in: Bash; Bash > 2008-04-18;
| # Posted 2008-04-18 20:04:04 | |
| JanetT: | Hi Bash, I'm with you on this. I'm certainly not genetically favored to be a runner, but I work with what I have. Not enough energy to do AR, though. :-) But orienteering keeps me motivated to run, because I love to solve those route choice puzzles, and want to be as competitive as I can be!
I especially liked your line of "we can always hope that the great athletes will run really fast in the wrong direction!! :-)" and this sometimes even happens, which usually makes my day. Keep up the good work! |
| # Posted 2008-04-18 20:15:08 | |
| Bash: | You keep up the good work too, Janet! At least we still can use proper training methods to become the best runners that we can be with the genetics we have. Not that I've been good about doing this, since I find it hard to stay focused when my primary motivation is outdoor fun - and in several different sports. Adding the mental element not only gives us a chance to be more competitive - it makes it *way* more fun. For example, I don't think I've ever succeeded in running more than half an hour on a treadmill (yawn), but it's easy to do a 1-hour trail run. Give me a map and some flags to find, and I don't even notice when 2 hours of running have gone by. |
| # Posted 2008-04-19 06:53:58 | |
| flatfoot: | Ok, here is the though of the day #3. What about all those people who never reach their athletic potential. I think that you can influence your athletic potential quite a bit by training properly. This doesn't mean bumping up your VO2 by 15 points, but I mean becoming lean and mean and developing mental toughness which I think is half of it.
I don't believe most people even come close to reaching their true athletic potential, the human body is capable of feats that aren't even considered possible. Look at RAAM for example, or any expedition AR race. As for developing the sport, I think that the high school AR challenge is a great idea, and hopefully we can build on it and develop some new blood in the sport! |
| # Posted 2008-04-21 08:21:48 | |
| Bash: | Agreed that most people never reach their athletic potential, and I'd like to believe that I've still got a little more potential in me, or else I wouldn't waste time reading this stuff.
Even so... as I continue to read this book, the scientific evidence seems pretty strong - and extremely detailed (I wouldn't want to drop this book on my foot by mistake). There are many aspects of our bodies that are largely - or in some cases entirely - based on genetics. There is a wide variety of this stuff - cardiac contractility, stiffness/elasticity of the lower leg, running economy, VO2max, ability/speed of the skeletal muscles to take up oxygen, ability of the body to dissipate heat (something I'm bad at), etc. Some of these things can improve somewhat with training for some people, but the changes aren't large for a person who starts with a basic level of running fitness. And someone with good running genetics who hasn't trained in a year can still come out, running at 50% of their VO2max, and kick the crap out of most of the regular guys who have been slaving away for months. We've all seen it happen (grrr), and there is science to explain how they are able to do it. Interestingly, there is a wide range of response to athletic training, and there are apparently people whose bodies don't really respond to it at all. But I doubt they would bother logging on Attackpoint! |
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