There are times when it does not pay to run for it

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

World class marathoner Bill Rodgers once stated that one of the benefits of being a distance runner is the ability to rescue yourself during an emergency. His point was thus: “If you’re stranded in your car in a snowstorm, you can always run to safety.”

Well, that’s a wishful thought at times, isn’t it?

Tarsnakes wait to take you down.

Run for your life? It’s one of the tarsnakes of existing that at times you can’t tell what you’re running from.

I’ve tried out that theory of running or riding for emergency and practical reasons and it did not work out so well. It’s one of the tarsnakes of life that when you make up your mind to run for it, there is often a cost that comes with the decision.

Rainy days and Mondays

Emerging from the John Hancock building in Chicago one spring afternoon, I was about to embark on the trip to the train station a mile away when the skies opened up. It began raining so hard it sounded like ice breaking on the sidewalks. I tried to hail a cab as quickly as possible but they were all instantly taken. It was like a scene from some sit-com or movie about a guy with bad luck. All I could see were cab doors opening and people getting in while I stood under the awning of the Hancock with my jaw open.

“Seriously?”

I knew the train I needed to catch to make an evening commitment left in 20 minutes. So I did some quick calculations in my head to figure out whether the bus would get me there on time. Then like another scene from the Bad Luck Movie a bus rolled by that was just jammed with people. There was no way taking the bus was an option.

So I looked out into the rain and said to myself, “Maybe I’ll run to the station.”

All wet

There was just one problem. I had no raincoat. Rain was not predicted that day so I did not bring one. and I wasn’t about to go spend $150 on some North Face raincoat at the basement store of the Hancock. So I took a deep breath, tucked the computer bag under my arm and started running toward Ogilvie Transportation Center.

Within a block the rain had already soaked through my wool suit. It was a light wool suit at least. But it was wool. The fibers started to scratch my skin a little and a trickle of water somehow reached my nether regions. This was not going well.

At some point the puddles on the street became no obstacle. I could not afford to dodge them and keep making reasonable progress. So I ran right through. Fortunately I was wearing a pair of relatively waterproof Rockport dress shoes. They were actually comfortable for running. I’d once seen an advertisement for Rockport that showed a guy wearing their dress shoes to run a marathon. So the footwear was not a problem.

Trucking

I always knew my running paces pretty well and I was trucking along at under 7:30 pace, making good time. People trapped in storefront coves stared at me running through the rain as if I was a crazy man. Of course they were right. What I was doing was crazy.

The suit was now soaked through completely. The rain had never let up. In fact it was blowing in sheets and whirling in visible downpours out of the sky. Litter and city detritus was tumbling down the rain-filled gutters of Michigan Avenue. But I kept on running.

Cutting through a building plaza there was a brief moment when the rain was blocked by some overhead structures. I could now feel how truly wet I was. It was silent and cold in those 100 meters. Then I emerged again into the falling rain and headed on to Wacker Drive. Rain struck my cheeks and I let out a laugh. This was really insane.

The race of my life

I’ve run some races (in fact many races) where conditions were uncomfortable. We once raced through newly fallen snow on a golf course at a national cross country meet. That was cold and wet and muddy and snowy all at once. And pretty uncomfortable.

I’ve also run the steeplechase when they had to chip the ice out of the water jump, and also when it was so hot out the track was melting in spots. And those were uncomfortable runs.

But nothing really compares to running two-plus miles in a soaked woolen business suit on a cold, rainy afternoon in Chicago. The wind kept whipping me and slowed my pace to a near standstill at some point. Time was ticking away and I needed to catch my train. I knew I had a five margin of error but somehow I’d managed to make a mistake and added a couple extra blocks by taking a wrong turn between buildings on the route. A surge of panic hit me. It was close in terms of time and I was getting out of breath.

Meanwhile the computer bag clutched under my arm was shiny and slack with wetness. I prayed the computer inside would not get wet. My arm pit was chafing as I ran. A mad thought of tossing the thing in the river and never going back to my job went through my head.

Saggy and soggy

Jethro Tull AqualungProbably the worst part of the ordeal were the dress socks I was wearing. These too were a wool composition and now hung slack on my ankles. The tops had turned down and I began to imagine that overall I must look like the guy on the cover of the Jethro Tull album Aqualung. How appropos, anyway. That was pretty much the truth. I’d breathed in quite a bit of water. The faster I ran, the worse it got.

Finally I crossed a metal grate bridge and turned the corner for the one-block sprint finish to the lower level of Ogilvie Transportation Center. My suit now clung to my body like a heat vest in a sci-fi movies. As I entered the cool lower levels of the train station, steam rose off my body.

Finish chute

Climbing the final flight of stairs to reach the trains was a soggy, sorry close to the running portion of my commute. My bald head was shiny and my shoes matched. There was a squishing noise from my socks inside the footwear. My underwear sagged beneath the suit slacks. Everything was flopping around down there. It was, perhaps, one of the more humbling moments of my life.

Entering the train meant coming into a closed space. The air was humid and warm. I stood on the platform between trains and tried to cool off. That wasn’t happening. Plus I stank. Of wet wool. And was that sweat too? Yes, it was sweat. What a nasty combination.

So I stayed on the platform rather than go try to find a seat. There was no way I was going to foist my soggy, smelly self on anyone else on that train.

Riding along

The train ride took an hour from Chicago to Geneva. I stood there with one hand holding the bright metal pool while the suit hung from my frame like the flag of a defeated army.

Finally the train lurched to a halt and I could walk to my car. And wouldn’t you know it? A small rain shower came along to soak me one more time.

At home it took several minutes to remove the suit. I hung it on a door hanger with the vow to take it to the cleaners the next day. Would the suit ever have creased again? Had I ruined its texture by running through the rain?

Soggy conclusions

It all felt rather sorry and sad. Yet I was proud in some weird way that I’d managed to make that train through the rain. A month later that job was over. The promises the company had made; that I would only go through training in the city for a couple weeks and then not have to commute anymore had been strung out to months and then almost a year. Nothing they promised me ever happened. No remote connection to the database. No suburban office from which to base our sales operations.

That run from the Hancock to the train station turned out to be a symbolic one. Despite all the adversity I’d done my best to make it all work. But whether you make promises to yourself or someone else makes promises they can never keep, sometimes you have to just suck it up and run right through it. It may not seem to pay in the moment, yet years later you realize it was what you had to do to survive in the moment.

werunandridelogo

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The untold rewards and risks of running and riding

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

Shot BloksHeaded home from a grocery shopping trip it occurred to me that the food I’d just purchased was all out of reach. The Stomach was hungry and the Brain was trying to figure out what to do about that.

Suddenly the Eye spied a pink wrapper sticking up from driver’s side cartage slot.

“Ooo0h,” Brain whispered to body. “Shot Bloks!”

