I run and ride, therefore I now walk

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

It’s never fun being injured. Especially when that injury is profound enough to alter your whole fitness routine.

So it is with humility and determination that I will now walk my way to fitness. For a while.

Walking it off until you can get back on the horse

I’ve done this before. A couple times at least. Tore an ACL back in 2003 and it took months following surgery to rehabilitate the knee. Physical therapy was vital in that process. So was walking. Then I tore it again two years later. More walking. More rehab. But not another surgery on the ACL. I should have chose a patellar tendon extraction rather than the cadaver part (I called him Jake) that tore again.

Now I just walk, run and ride in straight lines. Except when they wobble. Like on a bike. 

First steps back

Those first steps back on the fitness trail after any sports injury are seldom much fun. After my ACL tears, the knee stung and hitched… and wobbled. It takes time to rebuild strength, and courage to continue through setbacks and pain.

I recall the puss yellow seepage coming out of my ACL surgery scars. It dripped down the compression bandages I wore to work to keep my legs from blowing up with swelling. And the stinging pain in my ankles for days. But as soon as that wore off the physical therapy kicked in and after that, the walking. It is a thrilling process in many respects. You can’t give up.

Regaining fitness

Then it takes time to regain your former fitness. A mile run tires you out. Then two miles. Finally three or four. Then when you’re finally triumphant upon your return to running or riding, a new injury crops up. You’ve overdone it. Naturally. What athlete has terminal patience? None of us do.

So you’re back to walking. Again.

What’s busted this time? 

This time it’s a busted clavicle. But actually, I’m rather proud that I busted it. I was riding 40 miles per hour on a killer hill when the bike went nuts with harmonic wobble and down I went. Chunked out a divot in the dirt with my shoulder. Wound up in a ditch with an aching body and a dirt-stained kit. But damn it, that’s living. And I was alive. Those aren’t always givens, you know.

Surgery is easy. You’re not awake for any of it. Waking up from surgery, you’re still kind of loopy and the world is confined to dim lights and a mechanical bed. Pee in a bottle. Wait until you fart. Then you eat a hospital Caesar Chicken Wrap and a Caffeine Free Pepsi and go home. To soreness. Typing with a sling (pretty good huh?).

But nothing ever stops me. Never has. Never will.

Here’s why. As I prepped for surgery with nurses and doctors hovering about, they asked literally dozens of questions about my health. Blood pressue 110/73. Pulse rate 56. Height and weight ratio: Excellent. No heart or lung problems, diabetes or other health problems. The nurse said: “You’re really fit and healthy. Even with a broken clavicle you have good posture.”

Damn right sister. I work for this. Don’t take fitness and health for granted. Top 2% in the country according to my MetLife health insurance exam. And I plan (with the grace of God) to keep it that way.

Bucking around with the proverbial “horse”

Getting back on the bike could be a little weird next spring. There will be fear of the wobble hitting again. But online advice from Cycling Enthusiasts on LinkedIn has provided strategies to deal with bike wobble. Ride low. Press your knees on the top bar. Pedal, don’t brake.

It’s funny in a way that you can’t ride a bike or run because you’ve hurt your shoulder. There’s something wrong with that algorithm. But it shows how everything in fitness is connected in some way.

They say you have to get back on the horse and ride after it bucks you. Well, sometimes you have to walk around the ranch a little bit first, shaking off the soreness before putting your feet back in the stirrups again.

That’s okay. That badass horse of fitness will always be waiting. Sure, it loves to buck around with you. Just have to walk it off and start all over ag’in.

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Runners and cyclists can all benefit from a visit to a pedorthist

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

PEDORTHIST.   A pedorthist is a foot care specialist, trained specifically in gait analysis, shoe fitting, foot orthoses, custom shoes, wound care and lab fabrication. 

–From the Foot Mechanics website

The Injury Cycle

Injuries to the foot, knee, leg or hip can be vexing problems for people who run and ride. Figuring out why the injury happened or keeps happening is not something you can often do on your own.

Two winters ago was not a difficult time in terms of weather where I run and ride in Illinois. There were some icy days, but I did credit a persistent calf injury to a slippery run on roads covered with snowy slush. The leg did not hurt so much when I rode the mountain bike, nor on the road bike when the weather cleared sufficiently to take out the Felt 4C.

The calf would clear up slightly and then cramp without warning. It seemed like cold weather had something to do with it, but not always.

Come spring I was out for a gentle 4-miler at a local running trail when the calf tightened yet again. Hobbling back to the trailhead, I sat down on a bench and watched as other runners trotted home happy and healthy. Not wanting to feel sorry for myself, I started up conversation with some people stretching and talking near the water pump. Then two big white dogs came up and they were so irresistibly furry it was impossible not to pet them. I asked the owner’s permission and she said, “Sure, they like attention.”

We started talking, the pet owner and I, and before long conversation turned to my running and the persistent injury. She invited me over to a picnic table sitting on a concrete slab and had me take off my shoes. Her friend took one look at the rigid orthotics inside my shoes and said, “Hoo boy.”

“What?” I asked.

“You’re in trouble now,” she chuckled.

Running into good luck

It turned out my new friend with the white dogs was none other than Shelley Simmering, a pedorthist and owner of Foot Mechanics, a medical practice at 303 N. Route 31 in St. Charles, Illinois. By no mere coincidence, her shop is right next door to a local running institution, Dick Pond Athletics, provider of running shoes for more than 40 years.

Following an on-the-spot examination of my lower leg and ankles, Simmering invited me in for an appointment to figure out what was going on with my calves, because truth be told, both legs were really bothering me.

The breakdown

The appointment started with a long discussion of running history that included going way back into a career as a high school and college athlete, what events I did in track and field, and how my current running program has evolved.

That took a while. Runners like to talk about themselves, you know. Simmering took notes and gathered information for her assessment all the while. Her listening powers appear to be a key component of her overall effectiveness in working with runners and cyclists looking to cure and prevent injury.

After the examination, Simmering had me hop up on a treadmill for a videotaping session. The camera went to work recording my full posture and running form as well as closeups of my gait and lower legs in action. Simmering literally marked the lower legs with inked lines and angles, helping her find and determine what kind of torque and stresses were at play in the legs.

Then she set up my feet with some podiatry tape that turned into plaster, the cast for a set of future orthotics. Before letting me leave, she provided some temporary lifts and a whole catalogue and demonstration of proper stretches for my tweaking calves.

The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

The return appointment to review the videotape was enlightening, to say the least. Back in the 1980s I had worked with a renowned podiatrist whose work with world-class runners like Sebastian Coe, Craig Virgin, Jim Spivey and Mike Durkin helped those athletes compete at a global level. I even illustrated the book he wrote about foot and leg mechanics.

But nothing prepared me for the lesson I was about to get from Shelley Simmering as she played back the videotape she’d made of my stride. She let me watch a few moments and said, without irony: “You do know you’re crooked, don’t you?”

