Genetic Rivalry - an anecdotal study

This story goes back a couple of years: I was having a really bad run, getting more and more worked up until I decided that none of it was fair.....I was training to try and compete at a higher level, but ability is limited in large by genetics. 

Genetics play such a pivotal role in running. There's only so much training that one can do before biomechanical and biological factors reduce further improvement to incremental. And this is without considering sociological impacts. 

I finally stopped and kicked a tree stump in frustration.  It wasn’t fair.  Genetic advantage is as unfair as PEDs I decided. It is not a level playing field. I could never hope to run a sub-30 for example. 

But as I would be miserable if I compared every run to Mo Farah, I judge performances and improvements to people at my level, and what I've achieved previously.

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My recent musings which established the unusuality of closeness of competition and ability between replacement chief rival Dan Robinson and I made me reflect: It is rare to find another 'random' runner with whom you are so closely matched over an extended period of training and competition, and with whom progression runs paralleled.

It was much to my surprise when attending a family funeral 18 months ago that I met so many paternal family members who I had no idea existed. And many seemed to run distance, now or at some point past. I then learnt of a personal trainer in London called Sam - who wasn't present, but I deduced him as my second cousin. His parents claimed him to be good. Naturally my curiosity was ignited. Sam would be genetically the closest comparison I would find in running terms (although I am aware that as a second cousin in all likelihood I would share as much genetic profile as a complete stranger (average of 3.125% shared genes)). I not so discretely gathered information and then excused myself to the bathroom to visit thepowerof10, as you do. 

The stalkerish results were just what I hoped for: on that day, if we ignore his rather impressive sub-two minute 800 as a 16 year old, my second cousin who is exactly 18 months younger and raced less than me boasted a 33:00 10k to my 33:36 and a marathon PB over 6 minutes faster than my own 2h50 clocking (at that time). 

The other week I had the presence of mind to check this again to see how my cousin, who I have still not met was going.

Tim                                   Sam

1mi        4:34    (2013)       4:34  (2014)

5000m  15:37   (2014)     15:34  (2014)

10k       32:59   (2014)     32:44  (2014)

HM        71:53   (2013)    72:06  (2013)

Mar        2h34    (2014)     2h44  (2012)

And in our only head-to-head race, the English National Cross County this year, I beat Sam, finishing 193rd to his 314th (84 seconds). But based on the closeness of the above it seems unfair to weight this too much. 

I have resisted the urge to create infographics, but even without them it is curiously close. I find myself wondering just which 3% of genes I may share with him and if perhaps other factors such as height and weight are reasonable similar. 

Unfortunately, any (one sided) family rivalry between us is ultimately futile: Christmas 2012 was ruined by a ground-shaking revelation from my step-grandma Margaret. She kindly asked about my running and then mentioned that her great-niece was a good runner. 'You may have heard of her'. 'Oh perhaps,' I humoured her, deeming it unlikely. 'Whats her name?'

'Gemma Steel'. 

A Pentalogy of Proven Folktales II

A year ago I wrote a blog about the five biggest things that I'd learnt or felt hadmade a difference to my running in 2012. 2013 has been something of a breakthrough year for me, and bares many similarities to the winter of 2009/10, where I experienced similar improvements. 

Bud Baldaro:

To suggest that I have changed coaches would be an overstatement: I don't consider myself to have a coach. But on Tuesday nights at the university track, our BRAT group now joins Mister Johnny Cullen, and we put the fate of our sessions in the hands of a world-renowned coach and extremely great motivator, Bud Baldaro. 

Running tough sessions as a group has made these both fun and manageable. The sessions involve mixed paces, terrain and rep lengths, and they would be very difficult solo. A large training group at my pace is something I've not had since early 2010 when I was still at university. 

Racing better than I train:

This has been my biggest shift. I'm not running any faster in training now than I have been in the last three years. In truth probably a little slower for the most part. But we run as a group, and practice running relaxed and comfortable at the paces, rather than slogging them out. Times don't matter to us now in training - we can judge training performances against each other not the clock. The sessions are not the race. 

Relaxed training approach:

I've probably done less miles to this point of the year than in 2012. My training has been far more unstructured, I don't even plan it anymore, just identify each week what I need to be doing outside of Bud's sessions. I'm highly flexible.  I've also not been too bothered when I've had a bad race (the good ones have helped keep this in perspective), and not let it cast doubts about my ability as a runner. 