There were three left in the wrapper. Mouth opened wide to take one in. Then another. And another. This is one of the untold rewards of running and riding. There always seems to be something lurking about when you need a snack.

Detritus

It helps if you’re slightly disorganized and just a bit lazy about cleaning out your car every time you arrive home after a workout. Usually there’s the Great Unloading that has to take place. First to be removed is the smelly, stinky cycling or running clothes. These are carted in IMG_5047like a dead possum to be thrown into the laundry. Then there are shoes or other equipment to take into the house or hang in the garage. If you’re coming back from a cycling trip there are bikes and helmets to stow. It all takes precious time.

Sometimes you forget a few details.

That means by the time you take care of all that gear stuff it’s pretty easy to leave a half eaten Chocolate Chip Mint Clif Bar, a half-devoured pack of Shot Bloks or some other goody sitting around in the vehicle. This comes in very handy when you’re moving about the suburbs and don’t feel like pulling into a gas station or fast food store to spend two bucks on a candy bar.

Just desserts

So you happily nibble away on the leftover detritus from your last ride or run. You might even dare take a dangerous swig of a day-old NUUN-filled water bottle. Probably not a good habit, but admit it. You’ve done it. It still tastes good if there’s no poisonous green methane gas coming out the top.

There is no clear statute of limitations on such leftovers. However I will relate that I once left a bottle of Accelerade in the car on a warm afternoon and it turned into a hideously thick substance that could well have sealed your aluminum siding from yellowjacket invasions. I decided from that point forward that if it could happen in the warmth of a closed up car it could also happen in the warmth of your stomach. So I no longer drink the stuff. Too gross a thought.

Buyer beware

Of course you also have to be careful what you ingest even when it’s new and in the wrapper. A running partner recently told me that he’d ordered some Tropical Shot Bloks or somesuch and it turned out they are laced with caffeine. Those of us that avoid such blood boosters need to watch out for dangerous contents and read labels. “Man, when you’re not used to that stuff,” he said with a glazed look in his eyes. “It really hits you hard. I was buzzing for hours.”

Of course that buzz can also come in handy sometimes. He’s a stay-at-home dad with two children ages 4 and 6. Everyone can use a little caffeine in those situations.  “I have 2.5 hours when they’re both at preschool,” he said dreamily. We all knew what he meant…

The buck stops

One of the untold yet pleasant rewards of running and riding is finding money in the pockets of cycling or running gear when you need it most. One morning during a scramble to catch a train for a 9:00 a.m. client meeting in the city, I was rushing around pulling clothes together for the trip downtown when a $20 bill fell out of a cycling jersey pocket as I was digging around for a clean pair of underwear.

That $20 saved a trip to the cash station and allowed me to make the train schedule on time. Talk about the untold rewards of running and riding! Yes, my need for such serendipity is rather pathetic I’ll admit. Yet moments like that can make a difference between success and failure in life.

Of course the opposite can happen as well. I’ve lost money out of running shorts and had water bottles fly off the bike into ditches so thick with weeds and poison ivy no sane person would invade that realm to retrieve a $9.99 Camelbak anything. The world has a way of balancing out the good with the bad. Get used to it.

World Class junk

Duotone Water Bottle On TrackI once attended a race where world class cyclists were tossing aside water bottles while competing on a one-mile criterium loop. In my excitement about the race I eagerly scooped up a prize water bottle with a team logo on it. By the time I got home with the water bottle, I was so grossed out by the idea of using it that I tossed it into the recycling bin with the rest of the plastic that either gets melted down or winds up in the ocean.

The same goes for other kinds of discarded equipment. What seems like a cool find in the locker room or out in the field, some garment or logo-embossed piece of equipment, never seems as inviting when you actually think about trying it on. This happened once when I shared a locker room with a professional soccer player at a physical therapy clinic. In a rush to get to his training session he left behind a pair of his team shorts. I picked thme up and thought about keeping them. But then a rush of guilt wore through my notions and I turned them in at the desk. Honestly the thought of wearing someone else’s shorts just did not sit well with me.

Second hand shoes

Certainly it would never make sense to try wearing someone else’s shoes if you were to find them. It stuns me to think that our school used to re-issue running spikes and even running flats from year to year! The idea seems inconceivable now, but back then running shoes were just considered an exchangeable commodity. No one knew a thing about biomechanics or the dangers of wearing shoes worn out by someone else.

Chris Cudworth 4Really, even the idea of re-using running sweats year to year was a bit creepy. Both my high school and college programs issued huge baggy sweatsuits. Usually both tops and bottoms were signed out to members of the team. You were lucky if the top was a size long enough to cover your stomach and back while running. These were worn to train each and every day, all spring or fall and often through the winter when that running top that did not cover your back would creep up and allow subzero air to slide up your back. Yes, those were the days…

Recycling team shorts and jerseys was also common. In many cases, these items were used three or four seasons until the school budget allowed an upgrade. In high school basketball we all tried to avoid sharing a certain teammate’s shorts because he always threw them back in the laundry bin with brown skid marks on them. Seriously, I can still recall the sight of those shorts lurking in the bin with the rest of our equipment. “Oh man!” I recall a teammate groaning. “They’re gonna wash all our shorts with his shitty pants!”

Risky business

The risk of crotch rot or ass streaks from some other dude on such equipment might have been real if it were not for the Industrial Grade laundry service at most schools and colleges. Those team washing machines could have boiled smallpox or bubonic plague out of our clothes if need be. That meant your training gear and team uniforms had to be tough enough to survive week to week, and year to year. If that meant the equipment chafed you now and then, so be it. You learned to love the calluses on your balls because they protected you.

However, if you had thrown any of today’s high-tech Dri-Fit or Under Armor fabrics into those nuclear-powered washers and driers, there would be nothing left but a plastic shrivel to hold in your hand.

Tough old birds

Luther JerseyThat Old Tyme gear did last forever.  I still have a few of those pieces of gear in my closet. They do not look any older than they did 40 years ago. That’s because they were made to last through years and years of wear.

Though it barely fits because I weighed 140 in college and weigh over 170 now, I’ve kept one classic Luther College jersey from the 1970s era. I recall racing in it on cold autumn days during my freshman year. It was one of the last years we wore those jerseys made by Gopher Athletic Supply. The equipment revolution was about to take hold in earnest with lighter, more ephemeral fabrics. So I sensed it was the end of one era and the beginning of another.

I’m glad I kept that jersey. Now that I’ve pulled it out I might put it in a frame or something. It’s a good reminder that while the risks and rewards of running and riding are often gleaned day to day, the real reward is in the permanence of your life experiences.

werunandridelogo

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Just keep going

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

GooglesToward the end of my swim workout yesterday it occurred to me with some surprise that at the end of my 7th 100-meter repeat I was not yet tired. This was a revelation of sorts. Up until this point in time the simple act of swimming 100 consecutive meters (I know that sounds silly) was a labor not of love, but of pain.