I could see that. The stride I’d carefully crafted over thousands of miles depended on a fairly pronounced compensatory swing of the right arm to maintain momentum. It was clear my hips were not level either, and one leg might be a little longer than the other, she told me.

That videotape was a depressing piece of evidence why I might be having some issues. “You’ve got a great stride, actually,” she informed me. “I’d personally like to see you shuffle more than you do, but I can tell you were a middle distance runner, used to going fast. It’s just that things have settled a little more than you might think. With age and the like.”

She pointed out moments in my stride where my body was working really hard to compensate for bio-mechanic deficiencies. I’d known that for many years and really focused on maintaining good form however possible. Yet uneven wear on my left heel told me that my footstrike was uneven, as did a circular motion under my right forefoot. Like a three-legged dog, I’d learned how to move fast in spite of any physical deficiencies.

The buildup

After depressing the hell out of me with the videotape, Shelley Simmering smiled and waved off the challenges, then added a few more. “You’re not the most flexible runner I’ve seen, particularly in your ankle flexion. That may be the cause of some of your calf pain, along with some known pronation, which we’ll examine here.”

Then she played back the videotape isolating the view of my lower legs and there, in full slow motion, one could see the visible stresses being placed on my calves as I ran barefoot on the treadmill. It was clear you could stick those feet inside shoes and the problems would still occur. You could even put orthotics inside those shoes and the problems would still be there.

So I asked, “What can we do?”

Her first observation was that there appeared to be as much stress in the forefoot as around the ankle. My current orthotics made no compensation for that motion, and as a mid-foot striker, it was obvious why that might cause some problems.

The appointment concluded with some encouraging words and Simmering sent off for some orthotics according to her instructions.

Like getting new feet

When they came back, we went next door to buy brand new shoes tailored to the new orthotics. Those shoes weren’t cheap. And the consultation with Simmering was $600, and needed to be submitted with a special letter to the insurance company to seek coverage. Most insurance companies are still struggling to justify preventative medical procedures, and pedorthists like Shelley Simmering do not fall into the easy categories mapped out by insurance companies.

All I can tell you is that the orthotics, given a couple weeks to adjust, have worked relative wonders in my running. Cycling is different for me, and there have not been any problems resulting from my cycling form and motion patterns. But running was definitely difficult before treatment. Now I’m running 4-5 times a week with only occasional calf tension, which we’re adjusting with tweaks and time.

Honestly, Shelley Simmering saved my running hopes from oblivion. Things were not going well. Now they are. It’s worth checking out whether you’ve got a pedorthist near you if you have any running or riding problems due to bio-mechanical issues. If you like to run and ride, you ought to invest in your own health and injury prevention.

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The relationship between running and riding, and mental health

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

The Walker makes us think

We called him “The Walker.” His real name was Steve. And he walked everywhere he went, and thensome. Local legend had it that a doctor had told him that walking would help cure his “problem,” so he took the doctor at his word.

We knew The Walker covered a lot of ground because our high school cross country team would encounter him in all parts of town, even other towns. And that, as a matter of team introspection, both amazed and creeped us out. “Maybe we’re actually the crazy ones,” someone finally blurted.

We knew The Walker was not crazy. A few of us had stopped to talk with him at times. He was quiet, but conversant, offering interesting observations about life in town. As an icon of what we considered abnormal behavior, however, he was the object of jokes from our tightly knit clan of distance runners, who only poorly knew the possible cause of his wanderings.

The Walker still moves about town even today, though not as prodigiously as he once did. His footwear evolved through the years from the worn out high-tops with which he began his never-ending journey to sets of official running shoes.

The words mental illness and mental health never crossed our lips in those days. We just knew him as The Walker. Secretly many of us seemed to harbor a bit of compassion for his apparent lot. He seemed to live in his own universe or a mythic parallel like one of the characters from a Greek tragedy we’d read about in literature. Odysseus or Ulysses. In some ways that we perhaps cared not to admit, we could see ourselves in the wandering “hero.”

In truth none of us dared dig too deeply into the history of The Walker. His very physical allegory of having been told to walk, then taking those directions to absurd extremes was too close for comfort as a parallel to our own situation as distance runners. We––who were told to run––and did so.

As runners, we had to admit that our own classmates thought we were a bit out there. In many ways, they were right. Which goes to prove that viewpoints about mental health are often a matter of perspective. So who is to judge?

Talent and torment sometimes go together

Our next team encounter with mental illness involved a competitor from a nearby town. He was a conference champion in cross country and track, several times over. None of us could beat him at any distance between a mile and three miles.

Then some strange things happened. He showed up on our high school campus with a bagged loaf of Wonder Bread asking to see members of our cross country team. He just happened to find me walking down the hallway and looked both happy and frantic to find someone to help him with his cause, which was to join him in feeding the foxes on the bridge across the river downtown. “Those foxes are made of bronze,” I told him. But that fact did not seem to deter him from his mission. I could see he was agitated, yet his demeanor was almost always sweet, even naive. So I accompanied him to our school office and the staff made calls to have someone from home pick him up.

The next year that same runner went on to compete for a leading Midwest Division III cross country program, helping to lead the college to a national championship. During the season he logged several 250-mile training weeks. That divides into an average of 35 miles a day, far more mileage than your typical elite college distance runner who runs 15 miles a day in a 100 mile week. The 250mpw training program did deliver him to an All-American status, placing in the Top 25 in the country. It also scared the hell out of everyone else on his team.

The baseline mental illness affecting my friend caught up with him eventually. His family enrolled him in treatment but the medications never entirely worked. He compensated for his lack of running with prodigious eating (mostly pizza, he informed me) that ballooned his weight to over 300 lbs. He could still talk running with the best of them, recalling former battles with rivals and great races. He knew these were figments of the past, but his present was clearly too ambiguous to examine.

Examples to grow by

These true stories are not shared to exploit or ridicule the sufferings of the mentally ill. They do show that the extremes of mental illness often start in small, simple ways. They also illustrate how a too simplistic approach to treating mental illness can exaggerate or worsen the prognosis for people with mental disorders.

An elite challenge in mental health

Following graduation from college, I met yet another competitor who struggled with  emotional challenges. Upon first meeting him, it was far from obvious that one day he would face severe problems with mental illness. He had graduated from a leading Christian college and was signed up to run for a shoe company, competing throughout the Midwest with a personal record of 29:20 for the 10k. His girlfriend and wife-to-be was a stunningly beautiful woman who was also an elite distance runner.

Their personal faith was one of the hallmarks of their relationship. Often they’d share and discuss their relationship with God with other runners. They were scheduled to be married, possibly wearing the running gear they loved.

