10,000 HOURS OF ULTRARUNNING
AJ Cillo
I’ve been much busier than anticipated lately and, to be
honest, I’ve been quite lazy about writing on here. But, I’m feeling refreshed after my grad class
ended and I finished my 2,000-word paper for work, so I’ll finally write this
post. I’ve been wanting to for a while
because I’m interested in where I can go with the data.
After doing much more research about this, it appears that
many people have written about running in relation to the 10,000 hours
theory. Some things were well written
and made sense, some were self-indulging but offered great alleys into other
topics of research. That’s my opinion,
of course. And that’s the beauty of this
blog – it’s mine and I can write what I want.
If you’ve read my posts in the past then you know that I’m critical of
many people and many things, but none more than myself. I genuinely enjoy making fun of myself,
whether I’m telling the truth or making up a bunch of lies – you’ll never know. I’m a humble person and I don’t like to be
the center of attention, but on here I like to lay it all out for the
reader. I’m not hiding behind my words
and I’ll gladly have these discussions in person. But nobody ever asks.
A brief refresher about this theory. Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers
claims that it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a
skill, sport, trade, etc. Reaching mastery, therefore, classifies that
individual as an expert in that
field. Gladwell describes a few historical
examples to illustrate his point, all of which have been used all over the
internet since his book was published.
The Beatles, violin players, and chess players form the heart of his
argument. If you do a quick Loogle
search about the 10,000 hours theory and spend 10 minutes reading the first few
hits then you will have a decent understanding of the wave tops. You certainly don’t need to rush over to
amazon.com to buy Gladwell’s book, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.
Ok. Up front, I’ll
give you my running statistics from 12 Feb 2014 to 12 Feb 2015, an entire
year’s worth of running:
Number of runs: 246
Total running time: 371
hours, 41 minutes, 52 seconds
Total Distance: 2,111.06
miles
Average Pace: 10:34
per mile
Total Elevation Gain: 219,441
feet
Average Miles/Month: 175.92
Average Miles/Week: 40.60
Average Miles/Day: 5.78
Average Miles/Run: 8.58
Average Elevation/Run: 892
feet of gain
Average time per run: 1.51
hours
I want to break down each data set, for my own
satisfaction. Feel free to read on if you’re
interested.
The number of runs, 246, is not entirely accurate but is
within +/- 5 runs. During the summer I
remember lumping together morning and afternoon runs a handful of times, then
logging them as a single run. Oh
well. This isn’t necessarily critical to
the study but I wanted to point it out anyway.
Some of the runs were races, some were more like hikes, some were actual
hikes, some were walks with my photographer during her (our) pregnancy, some
were simple training runs, and some were meant to keep me from punching someone
in the chest. I counted them all as
“runs” because they were all adding to my mileage and adding to time spent on
my feet (which I’m more interested in than the mileage).
I want to really dissect the time, distance, and elevation
stats, so I will come back to them at the end.
Average pace was 10:34 per mile – not bad I suppose. I calculated this using “running time”,
meaning that when I stopped to sleep for a few hours during 3 Days at the Fair,
I also stopped my running time which affected average pace. I find this more practical than averaging my
pace including stoppage time because, ultimately, I want to test the accuracy
of the notion that spending 10,000 hours practicing something will make you an
expert in that field/sport/hobby/etc. If
I had included stoppage time in my calculations I could probably add 30-40
hours onto my total running time, which isn’t accurate and will skew the data
for this study. In theory, I would reach
10,000 hours of running months or years sooner if I included stoppage
time. This isn’t soccer. Or futbol.
I averaged just over 40 miles per week, based on a 365-day
calendar, 12 months, and 7-day weeks. I’m
not satisfied or dissatisfied with this number – makes no difference to
me. Deep down, I wish I had trained more
and harder, but who doesn’t. I’d say 95%
of those miles were focused, meaningful, purpose-related miles and only a few
runs were “junk” miles simply to burn some calories so I could eat cookies
later that day. However, over the summer
while I was working at Officer Candidates School, the majority of my runs and
hikes were not directly focused on training for races but were scripted,
prescribed events that didn’t allow for any flexibility. Nonetheless, I counted the fartlek courses,
hikes, sprint workouts, and other courses we ran towards my mileage and running
time. On the flip side, the nature of
working there meant walking everywhere, at a fast pace, every day, all the
time. Thus, I probably walked or hiked
30-40 miles back and forth across the parade deck that I never accounted for
because I didn’t have the time or patience to mess with my watch in front of
candidates all day. Consequently, I
probably didn’t account for 7-10 hours as a result. In the long run, this won’t tremendously
affect the study and I will account for this data separately and consider it
the alpha, or delta, or difference, or (whatever) of the results.
