Super shoes鈥攎odels with curved carbon-fiber plates embedded in tall stacks of lightweight, hyper-responsive foams鈥攁re now ubiquitous in the road racing scene. And with their performance benefits well established, more and more recreational racers are giving them a try鈥攏ot just in racing, but in training.

There鈥檚 just one problem: the shoes have only been around for a few years, and while there is no doubt that they can make people faster in racing, there is little information on how to use them properly in training.听

Two-time Olympian turned podcaster and NBC commentator Kara Goucher says it鈥檚 a topic she鈥檚 discussed with many people she knows. 鈥淗ow often do we use them? How often do we not?鈥� are common questions Goucher says she hears. 鈥淲e need to be careful, but we also do need to use them in practice because we want to get [the] advantages鈥攂ut we don鈥檛 want to get hurt鈥t鈥檚 so complicated.鈥�

Finding answers begins by understanding how the shoes actually work.听

How Your Body Reacts to Training in Super Shoes

For reasons that are not fully understood by biomechanics researchers, super shoes have a combination of foam and plate that make them function as springs, says Jay Dicharry, a Bend, Oregon, physical therapist, running gait expert, and author of . 鈥淵ou鈥檙e basically making a trampoline.鈥�

This has a number of effects. One is that your brain automatically reacts to the softer impact by reducing the amount of knee flexion upon landing, says Simon Bartold, a sports podiatrist and biomechanist in Adelaide, South Australia. The leg becomes stiffer because the shoe is absorbing the impact. It鈥檚 part of why they are less tiring to run in.听

Another big change, says Dicharry, is that the thick, cushiony foam increases the amount of time you spend in contact with the ground, as the foam contracts, then rebounds. That changes not only impact forces, but also cadence, the location of foot plant for the next stride, and a host of other factors. 鈥淓verything鈥檚 different,鈥� he says.

These changes make the shoes fast, but they don鈥檛 come without side effects, especially when the shoes are used in training. When the shoes first came out, Dicharry says he was working with elite-level athletes who were trying to figure out how to use them in training, 鈥渁nd every single one got hurt.鈥�

More recently, a paper by a group of physicians in reported a possible association between training in super shoes and navicular (mid-foot) stress fractures. Bartold’s podiatrist and runner friend says he鈥檚 been seeing an uptick in hip and lower back injuries since people started training in super shoes. The reason, Bartold suspects, is that the stiffer landing on impact allows what shock isn鈥檛 absorbed by the shoe to travel up the leg, affecting you anywhere from the knee to the lower back. All told, Bartold says it鈥檚 important to remember that these shoes weren鈥檛 designed as trainers. 鈥淭hey were designed as a racing shoe,鈥� he says.听

Principles for Training in Super Shoes

Given the benefits of super shoes, many athletes are going to wear them, even with their associated risks. 鈥淭he results from using super shoes are undeniable,鈥� says Greg McMillan, exercise physiologist and founder and head coach of McMillan Running. 鈥淗as any record not been broken since the shoes came out? All performance-oriented runners should try them.鈥�

The question, then, is how best to use them. 鈥淭he shoes are a tool, like anything else,鈥� says Dathan Ritzenhein, head coach of On Athletics Club in Boulder, Colorado.听

While a lot of this is being invented in real time by coaches working mostly by trial and error, a few basic principles do seem to be emerging.

1. Allow your body to adapt to the new mechanics.

If you are new to super shoes, the first step is simple. You need to allow some time to get used to them, before you wear them in a race. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important to try them in practice to make sure there are no problems,鈥� Ritzenhein says.听

That doesn鈥檛 mean taking them out for a 20-mile training run right out of the box. Use them for part of a run, then take the time to stop and change shoes. How much of the run you use them for is an open question, but if you鈥檙e using them in a speed workout, Dicharry suggests you might want to start with as little as five minutes. 鈥淒o slow, progressive changes,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou need to be careful, because it鈥檚 very, very different.鈥� And, he adds, don鈥檛 even start the process if you have an ongoing acute problem, like a knee or Achilles tendon injury.

2. Most people shouldn’t run in them everyday.

鈥淚 ask my athletes to wear them only in more important and pivotal workouts,鈥� says Paul Greer, coach of the San Diego Track Club. For him, that mostly includes time trials or marathon pace runs, when you want to wear the shoes you plan to race in.听

Mike Caldwell, coach of Greenville Track Club-Elite does something similar. 鈥淥ur athletes use super shoes for both faster training sessions and competition,鈥� he says, noting that these usually add up to 12鈥�15 miles of running per week for elites doing 85鈥�90 miles total鈥攔oughly 15 percent of their training.听

McMillan, on the other hand, knows some runners enjoy using super shoes for every run, and thinks that鈥檚 fine for those who can afford it, have built up their super shoe mileage slowly, and haven鈥檛 experienced any problems. However, the people who seem to be able to get away with this, he says, are the ones whose muscles and mechanics are unusually strong to begin with.

3. When you’re not using super shoes, run in more flexible shoes.

鈥淓asy running in a less cushioned and more flexible shoe is a good counter to long training sessions in super shoes,鈥� Ritzenhein says. Greer adds that if, like his group, you only use super shoes for key workouts and races, you need to accept that your pace will be slower and possibly more tiring when using more conventional shoes. Don鈥檛 let that get in your head, and don鈥檛 try to fight it by turning workouts into races. That鈥檚 a formula for overtraining.

4. Don’t use super shoes to cram in more hard workouts into your calendar.

Yes, there are indications that some pros may be taking advantage of the faster recovery you get from the shoes to do just this, but for most people鈥攁nd many elites鈥攊t’s simply not worth the risk. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 try to increase the frequency of workouts,鈥� Ritzenhein says. 鈥淚 feel the same principles apply to when the body is inflamed after workouts, so we try to not make the training week too dense and instead focus on the next quality session at the right time for recovery.鈥�

5. Use super shoes to do more intense workouts.

Greer does this by having athletes run time trials and marathon-pace runs in their shoes. Ritzenhein takes advantage of the lower impact of super shoes to increase volume in key workouts, such as long threshold runs. In both cases, it鈥檚 increased intensity, but not increased frequency.

6. Avoid the temptation to add excess volume to your overall week.

鈥淏ecause you do have so much foam on your foot, people feel as if they can go longer and harder,鈥� Bartold says. 鈥淭hen you鈥檝e got an increase in training volume which is potentially an issue for overuse injury.鈥澨�

7. Be aware that not everybody will get the same benefit from any given shoe.

鈥淓xperimentation is the only way to know,鈥� McMillan says. In general, he says, runners who are 鈥減ushers鈥濃�攎eaning they are forward-balanced runners often with midfoot strikes and strong hip extension behind their torsos鈥攇et more benefit than 鈥減ullers鈥濃�攖he more shuffler, heel-striking type of runner. 鈥淭his is why one runner may love super shoes and the training partner doesn鈥檛.鈥� It may also be necessary, he says, to take the time (and expense) of experimenting with different brands of shoes, because each super shoe is tuned differently, and what works for one person may not for another.听

8. Don’t ignore the need for supplemental training.

鈥淔eet can get weaker if you use [the shoes] a lot,鈥� Ritzenhein says. 鈥淪pending time on foot and lower leg strengthening is important.鈥� Exactly what such training you do is up to you. It could include something as simple as taking your shoes off once a day to free your feet, or more complex exercises like doing 鈥渁lphabets鈥� in which you attempt to write the alphabet in the air with your big toe. It might be doing barefoot strides on the turf after track workouts. Other options are calf raises, single-leg balancing exercises, or knee-strengthening exercises like wall squats, hamstring curls on a ball, or single-leg hamstring bridges. The bottom line is to be inventive and pay attention to your body. 鈥淚f you want to run in super shoes, you need to put in the work to show up with stable parts,鈥� Dicharry says.

9. Listen closely to your body when recovering from races wearing super shoes.

Prior to super shoes, a rule of thumb was that recovering from races took about one day per mile of race. Runners varied, but a 5K might take three days, a 10K might take a week, a marathon the better part of a month.听

Today, these rules no longer apply. People racing in super shoes seem to bounce off half-marathons like they were 10Ks and marathons like they were half-marathons. Why this is the case is a bit unclear. It is likely that by absorbing some of the vertical forces created by each foot strike, the shoes relieve our leg muscles of having to do the same.听

鈥淚f I told you to jump 100 times on the ground, you might feel a bit sore,鈥� Dicharry says. 鈥淚f I said jump 100 times on a trampoline, the trampoline does all the work. It鈥檚 the same thing with the super shoes.鈥�

Another potentially important cause of faster recovery might be the shoe鈥檚 effect on reducing what Bartold calls vibration, which is the shockwave generated each time your foot hits the ground. It鈥檚 not a good thing if it gets all the way up to your brain, so in normal shoes, your leg muscles contract to stop it. 鈥淚f Nike [and later super shoe manufacturers] happened to stumble on a shoe that [in addition to its intended purposes] significantly reduced vibration, that means you don鈥檛 have to contract your muscles so much, and if you don鈥檛 have to contract your muscles so much, you don鈥檛 get the fatigue,鈥� Bartold says.

That said, the best advice is probably still the oldest: listen to your body, though it may require a more refined 鈥渆ar鈥� than before. That鈥檚 because prior to super shoes, recovery was largely dictated by muscle fatigue. Now, there may be less of that more obvious fatigue, even though the race may still have produced deeper, less obvious effects. 鈥淚f you pushed yourself to the max in a race, internally the same damage is done regardless of what shoes you wear,鈥� Ritzenhein says.听

Dicharry agrees. 鈥淸There is] a central aspect to it,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f you put in a hard race effort, your body鈥檚 centrally tired. Just be honest with yourself and see how you feel. If you鈥檙e in that gray zone, don鈥檛 push it.鈥�

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If you are like most runners, you often fight anxiety and nervousness before races.听

Part of that anxiety is simply that in any race, you are putting yourself to a test in which you might triumph 鈥� or not. But there鈥檚 another issue most of us don鈥檛 easily admit. Racing all-out hurts. 鈥淭he 1500 feels like fire for a few minutes,鈥� says two-time Olympian Molly Huddle. 鈥淭he marathon is more like an hour-long ache.鈥�

Holly Hight, a road runner and novelist with a 16:39 5K PR, says that whenever she stepped to the line she knew, 鈥淚 was going to put myself through hell to see what I wanted on the clock. I felt anxiety over both the pain and performance.鈥�

Or, as I myself often wondered in the middle of races, why do I insist on doing this to myself every few weeks?听

In the middle of the race, it is too late to do anything about it because you are already committed, and you know you aren鈥檛 going to quit. But before the race, however, this type of anxiety can be crippling.听

The Psychology of Pre-Race Anxiety

鈥淔ear is the mind-killer,鈥� Frank Herbert wrote in his acclaimed science fiction novel Dune. 鈥淔ear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.鈥�

, a sports psychologist at California State University, East Bay, puts it a bit more clinically. 鈥淎nxiety and pain have a reciprocal relationship,鈥� he says. 鈥淧ain naturally stimulates fear, and fear makes pain intolerable.鈥�

Mackenzie Havey, author of , assigns part of the blame to a primitive part of the brain called the amygdala, which controls flight-or-fight responses to perceived danger.听

鈥淲hen you have pre-race nerves or pre-race panic, the amygdala hijacks your brain,鈥� she says. 鈥淪tress hormones cascade. You鈥檙e letting your brain wander, unchecked, and what the research says is that when we let our mind wander, it goes to bad places.鈥�

How to Cope and Accept the Pain

So, what do you do about it?

