I follow just about every running outlet on the Internet, so I had always believed that I was pretty in-the-know about all things running. Sure, I might have known every stat about the top runners in the nation. But I wasn’t aware of one of the most pressing issues in the running community. I didn’t understand why some of the girls around me looked so unhealthy, or why rising stars in high school fizzled out and faced injury after injury. 
I hadn’t heard of the term “female athlete triad” until my junior year of high school. The triad consists of three components: low energy availability with or without an eating disorder, menstrual dysfunction, and low bone density. These three components wreak havoc on the female body, and can lead to long-term or permanent damage such as broken bones or infertility.  I think that it’s pretty revealing that I was clueless to a phenomenon that affects so many women and girls. In fact, around 78% of high school athletes experience one or more of the three components of the triad (Hoch). Why didn’t I know that the triad was especially prevalent among female endurance athletes like myself? It had taken me ten years of running to even hear the term, let alone understand its consequences and effects on girls in the running community. 
At that point I had gone through what, in my opinion, was the most impressionable part of my life as an athlete: my body had changed as I hit puberty, and I had adapted. My perspective of myself and others in the sport was changing as well; I was much more conscious of the other body types I saw on the line. Although I made it through this time healthily, many female athletes are not so lucky. I’ve definitely dealt with my share of health issues, but they’ve always been manageable and relatively minor. I never developed an eating disorder or lost my period as a result of running. I’ve never had a stress fracture due to a lack of estrogen or nutrition. Not every female runner can say the same.
One of the most high profile cases of the female athlete triad is that of Mary Cain. In her New York Times Op Ed, she recounts how “an all-male Nike staff became convinced that in order for [Cain] to get better, [she] had to become thinner. And thinner. And thinner.” I had grown up hearing about Mary Cain’s incredible performances, and like so many others, I had simply accepted that she was ‘burnt out,’ and that her career was over. I never questioned who or what was responsible for the breakdown of her body, and thought that this was just what happened to high school phenoms. After watching her OpEd in the New York Times, I felt as though there was finally some light being shed on an issue I’d been witnessing for a while, an issue that had really shaken my faith in the running community. I hoped that people would begin to care about the long term well-being of female runners, and not just sit in awe of stars who burned really bright when they were still just girls. I hoped that young girls would be able to pursue their goals in a sustainable way, without putting their bodies on the line. 
One of Cain’s allegations in particular stuck with me. When describing her time with the Nike Oregon Project, Cain says, “I got caught in a system designed by and for men, which destroys the bodies of young girls.” It’s not just one program or one coach that caused Cain’s downfall. Rather, the lack of regard for and miseducation about female bodies in this sport is what causes girls’ bodies to break down. Alberto and his all-male team did not adapt Cain’s training to be feasible or sustainable on the female body. Cain points to the lack of female coaches as one of the factors that made her feel so unheard and hopeless at the Nike Oregon Project. Again, this rings true across the running community, not just for the Oregon Project. According to a 2018 study, just ten women held head track and field coaching positions at NCAA Division 1 schools, compared to 83 men; for cross-country, 17 women and 86 men (Strout). I think that disparity is significant, and that with more female coaches, female athletes will be more seen and heard. 
I don’t want to come off as offering a be-all-end-all solution to such a complex problem. I know that it’s not as simple as hiring more female coaches, or requiring coaches to learn about the triad and prevention techniques. But I do think that female athletes deserve to be heard and voice their grievances with a system that exploits their successes and then discards them when their bodies begin to break down. Cain’s story resonated with so many women in the running community, including myself. She helped to expose the flaws in the system, and has demonstrated how the stories that we tell can help to enact tangible, positive change in the running community. As I enter a more intense phase in my running career, I do so with hope. I believe in this sport and the running community to continue the narrative that Cain started. I believe that we can teach sustainability and health. And I believe that we can get really fast, on our own terms.   









Works Cited
Hoch, Anne Z et al. "Prevalence of the female athlete triad in high school
     athletes and sedentary students." Clinical journal of sport medicine :
     official journal of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine vol. 19,5
     (2009): 421-8. doi:10.1097/JSM.0b013e3181b8c136 
Cain, Mary. "I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike." The New
     York Times, 7 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/
     nike-running-mary-cain.html. Accessed 2 June 2020.
Strout, Erin. "American Running Needs More Female Coaches." Outside, 14 Sept. 
     2014, www.outsideonline.com/2342711/why-we-need-more-female-coaches. 
     Accessed 2 June 2020.

