RUN • BIKE • TRI: 1000+ LIFE CHANGING EVENTS MARCH 2011
YouTube’s Kelly Starrett
rebel leader of the global stretching revolution
WaNtS to SaVe You
WeeKS to a KNocKout half-MarathoN
Our Must-Have Super Guide
competitor
olYMpic hopeful
Can CHriS SOLinSKY turn a U.S. record into London gold?
iNjurY KilliNg
tech & gear
6
pacK Yoga
Without a trace: Why did the world’s greatest runner go AWOL?
sound mind
asics.com
sound body running releases more than just sweat
CONTENTS MARCH 2011
Features [ blueprint ]
34 | 12 WEEKS TO RUNNING TO YOUR FIRST HALF-MARATHON
We outline everything you need to know—from training plans, nutrition and gear—to have a successful race. BY MARIO FRAIOLI
40 | HATE TO STRETCH? WHAM! NOT ANYMORE
Introducing Kelly Starrett, YouTube’s new fitness star. BY T.J. MURPHY [ photo feature ]
46 | A WARM, CLEAR DAY
Shanane Flanaghan and Brent Vaughn lead the nation’s best harriers at the USATF Cross-Country Nationals. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN SEGESTA
56 | WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO DANIEL KOMEN?
After one of the greatest world record sprees in the history of track and field, the only man to run backto-back sub-4 minute miles soon vanished from the sport.
ON THE COVER:
USA 10,000-meter record holder—the first American to break 27 minutes—and 2012 Olympic hopeful, Chris Solinsky. Photo by John Segesta.
4 Competitor March 2011
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[ photo feature ] The 2011 U.S. Cross Country Championships were held at Mission Bay Park in San Diego on Feb. 5. Competitor photographer John Segesta documents the action.
Photo by John Segesta
BY MATT FITZGERALD
©2011 Zappos.com, Inc. or its affiliates www.zappos.com/running
CONTENTS MARCH 2011
Departments 8 | FROM THE EDITOR 10 | COMPETITOR.COM 14 | FIRST IMPRESSIONS PHOTOGRAPH BY PATITUCCHIPHOTO
18 | STARTING LINES
24
BULLETIN > Coach Profile: Earl Walton
[ gear ] Eradicate aches and injuries and be happy again.
BY ERIN BERESINI
INJURY PREVENTION > Genetic Insight into Athletic Injuries BY AARON HERSH
TRAINING > Yoga for Runners BY BILL BEYER
GEAR > Relieve Athletic Aches BY REBECCA HEATON
34
[ run ] A complete, indispensable guide to the half-marathon.
EAT SMART > Brain Fuel BY MATT FITZGERALD
OUT THERE > The Bounce Test BY SUSAN LACKE
I’M A COMPETITOR > Solinsky Goes for Gold BY MARIO FRAIOLI
65 | WHAT’S HAPPENING IN YOUR REGION
Profiles Must-do Races Fitness and Exercise Tips Calendar of Events Photo by John Segesta
> > > >
6 Competitor March 2011
FROM THE EDITOR BY T.J. MURPHY
The Athlete Within
I
recall when I decided to do a marathon. It wasn’t about the courage or bravery I saw in those who inspire the world by transcending missing limbs or fighting off cancer. Neither was it something as common and tangible as needing to burn off excess weight. It was really about how I’d lost the butterflies I had felt before games and track meets in high school. I was in my mid-20s and sliding into the routine of work and weekends, and I began to notice how a layer of boredom had descended over my life like a warm fog. Days and weeks would pass like flat whitenoise, everything turning into a blur. When I signed up for my first marathon, I felt like I was planning an escape from a low-security prison. I picked up a book on running and followed a 30-week schedule, starting off with a long run of four miles. Even though the training plan slowly upped my mileage to a 20-mile long run, when I stood on the starting line after a sleepless night I was still nervous as hell. I wasn’t sure that I could run 26.2 miles and wasn’t sure what would happen. The pre-race nerves felt like an electrical fire. Half an hour before the start, instructions were barked through a megaphone and the national anthem was sung.
I didn’t know anyone else in the race. Unlike in high school I felt no pressure from coaches or peers. If I were to fail it wouldn’t matter to anyone except myself. I was totally anonymous. Yet still I felt an extreme internal pressure. When the gun went off I might as well have been fleeing prison. To this day I can recall the unreal feeling of watching the finish line pass beneath my feet. It left me a changed person. The stress of the day-to-day expectation of training, the deep fatigue from long runs, the feeling of being an athlete again--I was hooked forever. I’ve been running for 20 years now, everything from the 800 meters on the track to half-marathons to Ironman triathlons in Australia, with as many victories as disappointments. Injuries, frustration, hard work and satisfaction all have been part of the deal. What I’ve cherished most about it are the many friendships I have built from those who share the same passion. One thing is certain: the fog of boredom burned off long ago. While I still like to goof off as a spectator—say by drinking a beer and watching a college football game—I know such treats are best enjoyed after a hard 10-mile run. And if you’re reading this magazine it’s likely that you know exactly what I’m talking about. We dedicate Competitor to you.
EDITORIAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR T.J. Murphy EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Bob Babbitt EXECUTIVE EDITOR Somyr McLean Perry SENIOR EDITOR Erin Beresini CONTRIBUTORS John Bingham, Matt Fitzgerald, Mario Fraioli, Deena Kastor, Dr. Lewis Maharam ART ART DIRECTOR Julika Kade GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Valerie Brugos, Bridget Durkin, Pam Johnston CIRCULATION & PRODUCTION DIRECTOR, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT John Francis jfrancis@competitorgroup.com AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Cassie Lee-Trettel cleetrettel@competitorgroup.com PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Meghan McElravy mmcelravy@competitorgroup.com ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Gia Hawkins ghawkins@competitorgroup.com AD TRAFFICKER Rachel Warren rwarren@competitorgroup.com ADVERTISING SVP, SALES DIRECTOR John Smith jsmith@competitorgroup.com SVP, PUBLISHER/LOCAL SALES MANAGER Doug Kaplan dkaplan@competitorgroup.com VP, SALES DEVELOPMENT Sean Clottu sclottu@competitorgroup.com VP, ENDEMIC SALES Kevin Burnette kburnette@competitorgroup.com VP, WESTERN REGION SALES David O’Connell doconnell@competitorgroup.com VP, EASTERN REGION SALES Rebecca McKinnon rmckinnon@competitorgroup.com NATIONAL SALES REPS Justin Sands jsands@competitorgroup.com, Nathan Forbes nforbes@competitorgroup.com, Mark Gouge mgouge@competitorgroup.com, Lars Finanger lfinanger@competitorgroup.com, David Walker dwalker@competitorgroup.com NATIONAL CHARITIES/EVENTS (WEST) Kelly Trimble ktrimble@competitorgroup.com, (EAST) Tom Borda tborda@competitorgroup.com MARKETPLACE ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Alex Jarman ajarman@competitorgroup.com REGIONAL SALES REPS Katie Campbell kcampbell@competitorgroup.com, Richard Hurd rhurd@competitorgroup.com, Chip McLaughlin cmclaughlin@competitorgroup. com, David Ragsdale dragsdale@competitorgroup.com, Laura Ritter lritter@competi torgroup.com, Matt Steinberg msteinberg@competitorgroup.com, Chris Wheeler cwheeler@competitorgroup.com MARKETING & PROMOTIONS SVP, MARKETING Bouker Pool bpool@competitorgroup.com NATIONAL PROMOTIONS Danielle Mendoza dmendoza@competitorgroup.com DIGITAL MEDIA VP, DIGITAL MEDIA Dan Vaughan dvaughan@competitorgroup.com DIRECTOR, DIGITAL ADVERTISING SALES Jason Rossiter jrossiter@competitorgroup.com WEB AD COORDINATOR Ashley Westin awestin@competitorgroup.com ONLINE CONTENT DIRECTOR Kurt Hoy SENIOR WEB PRODUCER Matt Fitzgerald WEB PRODUCERS Mario Fraioli, Liz Hichens SENIOR VIDEO PRODUCER Steve Godwin VIDEO PRODUCER Kevin LaClaire FINANCE Gretchen Alt, Erik Westerlund
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The entire contents of this magazine are Copyright 2010 Competitor Publishing, all rights reserved and may not be reproduced in any manner, in whole or in part, without written permission from the publisher. The views and opinions of the writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Competitor Magazine. We are not responsible for lost or damaged photographs or materials. The magazine is published 11 times a year. Printed in the U.S.A.
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NUTRITION
Monday Minute: Got 60 seconds? Check every Monday for a performanceenhancing, injuryreducing exercise video.
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SHOES AND GEAR
Keep up with current trends and read the latest reviews on running footwear, apparel and equipment.
FORUMS
Discuss what’s going on in the world of running, talk about your training with others or share your shoe and gear experiences in our forums.
Read about what our running pros are up to in their careers and lives.
Ryan Hall 10 Competitor March 2011
Kara Goucher
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to get in the scene
Dathan Ritzenhein
Med Tent: Join renowned sports med doc Jordan Metzl every Tuesday for a chat about running injuries, prevention and recovery.
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TRAINING
From your first 5K to a marathon PR, we’ve got you covered.
Competitor’s Mario Fraioli and Matt Fitzgerald look ahead to 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon and offer early analysis on how the men’s and women’s races are shaping up with less than a year to go. They’ll tell you who’s already in, who to keep an eye out for and how the timing of the trials will affect the top contenders’ racing plans for the rest of 2011.
Sign up for THE RUN DOWN
Contributors
John segesta • photographer
Mario Fraioli • web producer
Matt Fitzgerald • writer
Photographer John Segesta drew from a decade of experience photographing athletes to shoot American runner Chris Solinsky for this issue’s cover. “In person,” Segesta said, “Chris was very humble. But when we took his picture, the nice guy was gone and there was this callous competitor left staring at the camera. That brief transformation is what I really love about doing portraits.”
Mario Fraioli is the web producer at Competitor.com. He is a former cross-country AllAmerican at Stonehill College and has run 2:28 in the marathon. We asked him to write two pieces for this month’s issue after he claimed to have experienced nirvana on a 13-mile trail run in San Diego with American 10,000m record-holder Chris Solinsky. His profile on Solinsky is on page 30.
