Stingers' XC fall preview: women

For the women's preview, I've decided to go with the Olympic champion Canadian women's hockey team as a comparable, with a few local names thrown in from the Montreal Stars.

Dominque Roy: 4:30 1500, sub-18 5k, Dom is easily the fastest woman to lace them up for the Stingers. It is early in our history, but I'm going to throw down the H-bomb on this one: Haley Wickenheiser.

Liz Mokrusa: dropped about 30min off her marathon time (3:15), 17min on her half marathon time (1:27) and about 2 on her 5k (18:52) since last September. She will probably keep getting faster, too, as she just does all the work required, day-in, day-out. She reminds me of Montreal Stars' captain (and Stinger strength-training coach) Lisa-Marie Breton-Lebreux.

Coralina Tse: probably the top CEGEP recruit this year, Coralina ran 19:10 at provincials last year for St. Lambert. Speaking to her about her training (or how little of it she seemed to have one) leads me to believe she's got enormous potential. CEGEP star, big potential? Sounds like Tessa Bonhomme. (interesting side note: Tessa was the first ever first pick in the women's hockey draft. The first ever first pick in the men's draft was Garry Monahan, brother of Pat Monohan, my high school xc coach. It's true!)

Kelly Hewitt: team captain, was injured last winter, but has had a very good summer of training. Probably sub-20 this fall. She's more of a classic style runner, road racing pedigree. Her background in Communications makes me want to compare her to Cassie Campbell, now of the CBC, who was a pretty good hockey player back in the day, if you recall...

Gabrielle Thompson: a xc skiier, transfer from Ottawa, has great aerobic fitness, like Coralina, tons of potential. Hasn't run a true 5k yet, but ran 43:57 on the very hilly St. Bruno 10k course (which is incidentally right in her backyard!). Someone who might come out of nowhere and win it for the team: Marie-Philip Poulin.

There are a lot of names on the women's side, and a lot of women I've yet to meet. Here's a bit more about some of the names I do know:

Camilla Fitzgibbon, Chanel Savoie and Jennie Mae Roy are all returning members who could find their way into the top seven, depending on how their summers went. I see them as kind of a grind-line, and my lack of knowledge of women's hockey is going to show, but I think that Jayna Hefford, Cherie Piper and Gillian Aps are three players who embody this hard-working style.

Claire Gerin-Lajoie is a CEGEP recruit from Brebeuf who is future captain material. Fitness-wise she was mid 21min last fall, and could go sub-20 if she works really hard, but her biggest contribution to the team will be her enthusiasm. If energy on the ice can be compared to the energy we see from Claire, then maybe Gina Kingsbury is a good comparison.

Other names: Laura Gomez, a transfer from Montgomery College, Amanda Weightman, a transfer from Arkansas Pine-Bluff, Lucy Dykstra, from high school in Calgary, and Megan Anderson, from junior college in B.C., a former elite field hockey player, might all make a name for themselves as well. There are about 10 more names, but I think I will leave it at this. There's tons of depth on the women's side for the Stingers. I hope it turns into tons of medals!

Stingers' XC fall preview: men

It's hard to write a preview for any sport, because let's face it, no one knows what's going to go down. It's especially harder to write one for your own team. So I'm going to try to lay out what I know, but with a twist: I'm going to try to match up our guys with members of the 2010 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks. Hopefully it will be a good omen and we can snatch a championship ourselves!

Stephane Colle: Canada Games silver medalist in the 5000m, has a pb under 14:30, had a bit of a rough year with injuries but managed to fight back and return to shape. Right now the most pure talent on the team so CBH comparison is to Marian Hossa.

Ryan Noel Hodge: Team Captain, QSSF rookie of the year, QSSF all-star, second fastest rookie at CIS last year, Concordia overall rookie of the year, 5k pb of 15:07 run at the national championships this summer. The kid is clutch and he is a perfect match for Chicago's "Captain Serious" Jonathan Toews.

Sofiane Guend: Coming off his best year, finally coming into his own. 10k PB 33:10. He's an American from Wisconsin, so we'll match him up with Blackhawk Pat Kane of Buffalo. Upstate New York...Wisconsin...same thing, right?

