Trackshark.com - College Track & Field

I’ve avoided the topic of drugs in sports because I don’t want to get dragged into an issue that I could spend days writing about. So, I’m limiting myself to 200 words per entry on the topic.

I hate to think that many of us will lower the bar on what we think is humanly possible. There are some amazing athletes out there who are turning in some amazing performances without the use of steroids. These are the athletes that have the most confidence in their potential.

I’m Not Really Running, I’m Not Really Running...

BILL MORGAN, an emeritus professor of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin, likes to tell the story, which he swears is true, of an Ivy League pole vaulter who held the Division 1 record in the Eastern region.

His coaches and teammates, though, noticed that he could jump even higher. Every time he cleared the pole, he had about a foot to spare. But if they moved the bar up even an inch, the vaulter would hit it every time. One day, when the vaulter was not looking, his teammates raised the bar a good six inches. The man vaulted over it, again with a foot to spare.

When his teammates confessed, the pole vaulter could not believe it. But, Dr. Morgan added, “once he saw what he had done, he walked away from the jumping pit and never came back.”

After all, Dr. Morgan said, everyone would expect him to repeat that performance. And how could he?

The moral of the story? No matter how high you jump, how fast you run or swim, how powerfully you row, you can do better. But sometimes your mind gets in the way.

“All maximum performances are actually pseudo-maximum performances,” Dr. Morgan said. “You are always capable of doing more than you are doing.”

One of my running partners, Claire Brown, the executive director of Princeton in Latin America, a nonprofit group, calls it mind over mind-over-body.

She used that idea in June in the Black Bear triathlon in Lehighton, Pa., going all-out when she saw a competitor drawing close. She won her age group (30 to 34) for the half-Ironman distance, coming in fourth among the women.

When it was over, she ended up in a medical tent. “I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up or both,” she recalled. “At a certain point in a hard race, you’ve pushed yourself beyond the point of ignoring the physical pain, and now you have to tell your mind that it can keep going, too.”

The problem for many athletes is how to make a pseudo-maximum performance as close as possible to a maximum one. There are some tricks, exercise physiologists say, but also some risks.

The first thing to know, said Dr. Benjamin Levine, an exercise researcher and a cardiology professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, is that no one really knows what limits human performance. There’s the ability of the heart to pump blood to the muscles, there’s the ability of the muscles to contract and respond, there’s the question of muscle fuel, and then, of course, there is the mind.

“How does the brain interact with the skeletal muscles and the circulation?” Dr. Levine said. “How much of this is voluntary and how much is involuntary? We just don’t know.”

But since most people can do better, no matter how good their performance, the challenge is to find a safe way to push a little harder. Many ordinary athletes, as well as elites, use a technique known as dissociation.

Dr. Morgan, who tested the method in research studies, said he was inspired by a story, reported by an anthropologist that, he suspects, is apocryphal. It involves Tibetan monks who reportedly ran 300 miles in 30 hours, an average pace of six minutes a mile. Their mental trick was to fixate on a distant object, like a mountain peak, and put their breathing in synchrony with their locomotion. Every time a foot hit the ground they would also repeat a mantra.

So Dr. Morgan and his colleagues instructed runners to say “down” to themselves every time a foot went down. They were also to choose an object and stare at it while running on a treadmill and to breathe in sync with their steps. The result, Dr. Morgan said, was that the runners using the monks’ strategy had a statistically significant increase in endurance, doing much better than members of a control group who ran in their usual way.

That, in a sense, is the trick that Paula Radcliffe said she uses. Ms. Radcliffe, the winner of this year’s New York City Marathon, said in a recent interview that she counts her steps when she struggles in a race. “When I count to 100 three times, it’s a mile,” she said. “It helps me focus on the moment and not think about how many miles I have to go. I concentrate on breathing and striding, and I go within myself.”

Without realizing what I was doing, I dissociated a few months ago, in the middle of a long, fast bike ride. I’d become so tired that I could not hold the pace going up hills. Then I hit upon a method — I focused only on the seat of the rider in front of me and did not look at the hill or what was to come. And I concentrated on my cadence, counting pedal strokes, thinking of nothing else. It worked. Now I know why.

Dr. Morgan, who has worked with hundreds of subelite marathon runners, said every one had a dissociation strategy. One wrote letters in his mind to everyone he knew. Another stared at his shadow. But, Dr. Morgan asked him, what if the sun is in front of you? Then, the man said, he focused on someone else’s shadow. But what if the sun goes behind a cloud, Dr. Morgan asked?

“Then it’s tough,” the runner conceded.