One way to start is to remember that you aren鈥檛 actually damaging yourself with the that comes from intense activity. (Trying to race through an injury is, of course, a different matter.)

Also, realize that the pain is under your own control. To make it go away, all you have to do is back off. Not that you will, but you can.听

During the race, I never had an answer to my 鈥渨hy do I do this to myself?鈥� question, so I postponed it until afterward鈥t which point I was no longer interested because I was already planning my next race.

What this taught me, over the years, is that fear of the pain is something you only experience before it comes. During it, the fear is gone because you are in the moment. Afterwards, you forget it.

One of the best ways to get through Herbert鈥檚 鈥渓ittle death鈥� into the reality of the race, Simons says, is to 鈥渞econceptualize鈥� the pain that you are fearing.

Herbert put it this way: 鈥淚 will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.鈥�

Havey puts it in terms of 鈥渁ffect labeling鈥� 鈥� recognize your anxiety and acknowledge it. 鈥淚 think of it as putting a Post-It note on the thought and letting it go,鈥� she says. Then, redirect your mind to the present, using whatever tools works best for you, whether they be meditation, breath control, or something different. 鈥淎nything to anchor your mind to the present,鈥� she says.

It鈥檚 a process I鈥檝e used in waiting for everything from races to dental appointments to surgery. Something unpleasant is going to happen in the future, but it is not happening now.听

But ultimately, postponing the fear may only get you so far. That鈥檚 where reconceptualizing comes into play.

It begins, Simons says, by changing your mental language. Instead of thinking in terms of 鈥減ain,鈥� which is inherently frightening, he says, think in terms of discomfort or something similarly 鈥渕ore neutral.鈥�

Also important is to realize that you really aren鈥檛 facing torture in a Gestapo holding cell: the pain you are fearing is something you鈥檝e entered into voluntarily and chosen to encounter. 鈥淪ome of the reconceptualization is simply recognizing the relative transience of the [discomfort] and juxtaposing it with [the] meaningful, wondrous, and fulfilling parts of the experience,鈥� he says.

In fact, it鈥檚 even possible to reconceptualize the pain into something positive. 鈥淢y philosophy has been to embrace the fact that it鈥檚 going to hurt,鈥� says Ben Rosario, head coach of HOKA鈥檚 Northern Arizona Elite program. 鈥淢ake the pain the best part, the part you鈥檙e looking forward to most,鈥� he says.

Huddle agrees. 鈥淚 try to reframe it as leaning into and embracing the parts that hurt,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ecause [that鈥檚] usually when the 鈥榬acing鈥� happens, which is the fun part, and the deciding factor of the race.鈥� Also, she notes, 鈥淚鈥檓 getting the most out of myself if it hurts.鈥�

Ultimately, says Simons, the goal is to convert the pain you fear into 鈥渋nformation,鈥� rather than a 鈥渟cary 鈥榯hreat鈥� of something awful.鈥�

This, he says, allows you to be 鈥渁ction-oriented鈥� and feel more in control, rather than at the mercy of external forces.听

鈥淭his is also where your strategy can be extended to, 鈥榃hat can be done right now?鈥欌�� he says. And the shift from fear to that mindset, he says, 鈥渋s almost always a winner.鈥�

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Years ago, on a vacation in Scotland, I ran a hill climb as part of a small-town games day in the Highlands. Competitors charged 2,100 feet up to the top of a looming peak, then came flying back down, all in about three and a half miles, much of it off-trail.

I did fine on the ascent, but I was terrible on the descent. Parts of the return听cut through shin-high bracken, where I simply couldn鈥檛 see what I was stepping on. I had no idea how the others could run so confidently through that stuff without courting a nasty wipeout. At the finish, the local runners were charitable. 鈥淵ou have the wrong shoes,鈥� they told me.

Today I know that these experienced hill racers didn鈥檛 just have better off-trail shoes. They also had superbly trained proprioception.

Proprioception is sometimes called the sixth sense: the body鈥檚 awareness of its location and movement in space. Proprioception is what enables you to touch your finger to your nose with your eyes closed, or walk without watching your feet, or catch a ball without looking at your hand. 鈥淚t seems magic,鈥� says Mike Young, a coach and kinesiologist at Athletic Lab in North Carolina, 鈥渂ut there are sensors in the body that can detect changes in the length, speed of movement, and stretch in muscles, tendons, and joints. Even the skin is thought to have some sense of this.鈥�

In the case of the Scottish hill runners, good proprioception was what enabled them to sense how their feet were interacting with an unseen surface and adjust quickly to tilted terrain or roots and rocks. But it鈥檚 not merely important for people trying to run downhill through dense overgrowth. It鈥檚 important to everyone from marathoners to track speedsters.

The Benefits of a Well-Tuned Response

鈥淓very time your听foot hits the ground, it has to be able to receive feedback,鈥� says Ryan Green, a kinesiologist and athletic trainer at Southeastern Louisiana University. Proprioceptors in our feet send information about their position and the forces they encounter to the brain, which processes them and tells the muscles in our feet how to react鈥攁utomatically, within a matter of milliseconds.

When properly honed, this process translates not only to a reduced risk of tripping but also increased power and speed. Good proprioception enables rapid control over the pliability of our feet, allowing them and connected听tendons in our legs to absorb impact energy and rebound perfectly for the next stride. Well-tuned proprioception makes us efficient, and in running, efficiency means greater speed and endurance.

鈥淭hink of a tennis racket,鈥� Green says. 鈥淚f the strings are loose, you鈥檒l have to work incredibly hard to make the ball go. But if you have a new racket听that鈥檚 been well strung, you don鈥檛 have to swing quite as hard.鈥�

Good proprioception also helps reduce the risk of injuries, not just by making you more responsive to an incipient misstep, but because the better we can control our motions, the less likely we are to make errors that eventually add up to an overuse injury. Quick reactions enable you to use small muscles in your feet and ankles to correct balance before you get too far out of line and have to engage big, propulsive muscles for stability, a task they are ill-suited for and which quickly overtaxes them.

Amy Begley, elite coach of the Atlanta Track Club, says, 鈥淭he stronger and more efficient the feet are, the less energy is wasted trying to stabilize each step.鈥�

Why You Need to Practice Proprioception

To some extent, good proprioception is something we are born with, like good eyesight or good hearing. But in most runners, proprioception is probably not as well honed as it could be. There鈥檚 a reason those Scottish hill runners beat me so easily: they鈥檇 been practicing on rough, unseen surfaces and improving听their skill at sensing and reacting.

Also, the proprioception most runners have today is probably not as good as what they had in their youth, says Matt Walsh, a physical therapist and strength and conditioning coach in Oregon.

That鈥檚 because proprioceptors鈥攖he sensors that make it work鈥攁re largely associated with joints and connective tissues. 鈥淎ny time there is injury to a joint or damage to a ligament [or tendon], you have altered proprioception and compensatory changes,鈥� Walsh says.

According to Walsh, an ankle sprain is a classic example. From the moment of the initial twist, you alter your movement to avoid pain. Eventually, the pain recedes, but the alteration has become a habit without you realizing that you鈥檝e changed your movement patterns. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 know where your foot is in space,鈥� he says. Your stride is inefficient and possibly liable to producing new injuries down the pike.

Luckily, this isn鈥檛 irreversible. I learned this a few years ago when I had a hip replacement. In my first physical-therapy visit, I was asked to lay on my stomach and lift my foot toward my butt. It was a massive fail. My foot flopped all over the place, like a fish out of water. Unable to see it, I had close to zero control over its motion.

The reason, the therapist told me, was because a lot of proprioceptors related to that movement had been contained in the hip joint, which was听now replaced by unfeeling titanium and ceramic. The good news was that the second try was better. 鈥淵ou have other proprioceptors that can make up for it,鈥� he said. Today when I try this exercise, I can鈥檛 tell the difference between the hip-replacement leg and the other. Both work equally well.

How to Train Your Control

Whether you鈥檙e recovering from an injury or simply honing your athletic skill, proprioception can be improved with training. For runners who want to improve foot and leg control, Young, Walsh, Begley, and Green all recommend the same basic types of exercises: ones that challenge your balance on an unstable surface or that force you to react, off-balance, while on a more stable platform.

You don鈥檛 have to perform endless drills to see substantial benefits, Young says. A consistent five to ten minutes of work听two or three times a week is enough to make a difference, and it鈥檚 a lot better than a 30-minute workout plan that only happens听in the imagination.

The simplest exercise is to close your eyes and stand on one foot. The proprioceptors in your feet will collaborate with your inner ear to help your brain know if you are swaying and determine what to do to keep yourself balanced. You鈥檒l only be able to hold it for a few seconds at first but should be able to work up to 10 to 15 seconds at a time. Aim for a total of around a minute per leg during each session.

Young says you can try drills that involve skipping, or hurdle-mobility work, or any exercises that require one-legged balance. One option is called : first stand on one leg, with the other knee raised high and your arms positioned like a sprinter in mid-stance, then bend over and extend the free foot behind you as you touch your hand to the ground. You can also do single-leg squats or single-leg Romanian deadlifts if you鈥檙e able to execute them stably, keeping your posture tall and your knees aligned over your feet, not drifting in or out.

Other options include skipping sideways up a hill or practicing a skating motion on the flats, jumping side to side as you move forward. When those become easy, Walsh says, make them more difficult by raising your arms over your head, possibly holding a small weight.

A more advanced option, Young suggests, is to stand on a wobble board. When you鈥檝e mastered that, have someone throw you a medicine ball鈥攆irst with advance warning, then more unpredictably. If a medicine ball is too heavy, try something simpler. Walsh uses small sandbags like听juggling balls or Hacky Sacks.

The bottom line is be creative in introducing balance challenges, and practice them regularly. 鈥淵ou spend a lot of time in a single-leg stance during running,鈥� Begley says. 鈥淪o this type of training is a must.鈥�

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It used to be called the female athlete听triad: a condition characterized by lost menstrual periods, a decline in bone density, and stress fractures resulting from taking in too few calories. For years, the condition was regarded as a concern only for women鈥�and only those who lost their periods. Women who retained their periods weren鈥檛 considered at risk, and men, whose hormone systems are different, were thought to be unaffected.