But as time went by my friend, who we’ll call “Mike,” showed signs of acute depression. His running tailed off. His relationships stalled. He became despondent and seemed to be searching all the time for new answers to questions he’d once answered through his personal faith. Then one day he parked his car in a remote lot, doused himself with flammable liquids and lit himself on fire. Fortunately he did not die from the effort because his plan involved locking himself in a car trunk, and the flames went out. But the attempt made clear than he needed help coping with a serious mental illness.

These examples show the extreme challenges of managing mental health for some people.  Mental illness is a widespread problem in America, with literally millions of people coping with degrees of anxiety, depression, stress and other mental health challenges. Fortunately increased awareness and improved treatments for these challenges has resulted in major shifts in thinking about mental health, including many tangible ways for people to normalize their mental health and outlook. But it all starts with personal awareness that can lead to simple, organic ways to create better mental health in each individual.

Running and riding to cope

Of course not all mental health issues are profound or disabling. Millions of people cope with disorders that simply make it difficult to function in day-to-day life. These include mood disorders but also functional challenges such as ADD and ADHD. It is acknowledgement of these disorders and practical treatment measures that is leading our health care system to recognize the importance of mental health as an integrated treatment priority rather than an isolated or “set-aside” issue to be dealt with randomly.

Running and riding to mental health

In recent years it has also become evident that endurance sports like running and riding and regular exercise can be helpful tools in coping with mental illness and creating better mental health.

For starters, there is considerable evidence that regular exercise can help reduce stress. That is good news, because negative stress is a factor that can set off other mental responses, producing deeper or more profound anxiety in some individuals, and leading to outright depression in others. Thus stress is one of the “trigger” causes of poor mental health. Learning to manage stress and finding health physical or creative outlets for stress is considering one of the first steps toward better mental health.

People with a predisposition to anxiety and depression need to pay particular attention to how their body and mind responds to stress. Also the ability to manage thought patterns is an important tool in preventing runaway anxiety or negative thought processes that get people into emotional trouble.

Engaging in a regular running or riding program can help. A disciplined walking program is also considered a great ways to give the mind time to process life events and deal with stress perceptions.

Combined with other stress and emotional management techniques, regular exercise can put you in better control of your thought processes and prevent emotional flareups including anger, jealousy, fear, intolerance and ambiguity that can affect your relationships at home and in the workplace.

America embraces the “road” to mental health

This may create a bit of a sore spot in the minds of some, but there is a chance that the growing popularity of distance running and cycling in America is the result of a massive, collective need to cope with the pressing anxiety of modern life. It might be hypothesized that the millions of people now participating in endurance sports are drawn to them not only in response to the need for better physical health, but to create opportunities for better mental health as well. Some classic literature suggests as much, with figures such as the lead character in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner trying to come to grips with his individuality and independence. For it is an almost existential cliche that distance running (and riding your bike) a long ways will clarify the mind and purify the soul. But the cliche is real, and women in particular have been discovering this truth for themselves, taking to the streets by the millions to create better physical and mental health for themselves.

No coincidence: battling an insane world with sane acts

This is no coincidence. Coping with a world that exhibits apparently insane behaviors in politics, religion and economics can make you feel like you’re the one going crazy. It can sometimes take a lot of running and riding to convince yourself that you’re the one that is actually sane, and get back to being who you want to be, not who the world says you should be.

Fortunately, it generally doesn’t take much commitment to experience the benefits of exercise and better mental health. Even 30 minutes of running or riding a day is often enough to create a bridge between your stress points and your baseline framework of mental health. Multiple studies have shown that the simple release of brain chemical like endorphins through exercise can improve mood.

It’s all about brain chemistry

For people diagnosed with mental health problems such as  anxiety, depression or other emotional challenges, it is also desirable in many cases to effectively treat emotional disorders with controlled dosages of highly effective drugs designed to balance the chemical response of the human brain without wiping out a person’s personality or causing addiction. One of America’s leading distance runners, Alberto Salazar discovered in early middle age that he was susceptible to depression. In his case Prozac proved to be an effective relief strategy. He has gone on to coach the #1 and #2 finishers in the 2012 London Olympics 10,000 meters.

The best way to engage in your own analytical process of emotional balance once you’ve begun an exercise program is to identify a doctor qualified to work with you on the appropriate drugs for your specific degree of anxiety, depression or other emotional disorder. But don’t just expect your family doctor to know all about brain drugs. Some do, and some don’t.

A good starting point is to ask about your family history in using psychiatric drugs. Sometimes drugs from the wrong groups of medicines can cause adverse reactions in some patients, and you don’t want to go there.

If your doctor recommends treatment

The ideal way to start is to find a doctor willing to work with you on a mild program of adding drugs to compliment organic treatments such as talk therapy and your own exercise program. The ideal first step is to simple “put some air in the tires” with prescription medications designed to dampen the effects of a mood disorder such as depression. One common drug for depression, for example, is Citalopram, whose volume can readily be controlled to determine how much you really need to feel improved emotional health. Lorazepam is another simple drug used to reduce anxiety.

Have a discussion with your physician to let them know what steps you might be taking to treat emotional pain and disorders and you’ll likely find that you can ease your way into better mental health.

Reducing stigmas. Raising awareness. Promoting cures.

It is important to recognize that millions of people in the world live with mental health challenges every day. Some may never conquer the nature of their illness and accept that their condition can only be moderated, not cured entirely. If you are interested in mental health information for yourself, your family or friends, there is a non-profit organization with chapters throughout the United States called NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) that provides mental health services and advocacy at the community level nationwide. Our own little chapter in Illinois has raised an average of $20K per year with the NAMI 5K held in Batavia, October 6, 2012.

But millions more can improve their lives with the right combination of self-knowledge, regular exercise, good mental health habits and a well-designed prescription that can reduce the difficulty of achieving good mental health.

Then you can run and ride for the joy of it, as well as the therapy it brings.

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The Fixie’s Up: Public Trail + Fixie = Disaster

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

By Monte Wehrkamp

In my community, we have some very nice trails. Note that I do not call them “bike paths.” Cyclists do use them, but these trails are not for bikes exclusively. Riders share these trails with a host of others, including walkers, joggers (with obligatory earbuds drowning out calls of “on your left” no matter how loudly shouted), moms pushing strollers, dads pulling wagons, grandparents riding adult trikes, skateboarders, squirrels weaving around on BMXs, dogs on 12-foot leads, and the occasional eliptibike (dude, what possessed you to buy that thing anyway?).

So as you can see, trails can be busy places. A cyclist using these trails has to be aware of all trail users and the trail itself at all times, lest carnage occur. You, the rider, will meet people who, upon hearing “on your left,” will move to their left. “Um, okay, on your right, I guess.”

You will meet noob riders coming the other way with no idea they should stay to their right. I’ve literally had to pull off into the weeds as an inexperienced rider, going the other way, is riding while paralyzed with fear, yelling, “Sorry, sorry, ohmygod, sorry, sorry, ohnooohno!”