Didier Morelli: Triathlete with great wheels (27 for his last 200 of a set of 16), and decent endurance (1:20 half, cruising on a hilly San Fransisco course), is now focusing on running. Hoping a change of scenery will allow him to bust out, just like Patrick Sharp (yes, I'm comparing triathlon to playing for the Flyers).

Peter Iacino: a rookie with experience, Peter has been on the track scene in Montreal for a while. He was out with hernia surgery all winter, but has a 5k PB of 16:16, so you know he's got skill. Good match with skilled Hawk, Dave Bolland.

Lucas Corkum: Second-year runner who managed pretty well in his first year until CIS. The season was probably a little long, but he's put in a big summer of training and is a good bet to break out this fall. Hoping Kris Versteeg does the same (with the Leafs!).

James Coulton: rookie, and strong xc skiier. He was around Lucus in races last year while competing for Dawson College. He's a big dude, so we're going to call him Buff, after Dustin Byfuglien. If cross country had a net, we'd make him stand in front of it.

Jean Marc Laforest: another veteran who has had some shakey recent history, but he's back, and focused and ready to prove he's worth the big contract we signed him to...no wait, that last bit only applies to Brian Campbell!

Vincent Morasse: Vincent is a returning runner who took part in not one but TWO Spartan Races this summer. That's crawling through mud and jumping over fire pits for those who don't know. This of course tells you a lot about Vince's character. He's kind of the joker of the team, just like Adam Burish.

Clifford Reid: Cliff made big strides in the spring, but we're not sure what happened to him during the summer. He's got lots of potential, but like a young defenceman, there are going to be mistakes along the way. Brent Seabrooke knows what I'm talking about.

Colin Riendeau: Fitness guru is hoping his Cross-Fit training will translate into 10k success. Another "young defenceman" type, we're hoping he's more Duncan Keith than Brett Sopel.

We're still looking for a goalie. There are a few more names to throw out there, but I don't know much about them...yet. Look for one or more of Alex Garofalo, Charles-Smith Metellus, Marc-Andre Hould, Kyle L'esperence, Jordan Choo, and Matthew Haley to stick.

Running fast requires strong morals.

I'll get to the running connection eventually. It's an interesting road...

I recently read two interesting pieces on free will. One from the New York Times and the other from a book by Michael Brooks called "13 things that don't make sense." One of the things that doesn't make sense, according to Brooks, is free will. The thing is, as Galen Strawson, author of the Times opinion, puts it, "current science gives us no more reason to think that determinism is false than that determinism is true." So are we really free to choose?

Strawson's analysis says no. Or at least, he connects the lack of free will to a lack of responsibility. He puts forth a "Basic Argument" as follows:

"(1) You do what you do — in the circumstances in which you find yourself—because of the way you then are.

(2) So if you’re going to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you’re going to have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are — at least in certain mental respects.

(3) But you can’t be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all.

(4) So you can’t be ultimately responsible for what you do."

Point three rests on the idea that whatever side of the nature or nurture debate you fall on, it's not your own free will that makes you the way you are. Every act we commit (or do not commit) is derivative.de novo from ourselves. This is kind of sad, or scary, depending on how you look at it. Whether it is derivative from our genes, or from the way our parents taught us to be, no act springs

The thing is, for all practical purposes ("practico-pratique, là," as my bar school teacher would say) it doesn't matter. Because unless you are super self-aware, and have an intimate and expert knowledge of genetics, our actions are pretty hard to specifically predict every time. So even if our path in life is already determined, at least it will still be a surprise.

But when you get right down to the nuclear core of everything, the quantum core, if you will, the randomness of the universe is what drives our actions, and being random, our universe is not determined. So maybe our actions are determined, but not by us. Are the random spinnings of sub-atomic particles enough to say that we have "free will"? I don't think so. Or is it? Brooks gets at this when he describes a process by which a subject's actions (physical actions, not moral actions) can be controlled by manipulating his brain chemistry with a magnetic field. What he further describes is slightly eerie: in monitoring brain activity, it has been discovered that the brain gears up to do its thing (whatever it is) before the person is consciously aware that he or she is going to do that thing. We are talking hundreds of milliseconds of difference here, which, depending on what industry you are in may or may not be a lot. I'd say for brain chemistry, that's a lot.

