The best we seem to be able to do is figure out what works well for each individual.

Let the debate rage on.

Fight the Tyranny of the Training Log!

Summer training: there always comes a point where my brain goes on vacation, but my legs keep running and my training log seems to be doing my thinking for me. The miles start piling up, and my life seems to be settle into a routine of running, eating, thinking about my next run, running again, eating again, sleeping... and then writing it all down in the pages of my stern and demanding training log.

This is the peculiar, and not very healthy state of no-mind characteristic of the distance runner building a base. Other things happen in the world, but they leave only a faint impression on one's consciousness, which is wholly occupied with the questions of which pair of shoes is least disgusting.

I know intellectually that those numbers in the training log aren't real, they're just marks on paper, but they have a tendency to become bigger than life, beguiling me into running that extra mile, or skipping that important rest day. I should throw away the log, run how I feel... save myself from injury, but...

Oregon coach Bill Bowerman was famous for keeping his athletes on a short leash and keeping them from over-training. He arranged for them to have ridiculously dangerous and demanding jobs over the summer so they wouldn't be tempted to pile up miles. His runners did pretty well after Spending their summers pulling 10-hour shifts at the lumber mill.

Without having Bowerman himself looking over my shoulder, I have only a few strategies for fighting the tyranny of the training log, but I'll share them with you:

1. Run with reasonable people

It's easier to run easier when you are running with a person who takes a long-term view of summer training.

2. The absolutely no exceptions already-on-the schedule easy day.

Mine is Saturday. Three miles at 8:00 pace. That's it. No matter what my log tells me it wants.

3. Stay away from other people's training logs!

Do not under any circumstances get sucked into someone else's mileage orgy. You probably know that you should be running only so-and-so miles per week. Stick with it, no matter what and plug your ears when other people start talking about their 80-mile weeks.

4. Do strides.

Remember, it's not all about miles. Run a few strides after 2-3 runs a week to remind yourself that freshness and fast-twitch muscle fitness matter, too.

Some July 4th Race Results

Newton North Asst. Track and XC coach Shawn Wallace won the 40th annual Lynnfield Athletic Assn. 5K, running 16:57. Congratulations, Shawn!

At the Harvard 4th of July 5-Mile race, Doug Brecher placed 4th overall in 27:41 (5:33 pace) on a very rugged course.

A lot of current and former Bay State runners ran the Charles River YMCA 3M road race in Needham on Wednesday. Needham rising senior Sam Miller (16:00) placed third overall, while teammate Kevin Potterton (16:49) placed fifth. The overall winner was Kevin Gray, who did his H.S. running for Walpole back in the day. Natick rising senior Anya Price (18:39) won the women's race outright, while Needham's Emily Lipman (19:48) was second.

Of special interest to me, my old H.S. teammate John Bonsignore ran 19:00 to finish 5th in the 40-49 age group (John is 49).

It was also good to see that Natick coach Dennis Driscoll finished in 22:21 and Brookline XC and track coach Mike Glennon finished in 25:19.

The Strange Case of Fernando Mamede

Twenty-three years ago yesterday, on July 2, 1984, Portugal's Fernando Mamede ran 27:13.81 for 10000m, breaking his own world record by nine seconds. For the 33-year-old Mamede, the record confirmed him as one of the favorites for a gold medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

It was also the most recent accomplishment in an impressive career. Mamede competed in three Olympics (1972, 1976, and 1984). In 1972, he competed in the 800, the 1500, and ran the anchor leg for Portugal's 4x400 relay! I know of no other human being who has competed in both an Olympic 10000 and 4x400. Mamede also set 27 national records, won 20 national titles at distances from 800m to 10000m, set three European records, and three world records. He won a bronze medal in the World Cross-Country Championships over 12K.

But Mamede has been largely ignored by track and field history. Despite his many achievments, he has not been able to bask in the love and admiration of his countrymen. You can search the Internet in vain for tribute sites dedicated to Mamede. Something happened that changed everything.

After winning his heat of the 10000m in the Los Angeles Olympics, hopes were high for Mamede in the final. But after only a few laps, the world-record holder stepped off the track and abandoned the race. He wasn't sick and he wasn't injured. He was scared.

Perhaps it was the weight of expectations, the knowledge that anything less than a gold medal would be seen as a failure. Perhaps it was something else. But what ever it was that caused him to step off the track, Mamede could offer no explanation.

A year earlier, at the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki, Mamede had also won his heat, and then run terribly in the final, finishing 18th. Los Angeles seemed to confirm a pattern.

Later in those games, Mamede's countryman Carlos Lopes (second in Mamede's WR race earlier that summer) won the marathon and became a national hero. Lopes had succeeded where Mamede had failed. Lopes became the hero, Mamede became something of an embarrassment.

The following year, the World XC championships were held in Lisbon, Portugal. Once again, Mamede was a favorite. Lopes had been dealing with injuries and was not given much of a chance. But once again, it was Lopes who became the hero. The 38-year-old Lopes surprised and delighted his countrymen by taking the gold medal in what many have called the world's most difficult race to win. The diminutive Lopes was called lion-hearted by the Portuguese press. Mamede faded to 11th and was called a disappointment.

Later that year, Lopes would set a world marathon best of 2:07:12 and retire. At the World XC championships the following year, Mamede DNF'ed. For the second time on a big stage, he stepped off the course.