Dogs and children are always a hazard, as their movements are completely unpredictable. Left, right, left, waaaaay left. No right. Best to stop and let the owner/parent corral their whirling dervish, then pass.

Then there’s the group of casual riders or walkers who stop to chat on the trail. Not off to the side. No, right there. Usually on a bridge where there’s a pretty view. That leaves other trail users traveling both directions about seven inches of clearance.

I ride these trails to get to open roads west of town, out in the country where I can get into a rhythm, set a good pace, and roll past farms and fields. Ahhh.

But getting to those roads via the trail requires awareness, patience, some quick thinking, and decent bike handling skills. You have to be able, and willing, to stop quickly. Or slow down and pick your way through other trail users. Stay on the hoods, keep your hands on your brakes.

So imagine this…

There’s a new cycling club being formed in my community for trail-riding fixie riders. Holy smokes, in the immortal words of John McEnroe, “You can’t be serious!”

But they are. “Fox River Fixies is now recruiting new members to be part of an elite fixed gear club that hauls ass down Fox River Trails. You must have a fixed gear bike, no single speeds and no brakes.”

This has disaster written all over it.

First, what’s a fixie? It’s a bike that has one gear, and no ability to free-wheel or coast – a free-wheeling one-speed is a “single speed” and these aren’t allowed in this too-cool club. If you’re moving on a fixie, the pedals are turning. Period.

Fixies are the new “throwback” trend in cycling. You’ll find them now in movies, underneath hipsters, and usually in urban environments. To be especially cool, the fixie rider will express their complete mastery of cooler-than-you coolness by riding sans brakes, instead choosing to halt their forward progress much like Fred Flintstone. Oh, and no helmets allowed. Which makes sense because if you ride a fixie, there’s probably little or no brain in your skull to protect.

Let’s now parse the Fox River Fixies’ Craigslist solicitation. “Trail-riding fixie riders.” Remember what I said about the trails being for everyone? For walkers and joggers and babies in strollers and dogs and kids and….fixies with no brakes now? On second thought, maybe the trail shouldn’t be for everyone. I’m thinking bikers on bikes with no brakes should probably be invited to ride anywhere but the trail.

Next, “An elite fixed gear club.” Elite? So, only master bike handlers allowed (will there be a skill test for all prospective members)? Cat 1 racers, maybe? Pros even? I doubt it. The elite riders in these parts are on their road bikes and mountain bikes, eking the last bit of speed and fitness from their training rides (on roads and single-track trails, respectively). I think “elite” in this context is merely a euphemism for “elitist.” As in, trendy, fashionable, and way cooler than the Lycra set. Riding skill hasn’t anything to do with it.

Finally, “Hauls ass down the Fox River Trails.” Really? Hmmm, let’s ride as fast as we can on bikes with no brakes down trails being used by joggers who can’t hear you coming, walkers that have no idea where they should go upon being overtaken by a cyclist, kids and dogs oblivious to your existence, and hell, other clueless, brakeless fixie riders, possibly.

Not to mention, most of the trail network throughout the greater Chicagoland area is limited to 15 mph, max. So, Fox River Fixies, haul ass someplace where you won’t kill somebody. Because the person you crash just may be me.

Responsible trail riding comes down to respect and courtesy. Good judgment. And that includes well-maintained brakes and saving ass-hauling for appropriate settings. Usually, tarsnakes happen to riders. Tarsnakes are rarely riders themselves. But in the case of the Fox River Fixies, we have found the exception to the rule. 

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Is your inner animal holding you back from enjoying competition?

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

by Christopher Cudworth

As the skinniest kid in a family of four boys, two older and one younger than me, it was an art of survival to learn to handle teasing from my brothers over skinny arms and skinny legs.

They called me “card-table knees” because when sitting in a crouching position with knees pulled up you could place a deck of cards on top of my knee joints and they would not fall off.

My eldest brother owned a 45rpm record of “My Skinny Minnie” that he would play at loud volume through his guitar amp while I banged on his bedroom door screaming at him to stop. His laughter drove me even more insane, kicking the door and trying to break the handle off.

Between the artful antagonization of my brothers and some heavily critical upbringing by a father who was not above using physical means to make his point whenever our behavior bothered him, part of me was forged into a competitive little facet of personality my brothers all called The Mink.

Minks are members of the Mustelidae, or weasel family. Weasels (and minks) are known to be feisty little creatures that spit and fight like crazy when mad or cornered. Hence the nickname.

And it fit. There was seldom a time when it did not feel like as if I were fighting the whole world.  That attitude produced a series of playground fights with friends and foes alike. All it took was a wrong word or phrase or a challenge issued––even casually––and it was fists up.

The Mink served me well in early youth sports, although my best friend once pulled me aside and said, “Don’t you know you’ve got to play nice with girls, or they won’t like you!”

“I don’t care if they like me,” I hissed under my breath. “I want to win!”

Only I did really, truly, honestly care that girls liked me. Too much, in fact. Yet it was difficult to read their emotions on so many levels. And being so eager to impress them while not showing any aspect of personality that might be viewed as unattractive weakness proved a confounding challenge indeed.

Like the time I pitched an American Legion baseball game against a nearby town. I knew that a girl I really liked would be there with her friends, who I also would not mind impressing. After throwing a 1-hitter, I strolled over to talk with them and got the group cold shoulder. Turns out they’d all come to flirt with players from the other team, all of whom I’d struck out at least once during the game. The Mink lost that round.

Competitive fury worked wonders in the sport of cross country, however. Focusing your inner rage on covering 2 or 3 miles is a good way to push back the inevitable pain brought on by distance running. As a freshman I made the Varsity squad in high school. As a sophomore I earned the most points on the season and led the team to a first-ever conference championship. As a junior transfer to another school, I joined and led a team to its first ever District Championship and as a senior placed 4th in that District and advanced to Sectionals, where The Mink withered at the daunting prospect of running against the best teams in the best sectional in the state. Even The Mink found its limits eventually.

So inner rage can take you just so far. And you have to be careful how and where you let The Mink loose. The workplace, for example, is not the best place to take a combative approach to relationships.

There were lessons to be learned, therefore, on how to control the mink out in the real world.

A co-worker once determined that it would be beneficial for his career to have me process all my work through him. His manipulative approach included threats and promises to undermine my future with the company. The pressure was relentless, lasting for weeks until one night I went home angry, with The Mink fantasizing how to punch him in the face when I returned to the office the next day.

However not wanting to make a negative impression on my own children, I took a walk upon getting home, and exhausted from the emotional torment going through my head, I threw myself down on a high jump pit at the high school track, rolled over on my back and tore off my glasses. At that moment the sky looked close enough to touch, and into my head, seemingly out of nowhere, popped the word “forgiveness.”

