N=2

One of the biggest problems i've faced in trying to discuss the path that low volume, high intensity training provides as a potential alternative to ambitious (but time crunched) amateur athletes looking to take on serious endurance challenges (other than the lonely factor) is the N=1 argument.  When the only one following my training program and having success is me - the project is more case study than experiment.  Interesting, perhaps, but hardly evidence.

But i can happily say the days of N=1 seem to be behind me.

Subject number 2

Meet Ryan Wagner - a 35 year old father of 5 whom i met about a year and a half ago.  He's a fit guy with the physique of a greek hero who has a real passion for exercise.   When he was introduced to what I was doing (and the crazy events ENDracing offered) he was just getting into endurance sports, and most of his exercise consisted of a steady diet of standard fare lifting and 'cardio'.  He'd run one marathon in 3:43 following a more traditional training program back in September of 2008.  But between his wife's heavy law school load, his own full time student status, and all the kids, he was fitting in training at 4 a.m. obviously at the sacrifice of sleep.

When i convinced him to try some long events (a 6 hour adventure race for starters) he got super excited and, not surprisingly, upped his training.  After all, longer races meant more training, right? Simply put, he didn't feel he was doing enough.  Long story short - he developed a slight injury leading up to the event that forced him to DNF after 2 hours.

But he healed.  And I started inviting him to workout with me.  It took him a while to 'let go' of the junk miles.  He tried to rationalize a need for them - that it gave him something more - that it relaxed him or kept him sane.  But i suspected differently.  What he needed was sleep.  And i felt that what he really wanted was just to feel like he could go out and do crazy long super hard stuff -that he was fit enough - and that how he got there really wasn't as important.  So for a while he was tagging along with me on my gut wrenching 10 minute workouts and trying to squeeze in all the other stuff too.  He put in a one or two longer runs leading up to the 50 Kilometer winter ultra we did together in March.  We did really well at that event and i think he was convinced.

It was in the let down from the 50K that we decided to add a 50 miler to our racing calendar on May 11th.  He agreed to follow my training program more or less (he still gets to lift - i've been there - hard to give that up) and see how it goes.  I'm nervous but confident.  We'll run together which means i can talk him through the low points that will undoubtedly come.  And he's demonstrated that he is very capable of producing the genuine level of extreme effort required for the truncated program to yield good results (something i'm starting to think that few people are able to and/or interested in doing in the first place).

And granted, N=2 is hardly evidence either.  But it is a 100% increase in numbers, and that has one other important benefit - it fixes the lonely factor.  Suffering side by side, even in breathless silence, is - at least for me - better than suffering alone.  Thanks for being along for the ride, Ryan.