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The Genetic Realities of Running Or, The Education of a SchoolboyWhen I began running, back in 1958, I believed that the key to being successful was found in “trying.” This belief evolved to a sense of, “If I worked very hard and always tried my best, eventually I would be the best runner in the world.” Adhering to this philosophy, I set a New Jersey State High School Record in the One-Mile Run and was ranked 13th fastest schoolboy miler in the Nation by Track and Field News.I continued to improve over the next several years. Oh there were some downs mixed in with the ups, quite a few in fact, but I generally felt that every set back was due to my failure to apply the right level of effort, the right level of commitment. If I failed to win a race or set a record, I blamed myself for my lack of courage, or lack of determination and I would redouble my efforts, trying to push through the wall. Up until this time, 1969, I was scarcely aware that there might be anyone in the World who could not run a 10K in 35 minutes or less, because I had never seen anyone run that slowly. This was prior to the running boom, and everyone who ran in races was reasonably talented. But at the same time, hardly anyone believed it took talent to run. The winner of the race was assumed to have wanted it more, probably to have trained harder, and obviously had more guts when the going got tough. As my rate of improvement slowed and even seemed to go backwards, other runners, whom I had thought were not nearly so determined as I, runners I had previously beaten, went on to achieve greater success than I had ever achieved. A runner I had consistently beaten in high school and college ran a 2:16 marathon, a time 8 minutes faster than I had ever done. A runner I had trained with and had beaten in races won the Boston Marathon (then the premier marathon in the entire world). Another runner I considered an equal, came from out of nowhere to run a minute faster than I had ever run at the Drake Relays Invitational 10K. This frustrated me and I trained even harder, but I didn’t get any better and these other runners continued to defeat me. At this point I came to believe in something I called “The Breakthrough Race.” I reasoned that if all these runners were once inferior to me in ability and now were beating me, they must have made some kind of breakthrough that took them to this new higher level. I reasoned that the way to achieve this breakthrough was that from that day forward no matter which race I was running and no matter how fast the early pace was, I was going to run with the leaders until I achieved the breakthrough that I knew I could achieve.
In this race, I employed my run with the leaders until you make a breakthrough tactic very successfully. This early success in my new experiment made me even more confidant that I was on the right track. In my post race analysis, I failed to recognize that the only reason I was successful this time was because the race was very tactical. In other words, none of the big name runners wanted to push the pace early. We ran pretty consistent 72 and 73 seconds laps until there were just 4 laps to go, at that point Gamoudi made a break and the rest of us took up the chase. With the break coming so late in the race, I was able to maintain the illusion in my mind that I was in the race to the final strides. The fact is, I was soundly beaten. Gamoudi eventually prevailed in about 29:10 and I finished 6th in 29:40, my best time ever. Bakersfield was an entirely different kind of race. Here the field included the co-national record holders for 6 miles (27:10) Jack Bachelor and Frank Shorter (Frank went on to win the Olympic Marathon 2 years later in Munich, West Germany). Also in the race was a very talented and brash young man named Gerry Lindgren. Gerry became a legend when he defeated the two best 10,000-meter runners from the Soviet Union while still a high school senior. Prior to that race, the United States fans and coaches had simply assumed the Soviet runners would get 1st and 2nd in the distance events, and our runners would get the two remaining spots. But little Gerry had a different idea and ran the Soviet runners to exhaustion by refusing to allow them to lead. It was something to witness in the midst of the cold war with Sputniks and moon landings fueling a tremendous rivalry between our two nations. Beyond these three stars, the field included a few other runners of only slightly lower status, and of course yours truly, a brash but not nearly so talented dreamer.