I ran 246 times for a total of 2,111.06 miles – an average
of 8.58 miles each run. Keep in mind
that I took plenty of days off but also ran multiple times on other days. Also, my races and longer training runs
skewed this number slightly. For
example, 3 Days at the Fair tallied 120 miles over a weekend, Bull Run and JFK
tallied 50 miles each of those days, etc. etc.
If I consider the data without the longer runs, I most likely average
between 4-6 miles during a typical training run. Although I care more about quality than
quantity, I would like to increase my miles per run this upcoming year to 6-8
miles, but that will require larger chunks of time which I probably won’t be
afforded due to the workload of my next job.
Elevation gain was a planning factor for every run. Sometimes, I deliberately ran particular
routes because of the elevation they offered.
I oftentimes ran hill repeats as well, especially in/around the I-95
corridor where the biggest hill I’ve found over the past 3 years has less than
300 feet of gain. On average, I climbed
just under 900 feet during each run. Not
bad. Not good. But, considering where I live and the limited
options I have when compared to west coasters, I’m satisfied with that
number. I wish the number was closer to
2,000 feet, but it is what it is. I
can’t afford, nor do I have the time, to make the hour and 15 minute trip to
the Shenandoah Mountains on a daily basis.
If I lived in Colorado Springs I’d have those trails memorized by the
end of the first month…and I’d have long hair, a beard, and wear sunglasses to
bed. But for now, I’ll settle with being
a mediocre runner at 40 miles per week and continue giving up my time to provide
the warm blanket of freedom that covers my wife and son every night.
Ok, now to the meat and potatoes of this paper: distance and
time spent running. I also found a few
other studies out there that were very interesting to me. I’ll discuss all of this below.
First, a quick reminder that all of my statistics were
tracked using my Garmin 310XT GPS watch.
2,111.06 miles over a period of 371 hours, 41 minutes, 52 seconds
(371:41:52). Again, average pace was
10:34 per mile and each run lasted roughly 90 minutes (1.51 hours). My mileage averages were 5.78 per day, 40.60
per week, and 175.92 per month. I’ve told
a few people these numbers and they raised their eyebrows at me. Some standard responses followed: “I don’t
think I drove my car that far last year”, “That’s insane”, “That’s why you’re
so skinny”, and “How did your knees not fall off?” But is it really that impressive? After doing some research, it appears that
I’m still on the JV squad.
Andy Jones-Wilkins wrote an article on 22 March 2013 on the
topic of running for 10,000 hours. In
it, he proclaimed the following: “But I can say, for me, this 10,000 hour rule
has proven true. For the past 20 years I have run roughly 600-700 hours a year
(with a few inevitable “breaks” for injuries). So, as of now, that is right
around Gladwell’s magic number.” I
didn’t see any hard and fast numbers anywhere else in the article, and it’s
hard to do the math with a potential delta of +/- 100 hours, but I think his
numbers would look something like the data below.
I assumed that he held a pace roughly the same as I did at
10:34 per mile, and I think that’s reasonable considering he is, after all,
Andy Jones-Wilkins. Thus, he ran roughly
twice as much as I did. Let’s call it
80% more due to the 100 hour swing in his reporting. So, taking my numbers and making them all
“roughly” 80% bigger would result with this:
Roughly 600-700 hours per year (?)
Roughly 3,800 miles per year, for 20 consecutive years (How
did his knees not fall off???)
Roughly 316 miles per month
Roughly 73 miles per week, every week, for over 1,000
continuous weeks…
Roughly 10.4 miles per day
These numbers are really high. Like, roughly 80% higher than mine! Think about this: if Andy had decided to take
a day off, at an average of 10.4 miles per day, he had to run over 20 miles the
next day to make up for it...for 20…straight…years… Can you imagine what his Monday run was like
if he decided to take a weekend vacation???