Recovery means recovery:

I listen to my body now, far more than even before. If I'm tired I do less. I run slower on easy runs, like I did back in late 2009. Recovery runs are for recovery, not to get a good pace average, and if I stay relaxed with good cadence / form, then they're beneficial in multiple ways.

I rest before important races, sometimes they go well, occasionally not. It means my training looks a bit inconstant....I have massive mileage weeks followed by low mileage weeks. But it's worked. 

Long tempos:

I've improved my half marathon time from 75:49 (PB) in October '12 to 71:53 in September '13. That's a big increase. I think that long tempo runs have been key to this. I've been building up to 8 miles (45 ish mins) at almost HM pace. Sometimes I start slow and increase it, sometime I break it down, (say 4x2miles off a minute jog). But I get to the point the week before the race where I can do 8 miles continuously and reasonably comfortably at a similar pace.  If you know you can do the pace for that long, than you can hang on in the race for another 5 miles for sure. 

Glute activation:

I visited a physio last December who told me I still had a problem with my hip flexors. Too tight, he said. I obsessively stretched them for three months and saw a sports masseur, but to no avail. Until I realised that this could actually be caused by compensation for weak glutes. I found an article that massively supported this, and since April have instead been obsessively doing glute activation exercises every time before I run. I think it's worked. 

Form:

Finally, I've never had the best form, but improved glute function (above) has helped, as has introducing more strides and leg cycle drills. I now do 5-6x strides at least once a week on none session days, often after a long run, and the day before a race. Just on the road outside my house, but they've really helped my body develop a better range of motion and run far more relaxed at my faster paces. 

Ok, so that's seven (a heptathlon if you will), but all of these things I've been doing regularly since February / March. Clearly I can't say exactly which have worked to a greater extent than others, but if the ideas here help anyone reading this as much as they've helped me, then this has been useful. 

The Circle of Life

World media has been surprisingly slow on the uptake of Coventry BMC 5000m which occurred two saturdays ago, at a back-to-front - albeit it blue - track hidden away at Coventry University which drew monster crowds of former Sheffield University Athletes.

However the race, in which the highest placed finisher worth mentioning finished in a position which would rank him a toasty 340 in the National Rankings for the year, has generated a disproportional amount of column inches, with two blogs and a website article amassing almost double figures of interest between them.

Dan Robinson, who was said highest finisher, was in pole position coming in to the final kilometre, having been accidentally tucked into Ed Bank’s super tight pink racing shorts and carried round the first 10 laps.  “It was just about staying with Ed for the first four kilometres and trying to remember how many laps the race was.  I knew that Carter was on my shoulder the entire time because I could hear him panting like a Horse.”

Carter, who we have been able to confirm was also in the race, offered “I wasn’t really enjoying myself.  I knew we were going for curry afterwards, and I was getting quite hungry deciding if I could manage a whole naan myself.  I spent the first three laps deciding the best way to drop out, and whether I would need to feign tripping over in order to make it look legit.”

After reaching four kilometres in a highly symmetrical 12:40, the 3 minute and 3 second race to the line was won by Robinson in 2:59, to which Carter was incensed.  “Robinson pulled away in the final two and a half laps.  I’d already planned that we would cross the line together holding hands, but when he did that all I had left was to beat the Irish International runner.  Sarah Mac afterwards stated that her favourite laps had been “2, 5, 6, 8 and 11,” and that she was “no longer talking to Tim” because of his 450m sprint for the line.  “Where I come from [of which no one is sure], friends don’t beat friends.”

Veteran38 Mark Ince overcame a severe bout of ageing which has been afflicting him for the past 10 years, and was in the race the entire way, with only a wrong turn on the 10th lap letting him down.  He came in as the 5th Significant Person, in 3:11, just behind Chris (also 3:11).  Mark was giddy after breaking a PB that has stood for 20 years, back from his student days where he claims to have run 1:39 and 3:25 for the middle distance events.  He was reportedly “very giddy” the whole way back as he snacked on Haribo Sourmix.

BBC token pundit Denise Lewis has been quick to offer some expert insight into what might have caused this spectacle of super-human feats on this late summer evening: “The thing about the 5000m is, that it is 5000m long.”  The BBC are hopeful of not renewing her contract.