Matt Fitzgerald is a lifelong runner and fan of the sport. He has authored and coauthored several books, including his most recent, “Racing Weight.” In his research for “What Ever Happened to Daniel Komen?” on page 56, he learned that a sports journalist named his dog after 1990s running phenom, Daniel Komen. While Matt has yet to name a pet after a famous runner, he says if he did, “it would probably be Joanie.”
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Blank.indd 110
3/1/11 10:46 AM
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
14 Competitor March 2010
The Path Less Taken
Two runners enjoy trail winding through the Italian Dolomites. By PatitucciPhoto
PRAGS, ITALY
competitor.com 15
STARTING LINES [ BULLETIN ]
TRI COACH EARL WALTON WITH HIS SON, ASHER.
WE’RE WATCHING: EARL WALTON This New York City-based triathlon coach has bonked harder than you have. By Erin Beresini
E
arl Walton is that guy. The guy who wears Grandma’s flowered bathing cap to swim practice. The gangly guy who zooms around New York City in bright redand-orange spandex. The guy whose poof of curly grey hair is as big as his personality. Seasoned triathletes and newbies are noticing New York-based coach Earl Walton and it’s not because he’s hard to miss. It’s because the 37 year old was also that guy. The guy who forgot to tighten his rear skewer. The guy who didn’t bring a flat repair kit on a long ride.
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The guy who bonked so hard at his first Ironman that he thought he was being abducted by aliens on the run. “If an athlete is embarrassed about something he did, I guarantee Earl can make him feel good by telling a story about himself,” said Scott Willett, Walton’s business partner at TriLife, a triathlon and trail-running coaching service in New York City. If Walton became the example of what not to do when triathlon training, it wasn’t entirely his fault. “Until he got smart enough,” said Willett, “I’d try to make him ‘that guy’ by taking him on crazy
athletic adventures where there was the biggest opportunity for him to bonk or collapse or fall or fail.” A former Division I middle-distance swimmer at Dusquesne University, Walton discovered triathlon—and Willett—when he signed on as Team in Training’s New York City swim coach in 2001. Since then, he’s raced triathlons in every distance and made every mistake possible, allowing him to relate to athletes of all abilities. Abe Borenstien, 53, tried triathlon on a whim in 2006 after 20 years of running marathons. He signed on with Team in
Training and landed in Walton’s swim practice. “He has the patience of a saint. There’s no judgment,” said Borenstein, a Level 1 USAT-certified coach. “I try to emulate him—be patient and don’t get frustrated.” Maureen Donaghy, 43, had been racing triathlons for five years when she took on the half-iron distance at New Hampshire’s Timberman. She was petrified and called on Walton for guidance. “Earl worked on getting me through that race and it was a huge personal achievement,” said Donaghy. Coaching the average athlete in America’s largest metropolis isn’t as glamorous as coaching big-name pros in Boulder, but Walton doesn’t mind. “I love to show people that New York shouldn’t be an excuse not to be a great athlete. Training in New York opens up the city in a way most people never thought possible,” he said. As for famous clients and podium finishes, Walton realizes that winning isn’t everyone’s goal. “There’s a lot of happiness when I see people crossing the finish line who never thought that they could have.” Learn more at Trilife.org.
Photo by Maura Vargas
// PROFILES
THIS IS THE GUY WHO BONKED SO HARD AT HIS FIRST IRONMAN THAT HE THOUGHT HE WAS BEING ABDUCTED BY ALIENS ON THE RUN.
[ BULLETIN ] STARTING LINES // REVIEW
NEWS IN NUMBERS
1,632
Number of steps in Chicago’s Hustle Up the Hancock stair climb race on Feb. 27.
8 hours 3 minutes Amount of time in which the 2011 Boston Marathon sold out.
2:19:00 Time needed for a man to qualify for the 2012 U.S. Olympic marathon trials.
4:28:00
Average finish time at the 2010 NYC Marathon.
40,000 The number of runners expected at Charleston, S.C.’s Copper River Bridge Run 10K on April 2.
1.5 MILLION Estimated number of Vibram FiveFingers shoes sold in 2010.
APRIL 19 The deadline to apply to run the NYC Marathon, held on Nov. 6.
NATURAL RUNNING
by Danny Abshire (with Brian Metzler); $18.95; Velopress.com In a recent online radio interview, “Born to Run” author Christopher McDougall responded to a question about debate raging over barefoot running—a debate he helped spark with his reporting on the running shoe industry—by saying that the whole discussion had “gone off the rails.” Although the book makes a strong case for perhaps infusing small doses of barefoot running drills into your training, McDougall doesn’t force a conclusion on readers that they should ditch shoes completely. In fact, in his preparation for an ultra running event, he foregoes the temptation to use Tarahumara-style huaraches and buys a pair of Nike Pegasus. It’s clear that many of the questions McDougall triggered require more exhaustive discussion. In the new book, “Natural Run-
ning,” (Velopress, 2010) author Danny Abshire jumps into the fray and offers up insight gathered from more than two decades of experience as an ultra-runner, running form coach and creator of Newton running shoes. Abshire has long been a go-to guy for elite runners and triathletes struggling with injury, and in “Natural Running” he dives deep into the surrounding subjects ignited by “Born to Run.” Chapters on the physics of running, biomechanics and how to evaluate your running form are detailed and well researched. In Chapter 7 Abshire connects the dots between specific running injuries, such as Achilles tendon problems, to the dysfunction responsible and in Chapter 9 lays out drills and exercises he believes are fundamental to a running transformation. —T.J. Murphy
RADIO SOUNDBITE | Competitorradio.com
“He said you’ve got to have wool to cool you in the summer and warm you in the winter. We’d go to secondhand clothing stores and buy female cashmere sweaters. We couldn’t afford bike jerseys. For 50 cents you could get a really good cashmere sweater. That’s what we’d wear.” —Triathlon great Scott Molina recalling the apparel advice given in the early 1970s by cycling legend Bob Roll for their 200-mile bike rides.
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STARTING LINES [ injury prevention ] // ExpErt AdvicE I’m running again after taking three months off. Now I get a shooting pain up the front of my legs. I’m a forefoot striker; am I stuck with this pain?
A few privAte compAnies offer tests thAt reveAl the predictive secrets of eAch person’s Genome, with the GoAl of helpinG An individuAl become A better Athlete
Genetic insiGht into Athletic injuries
I
t took scientists 13 years and approximately $3 billion to decipher the human genome, but now the price of genetic testing is becoming more affordable. Information contained within an individual’s genome is no longer the exclusive domain of well-funded research scientists—it’s accessible to anyone, and perhaps of special interest to endurance athletes. A few private companies offer tests that reveal the predictive secrets of each person’s genome, with the goal of helping an individual become a better athlete. Today, you can send a sample of your saliva through the mail to companies that will test a portion of your genome for less than the price of a half-iron race entry fee. However, the field of personal genetics is still developing and the real question is: What practical use can these tests offer athletes? Athleticode is a genetic testing startup that strives to tell
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athletes which injuries they are most prone to so they can strengthen themselves against those injuries and hopefully prevent them. Athleticode’s James Kovach, M.D., says the company’s goal is to link specific genetic sequences to a predisposition toward specific injuries. Send a cheek swab through the mail to their lab and for $350 Athleticode will test five genes that have been definitively linked to ACL and Achilles tendon injury. Although these aren’t necessarily the most common running injuries, Atheticode believes there might be a link between these five genes, among others, and the injuries that most frequently hobble runners. Although the current test to evaluate innate injury risk is not very extensive, it can provide clues about the types of injuries an athlete might experience, making it a technology to watch in 2011. —Aaron hersh
this is one pain that favors beginners, or athletes coming back from a long layoff. shin splints strike where your calf muscles wrap forward around your lower leg bone. toe runners are told they’re perfect candidaexperttes for the condition, but it’s brought on by a combination of overly tight calf muscles and what the foot does not when it lands, but after it lands. A runner with flat feet who pronates is a classic candidate for shin splints. the single most effective step is to stop the foot from rolling, and only a proper orthotic can do that. loosening the calf muscles also cuts your shins some slack. try the following stretches: rCalf Stretch: standing about two feet from a tree or wall, lean into it with your good foot forward, your back straight and the affected foot behind you,
heel on the ground. hold for 20 seconds. repeat 10 times. rCalf Stretch II: repeat, with the knee of the affected foot slightly bent. remember: heel on the ground. rStair Toe Raises: stand with the balls of your feet on a stair, midfoot and heels over the edge, feet pointing straight forward. over 10 seconds, slowly raise your heels over the step, then lower them below the step, then back to the horizontal. repeat 10 times. rStair Toe Raises II: same as above, but with toes pointing inward. rStair Toe Raises III: same as stair toe raises, but with toes pointing outward. —lewis maharam, m.d.
Have a question for Dr. Maharam? E-mail him at runningdoc@ competitorgroup. com or find him on Facebook under “Running Doc.”
STARTING LINES [ Training ]
Yoga for runners
Downward dog This is both a resting and a strengthening pose. It is a pose that you will encounter in any yoga class. It stretches the hamstrings, calves and Achilles tendons, opening up the shoulders and stretching the back. It also strengthens the legs, arms, shoulders, back and core.
By Bill Beyer
Practice yoga to improve core strength, flexibility, breathing and recovery. Try a few styles to find one that best meets your needs. The most beneficial types of yoga tailored for athletes are “vinyasa flow” and “Iyengar.” Many also wonder about Bikram, or hot yoga, which is practiced in a room temperature of more than 100 degrees. The theory is that heat aids the body in stretching and injury prevention. However, athletes often battle dehydration. A warm room is OK, but too much heat might make you feel more flexible than your body really is, resulting in overstretching. Keep the room temperature mild. 22 Competitor March 2011
Side plank Extreme core strengthener! Strengthens arms, upper back, shoulders, obliques, legs. It is also a slight back bend.
High crescent lunge Strengthens the legs and develops balance and core strength. It also stretches the hip flexors.