Obviously, there were 100 mile races in there, a lot of them. And there were taper weeks, 50 mile races, 40
mile training runs, etc. etc. I’m not
oblivious to the training cycles and other factors that contribute to these
numbers. But, clearly, I’m not at the
top of my field if other folks are putting in these kinds of numbers. With the absence of solid data, however, can
we really trust these numbers? Are they
inflated? Who knows and who cares… Andy’s been crushing the sport of ultrarunning
for nearly longer than I’ve been alive, so I’m certainly not going to question
him. Furthermore, he got it right at the
end of his article when he wrote, “And, while I don’t pretend to think that I
have mastered this craft like Gates and the Beatles have mastered theirs, I can
say that this is one place in my life that I have achieved a level of success
and satisfaction with which I am content. And, I dare say, for a middle-aged
guy putting one foot in front of the other, contentment is about as good as it
gets.” The best part is that we don’t need
a GPS watch to measure his level of humility here…or maybe we do…
But did Andy peak after 10,000 hours, or did he peak earlier
into his career? Since the article was
written two years ago, he should be over 11,000 hours by now. So, does the 10,000 hours theory translate to
more and more mastery in the sport of ultrarunning? Heck no.
He was certainly faster 10 years ago than he is today, even with all the
added deliberate practice. Gladwell’s
theory applies to things such as chess, playing the violin, and other things,
but I don’t think ultrarunning is one of them.
Alex Hutchinson would agree (refer to his article at the bottom). Nature vs Nurture? (do I hear a Wedding Crashers quote?). Are there naturals,
or do all experts practice incessantly to reach mastery? My head hurts… Anyway, another runner named Steve Magness
mentioned this in an article as well when he said, “The problem is that we've oversimplified genetics and talent. Talent has
almost become a negative word. It’s often used in the context that if someone
is talented they don’t work hard, as in “oh, he’s just really talented,” to
explain a person’s success.”
Karl Meltzer might disagree with this, though, because he
hasn’t really lost a step over the years, nor has he made any significant
improvements since the early 2000’s. He’s
been at the top of the sport since the day he stepped onto the trail. To illustrate, consider the following. In 2011 he ran the Wasatch 100 in
20:59:53. He ran the same race in
20:08:00 in 1998, 20:54:18 in 2002, 20:46:35 in 2003, 20:06:08 in 2004, and
20:18:58 in 2006. This is the epitome of
consistency over time. On the flip side,
he won the Massanutten Mountain 100 in 18:40:23 at 46 years old in 2014, which
was an hour and 20 minutes faster than his time in 2005 at 37. He is the ageless wonder, much like the
71-year old Gary Knipling who continues to finish 100 mile races after 23+
years of ultrarunning (his first recorded ultrarace was the Vermont 100 in
1992, according to www.ultrasignup.com).
Going back to Steve Magness – I ran across two articles that
he wrote recently. Both are listed as
(scholarly) references at the bottom of this paper. According to Steve’s website he is the cross
country coach for the University of Houston.
He also stated that he coached Nike runners for a year and a half before
heading to Houston. Unlike Andy, Steve apparently
tracked and logged his runs from 01 November 2001 to 12 May 2012, right around
ten and a half years. This captured his
runs from his junior year in high school until he was 27 years old. He claimed his mileage added up to 44,000
miles during that time. But, he
explained later in his article, “Of
course I didn’t have my freshman and sophomore year recorded [in high school],
so it’s more like mile ~9,000 in a 48,000mi journey, but you get the point...” He was making the claim that he reached
“mastery” around mile 9,000 of the 48,000 he ran, or, as better explained in time rather than distance, around 3.5 years into his career. Doing the math I was able to quickly convert years into hours, as the study is focused on hours based on the title of his
article (“Why Gladwell’s 10,000 rule is just plain wrong”). I assume that 9,000 miles and 3.5 years into
his career equates to 1,050 hours using a 7:00 minute per mile pace. I am also assuming that, since he arbitrarily
declared that he ran 2,000 miles during each his freshman and sophomore years
in high school (4,000 miles, divided by two years), I calculate that he ran a
total of 48,000 miles over 12.5 years.
