You ARE Fast Enough For You

In my day job as a pediatric endocrinologist, one of my professional responsibilities is to evaluate and manage kids with short stature. In a given week, although there are many patients that come to my office with a growth problem as their chief complaint, surprising few have a clearly defined medical condition that causes short stature. No clear etiology exists for the majority of these children. Without a clear diagnosis, it is often hard to justify treatment unless the kid is severely short. But how short is considered "too short" to warrant treatment? For many reasons, the answer isn't always so clear. What is "short" for one child in one family wouldn't be "short" for the same child in another family. Moreover, some kids who have always been labeled as "short" aren't really all that short once they finish growing. Some of them who were once considered "short" as children are now taller than me! This is precisely the reason why I often hesitate to put labels such as short (or tall) in the medical record of children who are still growing. These terms create biases that may not be clinically warranted and in many cases are subject to personal interpretation.

In thinking about running these days, I perceive speed in much the same way. Although I know in relation to me what's fast and what's slow, I really have no clue how those terms would translate to somebody else. Because speed is so relative and everyone is by default faster or slower than somebody else, I learned early on not to alter my perception of my own speed based on the performance of others. In my mind this is a pointless exercise because in the end my main competition is really only against myself and what someone else does in their training or racing really has no bearing on me.

Over the past several weeks, I've told by several newer runners that my speed in training "intimidates" them. I've been told that because I run so fast and so far they in turn feel as if their running and training is insufficient or inadequate. They feel varying degrees of shame because they often "see" me lapping them in a theoretical race when they are running and training outside on a daily basis. As you can imagine, this news comes as a huge shock to me. To learn that I've caused others to negatively view their own training is extremely upsetting to me. I can't imagine why anyone would use me as their benchmark to assess their own speed or fitness. First of all, in a global sense, I am not really all that fast - never been, probably never will be. Second of all, why does it matter anyway? Although I initially tried hard to perceive myself through the prism of another set of eyes to gain perspective, I eventually came to the conclusion that this is ludicrous to me and not something that I can ever full appreciate. The thing is, we are all unique and come to this sport from entirely different backgrounds and talent. Also, our experience and training are not at the same level. Most of the people who make these comparisons are just starting out in this sport. I'd argue that they have not yet learned what fast or slow (for them) really means. It would be like a child telling me that I'm really tall when I'm just 5'6" (or 5'7" if I cheat a little bit). From my perspective, it is wrong and often detrimental to think "Wow that guy is fast so I must be slow" or "I'm never fast enough for anything so I must suck!" Instead, what you should be thinking is "Wow, I ran 4 miles, 4 city blocks, or 4 light poles...something I couldn't do 6 months, 6 years, or 6 decades ago.." or "Wow, I'm running 30 secs/mile faster than I did when I started running...that's really cool!" If you can look inwardly and concentrate on your own journey and successes along the way instead of comparing yourself against the barometer of others you will always be fast enough for YOU! Enjoy and revel in YOUR OWN speed because just as surely as you are impressed by what you see in me, there is another who is impressed by what YOU do as well (even if that may not be so apparent right now)!

So run YOUR OWN pace, enjoy YOUR OWN race, set YOUR OWN goals and don't let me or anyone else dictate YOUR OWN awesomeness!

Birthday Thanks and Active Recovery

Thanks to all of my bloggy friends for your congratulatory wishes and kind words over the weekend. My birthday/graduation celebration in three parts this past weekend was a smashing success. Not only did I drink, eat, and party a lot with friends and family, I also got to lead a perfectly paced 20 mile training run for NYRR and run my 35K all at the same time. Hooray! I honestly cannot remember the last time I had as much fun celebrating my birthday as I did this year! It was all so fantabulous! (Yes, I know it's a made-up word, but it's awesome...don't judge!)

As I look back and reflect on my progression as a runner, one of the immediate things that struck me was how much my running volume has changed. It is mind boggling how I ran more miles at age 32 than I did at age 30 and 31 combined and how I ran more miles at 34 than I did at 31 and 32 combined. I remember when I used to run just 3-4 times a week in the earlier days, being fully convinced that I'd surely injure myself if I were to run more. Nowadays, I run 6 days a week without a moment's hesitation and without worrying if or when an injury might pop up next. Besides the obvious gains in knowledge and experience over the years, the main difference in my opinion between where I am now and where I was in the past is learning, applying, and embracing a concept I call active recovery.

To the naive and inexperienced, the term "active recovery" seems oxymoronic. After all, how can rest and recovery, both passive events, ever be considered active? But if you understand that muscular recovery can occur even during an ongoing activity (if the activity is kept predominantly slow and does not utilize aerobic mechanisms), then it is not hard to comprehend. However, simply understanding the concept does not imply application and practice. Over the years, far too many times, I've found myself intending an active recovery run, only to forget mid-run and end up running at a general aerobic or tempo pace. The aftermath of not taking a recovery run seriously enough is that you end up feeling just as sluggish the day after the run as you did before the run. This may lead to decreased efficiency, fatigue, or worse, overtraining.

Over the past several weeks, many people I know have already begun to overtrain for their late summer/fall races. Because many runners and triathletes have addictive type A personalities that propel them to crush each and every workout, they run too fast for too long with not enough rest and easy miles and end up running themselves into the ground. I know because I used to be one of them. For about 1.5 to 2 years, I didn't know any better than to push every workout and race every tempo/interval run. This was until I met a friend who caught me limping after a particularly grueling workout one day and asked me how I was planning to run tomorrow or the next day. I told him I wasn't sure. Then he told me words that I still have never forgotten. "Run today as if the most important run is the one you will have tomorrow." What he meant by that is to never jeopardize your chance of having a good run tomorrow by running harder than necessary today. If it's a scheduled easy day, keep at easy pace so tomorrow's run can be great. If it's a hard/speedwork day, don't run harder than necessary to get the job done. That way, you won't injury yourself and can still run easy tomorrow.

Just knowing and embracing that fact has kept me off the injured list and running better and faster every year. That's what I would wish for every runner out there. That's my gift to you. Please take this message and apply wisely. Your running livelihood may very well depend on it. Run on, my friends!