Low lunge A deep stretch to release both the quadriceps and the hip flexors. Develops balance as well.
[ Training ] STARTING LINES
Consider yoga as cross-training, in which you focus on alignment and core strength twice a week. While training, concentrate more on stretching twice a week. Then during race season, yoga can be restorative: breathing, calming the mind and body, gentle stretching. Savasana A posture for recovery and restoration. It can be practiced with a pillow or bolster under the knees, and a small towel under the head so the body is more comfortably supported.
Tree pose This pose strengthens the legs and improves balance and focus. It can be practiced with the foot high on the inner groin or low by the inner ankle (never on the knee).
PrAnA Figure Four This pose stretches the muscles that run from your sacrum (the back of your pelvis) to the outside of your upper femur (thigh bone) and helps relieve tense glute muscles.
(“life/breath”) life in general; the life force sustaining the body; the breath as an external manifestation of the subtle life force
Half-pigeon or reclined half- pigeon A deep hip opener, great for stretching your hip flexors, glutes and the back side of your hips. This can be a challenging posture depending on your anatomy. It can be practiced on the floor in a reclined posture.
// ExpErt AdvicE For two years I’ve set a PR in almost every race. But now I’m stuck at a plateau. How do I break out of it? Performance plateaus are normal and unavoidable in running. For beginners there is typically a long honeymoon period during which performance steadily improves. But it ends as soon as the body has fully adapted to the training the runner has been doing. Fortunately, it is possible to improve further. All it requires is making some changes to stimulate new physiological adaptations. In running, getting better usually requires working harder—but not always. Before you look at ways to work harder, I suggest you look at other ways to improve. Are you training as consistently as you could? Eliminating periods of slack in your running will give you a better foundation for improvement. Is your training organized and systematic? If not, begin using training plans featuring sensible key workout progressions, planned
recovery periods and other proven methods. This will help you get more out of the same amount of running. There are three ways to trigger improvement by working harder. The most obvious among them is simply running more. There’s a reason the world’s best runners run 100plus miles a week. While it’s unlikely that you’re willing or able to run quite that much, even a modest increase in your running volume will pay dividends. A second option is to increase the amount of high-intensity running you do. Try to run fast twice a week when preparing for races. And then there’s cross-training. Strength training especially is a proven way to boost running performance and reduce injury risk. Every runner should do it. —Matt Fitzgerald
Find Matt Fitzgerald’s latest book “RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel” at VeloPress.com.
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STARTING LINES [ GEAR ]
RELIEVE THOSE ATHLETIC ACHES Face it. Active types experience the occasional aches and pains. Luckily there are plenty of cool products to help bodies stretch, maintain flexibility and recover so they can keep going and going … and going.
’FRAID NOTS $20 This rope can be used to assist many stretches for the whole body. A laminated chart depicts 17 basic stretches that can be finished in less than 10 minutes, plus nine more advanced stretches once the basics have been mastered. Pack the rope with you wherever you go so you can stretch anywhere. Finisinc.com
PROSTRETCH PLUS $30 A staple in professional athlete locker rooms, this little blue “rocker” isolates the lower leg muscles, tendons and ligaments for a nice, deep stretch to help combat aches caused by Achilles tendinitis and plantar fasciitis. Also use it to exercise and strengthen lower leg muscles and ankles. Medi-dyne.com
MOJI KNEE $119.95 For achy knees the Moji Knee wrap can help speed recovery time after a tough workout with an innovative two-piece design consisting of a compression wrap and spider-like cold cell matrix with 18 individual pockets of cooling gel. This combo offers up targeted cooling to reduce swelling and pain. Gomoji.com
KT TAPE $13 An abbreviation for kinesiology therapeutic, KT Tape provides relief and support for injured or sore muscles and joints and helps prevent common injuries such as shin splints, plantar fasciitis and lower back pain. Instructions and photos of how to apply pre-cut strips are included. Kttape.com
THE GRID $40 Not your everyday foam roller, The Grid is designed to feel like human hands as you roll on it to massage your muscles, with its different density zones. But it’s more than just a self-massage tool. Use it to strengthen your core by following the Smrt-Core (Smrtcore.com) series of exercises. Tptherapy.com —Rebecca Heaton
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STARTING LINES [ EAT SMART ]
BRAIN FUEL TIP
Enjoy a side this as dinner dish to nutrien or as a tpost-w packed ork lunch. out
Squash with Quinoa INGREDIENTS:
1 squash (your favorite variety), cut in half 1 teaspoon olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 1 cup quinoa 1 cup apple cider ½ cup of water ½ cup of dried cranberries ½ cup of toasted almonds Dash of cinnamon Maple syrup (optional)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush squash with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and place cutside-down on a baking sheet. Roast for 40 to 45 minutes. While squash is roasting, let quinoa soak in pot of water for about 10 minutes. Rinse and drain, then return to pot. Bring quinoa juice and water to a boil. Cover and let simmer for about 15 minutes. Add cranberries, almonds and cinnamon then fluff with a fork. Cover and let sit for five minutes or until ready to serve. When squash is tender, remove from oven and divide onto two plates. Pack the inside of squash with quinoa mixture. Drizzle each half with a teaspoon of maple syrup if desired.
A new trend in sports nutrition has quietly emerged. New supplements formulated to increase endurance performance by affecting brain function have hit the market, and more are on the way. Among the new brain fuel products is SportQuest’s Motivator, a daily capsule containing gingko biloba (an herb shown to enhance memory in some studies), L-taurine (an amino acid used in many energy drinks), and other functional ingredients. According to its packaging, Motivator “increases blood flow to the brain and increases mental power… thereby increasing motivation, enhancing muscular coordination as well as cognitive and physical performance.” Sports nutrition companies are also adding new ingredients to familiar products such as sports drinks and
energy gels to delay “central fatigue, ”the decline of exercise performance caused by changes in brain chemistry.” For example, PacificHealth Labs has just launched a new energy gel called 2nd Surge, containing branched-chain amino acids, which have been shown in studies to delay central fatigue. Are these products for real? “This mental energy approach has the potential to be the next big thing in endurance performance, and is here to stay,” says Shawn Talbott, Ph.D., head of Supplement Watch, a service that educates consumers about nutritional supplements. Talbott says much more research needs to be done before we know what really works and what doesn’t, though, so stay tuned. —Matt Fitzgerald
// REVIEW “The Paleo Diet Cookbook” by Loren Cordain, Ph.D. Meat. Vegetables. Fruit. If you’re deviating from your Paleo diet because the thought of eating another chicken salad stresses you out, or you’re simply searching for quick, healthful meal ideas, this cookbook will help. Written by the
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experts that published the original “Paleo Diet” book in 2002, “The Paleo Diet Cookbook” outlines dozens of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, desserts, drinks and condiments—all with limited prep time. Try replacing that chicken salad with bison-stuffed bell peppers or
beef bourguignon. A special section for athletes focuses on high-glycemic fruits and protein for pre- and post-workout meals, while a two-week meal plan will help you eat healthfully on autopilot. We just wish the cookbook had photos and a hardcover. $19.95 —Erin Beresini
STARTING LINES [ out there ]
The BouNCe TesT
By susan lacke
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CoNTrary To WhaT sporT gear CaTalogs Would lIke us To BelIeve, The average WomaN sImply CaNNoT Be aCTIve IN CuTe floral ruNNINg Tops WITh spagheTTI sTraps. light (these dressing rooms were obviously designed by men), we squeeze and squish and manipulate ourselves into an elaborate tangle of lycra, wires and spandex. Then comes the “bounce test.” If only guys could see what really happens in the dressing room. I’m certain all the mystery and intrigue of the private dressing room would disappear if men could witness this not-so-ladylike phenomenon. Women know exactly what the bounce test is. It involves a series of hops, skips, jumps and free-base dives off the tallest building in a 30-mile radius. If a sports bra survives the bounce test, then (and
only then) do we consider the product’s other appeal: Oh—it has a cute flower on it! Aww. Moisture-wicking fabric! Well, isn’t that special? When we find one that works, we buy one in every color and pray they don’t wear out after two cycles in the washing machine. Bonus points if the bras don’t chafe. Some women who are—ahem—“well endowed” will never pass the bounce test with just one bra. Unfortunately, these women get the joys of wearing two bras every training session. At the start of every season, my friend Jenn stands on the bench of the women’s locker room to deliver
her message like a biblical prophet of all things mammary, arms raised in the air for emphasis: “LADIES! Double bag so you don’t sag!” These lucky ladies require a little extra fortification in order to pass the bounce test. Hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Sports bras, ultimately, serve one purpose and one purpose only: To keep our “junk” from bouncing around. Though I know men have “junk” too, I guarantee you one thing: Bounce or no bounce, no guy ever had to look at a fellow runner during a marathon and say, “HEY --- my face is up here.” I rest my case.
Illustration by N.C. Winters
Men just don’t get it, do they? Sure, we’ve come a long way since the days of Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to enter the Boston Marathon in 1967, but even in today’s modern athletics, there’s still a strange naivety about the differences between male and female runners. A chat with a male running partner confirmed this: “You don’t get it, Susan. It’s hard to shop for running stuff. Guys have junk bouncing around. They have to contain it with the right pair of shorts.” Like I have no idea what it’s like to have things bounce when I run. Breasts can be a drag for many female runners. It’s hard to know just what to do with them. Contrary to what sport gear catalogs would like us to believe, the average woman simply cannot be active in cute floral running tops with spaghetti straps. Many of us gals need sports bras that resemble Kevlar vests. Running is supposed to be about the forward movement, not the up-and-down. So we hit up our sporting goods store, load up our arms with multiple sports bras, and plod into the dressing room. In the unflattering
STARTING LINES [ i’m a competitor ]
cross country championships from his sophomore through senior seasons, and dominated the Footlocker National Cross Country Championships in 2002, winning by a commanding 21 seconds over the U.S. “I want to wIn reigning half-marathon the 5,000 thIS champion, Mo SuMMer. and Trafeh. contend For The self-dean olyMPIc scribed “redneck from the gold Medal.” backwoods of Wisconsin” wasn’t too shabby on the track, either, graduating with multiple state titles and personal bests of 4:03.6 in the 1,600 meters and 8:43.24 in the 3,200. His approach to racing in high school was the same as his current philosophy as a professional: Run for the win and everything else will follow. In 2003 he attended the University of Wisconsin where a young coach named Jerry Schumacher who made it known before took a bunch of young the race he was there for Badgers, including Solinone reason: to break Meb sky, and turned them into Keflezighi’s then nine- a powerhouse team that year-old American record won the NCAA Division 1 Cross Country Championof 27:13.98. Solinsky crossed the fin- ship in 2005. Multiple inish line in 26:59.68—the dividual NCAA champions first American to break 27 emerged from the group, none more accomplished minutes. Solinsky has been win- than Solinsky, who was ning races since high an 11-time All-American school. He captured three and five-time NCAA chamstraight Wisconsin state pion by 2007.
