Price of Gold

Dubgal72

I came across this on You Tube last night. It's pretty hardcore.

https://youtu.be/8XnQyI3Mgbc

(why are my you tube links so erratic?! :mad: )

Many of these elites have suffered rather horrific injuries. What's the deal here? Is this really the price elites have to pay? Can they train smarter and still achieve the same pinnacle?

Coachy talks often of the 'risk/reward' relationship in his day...the more reward in sight, the greater risk you took, i.e., train harder and not always smarter. Athletes back in the day probably couldn't even spell 'hard days hard, easy days easy'. GPS was a lingo not even dreamed of �� Coachy got an earful from his coach when he was spotted on a recovery run....at 5.xx pace :eek: Nevertheless, they got the results...and the overuse injuries....

(He's all about the 'training smarter' aspect these days but let's be fair, he is mostly (Neil excluded of course!) dealing with a pack of ahem post-prime runners.)

Are elites justified in pushing their bodies to the brink while at their physical peak?

Was Sonia O'Sullivan right to run her body to the bone up to 1995 to achieve the heights she did?
Jessica Ennis came back to the ultimate triumphs after spending months in a contraption and plaster of Paris.
Eamonn Coghlan spent years battling overuse injuries but became world champion towards the end of his career.
Were the lows worth it? This is something only they can answer but what can we learn from their experiences? Is there a 'model elite' or two out there? What is their secret?


And for general interest

El Caballo

Yep in my opinion. That's a once in a lifetime opportunity, they have the rest of their lives to be conservative. Any sport at the very top isn't glamorous or even healthy in my opinion but the mind wants what the mind wants so it's a case of does the mental satisfaction outweigh the physical pain and I think that's true at every level of the sport. Most people that don't run think runners are mental for putting ourselves through what we do to run a PB but we still do it for that satisfaction, imagine how big that is once you get to the level where an Olympic medal is possible. I'd give my left nut to have a chance at a major medal because it's a moment I'd always have for the rest of my life. Mental satisfaction trumps physical pain for me and it does with every runner I think.

Training sensibly is probably the best for non-elite runners like us but when you are talking about an elite athlete who is almost maxed out and 1% means the difference between an Olympic medal or 6th, I think it's a different story. It's an all or nothing situation and will ultimately come down to whose desperate enough and you have to look at who these people are, they didn't get to the top without drive or a dream and it's a lifetime of work for one moment, I'd take the risk of overcooking it and giving myself a medal chance if I was in their shoes. "Pain is temporary" and all that jazz. Elite sport isn't pretty behind the scenes and endurance events usually come down to whose willing to drive their body into the ground the most and keep going because talent is in abundance at the very top but all I can do is speculate for obvious reasons.

uvox

El Caballo wrote: »

...I'd take the risk of overcooking it and giving myself a medal chance if I was in their shoes. "Pain is temporary" and all that jazz. ...

+1

Murph_D

Only the elites can answer the question. For the rest of us it's academic. I was in a taxi one night and got talking about marathon running. The driver said he was an international 800m runner in his day and told me he could hardly walk now. "Give it up before you get hurt" was the general message (I don't think he realised the extent of my mediocrity). Maybe he'd feel better if he'd won Olympic gold, maybe not.

Firedance

Not sure how the elites feel but for me results are temporary too, once you achieve your goal the moment is gone and you want the next target. If its the same at the top (and I suspect it is) then yes, it's worh it for them while they are in the moment. Hindsight, as we all know, is a super thing..

Doesn't everyone at the top of every sport push boundaries to achieve? That's how they get there (along with some talent too sometimes)

Dubgal72

I am going to disagree El C and FD ...but for now, I am absorbed in Catherina McKiernan's autobio and have a small mountain of clothes to fold before kids get back :eek: :eek:

Myles Splitz

I have watched that documentary numerous times and still find it excellent.

The one thing it really shows is that athletes of all levels whether you are elite or C25K are not infallible to making bad decisions. Many of us believe that just because elites are running faster that they have cracked things and that what ever they are doing is correct. I remember having a chat to a group of 1.46 800m runners before and they couldn't tell why they were doing a session only that coach told them to run X by Y metres in Z amount of seconds and they just did what they were told.