​

​My name is Issy Goldstein and I’m a senior at Germantown Academy. I’ll be attending Harvard University next year, where I’ll be running cross country and track. Along with running, I also love writing, and I hope to combine my interests in this blog!

"I was never a part of any organized sports when I was younger, but I was always active. From playing tag as a kid to basketball with friends in my teens, it didn’t matter as long as I could get outside and move. 

I joined the Marine Corps at 17, and that put me in a whole new world of physical exertion I never knew. Boot camp was the first time I ran continuous distances longer than your typical gym class in high school required. After boot camp, and picking up smoking somewhere along the way, running was not my friend. I did the minimum required which was two 3-mile running tests annually. That, and other unhealthy habits, followed me until just before I left the Corps. I realized I was not where I should be as a 25-year-old and ditched the smokes and started running more. When I got out in 2011 at age 27, I PR’d my three-mile test with a time just over twenty minutes, and I was hooked.

Fast forward a few years to 2015, when I was in college, and a friend asked me to join him at a Spartan Race. I said “sure” because I thought I was in decent shape. And I was; just not enough to compete at a Spartan Race. I finished that five-mile race after giving my all and having my whole body cramp at the end due to exhaustion. I was in so much pain, but I fell in love. I ran two more races that year, extending my longest ever run to 16 miles at the Spartan Beast in Vermont. I just couldn’t get enough. I continued to get better each year, running upwards of 8-12 races a season. This increased running also started causing many injures. I struggled with multiple stress fractures and other injuries that sidelined me. But after going through rehab and learning how to properly run over the last two years, I’ve overcome all those injuries. And at 35 years old in 2019, I finally got to the point where I was becoming a competitive force. I found my niche, which turned out to be races less than 10k. I haven’t finished lower than 7th place all year and managed to secure two 2nd place podiums and one 3rd place podium. 

​I plan on taking myself to the next level in 2020 by running in the Spartan Elite heat for their Stadium Series. This series has racers running through iconic baseball stadiums such as Fenway Park, Citi Field, and others. I figure I have been doing this for five years, and I’m not getting any younger, so if I’m going to see what I’m capable of, now is the best time."

​Like many people, every year I have trouble managing my weight between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Instead of just exercising self-control on the caloric-intake side of the balance sheet this year, I decided to improve my chances of coming out even by starting my first run streak: Three miles a day for 36 days.
By any measure of effort this should have been easy. If I did no long-distance runs, 3 miles a day would only amount to 21 miles per week, less even than my typical 30-mile maintenance weeks between marathon training seasons.

Instead this streak has been daunting and relentless. One reason is that I only run 3 days a week when I’m in maintenance mode, Monday (8 miles), Wednesday (8 miles), and Saturday (14 miles). And those days are so much a part of my routine that I hardly have to think about doing them. (For those of you who are actually counting, this is why it wasn’t a 35-day streak, Thanksgiving Thursday to New Year’s Wednesday. I’d already done my usual Wednesday run, adding 1 day for a total of 36.) The other 4 days haven’t been part of any routine and I’ve constantly had to wrestle with where they fit.

The second reason why this streak has been so challenging is that there’ve been many soggy and rainy days that I could otherwise just skip. When I’m maintaining 30 miles per week, it’s no big deal to blow off a day here and there. Sometimes I can make up that day, but other times I can dismiss one without guilt. By definition, though, a running streak has no days off. Day in and day out, regardless of the conditions, the streaker has to get out and deliver. Rain? Get out. More rain? Get out. Monsoon? Get out.

It took me until day 11 to figure it out the third reason, though. From day 7 the streak already seemed relentless. As a marathon runner, I’ve learned to break a 26.2 mile race into quarters and thirds to help gauge my sense of progress. With a mile as the unit of measure, 7 is one quarter down. Nine is one third. Thirteen is a half. But the unit of measure for this streak has been days. At 36, it’s 10 longer than a marathon. You can argue that comparing days and miles is like apples and oranges, but it’s counting either way, and reaching a count of 7 still hadn’t gotten me to a quarter of my goal. That wouldn’t happen for 2 more days, when I reached 9. At a count of 13 when I would be virtually half done with a marathon, I was still shy of half of my streak by 5. At a count of 26 when I would otherwise only have 0.2 miles left to finish a marathon, I will still be 10 shy of the end of my streak. Neverending.