Can a 26-year old distance runner go from his first track 10K to the top of the Olympic podium in just two years? By Mario Fraioli
W
ith threeand-a-half laps remaining in the 10,000-meter race at Stanford University’s Payton Jordan Invitational in May, Chris Solinsky, a linebacker-sized longdistance runner competing in his first track 10K, suddenly surged out of third place blowing past the favorite, Galen Rupp,
30 Competitor March 2011
“[Schumacher] always trained us to have the fitness to run a certain pace, but he doesn’t want us to worry about time,” Solinsky says. Today, Solinsky trains with Schumacher as a part of the Portland-based Oregon Track Club. Former Badgers Tim Nelson, Matt Tegenkamp and Simon Bairu, and other runners including Andy Bumbalough, Shalane Flanagan and Lisa Koll train with this team. Although Solinsky became the fifth American ever to break 13 minutes for 5,000 meters last summer, his goal—and that of his teammates—is not simply to be the best American runner in any given race. “We can’t be happy to just make a world championship team or an Olympic team. When we make that team, we’re there for business,” he says. Taking care of business at this summer’s World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and next summer’s Olympic Games in London is Solinsky’s top goal. While he has yet to make an Olympic team or finish top-10 at the world championships, showing up on the starting line of either final won’t be enough for him. “I want to win the 5,000 this summer,” Solinsky says. “And contend for an Olympic gold medal.”
Photo by John Segesta
Solinsky Goes for Gold
Twelve weeks It’s not half of a marathon—it’s an endurance milestone. By Mario Fraioli and photos by John Segesta
T
he half-marathon is not the marathon’s mini-me. It’s the fastest growing road race distance in the U.S., according to Running USA, a nonprofit organization that tracks running trends, with the number of finishers growing by 10 percent every year. What’s the draw? The halfmarathon is an endurance event all its own with unique training and racing strategies. Whether you race to win or for bumper sticker bragging rights, running 13.1 miles is a lifetime achievement—just ask the more than 1.1 million people who ran one last year. You can run a half-marathon. In these next few pages, we’ll show you how. So sign up for a race,
34 Competitor March 2011
then read up on the latest footwear, training and nutrition strategies. The schedule is broken down into three phases: a six-week buildup, four weeks of halfmarathon specific work and a two-week sharpening period. The general cycle calls for two weeks of increasing long runs and more challenging workouts followed by a down week of recovery runs and less intense sessions. In the interest of consistency, most key workouts are slated for Tuesdays and Saturdays, with longer runs scheduled for Sundays. Each phase of the training plan is spelled out below, along with some extra advice to keep in mind when getting ready to race your first half-marathon.
BLUEPRINT
“GETTING SHOES AN GAIT AND G THAT’S BE ENCE BETW
MY HOUSE MILE 3
MILE 1
HILL
MILE 4
MILE 13
MILE 2
STOP AND STRETCH
MILE 12
TO TACKLE 13.1 HILL
MILE 5
HIDE WATER BOTTLE IN THE BUSH
STAIRS
STAIRS
HILL
MILE 6
STAIR
RUNNING A HALF MARATHON IN THE
WRONG PAIR OF SHOES--OR THE HUN-
MILE 7
DREDS OF MILES IN TRAINING IT TAKES
TO PREPARE FOR YOUR 13.1-MILE RACE-IS A SUREFIRE RECIPE FOR DISASTER. “SHOES ARE BY FAR YOUR MOST IM-
MILE 8
PORTANT PIECE OF EQUIPMENT,” SAYS
BEN ROSARIO, CO-OWNER OF BIG RIVER RUNNING COMPANY IN ST. LOUIS. “MUCH LIKE FOOTBALL HELMETS AND PADS
PROTECT PLAYERS FROM INJURIES ON
THE FIELD, YOUR SHOES PROTECT YOU
FROM INJURIES WHEN YOU ARE POUNDING AWAY ON THE ROADS.”
VISIT YOUR LOCAL SPECIALTY RUNNING STORE TO GET SOME PROFESSIONAL
HELP AND HAVE A TRAINED EXPERT
“GETTING PROPERLY FIT
AND HAVING AN EXPERT
AND GUIDE YOU TOWARD
THAT’S BEST FOR YOU C
competitor.com 35
BLUEPRINT “GETTING PROPERLY FITTED FOR A
LE 3
PAIR OF SHOES AND HAVING AN EX-
MILE 1
PERT WATCH YOUR GAIT AND GUIDE
There isn’t much difference from training for a 5K/10K and a half-marathon. You just need to introduce a few longer runs and longer tempo runs. Aim to run a nine-mile tempo run at your goal pace a couple of weeks out from your half. —Kara Goucher, overall winner, 2009 Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicago Half-Marathon HILL
MILE 4
MILE 13
MILE 2
MILE 12
HILL
STAIRS
MILE 5
MILE 11
STAIRS
DE ATER TTLE IN E BUSH
STAIRS
“SHOES ARE BY FAR YOUR MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF EQUIPMENT,� SAYS BEN ROSARIO, CO-OWNER OF BIG RIVER RUNNING COMPANY IN ST.
MILE 10
HILL
MILE 6
STAIRS
MILE 9
MILE 7
MILE 8
Buildup Phase: Weeks 1-6 Professional running coach Brad Hudson once said that training for a race can be broken down into two phases: specific training for
the goal event, and training to get athletes to the point where they can do the specific training. And he’s right. Training is a cumulative process, and it’s important not
SHOES Running a half-marathon in the wrong pair of shoes—or the hundreds of miles in training it takes to prepare for your 13.1-mile race—is a surefire recipe for disaster. “Shoes are by far your most important piece of equipment,� says Ben Rosario, co-owner of Big River Running Company in St. Louis. “Much like football helmets and pads protect players from injuries on the field, your shoes protect you from injuries when you are pounding away on the roads.� Visit your local specialty running store to get some professional help and have a trained expert analyze your gait. Keep in mind Competitor’s “fit, feel and ride� approach when choosing the right running shoe: if the shoe doesn’t fit right, feel good or ride well, you’re not going to enjoy your running experience. “Getting properly fitted for a pair of shoes and having an expert watch your gait and guide you toward the type of shoe that’s best for you can mean the difference between being on the starting line or sitting on the sidelines,� says Rosario.
36 Competitor March 2011
skip any steps. The main goal of these first six weeks of training is to prepare you for the next four weeks of race-specific work that follow. All the key workouts in weeks one through six are based on running for a fixed amount of time at a given effort level, not covering a set distance at a certain speed. “Don’t try too hard,� advises American half-marathon record holder Ryan Hall. “Let your workouts flow out of you.� By increasing the weekly long run and cycling through effortbased hill workouts, fartlek sessions and progression runs, Please note that before you begin this training plan, you should be able to run 25 miles per week and eight miles without stopping. As you should when taking on any new exercise program, please consult your physician.
Blueprint
Warming uP Don’t head into your big day with cold feet or cold muscles. About 45 minutes before the race, try to emulate a shortened but similar warm-up routine to the one you perform before your key workouts of the week. “Don’t stray too far from your usual routine,” says McMillan. “Confidence comes from consistency.” Take five to 10 minutes and jog your way over to the starting line to get your blood flowing and loosen up before the starter’s gun goes off. Throw in four 20-second accelerations to open up your stride so you’re ready to run at race pace right off the starting line. during this four-week stretch will be in the range of 12 to 14 miles, and a weekly interval workout at faster than half-marathon race pace will keep your wheels spinning as your overall weekly mileage increases. While these are some of the most demanding sessions you’ll do, they’re also the ones that will best prepare you to hit your goal time on race day. “Emphasize the workouts,” says Hall, “and recover well on the easy days.”
Fuel
you’ll be covering the three S’s— stamina, speed and strength— without the stress of having to hit specific splits. Specific Phase: Weeks 7-10 Practice makes perfect. If you’re aiming to run your half-marathon at nine minutes per mile, you need to simulate what it’s like to run 13.1 miles at nine minutes per mile in training. As such, weekly tempo runs at goal race pace are the bread-and-butter workouts of this four-week phase. “I like to work up to a 10-mile threshold run at half-marathon effort,” says Hall. “That gives me the confidence that I’m ready to perform well on race day.” Along with these race-pace specific sessions, your long runs
Would you fill your car’s gas tank with diesel fuel before a long road trip when it usually takes regular-grade? Your approach to fueling yourself before a half-marathon should be no different, says Kate Gwyther, MPH, a 2005 NCAA cross-country All-American at Quinnipiac University who later studied human nutrition in graduate school at the University of Michigan. “Staple meals that have worked for you before your big workouts should work for you before your big races,” Gwyther says. “The day before the race is probably not the best time to try calamari for the first time. Same goes for fueling during the race. Stick with what works.” Once you cross the finish line, aim to refill your gas tank quickly to help speed up recovery time. “Start refueling and rehydrating as soon as possible,” Gwyther says. “Shoot for a snack that will deliver carbohydrates and a little bit of protein, like an energy bar or recovery drink, and sometime within the next two hours aim for a full and balanced meal. This will help the recovery process along.”