Yet I’ve kept at it, allowing for a two-week break when the common cold stuffed up my nasal and bronchial passages making it beyond difficult to breathe during swimming. Then I tweaked my back doing something in the yard and that was uncomfortable but eased somewhat in the water.

Such is the life of any athlete. We all have our hurdles.

But with swimming the question has been building enough arm strength and endurance to actually do the workouts. Form enters into that picture because if your form is lousy or you’re not breathing correctly, you literally run out of gas and of oxygen.

Neither is real conducive to a productive workout.

That’s why it was so nice at the 100 meter mark to say to myself, “Just keep going.”

And another 100 meters passed. And I was still not tired.

Swim FormWhich opens the door now to longer intervals, more mileage and more productive swimming.

Perhaps some of you have had the same experience in running or in cycling. If those sports were new to you at some point the same sort of progress had to take place. Perhaps it was a jog around the block to start things off, or a 10-mile ride on a mountain bike. Then you went a little longer, or more often. Perhaps you shed a little weight along the way, which also made things easier.

We all have these journeys through which we must pass in order to become what we really want to call ourselves. A runner. A cyclist. A swimmer.

You might add some tags to those titles. A marathoner. A crit rider or Century. An open water swim.

We quantify our progress in these terms. Yet it all comes down to simple little moments and three simple words: “Just keep going.”

werunandridelogo

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The true confession of a chiro convert

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

IMG_7618I felt lighter. That’s the only way I could describe the result of my first chiropractic appointment. Longer, too.

That’s how it is supposed to feel. I guess.

Previous experience with chiropractic care is long in the past.

But I trust this physician. Got to know her first as a person, and her worldview.

She’s also an athlete. Plays soccer. Runs. Swims. Bikes.

Everyone in our BNI business networking group that visits her practice raves about the beneficial effects of her care.

I’m not going to write some treatise on what works in chiropractic care, and what doesn’t. But having written the content for my physician’s website recently, I know she does not make claims she cannot back up with real results in her patients.

This much I now know. The adjustments included a test of the range of motion in my glutes, hips and lower back. Some of that naturally hurt. Because I’m tight from years of running and riding and not enough flexibility work. It’s high time to change that.

There is also the scar tissue on my right lower back that is still hanging around after about a year of recovery from the head-on bike crash I brought on myself through inattention and a downed tree. You can’t run into a tree at 20 mph without some lingering side effects.

So she worked on the scar tissue and tight muscles in a few different ways. This I can state with certainty. My family doctor, great physician that he is, would never dig in with his thumbs and elbows to make things loose enough to work again. Chiropractors by contrast believe that moving things around can have beneficial effects, especially on the neuroskeletal system.

Massage therapists treat sore muscles and fascia. An athlete needs these kinds of things. Podiatrists. Pedorthists. Fix the biomechanical and you’re back on the road to run or ride. Or swim.

I’ve written about physical therapy and its many advantages. It has saved me in many ways, specifically by curing runner’s knee, IT band issues and chondromalacia, to name. I’ve even advocated the idea that for many sports injuries, physical therapy should be the first point of assessment for athletes. Too many family doctors see injuries symptomatically rather than from a causal perspective.

So I believe in the hands-on art and resultant stretching and strengthening exercises prescribed through treatment. But you can always learn more. We fall into old habits and old habits fall into us. Our structure and systems collapse inward or bulge outward with each new travesty we impose on them, or neglect.

So… a wakeup call with a chiropractor that knows what she’s doing is a welcome intervention.  And after all, life is one adjustment after another. Ba dommm teeeeseshhh

I’ll be here all weekend folks. Don’t forget to tip your server.

My chiropractor is Dr. Melissa Wilke, Wilke Chiropractic in Geneva, Illinois. Her new website will be up and running soon. 

werunandridelogo

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Some thoughts from the running track about cycling

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

HurdlesOnWetTrackSo, yesterday I signed up for the Galena Duathlon. That would be the race that has more vertical mileage than horizontal.

And what did I do to prepare? Why, I went to the track last night, of course!

If we’re smart, that’s where we all go to test our fitness. Because even if the training is not specific to running hills, you still need to know how fast you can run at a steady state near race pace to help your mind get ready for the effort of racing.

Those of us old enough to still have cinders in our butt crack from years of running on less-than-all-weather tracks know one thing is true: track is where honesty lives.

Fun and humbling

It’s both fun and humbling to do a track workout. My companion Sue is not so convinced about the fun part. She’s more convinced about the humbling nature of track work. Yet this winter during our many repeat interval workouts on the indoor track at the local high school, she saw definite improvement in her leg turnover and speed by doing intervals together on the track. Her form improved. By indoor season’s end, she was running 3-4 miles of ladder and interval workouts at her 5K pace or below.

That’s a pretty cool result, wouldn’t you say? And yesterday on the outdoor track she replicated that pace. I told her that’s a really good sign. Perhaps it helped that she was wearing my faithful Timex watch, which I lent to her because her Garmin battery died? She’s got way more gadgets than me. Hee hee.

On our own

IMG_8605Meanwhile I did our workout of 6 X 800 using my internal watch. Built on years of pacework on the track, starting from middle school through the current day, my pacing sense is fairly consistent. But the workout called for increasing our pace as the session progressed. I ran the first 800 with Sue in just over 4:00. Then came the drops, and through three repeats I could feel my legs start to loosen enough to deliver a faster pace.

I was clipping along by Number Four and Five, and with one 800 to go, I called out to Bob Hammond, the Experience Triathlon track coach managing our workout: “Sue has my watch,” I told him. “Could you just give me these two laps?”

The first passed in 1:35 and the second in 1:36. 3:11 for the 800. 6:20 pace.

That’s exactly my goal pace for the first two miles of the upcoming duathlon. Given that I felt no strain during the 800s workout, I’m on track (no pun intended) to handle that effort in the first stage.

Provisionals

Of course it is really hilly out in Galena. It’s unlikely I’ll be running 6:20s. But in order to race at your relative fitness, you must know how it feels to run at your race pace in order to manage your effort. Because then comes 16.8 miles of cycling, again in the hills. Followed by 4.2 more miles of running with a brick in your legs.

Strava Hill plot

click to enlarge

So to begin preparing for the bike segment, I rode out to our local hill called Johnson’s Mound to do hill repeats earlier this week. It was really windy on the way west to the forest preserve. I’d ridden 50 miles the day before and could really feel that in my legs. But as you roll along the lactic acid flows out of your muscles and you prepare for a new round of anaerobic goo. It’s what we do.