Solutions: (1) Start measuring runs in kilometers, which would put a marathon at 42 units and condition me to work with numbers bigger than 26. (2) Do this streak every year, which would also get me more accustomed to numbers like 36. (3) Never do a supra-26 streak again. Hmm.

-CtCloser (Calvinthe), "Negative split or positive splat" 

Text: Calvin Wang, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Tale of Two Races


Sometimes it all comes together in running.  Sometimes, if you're prepared, it comes together twice. This is the tale of two races where despite totally different approaches, the end result was the same. 

I ran a half marathon using a 20 week plan divided into 4 phases with a taper period.  It was the high mileage, high intensity type of plan that has been really successful in my running development.  Starting with hills and moving to tempos and extended interval sessions with form drills included, I was running at least 40 miles a week with three event specific intensity running workouts and ran two times a day twice a week.  Knowing that the course is typically windy I ran most speed work into the wind on a 3/4 mile long abandoned Navy airstrip to get ready for the anticipated conditions.  I also found a hill similar in grade to the only uphill on the course and tried to run it at about the same time of a workout that I thought I would be running it during the race.  I also ran all of the workouts in the 4th training phase in the exact clothing and shoes I planned on using, used the same fueling pattern down to specific flavors of gu at exact times at race pace, practiced drinking at the right times and speed and ran most of the sessions by myself at the time of day the race would be held so that I knew I could run at pace by myself if I wasn't in a pack during the race.  I also diligently weighed myself, had a fairly strict diet, got 8 hours of sleep every night, lifted and did yoga and core work on alternate days and extensively studied the course even though I knew it from having run the race many times before.  Finally knowing I was running this for both time and place, I developed an A, B, and C race goal plan that not only included my plans but incorporated how I planned to respond to and/or take advantage of my competitors' known strengths and weaknesses.  Looking at the weather conditions during the week before, I was positive that I'd average between 7:50 and 7:55 per mile in the race and place well unless some wild card was inserted that I hadn't planned for. 

We went down to the race a day early, sat in the room and watched baseball and I ate a preplanned meal. On race day I ate early, followed my prerace drinking plan, did an extensive warmup, changed into my matching racing attire and everything worked like I thought it would.  Despite having to pretty much run side by side for the last 5 miles with another guy my age racing for place in our age group, the plan worked and I placed third in my age group, top 50 in the race and averaged 7:52 per mile.  Pretty much right what I had worked for and planned to accomplish.


Six months later I ran a 10 miler in the same city and had a much different approach.  Since I'd run that half earlier in the year, I'd also raced another half in early August.  For the rest of August, all of September, and the first two weeks of October I didn't look at my watch at all and ran whatever speed I felt like running for as long as I felt like running.  I was still averaging about 40 miles a week but was also stopping during runs to look at foxes, eagles, and chipmunks or running and talking with other people at their pace instead of being focused on running by myself.  I did no speed work or intervals, ran no hills and didn't really taper much either.  I ate whatever I wanted, stayed up late, and didn't even go near the airstrip. 

Two nights before the race, I stayed up until 12am, then went down to the race a day early, walked about 6 miles, ate brats with saurkraut and hot mustard and garlic noodles, walked some more, got some fudge, walked a little more and went back to the room thinking about maybe getting some sleep.  I didn't get up early to eat, followed no drinking plan, grabbed 3 random gu flavors and walked to the race.  I wore totally non-matching gear, which if you know me is totally out of character, forgot my running water bottle and only did a marginal warmup primarily so I'd have a good reason to end up down by the good indoor bathrooms and not have to use the portapotties.  I lined up around the 9 minute pace group because I figured that seemed about right. 

From the beginning I knew, as most people who run a lot do, that this was going to be great and a fun race.  I walked every water stop, ran 3 miles talking to another runner and moved up gradually through the field increasing my pace every mile and ended up making up a one minute fifty second gap between me and the guy in my age group that was running 3rd in the last two miles and turning it into a 20 second gap positive gap for me. Despite doing pretty much everything I tell people not to do if they want to race well, I improved both time and place from the previous year and had a great time doing it. 