Dissociation clearly works, Dr. Morgan said, but athletes who use it also take a chance on serious injury if they trick themselves into ignoring excruciating pain. There is, of course, a fine line between too much pain and too little for maximum performance.

“The old adage, no pain no gain comes into play here,” Dr. Morgan said. “In point of fact, maximum performance is associated with pain.”

The brain affects everyday training as well, researchers note.

Imagine you are out running on a wet, windy, cold Sunday morning, said Dr. Timothy Noakes, an exercise physiologist at the University of Cape Town. “The conscious brain says, ‘You know that coffee shop on the corner. That’s where you really should be.’” And suddenly, you feel tired, it’s time to stop.

“There is some fatigue in muscle, I’m not suggesting muscles don’t get fatigued,” Dr. Noakes said. “I’m suggesting that the brain can make the muscles work harder if it wanted to.”

Part of a winning strategy is to avoid giving in to lowered expectations, athletes and researchers say. One friend tells me that toward the end of a marathon he tries not to look at people collapsed or limping at the side of the road. If he does, he suddenly realizes how tired he is and just gives up.

Marian Westley, a 35-year-old oceanographer in Princeton, N.J., and another running friend of mine, used several mental strategies in the recent Philadelphia marathon.

She slowed herself down at the start by telling herself repeatedly that she was storing energy in the bank. And when she tired near the race’s finish, she concentrated on pumping her arms. “I thought about letting my arms run the race for me, taking the pressure off my legs.”

She finished in three hours and 43 minutes, meeting her goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. “I am over the moon!” she wrote in an e-mail message the day after the race.

A Hospital, a Girl and a Missing Finger

Filling Pages, Logging Miles

Pain and Fatigue and Why You Want Them

Time to Start This Bad Boy Up!

Urgent Update from NCAA's

Nationals! Rah Rah Rah!

Well anyway, I scraped into Nationals by the skin of my teeth. It’s pretty exciting…not as exciting as that dream I had in which Richard Gere and Dr. Phil are eaten by a pack of vicious polar bears…but still exciting.

My former teammates at Brown, Paul Rosiak (javelin) and Anna Willard (Steeplechase) qualified for NCAA’s, as did a dozen of my Kansas Jayhawk compadres. So even if I don’t throw well I can still count on a big group of friends to cheer me up/laugh at me.

Javelinistically speaking, I’ve spent the past week polishing my run-up, and I think it’s looking much better. I have inadvertently experimented with a highly specialized running style this Spring – it is a style that has only been mastered by myself and injured water buffalo calves as they flee during a lion attack. It can most accurately be described as “graceful” or “majestic” (you’re choice, but I like majestic). Picture a man with two broken arms who has fallen overboard and must pump his legs furiously just to keep his head above the roiling ocean waters.

The Psychology of Shame Levels

It is important to set lofty goals, but your top-end goal should not be farther from your P.R. than your shame level is from your P.R. For example: My P.R. is 68.5m. My goal is 73.5m. Therefore, my shame level should not be any higher than 63.5m (62m might be better).

I talk to so many people who feel devastated after a meet because they didn’t hit a p.r. or they missed their p.r. by a few feet. Disappointment and self-pity can ruin a week of training. You should expect yourself to train hard, but you should not expect everything to come together for you meet after meet. Lowering your shame level does not suggest complacency with poor performance - it does suggest that you are willing to put your emotions aside in order to ensure high quality training, thus improving your capacity to perform well at meets.

** The Ricky Bruch documentary, “Själen är större än världen/The Soul is Greater Than the World,” by Stefan jarl, is one of my favorite movies of all time. Definitely the most motivational movie I’ve ever seen. Check out the website below to read a review of the film &/or order it.

First Meet

The meet wasn’t a complete disaster. I got the regional standard out of the way AND I got that great tank-top sunburn that drives all the girls wild.

Inspiring People and Stories

Hunter S. Thompson (author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas): he used to re-type full novels (The Great Gatsby, etc.) word-by-word to learn the writing style of other talented writers.

Mother Jones: she was under 5’ tall and a woman in the 19th century, yet she rose to become one of the top American union leaders.

Gordon Parks: he was the embodiment of creative genius. He was an accomplished photographer, painter, musician, composer, actor, director and writer among other things.

Ernest Hemingway: he was rejected over 100 times before getting published for the first time.

Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.: they built a life around putting the well-being of others in front of their own well-being.

Frederick Douglass: he escaped slavery to become one of the most influential leaders and widely read authors in American history.

Inspiring Books: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, Profiles in Courage by JFK Jr., Man’s Search for Meaning, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg (I haven’t read this yet but my entire family swears by it.) Other: The photographs of Annie Leibovitz, The art of Jean Claude and Cristo, a million movies that I can’t think of right now.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU? Post your favorite movies, people, songs, paintings, books, or whatever else you take inspiration from.