Johnson’s Mound sticks up like a lone boob from the Illinois landscape. It’s a kame formation laid down by glaciers 10,000 years ago. Once farmed, it’s now a park with a winding road that circles its backside and then launches up the north face in a series of four semi-switchbacks. It really resembles those climbs on the Tour de France, and there is a 9% grade I believe at one point. Several seasons ago I led a friend into the preserve who did not know about the hill. As he climbed with me I heard the definite use of a French word that begins with an F and ends with either a Q or a K with an ER added on the end.

Rite of passage

It’s a tough little hill, and I first ran it with my high school cross country team back in 1971. It was a rude surprise to me then. Since that time I have run up Johnson’s Mound hundreds of times. Way back when I was racing fit at 31:00 10K pace, I would train on Johnson’s Mound to prepare for hillier races. I knew that I was ready for a good effort when I could run from the woods entrance around the main road and up to the top of the circuit in 3:00 or under. That meant I could race under 5:00 pace even in the hills. That strategy once delivered a 20:00 flat four-mile at a very hilly race in Glen Ellyn, Illinois where I got beat by two seconds in one of the most thrilling race finishes in my life. You don’t win them all, but an honest effort feels almost as good as winning. And that one felt honest.

Modern pain

Strava Ranking on Johnson's Mound this year

Click to enlarge

This time riding the same circuit on the bike I came round at just under 2:30 in four out of the six repeats. There’s a Strava segment on that stretch of park road that tells you how you compare to other riders. There are tons of riders here who use , for hillwork during training season. The All Time fastest climb belongs to a pair of excellent riders named Nathan Troia and David Ross. They climbed the segment at 39 seconds. My best All Time is 1:22. And that really hurt. So they’re some 40 seconds faster than me on that climb.

Truth be told, there are plenty of CATEGORY 1, 2 and 3 riders in our area, so I’m not too upset that that on that segment I rank 93rd overall. I’m kind of a marginal CAT 4 rider, and that’s only when I’m really fit. Otherwise I hang out and CAT 5 and try to stick with the bunch finish.

New Goals

I’ll be out to improve on that approach this year, starting with a new goal of getting up that climb in under a minute. That will mean 1) I’ve likely lost some weight and 2) I’m ready for challenges like the Horribly Hilly 100 in Wisconsin and other rides mapped out for the year.

I’m built a bit like a climber. Of course, I’m also built a bit like a runner. So there’s this strange balance that goes on between your speed in running and the muscle needed to be a fast cyclist. In some ways they’re the same, but in many ways they’re different.

In any case, together they add up to greater fitness overall. There’s a definite benefit of general aerobic fitness. It’s called cross-training in everyday nomenclature. Not an effort is wasted, in other words. The flats help the hills, and the hills help the flats. In between lie the peaks and valleys of mental preparation, and how bad you really want to succeed.

It’s a fascinating landscape, this world of running and riding. In the end, it’s a topography of the mind.

werunandridelogo

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Is drinking Coke an acceptable thing for those who run and ride?

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

can-of-cokeOne of the first real dietary tips given by my cross country coach was simple: “Stop drinking soda.” That was back in 1972. Our coach sensed there was something bad in colas. He believed, for one thing, the carbonation contributed to sideaches. Possibly that phenomenon, which I experienced directly over the years of ignoring his advice, was the acid nature of the drink.

Whatever the truth behind his concerns, we largely abided by his advice not to drink Coke or ingest a ton of eggs during the season. These he suspected of introducing too much sulphur in the system. Another possible cause of sideaches? He also advised against fatty foods and eating donuts too.

That somehow did not stop me from accepting a small gift of a Cherry Coke and a chocolate-covered donut every morning before doing my paper route. It somehow seemed like those little vices did not count against the dietary advisory of our coach. After all, I ate them so early in the morning (5:30) they could not possibly be damaging to my system the rest of the day.

Dietary compromises

FRANK SHORTERIt seems we all make these dietary compromises in some way. Which meant that I developed a Coke-A-Day habit all through college and those 90-100 miles weeks. Somehow my system survived.

And then I read that Olympian Frank Shorter ingested flat Coke during his 1972 winning marathon. It runs out the deep sugar in Coke is a fairly good carbohydrate replacement. Minus the fizz, Coke is used by runners. Cyclists like Chris Horner have been known to crave a Coke during all those miles chris-horner_2659708kin the Tour de France. At that level of energy expenditure, it doesn’t matter what you shove into your system. Calories reign supreme. If it tastes good to boot, and takes your mind off the suffering with all that fizzy happy taste of Coke, then all the better.

So Coke has a mixed history on my life, and it is likely true for many others as well. We love to work out and watch our diets, yet treats like this are a dose of temptation in a can, a bottle or a cold glass filled with ice. Coca-Cola is an evil sweet bitch of a drink. You can live without her, but you don’t really want to.

Jack and Maker’s and Coke and Rum and so on…

One of my favorite late night beverages is whiskey and Coke. Maker’s Mark. Jack Daniels. All subtle variations on a theme. Alcohol and Coke just go together.

It helps that Coke comes from a tradition of cocaine-laced beverages popularized in the late 1800s. The official Coke history doesn’t mention this colorful tradition but it is apparently true. But who needs cocaine when you can legally insert caffeine, another powerful stimulant, into soft drinks. That’s how it developed and the world has been abuzz with the love for Coke ever since.

Coke Habit

28.48%That caffeine thing caused a long break in my own Coke habit, as it were. Sometime in my early 30s I kept having prostate problems. My family doctor gave me the finger check and learned that my prostate was inflamed. “Let’s try quitting caffeine,” he suggested. “How much coffee do you drink?”

“None,” I told him. “I hate the taste.”

“Well how about soft drinks? Do you drink those?”

“Just one can of Coke a day. Sometimes Pepsi. Not much,” I offered. “My coach once told me to stay away from the stuff.”

“Well let’s cut it out and see what happens.You should also have frequent sex,” my doctor told me.

“Can you write me a prescription?”

Back at it

So I quit drinking Coke. Again. Just like back in high school. For two solid weeks I had caffeine withdrawal headaches. That’s how sensitive I was to caffeine. Yet my prostate problems did go away. I was sold on the idea that Coke and other caffeinated products were the source of my prostate discomfort.

I also cut out cold medicines with antihistamines, which often bear warnings such as, “Do not take if you experience enlargement of the prostate.” Which always made me laugh. Men don’t want enlargement of the prostate. They want enlargement of the penis. If cold medicine companies came up with a product to cure symptoms of the common cold and enlarge the penis, they could never keep those products on the shelves.

Side stitch DNF

Cudworth Running LCHMBut let’s go back to the Coke issue for now. Because I really did have a bad experience with Coke and running. While prepping to compete in the 5000 meter track race in the inaugural Prairie State Games, the University of Illinois cafeteria was opened to the athletes for three meals a day. It was hot that summer, and every day for lunch and dinner I downed a few Cokes. This was not in my normal meal plan.