So what do I take from this tale of two races?  First that if you want to run a really good time, you do need an extensively thought out and executed training plan.  The plan let me run nearly 30 seconds faster per mile for the half than I did for the 10 miler.  Second, it's okay, as shown by the 10 miler, to relax and do what you want because if you have a basic training base and miles in the tank it can be fun in a different way. The no plan reduced the stress to almost nothing and made training more free.  Third, both ways worked for me and I'm going to do it again in the future.      

​By Calvin W.

In the last post, Soothing the Savage Breath, I introduced the idea of rhythmic or cadence breathing when running, i.e., your breath rate synchronizes with your footsteps. Then I brought up the idea of even-pattern and odd-pattern breathing rates. With the even-pattern breathing that people commonly use, you inhale across a certain number of footsteps and exhale across the same number, e.g., 4:4, 3:3, 2:2, and 1:1. With odd-pattern breathing, you inhale across a certain number of foot and exhale across 1 fewer foot strikes, e.g., 4:3, 3:2, 2:1. Finally I brought up the idea of combining the 2 types to transition across a running effort.

​Here’s how it works for the different kinds of running I do.

For an easy run, I start out with 3:3 breathing. Once I relax and fall into a steady, sustainable, not-too-aggressive pace, I switch to 3:2 breathing and maintain that throughout the duration of the run. This is the kind of effort and breathing pattern common to a long, slow run.

​By Lauren T.
Forward by Drew M.

One of the great things about working with the vibrant JRC community is getting to know each runner as a person. A few weeks ago I ran into one of our customers who is an avid member at Orangetheory Fitness in Willow Grove. When I first met her she was just starting to get serious about Orangetheory and since she has grown into one heck of an athlete. I had heard that she was competing in Spartan Races but I didn't realize I was speaking with a top 25 racer in the world. What impressed me more however was her backstory:

"​To give you back story of my fitness/athletic history I have grown up always being active, starting to play sports at the age of five. A three-sport high school athlete turned into a Division II NCAA Field Hockey Athlete at Shippensburg University studying Exercise Science. During my time there I played in four NCAA final four tournaments and won one National Championship, winning 77 games and only losing 10 games in my entire career. This career was not all perfection, it was more of a battle. My freshman year I was diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, which is impingement of the Brachial Plexus to the Ulnar side. This impingement was due to a broken collar bone in high school, for three years during college I spent extensive time doing physical therapy to only end up on a surgical table after my junior year. I learned to play autonomously with a numb hand, but the constant tremors in my hand and lack of pulse recognition had to end. During surgery I lost 2.5 liters of blood, but thankfully due to my health I was able to walk away from this surgery successfully. In a month I was back on the field and playing, but the blood loss took longer to recovery from than the actual incision.
After college, I promised myself that I would not allow myself to be the former athlete that turned into a couch potato. I continued working out but missed the competitive feel and working out with my teammates. This brings Orangetheory Fitness into my life, where I met wonderful people whom pushed me to be a better version of myself every day. This workout has made me a better athlete and pushed me to build my confidence. A fellow member continually asked me to join him for Spartan racing, but due to what I thought was my lack of upper body strength and limitation with lingering numbness and quick fatigue in my shoulders, I was hesitate. After a year of him bugging me, I finally gave in. Now in my first year of Spartan racing I will complete Four Trifectas (Sprint, Super and Beast/Ultra). Outside of that I have had amazing success podiuming in these races and finishing within the top 10 each race. I have also completed an Ultra Beast which consisted of 31.5 miles, 68 obstacles, over 12,000 ft of elevation gain. This was my fourth Spartan race to date, where I achieved my first podium placing 3rd in my age group and 6th overall. I have qualified for all major championships; North American Championships, World Championships in Tahoe, CA, and World Ultra Championships in Sweden. During North American Championships I finished as the 6th best female in my age group and 41st overall female amongst the qualified females from USA, Canada, and Mexico. I am currently ranked 23rd in my age group in the World Series Ranking. My 2019 season is not over yet, as I have 5 remaining obstacle races and two trail races."