Thus, his numbers would look like this: (roughly, of course)
800 hours per year (?)
3,840 miles per year
320 miles per month
73.8 miles per week, every week, for 650 weeks
10.5 miles per day
These are eerily similar to Andy’s numbers. In fact, Andy ran 10.4 miles per day, Steve
ran 10.5. Again, these are all numbers I
pretty much pulled from thin air using the little bit of information they gave
me in their articles. There are numerous
external factors that would affect this data such as pace per mile, stoppage
time, etc. But one thing sticks out like
a hooker in church: Andy reached 10,000 hours in 20 years, Steve in 12.5 years,
but the rest of their numbers are the same.
How did that happen? Something
isn’t jiving. But, in Steve’s defense,
he wrote, “Add in my freshman and sophomore year plus all the strength,
biomechanics, and extra work and you’re looking at easily over 10,000 hours of training.” So, maybe Steve’s numbers sway to the left if
his total run time is 12,000 hours, or even 15,000 hours. All of his numbers would decrease: miles per
year, miles per month, miles per week, time per run, etc. Something that only interests ultrarunners is
the elevation statistic, so it isn’t surprising that he didn’t track it.
So is this proof that Microsoft Excel works? Did Andy drastically miscalculate how many
hours he ran? Or did Steve miscalculate
the number of hours he put in? I’m sure
that Steve’s pace per mile during his 10,000 hours was nearly half what Andy’s
was, which could have significant impacts on the rest of their data. I’m not saying that my way of logging runs,
using a Garmin GPS watch and Excel, is the correct way to do this study, but it
sure makes sense to me. Nonetheless, I’m
still at the mercy of Garmin’s device to correctly track mileage and
elevation. It’s hard to screw up time
spent running – any watch can do this.
Either way, I’d still buy some shares of Microsoft if you have some
disposable income under your mattress…
Something else I noticed while reading Steve’s articles is
that he contradicted himself. Again, that’s
my opinion, of course. The title of one
of his articles is “Why ‘Gladwell’s’ 10,000 rule is just plain wrong”, which
tells me he isn’t a believer in the theory.
He gave it that title because in his personal running career he peaked much
earlier than 10,000 hours – around 1,050 hours.
But if you interpret the 10,000 hour theory in other ways, it clearly
paid dividends. To illustrate, consider that he
is currently a college cross country coach and has coached Nike runners in the
past. Evidently, running for 10,000
hours gave him the credibility and expertise he needed to initially be placed
in those positions. But, the title of
his article claims that the 10,000 hour rule is baloney. Sure, maybe he hit his peak running
performance when he was younger, but he still compiled experience and knowledge
along the way to 10,000 hours. Maybe he
wasn’t an expert runner, but he
certainly gained an expert reputation
within the field. If he hadn’t ran
~48,000 miles and upwards of 12,000 hours, would he be coaching college runners
today? Would he have coached Nike
runners? Hence, there is a contradiction.
In any event, I don’t have the time, energy, money, running
shoe inventory, patience, iTunes playlist, or interest to sustain running 74
miles/week for 1 year – let alone 10.5 or 12.5 of them. I have a lot of respect for Andy and Steve,
and for cross country runners everywhere, because I know guys and gals are
putting in 70-80 miles per week all around the country. In the end, I still can’t fathom running that
many miles on a weekly basis for 10+ years.
But one day soon, the 2-hour barrier will be broken in the marathon
distance by one of those runners – it certainly won’t be one of us older
guys. It’ll be a younger runner,
probably in college or a recent graduate, only 3,000-5,000 hours into his
running career. Certainly Meb isn’t
going to get any faster in his old age.
I don’t foresee Ryan Hall breaking two hours. In fact, after feeling my heart sink as I
watched Ryan Hall drop from the Olympic marathon a few years ago, I don’t think
much of him at all anymore.
