Quick Splits
— “When it comes to speed, men will always be first across the line. No woman will outsprint Usain Bolt. No woman will hit the side of the pool ahead of Michael Phelps’s world records,” morning shakeout subscriber Kate Carter writes for The Guardian. “Yet a remarkable phenomenon seems to have gathered pace over the past few years: the longer and more brutal the event, the more women seem to be winning outright, or surpassing men’s achievements.” Great piece and spot on based on my experience as a coach and observer of the sport. Sure, by and large men may have stronger, more explosive muscles but women have far better brains than we do and a much higher tolerance for dealing with sustained pain.
— Vaporflys might help you run faster than you ever have before, but you won’t win the race if you let up at the line. Always run hard through the tape, kids.
— This photo essay detailing a day in the life (it starts at 4:30 AM!) of 19-year-old Cornelius Kemboi at St Patrick's High School in Iten, Kenya—an institution that has produced some of the fastest runners in the world, including David Rudisha, Wilson Kipketer, and many others under the guidance of legendary coach Brother Colm O’Connell—is worth a quick scroll. “I am not trying to produce better athletes,” O’Connell says of his approach to coaching. “I am trying to produce better people.”
— I’ll be honest, when I saw the title of the latest episode of the Planet Money podcast, “Advanced Fairness At The Marathon,” I thought it was going to be about racing shoes—because when “fairness” and “marathon” share the same line what else would you expect?—but I was wrong. It’s about the four ways a runner can get into the New York City Marathon, or how the New York Road Runners “fairly” allocates 50,000+ bibs very year, and I think you’ll find it to be an interesting (and potentially insightful) listen.
— I first met Patrick Reaves when I moved to the Bay Area in 2014. I Strava stalked him for a couple weeks—he owned most of the segments in Foster City near where we both lived—before reaching out and asking him to go for a run. We became fast friends. It was obvious to me from the first run we went on that the man was an absolute workhorse—the pace was always honest and he wasn’t afraid to put in the miles week after week. He broke 2:30 in the marathon for the first time at Boston that year with a 2:29:31 clocking and hasn’t slowed down since. Fast forward a few years and he’s on his way to his hometown of Atlanta for the Olympic Trials Marathon with a 2:17:40 personal best and a commitment to be competitive. “This will probably be my only Olympic Trials, which makes it my Olympics,” he told Amby Burfoot in a profile for the U.S. Olympic Trials website. “I want to run the absolute best I can, and finish as high as possible.” So how did he drop all that time in less than five years? The answer to that question goes back further than five years—it goes back 42,459 miles from 2010-2019. That’s an average of 81 miles a week for 10 years straight. You train like that—not the exact mileage necessarily, but the consistency most certainly—and you’re going to get good. It doesn’t take fancy shoes, a special diet, or fancy gadgets. But it does take time—a long time—and effort—a hell of lot of effort. (And yes, before anyone asks, I will get Patrick on the podcast.)
— Go listen to Charles Barkley—he is neither a role model nor a distance runner—on the latest episode of Conan O’Brien’s podcast and thank me later. It’s a hilarious yet honest conversation about talent, luck, and work ethic that I think anyone can take a lot away from. “I hate it when people say, ‘they came out of nowhere,’” Sir Charles says. “No they didn’t. They’ve been working their ass off for a long time. They finally just got a great break.”
— “My main philosophy is not pushing over the edge, not gambling to make sure that people are getting better all the time,” longtime Providence College cross-country and track coach Ray Treacy told the Irish Independent. “Even after 35 years you're still learning. The minute you think you know it all, you're fooling yourself.” Timeless wisdom from one of the best in the business. I’ve always admired Treacy as a coach. His athletes’ results over the years say a lot and speak for themselves but the way his athletes speak about him says just as much, if not more. “He tries to build an athlete over time,” He doesn't squeeze everything out of them,” says Róisín McGettigan, who ran for him at Providence from 1999-2003. “Ray’s in it for the long game.”
— My good friend and collaborator Billy Yang released his annual year-end film entitled, “Life on Your Terms,” and I recommend checking it out if you haven’t already (or re-watching if you have) and need a little injection of inspiration to kickstart 2020. You can also listen to the two of us catch up on our respective holiday breaks, recap the year that was in running, share our thoughts on performances and trends that caught our eye in 2019, and discuss our goals/plans for 2020 on the most recent episode of what is typically a Patreon-exclusive show, The Weekly Rundown, which Billy released widely on his own podcast last week.
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