Sharpening Phase: Weeks 11-12 All the hard work is done; now is the time to sharpen up and make sure you’re ready to roll on race day. A lot more harm than good can be done in the final two weeks before your race, so best to exercise caution when in question and refrain from taking risks in training. The key workouts during this phase are maintenance sessions more than anything else, so while the tendency is to want to speed it up during these abbreviated workouts, it’s imperative to trust the training you’ve put in during the 10 weeks prior and stick to the prescribed paces. “It’s important not to race your workouts,” advises Team-USA Arizona coach Greg McMillan. “Keep your engine revved, but be careful not to go into overdrive.”
The half-marathon feels like a tempo run for the first half and a 10K for the second half, which makes it a very challenging race. —Dathan Ritzenhein bronze medalist, 2009 World Half-Marathon Championships competitor.com 37
Blueprint
12-Week HalF-maratHOn Week
Sunday
mOnday
tueSday
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8 mileS
9 mileS
6 mileS
10 mileS
11 mileS
7 mileS
12 mileS
eaSy
eaSy
eaSy
eaSy
eaSy
eaSy
eaSy
reSt Or
reSt Or
X-traininG
X-traininG
HillS: 10X
HillS: 6 X
30-SecOndS @ 5k eFFOrt
1-minute @ 5k eFFOrt
reSt Or
reSt Or
reSt Or
reSt Or
reSt Or
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
HillS: 8-10
HillS: 6 X
Fartlek:
intervalS:
X 1:00 @ 5k
2:00 @ 10k
eFFOrt
eFFOrt
Fartlek: 10 X 1 minute @ 5k eFFOrt W/1 minute recOverieS
WedneSday
4 mileS eaSy Or X-traininG
tHurSday
5 mileS eaSy + StrideS
Friday
reSt Or X-traininG
6 mileS,
Saturday
laSt 10 minuteS @ 10k eFFOrt
tOtal mileaGe
38 Competitor March 2011
29
5 mileS eaSy Or
4 mileS eaSy Or
4 mileS eaSy Or
5 X 3:00 @
6 X 800m
5k eFFOrt
@ 5k pace
W/2:00
W/2:00
recOverieS
recOverieS
5 mileS
4 mileS
5 mileS
eaSy Or
eaSy Or
eaSy Or
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
5 mileS
5 mileS
6 mileS
6 mileS eaSy +
6 mileS
eaSy +
eaSy +
5 mileS
eaSy + StrideS
StrideS
StrideS
StrideS
eaSy +
eaSy +
StrideS
StrideS
reSt Or
reSt Or
reSt Or
reSt Or
reSt Or
reSt Or
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
X-traininG
7 mileS, middle 20 minuteS @ ½ maratHOn
4 mileS eaSy + StrideS
eFFOrt
32
25
7 mileS W/ middle 40 minuteS at maratHOn
8 mileS W/ middle 30 minuteS @ ½ maratHOn
eFFOrt
eFFOrt
33
37
5 mileS
tempO run:
eaSy +
6 mileS @
StrideS
½ maratHOn pace
28
38
BLUEPRINT
TRAINING PROGRAM 8
9
13 MILES
6 MILES
EASY
EASY
10
11
12
13
12 MILES
8 MILES
EASY
EASY
RACE DAY!
Train with purpose. Create a goal and rely on this goal to keep you on pace, motivated and focused each day. —Deena Kastor
14 MILES W/MIDDLE 8 MILES @ ½ MARATHON PACE
REST OR
REST OR
REST OR
REST OR
REST OR
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
INTERVALS:
FARTLEK:
INTERVALS:
4 X 1 MILE
5 X 2:00 @
10 X 400M
@ 10K PACE
10K EFFORT
@ 5K PACE
W/1:00
W/2:00
W/1:00
RECOVERIES
RECOVERIES
RECOVERIES
5 MILES EASY OR X-TRAINING
6 MILES EASY + STRIDES
TEMPO RUN: 5 MILES @ ½ MARATHON PACE
TRAINING TERMS DEFINED
2 MILES @ ½
STRIDES [strahyd] This set of six short accelerations should be performed after an easy run and as part of your warmup for key workouts as a way to maintain turnover and improve efficiency. Accelerate for five seconds, run at your fastest sustainable speed for ten seconds, then decelerate for the final five seconds. Take a minute between strides to catch your breath.
MARATHON PACE + 5 X 1:00 PICKUPS @ 5K EFFORT W/1:00 RECOVERIES
5 MILES
6 MILES
5 MILES
4 MILES
EASY OR
EASY OR
EASY OR
EASY OR
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
5 MILES
7 MILES
5 MILES
EASY +
EASY +
EASY +
EASY +
STRIDES
STRIDES
STRIDES
STRIDES
WARM-UPS AND COOL-DOWNS [wawrm-uhp] Precede each of your key hill workouts, tempo runs and interval sessions with one to two miles of easy running and a set of strides to warm up. Follow the workout with one to two miles of easy running to cool down.
5 MILES
REST OR
REST OR
REST OR
REST OR
REST OR
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
X-TRAINING
HILLS [hils] These sessions will build strength and stamina without tearing your legs apart. Find BLUEPRINT a moderate incline that forces you to get up on your toes. A four to six percent grade on a treadmill will suffice, too. Walk or jog down the hill between repeats for recovery. MY HOUSE
MILE 3
TEMPO RUN:
5 MILES
6 MILES
7 MILES @
EASY +
EASY +
½ MARATHON
STRIDES
STRIDES
PACE
INTERVALS: 3 X 1 MILE @ 10K PACE W/1:00
MILE 1
3 MILES
HILL
EASY +
RECOVERIES STOP AND STRETCH
X-TRAINING [x] [trey-ning] Alternative aerobic exercise like cycling, water running, swimming or the elliptical impact sessions machine. No-to-low scheduled around your key running workouts during the week. Cross training for 30 to 60 minutes on your non-running days is a good way to get in extra volume without beating up your body. MILE 13
STRIDES
MILE 4
MILE 2
MILE 12
HILL
28
40
35
27
MILE 11
STAIRS
MILE 5
40
ISQUATUM INI BEREST EVEL MOLO ESSECABOR MOLESSIMA PLAM ET QUAM DERUM SUM EXCEST OCCUS VOLOREST, SUM NONEM. ME AUDIS AUT QUI DOLUPTUR SEQUAE. ET HARUM NONECABORIA NEM IUMQUE DOLUPTIN EA CONEST,
STAIRS
HIDE WATER BOTTLE IN THE BUSH
MILE 6
STAIRS
HILL
“GETTING PROPERLY FITTED FOR A PAIR OF SHOES AND HAVING AN EXPERT WATCH YOUR GAIT AND GUIDE YOU TOWARD THE TYPE OF SHOE
MILE 10
MILE 6
STAIRS
competitor.com 39
IN A TESTAMENT TO HIS LOVE OF LOW-TECH EQUIPMENT, A KEY PIECE OF GEAR FOR THE FANS OF KELLY STARRETT’S MOBILITY BLOG IS A $2 LACROSSE BALL. Photo by Saul Bromberger/Sandra Hoover
40 Competitor March 2011
Hate to stretch?
Not Anymore By T.J. Murphy
elly Starrett’s physical therapy office is not a mauve-carpeted affair, equipped with humming electro-therapy computers and XM radio streaming soft rock through Bose speakers. Instead, his office is a mobile container unit in a parking lot behind a sporting goods store, surrounded by Paleolithic training equipment,like tractor tires, squat racks and beer kegs. “I like things gritty,” he says. When required he will invite you inside—into the metal container that has an 800 number stickered next to the door should you want to rent or buy your own storage container. If Starrett decides to work on your injury-induced scar tissue, rather than reaching for an ultrasound machine or muscle stimulator, he will snatch a multi-colored chunk of rubber and, before digging
in, address the curious look on your face by identifying the mysterious gadget in hand as a “premium dog toy.” If you’re not confused enough, he will then launch into the following allegory punctuated by his flair for action-packed sound effects: “I went to Mexico once and rented a car and abused it, playing ‘Gas-o, Brake-o.’ To play Gas-o, Brake-o I keep the gas pedal pegged to the floor and accelerate and decelerate with the brake. WHAM! I’m redlining. WHAAAAAH! until the car is about to blow up. So I swing into my hotel and park the car and a guy comes running up to me and says, ‘Señor!,’ pointing at the rear tire because it’s erupted into flames.” Why is he telling you this? “If you’re a runner with really tight hips and poor sliding surfaces in your joints, you’re running around revving your engine with the brakes on. Your playing Gas-o, Brake-o.
YouTube’s new fitness star, Kelly Starrett—an irreverent physical therapist who trains his disciples in a parking lot—is on a one-year mission to prove mobility work is the gateway to high-performance.