But, a fellow named Dennis Kimetto recently ran a marathon
in 2:02:57, so the human race is getting closer and closer to breaking the
barrier (Todd Hargrove article). What’s
fascinating about Kimetto is that nobody has a record of him running a race
prior to 2011. Has he mysteriously
reached 10,000 hours of running from his home on the other side of the
world? Has he always deliberately practiced running, or was
it simply the only way to get from point A to point B? Just four years ago he was a farmer… I would call Kimetto a Black Swan, but that’s
just me. By the way, his 2:02:57
marathon equates to 4:41 per mile…
Moving on… I averaged
just 1.5 hours per run during the last year, for an average of 40 miles per
week. Doing quick math yet again, I
would have to spend nearly 3 hours running on 246 days out of the year to reach
73 miles per week. Albeit, that is using
my average pace of 10:34 per mile.
Magness ran competitively in both high school and college, neither of
which I did, and I’m sure he spent at least 3 days each week on the track,
whereas I spend 0 days ever on the track.
I’m sure he put in his mileage on the track with Nike runners as
well. His pace per mile had to be in the
6:00-7:00 minute range during his 10,000 hours, maybe even sub-6:00, meaning he
spent far less time running 73 miles per week than it would take me on the
trails in my clunkers.
I came across many other interesting articles and writings
during my research. Some of the stuff I
read was pertinent to this paper, some a little less relevant. Here are some other things that are loosely
related but still good knowledge to have.
Maria Popova explained in her article: “Ericsson finds
world-class champions – whether weight-lifters, pianists, or a dog-sled team – tend
to limit arduous practice to about four hours a day. Rest and restoring physical and mental energy
get built into the training regimen.
They seek to push themselves and their bodies to the max, but not so
much that their focus gets diminished in the practice session. Optimal practice maintains optimal
concentration.” Right off the bat, it
should be obvious to nearly everyone that 4 hours of running every day is not
sustainable for 10,000 hours. Again,
this applies the 10,000 hour theory to only certain sports, trades, hobbies,
fields, etc., and ultrarunning isn’t one of them. It can’t be.
Running for 4 hours every day until reaching 10,000 hours would take
2,500 days, or 6.8 years. Depending on
pace, someone could easily run a marathon a day in that time, totaling mileage
to an astronomical 65,500 miles over that short period. Sure, Dean Karnazes ran across the country,
did 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, etc., but can he run for 4 hours
every day for 2,500 days? That isn’t a
dare, Dean. Just me putting my thoughts
onto paper. In contrast to all this, if
someone practiced chess, playing the violin, reading, knitting, or painting for
4 hours a day, then they might truly be an expert in their field. This leads to more questions…
Is there a maximum heart rate tied to this? For instance, elevating your heart rate above
a certain level might take away training value to whatever it is you’re
practicing. Playing soccer for 10,000
hours might be beneficial for someone, but only if she keeps her heart rate below
a certain level so that she can remain focused on improving a particular
ability rather than switching into survival mode. The fight or flight concept isn’t new, but
does it apply to the 10,000 hour theory?
I’m not smart enough to answer that, but maybe someone else wants to
research it… Furthermore, practicing
soccer for 10,000 hours might work if the individual can stay healthy and
receive feedback. Staying healthy is obviously
essential to continued practice, but the feedback loop is essential to
continued accurate practice. It should be evident that practicing something
incorrectly for 10,000 hours doesn’t mean you’re an expert. However, it could result in being an expert idiot. The first thing that comes to mind is
something my college baseball coach once told me. He said, “I don’t care if you put the bat
between your legs and hit the ball that way, as long as you’re efficient it
doesn’t matter to me.” Hence, if I
practice hitting with the bat between my legs for 10,000 hours, I might be able
to rack up base hits and homeruns, but I’m going to look like a real idiot the
entire time. Then again, my coach was
kind of an idiot, so take that for what it’s worth. Or, if you don’t care what people think of
you, then swing away! That’s why I run
without a shirt every chance I get. And
because my nipples chafe.
There is a YouTube documentary/series called “10,000 Hours”
by a basketball player named Devin Williams.
It’s entertaining and pertinent to the study, but you won’t learn much
scholarly information from it. This was
more of a shout out to Devin, who I don’t know but I’ve learned to really like
simply by watching his series on YouTube.