Forgiveness is exactly the opposite of The Mink. It is also exactly the opposite of the whole notion of competitive spirit. You really cannot be competitive toward someone and forgive them. It just doesn’t work.

But an interesting thing happened when I adopted an attitude of forgiveness toward that co-worker. His manipulations had no power over me anymore. Two weeks later he was fired. Yet I felt no vindication in that result. Just amazement at the counterintuitive, and inherently more moral approach to resolving a problem.

The reason that lesson of forgiveness was so important in my life is that it is just as powerful to forgive yourself as it is to forgive others. When your running or riding performance does not meet your own expectations, it does no good to beat yourself up for days, weeks, months or years. Yes, it’s important to re-calibrate your effort and learn from your mistakes. But forgive yourself and move on.

The Mink learned to step aside in many such situations over the years. And with that more mature perspective on competition and life, all things became more enjoyable. The Mink was part of the game, but not the whole game. The Mink helped motivate performance, but was not the sole reason for competing. Anger was replaced by appreciation of opportunity. The starting line became less a position of dread and more a position of gratitude. For health. For the joy of competing. For excitement and diversion and above all things, the will to play.

The Mink still lives inside me. But only I choose to decide when to let it out. Life is much happier that way. Whatever animal might vex you at times; the Badger, the Snake, the Warthog or the Tiger, you might want to get it under control. You’ll feel a lot more human for the effort.

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The art of managing your “athletic identity” when you’re hurt or sick

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

Everyone knows that getting injured sucks. No, it really sucks. More than sucks.

Being hurt grinds you down to the nub of who you are, not who you want to be.

In that circumstance, you had better be prepared to deal with who you are–as a whole person–if you want to get through an injury with self-respect and motivation intact.

So why mess around?

A wounded warrior wears a figure 8 brace for a broken collarbone.

Because whether you are one of those people who was born with a desire to participate in athletics, or discovered a love for sports like running and riding in your adult years, you know that a chunk of your self esteem is attached to that athletic core you’ve worked so hard to build.

Remove it for a day, a week, a month or a year, and a chunk of yourself goes away. Poof.

You’re left with the rest of yourself. The soft underbelly of Me. So how do you survive life without your tough, athletic exterior?

Taking the long view

If you’ve been an athlete most of your life you learn that you have to suck it up and wait it out. That’s right. You simply must take the long view (that might be days, or weeks or years, it’s all relative to your condition) or suffer the self-imposed indignity of feeling sorry for yourself every single, damn day. And that’s no way to go through life.

Wading through jealous payback

You also have to deal with the specifics of going back to work or other situations where you’ll no doubt face questions about your fitness routine from the very co-workers you’ve regaled for weeks or months or years with tales of training triumph or goals achieved in races. Suddenly you’re not talking about all that. And you know what? There might be a little payback to endure. People can be notably unsympathetic to former fitness braggarts, particularly if you’ve ever lauded your overall fitness in front of them in any way. We might not even know we’re doing that at times, such is the joy of running or riding. But secretly, some people might think you insufferable. And will not let you forget it.

Embrace the challenge

You need to embrace your injury or illness as a sign of trying your hardest and doing your best in something that ideally does transfer to better health, focus and work performance.

Then when someone digs at you a little for crashing and burning, you can reply in modest hope, “Well, injury and illness is part of the risk.” People have a harder time arguing with the idea of risk, because it is associated with courage and bravery, traits idealized in the corporate and social world. And if your protagonists still want to crush you for being a broken-down fitness nut, and say something like, “Well, this just proves what you’re doing is stupid,” you can humbly say, “Well, that’s your choice to believe what you want to believe. I’m sorry if I’ve ever offended you in any way. I just know what works for me.”

And leave it at that.

Unfortunately you’re still left with your banged up self, torn or half-sick condition, and athletic egos can be fragile, especially in the private space of planning your own schedule. That ‘workout hole’ where you used to run and ride can feel like a huge gap in your persona. So fill it with something constructive and uplifting. Nature walks. Volunteering at races. Get involved with your church or non-profit. Be around things that make you feel good. Then when you return to your training, you’ll have even more to think about. That’s a great cycle to develop.

Overall, the best approach to maintaining hope of better days is to place your fitness interruption in perspective. Take stock and you’ll realize that setbacks are just that. Like the pain you experience during a race, this too is only temporary. Pain is only temporary.

When change is permanent, expand organically

But sometimes it’s not. You’ve lost your ACL or turned an ankle for the 12th time and soccer just isn’t in your future. Not if you have any common sense. That means your athletic identity is about (or needs…) to change.

Be not afraid. Pick and choose from your training experiences to see where you can expand organically. A cyclist who is injured in a road crash can ride indoors on a trainer. A runner recovering from plantar problems can hit the bike trails and keep up a degree of fitness. The pool is always a good place to rehab. But please, don’t tell the swimmers. We never want them thinking their sport is superior to everything else. That would make them intolerable, and might resign too many of us to staring at a blue line on the bottom of a boring pool. A fate worse than drowning.

Owning your athletic identify

Your athletic identity is something you own and manage. No one can do it for you. If you’re hurt badly and it’s going to be a while before you run or ride, then start a walking program. Wear your running outfit and embrace the movement.

Or, do rehab and physical therapy exercises. Lift weights or go indoors with assisted weight machines and other ways to maintain muscle strength in key areas. Use the valuable time you’ve been given to balance out your overall musculoskeletal system of joints, support muscles, tendons and ligaments. Then when you return to action your risk of injury will truly be reduced. Physical therapy can eliminate chronic running problems such as iliotibial band syndrome, chrondromalacia and and “runner’s knee.” Cycling injuries to the shoulders can be eliminated through strength and core training as well.

Fortunately we live in an era where there are hundreds of opportunities to engage in active rehabilitation. There’s yoga. Pilates. Spin classes.

The art of knowing yourself

The fact of the matter is whether you like it or not, you can never be the athlete you were yesterday any more than a great artist like Picasso or Degas or Wyeth were the same artists they were the day before. Change occurs. Influences impact the framework of your belief system.

Being hurt or sick really does suck.

But refusing to accept the message each circumstance is trying to teach you about the need to moderate or change what you’re doing is of far greater risk to your long-term fitness plans than ploughing ahead doing the same things the same way. Exploiting your weaknesses is no way to improve. Diversifying your strengths to compensate for your weaknesses is a far better approach. Being sick or hurt is absolutely the best time to assess your weaknesses and strengths, and start along a new path to self discovery.

You can be an artist in managing your athletic identity.  It just takes the ability to see the bigger picture in who you’ve been, who you are, and who you want to be.

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Beware the tarsnake of “bike wobble”

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

by Christopher Cudworth

The ambulance is not the place runner/rider wants to visit.