In 2014,听after an extensive review of the medical literature, the International Olympic Committee the condition RED-S (relative energy deficiency in sport) and expanded the definition to recognize that the basic problem is consuming too few calories to support everything your body needs to do鈥攁 problem that is broader than the traditional female triad and can affect men as well as women.

When it鈥檚 not actively training, the body鈥檚 energy balance is skewed heavily toward things other than exercise. The brain needs about 20 percent of the average person鈥檚 overall caloric intake. The liver needs about the same amount. Lesser amounts go to the heart, kidneys, and other organs required to keep you alive and functioning. For nonathletes, the muscles are relatively minor contenders in this competition, requiring a mere .

For athletes, of course, the muscle demands are much higher. But as long as you eat enough, everything stays in balance. The problem comes if you try to lose weight or simply try too hard to retain a lean body mass. When that happens, says Lewis Halsey, an environmental physiologist at the University of Roehampton, London, you encounter a mysterious aspect of human physiology known as . 鈥淧ut simply,鈥� he says, 鈥渙ur bodies partially compensate by cutting energy spent on other things.鈥�

We are designed to survive; when faced with what is perceived as starvation, our bodies will find ways to offset it. This compensation, Halsey says, includes 鈥渟hutting down in a desperate attempt to limit how far negative you go.鈥� That is RED-S in a nutshell.

The focus was initially on women because women had an obvious sign in the loss of their periods, says Nicky Keay, an exercise endocrinologist at University College London and Durham University. 鈥淲e now have clear evidence that men should pay attention.鈥�

In , for example, Keay examined 50 competitive male cyclists: four competing internationally, 20 nationally, and the rest at the regional level. She then gave them a questionnaire and a clinical office visit, designed to identify those whose eating habits were restrictive enough to put them in a category she described as 鈥渓ow energy availability.鈥� This evaluation was cycling-specific, but the basic questions were ones that other athletes can also relate to, such as average weekly training volume (including cross-training), how often they trained in a fasted state, history of intentional weight loss, how they fueled for workouts lasting more than an hour, what they ate afterward, and other questions about training and diet.

The results were eye-popping. Those whose training and dietary patterns appeared to be insufficient had substantially lower bone density and testosterone than would be expected for men of their age. There was also an effect on athletic performance. 鈥淭hose athletes judged to be in low energy availability didn鈥檛 do as well,鈥� Keay says. In 60-minute time trials comparing average power output鈥攃alculated in watts per kilogram, which theoretically would give an advantage to lighter cyclists鈥攖he athletes showing signs of RED-S scored worse.

Kathy Butler, the coach of Run Boulder Athletic Club and the head of USA Track and Field coaching instruction, says that RED-S can harm health in many other wide-ranging ways beyond reduced bone mineral density, including negative effects on the immune system, heart, mood, coordination, glycogen supply, and thyroid level. Athletes should also note that protein synthesis takes energy. If that鈥檚 in short supply, the body may not only be unable to rebuild stronger after a workout, but may also struggle to recover at all. One of the possible effects of RED-S, Butler says, is a reduction in muscle strength.

These findings are not restricted to top competitors, says Keay. 鈥淎 lot of people have the perception that only elite athletes get this,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut I would say it鈥檚 more like non-elite aspiring amateurs.鈥� Elites are susceptible but often surrounded by teams of doctors, coaches, nutritionists, and other experts who can spot incipient problems. 鈥淲hereas if you鈥檙e a well-intentioned amateur, you don鈥檛 have the backup, so it鈥檚 easy to misjudge things,鈥� Keay says.

In male athletes, recognizing the signs of RED-S can be a lot more difficult than it is for women. It鈥檚 usually diagnosed via a battery of blood tests, but there are also symptoms athletes can recognize on their own. Fatigue not explained by something obvious, like lack of sleep or increased stress, is an important marker, Butler says, as are repeated injuries or illnesses. Keay adds low libido to the list, or just a general lack of energy and enthusiasm.听Poor sleep and digestive troubles may also be signs of RED-S.

While a restricted diet is the cause of RED-S, it isn鈥檛 necessarily linked to being too thin, Keay says. People with RED-S may not look underweight and may not seem to have a problem.

The solution, she says, is to trust that millions of years of evolution have programmed your body to perform at its best if you give it what it needs. If you artificially restrict it in an effort to attain some hypothetical ideal racing weight, 鈥渢he body will get scared,鈥� Keay says. It will go into energy-saving mode, and both your overall health and your performance will suffer.

Butler says the solution may be as simple as the oft-stated advice to consume about 300 calories鈥� worth of food or drink as soon as possible after training. have indicated that waiting too long between meals or snacks can put your body into an off-and-on starvation mode it would not otherwise encounter. Simply changing the timing of when you eat to ensure that you get what you need when you need it may be all it takes to kick it out of that mode and into a healthy state.

It鈥檚 important not to let this post-training fuel replace your normal mealtime intake. If you do that, your total calories may still be too low. And, Butler points out, failing to refuel by as little as 300 calories a day is the equivalent of losing an entire month鈥檚 worth of food over the course of a year.

If all of that seems somewhat vague and complex, it is. Nutritional problems are seldom simple. What is simple is the bottom line: men are just as much at risk of having energy-deficiency issues as women, even if the symptoms aren鈥檛 as obvious. If your health, performance, mood, or overall energy is in decline and you鈥檙e strongly focused on weight or diet, the answer may be that you have overly restricted calories and need to relax. Shift your eating patterns to get a snack soon after workouts, or add an energy bar or two to your normal diet. And if you鈥檙e not sure how best to do that, consult a nutritionist.

The post Men, Are You Eating Enough to Fuel Your Exercise? appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Marathoners generally don鈥檛 lose any sleep over how fast they can sprint, nor do they spend time developing their top-end speed. But Veronique Billat, a French exercise physiologist and author of 听argues that marathoners also need to have a sprint gear, even if they don鈥檛 use it in their races.

Part of what helps give marathoners the endurance they need, she says, can be described by a concept听exercise physiologists call听a 鈥�speed reserve.鈥� During the race, marathoners听are never running close to their all-out velocity. The more speed they have in reserve, the better and more efficiently they can run at the slower pace of the marathon. In fact, Billat says, the ideal marathoner should have听about a 50 percent reserve鈥攎eaning a maximum sprint speed of about twice their marathon pace.

She isn鈥檛 talking about 100-meter–dash speed. If you do the math, you鈥檒l find that marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge averaged 17.4 seconds each 100 meters while covering 26.2 miles in 2:01:39. 听Cut that in half, and you get 8.7 seconds. If Kipchoge could actually do that, we鈥檇 call him Eliud Bolt and give him records in both the marathon and the 100 meters. But by Billat鈥檚 standards, the 100 is a paced run, with even the world鈥檚 best performers hitting maximum speed fairly early on and then hanging on for dear life as fatigue gradually makes them slow. What she鈥檚 talking about is peak, instantaneous speed鈥攖he fastest pace you can reach after a brief, all-out acceleration.

To measure this, says Jonathan Edwards, a Florida-based researcher who has watched the process, Billat equipped runners with high-tech GPS monitors and accelerometers capable of capturing听their movements as often as 50,000 times per second. Using that, he says, Billat could detect their top speed at the brief moment before it begins to decay. Her two-to-one ratio comes from testing and comparing this top speed with the race pace of sub-2:30 male marathoners.

Sadly, you can鈥檛 measure your top speed without the type of expensive laboratory equipment Billat uses. Furthermore, even if you could capture your absolute top speed, Billat鈥檚 ratio is meant to be more of a guideline than a rule, so you can鈥檛 predict your marathon time using it. The clear takeaway, however, is that in order to run your best marathon, it鈥檚 useful to be able to run really fast鈥攊f only very briefly鈥攁nd it鈥檚 worth your while to spend some training time building that speed.

Recruit All Your Muscles

Physiologically, training your sprint speed helps build two processes that are听important at longer distances. One is what exercise physiologists term neuromuscular recruitment, in which the brain learns to employ more muscle fibers and cycle them in and out of use as efficiently as possible.

The effect is something like building a ladder鈥攜ou need a strong step at each level in order to climb to the next one. Bob Williams, a coach who trained under Bill Bowerman, says that to run a solid marathon, you have to be 10K or 5K fit. 鈥淵ou have to have the reserve to be able to make the rhythm of running your marathon pace feel really good,鈥� he says. But to have that at the 5K or 10K distance, you need the reserve to be able to do a decent 3K. Williams points out that who placed fourth in the 1972 Olympic Marathon, could run close to four minutes for the mile.

If you think that鈥檚 ancient history, from a period before runners started specializing, think again. Sara Hall, who recently clocked a marathon finish of 2:20:32 and , once had a 1,500-meter time of 4:08.55 in her arsenal. Speed at the short distances builds efficiency that carries up the ladder to the longer ones.

Be a Better Lactate Shuttler

The type of training it takes to build a speed reserve also helps develop your lactate shuttle. Lactate shuttle is the process by which your body moves lactate from hard-working muscle cells in the lower body听into your bloodstream, where it can be taken up by cells in the heart, brain, liver, and arms,听sparing precious glycogen for use in the all-important legs.

There are many ways to boost this process, but Christine Brooks, a sports scientist at the University of Florida who develops coaching curricula for USA Track and Field (USATF), says it鈥檚 dependent on two transporter molecules in the cell membranes, called MCT1 and MCT4.

MCT1 allows cells to import lactate from the bloodstream in order to make their best use of it. It鈥檚 built by endurance running, Brooks says. MCT4 does the reverse: it strengthens the lactate shuttle by helping the hardest-working cells to export lactate into the blood and, in the process, reduces their fatigue. MCT4 is built by running fast enough that the muscle cells in your legs really want to get rid of the lactate accumulation.

Touch Top Speed

To train marathoners鈥� speed reserve, coaches tend not to worry about the exact pace but instead focus on getting runners to regularly hit their top gears.

鈥淲e believe in 鈥榯ouching speed鈥� throughout our training cycles,鈥� says Mike Caldwell, coach of the ASICS Greenville Track Club-Elite. 鈥淥ur marathon training is not too different than our regular distance training for 8K and upward, so incorporating some faster work is typical.鈥�

Caldwell likes 100-meter strides鈥攔un fast but not all-out鈥攁 few times per week. Or he鈥檒l tack on听five to eight 200-meter cutdowns (each run progressively faster) after moderate-effort tempo runs.