And now your knee is on fire.” And now you start to get it. This is what Kelly Starrett needs you to know: With a few simple rules—a few basic ideas—you, the athlete, can be empowered and take responsibility for your body and health by using 10 minutes a day for mobility work, dousing the flameerupting friction with “motion-islotion” movement. “You cut your finger and you know what to do—you clean it up and put on the Band-Aid,” Starrett said. “Why not be able to work with your muscle tissue?” He emphatically adds you can learn to take care of your body in a way that will minimize injury risk, unleash untouched powers of performance and boost your quality of life until you’re “110 years old. BAM! World domination.”
competitor.com 41
n Dec. 15, 2010, I landed in San Francisco and limped off the plane and into the SFO terminal. Like every walk for the previous six weeks, pain jackknifed through my right knee each fourth step or so and the joint would collapse, hyper-flexing, my leg buckling beneath me. People stared. I probably looked like I’d been shot, or was leaving the scene of a bus-smashes-otherbus collision. In 25 years of being a distance runner I have collected all of the classic injuries—Achilles tendonitis, piriformous sciatica, hamstring pulls, iliotibial band syndrome, runner’s knee. But with rest and ice they usually disappeared in a week or two. The patella tendonitis (as it was hypothesized) of late 2010, however, was unshakeable. I feared being
destined for surgery. It was then that Brian MacKenzie, the founder of Crossfit Endurance, told me this: “Bro, you need to go see Kelly Starrett.”
y appointment was at 10 in the morning at Crossfit San Francisco, the gym Starrett and his wife, Juliet, have been running since late 2004 in the Presidio, and according to my directions was behind the Sports Basement and adjacent to Crissy Field. A taxi dropped me off in front of the big box store, then I followed a mud path around the building, pausing a moment to take in the Golden Gate Bridge, shrouded in fog, that looms over Crissy Field. Once in back I looked across
the broad lot at the loading docks, metal storage containers, dumpsters and a rack of yellow kayaks. I did not see a gym until I looked at the southwest corner of the lot. It was an outdoor gym with standard Crossfit gear: metal racks, tractor tires, large rubber mats, kegs, a punching bag and kettlebells. I limped toward a group of athletes dead-lifting, stretching and hopping up and down on boxes. While Starrett finished up an appointment I spoke to one of his coaches, Robert Tuller, a local ultrarunner in his 40s. He pointed to a box that stood at 36 inches off the ground and, from a standing position, flicked up straight into the air and nailed the landing. He turned to me with a huge grin and arms in the big victory V and I got the implied message: “When was the last time you
Crossfit is a perfect medium for exposing your weaknesses. 42 Competitor March 2011
saw an ultra-runner do that?” Never, I thought, knowing that most longtime and beat-up runners like myself can, if necessary, break out of our lug-and-slug shuffle and occasionally lurch onto a curb. Just then Starrett wrangled me by the shoulder and said, “Dude! Let’s get to work.”
tarrett is six-foot-three, 37, and has a raw-boned, youthful intensity. His nickname is Cape Buffalo but in the Crossfit universe he goes by “K Star.” His 220-pound body is spring-like, molded by years of the high-intensity mix of power lifting, gymnastics and anaerobic conditioning of Crossfit, combined with his previous career as a nationalchampion kayaker. The wear-and-
tear from the 13 kayak workouts per week he performed for years sparked his romance with movement and how it relates to performance. “There was a day I couldn’t turn my head. That’s when I was done as a pro,” he said. His physical therapy practice is a cornerstone of his gym, and he’s worked with Tour de France cyclists, Olympic-gold medalists, military elites, extreme skiers and ballet stars, but hastens to point out the gym is just as much about “moms and dads.” Family is a powerful theme for Starrett. His wife, Juliet, earned world champion honors in whitewater rafting and was a lawyer before the couple went into the Crossfit business. Starrett is the head coach of the gym and Juliet the chief executive officer. They live in Marin, Calif., with their daughters, Geor-
gia, 5, and Caroline, 2, and two dogs from a rescue shelter. In the backyard are a hot tub and a trampoline. The idea for the gym took root when they lived in San Francisco and tested out Crossfit exercises on their friends. “When we opened the gym we had 40 members,” Starrett said. Now with 250 members, he estimates they’ve coached athletes through about 60,000 workouts. “What I’m really proud of is that we built it in a grass-roots way. All of our coaches started out as members. I honestly like everyone who belongs to the gym. They’re all good people.” I wasn’t the first runner to come to Starrett with a knee injury. Those 60,000 workouts have allowed him to easily identify sources of injury when he looks at a broken runner. “Crossfit is a perfect medium
Starrett coaching clientS at hiS croSSfit gym in San franciSco. according to Starrett, the croSSfit approach to fitneSS—a combination of powerlifting, gymnaSticS and metabolic conditioning—can build the ultimate “SuSpenSion” that can enable higher performance in an endurance athlete aS well aS prevent injury. eSSential to thiS proceSS, Starrett Said, iS an obSeSSion with good technique, mobility work and proper movement. “get coached,” Starrett adviSeS. “find a good coach who underStandS movement and biomechanicS. don’t go into the pain tunnel without it. you’ll get hurt.” above four photos courtesy of crossfit Sf, photo (left) by Saul bromberger/Sandra hoover
competitor.com 43
the 60,000 cumulative workouts executed at san Francisco crossFit have provided a base For starrett’s knowledge oF movement. photo by saul bromberger/sandra hoover
for exposing your weaknesses and problems,” he said. I waited for him to ask me where the pain was. He never did. Nor did he ever ask me how it happened, how long it had been bugging me or what I’d been trying to do to it. He never even asked me which leg it was. He just had me do a basic knee-bending squat while he checked the flow of my movement for dysfunctional clues. “By looking at how you move,” he noted, “I know what’s going on.” After seeing the movement and assessing the problem, rehab began instantly. He taught me how to do a squat correctly, placing a hand on a plane below my kneecap and telling me that if my knee moved forward it would be a violation. “Touch my hand with your knee and you owe me a beer.”
efore creating his practice at Crossfit San Francisco, Starrett made a name for himself at San Francisco’s renowned Stone Clinic, where he partnered with an orthopedic surgeon to generate exceptional rates of post-op recovery by getting 44 Competitor March 2011
people to squat as soon as possible following an operation. “It’s about early mobilization to restore your range of motion. Slapping a brace on the leg and putting it in isolation is moving backward. We want to get you moving again.” Starrett told me I had been playing “Gas-o, Brake-o” for all my years of running and my knee could no longer handle it. My form, my tight hip flexors and my limited range of motion worked in concert to strain my knee. Instead of the joint gliding smoothly, it was being torn up with sheer. I asked about the spooky way my knee was collapsing. “Your brain shut it down to protect it,” he said. “Like blowing a fuse.” He darkly added that I was on the path toward a hip or knee replacement. I was taking my first steps into the worldview of Kelly Starrett—a highly-caffeinated joy ride into the fluid relationships between mobility, movement, athletic performance and self-actualization. “You need to get some relief by working the tissues both upstream and downstream,” he said, meaning my calf and thigh muscles. His favorite phrases come at you fast:
Unglue the lower body. Mobilize. Line of force. Impingement. Grindy. Nasty. WHAM! Scower. Roll, slide and glide. Get tight! A day with grass-fed beef, champagne, heavy thrusters and metabolic conditioning is a winner! And then, his mantra: Pain makes you beautiful. To draw you into his vision, Starrett quotes psychologists Carl Jung and Abraham Maslow, power-lifting legend Louis Simmons and writer Robert Ludlum. “I felt to get to really know Kelly,” Juliet told me, “I had to read ‘Dune.’” But underneath the layered complexity of his thinking is the science of his “test-retest” formula: Do a test like an air squat, perform your mobility work, then re-test the squat to see if there’s a change. After he had me execute a specific two-minute stretch on my right hip flexor, he had me walk across the gym. For the first time in a month and a half I wasn’t limping. Starrett said an effective stretch is one that yields an immediate result—that you only need a 10-minute bout of mobility work each day, but the trick is to do it every day. “People have jobs and families
and lives, and they have to train. But 10 minutes a day is doable, and you have to do it daily. No days off. Miss a day and you go backwards.”
n Aug. 22, 2010, Starrett, barefoot in shorts and a black T-shirt, took his iPhone into the backyard and turned on the video recorder. Then he quietly worked through two minutes and 35 seconds of his first “mobility WOD,” WOD being a Crossfit acronym for “workout of the day.” He uploaded the video to a blog and pledged to publish a short video each day, holidays included, for an entire year, titling the first clip, “The First of Many Beatdowns.” I asked him why he spoke in such a hushed tone in the first video. “I hadn’t told my wife about it yet,” he said. “I hadn’t told anyone about it. I just did it.” Despite the initial silence, it caught on. In 100 days Starrett’s videos were downloaded 750,000 times, and at the time of this writing he had surpassed the 1.4-million mark. He pulled up his Google analytics to show me a global following. “I’m not big in Somalia,” he said. “Guess there’s not a lot of pressing concern for movement dysfunction there.” Starrett teaches Crossfit mobility certification courses across the country and occasionally overseas, yet he has unfailingly posted his video blog—every day—from Colorado to Florida to Denmark. Most videos are taped in his home gym. There’s no editing and no polish to the videos, and the Starrett family, including playing children and curious dogs, have become primary characters in the series. The tools he requires of his viewers are simple and cheap; Starrett will tell you to go out and buy three lacrosse balls, for example, which typically sell for two or three bucks each. Starrett has thousands of devoted followers, but one of them, Brian MacKenzie, can count Starrett as a student. MacKenzie, an ultra-runner, first heard Starrett speak at a Crossfit certification in 2007. “I’d worked in a physical therapy clinic before. Kelly started talking about the ball and socket of a shoul-
der, about the movement and amount of force being channeled through it, and I’d never heard anyone talk the way he did. He was a step ahead of things,” MacKenzie said. MacKenzie and Starrett struck up a close friendship. “We were talking the same language of mechanics and movement,” MacKenzie said. The two had much to offer each other. For years MacKenzie had apprenticed under Dr. Nicholas Romanov, the sports scientist behind the Pose Running Method. After MacKenzie introduced Starrett to Pose running mechanics, Starrett was able to run long distances comfortably for the first time since he was 15 years old. “What Kelly and I had in common is that we were both open-minded to question traditional methods and use ourselves as guinea pigs to try new things,” MacKenzie said. After six months of training under MacKenzie, Starrett, wearing a pair of featherweight Inov-8 running flats, ran the 28.4-mile Quad Dipsea ultra.
ollowing the mobility workout of the day is a bit like riding shotgun in a Mexican rental car driven by Kelly Starrett—he’s live fire all the way, coaching you through the drills with Robin Williams-like patter. In a typical video you might follow Starrett and his jiggly camera into a Brooklyn Crossfit gym or through his kitchen while Juliet grinds coffee. I started following the daily workout when I got home from San Francisco and peculiar things began happening. Less than 10 days later I could bound out of bed like I did in my college dorm some 30 years ago. My limp had vanished. Starrett says his mission is to make stretching sexy again—that he knows that if people register measurable upticks in how they feel and how they perform they’ll buy into his vision. “It would be great if I was the strongman or the running guy,” Starrett said. “I’m not. I’m the stretching guy. Which is not that cool at first glance. But what do I really care about? Hot, dirty, nasty performance.”