A tail of two blogs

It’s amazing how the same piece of news can be both the best thing you could ask for and the worst.  For me that news came just over three weeks ago, when frustrated with my physio, I went for a second opinion.  This gentleman invited me onto his torture table and attempted to bend me every which way he could think of. 

The three words he then uttered redefined my running, and have been the cause of severe optimism, and unimaginable frustration, as shown in the two blogs that I wrote on two consecutive days.

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Day 18: Going to the physio was the best thing I ever did. 

Anterior pelvic rotation weren't new words to me.  Three years ago I was diagnosed as having a massive anterior rotation, caused by ridiculously tight hip flexors, which restricted my pelvis position, and thus how high I could lift my knees, which stunted my stride. 

This problem hasn't gotten worse, but I had wrongly assumed that I had maximised my range of motion.  Not true.  This physio demonstrated that with my pelvis in neutral, I literally cannot move my upper leg backwards beyond vertical.  I therefore have to choose between enabling knee lift which restricts my stride length, or enabling my glutes (the largest muscle in the body) to work correctly without being able to lift my knees. 

Just 15 minutes of stretching three times a day should be enough to change this, and given that the first time I made this adjustment, the biomechanical change allowed me to train effectively to reduce my 10k time from 37:14 (Sept. 2009) to 34:41 (Dec. 2009), the optimism of even a slight improvement alone is enough motivation to stick at this.  It’s not easy, but it’s exciting.

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Day 19: Going to the physio was the worst thing I ever did. 

Anterior pelvic rotation is like a curse.  I thought I had resolved this.  I went through all of the physio three years ago.  The problem is I’m now really aware of how awkwardly I run.  I can feel when my whole pelvis tilts forwards now.  It annoys the hell out of me.  An evening run through the countryside shouldn’t end in me screaming and kicking a fence in pure frustration.  Writing 18 seconds off my PB last week should feel satisfying, not worthless because I know that this time is easily beatable if I can overcome this problem. 

I hate stretching three times a day….it uses all of my free time.  Just when I want to relax, its time to contort myself again.  Now I struggle for motivation to run because I know that it’s pointless without rectifying biomechanical factors first.  I wish I’d never known and could just carry on in ignorance.  I was happy being a very average runner.  Argh.

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It’s amazing how the same situation can be perceived in two such different ways.  I’m just hoping that the positives eventually overcome the negative.

UKA stirrup more trouble

The Carter family are said to be disappointed after finally getting around to checking the list of new lottery funded athletes last night, only to discover second-born Timothy has not been given lottery support for his jogging.

Timothy, who is currently in the bath, has declined the opportunity to comment, but in an interview with his parents (who play the National Lottery with limited success every week), it became apparent that they have very limited knowledge of athletics.  “I read that there was a level of funding that applied to contenders for Rio 2016, and I’ve been telling my friends at swimming that I know what Rio is,” said his mother while separating Timothy’s whites from colours.  “For [UKA] to say that Timothy has no chance of making it is just like school P.E all over again when he was only given an effort grade of ‘C’.”

Timothy, who this week has been working on wearing longer shorts in training, is rumoured to have filled out an entry form and stamped-addressed-envelope for a 10k later this year, after deliberating between this and the fun run option which incentivised a free Santa hat.  It has also been suggested that he may be tempted to do another Park Run if he feels like it at some point, although the idea that he still knows where his bar code is quite a far-fetched.

The only silver lining in all this is that Mark Lewis Francis has been dropped from funding.  The athlete is rumoured to have been sent to the Inflator Room at Theme Hospital.

1668 Steps to Glory

My high school P.E. teacher Mr. Weedon may not have liked me (and we thought he was a prat too), and my physio in 2009 may have described me as having the running style of a stroke victim, but last night saw both my 3k and 1500m PBs both creak and tumble in a breath-taking BRAT Club dominance at, well, the BRAT Club Open.

This summer has seen my fast twitch muscles characteristically slow, but without my usual dominance of the under 17 age group races which I’ve come to enjoy, and a 3000m three weeks ago arguably achieved nothing except elevating me away from the very bottom of the national rankings.

The Carthorse camp are accrediting these masterful PB revisions to either the Saucony racing flats, which cost me a mere 6.3grams/kg of body weight, (£0.64/kg if you will,) or perhaps the concoction of beetroot which I subjected my stomach to three hours before the race.