The gun went off and my goal was to stay with two superior runners through at least two miles. We passed through in 9:28 and suddenly a deep sidestitch started on my right side. Within a lap it bent me over. The medics pulled me off the track and dumped me into a wheelbarrow full of ice. It may have simply been heat prostration that caused the DNF, but to this day I blame all that caffeine in the Cokes I’d been drinking.

Repeat non-performance

It actually happened many times over during my career that too much caffeine in my system brought me to a halt. It happened with Turkey Hill Iced Tea, which is rife with caffeine. I kept getting sidestitches and mentioned this to a South African doctor with whom I trained. He took one long look at me and asked me about my diet. Then he sputtered out his advice. “Quit drinking the fucking tea!” he nearly shouted.

And I did. And the sidestitches went away. Doh!

Zealot

cokesummercanAfter my own family doctor warned me that caffeine was the enemy in more than one way, I became a zealot for the anti-Coke habit. I told many of my friends about the relationship between a bad prostate and too many soft drinks. I even shared my anti-caffeine knowledge with female friends who admitted they had yeast infections or candida*. I was out to save the world from bad scenes Down Under.

*This would appear to have nothing to do with the pop song Candida by Tony Orlando and Dawn, but you never know. Most of his music was so saccharine it could probably cause diabetes or cancer. 

Some spritely time away

So for 20+ years I did not drink Coke or any other caffeinated beverage. All was good with the world “down below” and also my diaphragm. I avoided Coke and settled for that awful thing known as Sprite, which is pretty much sugar with bubbles in it. Yuck. Sprite is the default beverage in any soda machine where the rest of the products contain caffeine. I learned to hate the stuff. Sprite sucks.

But about two years ago the old Coke habit snuck up on me. I noticed while out drinking socially there were no ill effects from having caffeinated Coke with whiskey. Then I tried drinking a Coke without whiskey in it. No problem.

Relapse

IMG_4123So I began sneaking the occasional Coke into my diet. Then I purchased Caffeine-Free Coke at the supermarket. This was a wicked way of tricking my body into Coke-aholism. It’s the sugar, you see. It tastes like our best friend in the whole world.

But in fact sugar is almost our worst enemy. It stores itself as fat because our bodies can’t convert such thick levels of sugar into energy unless we’re literally running or riding our asses off at the time. Sugar also gives diseases like obesity and cancer a foothold in our lives. It messes with our metabolism and acts like a slutty virus in our cellular makeup, giving cancers a place to feed and grow.

Innocent sounding lies

Which is why it is so weird that we like to deceive ourselves into the idea that Coke is a harmless fun drink that never hurt anyone. Even some dietitians will probably tell you it’s fine to have a Coke or two when you’re training like crazy, but not when you’re in the zone of recovery or trying to watch your weight. We love these innocent-sounding lies because they give us room to play. So much of life is discipline and sacrifice for those who run and ride. What’s an occasional Coke going to do to destroy all that goodness? It’s one of the tarsnakes of running and riding that we believe our good habits will provide a countermeasure to the bad ones.

There really are plenty of other reasons not to drink Coke beyond the sugar and the caffeine. The website KillerCoke.org has nothing good to say about the phosphoric acid in Coke or the Aspartame in Diet Coke. These chemicals rot bones and are known carcinogens.

Extra weight

IMG_0124I’ve got about 10 lbs on my frame that appeared like Dark Magic over the winter. Recently while doing through prep for a colonoscopy it occurred to me that cutting out excess sugars would be a good idea. There is so much negative press about Coke that it should be obvious to all of us that quitting our soda habits could be the first best step to better health and fitness.

Yet there’s all that marketing and packaging and entire aisles at the grocery store stacked with giant bottles of soda. Truly it is insane that ENTIRE AISLES of soda are sold to the public every day. It’s like a massive sugary death wish if you think about. America’s obesity rates are through the roof. We’re a fat fuck race of soda drinkers whose sold purpose in the world, if you were to look objectively at the ratio of space in the grocery store, is to drink more soda and be stupid and happy doing it.

I once read a statistic in Harper’s Magazine that fascinates me to this day. It asked the question, “If all the Coca-Cola every produced were allowed to flow over Niagara Falls, how long would it run?

We’ll give you a few seconds to think about that.

shutterstock_70581703Now here’s the answer: 24 hours.

That’s all. That’s a testament to the natural yet strange phenomenon that is Niagara Falls. Because you know, they have the power in place to turn part of the falls off and on if they want to. That’s right: What you’re looking at with the Niagara Falls these days is somewhat of a man-made illusion. They can divert water away if they like. Not from Horseshoe Falls, perhaps, but it would have a significant impact on how we view that so-called natural wonder of the world.

It’s an apt analogy for the amount of Coke and other sodas flowing through our bodies as well. We could turn off that flow if we like. Yet somehow we enjoy the illusion of all that bubbly happiness flowing through our lives. It’s a wonderful deception if you think about.

But perhaps you’d rather not.

werunandridelogo

Posted in Christopher Cudworth, cycling, half marathon, marathon, running, Tarsnakes, We Run and Ride Every Day | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Not So Original sins and #modernproblems for those who run and ride

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

This morning my iPhone nearly ran out of battery life. As I lay in bed tapping the screen to look at the posts of Friends on Facebook the red indictor slipped from 12% to 7% and down to 3%. And I thought: “Is it a sin to let this thing die?”

There are many such pending sins waiting for our consideration in the modern world. While not categorized or canonized like most sins in the Bible, they still seem to count as some sort of sin in this #modernproblems world.

So let’s start our own bible of Not So Original Sins.

#1. Wearing running shorts over tights. 

Runner asks, "Do I look stupid wearing shorts over these tights?" HIs friend replies, "Yes but I just realized I'm doing it too."

Runner asks, “Do I look stupid wearing shorts over these tights?” HIs friend replies, “Yes but I just realized I’m doing it too.”

This trend began back in the early 1980s when decent running tights were first being perfected.

Somehow, someone decided that running tights were too revealing or showed too much of the human figure in terms of fat balance versus muscle balance. Thus began the sin of wearing running shorts over running tights. This, my friends, is definitely a sin. One must never, ever do this. And to wear this outfit at a race is in effect a mortal sin that could get you banned from the running community forever. At least by those who actually care about the distinction between performance versus appearance.

I know. People do wear shorts over tights every day and at every race. But people also commit adultery, steal and cheat and lie every day. They also break many of the Commandments laid down in the Book of Leviticus, including the claim that you should not mix fabrics in your clothes. Which simply proves the Bible is actually a confused mess that people don’t know how to read.

But that does not mean you should go around wearing shorts over your tights. We’ve advanced in our understanding in many ways the last 2000 years. This is one of them.