Lauren's story is that of breaking through barriers. Each time she has faced a hurdle in her career she has found a way to get past it without giving up or making excuses. Even now as she sees success in a new avenue of her career she finds ways to reinvent herself to overcome the obstacles in her path. Lauren's impressive story certainly inspires me and I hope you find inspiration too. No matter what life throws at you there is always a way to keep moving forward. 

On behalf of JRC I'd like to wish Lauren the best of luck with the rest the season and Championships!

By Calvin W.

One of the early challenges I remember when I first started running is figuring out how to breathe. It all felt so ragged until I got to that point in a given running effort when my breath rate finally matched my pace. Until it didn’t again as I got further into the run. Until it did again as I progressed even further.
I came to realize that the first period of smoothness came when it took 3 footsteps to inhale and another 3 to exhale. That happened relatively early in a run not long after I got started. But that never lasted long as my body moved to the next level of effort. That’s when my breath rate and running cadence became asynchronous and ragged again. The next level of synchrony happened when I settled into the next higher level of effort when my breathing pattern became 2 steps to inhale and 2 to exhale. Once I reached that level, which fortunately lasted the majority of a running episode, I was comfortable and my breathing rhythmic.
There are terms for the phenomenon of breathing rate matching the footsteps—rhythmic or cadence breathing—and it’s the kind of issue that running authorities address. Conducting an internet keyword search on ‘breathing pattern running’ returns several popular running authorities who do just that: Runner’s World and RunConnect among others.
Reading through some of their pages, you can find information about even patterns like 3:3 and 2:2. Runner’s World (Exactly How to Breathe When You Run So You Can Go Faster and Longer) also talks about 4:4. The author even talks about odd-pattern breathing rhythms like 4:3 and 3:2.

I first heard about odd-pattern breathing in conjunction with the assertion that your body relaxes when you exhale which leaves the runner susceptible to injury when you consistently land on the same foot. Odd-pattern breathing alternates which foot you land on when your body is most relaxed. It’s an assertion that hasn’t been borne out in research. Here’s an article that talks about the practice and the research: How Should I Breathe When I Run?
What no one seems to talk about is transitioning. They talk about finding the right breathing pattern for yourself for different running efforts. But who of us maintains the same level of effort throughout a run? Even starting a given run, it takes a few minutes to warm up. And if you’re a long distance runner like I am, I don’t warm up for 3-5 miles. That’s a lot of minutes of irregular breathing.
I started experimenting with odd-pattern rhythmic breathing for my own reasons. During that period, I found that 3:2 breathing worked for a lot of my running: inhale across 3 footfalls, exhale across 2. It takes some getting used to, but like any habit, once you get used to it, it becomes second nature.
Still, as I asserted, no one maintains consistent effort level through a given running episode, and I still experienced irregular and awkward breathing across the transition to 2:1.
Then it hit me. What about combining both even-pattern and odd-pattern rhythmic breathing across a run? Here’s where I’ve landed.

​By Calvin W.​What motivates you to run? 

I don’t mean what motivates you to be a runner, but what motivates you when you’re facing a specific run?

Runners are cut from different cloths. Some are driven by internal motivators like the need to stick to a specific weekly schedule. Some are driven by external motivators like the desire to spend time with a runner friend.

I became a Wednesday night runner at JRC partly because that day fit my weekly running strategy. As for running with the store group, I did wonder if a group would keep me motivated as a relative newbie. Of course, the fact that it was a group was only part of the thinking process. I wasn’t going to keep running with any group, after all; what if I didn’t like the members? Worse, what if they didn’t like me?

And what about the running route? Then-organizer Chas said it might not be for everyone: 1 mile uphill at the end. Well, the uphill wasn’t that steep and I could dismiss other aspects of the course that I didn’t necessarily care for. The Growlers Group Run still does that route during the winter when we can’t get into Alverthorpe Park. And now I’m just used to it.

There are other factors runners consider: What’s the weather like? Some runners can accept a little rain, but a steady rain might be a no-go. (Comfort is a funny ask for someone who’s rapidly moving her or his feet for distances measured in miles. On the other hand, thunderstorms can be a real safety issue and I did cancel a recent Wednesday run under the threat of them and the visual confirmation of local storm clouds moving in.) Now, what happens if a heavy rain starts mid-run? Most runners I’ve been with will just gut it out. You still have to get back to the starting point.