Training smarter is not just about the training itself. Sifan Hassan's coach made a great comment before at a presentation saying that excellence is not about the 2-4 hours a day training you do but the other 20 hours.

Starving yourself for aesthetic purposes, beating your treadmill record for top speed and other examples on the video show that training can get you to a level but unless you are properly looking after the other elements you are a whisker from injury at all times.
With elites it can be a bit harder to weigh up the cost/reward with sponsorship, selection criteria's, race travel and peak races all impacting on risk/reward element that sometimes doing the right thing is not feasible for example running a race when you should have a few days rest up because you need a qualification mark or rushing training because you were laid off for 2 weeks earlier in your plan and you are chasing fitness.

Similarly amateur runners have to weigh up what they are putting into the sport but doing your long run hung over (after 2 hours kip) on a Sunday morning on a weekly basis in build up to marathon and wonder why you are picking up niggles all the time is a bit naive and need to ask yourself if simply doing the training is enough to get you to your goal.

There are plenty of model examples of athletes and it shows in their longevity.

Kipchoge leads a humble life in order to focus on his training.

Meb Keflezighi has made huge changes to his regime such as more cross training and longer microcyles (from 7 day to 9 day) to focus on recovery and listening to the body.

Bernard Lagat is another who says he does not go to bed after 10pm to ensure he gets enough rest (from Flotrack video interview a few years back) as well as doing lower mileage than normally associated with distance runners.

Going back to the documentary and I think the biggest issue was that Swedish Federation wanted quick results in form of medals that was the be all and end all rather than the overall long term development of the athletes. The return on investment of public spending was essential. I think that many can be pushed to a higher level with intense training (I can think of one example I have heard of recently who has brought themselves from 2.50-2.2x marathon times because he is able to survive a really intensive block of training in the last few weeks of marathon training) but personally I don't think this is the right approach if you want to create a culture of excellence and a long term approach has a much more positive outcome not just for the athlete involved but on the sport in general. There are plenty of bitter ex international Irish (and other nationality) runners who have been lost to the sport as fans, coaches etc because of this.

El Caballo

All true but many who have reached the very pinnacle of the sport have put themselves through the ringer at some stage. When you look at the marathon now for instance, the top guys are only lasting 2-3 years and fading away. Far be it for me to critique the likes of Canova but it seems to be that the Italian coaching system is burning out athletes and that the training to be able to run that fast is just not sustainable for a period of time, it looks like a tradeoff of quick results, burnout and on to the next talent coming through to repeat the process. These guys aren't fading greats from the track anymore either, they are guys in their 20's who should have years ahead of them, Kipchoge excluded. Salazar absolutely destroys athletes as well with intensity, these coaches are weeding out the talent down to whoever can take the training load needed to win and run fast.

We've seen many other athletes of non-existent African heritage try to take on that training as well and simply not handle it and burnout.I think it is the case that if you have a constant conveyor belt of talent and put them through a meat grinder to see who can survive the training, others have to follow in their footsteps and try that load in the hope of competing with them and long-term approach will not be effective because there's 10 more guys who survived the meat grinder and are ready to go when the others burnout. It's becoming rarer and rarer to see the very top athletes hanging around for a while. I'm not saying this is right by any means.

Dubgal72

The recent Swedish model achieved short term gain but, imo, to the long term detriment of athletics. The most serious indictment is the effect the approach is having on juveniles. It is very worrying that an overuse injury epidemic has cascaded down so quickly to juveniles.
Juveniles should still be at the enjoyment stage and focusing on a wider variety of activities. To achieve specialised-origin overuse injuries at age 14-15 spells out the short sightedness of the Swedish approach as well as a neglect of their holistic development.

As Myles suggests, just because the elites are doing it, does not mean it 'works'.

The runner who had osteoporosis was not a template for younger runners to aspire to. I strongly suspect she had/has an eating disorder to boot. I very much doubt she will think it 'worth it' after a few decades of pain.

I would suggest that emerging elites are encouraged to apply their intelligence towards their emotions as well. This may even require adding emotional intelligence type training to their repertoire....
In the midst of the heat of training and competition and complete dedication to the next goal, athletes may need to train themselves to pull back and see the bigger picture. They also need the correct support system.
Catherina McKiernan regrets that she did not rest when her body told her to, despite John Treacy telling her that the most important training day is your rest day. With the correct support system, athletes can perhaps realise that it is ok to pull back.