Heading into the Labor Day weekend and an anticipated participation in The Wright Stuff, a hilly 100, 60 or 30 mile ride in southwestern Wisconsin, it was the climbing that was a primary worry. The hills in SW Wisconsin are humbling to say the least.

But as bad luck would have it, it was descending that turned out to be the tarsnake of all tarsnakes. 

I was really feeling good that Sunday morning. The climbs were actually going great. I hadn’t even gotten out of the saddle on the steepest climb before the first rest stop at Taliesin, the legacy home of Frank Lloyd Wright, for whom the ride is named.

Coming off the peak there was a stiff left turn and the road slowly curved north toward the American Player’s Theater, the Shakespeare performance venue where my wife and I had joined friends just 4 weeks before at a production of The Twelfth Night. We’ve been to Spring Green together many times, and I had ridden up and down the hill passing in front of the theater many times.

As the descent gained speed, however, the road surface changed ever so slightly. Within 2 seconds of hitting this surface change the bike began to wobble below me. Thinking there were mechanical problems with the front wheel, I touched the brakes to slow down. The estimated speed at that point was around 35-40 mph, cruising speed on hill of that length and grade. The previous day we’d topped 45mph  in a noodle ride around Governor Dodge State Park so it wasn’t like we were hitting some new, uncontrollable pace.

But the wobble continued to increase in breadth and violence. I tried to quickly yell to my companion who was racing down the hill ahead with another rider we’d joined on the ascent.

No one heard me yell, and anyway, things were happening too fast to control. The bike felt like it was going to disintegrate below me, wobbling and shivering as if it were not made of earthly material of any kind.

My options were reduced to ugly simplicity. Crash on the road or get to the grassy ditch. Somehow.

When my tires hit the grass, an entirely new set of challenges took over, and from that point not everything is clear in in my head. The actual crash happened so fast it felt like time was compressed. Looking back at the evidence once I’d crawled back up to the road, it was clear from the divot where my shoulder hit–pushing a dirt divot a foot high in the air–that I struck ground hard and then slid to a stop down the embankment, 15 feet off the road, tucked into a crease of deep grass. I lay there for a few moments, stunned, just staring up at the beautiful September sky and realizing, “This is not good.” There was no loss of consciousness, just a starkly realized awareness that I’d done the right thing, but things still hurt.

So I moved a little, and instantly felt and heard a crunching sound where the left clavicle should be. Yep, busted. It was hard to move much at all, at first. Then I heard the wheels of my other companion whiz by.  He’d taken it easier up the last big descent but rolled past faster than I could call out.

No other cyclists came by for a couple minutes. We’d started the ride way late because our 4th companion, a woman triathlete from Tulsa, had tires go flat in the first 4 miles. Nearly everyone in the ride was ahead of us before we started. Still more passed by our group as we worked on her flat (s).

So given our position toward the end of the ride, I knew my chances were running out to be noticed at all.

Heaving up onto my right side, I pushed up the hill and sat there, assuming the pose that every cyclist with a busted collarbone tends to take whether they are local bush league (me) or Europro (in my dreams). Hunched and holding the arm in place, just trying not to move, hoping someone would come by sooner or later.

Finally, after a period of probably 5 minutes, 3 cyclists came rolling down the hill. We’d passed them 2 descents earlier on a series of short climbs… that felt good at the time to ride. It is amazing when you can finally put a summer’s worth of preparation into a climb and the legs actually give back. That is what I wanted to experience, and did. Though I’ve been riding for 8 years and 20,000 miles, and have raced numerous criteriums, I’d never just done a “ride” for the feel and joy of it. My friends had done The Wright Stuff for a number of years. But for me, some serious aspects of life had intervened all those years. They still exist now, but my wife had done a mini-vacation with her sister and mother a few weeks before, and she said, “Go on, have some fun.”

Laying in a ditch with a busted collarbone is not most people’s idea of fun, obviously. But I was grateful as heck when those three riders stopped to assist me, and a gal named Libby crept around in front of me and asked, “Was it a bike wobble?”

“Wow,” I thought to myself. “That’s exactly what happened.”

I tipped my head up and weakly replied, “Yes.”

She explained that she’d just attended a seminar with a discussion on the subject. She told me all about bike harmonics and how it is so random that even the experts cannot tell exactly when a bike wobble will happen. While it was a relief to hear her words and understand, in some pain-fogged way, an explanation for my crash, it was also the most terrifying realization of my life.

At that moment, I wanted to quit cycling forever if bike wobble could just arrive, randomly, at any moment. That is the very definition of fear and terror if you ask me.

Had I known about bike wobble it might have been possible to clamp my knees tightly on the top bar, as Libby advised then––and as I’ve since confirmed on the Internet and hundreds of articles on the topic, and gotten my carbon-fiber Felt 4c (The Red Rocket, it was called in a 2006 cycling magazine Bike of the Year review) under control.

Again, I’m no pro rider. I compete in CAT 5 and Master’s 50+ races. My training rides solo average from 17-19 mph, and group rides to 20mph average. My top crit average was 26.8 mph in a 40 minute+2 laps criterium. But nothing in any of that experience prepared me to handle bike wobble at 35mph on a hill in Wisconsin.

When the paramedics arrived it was all the standard procedure. But they were rookies it seemed, who did not even know whether to put my neck in a brace. My blood pressure checked out and I wasn’t going into shock. The riders who stopped (God Bless the Good Samaritans) to help the bloodied, beaten rider out of the ditch said goodbye and good luck.

Then they closed the ambulance door and I realized, this is the first time I’ve ridden in an ambulance for my own injuries.

The little Upland Hills hospital in Dodgeville confirmed the worst news with an x-ray. There wasn’t much they could really do but give me a sling and send me on my way to go to a doctor back home.

But I did not see the actual picture x-ray image until visiting the Emergency room at Central DuPage Hospital, where my friend the triathlete is a lead doctor. It was not a pretty sight, that fractured collarbone. Surgery is pending.

My companions had worried and wondered where I’d gone, of course. But having trained for more than 40 years since high school with the two of them, they figured I might have either gotten lost (though I told them I knew the roads well) or done some other Cudlike thing. I’m not always the most predictable character in good times or bad. Or so they intimated.

They inquired to the race officials and communications had not gotten through from the EMTs to the meat wagons driving the course in search of crashed up people like me. 100 miles of road is hard to cover even on a bright September day. I’m grate I did not cover any of that road with my skin or limbs, frankly. Grateful to have reached the weeds and missed the hidden wire cable by inches, apparently. Grateful there is no brain or spinal injury. Hardly any road rash even. Grateful that I am alive and able to write these words 2 days after a terrifying tarsnake of 75 yards of bike wobble at 35mph.

Just grateful. It will be a little while before I ride again. But I’ll keep writing. Riding and running and writing are one and the same to me. I’ll start by walking. Then running. Then get back on the bike when healed. It’s what I’ve always done through injury and circumstance.

Gratefully.

