The Chicago Marathon was earlier today, won by Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge in 2:04:11. Leading up to it there was lots of great storytelling during the week about Steve Jones and record-breaking 1985 Chicago Marathon run.
- True Toughness: Steve Jones and the Chicago Marathon
- 30 Years Ago, Steve Jones Transformed the Marathon
- The Transformation of Steve Jones
Often mentioned in the Jones stories is the way he problem-solved a marathon, setting himself up to first run 20 miles, a distance he trained at, and then tackle a 10K, his main race where he could run with World Class speed. The innovation was a race tactic, not a technology and not so much a training strategy. The other beautiful part of the story is how Jones managed the moment, confident in the sense that he had a plan and it would work if he just followed through and let it.
There was also this excellent bit of data analysis by Alex Hutchinson and Daniel Fuehrer for Runner’s World online on What Will It Take to Run A 2-Hour Marathon? Also, Athletics Weekly covered a presentation by Alberto Salazar during his UK trip. And an excellent interview with triathlete Craig Alexander ran in Gear Patrol.
What comes through for me in the material is how varied the innovations are that lead to breakthrough performances, and also how much attention to detail is required to get to that elite place athletically where the innovation actually matters, and still beneath it all is the capacity to suffer that speaks to the very nature of endurance competition.
Alexander tells the interviewer that he keeps close tabs on his weight leading up to important triathlons. Too low and he finds himself vulnerable to illness and injury, things that would completely derail his chances at top finishes. Sleep, nutrition and now yoga are big parts of his way to keep himself in a zone physically and mentally where he enjoys the training and the competition. Still the weight, sleep, nutrition and yoga mean little if Alexander uses last-generation bike technology that costs him minutes against better equipped competitors.
Competition among elite athletes is the process leading up to an event, and it is the event. Applied Sports Science plays a bigger and bigger role in both but when the test is endurance, it inevitably comes down to the athletes themselves, what goes on in their heads and their bodies.
The Best Things I Read Last Week:
- Two young Timberwolves hope intense training regimen helps reshape their careers St. Paul Pioneer-Press, TwinCities.com … The two, Anthony Bennett and Shabazz Muhammad, look like they are ready to do some damage. We’ll see if the two build the case that physical and athletic improvement is critical for overall basketball improvement.
- Mix Diskerud: “I Feel like It’s My Chance Now, and I Have to Show What I can Do” Eight by Eight … Diskerud isn’t hoping that training will reshape his career. He’s training and it is reshaping his career.
- Inside the 2014 Numbers of Each MLB Team’s Regular-Season Injury Impact Bleacher Report, Under the Knife … Insightful recap of the baseball season in terms of injuries and dollars trends by Will Carroll.
- Emergence of Contact Injuries in Invasion Team Sports: An Ecological Dynamics Rationale Sports Medicine … German researchers use techniquest from field ecology and predator-prey dynamics to better understand the 1-on-1 possession situations that lead to impact injuries in soccer.
- Mike Roncarati interview Mike Robertson, Robertson Training Systems … Roncarati is strength coach for the Golden State Warriors and this is an in-depth look at the preparation and maintenance of NBA athletes.