Here are even more factors: Some people run to take care of their emotional health. Difficult day? Run. Others occasionally have home or work responsibilities that can’t go to someone else to manage. Run another time. Family members have grown pretty independent. Run. Nursing an injury. Maybe not.

People can only manage a finite set of variables when a decision is on the line. If the equation becomes too complex, they’ll just toss out a bunch of the lower level variables in favor of the most important ones. We do it in all aspects of life, not just running.

I’ve started my run in many a downpour when I’m in the middle of a marathon training cycle because I need the workout. Low-level variable: discomfort. Moderate-level variable: relatively short run. High-level variable: Sticking to the training plan. On the other hand, last month, when I wasn’t training, I looked out the window upon a modest rain while on the phone with a running buddy…and I bailed. I just didn’t need the run that badly and the prospect of wet shoes made me give up, even with a definitive running partner. Now if she’d twisted my arm, the scales might have tipped enough for me to give in. But she didn’t and so I didn’t. Low-level variable: getting a workout. Moderate-level variable: An available running partner. High-level variable: discomfort. Notice how discomfort figured into both of those considerations.

A few months ago, I wrote about EPBR Tania telling her kids she was going out for ice cream. Unwilling to face the ribbing she expected from them for running yet again, she used it as an excuse to join GGR secretly for a 3-miler. Low-level variable: the time it took to squeeze in a 30-minute run. Moderate-level variable: the likelihood that her kids would figure out it didn’t take an hour to get ice cream. High-level variable: the availability of other runners. High-level variable: the need to do a few more miles.

The point is that balancing multiple variables can cause a runner to make funny decisions as some jockey for position over others.

Pay some extra attention to the decisions you face, including non-running ones, and see if you agree with me.

-CtCloser (Calvinthe), "Negative split or positive splat" 

Text and photos: Calvin Wang, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

​By Calvin W.A month ago, I had to miss the usual Wednesday night Growlers Group Run from the store because I was in Chicago. Upon my return I learned that BD (Big Dave) had brought his 2 young’uns, Rowan (9) and Maren (7) who each ran some 3.5 miles (See “JRC Growlers Group Run Weds, 6:30 p.m. run, 5/15/2019” email and cross-posted Facebook GGR Group post).

Bless my soul, they showed up again this past Wednesday and here are some of the thoughts that issued from their presence.


To start, Dharma Running’s Eric led us in a standing loving-kindness meditation for Global Running Day. (For the month of June, Dharma Running is changing its Mindful Monday to Watchful Wednesday and joining the Growlers.) We devoted a few minutes of compassionate thoughts about people who are easy to love consecutively to people who elicit neutral emotions. Normally this metta meditation would go the next step to transferring those thoughts to people who aren’t so easy to love thereby helping to cultivate compassion everywhere, but we were going easy for the night. (Presumably we’ll go to the next step in future runs lest we become merely quasi-compassionate people.)

​By Calvin W.As a competitive long-distance runner, you’re constantly trying to ride the fine line between running as fast as your body will permit in a given speed-based effort and bombing out by going too hard. When you’re training for an event, you might not always be working on speed—conditioning your body to tolerate long distances doesn’t generally require speed work—but doing so is an important part of training. Efforts like interval training and tempo work are speed- based and a runner does improve by working on faster. In a race like a marathon, there are times to hold back, but overall you’re hovering around a point that is as fast as you can tolerate, as long as you don’t crash. Makes sense to me. 

​Most people run slower during the second half of a race than the first. Any race that provides interval times will demonstrate that. Consider Chasing the Unicorn in Bucks County, PA. The vast majority of competitors, including the elite runners go out faster during the first half than the second. Maybe some people plan to do that but others go out feeling good and pushing too hard just to start hitting their limits during the second half, hence they’re forced to slow down a little. It’s called positive splitting because the difference between the times of their two halves, second half minus first half, is a positive number. If you’re trying to speed up throughout a race effort, that’s bad. (I know. It’s a little confusing that a positive number could be negative.) When I first started running in 2011, I was always positive splitting: that’s the way my training went and that’s the way my races went. Then came the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. 

