the morning shakeout | issue 540
Transferring your training to race day, more rage against the machines, the case for dropping down in distance, and a lot more.
Good morning! I don’t have much to say off the top this week, but I do have some good stuff to share with all of you. Let’s get right to it.
Quick Splits
— When I’m writing training for my athletes one of the most important things I do is ask myself how whatever it is I’m assigning will help them on race day. Sometimes it’s as simple as increasing volume so they’re comfortable with the demands of moving up to a longer distance, or standardizing the warmup before every workout so it’s automatic on race day. Other times it’s giving them specific paces to hit, or structuring a workout to simulate how a race could play out and/or how they might feel at various stages of it. I may also provide specific fueling instructions, or recommend a particular type of environment to mimic a race course. If I’m able to be present for the workout, I’ll sometimes change the assignment mid-session, more to help them deal mentally with the unexpected than to chase some physiological benefit. These are all incredibly important considerations, because if what you’re doing doesn’t transfer to race day, what’s the point? Legendary track and field coach Dan Pfaff has spent fifty-plus years asking the same question, and his lessons about transfer provide a useful framework for any coach or athlete to work from. “Across fifty-three years of coaching, I have learned that training holds value only when it carries into the event,” he writes. “Seeing movement clearly, understanding mechanics, narrowing gaps, managing energy, guiding psychology, setting standards, and building urgency all serve a single aim. The work must appear when the gun goes off, when the bar is raised, when the athlete steps into the arena.”
— As a bit of a follow-up to last week’s intro about losing yourself in the experience of running, not whatever data your watch is spitting out at you, this recent article is about how many white-collar workers are driving themselves crazy trying to improve their HRV (Heart Rate Variability) in order to optimize their performance at work. It’s wild to me how many people, mostly because of social media and savvy marketing, find a million different trees to focus on yet still manage to miss the entire forest, whether we’re talking about running or work. Look, setting yourself up to perform well is not all that complicated: Know your purpose, get outside every day, move your body regularly, make yourself feel something, eat well, remember to take breaks, prioritize sleep, reduce stress as best you can, be in community with others. At some point you have to ask yourself what you’re actually optimizing for. (And chances are you probably don’t need another device to spit a magic number out at you.) “And all of this is happening as artificial intelligence moves in on white-collar jobs, which may only heighten the anxiety to perform better at work,” Noam Scheiber writes for The New York Times. “A handful of the biohackers I spoke with worked in A.I. or, like Mr. Zelles, were keenly aware of its rapid improvement. Perhaps, in our race to stay ahead of the machines, it can be tempting to try to make ourselves more and more like them.”
— I want to be like Kenton Brown when I grow up. The 81-year-old dropped a 29.70 200m to win his age-group at the U.S. Masters Indoor Championships a couple weeks ago in Albuquerque. A lot of people tend to drift up in distance as they age, thinking, “well, if I can’t go faster, I’ll just go longer.” I believe dropping down is underrated and probably provides more bang for your buck as you get older. Hear me out: Training like a sprinter, or even a middle-distance runner if you want to split the difference, does more to preserve fast-twitch muscle fibers and hormonal responses (think: testosterone, HGH, muscle mass, bone density, etc.) than simply running long all the time. And—for me, anyway—there’s also the competitive aspect of it, i.e., experiencing the rush and pure joy of competition, much like we all did racing our friends across the playground or in the gym class mile. (Or was that just me?!?) I mean, just look at Kenton’s face as he’s coming off the final turn!
— This is a fun little read from Steve Magness about Franz Stampfl, who coached Roger Bannister to the first sub-4 minute mile. Stampfl’s genius wasn’t in the X’s and O’s of his training, but in getting his athletes to believe that the body could endure almost anything if the mind was committed. I won’t spoil the kicker by quoting what he told Bannister before his historic run, but I will tell you that 3:59.4 probably wouldn’t have happened that day if Stampfl hadn’t known exactly what his charge needed to hear. “Stampfl believed that the most physically gifted athlete would ultimately fail to reach their potential if they lacked the requisite internal landscape to process the emotional demands of competition,” Magness writes. “He understood the nuance of the experience: the discomfort, pull to quit, anxiety, but also the curiosity, willingness to try, the satisfaction of the grind, and everything in between.”
— One of the most influential artists in my life is Everlast, and for my money, nothing beats him with an acoustic guitar just pouring his soul out. His latest, “Stones,” feels like something I’ve been listening to for the last 30 years even though it just came out the other day. His voice, the lyrics, the delivery, they all just hit me right in the gut. Here’s the acoustic version, which pairs nicely with a couple of his classics, “Long at All” and “What It’s Like.”
— From the archives (Issue 488, 1 year ago this week): I recently revisited this Farnam Street article, “Learning Through Play,” after going to the track with my buddy Shane, putting on our spikes, and trading off some fast-for-us 300m repeats. To borrow a concept I first came across in the novel Once a Runner, we were “playing” track, i.e., having fun with something that we’ve been doing for more than half our lives while not taking ourselves too seriously. On the last rep we dialed it up a bit and surprised ourselves with a split neither of us had seen in a while. If we had been trying to run what we did for our last rep, it probably wouldn’t have happened. But by “playing” track and pretending it was the end of a race when you don’t want to let the other guy get ahead of you down the straight, a little magic ensued. “When we play we take chances, we experiment, and we try new combinations just to see what happens,” the Farnam Street article says. “We do all of this in the pursuit of fun because it is the novelty that brings us pleasure and makes play rewarding.”
Spring may still seem far off in many places but the yearning for warmer weather and less layers is already in full effect. My partners at Tracksmith just released their Spring Collection, “a much-needed dose of vernal optimism and hardy pragmatism.” I’ve been rocking a few of these pieces with some regularity already (not trying to rub it in, I swear!) and the Session Tee has been a staple. When it’s warm enough I’ll wear it on its own, but I love rocking it over the Brighton Base Layer on cooler mornings when a jacket isn’t necessary. If you want to pick up something from this collection for yourself (or buy anything else on Tracksmith.com for that matter), use the code “SHAKEOUT15” for $15 off an order of $75 or more.
Workout of the Week: The Mixed Bag
Variety, it’s said, is the spice of life. It can also be the key to spicing up some of the same old workouts you do week in and week out. Can’t decide between hill repeats, a tempo run, or an interval session? Try rolling them all into one workout! I call this cover-all-your-bases butt-kicker “The Mixed Bag” and it will help to stimulate fitness gains that you didn’t even realize were stuck in stagnation. Here are the details.
The bottom line.
“To be empty is one of my purposes with running. I feel that training your body is the way to create the perfect vessel, building a foundation for the ideas to come into.”
— Haruki Murakami, best-selling author and avid runner, in conversation with Harry Styles for Runner’s World
That’s it for Issue 540. Please forward this email along, pass the web link around, or reply to me directly at your own risk.
Thanks for reading,
Mario
Everlast is such a talented artist. Have you heard the first solo record, "Forever Everlasting"? No shade on the excellent acoustic stuff that was to come later, but my buddies and I loved this one in high school.
Workout of the week thanks much. did the warm up, the hills, the half M pace, and after finished the fast minutes during the recovery jog had to check da feet as couldn't tell if was walking or running.
I float.