Quick Splits
— By now, you’ve probably watched this New York Times piece on Mary Cain, who, in 2013 became the youngest American track and field athlete to make a World Championships team at the age of 17. In the piece, Cain, now 23, says that she was “emotionally and physically abused” by coach Alberto Salazar when she was training as a member of the Nike Oregon Project. She says she was constantly told she needed to lose weight, was shamed in front of her teammates, didn’t have her period for over three years, broke five bones, began cutting herself, and even had suicidal thoughts. Salazar, who, predictably, has denied the claims, is currently serving a four-year ban for breaking anti-doping rules. Nike, through a statement, said it is investigating these most recent accusations, which have been corroborated by other former NOP athletes. And something tells me there’s more yet to come.
Kudos to Cain for her bravery and honesty in this piece: for every Mary Cain who speaks out against this kind of behavior, there are countless other athletes in professional, collegiate, and scholastic programs who have experienced similar treatment and are fearfully staying silent about it. Hopefully this piece encourages more of them to speak up while also helping to hold coaches to a higher standard of professionalism and care. This isn’t just a female athlete problem or a male coach problem or a weight problem or a running problem: the same type of shit happens throughout other sports that normalize this type of destructive behavior (e.g. “it’s only a minor concussion, toughen up and get back in there” or “rest days are a sign of weakness” or “take some sudafed to get your heart rate up before the race,” and so on and so forth). A coach's main job, regardless of gender, sport, or level of competition, is to keep the overall well-being of his or her athletes top of mind at all times—it's not to win at all costs or put performance over health. The culture and dialogue around these types of issues has to evolve and, amongst other important changes, hopefully this piece can encourage that to happen wherever it may exist.
— One of the biggest things I try to communicate to my athletes, especially ones that I’ve just started working with for the first time, is that they should finish most workouts feeling like they could do another rep or two, or go a little longer. It seems like counterintuitive advice (“Shouldn’t I have nothing left at the end?” is the question I often get) but knowing when to stop is one of the keys to performing at the highest level, whether it’s running, work, writing, or something else.
— I have no idea who Joe Ariano is but I enjoyed watching this video of the senior captain of the Deerfield boys cross-country team break 5 minutes in the mile for the first time after coming up short in 15-ish previous attempts. Congrats Joe!
— Several months ago, my friend Julia Hanlon reached out and told me she was thinking about relaunching her popular podcast, Running on Om, and I’m excited to share with all of you that today is the day it finds its way back into the podcastphere! The first episode of “Chapter Two,” a series which will be focused on women in endurance sports and the outdoors, will be available later today on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Julia is a talented interviewer and I’m glad to see her back doing what she does so well: empowering and inspiring others through conversation.
— Why is the Vaporfly (and Alphafly prototype) the quickest marathon shoe ever made? It must be because of the plates, foam, pods, and all the other bells and whistles built into it return energy to propel you forward, right? Not so fast, says Simon Bartold, who is one of the world’s leading experts on footwear and biomechanics. He posits it’s because they “can dampen input vibration, one can reduce muscle contraction and load and thereby reduce fatigue.” You quite literally can not feel the vibration underneath your feet. Empirically, this is my biggest takeaway from having raced three marathons in the shoe now: my legs aren’t nearly as wrecked in the days afterward as they have been in the past, purportedly because my muscles don’t have to work as hard to reduce input vibration as they do in traditional racing flats. It makes perfect sense to me.
— No, you can't read my poker face. “The illusion of transparency explains why, even once you’re no longer a teenager, it still seems like few people understand you,” Shane Parrish writes for Farnam Street. “It’s not that other people are ambivalent or confused. Your feelings just aren’t as clear as you think. Often you can’t see beyond the confines of your own head and neither can anyone else.”
— The Diamond League will no longer feature the 200m, 3,000m steeplechase, discus or triple jump at all of its events in 2020, citing “research on the popularity of events which was conducted in China, France, South Africa and the USA, while surveys were carried out in Belgium, Great Britain and Switzerland. Click-throughs on Diamond League social media videos also helped guide the governing body.” What a load of sh*t this is, as if the sport didn’t have enough wrong with it. Get with the times, World Athletics and Sebastian Coe. It’s not the events that are the problem. It’s how they are packaged and presented that is severely outdated.
+ Shoutout to Christian Taylor for responding and trying to do something about it with the launch of The Athletics Association. I’m curious to see what kind of traction this group gains and how much impact it actually has on the sport and athlete rights. Reminds me a bit of the Track & Field Athletes Association, whose “mission [was] to galvanize the voice of their members to influence the process and the policies that impact its athlete members” that I’m pretty sure no longer exists. Call me jaded but until we see actual unionization and widespread buy-in from athletes across all disciplines, I’m not convinced it’s going to do all that much.
|