The real significance of this question is what it allows us to say about responsibility. It's a pretty easy out to suggest that our actions are determined, therefore we have no responsibility for them. Would such a defense ever stand-up in court? Not likely. The attempt to allow in the testimony of a Dr. Galen (State v. Sikora (1965) N.J. S.C.) to say that "unconscious influences" drove the accused's crime was not successful. Perhaps now that we have a deeper understanding of brain science, a better argument could be made than Galen's "inner tensions" but what would be the impact on society? Not good, I'd say.

The fact remains, regardless of whether our actions are determined or not, we are still responsible for them. Probably your attitude towards how much responsibility you have has already been shaped, but it can be shaped again, reshaped, and remade.

So to get to the running philosophy, let's say all your accumulated knowledge and tendencies are like training. All that training is going to determine how you are going to race. Of course, you can still influence the outcome of your race a little bit, but basically, the training gives you a range. The more aware you are, the more focused, the more confident, that is, the more responsible you are, the higher in the range you can be.

The moral of the story: Running fast requires strong moral fibre!

Racing in the street

Tonight, tonight the strip's just right
I wanna blow 'em off in my first heat
Summer's here and the time is right
For racin' in the street

I came across a link to an opinion in the Globe and Mail today. It seems that this fellow has gained a following for being controversially tough on mediocrity. Apparently it started with a letter to the editor of People Magazine, criticizing their categorization of Katie Holmes' NYC marathon as "impressive." Katie took 5.5 hours to finish the thing. Howard Stern once said "A five hour marathon is not running--it's blocking traffic."

I agree with Mr. Gilfillan, the author of the opinion piece and the letter to People, and I agree with Howard Stern. Many others do not. They think such an opinion is elitist, disrespectful, and arrogant. But I think the point is being lost in all the self-righteous "Hey, a 2:30 half marathon is pretty good for me" business. Let's examine what is really being said here.

First of all, the main point of the opinion piece is not an attack on slow runners. It is a lament for a lack of fast runners. I can see how this might enjoin a "what, I'm not good enough for you?" reaction from those who might not make the cut of "fast" but let's face facts: the average finish time for a marathon in Canada has shot up since the incursion of the Running Room on the scene (or earlier), and the number of fast finishes (say, under 2:20) has plummeted. It would be easy to connect the two, and blame the slow people for the lack of fast people, but that would be wrong. Well, almost wrong.

Of course average times will go up: there are way more people, and the bulk of them are slower. There are reasons to hail this as a good thing. It means more people are exercising. It means more people are getting involved in running, specifically, which we runners like because we want everyone to think running is important (or at least to think we are not abnormal). This is cool. Or it would be cool if there had not been a corresponding drop in elite and sub-elite times. The total number of finishers has shot way up, but it's not like there are limited spots. If someone wanted to go and run a 2:18 marathon, someone could. John Stanton is not stopping you. At least not directly.

So how to make the connection between the two? First, it would be interesting to figure out what it takes to run a sub-2:20 marathon for men or the equivalent for women which might be around 2:45. I take these numbers because there were 9 men under 2:20 and 8 women under 2:45 at the Ottawa Marathon, which is perhaps Canada's premiere marathon. But that is up for debate (somewhere else, not here). To run that fast you have to train long and hard. It requires a lot of work, and sacrifice, and probably some level of pre-existing condition of being relatively healthy.

What does it take to run a sub-4 hour marathon? It's not that hard. All it really takes is being relatively young and healthy. I once advised a young woman (early 20s) on running a marathon. I sent her workouts by email, but she pretty much slacked off the entire summer, played soccer twice a week, partied, and didn't run. She was not sedentary, but she was not a trained runner by any means. I counseled her to not bother with the marathon because it would probably be a painful experience. She did it anyway, and managed to run 3:45. With no training.

Another example is that of the (now ex-) husband of another young woman (mid-20s) I was training. This woman was a sub-elite, former varsity runner. She could run 10k under 40min and was shooting for around a 3:00 marathon. She worked very hard at it, ate well, sacrificed lots (she was also a young mom at the same time). So a few weeks before the big race, her jack-ass of a husband (who was not supportive throughout, making the training even tougher) says, I'm gonna run, too, this marathon bit is a joke. He wandered in around 3:45, right off the couch, no training except a lot of climbing. He wasn't very nice about it, but he did it.