The reason wearing shorts over tights is a sin is because tights were invented to keep you warm and also make it possible to run faster in cold weather by eliminating baggy, wind-catching clothing. Those of us who ran well before tights were invented were thrilled at this technological advance.

Before that, we actually tried wearing nylons under our shorts during really cold and snowy weather. We also tried long underwear.chafed in spots you don’t want to think about trying to keep warm during two national cross country meets held in November. We paid the dues so you could enjoy your running.

So you can thank us for doing the suffering that led to the invention of tights. So to see someone throwing shorts over tights is a basic affront to Runners With History because it defeats the original purpose of their invention. Call me a running snob if you like. I was there. I Chafed For You.

Um, yeah.

Um, yeah. Like that. 

However, a word of caution to those who try to avoid the sin of running shorts over running tights. It is an even graver sin to wear too little under your tights, especially men who refuse to package themselves accordingly, whose nuts and member become the center of too much attention. Good fitting shorts and good fitting tights provide ample measure of profile management. Learn the art of concealing your junk or dispense with tights altogether. You don’t deserve to wear them. And camel toe…that’s an entirely different discussion. Talk amongst yourselves ladies, because men generally do not argue about that.

IMG_5128#2. Texting or taking photos while riding your bike. 

This is a sin because it endangers all other riders on the road, including yourself. Having one hand on your bars and trying to text or take photos one-handed equals divided balance and divided attention. Of course if you’ve never crashed and want some really great video, go right ahead, Your next text will read like this…

On a great riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiixiadpupaidfap

And a photo of your feet up in the sky is always interesting on Facebook.

#3. Drinking Cucumber Gatorade for any reason

If you did not know this flavor of Gatorade exists, I hesitate to even tell you. Because perhaps you actually like the taste of cucumber, and you might run out and buy such a flavor. But you must not, for it is a sin of large proportions. By accident two summers ago I cucomberlimepurchased two bottles of this stuff and put it in my water bottles. Thinking it was a benign flavor like Calm Lemon or something like that, I took a large sip while in the middle of a hard bike ride and spewed the cucumber-tasted Gatorade all over the road. Cucumber is not an acceptable flavor for a Sports Drink. You might just as well invent a flavor called Ass and drink that.

Not only did the Cucumber Gatorade result in my not drinking anything the rest of the ride, which was a risk at best, it also clung by smell to my two best water bottles. Forever. I was forced to throw them into the big green bin titled Recycling.

In 1000 years some three-eared archeologist with a research grant from the University of Phoenix will dig up those water bottles, take one sniff of the inside and toss them aside. “These could not have come from an advanced culture,” he or she will say. “They smell like Ass.”

#4. Driving less than five miles to meet up for a bike ride

One of the meeting places for group rides is 7.5 miles from my house. If I ride up there and ride 50 miles with my buddies and then ride back home it adds 15 miles to the ride. Yes, the entire purpose of our riding is to add miles in some respects. Yet those 50-milers can get a bit tough at times and it is all I can do to haul my sorry arse around at the pace my fellow torture artists prescribe. So sometimes I drive up there rather than ride. Because I’m lazy.

photo (50)And that’s a bit of a sin, I’ll admit. No one is perfect. But if that meeting point were under five miles away there would be no excuse to ride there. I know, what is an additional five miles of riding if you already are riding sixty or so miles? Well, some of this is subjective. You have to make a cutoff point somewhere, and the official point of demarcation shall thus be five miles. On a regular basis I meet my buddies now at a halfway point so that I don’t have to ride the extra 15 miles while they fall out of bed and ride a mile to the starting point. Because you know, every sin involves a compromise. And that goes for avoiding sins as well.

#5. Wearing Cycling Kits In Public or your Best Running Shoes to the gym

fat_man_in_kit_in_storeIt’s a fact that while riding the bike, cycling clothes are perfectly functional attire. But you shall never, and I repeat Never Ever, wear such attire to the gym. Don’t do it. Nothing looks more geeky than walking around in cycling attire when you’re not riding. So don’t wear it into Target unless you are legitimately returning from a ride (see Sin number four) because it also rather violates Part B of Sin #1.

People don’t want to look at your ass in bike shorts. Nor your bulging package if you have one. And if you are not a woman with a booty fit for Public Exposure, it’s not the best idea to traipse around Target or––God Forbid––Walmart in your bike shorts. This does great damage to the image of cyclists, which means people will see us as mere flabby humans when they encounter us on the road on our bikes. We must never let the illusion that we’re doing something important and valuable be breached. Thus you shall not appear in public wearing your bike kit except in situations where you are moving about with other groups of cyclists on foot. Then there is safety in numbers because people will naturally avert their eyes from such scenes.

IMG_3473But speaking of the health club, you must also never wear your best running shoes to the gym. Why waste precious cushioning in your shoes by pushing your feet against the leg press platform? That’s like begging for a biomechanical breakdown. Why would you do that? You typoically spend more than $100 on shoes. Why wear them out stomping around the club and squishing them flat doing squats. Makes no sense.

So there you have it, 5 Not So Original Sins and #modernproblems to avoid if you run and ride. And that wasn’t so bad was it? Now you know how to live a pure, moral and clean life without embarrassing yourself or causing the world unneeded angst.

And by the way, this is all just in fun. This is not meant to be taken seriously. Last Friday I posted a completely made-up article about a bunch of anal-retentive laws passed by Republicans and people thought I was serious. I wasn’t. Those weren’t real laws. But it does show you that the asshats in the Republic Party these days are so out of touch with reality that people can no longer tell truth from the morbid and strange fictions these idiots create in their laws. 

We Run and Ride will continue pointing out the nature of these sins in one way or the other. But you don’t have to believe or abide by everything you read.

werunandridelogo

Posted in Christopher Cudworth, cycling, duathlon, half marathon, marathon, running, triathlon, We Run and Ride Every Day | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Republicans pass bill to ban gays, straights and transgender people from running and riding

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth
This photo features women trying to keep their uterus from falling out due to excess exercise.

This photo features women trying to keep their uterus from falling out due to excess exercise, a concern of Republican lawmakers.

It’s finally happened. The people who love to claim that government is too intrusive in our lives have turned their attention to the world of running and riding to prevent everyday citizens from running afoul of religious laws designed to protect them from sinful behavior in the whole universe, cosmos-y eternal thing we live in.

“We simply don’t believe being gay is good for anyone in the long run,” Congressman Dickie Chokes (R-Va.) said in a written statement. “And we take that statement literally. So we have written a bill that says gay people cannot participate in the sport of running in any way.”

In a separate section of the same bill, renowned Catholic Congressman Amy Builter (R-MN) claims, “Our bill will also ban men specifically from running too far, because it has been proven that such activities can lower the sperm count, and that is against the Will of God, because every sperm is sacred.”