Self-Evaluation

The question itself is harmless enough and perhaps it has meaning for many of you, but I’ve always felt a bit patronized by it. It seems artificial to me, something that makes the questioner feel clever and insightful but offers very little to the athlete. It suggests the importance of self-presentation over the importance of your actions and capabilities. As athletes we can’t waste our time with the artificial. We need to be definitive and rational in understanding what makes us good at what we do.

Every athlete has individual attributes and characteristics- things they’re good at and things they’re not so good at, etc. A team’s capabilities are dependant on the attributes of its individuals. Therefore, it is very important for: 1.) Athletes to evaluate their attributes, and 2.) Coaches to find the best way to make use of these attributes. You don’t stand for things, you DO things and you’re good and/or bad at things. As athletes we need to know what we are capable of doing and how we become capable of doing them.

1). What aspects of your event are you best at? - example: “My starts are very good. I have a good finishing kick for a distance runner. I keep my block leg really solid in the javelin. Etc.”

2). How did I become good at this aspect? (How did I learn to do X well?) - ex: “I watched a lot of film and had a good coach who taught me how to come out of the blocks well. I was born with good sprinting speed. I did thousands of drills to perfect my javelin block. Etc.”

3). What aspects do I struggle with the most? - ex: “I fade a lot over the last 30 meters. I never run as well in races as I do in practice. I always drop my hand right before I throw. Etc.”

The answers to these questions can give you some insight into the most effective ways for you to learn and improve as an athlete. These ways will be different for everyone since we all retain knowledge a little differently. Think left-brain vs. right-brain, aural learning vs. visual learning, etc. Take the answers to the above questions and break them down as much as you can. “What specifically did I do (or not do) to become good at X? How exactly did I do that? What steps did I take?” Be as specific as possible and most importantly, be honest with yourself. It’s hard to acknowledge your weaknesses and it’s even harder to credit someone else for your successes.

Hopefully this exercise will give you some true insight into “what you stand for as an athlete,” whatever that means. Self-evaluation is always good. It can hurt sometimes, but you’ll always learn something about how you operate and how you can operate more effectively.

I apologize to anyone who read my blog last week. I know, I promised that I’d write something more exciting in my second blog, but it looks like I’ve written another philosophical piece. This was not a mistake; I simply lied to you last week. I’ll probably try to lie to you as often as possible over the next few months. After all, it’s what I’m good at. My self-evaluation told me so.

Hello....My name is Hugh

Athletically, I focused on the javelin at Brown. Despite a decent first meet (215’7”, 65.72m) I suffered an elbow injury, and subsequently missed the next two seasons. I returned for my junior year, but continued elbow pain and a growing disenchantment with sports led me away from track until the spring of my senior year. I threw in two meets in 2006, hitting a new pr of 225’. After calling an end to my season following the Ivy championships, I received word that the NCAA had approved a two -year eligibility extension for medical hardship. I took this eligibility to the University of Kansas, which is where I am today.

The primary focus of my blogs from here on out, will not rest on javelin technique and training, but rather on the relationship between athletics and society. I believe the factors that produce good athletes can be the same factors that make interesting people. This is not often the case, however, as I see more and more athletes sacrificing their personal identities in order to fit into a “sports culture.” A few examples of this: 1.) There have been, in my opinion, only a handful of interesting/original athlete interviews over the past five years. 2.) In case you can’t identify your University’s basketball team by their height, they are all wearing full athletic gear no matter where they are. 3.) It’s not hard to find certain classes filled with athletes. Favoring easy classes over interesting classes sounds absolutely terrible to me, but then again, maybe that’s just me.

I recently read an essay by a poet who preached the importance of distinguishing writing as an activity from writing as an identity. Adopting an identity as a writer is harmful and limiting, he argued. Anyone who writes is a writer. In this way, anyone who plays sports is an athlete. Regardless of your talent or the level at which you compete, playing sports should not pre-dispose you to a certain identity, way of living or way of acting. This will be the focus of my blog. To clarify, I'm not arguing that it is a good idea to act in ways that are harmful to yourself or in conflict with rules, laws or agreements with your athletic department. I'm simply arguing that it is good to be very conscious of who you are and what you're about on a personal level.

Alright, I’ve just read through the last couple of paragraphs and realized how boring they are. I promise better in the future. This was just an ice-breaker. I’ll try to have a new installment in every week…so don’t pee yourself with anticipation. Also, I’d love to hear from you. Please email your criticism, ideas, suggestions, questions, threats, etc. to me whenever you get the chance.

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