Tuesday - September 06, 2005
What: 10 times 600 meters on the "Finnish" track
Where: Bern, across from the doctor's office
Comments: Felt pretty good. I had to do it all alone since Astrid is having some problems with her broken bronchial tube….or something like that! I miss my training partner! Livia has a rest right now since she just finished Swiss Junior Championships.
Quotes: "Allez." Fritz
Well, I took the breathing test with the doctor after my workout and my lungs are healthy!! That is the good news. Now I have to go to Maglingen to do some other test where they hook all kinds of things up to me to check my lactate threshold and my breathing and my muscles…I don't know really, all I know is that I will have tubes and stuff coming out of me so they can check me out fully to see what the deal is. The lung specialist said it could be some kind of dysfunction with something else…but again, more tests…BUT I am cleared to train, so that is the good news. Hell yeah. More to come… In the meantime, the workout today wasn't bad at all. We were on the Finnish track, a nice dirt and bark chip, flat loop with every 50 meters marked so you can check time. The 600s were not meant to be totally demolishing. I did the 10 times 600 at about 82 pace per 400, 5:28 per mile pace. More like a 10k workout! That is the stuff I like…Cycle 2 is the stuff I don't like, hard, fast hills! Well, "like." I like them, but I don't…Hills are awesome because they really make you strong and it is great for your hips, but they hurt!!! Ah yes, the pain! We love and hate the pain!!!
Today, during the workout, I chanted to myself in my head. I kept saying "don't be a bleeping wuss, don't be a bleeping wuss" (because the interval before it was slow…I was by myself and had to motivate me)….but then I ran 8 seconds faster! THE MIND OVER THE BODY!
Today's random thoughts….
THE WEIGHT ISSUE
Yes, the infamous weight issue… Definitely not enough has been spoken and/or done about eating disorder issues within our sport! However, it is a very-well known fact that distance runners often have these sorts of problems. I can understand where the problem comes from, however, it doesn't make much sense to me. Like I always said, it is always about the big picture…And when I see these overly tiny girls abusing their bodies when they are so young, I wonder what they are thinking about…Are they thinking about the moment, that season, that year?…. When I see these girls that are made of nothing but skin and bones, I think that these young, beautiful girls have a whole life ahead of them and they are placing so much importance and pressure on how much they should weigh just because of the sport NOW. BUT, what they don't see, are the consequences they could face later in life…I can understand it because I too have had many friends that have been faced with these problems. We are girls and are taught to constantly compare ourselves to each other, constantly bombarded with fake, computer-generated and impossible images of women and girls with perfectly flat stomachs, huge breasts, tiny butts, long skinny legs…etc… And then when you add the competitive aspect, so help us, we women and girls are too much. At practice when it is a hot summer's day and the shirts come flying off, all eyes roam around to each other's stomachs, each worrying about the six pack or non six pack they may or may not have, instead of worrying about that day's run. I understand it, because I too am obviously a girl!!!!!!!! Yes, I will admit, for the sake of this blog, that there have been times where I have been self conscious about my own very non-flat stomach. But I was just not built to have one…and I accept it dammit! I do place importance on core strength, but not on how it actually looks. A very good friend of mine one time ran a 15:50 something 5k and SHE was still self conscious about her stomach…and when she talked to me I was like, WHAT???? YOU JUST RAN A FREAKING FAST 5K..WHO CARES! I realized then, that it is something most of us girls deal with..being self conscious about some part of our bodies... I think it is important that we talk about these issues it instead of ignoring them. Addressing the weight issue should occur a lot earlier in our sport, in fact, in all sports. It helped me a great deal to talk to other girls about why we are self conscious! We found a lot of common ground about these things. We held each other strong if one of us was feeling bad about ourselves that day or if we were having doubts about our strength. We constantly spoke of how we wanted our careers to last longer than a couple years and how we wanted to be healthy when we were older and that it wasn't worth abusing our bodies for the NOW!
So that is my little rant about the weight issue. I can understand how if a group of competitive girls come together, such problems will arise. But I feel we could use a lot more awareness in general over these issues!!! I feel if girls are better educated about consequences they could face later in life if they make those sorts of decisions now, we could drastically reduce the amount of eating disorders within our sport. Education is not the SOLUTION to this very wide-spread problem, but I feel it is at least a stepping stone that may better guide young ladies to better decisions!
NEXT: September 7, 8 – Not all mileage is equal.
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INDEX: Unfinished Business -- Former PA XC state champion Josi Lauber's post-collegiate adventure.