As a coach of adults from beginners to Olympic Trials qualifiers, I use something similar. About once a week I鈥檒l add two to six 200-meter repeats, run at a mile pace or a bit faster, to the end of a longer-interval workout. Or I鈥檒l have runners do two to four 150-meter sprints, run at roughly an 800-meter pace, after a tempo-style workout.

Williams likes 30-meter flies, a sprinter drill that can benefit distance runners as well, in which you steadily accelerate for about 30 meters, hit maximum pace for 30 meters, and then decelerate gradually. He suggests three to four of them, resting for at least three minutes between each. 鈥淵ou have to have lots of recovery,鈥� he says. And that鈥檚 not something you tack on at the end of another workout. You can do some easy miles, he says, 鈥渂ut that鈥檚 all the intensity you do that day.鈥�

Scott Christensen, a USATF endurance instructor and distance coach, is also a fan of the flying-thirties workout. 鈥淚t is good training for the speed, strength, flexibility, and coordination that define athleticism,鈥� he says. You only need to do it once every two weeks, he adds, on a day when everything else is easy.

There is no magic formula for top-speed training. Find what works for you to feel fast without undue stress. Then time the result, or get a friend to do it for you, and track changes in your sprint speed鈥攚hether at 200鈥檚, 150鈥檚, 100鈥檚, or 30–meter听flies. Christensen recommends tracking your progression in both top-speed and marathon pace, noting how they correlate, and working to improve your speed reserve.

There are, however, a couple of caveats.

One is that this type of speedwork is still speedwork. When constructing a workout that includes top speed, you need to reduce the volume of the other parts in order not to overtax yourself. You can鈥檛 stick 200-meter repeats on at the end of a set of 1,200鈥檚 without dropping at least one of the 1,200鈥檚 to make room for them. Even four sets of 150 meters听is taxing enough that it鈥檚 wise to reduce the rest of the workout鈥檚 volume by 1,000 meters or so.

Another is that, of course, the marathon remains an endurance event. Sprint work is useful to improve your speed reserve, but it鈥檚 no substitute for the endurance work that forms the heart of marathon training, and it should only be a fairly small fraction of your overall work.

And finally, masters runners shouldn鈥檛 expect to have the same amount of speed reserve as they did when they were younger. That鈥檚 because, as you age, your sprint speed fades faster than your endurance, shrinking your reserve, Brooks says. But that doesn鈥檛 mean masters runners should throw in the towel on speed. Rather, she says, they can and should continue to touch their top speed regularly, whatever pace that may be. 鈥淚鈥檓 73,鈥� Brooks says. 鈥淚 know I can鈥檛 do what I used to do. Do the best you can.鈥�

The post Why Marathoners Need to Build Their Sprint Speed appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Numerous studies have shown that, contrary to what your sedentary friends may sometimes argue, running does not cause arthritis. New research shows, in fact, that running may actually help strengthen your joints against future wear and tear, says Jean-Francois Esculier, leader of research and development for The Running Clinic (headquartered near Montreal, Canada) and a medical professor at the University of British Columbia.听

In a in Sports Medicine, Esculier鈥檚 team examined 43 studies that had used MRI to measure the effect of running on cartilage.听

One major finding of these studies, he says, was that the impact from running squeezes water out of cartilage and into the underlying bone. That means that an MRI taken immediately after running will show a decrease in cartilage thickness.听

So, Esculier says, 鈥淚f you want to say running is bad, you can show a study that shows it reduces the thickness of the cartilage.鈥�

But the effect is transient and harmless, he says, because the moment you finish your run, the cartilage begins to reabsorb water and expand back to normal. 鈥淚t only takes an hour,鈥� he says.听

In fact, he says, running may actually be beneficial.听

Historically, Esculier says, doctors, researchers, and runners were taught that cartilage simply is what it is, and won鈥檛 respond to training.听

鈥淏ut we now know that cartilage can adapt,鈥� he says. 鈥淓ven with novice runners, after only 10 weeks, you see changes in cartilage so that it can actually tolerate more load.鈥�

What鈥檚 happening, he says, is a side-effect of having fluid squeezed out of the cartilage into the underlying bone. When it comes back, he says, it brings with it nutrients that feed the cartilage and make it stronger.听

鈥淪o not only is running not bad for your joints, it鈥檚 actually good for your joints,鈥� he says.

It isn鈥檛 just beginners whose joints can strengthen with use. Studies of more experienced runners, he says, suggest that they have developed cartilage that is more resistant to the type of impacts seen in running than that of non-runners.

One of the more dramatic studies looked at competitors in the TransEurope FootRace, a 4,486-kilometer mountain run (2,787 miles) that went from Sicily to northern Scandinavia in 64 days. A team of scientists followed the runners, using a portable MRI to assess them every 900 kilometers or so. Amazingly, Esculier says, they found not only that the competitors didn鈥檛 have cartilage damage, but that their cartilage adapted during the race.听

鈥淪o, even with highly experienced trail runners and lots of volume, we shouldn鈥檛 be scared, because the body can adapt very well,鈥� he says.

Cartilage Strengthening Caveats

There are, of course, caveats for those whose joints are already damaged, whether by traumatic injury or bad genetics.

The biggest caveat is that there is very little research on what people with existing arthritis should or shouldn’t do. 鈥淥ur group is the only group so far that has conducted a study in people with arthritis,鈥� Esculier says. And even that research is only preliminary, with final results not expected for several years.听

Meanwhile, his preliminary work has examined women runners in their mid-fifties, some with arthritic knees and some without, using MRI to see how their cartilage reacts and recovers. The main finding so far Esculier says, is that you need to listen to your body. If it hurts, adjust your recovery time accordingly.听

What do 鈥渋f it hurts鈥� and 鈥渁djust your recovery time accordingly鈥� mean? Unfortunately, there鈥檚 no easy answer. Physical therapist Jay Dicharry says that you can run if pain stays between a 1 to 3 on a 10-point scale, and you have zero increase in swelling, and no limp. “You can try that for a few weeks and then bump up slightly,” he says “And then maybe add in some speed or hills run and see how it does.” But you still need to be aware of situations that will put undue stress on your joints. Dicharry says, for example, “I’d for sure limit downhill running in someone with advanced or even moderate osteoarthritis until they earn the joint control needed to ensure the loads on the knee are inside the healthy range.”

Laura Matesen Ko, an orthopedic surgeon and triathlete from Seattle, Washington, says that she has often seen runners, cyclists, 鈥渁nd even stair-climbing champions鈥� who have managed not just to keep going, but to slow the progression of their arthritis enough to retard what would normally be the need for a hip or knee replacement.听 She too tells them to listen to their bodies, vague as that recommendation might seem. If your body says 鈥渕aybe not today,鈥� you really need to listen to it.

Cartilage Case Studies

I myself have a cartilage 鈥渄efect鈥� in one knee 鈥� basically a divot scooped out by factors related to a congenital predisposition to arthritis. The orthopedist who discovered it advised me to limit my running.听

I followed that advice for a decade, but recently have been gradually 鈥ith very little pain.

Lots of factors played into my decision to do that, but one was the experience of Jen Seidel, a masters runner from West Linn, Oregon, who I鈥檝e long coached.听

Several years ago, she too was diagnosed with an arthritic knee (although not as bad as mine). 鈥淲hen I was first diagnosed,鈥� she says, 鈥渋t was questionable whether I could or would be able to run again.鈥� Now, she鈥檚 running 50 miles a week, pain-free.听

Even she is surprised by this. But conscientious physical therapy, a very slow return to running, and quite probably the type of cartilage rebuilding described by Esculier paid off. 鈥淚 have been patient, gradually inching back up the miles,鈥� she says, 鈥渁nd my body has responded and adapted extremely well.鈥澨�

But if it doesn鈥檛 hurt, you appear to be good to go, Esculier says. 鈥淭here are a lot of people who have osteoarthritis on imaging, but don鈥檛 have symptoms,鈥� he says. 鈥淚n that case, I don鈥檛 think I would do anything different [than for a person with a normal knee].鈥澨�

Seibel鈥檚 experience backs up the importance of honestly assessing how you feel. 鈥淏efore my injury,鈥� she says, 鈥淚 was a bit careless and ignored my body鈥檚 warnings regarding my knee. Now I pay very close attention.鈥�

Supporting Strength

Matsen Ko adds that it鈥檚 also important to work on strengthening the muscles (or any other arthritic joint). Dicharry is adamant on this point as a prerequisite for creating the conditions for cartilage rebuilding.

“You need to find out what type of pain-free range exists, and then work to use your pain-free range as a way to compress/decompress/glide your surfaces,” he says. “That may be through . It may be through more . And once a joint can tolerate the positions it will see with running, you need to increase the speed of loading to ensure the fast loading times seen in running are ok. And then, yes…..you can compress/decompress/glide joints through running.”

Matsen Ko adds, it might help to prioritize your running to emphasize quality, rather than quantity. 鈥淒o the track and tempo work,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ut perhaps do the 鈥榡unk miles鈥� on an elliptical or in the pool, instead of in running shoes.鈥�

To help the strengthening process work, Esculier adds, you should also go sparingly on ibuprofen or other anti-inflammatory medications. The inflammation that causes pain is part of what signals the body to repair, rebuild, and (hopefully) strengthen, so shutting it off prematurely also shuts down the strengthening process.

Not that any of this is a guarantee of an outcome like Seibel鈥檚. Esculier鈥檚 larger follow-up study won鈥檛 be finished for another 3-4 years.听

But, he told me, 鈥淚f you ask me clinically what I would do with patients like you, I鈥檇 tell them they have two choices.鈥� One is to do as my orthopedist suggested and limit running as much as possible. The other is to cautiously see what you can do, in the hope of not only having a bit of running fun, but making the remaining cartilage stronger.听

鈥淲e know your cartilage can still adapt,鈥� Esculier says. 鈥淢y view is that you will likely delay the progression of that osteoarthritis by stimulating it.鈥澨�

The post No, Running Doesn’t Wear Down Your Cartilage. It Strengthens Your Joints. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Fall marathons are looming, and tens of thousands of runners are finally preparing to toe the line to see just what they can do after all these months of waiting. A big piece of success lies in the final stages of preparation where you execute the marathon taper, a stage of training when you back off and try to walk the tightrope between going into the race well-rested, but not so rested that you go stale.

Going stale occasionally happens, but most runners err in the opposite direction by not trusting the marathon taper process, trying to do too much when they should be resting. It鈥檚 a mistake that can make the difference between a PR and a disappointment.

Luckily, there are a few basic principles you can remember when the fears we all face about being lazy or missing training tempt you to do too much.

5 Facts About the Marathon Taper

1. Tapering works.

A 2007 听led by Laurent Bosquet, then at the University of Montreal, Canada, found that a taper can speed you up by more than 5.6 percent. That鈥檚 the difference between a 3:20 marathon and a 3:31 marathon. Note, however, that 5.6 percent benefit is an extreme case. You shouldn’t expect to get that much, but trust that proper tapering will result in a better time.