Apolo Anton Ohno was favored to become the most medaled Olympian in history. As an Asian watching an athlete of mixed-Asian descent I was pretty excited about his success. But I was also watching his race strategy because I’d already been aware that many racers actually work on negative splitting: they go easy enough to save energy to be in position to win the race, but not so fast that lose energy before they finish. Watch a high-level long-distance competitive effort and you’ll see racers looking pretty relaxed at the beginning of the race and really going all out at the end. And that’s what I saw every time I watched Ohno racing. Even if it meant that he wasn’t going to come in first in a preliminary heat, he would be racing easy. Then he’d turn on just enough heat to qualify for the final and save enough energy to win that race. Using him as inspiration, I started working on negative splitting both my training runs and my races. I have little trouble, now, running negative-split training efforts. That’s positive. 

I have more trouble negative splitting during races. It seems that it’s easy to misjudge the fine line between going fast enough to achieve a personal record (PR), especially after a well-managed taper, and going too fast to sustain and crashing. Failing to fuel properly can result in carb-crashing which results in a very positive split. That’s negative. The trick is to gauge the necessary level just right to be able to sustain a first-half effort that permits a nice fast finish. In my 2 best marathons, I was passing people left and right as I closed in on the finish line. People said things like “Pedal to the medal!” of “Negative split!” as I passed them who were looked like they were seriously positively splitting. Negative. 

The last time I posted to this blog (4/12/2018), I had my fingers crossed for a negative split and a PR. Neither happened. The taper had me feeling well rested and I went out much faster than was sustainable on average. I blew it and lost all my steam. Once you use up all your carbohydrate stores, you can’t recover it and you have to slow down. A lot. 

With that race in mind, I ran another one. For that I kept forcing my speed slower than I felt I was able, to a point just below what I thought my average speed should be for the entire race based on my training. This time it paid off. I both negative split, finishing strong, and I missed my PR by a mere 25 seconds. Considering that I wasn’t trying to PR, that was a great effort.

With both races in mind, I trained hard to increase my speed and smash my PR with a super-fast effort. And I failed again. Same story: My taper had me feeling like I could sprint the whole way and I didn’t listen to my brain telling me that I simply hadn’t trained hard enough to maintain that pace throughout the race.

Maybe for elite athletes like Apolo Anton Ohno it’s easier to know limits and pace more thoughtfully, maybe they don’t always win, but they compete consistently. For me it will always be a sloppy balancing act, sometimes achieving spectacularly and sometimes bombing abysmally.

Still, even abysmal can be a success. I was conditioned enough for my last race that, despite dropping my pace by 2 minutes per mile in the second half for a very negative positive split, I still finished 15 minutes faster than my last bombed effort. That’s positive!

-CtCloser (Calvinthe), "Negative split or positive splat"

Calvin Wang, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

​By Eric W.

​Dharma Running is a work in progress of more than 30 years.  I started reading books about Buddhism and meditation as a teenager, and had my first formal instruction in Zen in 1994.  It wasn’t until after graduate school at Naropa University in Boulder that I got into running, but the timing was perfect as I’d spent the last three years studying Tibetan Buddhism and deepening my meditation practice.  “Mindful running” came naturally to me, even if nobody was calling it that at the time. 

​I should stop here for a minute and point out that nobody can be mindful all the time (well maybe the Buddha and the Dalai Lama, but I don’t believe either of them is much of a runner).  Over my running “career”, I’ve had miles, marathons, and even months when I’ve left the meditation stuff behind.  Everyone needs to pop in the earbuds and zone out to the Who, the Ramones, or the Beastie Boys (I am a child of the 70s and 80s) once in awhile.  But becoming more mindful in daily life can help you know when it’s ok to tune out and when it’s important to tune back in to the body and mind. 

​Over the last ten years I’ve continued to experiment with combining meditation practice with my running, and have seen success in achieving my goals – qualifying for and running the Boston Marathon, hitting new PRs in 5ks, and branching out into ultras with a 50k and 50 mile race in 2018.  The results I’ve had are what led me to get my coaching certification from the Road Runners Club of America and launch Dharma Running.  I’m excited to do what I can to inspire others to run, to practice mindfulness, and to find and spread joy!