But the real reason may perhaps be my new found running elegance.  Now don’t get me wrong, everyone knows that I have always been an elegant, neat, graceful and composed runner, but after an eye-opening hungover, dehydrated and sleep deprived track session last Saturday, I’ve come to realise that high leg cadence is even more respected by my cardiovascular system than I imagined.  In fact, upping my cadence to 180 per minute drew cheers from a season’s best of three different spectators, with one female fan commenting that while it was “enjoyable to be able see more footstrikes, my increased speed deprived her of additional time looking at my biceps.”

Despite being unable to get in touch with Chief Personal Motivator and Head Movement Coach Nick ‘Nandos’ Howard for praise, I can already see this new found technique revolutionising a running career which Seb Coe himself has long advocated as “going nowhere”.

Meanwhile, graduation at the end of 9 years of studying architecture has meant that there will be no more BUCS competitions.  Although organisers are said to be pleased that the average competitor age will now reduce, and I must now make my peace that any dream of winning a BUCS medal, or making an athletic impact at any event, is gone too.

NB: 180 (steps per minute) x 9:16 = 1668.

BUCS: The revenge of the cross country

5000m goal : 15:50

5000m PB : 16:29.9

5k SB (post-Sept 2011) : 17:03 (xc split)

Two years ago I was at the pinnacle of my athletics career (of the time).  Training alongside the mighty Steven Bayton under the impressive coaching of Coach ‘Hannah’ Mitchell, had seen me shatter my PBs in to fragments I could only dream of as I tried to (unsuccessfully) knock out 400 reps in under 80 seconds a piece the previous summer.

It was all set up for the main event, the BUCS Cross County Champs up in Stirling that year.  Buoyed by the event not being snowed off, I confidently engaged in a one pint wager with my arch nemesis, on the criteria of who finished first.  Little did I know that this was to be the stage which would be the first of a dozen consecutive defeats to the rapidly improving man from Halifax.  My race lacked urgency, I started off in an energy preservation mode and found myself near the back, and it was only half way through that the frustrated shouts of my coaching support team hit me.  No amount of ‘cutting up the inside’ could muster me a finish higher than 147^th.

Now, two years on, I am eligible to run in BUCS again as I represent the 2^nd finest educational institute in central Birmingham.  These XC Championships, this coming weekend, are an early morning train ride to Cardiff away, and are the venue for my post-injury return to student competition.  Recent training sessions suggest that I’m nearing my peak of fitness again, in particular after lowering my ‘asleep to bathroom’ PB to 25.4 seconds in the 8m event mid-last night.

A top 100 finish is surely the target, and I am wiser from lessons learnt in cross countries over the last 24 months.  These include, start fast, tread tentatively through muddy ditches, and don’t ponder whether you need to buy milk on the way home at crucial moments in the race. 

  

Top uni for architecture I’ll have you know…

Tough Times

It’s been a difficult Christmas for Steve Bayton, aged 12.  Fresh from - apparently - underperforming in the Percy Pud 10K, in a disappointing personal best of 32:17, he spent the rest of his day’s energy trying to save his obnoxiously over-sized trophy from being smashed into its inherent materials and recycled in the corresponding containers as Tesco’s recycling plant. 

Bayton’s misery was compounded by visiting his new coach and receiving the news that his potential is being limited by tight hamstrings, poor flexibility in his right quad, weak glutes and hip flexors, and that his thoracic pillar strength needs improving, possibly more on right.  I mean what worse way to hit a man than in his right-thoracic pillar strength.  Ouch. 

The man now also has some serious continuity problems, with none of his other times lining up with this new one.  His 3k pb is only 3 seconds faster than his 3k split in this race, his 5k is slower, and since McMillian’s time prediction are essentially PBs themselves, his 76 minute half just doesn’t live up to the 2h30 marathon he presumably entered in his notebook.

What’s more, I have asked my mother to rescind Steve’s open invitation to my house, without which he will struggle to win next years Burton 10K Classic in my own backyard.

There is however, an air of optimism about the ginger Huddersfield community (no offense to anyone) where he resides.  Rumour has it that he completed 14 unassisted press ups within this last week, which is only 1 shy of his lifetime best. 

Come rain or shine though, I believe that Mister Bayton will line up on the starting line at BUCS, with rumour suggesting that Danny Brewer will be relegated to the ‘B-race’ this year, to avoid Steve being manhandled again whilst spectating and humouring the lower calibre of runners.