2. In the final days, extra training won鈥檛 help.

The hay is in the barn and your goal is to rest, while not letting your 鈥渢raining鈥� hay go moldy. It鈥檚 too late to try to make up for lost training earlier in your training cycle, and if you try to do that, all you can do is to blow your taper鈥nd with it, your race.

3. The ideal taper comes from reducing volume, but not intensity.

You need to do some speedwork during the taper in order to keep all your energy and neuromuscular systems sharp. This means a mix of everything from strides to aerobic work. What you don鈥檛 need is to push any of these to the max.

4. It works best by cutting down progressively, not all at once.

Bosquet鈥檚 paper found that the ideal taper eventually cut down total volume by 40-60 percent by the final week, including speed workouts. In the ideal taper, you run as many days a week as you normally do (maybe with one or two extra, judiciously timed, rest days), but reduce volume in everything from workouts to long runs, as well as your weekly total mileage.

5. Don鈥檛 sweat it if you make minor errors.

鈥淟et鈥檚 say you鈥檙e scheduled to go six miles at 7:00 pace,鈥� says Thom Hunt, a former American 10K red-holder who now coaches at Cuyamaca College in San Diego. 鈥淚f you run 6陆 at 6:45, you鈥檙e not going to blow the whole thing.鈥� Hunt was talking specifically about but the same applies to the marathon. In fact, it probably doesn鈥檛 matter all that much if you get lost on what鈥檚 supposed to be an 8-mile run ten days before the race and accidentally wind up running, say, 11 miles. The stress of fretting about the error will probably cost you more than the error itself.

The Four-Week Marathon Taper

You won鈥檛 find much talk in the literature about tapers longer than 2-3 weeks. That’s largely, Bosquet says, because it鈥檚 hard to get enough runners to consent to tapers longer than 14 days to conduct a meaningful study.

But a 1996 French study of swimmers found benefits from a , something I find very interesting because I鈥檝e long prescribed a four-week marathon taper.

Not that it鈥檚 what most people conventionally think of as a taper, because it begins, four weeks out, with an extremely tough workout. It then returns to normal baseline in volume with reduced intensity for one week, followed by a 21-day progressive taper. If you prefer, you could think of it as a final push, followed by a taper.

Here鈥檚 how the four-week marathon taper works:

鈥� 28-29 Days Before the Race

On Saturday, even if the race is on Sunday, because there鈥檚 another workout next Tuesday, and you need at least three days to recover, do a long run of 20鈥�22 miles, finishing with 13鈥�18 miles at marathon pace. That鈥檚 a wide range, I realize; being more specific depends on your experience. For a seasoned marathoner doing at least 70 miles per week on average over the past few months, hold the marathon pace part for 16鈥�18 miles. For lower-mileage runners and new marathoners, drop down to 13. This is not only a major workout, but a critical test of your marathon goal. If you can鈥檛 hit your target pace, it probably needs to be adjusted.

鈥� 27-21 Days Before the Race

Workout days:

Tuesday: Do a normal speedwork session, IF you’re recovered from the long/fast run 3 days ago. If sore or fatigued, reduce intensity and or volume.

Friday: Do a tempo run. Normal volume.

Sunday: Go long, reducing intensity to easy. Do 20-22 miles max. The marathon is now 20-21 days away.

Total weekly volume: Normal.

鈥� 20-14 Days Before the Race

Workout days:

Tuesday: Normal speed workout.

Friday: Tempo. Slightly reduced volume (maybe by 10-15 percent).

Sunday: 16 miles, ending with 50-60 percent as many marathon-pace miles as two weeks ago. This should not be super-hard.

Total weekly volume: 10 percent below normal.

鈥� 13-7 Days Before the Race

Workout days:

Tuesday: Normal workout adjusted to about 2/3 of听 total volume.

Friday: Tempo. Reduced to about half of normal volume.

Sunday: 10-12 easy.

Total weekly volume: At least 20 percent below normal.

鈥� Final week (assuming Sunday race)

Workout days:

Tuesday: 6-8 x 600m @ tempo pace (no faster than 12K pace) with 20-25 sec recovery between reps. Plus, up to 4 x 150m, fast but relaxed. Stop while still turning over quickly without stress.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: Two days easy. Take one day off.

Saturday: 20鈥�30 min. easy, with 4 x 100m strides. 20 minutes is enough for most runners to feel warmed up and striding smoothly.

Sunday: Race.

Total weekly volume: For the last 7 days before the race (counting the long run last Sunday), 50 percent of normal.

Other Tapers

Not that this is the only way to do it. Hunt says, 鈥淚f there was one way, we would have had a form years ago about what to do, and just follow that.鈥� But even top runners with the best coaching follow a variety of tapering patterns.听

Lindsey Scherf, for example, who holds the world record for the indoor marathon, does a quite different taper, though the overall effect is remarkably similar. Rather than tapering progressively from 2鈥�3 weeks out, she finds that she鈥檚 done best by taking the big drop in mileage (50 percent) three weeks ahead of the race, then returning to 85 percent of normal for the remaining two weeks. 鈥淚 inject rest, but then return to a non-overtraining routine where I know I鈥檓 in a good rhythm,鈥� she says.

The real key, Hunt says, is to allow your body to rest and be physically (and mentally) relaxed, focused, and ready to go on race day. To this end, he stresses that it鈥檚 important to make sure that your final long run isn鈥檛 too long. 鈥淵ou need to keep it short enough that you鈥檙e not breaking down the body.鈥�

And, he says, the key thing is to trust the processes: 鈥淕etting a 100 mile per week runner to go down to half of that mentally freaks them out.鈥澨� Cutting back from 50s to 20s is no less stressful.

鈥淓ach athlete is different,鈥� Hunt says. 鈥淏ut you still have to follow the general physiological principles.鈥�

Scherf concurs, adding an interesting note: Try out the taper before race week.听

We鈥檝e all been told never to do anything in an important race that we鈥檝e not tested in training. Usually, that鈥檚 discussed in terms of nutrition, hydration, footwear, or clothing that might unexpectedly chafe. But why not also apply it to your taper, Sherf suggests, testing it on a less important (and presumably shorter) race beforehand, just to see how your body reacts.听

After all, Bosquet鈥檚 study found that the ideal taper ranged from a 40 percent to 60 percent cutback. 40 to 60% is听 also a wide range, so Scherf is onto something when she says you need to find what part of that range works for you.听 鈥淣ot every runner responds the same way,鈥� she says.

The key takeaway from Bosquet’s study, however, is that 40鈥�60% is a lot more than most mileage-obsessed runners want to do. Don’t be one of them: Trust the taper, and run your best marathon.

The post The Anatomy of a Perfect Marathon Taper appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

One of my pet peeves as a coach is the oft-heard advice: 鈥淎ttack the hill, don鈥檛 be weak, don鈥檛 let up.” It’s one of those things runners get taught when they are young that are just plain wrong. The idea, it seems, is to show your strength and grit, to prove to yourself and your competitors that you are, literally, king of the hill. Or it is an attempt to keep the pace consistent, to not let the hill rob any seconds through sheer willpower. I can鈥檛 count the number of runners I鈥檝e known who鈥檝e been taught just that.

The only problem is that it doesn鈥檛 work that way.

When I was first starting to race, on rolling courses in Michigan, I quickly realized that most of the runners around me struggled up the hills, then were forced to recover on the downgrades. Then some older, wise soul in my running club told me that the best way to run hills effectively begins by learning how to run fast on the downgrades.

鈥淟ean forward,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd let your torso fall down the hill. Then move your legs fast enough to keep up.鈥� Run downhill effectively and you don’t need to kill yourself going up.

Disproportionate Effort

Years later, I came under the tutelage of Alberto Salazar, long before his fall from grace. And whatever you may think of him today, he was an extremely good tactician, with a scientist鈥檚 bent toward figuring out the best way to do everything as perfectly as possible.

One of the things he told me was that, curious about the best way to run hills, he鈥檇 once gone out and run a 400m hill at 鈥渉ard,鈥� 鈥渕edium,鈥� and 鈥渆asy鈥� efforts 鈥� as determined by a heart rate monitor. Then, he went to a nearby track and replicated those efforts on the flat, comparing his times.

What he found validated the wisdom of my long-ago teammate. Uphill, the time difference in running hard, medium, or easy, was vastly less than it is on the flat. He compared running hard uphill to trying to run fast in sand. You can blow an enormous amount of energy and accomplish very little.

Flash forward more years, and I found myself coaching marathoners for the Portland Marathon, which at the time included a notorious 175-foot climb to the top of Portland鈥檚 highest bridge over the Willamette River. The climb came at about mile 17, and pretty much everyone was terrified of it.

My answer: run the same effort you would on the flat (not pace). The bridge will suck about a minute of time out of your life, but there鈥檚 nothing you can do about that, and if you try to get up it faster, you will pay for it, later.

Calculating Heartbreak

Support for this comes not just from Salazar, but exercise physiologist and coach Jack Daniels, who once estimated the effect of hills on runners doing the Boston marathon. His conclusion, which I use with my runners, was that each 50 feet of climbing slows you down by about 15 seconds. I.e., that 175-foot bridge means about 52 seconds鈥lose enough to 鈥渁 minute鈥� to justify what I was saying.

Yes, you can run up a hill like that faster. But if you do, you need to view it as the equivalent of a hard surge. Can you sustain it? And if you can鈥檛, how much more will you give back on the recovery? Better is to run the upgrade at about the same energy level you鈥檝e been running on the flats and let the time be what it is. When you reach the top, you want to feel 鈥渞eleased鈥� and eager to go fast, rather than spaghetti-legged, gasping for breath, and desperate for a chance to recover.

Discipline and Practice

Finding the discipline to approach hills this way takes deliberate effort. 鈥淚f I don鈥檛 think about it, I鈥檒l just push,鈥� says Janne Heinonen, one of Portland, Oregon鈥檚 best masters runners. 鈥淚 have to make a conscious effort to hold back. It鈥檚 hard, because the steeper it is, the more my instinct is to surge up it.鈥�

Luckily, there are ways to practice this. One of my favorites is what I call 鈥渄ip-bounces.鈥� Find a route with a small dip leading to an equally small hill. On the descent, lean forward and practice the sense of 鈥渇alling鈥� down the hill, being careful not to overstride. Then practice carrying your momentum up the other side using the same effort. By reversing the order of down and up, you practice the faster descent fresh and have already reaped the benefits so you can relax and float up.听

When I did these with training partners, I鈥檇 always find myself two to three strides ahead of them, even with a dip of only 5-6 feet, waiting for them to catch up. Do these whenever you can, making them so habitual that you can鈥檛 imagine running such terrain any other way, regardless of the order of ups and downs.