We should remember that young adults are frequently so 'in the moment' that two years can seem like a lifetime away, never mind six months!!

I can't help feeling that by sanctioning the 'break your body or bust' approach, we are complicit in setting not only the few who reach the top of the pyramid, but also the multitude who don't, on the road to long term health complications compounded by sometimes mental health difficulties further down the road.

There has to be a better way. 'We' just have to figure out the optimal combination of old school hard training and modern 'smarter training' along with the least limiting use of modern tools such as GPS devices.

As always, it starts at the bottom of the pyramid, at the juvenile level and as in all things, there are no quick fixes.

I don't think it is healthy to promote a 'succeed at all costs' philosophy in sport. 'At all costs' implies other means too, does it not? Perhaps we need to take a step back and ascend around the mountain, taking a bit longer but achieving the summit more certainly and more securely than the quicker, more vertical ascent that many attempt.

I'm not sure there is glory in gold at the cost of a broken body. Too much like Romans baying for blood in the gladiator arena.....

El Caballo

It's all good to have a model for sensibility but all of theses athletes are their own people and there will always be people willing to drive their body into the ground and when you talk about elite athletes, you are talking about the most competitive people on the planet, it's in their nature to not lose an edge in their perception. I don't want this to go down the drugs route but it's a perfect example of sport behind the scenes and what people will do to win, none of the athletes who set out in sport ever intended to take drugs until they found themselves in the position where they had to make the choice between letting someone have an advantage and what is right. Look at the mindset of someone like Lance Armstrong to pump human growth hormone into his body after having cancer, something which is known to accelerate tumor growth and if people think Lance was just one, they were sadly mistaken and there's the deaths there to back it up.

If there's an opportunity there to gain an opportunity to gain a perceived advantage through training, meds or whatever, people will take the risks. The top athletes these days are training much harder than the athletes from the old days but supplementary recovery and science has moved on allowing them to do so but they even when that is all taken into account, they are still training on the limit and this has been true of all sport and will continue to happen forever as long as a few are willing to drive themselves into the ground for a win and there will always be a few. I remember and elite athlete (can't remember the name now) last year year coming out and saying that every athlete should purposely injure themselves at least once because they would go past their limit and reap the training adoptions from it.

A psychologist can only help someone who wants to be helped and trying to suppress their competitive desires won't work because even if 99.9% of athletes take their foot off the gas and train sensibly, there will be that .1% of athletes that see that as their advantage. You will never change all of their nature no matter how people outside the sport perceive them. Even look at the guys who do the Isle of Man TT, they know that around any corner, death could be waiting but they still do it. Even with the Kenyans, they are not going to listen to a train sensibly approach when they find they have a talent which could make the difference between living a life of extreme poverty or getting out of it, their hunger for a chance of success is so big.

A lot of people will think my attitude is careless, it's not that I don't care but the reality of competitive sport when you peel away all the romance is that it is a dog eat dog affair at the very top and there's always someone else waiting behind to take the throne. That is the reality and what's right and the reality often differ, Hindsight is all good and well when someone's career is over but they have to get to that point to know if it was worth it or not. Elite sport at the very top is not healthy and will never be because there will always be someone pushing it to the unhealthy to gain an advantage if they think they can.

Chivito550

It's also worth noting that what is seen in the Swedish documentary is the extreme end of things. The vast majority of former elite athletes are not suffering in agony from their past endeavours. Look at Sonia O'Sullivan for example. She had as long and punishing a career as any, and yet she never misses a day of running now, and does a good bit of cycling and swimming, and in general just stays active.

Mind you I've heard stories of high jumpers who took up smoking to help loose extra weight. Utter madness.

El Caballo

Chivito550 wrote: »

It's also worth noting that what is seen in the Swedish documentary is the extreme end of things. The vast majority of former elite athletes are not suffering in agony from their past endeavours. Look at Sonia O'Sullivan for example. She had as long and punishing a career as any, and yet she never misses a day of running now, and does a good bit of cycling and swimming, and in general just stays active.

True and I probably got a little carried away. I'm not saying that all athletes will have lifelong health problems, that's probably in the very small minority of things but going past their limits, burning out physically or mentally and getting injured seems to be a very common issue amongst elite athletes at the very top.