Frank Shorter (left - shown finishing the Carlsbad 5K as a Master) eventually vanquished the field and in the process lapped me three times in the final 3 miles. I was totally humiliated and frustrated. I continued training and racing for another 25 years. During this period, I ran several races I am very proud of, but I never achieved my breakthrough race. During the early 70’s races blossomed from a few hundred runners to as much as 10,000. This growth was bewildering to runners like myself, runners who remembered running races around Yankee Stadium in New York City with only 30 to 40 competitors, only a decade earlier. But with the boom came another new phenomenon, runners taking an hour to complete a 10K and more than 8 hours to complete a marathon. What was the nature of these new competitors, who ran so slowly, were they sick, lame or lazy? I wasn’t sure. When I started trying to help some of them run faster, I came to realize that some of these runners were every bit as dedicated to their training, and racing as I was. Could it be they just couldn’t run as fast as I could, maybe they didn’t have the right sort of stuff? Sure enough, that was the case. In 1979 two landmark works were published A Scientific Approach to Distance Running, by David Costill and Running and Your Body, by Bernie Dare. For the first time in my memory the average runner could review the growing body of research that was uncovering the basic physiological differences between average and elite distance runners. These two works went a long way toward explaining why I had failed to achieve my fondest dreams, but at the same time they brought into focus how much I had actually achieved and what a remarkable gift I had been given. After more than 40 years of running and 23 years of coaching, I have come to the conclusion that although there is no such thing as a distance running gene, there is certainly a group of genes related to distance running performance. A genetic researcher making a presentation before the Canadian Society of Exercise Physiologists at their symposium on endurance sports “From Molecules to Marathons” in October 1998 stated that there were at that time 52 genes known to be associated with distance running success. That is probably only the tip of an iceberg. I have observed that no matter what your gender or heritage is and no matter how old you are when you begin running, if you continue to run, you will continue improving for at least a few of years. Some world class performers ran their best races after more than twenty years of training and racing. However, the rate of your improvement and the extent of your improvement, are tightly regulated by the genetic material you received at birth.
If we were to think of runners as cars, and training as the various refinements
we can make in car engines, we might theorize that some of us are born
with 4 cylinders, others are born with 6, and still others are born with
8. To take it a step further, we might imagine that the Olympians
are born with 12 or more cylinders, all bored out to the maximum.
Using this analogy, we might imagine that it would be possible to turbo
charge, fuel inject and otherwise modify a 4 cylinder engine so it could
out perform a 6 cylinder and maybe even a sluggish 8 cylinder engine.
However, if we made similar modifications to the larger engines, the smaller
engine would no longer be competitive.
Obviously people don’t have engines or cylinders, but I think this analogy
is a reasonable representation of the reality that exists and spans the
entire range of human activities. I do not mean to say that putting
forth your best effort isn’t important, clearly it is. But when people
put forth similar efforts, I don’t care what activity you choose, there
will some people who will be excellent at it, far more who will achieve
competence and a few who will never quite get the hang of it. Yes,
it is the old familiar bell curve. It could also be seen as another
example of the rule of 20. Twenty percent of the people win eighty
percent of the races.
One of the joys of running should be exploring the beauties and intricacies
of the unique talent you have been gifted with. The reality of life
is, we are all going to die and whether we live for 20 years or 120 years,
our lives will be too short. Regardless of what you learned in high
school, whether you win or lose is not important, all that is important
is, did you play the game? Did you play the game to the best of your
ability? This is true because we only live for a few brief seconds
in the moment of winning or losing the game, but we live an entire lifetime
in the experience of playing the game. The game is everything.
Anyone game for a run in the park? |
When the race
got under way, Gerry, in his typical style bolted to the lead and led
the field through the first lap in just over 60 seconds, a pace that
was clearly too fast for me. But I remained true to my plan and
hung on to the lead pack. Gerry slowed the pace a little and brought
us through the mile in 4:24, still way too fast for a runner with a
personal record of only 4:10 for the mile. I dug really deep and
managed to hang on to Gerry’s torrid pace for another 3 laps before
my legs started to buckle. I ran through the two-mile mark, about
10 yards behind the lead pack in 9:05, a time nearly equal to the best
I had ever run for that distance. I was clearly in over my head.
By the three-mile mark I was struggling desperately to keep moving forward.
Copyright © 2001 by John Loeschhorn - Mail to:mtnrnr@pacbell.net March 2, 2001 |