Another, more advanced, is hill up-and-overs. For these, find a longish paved hill that climbs to a smooth crest then drops down the backside (if the climbs are asymmetrical in grade and/or length, you can alternate the 鈥渇ast鈥� and 鈥渟low鈥� directions. Start 400m before the top and run up, over the top and down the backside.

The target is to hit the top feeling not like you need to back off and recover, but instead, feeling released. This objective is twofold: (a) to practice fast, controlled running on the descent, and (b) to figure out your own most efficient way to cover the entire distance, up and over the hill. After all, the ultimate goal isn鈥檛 to be as fast as possible to the top of the hill; it鈥檚 to be as fast as you can be to the finish line for the overall race.

There are, of course, races in which you need a different approach. If the descent is too steep, you may need to adjust. If the descent is both excessively steep and technical (as can sometimes occur in trail races or cross-country events) there may be situations in which the primary goal is to remain upright. For these, the strategy is to attack when the footing is good, and recover when it isn鈥檛.

Another exception could be when a hill falls close to the finish and you don’t have distance or terrain to make up for falling behind. Even in this situation, however, you won’t benefit by pushing so hard you have to back off at the top 鈥� the uphill push should be proportional to your overall increase in effort and pace.

In general, the best results come not from attacking hills as hard as you can but from learning how to match your energy expenditure to the course 鈥� so you don鈥檛 just 鈥渂eat鈥� the hills but run your best race.

The post No, Don’t “Attack the Hill.” Here’s How to Run Smarter in Hilly Races. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

If there鈥檚 a rule about deals with the devil, it鈥檚 that you don鈥檛 realize you鈥檙e making one at the time. Especially when the devil in question walks with a cane and looks more like Kris Kringle than Beelzebub. He said his name was August Knox and that he was a researcher working to beat Lou Gehrig鈥檚 disease and all the other muscle-wasting disorders the world has ever known. Maybe he was. Or maybe he was just out to make a buck. He was peddling a dream, and you don鈥檛 look a gift horse too strongly in the mouth.听

You remember BALCO, right? The ones who, back at the turn of the century, supplied drugs to a whole generation of track stars? Perfect, undetectable drugs 鈥� at least until someone blew it and alerted the authorities.听

Well, suppose BALCO visited you at age forty-two and asked if you wanted to be a guinea pig for a new product. Kringle/Knox wasn鈥檛 with BALCO, obviously 鈥� they鈥檇 been out of business for years 鈥� but that鈥檚 what he was pedaling. Test samples of a new product, guaranteed undetectable by conventional blood or urine tests, that would tune up your muscle efficiency not just by enough to roll your performance back to age thirty, but to match you with the best of them.听

Could you win an Olympic medal? No guarantee there, but you鈥檇 be in the hunt. There鈥檚 only one catch: there wasn鈥檛 any guarantee the process was safe, either. If humans were like rats, you鈥檇 peak in a year and stay there for eighteen months. Two years, if you were lucky. After that? Well, once the rats had started to decline they鈥檇 done so rather precipitously.听

I鈥檇 seen an old movie about that when I was a kid, though I think it was a mouse. I don鈥檛 think it had a happy ending, but going from forty-two to forty-three to forty-four stuck in a more slowly declining body wasn鈥檛 exactly a happy ending, either.听

鈥淲ould I still be able to run?鈥澨�

鈥淧robably not.鈥澨�

鈥淗ike?鈥澨�

鈥淒efine hike.鈥澨�

I told him about my favorite place in the world, a viewpoint called Angel鈥檚 Rest, 1,500 feet above the river. I go there at least once a month to stare into the afternoon sun and think about life. There are never any answers, but the sun and the staring are what really听matter.听

鈥淚s it wheelchair accessible?鈥澨�

So, what would you do? Go for glory at the expense of a fast burnout? Or be decliningly ordinary for however many years remain?听

Me, I chose the flame and die. My name鈥檚 Jefferson Morgan, and ordinary has never been my goal.

When I was twelve, I wanted to be a rock star: not just any rock star, but the next John Lennon 鈥� the one against whom all others would be measured. Then my voice changed and I realized not everyone got to sing lead.听

A few other things changed too. At twelve, I was a skinny Goth 鈥� at a time when Goths were becoming Tweakers, but before Tweakers became Quillheads. By the time I was ready to enter college, I was still nerdy and skinny, but I鈥檇 grown a new skill: I could run. A lot faster than average, it turned out.听

It paid for college.听

I was good, but not spectacular 鈥� just like my grades. And then, I was out, with no real idea what to do next.听

And that had pretty much been the story. I kicked around for two decades: tending bar, parking cars, even mopping a few floors. I linked up with a shoe-store-sponsored running team where, again, I was good, but not spectacular. Plenty of free shoes, but no free rent. Then age started to eat at my speed, until Beelzebub/Kringle hobbled up to me at track practice one day with his cane and beaming, beady eyes.听

Of course, I had to reinvent myself and lie about my age. Nobody鈥檚 going to believe a middle-aged guy who suddenly runs like a kid. Luckily, I鈥檝e always looked young (maybe that鈥檚 part of why Kringle picked me) and a bit of hair dye and Botox made me younger yet. Not all that young, but lots of runners are pre maturely aged by the sun. The college kids fall into two camps: those who worry about skin cancer, and those who are too macho to let on, even if they do. I鈥檇 been in the first camp. Now I looked like I was in the second.听

Kringle/Knox had a pocketful of fake IDs, so I picked one from Vegas 鈥� a great choice for someone who wants to be anonymous. I even went there a time or two and practiced squinting into the sun. And of course, any runner worth anything who鈥檚 from such a climate leaves it the first time he gets a chance, so there wasn鈥檛 anything odd about the fact that nobody would remember me. That and the Botox were the perfect cover.听

Kringle helped too, by planting a few old race results and helping me create a bio. No college, no high-school track. If asked, I was a late bloomer who for years had been more interested in training than racing. Every track鈥檚 got a couple of those guys, and nobody remembers their names. But if I did hit it big, dozens of folks would be sure they remembered me. 鈥淥h, yeah,鈥� they鈥檇 say. 鈥淗e was the quiet guy who kept to himself. Fast, though. I should have known he鈥檇 make it someday.鈥� The rumor mill would flesh out my new history better than I ever could. Same with 鈥渕y鈥� old jobs. Who remembers bellhops, anyway?听

It was only after I鈥檇 started the treatment that it crossed my mind that with all those fake identities, Knox/Beelzebub probably didn鈥檛 intend me to be his only product tester. I just hoped I was the only 10,000-meter runner. He鈥檇 insisted I pick one event and stick to it, so he probably had other guys doing other distances, and maybe entirely different sports, as well.听

Eventually, I decided there couldn鈥檛 be more than a few of us in each event. He could probably get away with having his folks go gold-silver-bronze 鈥� if I got a medal, I wasn鈥檛 going to complain a lot about its color 鈥� but if there were a whole phalanx of us chasing the same three spots, you could bet your sweaty jockstrap that half of us would be screaming to the press, willing to wreck what little was left of our lives for a shot at bringing down the guy who promised us all the same thing.听

Or maybe the treatment wasn鈥檛 as good as advertised, and there wasn鈥檛 that much chance of a Kringle-fest finish. When you get down to it, even deals with the devil are founded on trust.听

The treatment took the form of shots. Lots of shots. It was based on gene therapy designed for muscular dystrophy patients, Knox told me as he stabbed enough needles into my quads to make me feel like an inside-out cactus. If he had colleagues, I never met them. For that matter, if he had a lab, I never saw it. He just came to my apartment once a week, with vials of amber fluid and a pocketful of syringes.听

For the first few weeks, all the shots did was make me weak.听

鈥淚t鈥檚 the virus,鈥� he said, having moved from my quads to my hamstrings and then my calves. 鈥淚t inserts the genes into your muscle cells, and your body sees it as a mild infection. Don鈥檛 worry, it鈥檒l pass.鈥澨�

That鈥檚 part of what makes it undetectable, he added. The virus was a common one, like flu or West Nile or some such thing, so while I鈥檇 show antibodies for it on a blood test, that didn鈥檛 mean anything unless the authorities were prepared to reject anyone who鈥檇 ever been sneezed on or bitten by a mosquito. But the gene changes could only occur within a few centimeters of the injection sites, which was why he was turning me into a pincushion. 鈥淭here won鈥檛 be anything in your blood to show you鈥檝e been altered,鈥� he explained between jabs, 鈥渁nd nobody鈥檚 going to start requiring muscle biopsies in the near future. That鈥檚 just way too invasive.鈥澨�

He paused. 鈥淭hough if someone does ask for one, it might be good to refuse. I don鈥檛 think the genes we鈥檙e working on would show up unless they knew what to look for, but there鈥檚 no reason to chance it.鈥澨�

Meanwhile, I started to train. Part of being great is having a good coach, and while Knox hadn鈥檛 been able to retain the services of the best in the business, the one he found was no slouch. He was just what a talented dark horse like me was supposed to be able to find: good, hungry for victory, but not too good.听

I wasn鈥檛 sure what, if anything, he knew, but Knox made it clear I wasn鈥檛 supposed to talk to him about the treatments, so I doubted it was much.听

Knox was a bit chary on specifics, but no athlete allows that many injections without asking questions. Basically, I was being subjected to two types of gene changes. One altered my ratio of muscle fibers. There are two types. Sprinters tend to be born with a lot of 鈥渇ast-twitch鈥� fibers 鈥� the human equivalent of the white meat in turkeys. These are good for short bursts, such as (for turkeys) getting air borne, back before we bred them to be incapable of escape. Distance runners are heavier in 鈥渟low-twitch鈥� fibers, the equivalent of poultry鈥檚 red meat, which can go forever (or close to it) at a slower speed. The only difference from turkeys, other than who eats whom at Thanksgiving, is that in humans the red and white are all mixed up, higgledy-piggledy.听

Before starting treatment, Knox had biopsied me (it really does hurt) and told me I was 77 percent slow twitch.听

鈥淭here鈥檚 probably a distance for which that鈥檚 perfect,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not in the Olympics. I鈥檇 rather see you somewhere be tween eighty-five and ninety.鈥澨�

Three weeks of injections later, and a month of low-grade flu-like symptoms, a repeat biopsy showed my legs to be 87 percent slow-twitch.听

Knox beamed his most Kringlesque smile. 鈥淢agnificent. Time for phase two.鈥� That turned out to have something to do with satellite cells, which are kind of like stem cells in your muscles. Under the right conditions, they fuse with muscle cells to make them bigger and stronger. They also help you recover from races and hard workouts. The problem is that they can only do this so many times. After that? Well, that鈥檚 part of the reason Kringle鈥檚 treatment isn鈥檛 permanent. Most likely, I鈥檇 bounce from being a 鈥済ood鈥� 42-year old to a great pseudo-thirty-year-old, then back to 42 and on to 52, 62, or worse.听

And that, I suppose, is half of why I knew I鈥檇 made a deal with the devil.听

The other half was that during the treatment stage, it was hard to pretend I wasn鈥檛 cheating. Not just to the world at large, which was easy because I didn鈥檛 want to get caught, but to myself.听

Most dopers simply tell themselves every one else does it. Whether that鈥檚 true or not doesn鈥檛 matter, because that makes it the other guy鈥檚 fault. But as far as I knew, nobody had ever before done what I was doing. Within a few weeks, though, I鈥檇 made my peace with it. The first time I was young 鈥� back when it was purely natural 鈥� the only thing that had kept me from being among the best was the (poor) luck of the genetic draw. I鈥檇 always had the discipline, the toughness, the competitive drive. Knox/Kringle had merely redressed nature鈥檚 imbalance 鈥� equalized the playing field, and all that. Back in my rock-star days, if some one had offered to improve my vocal cords, would I have turned 鈥檈m down?