If you’re interested in more information on Bike Wobble and how to control it, either Google the subject or try this page as a starting point. http://www.roadbikerider.com/advanced-skills/speed-wobble

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Interesting training experiment

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

Here my wife and dog join me for a hike up Johnson’s Mound.

The last day of August here in Illinois is brilliantly hot. Which meant long, slow training miles on country roads was likely to be neither fun nor productive.

I chose instead to head to the local hill training sight known as Johnson’s Mound Forest Preserve, a glacial kame covered with thick woods. Kames are basically piles of gravel dumped on the landscape by glaciers 10,000 years ago. The entire topography of Kane County where I live and ride and run was defined by the same large glacier that extended out from Lake Michigan all the way to the northwestern part of the state.

There is a black asphalt road that curls around the north side of the hill at Johnson’s Mound and then turns abruptly and takes a serpentine run up the hill. Total elevation is about 150 feet, so it’s not a monster. The steepest grade is just over 12% with most of the 1/3 mile climb from 4-6%. Not killer climbing some might say. But in Illinois we make do.

As a runner I’ve been using the hill for training since freshman year in cross country, when the specter of running at Johnson’s Mound was something we dreaded for weeks. It hurt, plain and simple. Our skinny little high school legs were not much match for the ancient gravel incline.

But by the time I graduated from college and was looking for ways to intensify training and improve hill running skills, Johnson’s Mound became the site for a weekly visit. A group of us would sometimes do hill training together, using a loop from the start of the woods up to the top in just over a half mile. The whole circuit around is .7 miles.

Through years of training I got better and faster at climbing that hill. At the peak of my post-collegiate competitive career, I ran one set of 5 repeats up and over the hill averaging 3:01 for the set. To break 3:00 meant you were in darned good shape. Every runner I knew, some with PRs below 31:00 for 10k, did that loop and agreed that it was tough to break the 3:00 mark.

I ran 31:10 the next week, taking second in a competitive 10k, then won a hilly hometown 10K in 31:52, that was measured 216 meters long by the high school track coach.

Those are fun recollections as a runner. Recently I ran a few hills at Johnson’s and can tell you that I’m not quite as fast these days. Not at all. Still, there was a respectable repeat or two thrown in there.

So to cycle the same hill and do the same loop on a bike is quite interesting. All four repeats today were completed in 2:25-2:27. I tried various strategies, riding harder on the lowland flats, charging the first hill, holding back until the last killer 12% grade and every way I tried to improve the time produced the same result.

Hmmm, I thought. Must be I’m only so good at hill climbing right now. I stood up out of the saddle some attempts, and rode seated as well. Same times.

What that really means is that more hill climbing value is in order. I simply have not built up the muscle base to allow faster climbing. I could probably jump off the bike and run it up the hill just as fast. In fact I’m thinking my climbing skills on the bike about matched my climbing pace as a runner. The times were not that far apart. I go 22mph on the flats own below and couldn’t do that on foot. So that’s the time differential right there.

In any case, having a hill like Johnson’s Mound to test your training and your spirit is an important resource. Find a hill of choice and put your watch on yourself. It will make you think about how to improve. Almost guaranteed.

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How to know when you need a running or riding tuneup

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

So you’re a runner. Or a rider. One requires little equipment. The other quite a bit of equipment. So the concept of a tuneup should vary quite a bit between runners and cyclists right?

Well, yes and no. Your body (if you’re a runner) and your bike (if you’re a cyclist) always give off signs when you need a tuneup. So there are some similarities. Here are some friendly, informative reminders of what to consider and how to do a body and mechanical tuneup when you need one.

Know your starting points: Runners

Most of your running efficiency, health and ability to maintain speed boils down to mechanics. So here’s a few simple rules to help you “tune up” if you’re a runner:

  1. Build proper running form. Back in 1971, I read an article in Sports Illustrated about running form. It said that good runners (distance runners, anyway) all do some basic things the same. They point their feet straight ahead, not out like a duck. They run “over the ground” with a mid-foot strike when running full pace. They lean forward slightly over the full length of their frame when running, and make this possible by carrying the arms forward so that the hand reaches the height of the shoulder in mid-stride. It’s that simple. Nothing’s really changed in the last 40 years. At 14 years old, however, I practiced those stride habits, and at all speeds, and that commitment has delivered good running form in all kinds of circumstances. It really does make a world of difference. You must be disciplined about knowing good running form and practicing it. If you don’t know what you look like when you’re running, find some store windows. Then watch yourself run from the side. Watch yourself run from the front. If your arms are flinging around or you run crooked somehow, either you can fix it through practice, or else biomechanics are likely to blame. Many great runners have biomechanical flaws, but they minimize their effects through practice of good running form.
  2. Maintain proper running form. Ever notice how your running form tends to go to hell when you’re tired? That’s because the muscles that do most of the work are fatigued. When muscles (big and little) start to tire, you cannot maintain the function or foundation of your stride. If you haven’t disciplined and trained yourself to practice and implement about good running form, you’ll simply lose it worse in a race when you’re tired and can’t possibly think. So it has to become second nature.
  3. Strengthen your running form. What this means is to use weights or exercises to build up the small muscles and ligaments that support your knees, hips and even shoulders. An overall fitter body, especially one with a strong core, will respond much better to the muscular demanded by good running form. So tune up your body with pushups, one legged knee dips, simple planking exercises and some weight work if you can manage it. Doing your strength work before you need it, or to recover from the occasional and inevitable injury is the first step to any tuneup.

For cyclists: Melding body and bike is the trick. But start with the bike.

1. Tune your machine. You simply cannot ride with efficiency or even safety if your bike is so out of tune that it holds you back. If you have not learned the most basic mechanics of your bike, this can be tough to understand, and you’d best take your machine to a bike store mechanic and tell them you want a tuneup. They’ll check your chain for length and wear, inspect your wheels to see if they’re true, test your shifting cables for tension, test the derailleur so that your bike shifts well, and check your brakes so that you can stop.

2. Tune yourself to your machine. The next challenge for bike riders is fitting your body to the machine. This is an entirely different issue than tuning up the mechanics of your bike. But it is just as important. And while I’d like to tell you that fitting yourself to the bike can be done on your own, it just isn’t true. There’s no facet of cycling in fact that does not require some outside perspective. And unlike running, getting help to tune yourself to a bike usually costs you some money. So amortize. Spend $150 or so on a bike fitting with a good shop and you’ll know at least that you’re “in the ballpark” on how your body relates to the machine. Trouble is, there are no hard or fast rules here. One cyclist that is 6’1″ and 160 lbs may ride a 58cm bike frame while another of the same height and weight might ride a 56cm frame with seatpost, front stem and saddle angles all different. If you have a long torso or short legs it’s all going to vary. Tuning yourself to your machine is a question of lengths and angles. Go get help. Or suffer. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

3. Tune your body to cycling. Runners can’t just jump on a bike and use their endurance to keep up with other cyclists. Well, most runner’s can’t. A few gifted geeks like Matthew Busche of RadioShack have proven that theorem wrong. But they are a rare breed, the Busches of the world. Most of us have to ride a considerable number of miles to get efficient and comfortable on the bike, and it may take years, literally, to build up muscle to support your body on the frame and then to drive your pedals forward with efficiency. Again, a strong core is especially key to maintaining good form on the bike. So if you do nothing else in your personal tuneup, spend time making your gut strong. The rest of your cycling form will be forced on you by the sheer effort of trying to keep up with others. It will come sooner or later. It just hurts a little. Every year. Even if you train all winter. Cycling is an annual tuneup of the body and soul. No getting around it.