In a special clause of Bill 69 introduced in the House of Representatives, bicycling more than 15 minutes will also be banned for any man deemed to be of reproductive age. “We have heard testimony from a number or men that have admitted to getting a numb penis

A team of athletes demonstrating why Republicans are so concerned about gender issues and running and riding.

A team of athletes demonstrating why Republicans are so concerned about gender issues and running and riding.

from riding too long on their bikes,” said Miranda Folsky (R-Ark). “If a man cannot perform for his wife when she is desireth to have a child, it should be against the law to pressure one’s scrotal area with such an activity.”

The new law has provisions that apply to women as well. “There are still concerns among some good conservative families that a woman’s uterus can fall right out if they run too far. We think it’s better to go back to the good old days and be safe rather than run the risk of having to scrape up uterine material off the streets of our good cities.”

The Bike Seat Provision in the bill calls for women who ride to wear a special pad between their bike seat and their person. “We’re concerned that women in the aero position could be receiving untoward stimulation to the clitoral region,” said a male Congressman who preferred not to be named (but sources say his name was Merle).

As for transgender people, multiple Congressman expressed concern about not knowing whether competitors are male or female by the style of their clothing. “I mean, it just makes common sense not to let people like that out on the street,” said Jason Hegerberderson (R-ND). “What rack will they shop at Sports Authority? Does a transgender person deserve the right to go running around town wearing men’s or

Is this cyclist violating the Will of God when it comes to sperm count?

Is this cyclist violating the Will of God when it comes to sperm count?

women’s clothes if they have both sets of something? It’s just not right. I know Nike and Under Armor would stand by me on this issue. There is men’s athletic wear and there is women’s athletic wear. The two should not be mixed. It says so right in the Bible. In Leviticus I think it was. Or Deuteronomy. One of those long names.”

Bill 69 is expected to pass unanimously among the Republican House members. A few Democrats may join in the vote as well. But Congresswoman Sarah Makharah (D-NY) said of the bill, “The only thing they left out is repealing Obamacare. This is the first bill they’ve introduced in four years that hasn’t had that in it. Frankly we’re all a bit stunned on this side of the aisle.

The lone dissenter on the Republican aisle may be Congressman Will E. Mays, whose original career as a lounge singer at a Washington D.C. club called The Switch Hitter calls into question whether his alter ego Billy Mayes, a drag persona who earned more than $100,000 a year singing both parts of the duets in major ballads, would cross the aisle to side with the Democrats.

“It’s my philosophy that all these problems can be worked out in the long run,” said Congressman Mays/Mayes. “Some of my colleagues may not agree with me, but screw them. I’ve been a runner and cyclist for 30 years and it has never kept me from performing any of my duties in this life.”

werunandridelogo

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On spring days and a sense of loss

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

IMG_8455Heading into the outdoor track season my sophomore year at Kaneland High School in 1971, I was in a strange position. My father had announced to our family that we would be moving to St. Charles, a city ten miles away from our home in Elburn. That meant I would have to transfer schools at the start of the fall semester. It also meant that I would need to finish out the school year at Kaneland by commuting for the rest of the spring semester with a group of coaches that agreed through my father’s negotiations to pick me up each morning and deliver me to Kaneland so that I could complete my sophomore year without losing eligibility in track.

Every morning a different coach would swing by my house and pick me up for school. We left by 6:30 most mornings so there was little time to waste. However I was used to getting up early because in Elburn I had run a paper route that required me to start at 5:30 a.m. I remember talking with my mother about the fact that I missed the route and felt bad I was not bringing in the money I liked to make. “It’s okay Chrissy (she called me that…) you can take a break for a while.”

But that was not really the point. It wasn’t just the route I missed. It was the life I’d created. To the best of my ability I’d made progress in life out there in the cornfields of Kaneland and that little town of Elburn. We’d only moved there two years before. Leaving my home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania had been a truly painful experience. That was where I had developed steadfast friendships through elementary and middle school. But economics and some work displacement on my father’s part meant he had to go searching for another job. For a combination of reasons that were never fairly explained, we moved all the way out to Illinois.

Frankly I realize my father was just kind of messed up at the time. He’d come from a broken household where his mother died of complications from cancer treatment when he was very young. Then his own father suffered an emotional breakdown over those events, as well as the pursuant crushing loss of his farm and home due to the Depression. My grandfather wound up institutionalized for a while and my father was raised by a set of two aunts and an uncle. It was not the ideal upbringing.

So my dad likely had some unresolved issues going through his head. Perhaps it was a fear that his job loss would result in a similar situation to his father. With four strapping lads under his care, all with forceful egos to boot, my father probably needed some breathing room. So he moved to Illinois and brought us out there once he’d found us a place to live.

Fortunately I made good friends in Illinois, many of whom are still in my life.But at the age of 15, you don’t know how all that’s going to work out.

By the start of my sophomore year I was one of the top runners on the cross country team and actually was elected class president. Ill suited for that job, I did nothing more than help choose the class ring actually. But such are the learning experiences of life. I could lead with my feet but not very well with my responsibility.

Freshman year in cross country I’d made the varsity and we won the sophomore conference meet. Sophomore year I tied with another runner for most individual performance points and we won the Varsity conference meet for the first time in school history.

After a fun basketball season we began track the day after the indoor sports season ended. That meant countless laps run on asphalt around the high school and its parking lots. It was perpetually windy, cold and raw training around that school. Yet it made us tough.

The track itself was cinder in those days, and usually too wet or covered with March snow to do much training on that surface.

So the actual opportunity to go run on the all-weather outdoor track in Rochelle, Illinois one spring day was an excitement to us all. All weather surfaces were still about a 25% proposition across the state.

As I warmed up for the two-mile, I placed my gear amongst the piles of other teammate’s shoes and equipment. Then I ran my two mile race. It was windy and cold, and I probably ran something like a 10:20, shivering all the way, and then returned to the gear camp to put my stuff back on and get warmed before doing the high jump.

I looked around my gear pile and my shoes were gone. They were brand new adidas training flats issued by the school. Blue with white stripes. A privilege given only to athletes with varsity potential. And they were gone.

For the rest of the meet I looked around hoping to find out someone had moved my shoes inadvertently. But no, they had been stolen. Taken from me. The injustice of that loss crept into my head like a parasite. Anger ran through me. Then despair. Embarrassment. And worry. What would the coaches say?

They said nothing, essentially. “Well, that’s too bad,” one of them told me. “Because you’re not getting another pair. It’s not in the budget.”

Not in the budget. That I could understand. I’d treasured those shoes and appreciated what they meant. That I’d earned them to some degree made the loss hurt even more. I’d only just begun running in them. The insides of those shoes was soft and welcoming. The padding far exceeded that of the black gum rubber flats all of us received on signing up for track. But now the shoes were stolen. Some asshole took them. I wanted to kill them.