That fact that the absolute time of 3:45 is attainable by a reasonably healthy person with very little training severely diminishes its value to me. In absolute terms, it's not that impressive.

That said, I am not immune to the reward that can come from a slower marathon, and to the efforts required to run one. I coached a slightly overweight woman in her mid-50s whose goal was to qualify for the Boston marathon. At her age, what was required was a 3:59. It actually took her a couple years to do it, so by the time she ran her best marathon of 4:14, she was old enough that the time qualified her. And it was satisfying. And she worked for it.

It really depends who you are. I would say that this woman respected the distance, while those who ran 3:45 on a whim, maybe did not. That concept, of respecting the distance, is something that gets brought up by those lamenting the increase of slowness. But the two are not mutually exclusive. I would say this, though: why? Why do you need to run a marathon, when you could probably get the necessary health benefits, and enjoy your training just as much, by training for a 5k or 10k. That's another tangent I won't get on right now.

This idea of respect, however, connects the decline of elite road racing with the increase of mediocre participation. Attitude and respect. And money. It seems that the running "industry" of the 70s and early 80s was centered around different values. People drawn to the sport then were fighting against something, maybe. They were characters in a Bruce Springsteen song: facing a tough situation, but getting through it. That's not who runners are any more. They are characters in a Nickleback song: whining about how hard things are, but not doing anything about it. The business of running is selling the check-box of a marathon to a generation of runners who haven't really had it rough. They are sold the idea that to be a "runner" you need community, clothes, gear, and snacks. That's not what running is. It can be. But running, at least, the kind of running that elites identify with, is about athleticism, individualism and competition. The thing about elites is, they are cheap. Fast runners thinks he or she should get their shoes for free. They don't want to pay entry fees. So businesses, like the Running Room, and the companies that put on road races, do not cater to them. If the mainstream of running doesn't promote or support elites, is there any wonder we lack them?

But I believe we can have it both ways. The great thing about road races is that the best of the best run along side the recreational joggers. This is a good thing. It's not like Sidney Crosby ever really stops to play shinny with kids. Beer leaguers never get to play with real professionals. In a big road race, "garage league" runners can go head-to-head with the stars. But what I find unfortunate, is the lack of respect that some of the recreational runners seem to have for the elites. Racing is a sport. It's a game, a competition, there are scores. Faster running is a better score. That's really all there is to it. It boggles my mind when I hear slower runners trying to rationalize that somehow the "real" story is the back-of-the-packer who struggles through 4:30, but the dude who breaks 2:18 on his first marathon is not that interesting. You never hear recreational hockey players describing their exploits as being tougher or more impressive than a professional's. At least not in earnest.

The reason why elites get annoyed at the focus on mediocre runners (and partially why the slower runners don't care about the elites) is because each group thinks the other is having a totally different experience. To be fair: I'm generalizing about both sides. There are plenty of elites who respect what an age-group runner goes through, and there are Gallowalkers who are great fans of the best in the sport. But I have heard comments from both sides that show this disconnect. The beauty of the sport is that everyone suffers the same during the race. Even if you are walking for most of your 5:00 marathon, it ain't easy. And while the winners might seem effortless as they cross the line after "only" 2:15 of running at the peak of their aerobic capacity, trust me, they are hurting. But this isn't the message we hear in the media. We hear "run easy" and "a 10 minute mile is the same distance as a 6 minute mile."

I hope that the reaction to an article like Gilfillan's can be, not to cry foul, but to try to find that dirty, gritty hope inside that despite what you are, you can be better. Mediocrity is not really measured by final race time. I think it's fair to say that. The problem is that if people start to think that a mediocre race time is "ok" or "pretty good" then they are only short-changing themselves. If someone runs a 4:15 marathon, and they have thrashed themselves within an inch of their life, then kudos to them. But that's not what we see out there. We see walk breaks, medals just for finishing, and smiles across the finish line. To me, that's disappointing. I know that is not the best you can do. And that's why Gilfillan is saying: you can do better. Do better.