guru

never understood the "training philosophy" thing. i understand that people seek the way, but rarely do they seek the qualities to become the sought. why has this come up? man, i listened to two dudes almost get into a fight over who's training philosophy was better. one dude was for cerutty, one was for lydiard. neither, i noted, knew a thing about the men they followed, but rather gleamed this knowledge from some website forum postings, books and internet web pages.

truthfully, not passing judgement, but i felt sorry for both of them. neither could tell the other that they personally had used the philosophy of their guru to get better. worse yet, neither had undertaken the character building experiment of one to see what they could handle and what they could not handle to come up with what worked for them in becoming a better runner. this is where living in eugene can become nauseating. too many experts, not enough seekers.

what works for you? what experiment of one have you undertaken to find out what will make you better? you, not someone else, you. I have been fortunate enough to have sit downs with some of the top athletes and coaches in the sport over the years. i always was curious as to how they arrived at their respective approach, not what the approach was.

dare to take the experiment of one. run yourself into the ground. undertrain yourself. peak too soon. dont peak at all. find out how your body responds. simplify it. how does your body respond with more or less sleep? how does your trainining change while working 40 hours a week or more? how has your mental approach changed over the years? what motivates you to run today? who are you running for?

i love reading about lydiard, cerruty, bowerman, salazar, canova, o'connell, zatopek, the japanese training system, how the greater boston track club of the 70's and 80's trained. i love reading about bruce fordyce and how he trained to make himself great.

does this mean that all of this reading will make me great? i ran for a hall of fame coach in college. someone who had coached over 200 all-americans and won numerous national championships. if anything, in retrospect, running under my college coach showed me what kind of training and runner i did not want to be. does this diminish his accomplishment?

more runners have never won or improved under legendary coaches than have won and pr'd. we dont measure coaches that way. it's our nature. what have YOU done to find out how great you can be? what you can and cannot do? what is the minimal you can get by with? what are you happy with?

take a moment. think about it. how have you built or shaped your character?