We experience many kinds of loss in our lives. Of course the lesson in losing material things is that we cannot hold such things in too much value. They are just things after all. In the end, we lose all things. No turning back.

It’s funny how it works the other way around however. When we suddenly find something we thought had been lost there is often joy out of proportion to the value of the thing we’d lost. That is even how grace is described in the Bible (the Prodigal Son) in which the Lord feels great joy in having people return to appreciation and gratitude, humility and love.

When we experience loss beyond a pair of shoes it can be difficult to comprehend the meaning of it. Sometimes it takes years. We may be resting our heads or calming our minds when some thought about loss enters our mind. “That’s what they meant to me,” we say as we come to grips with a lost love or family member that died.

Sometimes there are people who seem to play a role in our lives and it doesn’t make sense why we lose them––at the time–– and then years later we come to realize that while valuable in many respects, the relationship was just not meant to be. These losses can be the most confusing of all.

In our running and riding and swimming we rehearse this process of loss and gain on a daily basis. Some of it is so temporal we almost discard it like a skin. It’s one of the tarsnakes of endurance sports that we court so much loss in order to feel that we have somehow gained.

Yet we credit the ongoing effort to a process of personal growth and improvement. It proves that you can’t really win in the long run without experiencing some loss.

The struggle to understand all this is perhaps the most poignant aspect of the human condition. We seek to avoid emotional pain, yet it also clarifies and refines us. We pray for deliverance from fear and angst, and yet our art and our motivations often emerge from these anxious, waking dreams.

Sometimes in life I’ve felt like I’m the only one who runs around thinking about these things, or in these terms. Yet I know that’s not the case. I think of my dearly loved son and daughter and our family’s losses over the last few years. Their mother and her father. All in the space of a year’s time. That all happened. We’ve healed in many ways and yet the fact of their absence is keenly felt. While life goes on.

My own father has been a stroke victim since the early 2000s. We can’t have a real conversational exchange because he cannot talk. We certainly communicate, but it struck me boldly one day while reviewing a family video to suddenly hear his lucid, passionate voice.

Some of these losses we see coming and yet try to avoid the consequence and pain they mean to us. We maintain hope in the face of such realities by reaching out to friends and those who love us. This sense of hope against loss is most felt in the spring season. For me, this season of renewal is both vital and yet bittersweet. The flowers we pick quickly fade. The rains fall and flow away. The grass emerges and we mow it. Bees buzz. Birds sing. Wintering butterflies stir in their chrysalis cradles. When is the right time to be born again?

And that’s all as it should be. But if you are someone who feels lost because of some sense of loss that seems never to resolve itself, my heart goes out to you. Know that deep in this cosmos of time and eternity, there is this thing called love that really exists. And you are loved. And that is all.

werunandridelogo

You are invited to read The Right Kind of Pride, my book about survivorship. You can find it here on Amazon.com.

Posted in Christopher Cudworth, Tarsnakes, We Run and Ride Every Day | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Training specificity in running

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Christopher Cudworth

During the post-collegiate year that I raced 24 times on the track and roads, I kept a detailed journal of training miles. My personal records that year were 14:47 for the 5K, 31:10 for the 10k, 51:30 for 15K, 53:30 for 10M, 1:10:57 for the half-marathon and 1:25:25 for the 25k. Not world class times by any means. Yet these were sub-elite times that enabled me to win or finish in the top ten in most of the local or regional races in which I competed.

No marathon?

I did not enter a marathon at the end of the season because my racing schedule demanded fitness for a series of shorter events all the way through November. The marathon was simply not the priority for many sub-elite runners at that time. We relished racing often and use the 10K as our chosen distance for a training foundation.

My racing schedule was based on a contract with a running shoe store that called for me to represent their team in 15 races per year. In exchange they provided sets of free or highly discounted shoes and running gear, and also paid my entry fees. All told the package added up to perhaps $700-$1000.

Consistency

Cudworth Racing Sycamore
With these priorities in mind I mapped out a training schedule that would allow for consistently good racing throughout the year. I took a mild break in July and traveled to Colorado that year to hike and relax.  But by August I was back in preparation for the fall racing season, which would see competition on seven out of eight weekends in September and October.

Peak weekly mileage that year was 95 miles, and my lowest week was 35 miles, when I was sick with a cold. Otherwise I kept mileage between 55 to 80 miles per week throughout the year. And here the interesting result: the average daily mileage turned out to be exactly 6.2 miles. The target distance at which I wanted to race.

Not quite big mileage

That’s not massive mileage by many measures. But again, some months I raced three out of four weekends, so my priorities were skewed toward preservation and recovery as well as distance and speed.

A few weekends I even raced Saturday and Sunday. This involved a 5K on Saturday and 10K on a Sunday, and once I ran a mile race (4:22) on a Friday night and raced a 15K on Sunday morning. I set a PR in that 15K, proving that speed is a great way to enhance your tempo in road racing.

Mileage with a purpose and training specificity

I also trained twice daily during peak base-building periods. This followed a pattern developed in college when we cranked up to 100 mile weeks, often putting in six to eight miles in the morning and another 10 or so at night.

A typical week of training during my personal peak year included the following:

Sunday: Long run between 15 and 20 miles

Monday: Morning 3-mile run and evening 6-8 miles

Tuesday: Speed workout. Usually 3-4 miles at sub-racing pace of 5:00 or below. Mile repeats or ladder workouts.

Wednesday: Morning run and afternoon recovery. 6-10 miles.

Thursday: Uptempo run with what I called “unlimited surges” of 3-4 minutes in a fartlek pattern where I pressed the effort but did not go into anaerobic in any way. Might be replaced by hill work as well.

Friday: If racing, recovery day. If not, sprint intervals and or short speedplay work of 5-8 miles.

Saturday: Race or mid-tempo run with group.

This schedule was complimented by weight and abdominal work. During the winter months I’d ride on a bike trainer indoors on really cold days, but not too often.

The year revealed an instinct for training specificity that added up to exactly the daily average of 6.2 miles. That’s not to suggest that a marathoner should average 26.2 miles in training, but longer training volumes are recommended for that distance.

The weekend I SHOULD have run a marathon I trained 15 miles on Thursday at 1:30, then came back Friday with an uptempo run at 6:00 pace on Friday evening. I was not anticipating racing that weekend as I was supposed to serve as a guide for Bill Rodgers during a race in the Chicago area. However he decided not to run and offered me his number. So I jumped in the 25K and ran 1:25: 25 for 15.5 miles.

Clearly my training had added up to marathon-level fitness that year.

But I still had races to run in October that year, and placed first in one and top ten in the other three. Earlier that spring I’d set a PR in both the road and track 5K distances. All those were the result of training specificity.

And there’s the wistful consolation that marathon fitness was there. But no regrets. Training specificity demands that you have a focus. Any other results are just a bonus.

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