K-STAr’S GuiDe to Mobility and HigH PerForMance Hydrate your tissues. A 1 percent level of dehydration equates to a 10 percent drain on your performance. Counter the hydration vampire by taking your bodyweight in pounds and dividing by two. That’s the number in ounces of water you should be drinking each day. Drink another 16 ounces for every hour of training you tally up. Low calorie electrolyte drinks can add flavor and boost absorption. Supplement with fish oil and glucosamine. Daily fish oil, Starrett said, will reduce inflammation and speed recovery. Studies indicate glucosamine chondroitin can help hydrate and strengthen joint cartilage. Follow the mobility workout of the day. Find 10 minutes in your schedule to visit Mobilitywod .blogspot.com for Starrett’s daily dose of mobility exercise.
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In a post-race cross-country moment, Roosevelt Cook, 31, demonstrates the relief of having it over.
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Photos by John segesta
A WArm, CleAr DAy
Shalane Flanaghan and Brent Vaughn lead the nation’s best harriers at the USATF cross-country nationals
Shalane Flanagan in a moment before the gun. She would capture her fifth U.S. cross title.
Flanagan took the lead after two kilometers and would win by an overpowering 44 seconds.
From right, Brent Vaughn, Matt Tegencamp and Andrew Bumbalough would finish first, fourth and second, respectively.
Vaughn broke away at the halfway point of the 12K race on the way to a surprise victory.
In the 1990s, Komen set the stIll-standIng world records for the two-mIle and 3000m.
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What Ever Happened to
Photo by Simon Bruty /Allsport
DANIEL KOMEN After one of the greatest world record sprees in the history of track and field, the only man to run back-to-back sub-four minute miles soon vanished from the sport. By Matt Fitzgerald competitor.com 57
Komen’s motivation was fueled in part by a desire to escape the hard poverty surrounding his childhood.
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and who is still competing at the highest level today. In 1994, Daniel Komen was just another aspiring young Kenyan runner who had never raced outside his own country and whom nobody outside his country had ever heard of. In 1996 and 1997 Komen put together the two most astonishing years of distance running the world has ever seen, winning dozens of races against top-flight competition and setting numerous world records, some of which are still on the books. “Nobody has ever done what he did over a two-year period,” says Duncan Gaskill, who was Komen’s co-agent with the late Kim McDonald throughout his career. “For me, the sad thing was that it didn’t last five or six years.” Or 20 years and counting, like Gebrselassie’s career.
By the summer of 1998, Komen had already begun to slide. His peak was so brief that it fell entirely between Olympiads. In early 1996 he was on his way up and failed to qualify for Athens. In 2000 he was on his way down and failed to qualify for Sydney. His performance descent continued into 2002, when, at only 26 years old (officially), he abruptly quit. Outside of a few abortive comebacks, he hasn’t been heard from since.
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o begin to understand why Daniel Komen achieved so much in such a small span of time and so little afterward, we must go back to his beginnings.
photo by simon bruty /allsport
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n the spring of 1999, 30-yearold New Hampshire journalist, Kevin Beck, adopted a golden Labrador retriever puppy. A hardcore fan of elite-level running as well as a competitive road racer himself, Beck named the dog Komen, after the Kenyan track star Daniel Komen, who was then just a few years into a career that promised to be the greatest in the history of the sport. Little did Beck know that, at the tender age of 23 (officially—those close to Komen estimate he’s at least three years older than advertised), Komen’s best days were already behind him. Indeed, if Beck had adopted his puppy even one year later, he probably would have named it Haile instead—as in Haile Gebrselassie, a runner who was Komen’s only equal in the mid-1990s
“Daniel comes from rural Kenya, in an area dry of opportunities,” says Toby Tanser, director of Shoe4africa.org, who has known Komen since 1995. “I remember once being in his village and I had to run 45 minutes to reach a telephone.” In a country where the average annual income is $1,000, Komen’s family, with 13 children, was even poorer than most. “His parents lived in a hut in a field and his mother sold potatoes by the roadside,” says Gaskill. Like most young children living in Kenya’s Rift Valley, where the vast majority of the country’s best runners come from, Komen ran for transportation, and he ran a lot—about six miles to school in the morning and six miles back home at the end of the day, with a second round trip often squeezed into noontime. Komen did not run any formal races until his late teens, and when he did he immediately distinguished himself as an exceptional talent. Since running is almost the only talent that presents poor Kenyans with a legitimate chance to escape their circumstances, Komen seized it. “I don’t think he saw any limits,” Tanser says. “He knew he had a tough life and knew what he had to do to elevate himself out of that situation.” In those days, a retired Kenyan miler named Joseph Cheshire worked informally as a talent scout for English agent Kim McDonald in Kenya. After Komen started destroying his young compatriots in training and races, Cheshire contacted McDonald and advised him to bring Komen to Europe. As things worked out, Komen actually got his first taste of international competition in Canada, at the Vancouver Sun Run, an eightkilometer road race. He won and set a world junior record of 22:35. “All of a sudden we knew we had someone fairly special,” Gaskill says. That was April. In July Komen doubled in the 5,000 meters and the 10,000m at the World Junior
Championships in Lisbon, Portugal, winning both events. The following year should have been Komen’s breakout year, but he came down with malaria and was unable to race much. Even so he managed to set a junior world record of 12:56 for 5,000m, narrowly losing to his Kim McDonald group mate, Moses Kiptanui, who set a world record of 12:55.30. Several years older and a natural leader, Kiptanui served as a critical role model to Komen as the younger man learned how to be a professional runner. And Komen was wise enough to follow. “I think at that point Daniel basically just did what Moses did,” says Tom Ratcliffe, an agent who represented Komen’s interests in North America. “He looked to him for guidance.” By this time Komen had discovered, as many Kenyan runners do, that the more he raced, and the better he performed, the more money he took home, and he began pressing his managers for more payday opportunities. “When Kenyans come over here they come to make their future wealth,” Gaskell says. “They grab it with every hand they’ve got, and actually put quite a bit of pressure on managers to race more often than sometimes you would like.” When Komen arrived back at the McDonald group’s training base in Teddington, London, in the summer of 1996, he made it known that he wanted to race as often as possible. It was an Olympic year, and if Komen had qualified for the Kenyan team he would not have been able to race much in Europe, as the Kenyan Athletics Federation threatened to kick McDonald’s Kenyan athletes off its Atlanta Games squad if they raced too much. But Komen finished a non-qualifying fourth in the Olympic trials 5,000m and was therefore free to compete as often as he pleased. Thus began the most incredible streak of racing in the history of track and field. Komen kicked off his season with
a two-mile race in Sweden on July 14, smashing Haile Gebrselassie’s world record with a time of 8:03.54. Less than a month later, on Aug. 10, Komen nearly took down another record, running 7:25.16 for 3,000m in Monaco, a scant 0.05 second shy of Noureddine Morceli’s mark.
“He didn’t really comprehend what he was doing. He just ran as hard as he could. There was no barrier there.” Afterward Komen admitted he had not even known what the existing world record time was going into the race. Indeed, according to those who then surrounded him, Komen had little general understanding of records and paces and distances. “He didn’t really comprehend what he was doing,” Ratcliffe says. “He just ran as hard as he could. There was no barrier there.” Alongside his hunger to escape poverty, Komen’s innocence as a runner might have been one of the most important psychological ingredients to his success. “He was an uninhibited runner,” says Ricky Simms, who also helped manage Komen under Kim McDonald. “He had no fear of times or other runners.” Gaskell recalls an incident that perfectly captures Komen’s mindset toward competition. At a running club appearance in London, Komen was asked how he dealt with prerace nervousness. “Daniel did not understand the
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photo by mark thompson /allsport
Komen’s aggressive pacing prompted tv announcers to call him “suicidal,’” yet he hung on for a world record.