Then I quit worrying at all, because once the injections ceased, I started to improve. I ran a road race and hit a time I鈥檇 have loved to see when I really had been thirty. Then my new coach went to work on me. Twelve weeks later, I ran the best 10K of my life, by a full fifteen seconds per mile. In case running isn鈥檛 your sport, let me assure you: that鈥檚 a lot.听

Knox, I decided, was a genius. My coach wasn鈥檛 much worse. And, whatever else you might think, I鈥檇 never worked harder in my life.

Kringle had merely redressed nature鈥檚 imbalance. What I did with that was up to me.听

What I did next was to stress-fracture my tibia.听

My coach was stunned. 鈥淲hy didn鈥檛 you tell me you were prone to these?鈥� he demanded. 鈥淲e weren鈥檛 even working you all that hard yet.鈥澨�

But the fact was that I wasn鈥檛 injury-prone. I鈥檇 never before lost more than a few days to injuries, and never to anything as major as a cracked bone.听

鈥淲e鈥檝e seen this in a couple of others,鈥� Kringle said the next time I saw him, confirm ing my suspicion I wasn鈥檛 his only Olympic hopeful. 鈥淭he drugs make your muscles stronger, but not your tendons, ligaments, and bones. They鈥檙e still your original age, and need time to adapt.鈥澨�

I had to think about that for a while. Not the muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments bit. That made sense. It was the parts of me not all being the same age that was disconcerting.听

It was the first time I鈥檇 ever truly felt my years. I don鈥檛 know about you, but I鈥檇 always felt pretty much the same person at forty-two (soon to be forty-three) that I鈥檇 been at thirty. Or twenty. I have friends who say they feel like radically different people than even a few years ago. I鈥檝e never understood that. Whoever I was at twenty: that鈥檚 me now. Pre-Kringle, post-Kringle鈥攎akes no difference. Oh, I鈥檝e learned things, done things, wished I hadn鈥檛 done things . . . But I鈥檝e always been the same me.听

Now, my muscles were thirty, my bones forty-two, and the essential me still felt like that long-gone twenty-year-old.听

There鈥檚 a famous statue by Rodin, which shows the soul of a young woman striving to break free of the flesh of an old crone. Kringle听had simply made it possible鈥攏ot just with a rejuvenated body, but with the one I鈥檇 always wanted (other than the bones). I just couldn鈥檛 figure out if I was the young person, or the older one, or both at once.听

Luckily, physical therapy was the perfect antidote to doubts. That鈥檚 because it kept me too busy to think.听

My coach proved well connected and got a sports medicine lab to let me use an AlterG, an odd device that suspends you above a treadmill while you walk, then run, with only a fraction of your weight hitting the ground. The result was that eight weeks later, when the docs pronounced the fracture healed, I was in nearly as good shape as I鈥檇 been in before it happened: and I still had more than six months before the Olympic Trials 鈥� plus ten more weeks until the games themselves.听

You鈥檙e probably expecting a tale of cheating caught and bad behavior redeemed. It didn鈥檛 quite work that way. Once we鈥檇 gotten over the old-bones surprise, Kringle obviously knew what he was doing. So did my coach. And, as luck would have it, we caught the treatment鈥檚 lead-time nearly perfectly. It would have sucked to peak for the Trials, only to be in decline for the big event. Instead, the Trials found me still on the upswing. Maybe a bit too early, actually. I was fourth, which isn鈥檛 quite good enough to make the team but does make you an alternate who can go live in Olympic Village. Once, I鈥檇 have sold my soul simply for that. Now, it felt like a defeat. What it really meant, though, was that my body was still reacting to the treatments. And, there鈥檚 a reason there are Olympic alternates. The third-place finisher developed a gimpy Achilles tendon鈥擨 don鈥檛 think Kringle/Beelzebub had anything to do with it鈥攁nd suddenly, I was in.听

The twenty-year-old me, the one who鈥檇 never changed, was ecstatic. The forty-three-year old me, the one in my bones, and brains, tried (at least briefly) to feel sorry for the guy who鈥檇 had to drop out. But the ageless competitor in my guts didn鈥檛 care. I had reached the spot where, if nature had been fair, I鈥檇 have been a generation ago. I could handle that. As I said, this isn鈥檛 a tale of cheating caught and bad behavior redeemed.听

The 10,000-meters is run in a single heat. There were twenty-seven of us, and I was so nervous two days beforehand that I couldn鈥檛 sleep. It wasn鈥檛 just that my entire future de pended on this: if the rat tests were right, I had no future. This was everything: truly the be-all and end-all of my life.听

That鈥檚 when my coach blindsided me. That鈥檚 not what coaches are supposed to do. They鈥檙e supposed to build you up, calm you down, focus you, and point you in the direction of victory. And that鈥檚 what he thought he was doing.听

He did it by telling me a story.听

鈥淲hen I was young,鈥� he said, 鈥淚 was all piss and vinegar, like you.鈥� (I鈥檝e never met a coach who didn鈥檛 talk in clich茅s. Maybe everything鈥檚 been said so many times the non-clich茅s were used up, long ago.) 鈥淭hen, my wife developed multiple sclerosis.鈥� His voice cracked, then steadied. 鈥淯sually, they give you at least a dozen good years. She only got five. But until the very end, she insisted that I run, and came to all of my meets, even when it had to be in a wheelchair, strapped in to keep her from falling out.鈥澨�

He paused, while I wondered what this could possibly have to do with me. 鈥淭his,鈥� he said, gesturing to the track, 鈥渋sn鈥檛 life. A wise man and great athlete once said that. It鈥檚 a hell of a lot of fun, and I love every minute of it, but in the big scheme of things鈥濃�攈e pursed his lips and blew out a sound, like pffft鈥斺�渋t鈥檚 nothing.鈥澨�

He turned from the track to me. 鈥淭rust your training. Nobody out there is better prepared. If the gods smile, you鈥檒l run well. If they don鈥檛鈥攚ell, it鈥檚 just a race.鈥� He patted me on the back. He wasn鈥檛 really all that much older than me, but he didn鈥檛 know it, so I couldn鈥檛 tell him how odd that felt. Or what I thought of this entire speech. 鈥淪o, relax. Have fun. And realize that if you don鈥檛 feel you have to win, you鈥檒l run better. And if by some chance you have a bad day . . . well, you鈥檝e got a whole life yet ahead of you. This is only a small piece of it.鈥澨�

As a guy who鈥檇 barely made it into the race, I wasn鈥檛 expected to be a contender. That made it easy to maintain my thirty-year-old identity because nobody did any of those little听spotlight profiles on me that the TV folks love听to plug into their coverage to mask the fact that whatever they may or may not think of their audience鈥檚 intelligence, they themselves don鈥檛 have the attention span to cover a long race from start to finish.听

Only Kringle, my coach, and I knew how much I鈥檇 improved since the Trials. I wondered if Kringle had timed it that way deliberately鈥攖hough having me come up as an alternate, rather than number three on the team, was cutting it a bit fine. If I won, I鈥檇 be the unknown who burst onto the scene: far better than the favorite who lives up to his promise. He鈥檇 never be able to go public with that鈥攂ut in selling his wares to the next generation of do-anything hopefuls? He鈥檇 make sure they knew.听

The race came late in the day, a concession to August heat, but not the best thing on the nerves. One place where my fake identity and real life overlapped was that both of us had been mainly doing road races for the past several years. The real me because, at my one time age, there just isn鈥檛 much in the way of track racing out there. The new me because it was a lot easier that way to create a guise that avoided unwanted questions. If I won, it would be critical that nobody puncture my new identity. Not that anyone would be actively trying to do so, but it would be embarrassing if someone did it by accident.听

Road races tend to be run in the morning. Here, I had all day to fret. And to try to keep away from my coach before he gave me some bromide worse than, 鈥淵ou have all of your life ahead of you.鈥� Yeah, right. At least now, I knew for sure he wasn鈥檛 a Kringle insider.听

But all endless waits eventually end, and at last we were called to the start.听

I鈥檇 like to tell you it was an exciting race: the most dramatic 10,000 in Olympic history. But it was probably pretty ordinary. Thirty year-old me had the ability to run with the best of them. And while the inner voice in my head might still be the college freshman who鈥檇 not yet realized he didn鈥檛 have world class speed, forty-three-year-old me had run a lot more races than anyone else on the track. I figured the experience would hold me in good stead now that I finally had the body my unaging inner voice always wanted.听

It started as one of those tactical duals that听make the television crews happy they鈥檝e got lots of those spotlight profiles in the can. Twenty of us ran in a big pack, where not stepping on someone and not getting stepped on are your biggest worries. Nobody wanted the lead, least of all me.听

Unfortunately, forty-three-year-old me didn鈥檛 know what to do in that situation. I鈥檇 never been fast enough to be caught up in such a thing. In big, important races, there鈥檇 always been someone streaking away uncatchably in front. Sometimes lots of someones.听

Now, I had the body to streak away鈥攁t least for a while, but I didn鈥檛 know when or whether to try it. So much for all that experience. It had been with a different body.听

The laps rolled by and nothing much happened except that a few people started drop ping out of the lead pack. Still, at the halfway mark, there were more than a dozen of us. My coach was screaming at me with each lap, but he wasn鈥檛 allowed on the field, and from the front row of the stands, I couldn鈥檛 tell if he was saying 鈥済ood job鈥� or 鈥済et going.鈥� Some thing that started with a 鈥淕,鈥� I think. For all I could tell, he might as well have been giving the weather report.听

