Forums >General Running>The Malmo Manifesto
Think Whirled Peas
Just because running is simple does not mean it is easy.
Relentless. Forward. Motion. <repeat>
SMART Approach
Run Coach. Recovery Coach. Founder of SMART Approach Training, Coaching & Recovery
Structured Marathon Adaptive Recovery Training
Safe Muscle Activation Recovery Technique
www.smartapproachtraining.com
E-mail: eric.fuller.mail@gmail.com -----------------------------
Runners run
Brilliant and simple advice...
E.J.Greater Lowell Road RunnersCry havoc and let slip the dawgs of war!May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your SPF30, may the rains fall soft upon your sweat-wicking hat, and until you hit the finish line may The Flying Spaghetti Monster hold you in the hollow of His Noodly Appendage.
Why is it sideways?
Runner's World Daily: How do you compare the modern runner with yourself? Emil Zatopek: The athlete of today is not an athlete alone. He's the center of a team--doctors, scientists, coaches, agents and so on. My running was very simple; it was out of myself. Perhaps sometimes I was like a mad dog. It didn't matter about style or what it looked like to others; there were records to break. Two months before the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, the doctors said I must not compete. I had a gland infection in my neck. Well I didn't listen and what happened? Three golds. The sportsman, the real sportsman, knows what is inside him. Haile Gebrselassie impresses me very much. He seems to run from within himself.
I had someone give this as a response to this topic once: Ah, yes, but for the regular folk not blessed with the genetics for this stuff, like me, the following would run me right into injury and out of a season.... 1. Run twice a day, as many days as you can. Hopefully five, six or seven days a week. 2. Run more. How much? I dunno. You figure it out, but find out for yourself. 3. Run it faster. Unfortunately, it's that sort of thinking that makes running complicated. That it revolves around some predetermined innate ability.
Suspect Zero
As someone who's trying to break out of the slave to numbers mentality, I find this brilliant. Part of the problem that beginner runners have (I'm assuming I'm not alone) is that we're just not sure how hard we're supposed to be working. Run twice a day as many days as you can? A lot of folks are goign to focus on that and feel that anything short of that is failure. Run it faster? But I've been told training days are for training, racing day is for racing. How much faster? Preformed numbers give us a framework with which to define our training when we don't know enough to provide that framework for ourselves. Throw in to the mix the fact that periodization, peeking, low HR training and other concepts provide solid results for some folks, many of us are perfectly happy to attach our wagon to a concept that's worked well for others. When elite, or even accomplished runners, are asked about their training, they usually answer with numbers - something we can all identify with. Throw into the mix the fact that, while I do love running, at my very core, I'm a lazy person. I try not to be, but I am. Numbers give me a quantifiable measuring stick to gauge my battle against laziness. 48 MPW is less lazy than 38 MPW for example. Running "as much as I can" is a bit vague.
When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
Running "as much as I can" is a bit vague.
Running is a relentless set of questions that can only be answered temporarily, and incompletely. Vaguely. With our legs and hearts. Failing often. Paying with effort but occasionally gifted, at odd moments, with bodily and inarticulate epiphanies towards which the numbers mutely point--too certain to speak clearly.