question,” Gaskell recalls. “It wasn’t that he didn’t understand English. He didn’t understand what it was to be nervous before a race.” Just four days after his near miss in Monaco, Komen faced Gebrselassie in an unforgettable showdown at 5,000 meters. American Bob Kennedy was in that race and remembers it well. “The kind of heavyweight battle between those two that was going on was amazing,” he says. “They went back and forth the whole way, killing each other. With about 150 meters to go, Daniel finally broke him. Gebrselassie just shut down.” Komen’s winning time of 12:45.09 fell less than a second short of Gebrselassie’s world record. (Kennedy finished eighth and set a new American record in 12:58.12.) Komen waited all of two days to race again, lowering his 1,500 personal best to 3:34.17 in Cologne, Germany. Less than a week after that, he took another shot at the 3,000m world record, barely missing it again with a 7:25.87 clocking in Brussels. By late August Komen seemed to be paying the price for his hectic racing schedule. On Aug. 30 he managed a 13:02 for the 5,000m in Berlin. Instead of reading the handwriting on the wall and taking a break, Komen went straight from the track to the airport and flew to Rieti, Italy, where he ran what still stands as one of the finest races ever run. Despite Komen’s fatigue, McDonald set up the race as a world record attempt at 3,000m, with two pacemakers, John Kosgei and David Kipsang. When Kipsang led Komen through 800 meters in 1:57.0, television commentators Tim Hutchings and Steve Cram burst out laughing. It was suicide. But they weren’t laughing anymore when Kosgei, who took over as lead pacer when Kipsang dropped out, brought Komen through the mile in 3:54.7 before dropping out himself. Incredibly, Komen held the impossible pace alone all the way
to the line, crossing it at 7:20.67 to lop a mindboggling 4.5 seconds off Morceli’s record. Komen’s mark still stands. In fact, no one has even come close to it despite numerous attempts from the likes of 1,500m and mile world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj and 5,000m and 10,000m world record holder Kenenisa Bekele. Only two athletes have ever run 3,000m faster outdoors than Komen later ran the distance indoors (7:24.90). “I would rate it as one of the toughest records on the books,” says BBC sport statistician Mark Butler. How did Komen celebrate his feat? By continuing to race. On Sept. 7 he won a 5,000m in Milan, clocking 12:52.38. “I don’t know how many times he raced in 1996,” Gaskell says, “but it was a lot. In two or three of those races the weather was atrocious and he was still running 50, 70, 80 meters ahead of the rest of
for the summer track season. If Komen’s 1996 summer track campaign was magnificent, his 1997 encore was utterly without parallel. In July he travelled to Hechtel, Belgium, to make a bid to reclaim his two-mile world record, which Gebrselassie had lowered to 8:01.10 in May. In a press conference the day before the race, Komen was typically laconic and inscrutable. Only one question got an answer of more than a few words. “What are your tactics for the record attempt?” a reporter asked. “A soldier does not discuss his tactics before he goes to battle,” Komen said. Truth was, he had no tactics. Never did. (Months later, when McDonald gave Komen a plan of split times for an indoor 3,000m world record attempt, Komen rejected it. “Just tell me faster or slower as [I go],” he said.) The next evening Komen ran the first mile of the two-mile race in 3:59.4 That’s exactly the time Roger
The next evening Komen ran the first mile of the two-mile race in 3:59.4—exactly the time Roger Bannister posted when he first broke four minutes. the field. He was just an unbelievable machine.” The end of the outdoor track season forced Komen to take a break, but he continued to race at every opportunity, and at the same jaw-dropping level, for another year and a half. According to routine, after a few months at home in Kenya, Komen would return to Europe to compete in indoor track and cross-country events in January and February, then head to Australia to train and race outdoors, and finally settle down in London—where he bought a house and brought his wife, Joyce, who earned an MBA at the London School of Economics—as his base
Bannister posted when he ran history’s first sub-four-minute mile in 1954. And then Komen did it again, running a second 3:59.4 mile to set a new world record of 7:58.61 and become the first human to run back-to-back sub-four miles. He remains the only sub-eight-minute two-miler today. The milestone, symbolic of how far human performance had progressed in the second half of the 20th century, elicited surprisingly little fanfare. In fact, the only media attention devoted to the breakthrough in this country concerned the lack of media attention. Los Angeles Times writer Mike Penner penned a piece under the
headline, “Lack of Fanfare Over Daniel Komen Breaking EightMinute Barrier in Two-Mile Run Does Nothing to Diminish Kenyan’s Remarkable Achievement.” In August, Komen won the World Championships 5,000m, lowered his 1,500m time to 3:29.46 and his mile time to 3:46.48, and stole another world record from Gebrselassie, running 12:39.74 for 5,000 meters in difficult conditions in Brussels. Somehow he managed to keep the momentum going through the winter of 1998, when he set indoor world records for 3,000m (7:24.90—a mark known as the “Mt. Everest” of athletics) and 5,000m, ran another 7:58 two-mile, in Australia, and claimed a silver medal in the World Cross-Country Championships short-course race. Then the slide began—almost imperceptibly at first. The first warning signs were reports from Kenya that Komen was neglecting his fall training in favor of partying and spending his money. “They had a system in Kenya, when they went home in October through the winter, where guys like Moses Kiptanui would look after some of the younger guys and their training,” Kennedy says. But Kiptanui could not force anyone to do anything, and he lost his influence over an increasingly rebellious Komen. “That relationship changed,” Ratcliffe says. “Daniel decided he could make his own way.” Before long Komen’s British managers lost control of their star athlete as well. “Daniel, after the first year of success, was much more singleminded, and rebelled a bit against others’ advice,” Gaskell says. “He knew best.” One day Komen casually told one of Tom Ratcliffe’s assistants, “I don’t have to train as hard anymore. I’m already here.” As if the hard work required to become the best runner in the world was like a one-anddone vaccination. “His sheer talent was a few
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levels above even the best Kenyan I’d trained with previously,” says Kennedy, who remembers Komen often toying with the other athletes, including fellow world champions, in their group.
“They went back and forth the whole way, killing each other. With about 150 meters to go, Daniel finally broke him. Gebrselassie just shut down.” On one occasion they ran a brutal session consisting of time trials of 1,600, 1,200, 800, and 400 meters. Komen ran most of each time trial in the second lane, almost tauntingly keeping his struggling teammates company until he shot ahead to crush everyone at the end. As gifted as he was, however, Komen could not in fact get away with mailing in his training. “I think he became a little overconfident, maybe even arrogant,” Gaskell says. “He just found it too easy. He thought he could walk on water—that he could do great performances without having to flog himself in training.” By 1998, Komen was the Kenyan equivalent of an American billionaire, and with that kind of money to fall back on he just couldn’t bring himself to suffer as he once had. “Moses Kiptanui really loved to run, loved to compete,” says Ratcliffe. “He wanted to be a great athlete. And he had a long career because of that. But I don’t know if Daniel ever had that. He enjoyed
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winning, he enjoyed the fame, and he enjoyed the financial success, but he didn’t love what he was doing.” Komen fell into a tragicomic cycle of taking time off, getting fat, suddenly appearing at a training camp full of big talk, shaking off the rust and getting his managers excited, and then disappearing. “I think he always saw himself as starting where he left off,” Ratcliffe says. “Not to say he couldn’t have come all the way back, but he would have had to work very hard. It’s a day-in and day-out slog. And if you don’t really love that, if you don’t love the pursuit of excellence, you’re not going to be successful.” Desperate to salvage his career, Komen’s managers put him in the hands of Dieter Hogen in the hope that the German coach could reinvent Komen as a road racer. And Komen did manage to reach a few finish lines in the mid-2000s. He scored a third-place finish, for example, in the Crazy 8’s 8K in 2003. Kevin Beck witnessed that experience and wrote a present-tense account of his experience for Running Times: “The author takes the opportunity to take Komen aside and acknowledge lamely that he named his Labrador retriever after the owner of what seems the most incredible of all men’s track distance records, a 7:20.67 3,000m. Komen smiles and appears understandably unmoved. It is a worthwhile moment.” Four years later, Dell Todd, a runner living in Grand Rapids, Mich., showed up at a low-key local 5K one Saturday and was astonished to see Daniel Komen there. “Komen was the starter,” Todd says. “He actually fired the gun. We all started running. Maybe a quarter-mile down the road he flashed by in his warm-up pants. He had fired the gun and then raced, which is kind of unusual. After being the official starter he was the official winner too. As I recall nobody was close to him. He won by a minute.” Partners Worldwide, a Christian charity that had hired Komen as a spokesperson for a clean water
project in Kenya, brought Komen to that event. After the race, Todd spoke to the world record holder. “It turned out we were both gunning for a fall marathon,” Todd says. “I thought, ‘Wow, I am going to look for this. It’s going to be epic.’ Here I am talking to Daniel Komen in the spring, and in the fall I’m going to see him in Berlin or Chicago mixing it up in front. But I never did hear anything. There was nothing after that. Which was kind of disappointing.” Almost four years later, nothing has changed. During a recent visit to Kenya, Tober Tanser listened politely as Komen excitedly told him that he was going to run the New York City Marathon this coming November. Asked if Komen was doing much running at the time, Tanser replied, “Not much. He needs to lose 5 kg [11 pounds], in my opinion.”
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t is natural to interpret Daniel Komen’s story as a sad tale of wasted potential—of what might have been. Unless you’re Daniel Komen. “I’d say we’re imposing that on him,” says Bob Kennedy. “Certainly if he was an American or Western athlete you’d say his story was tragic, but he may have done something for his life back in Kenya that he never otherwise would have had the opportunity to do, and that may be more than OK with him.” Indeed he did. Despite profligate spending at the height of his career, Komen is still a rich man by Kenyan standards. He now serves as chairman of the Keiyo North Rift Athletics Association, and as codirector of a private school with his wife, Joyce. And he remains a hero in his home country, feted everywhere he goes. “I don’t know that he has any regrets about never going to the Olympics, or anything else,” Ratcliffe says. “I think he’s happy enough.”
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THE PENGUIN CHRONICLES By JOHN BINGHAM
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’m no longer new at this. In December I completed my 20th year as a runner and more accurately, my 20th year of living an active lifestyle. You would think that after 20 years I’d have everything figured out; that I’d have my training plans set, my diet and nutrition requirements down to a science and my race strategies perfected. I don’t. And the events of the past few months have driven that point home. On Jan. 1, I made the commitment to do any kind of activity for 30 minutes a day for 100 days. To keep that commitment I posted about it on my Facebook page, hoping to get a handful of people to join me. In just over a week 10,000 people had signed up to join the challenge. To be fair, the challenge concept wasn’t original. A good friend, Indro Neri, had told me about a 100-day challenge that he undertook; and my wife, coach Jenny Hadfield, had been talking about creating a dynamic, interactive social media event. I was just naïve enough to post it to Facebook and light a fire that quickly burned out of control. I went at this challenge the way I have gone at everything else in my life: head-on. On Day One I pounded out 30 minutes of running and walking on the treadmill. On Day Two I cranked up the speed and did it again. On Day
Three I added elevation. On Day Four I was exhausted, but I did 30 minutes anyway. By Day Five I had burned myself out but knew that I had to find a way to keep going. So I backed off. I backed off the pace; I eliminated the elevation. I focused only on the goal of being active for 30 minutes. I didn’t worry about how far I went, how fast I went or how many calories I burned. I just kept track of the minutes. In a week I felt better. The fatigue was leaving my legs. My enthusiasm returned, and I started to look forward to my daily 30-minute routine. Turns out I’ve been exercising all wrong for 20 years. I’ve been
exerting myself too much all the time. Even on the days when I told myself to take it easy, I managed to do too much, go too far or too fast. And, as a result, I’ve always been a little banged up. It’s not as if I’ve spent 20 years injured. I haven’t. But I have never felt refreshed or rested unless I took extended time off. What I’ve learned is that being active means being active. Intentionally active. Active today. Active tomorrow. Active, I hope, for the rest of my life. Of course there will still be times when my training gets more intense. After years of racing marathons I find myself fascinated by what my 5K potential might be. I find myself remembering with great joy what it was like to train for, and race, a 10K. Even during times of intensity, though, I’m going to take to heart the lessons of my 100-day challenge. Unbridled enthusiasm might be fine for a child, but it is no way to approach being a lifelong athlete. I heard a blues musician say once that he’d been down so long, “bottom looked like up.” I think I’ve been wrong so long that almost anything I do now is going to look right. Waddle on, friends.
Illustration by Neil Numberman
What It Means to Live an Active Lifestyle
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