Still, I had to do something.听

Before all of the injections, one thing I could do was kick. Sit back and pounce: that would have been my style. But now that most of my fast-twitch had been converted to slow twitch, I suspected that if there were still a dozen folks around at the start of the last lap, I had a better chance of coming in twelfth than first.听

If you鈥檙e in danger of being out-kicked, the way to win is to run the kick out of your opponents before they get a chance to use it. Or just run away from everyone, which is pretty much the same thing.听

I knew the theory just fine. What I didn鈥檛 know were the details. I waited another mile, then moved to the lead and sped up. Before the race, my coach and I had set a target pace, but the pack had been way slower than expected, so I knew I had to be faster now. The question was how much.听

Within a couple laps, I鈥檇 dumped half of the pack, but there were still five left. On the backstretch, I looked up at the big television screen at one end of the stadium and saw my self, closely shadowed by a Kenyan who鈥檇听won last year鈥檚 world championship and two other guys who鈥檇 been here before. I picked it up again with six laps to go, then again with four, and except for the world champion, the others started to drop off. Then, with two laps to go, the Kenyan start ed to push back.听

This was an old game, and I鈥檇 always been good at it. Not fast, but wily. Once I passed someone, they stayed passed. But now it did n鈥檛 work. The Kenyan pushed harder and when I tried to return the favor, nothing happened. I still managed to stave him off until the last lap, but then he went around me like I was standing still, followed shortly after by the other two. If anything, I was slowing down, frantically looking at the jumbo screen to see who next was coming up behind me.听

I finished totally spent . . . and fifth. Even at that, I鈥檇 barely held off number six. I was the top American, but that wasn鈥檛 what I鈥檇 want ed.听

My coach was livid. 鈥淲hat the hell did you think you were doing?鈥� he asked. 鈥淔irst you let yourself get sucked into a slow, tactical duel that you can鈥檛 win, then you take off like a scared rabbit.鈥� He drew a big, theatrical sigh, probably trying to remember his own advice about it just being a race. 鈥淥kay,鈥� he said. 鈥淟ive and learn. But you ran that thing like a damn teen-ager.鈥澨�

Knox appeared a moment later, and for once he wasn鈥檛 beaming. 鈥�That,鈥� he said, 鈥渨asn鈥檛 my fault.鈥� Then he turned on his good leg and clomped off.听

My coach stared at him, then at me. Belatedly, I wondered why Knox walked with a cane, and what, if anything my coach knew of it. Was Kringle making his own vicarious effort to redress nature鈥檚 inequities? Even the devil, I guess, has his reasons.听

A week later, my coach resigned. Kringle found me a new one, and the next year I took bronze at the Worlds, beating the Kenyan who鈥檇 bested me at the Olympics. But the Worlds just don鈥檛 have the same cachet, and while my nominal age of thirty-two wasn鈥檛 necessarily too old for a bid at the next Olympiad, I was already fading. Humans, rats鈥攁pparently we react similarly to Kringle鈥檚 ministrations.听

***

The trail to Angel鈥檚 Rest isn鈥檛 long, but someone had stretched it while I鈥檇 been away,听and I nearly put it off too long.

At my prime, I could have popped up there in thirty minutes, barely breaking a sweat. This time it took two hours, and I鈥檇 never have made it without a walking stick.

But the summit was everything I remembered: a big flat slab of rock, capped in head-high brush and scraggly firs, looking straight down on the mile-wide river. Below, a freeway hugged the headland, the monotonous drone of trucks audible even from here. A train rumbled a deeper bass, while down stream, a barge plowed a V-wake through sun glinted water. Everywhere, it seemed, people were on the move, but my own moving days were over.听

Unlike the old days, when this was my private retreat, my brother had come up here with me, in case I needed assistance or (the unspoken fear) rescue.听

The only surviving member of my immediate family (we Morgans aren鈥檛 a long-lived tribe), he鈥檇 been the one part of my old life I鈥檇 insisted on retaining. But at Kringle鈥檚 insistence, I鈥檇 never let him far into my new life. Mostly, it was easy. He wasn鈥檛 much of a sports fan, and while I couldn鈥檛 hide my new appearance, I鈥檇 told him that it and my new name were because I鈥檇 tried to take up acting, only to be halted by a rare muscle disease. Not that it mattered: my brother is very much of the don鈥檛-ask/don鈥檛-tell persuasion.听

In my rock-star-dreaming days, he鈥檇 wanted to play bass to my lead. Two years older but twenty years more passive, he鈥檇 never claimed to resent our never-was stardom. Still, he鈥檇 remained in music, and was now a junior high school band teacher.听

I looked down on the cars, moving antlike:听linear drones, everyone going where someone else had been. Follow-the-leader, from cradle to grave.听I had stepped out of line.听

My brother was sitting on my favorite life pondering rock, staring into sunlight the color of the medal I鈥檇 given so much not to attain. 鈥淎re you happy?鈥� I asked.听

He shot me a glance, then looked back to the late-afternoon distance. 鈥淪ure.鈥� 鈥淣o. I mean really, truly happy. Remember when we wanted to be rock stars?鈥� This time he grinned. 鈥淥h, yeah. After that, I wanted to be an astronaut.鈥� His gaze was still on the river. 鈥淚 grew up. On a ten-point scale, I鈥檓 an eight. I鈥檒l take it. But you . . . you did live it there for a while, didn鈥檛 you? Were you happy?鈥澨�

It was my turn to stare into the eye-numbing goldness. I wondered how much he knew, how much he might have figured out. I wondered if it mattered.听

鈥淕ood thing it happened before you got sick,鈥� he said a few minutes later.听

The sun was getting low, and walking down a steep trail isn鈥檛 as easy as people think. Luckily, we鈥檇 brought flashlights. Declining my brother鈥檚 offer of assistance, I heaved myself to my feet. Then, leaning heavily on my stick, I began the descent into twilight.

—

Richard A. Lovett is a coach and writer in Portland, Oregon. As a coach, he works with Team Red Lizard in Portland, Oregon, where he has trained recreational racers, national age-group champions, and competitors in the last three Olympic Trials marathons. He is also an award-winning science fiction writer and author of 10 books (four of them on running) and 3,500 magazine and newspaper articles. Before finding his career in journalism he studied astrophysics, got a law degree and a Ph.D. in economics, and taught law at the University of Minnesota鈥攁 diverse background that has led him to write about a wide array of topics. Find him on听听or visit his听.

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In my science fiction story 鈥�鈥� I posited a globally warmed future in which a fictitious Fairbanks Marathon supplants Boston as the go-to race for the nation鈥檚 best recreational marathoners.听

The story was written largely as humor, and the prediction wasn鈥檛 intended to be all that realistic. But a paper in the British medical journal The Lancet suggests that I might not actually have been all that far off the mark.

The Last Summer Olympics?

Bearing the provocative title 鈥�,鈥� it was published midway through the Rio Olympics, possibly causing many readers to think it was (incorrectly) predicting that Rio would be the last Summer Olympics.听

What it really posits is that as time wears on and climate continues to shift, Olympic venue options are going to become more and more constrained until eventually the choices are whittled down to such places as Siberia, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Ireland, Scotland, and parts of Canada. After which, there will be no suitable venues left at all.听

The last of the last: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast, the authors say. Not exactly the culture-spanning international festival of cities we have come to expect.

Nor was this simply some fly-by-night speculation. The lead author was Kirk R. Smith, a climate and health researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who was part of the team that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Kirk鈥檚 team drew on IPCC climate-change predictions, extrapolating them to 2085 for 645 potential host cities. They then looked to see which of these cities would have weather suitable for the marathon, the most heat-sensitive and iconic of all Olympic distance-running events, calculating where the weather would be likely to be too hot, humid, or sunbaked to make it safe to hold the race.听

As examples of what could happen if authorities tried to run an event under excessively hot conditions, they pointed to the 2007 Chicago Marathon, which had to be cancelled midway through, after hundreds of heat-stricken runners flooded medical tents. And no, elites aren鈥檛 safe from such a fate. 鈥淚n 2016,鈥� Smith鈥檚 team noted, 鈥渙nly about 70% of the elite competition in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials Marathon in Los Angeles finished鈥� 鈥� and there, temperatures peaked at only 25.6掳C (78掳F).

And by the standards of future marathons, that might be a walk in the park. In this year鈥檚 Japan Olympics, temperatures in the marathon approached 30掳C (86掳F) before, with vastly higher humidity than in Los Angeles.

To see how much chance there was of even worse weather disasters, Smith鈥檚 team looked at the probability that any given one of the 645 potential host cities would see starting line temperatures so hot, humid, and sunny that the race might need to be cancelled. If there was more than a 10 percent chance that one or the other of the races would draw a day hot enough for it to have to be cancelled, they considered the city unsuitable, and ruled it out.

One can argue about the cut-off level they used for safety (it appears that by their metric, the Tokyo Olympic women鈥檚 marathon would have been cancelled), but the results were pretty dramatic. Unless something is done to curb climate change, they found that by the 2080s, only 33 of these cities could safely host the Olympics by the 2080s, and all but a handful of them were in Northern Europe. (They reran the calculation only ruling out a city if the chances of an excessively hot day exceeded 25 percent, and saw 39 other cities make the cut, but I doubt that anyone really wants to invest in hosting the Olympics if there鈥檚 a 25 percent chance you鈥檒l have to cancel for heat.)

How the 鈥淪ummer鈥� Olympics Could Still Be Saved from Climate Change

It鈥檚 a dire prediction, and it comes with a few caveats. First, due to difficulties with altitude acclimatization for athletes, Smith鈥檚 team ruled out cities at elevations above 1,600 meters (1 mile). I.e., no retreating to cooler elevations, such as Mexico City, or even Denver.听

They also ruled out cities with populations smaller than that of Helsinki, Finland, the smallest city to host the Olympics since World War II. These days, they presumed, the cost and logistics of hosting the Summer Games were too much for smaller cities to bear.听

They also didn鈥檛 predict what the Japanese did this year with the Tokyo Olympics, in moving the marathon 500 miles north to the (supposedly) cooler city of Sapporo. That still didn鈥檛 spare the runners from heat and humidity, but it was a good idea. Who knows, maybe someday the Olympic Marathon might really be in Fairbanks.

Another way to dodge heat is to move the 鈥淪ummer鈥� Olympics to the Southern Hemisphere as has been done twice, first in Melbourne, Australia in 1956, and then in Sydney in 2000.

But the simplest solution might be to rethink the timing of the 鈥渟ummer鈥� games. Do they really have to be in July and August?听

The first-ever of the modern games, in Athens, Greece, in 1896, were in April, and the first time Tokyo hosted them, in 1964, was in mid-October. The 1988 Mexico City Olympics were also in October.

Bottom line: climate change might indeed spell the heat death of the Summer Olympics as we currently know them. But maybe they will be replaced by something new: the Fall Olympics.听

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