Of course this is general, practical advice for doing a “tuneup” on your running and riding. But basics are always the best place to start, and reminders of the basics have saved many a soul much suffering.

The great thing about running and riding is that there are some “tradeoff” benefits from one sport to the other. Cyclists need to run some to maintain bone density. And when runners hurt themselves by pounding on roads, the bike can always help you maintain fitness.

If you’re hurt too badly to participate in either sport, there’s always swimming. But we don’t like to talk about that. Don’t let it get that far. Tuneup first. Don’t make us talk about swimming. Please.

We Run and Ride. So do you. Let’s share original thoughts.

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Usain Bolt, Lance Armstrong and the meaning of legend

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Christopher Cudworth

After Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt finished winning gold medals in the London Olympics 100 meters, 200 meters and 4 X 100 meter relay races, he was asked by an NBC sports announcer to characterize the merit of his accomplishments.

Bolt’s reply: “I’m a Legend.”

We’ll resist the immediate temptation to dissect that possible Freudian slip given how many sprinters have won world championships only to test positive for steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs later on. Those athletes are stripped of their titles. Banned from the sport for years. Their legends become legendary in an entirely different way.

Some return to race again. Others never do. Consider that there was at least one reformed US doper, Justin Gatlin, competing in the Olympic races against Usain Bolt.

The claim to legendary status

At face value, Bolt’s claim to being a legendary figure in track and field is hard to argue. After all, he won the same trio of races in the Beijing Olympics, setting world records at 100 and 200 meters, giving him 6 gold medals total in two consecutive Olympic Games. With the 4 X 100 world record he helped set at this year’s games, Bolt is basically 3 for 3 in his attempts at breaking world records in his events at the Olympics. That is pretty legendary stuff.

But consider: Bolt’s reputation was at risk prior to the Olympics when he lost both the 100 and 200 to Jamaican teammate and training partner Johan Blake, who is no sprinting slouch himself. Bolt finished second to Blake in both qualifying races. In those races Bolt looked human to say the least. Some proceeded to question Bolt’s fitness for the 2012 London Games, but were perhaps only a little surprised at the pursuant quality of his performances. Again Bolt left some of the world’s best sprinters in his wake.

In post-race interviews, Bolt said his Jamaican trials experience was a “wakeup call.” Hmmm.

But now he’s a Legend. At least that’s what Bolt labels himself. His size and stride and demeanor of joyous dominance is certainly legendary. So for now the claim follows him around like a shadow that has to move fast and possibly jump high to keep up. Bolt is considering competing in the long jump in the Olympic Games in Brazil in 2016. His coach wants him to run the 400 meters. Which would make him more of a legend? Let the debate begin.

The jury is always out

For now, those of us who’ve followed track and field for many years have learned to be suspicious of all such claims to legend. Too many times, the accomplishments of some the greatest athletes have come tumbling down. We recall Canada’s Ben Johnson, the seemingly indomitable sprinter who got busted for steroids.

Too often we’ve been wowed by amazing sprint times only to learn that the athlete had been using performance-enhancing drugs. Even Olympic great Carl Lewis was not entirely able to escape speculation about possible steroid use, even to the point where people compared photos of his face over the length of his career to study his jawbone structure and other physical features that would indicate possible steroid use. The mantle of a legend is hard to wear with peace and ease.

Bolt’s jolt of improvement from the Jamaican trials to the Olympics did raise some eyebrows. If it were to be discovered that he has been using steroids or other “juice” to improve his speed he would quickly become a legend of another sort. There are literally dozens of athletes out there who rose to the top of their sport with amazing skill, speed and courage, only to be exposed as a fraud when the results of a doping test show them to be merely human with some big-time help.

Compared to other legends

In that regard, Usain Bolt may be uniquely connected to another big-time athlete with an outsized reputation and a transcendent demeanor. That would be Lance Armstrong, the world’s best cyclist who won 7 consecutive overall races at the Tour de France.

The oft-repeated tale—by Armstrong himself—is that he has never been caught using drugs. But the ugly specter of potential teammate testimony against his legendary accomplishments has put Armstrong in a tough position recently. No absolute evidence has been submitted against his legend, but in the absence of that, sometimes testimony by others will do.  If he were to protest the research and findings of the USADA, the anti-doping agency of the United States, all the testimony they’ve lined up would come rolling out. That might impact the other facet of Armstrong’s legend.

The Livestrong legend

Armstrong’s legendary accomplishments happen to extend beyond the world of sports. He has leveraged his Livestrong brand into a world of good for people with cancer. Armstrong at this point in his career is essentially sacrificing one facet of his legend to protect the other. A possibly noble act, in a way, for a man regularly accused of some selfish instincts and behavior. Or else he actually is being selfish. It is sometimes hard to tell with legends. Look at Usain Bolt: is he bragging himself up or simply planting an idea with fans who adore him?

Those who chose to sustain the Armstrong legend in either cycling terms or Livestrong will likely find themselves stifling their own questions about what is more important in the case of a man like Lance Armstrong, truth or legend?

If you choose truth, then the legend may be sacrificed. But if you choose legend, then the truth perhaps must be ignored. It’s a complicated scenario, especially for those whose inspiration has been distilled to the simple symbol of a small yellow wristband. That small token represents a legend, and what it really means to try to give back to the world.

Someone’s always trying to take you down.

Putting legend in context. Not all good. 

But if Bolt were found to be a doper and Armstrong’s legend were to collapse under further scrutiny of his use of performance-enhancing drugs, would either man be a bigger liar than most politicians and their parties? Over the last 50 years we’ve seen presidents with sterling political skills fall prey to very human foibles. John F. Kennedy and his dalliances. LBJ to his possibly murderous desire for power. Nixon with his Watergate. Reagan and Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica. George W. Bush’s illegal wars and torture and lost billions.

All Presidents become legends, of a sort. And the harm they do in a legendary way can cost millions of people their lives. It should make us take a step back to consider just was the term legend means. Is it the truth, or what we choose to believe about another human being that matters?

Seems we’re making choices like that all the time.

 

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