The Portuguese press was not kind to Mamede. He was the target of threats and childish reprisals A sporting goods store that he owned was vandalized.

More than two decades later, Mamede's legacy is unclear. There is a track and field complex that he helped build and that bears his name in his native city of Beja. He works with young athletes. But otherwise, his career seems to have been forgotten or willfully ignored.

It doesn't seem fair, but such is the nature of athletic hero worship. We want to identify with the winners, with those who have the physical and mental fortitude (and the good fortune) to succeed when the pressure is the most intense. If they can do it, perhaps we can do it too in our own moments of stress. We have little use for the athlete of exceptional talent and accomplishment who "loses his nerve" when it matters most. As observers, we can be cruelly dismissive of those who suffer psychological difficulties, who demonstrate great potential but struggle when the spotlight is on them. It remains a mystery why some athletes rise to the occasion and others are crushed by it.

Why DID Fernando Mamede step off the track in the 10000 meter final in 1984?

The Awesome Responsibility

A little over a week ago, Tyson Gay ran the greatest single-meet double in the history of sprinting at the U.S. Championships. Here's how USATF described his accomplishment:

Gay won the men's 100 meters in a meet-record 9.84 seconds on Friday. Running into a headwind of 0.5mps, the time is the fastest in the world this year and the second-fastest ever run into a headwind, 2000 Olympic gold medalist Maurice Greene having run 9.82 into a -0.2 headwind at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton. Gay put on another impressive display Sunday in the 200, winning in 19.62 seconds (0.3 meters-per-second headwind), the #2 time ever, behind only Michael Johnson's world record of 19.32 from the 1996 Olympics.

Tyson Gay - 9.84 100m at U.S. Championships
Tyson Gay - 19.62 200m at U.S. Championships

I watched the 200 final, and I found it awe-inspiring -- literally, an experience that made me feel "awe" in the sense of "...an emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by...the sacred or sublime."

I think most serious spectators watch Track and Field for a combination of three reasons: PLEASURE in watching the near-perfect form of world-class athletes, EXCITEMENT for the high level of competition at meets, and AWE at seeing the seemingly impossible take place before one's eyes.

AWE is the most powerful emotion, and the one that I associate most closely with my own love of the sport. There is something about watching human beings go beyond their own limits and those of humankind that makes me believe that I, too, can aspire to do more than I have done before. As the word implies, there is something dreadful about such performances, something that speaks of a power greater than the ones you have known before.

A few days after the U.S. Championships, an article appeared in the Washington Times titled "On a fast track to a Life of Doubt." Written by Dan Daly, The article posed the question of why Tyson's Gay's feats had received (relatively) little attention, and answered the question by claiming that "...the sport has been on life support since Sept. 27, 1988, the day Johnson was stripped of his 100-meter gold medal at the Seoul Olympics after flunking a drug test."

I found the article troubling for a number of reasons. First, it failed to offer the two obvious reasons that Tyson Gay isn't the household name that Carl Lewis was twenty years ago. The first is that there is far less mainstream coverage of Track and Field than there used to be. The second is that Tyson Gay is, by all accounts, a fairly quiet guy who prefers to let his results speak for him -- quite different from the mercurial Lewis or subsequent claimants for the title of world's fastest human.

More seriously, the article hinted that Gay, or any athlete who produced an awesome performance was immediately under suspicion for using illegal means to achieve their results. In effect, Daly was denying the ability of track and field to create that sense of awe, of wonder, that is so valued by those of us who love the sport. Writing on Finish Line Pundit, Jimmie Markham excoriated Daly for this unfair attack on a superb athlete and on the entire sport. Markham pointed out that Athletics is probably more serious about addressing the issue of illegal performance-enhancing substances than any other sport.

But the other reason Daly's article was disturbing to me personally is that I remember Ben Johnson's race, and I remember feeling a similar awe watching him blow away one of the greatest 100m sprint field in history. I was watching the race live with a friend, and we were both overwhlemed at having seen something impossible, unthinkable. I had never been much a sprint fan before that race, but I couldn't get the image of Johnson's start out of my mind. I had wanted Lewis to win, but by the time Johnson crossed the finish line, 9.79 seconds after the start of the race, I was sure that the better runner had won.

Ben Johnson - WC in Rome 1987, OG in Seoul 1988

When Johnson tested positive, I mourned. All the sublime feelings generated by watching a man burst the limits of human potential had been replaced by a complex mess of confusion and a sense of having been duped. It is, unfortunately, a feeling I have experienced since.

I wish I could conclude with a hopeful thought, or a glib resolution, but I can't. It seems to me that the work of keeping Track and Field viable by keeping it clean is long and tedious, requiring patience, judgment, and a willingness to go beyond simplistic solutions. Athletes, officials, reporters, and fans all bear responsibility -- an awesome responsibility -- for supporting testing and sanctions, but also for rejecting the easy storyline of "if it's that good, it must be tainted."

NNHSXC Web Site Back Up

The web site www.nnhsxc.net is back online. You can once again browse the NNHS archives for dual meet results back to 2001, read my Newton-biased race reporting, and view my amateurish race photos.

The site hasn't been updated since last Fall, though. I'm planning an overhaul later this month. Look for new content on August 1.