I found a really good definition of deliberate practice in an article, which was essentially just an
excerpt from Cathy Utzschneider’s book Mastering Running. Cathy explains, “Deliberate practice is practice aimed at reaching goals just beyond your
present level of competence; it involves focusing on your weaknesses and
specific needs, practicing your skills repeatedly, and continually adjusting
them with feedback from a coach or teacher.”
I really like this. It’s exactly
what I always thought deliberate practice
meant but I could never put it so eloquently into words.
Cathy also wrote,
“One reason it takes more than a few years to achieve one’s best result is
simple: it takes that long to figure out the mix of physical and mental
training habits, including strength training, patience, and race strategy that
work best for you, and that mix changes over time.” I completely agree! However, I think the timeline to reach
mastery can be shortened with good coaching, establishing good
practice/training habits at the forefront, and a good feedback loop from
experienced people in that field.
Cathy made another
point in the little bit of her book that I read. She wrote, “Masters runner Priscilla Welch
started running at age 34 and achieved her personal best in the marathon 8
years later, at age 42, running 2:26:51 (Rodgers and Welch 1991). Older legs
can be fresher legs. It took the female masters runners in my doctoral
dissertation an average of 7.5 years to reach their best times, whether they
started running in their teens or after age 30 (Utzschneider 2002).” Here is a picture which helps to explain
this. I copied it from the website
listed in my references.
This reminds me of
Rob Krar and how he appeared from thin air to storm onto ultrarunning podiums
all over the west coast. Albeit, he was
in and out of running his entire life, and at different points took years away from
the sport due to surgeries. But he was
never competitive in ultrarunning before 2012.
Now he has back-to-back UROY awards above his fireplace.
But Cathy –
finally! Someone who did legitimate
research on this topic, rather than some young punk just writing aimlessly
without an agenda about his annual statistics on a blog… Thank you, Cathy. I just bought the Kindle version of your
book.
There is one last
article I’d like to break down here by a gentlemen named Christopher Russell. He wrote, “We hear a lot of new-agey
talk about getting into flow states these days. A flow state is when
you’re ‘in the zone’ when everything just flows effortlessly and perfectly from
you without thought or direction.” Although
I’ve never heard the term flow state,
I understand the philosophy of being in
the zone. He also wrote, “In a flow
state people report a feeling of confidence and well-being and peaceful
bliss. They report that time either slows down or that it speeds up to
facilitate the flow state. They know what to do without thinking about
it, like an inner voice is making the decisions, the right decisions,
seamlessly, every step of the way.” I
couldn’t agree more, Christopher! During
numerous longer runs or races I remember completely losing track of time,
place, weather, breathing, eating and drinking.
I seemed to sort of float along the trail until something external to
the sound of my shoes hitting the dirt, such as hearing another person or
hearing something out of place in the woods like a plane or sirens, finally
broke me from my trance-like state. Surprisingly,
I sometimes “wake up” from these episodes feeling groggy and suddenly realizing
the pain. I think Russell hit the nail
on the head when he wrote, “The flow state doesn’t happen magically. It
can only be accessed through hours of practice.”
Russell also wrote two things that I went back to read a few
more times so I could get a grasp on the concepts. First, he stated, “I propose that the Zone 2
and long easy form runs are the physical practices that enables flow.
This repetition creates a physical memory that you draw from without
thought. These training runs are your 10,000 hours of practice.” I partially agree. The guy that runs the same 8 mile route, at
the same speed, at the same time every day, is not the expert runner once he hits 3,000 hours, 5,000 hours, 10,000 hours,
or even 20,000 hours. I think the expert
is the well-rounded runner who has trained outside of his/her comfort zone to
determine every area for which practice is needed. It’s the guy who reads about running, writes
about running, listens to stories from other runners, and accepts criticism
from others. For example, I rarely step
foot on a track, therefore I probably won’t ever be an expert runner because I probably won’t develop the fast-twitch
muscles needed for speed, and I probably couldn’t hang with the local high
school cross country team during their track workout. But I read about track workouts, and I’ve
done some longer training runs with high school track and cross country coaches
and soaked up every word they said.
On the other hand, someone like Steve Magness, who has spent
years (although he’s the same age as me) training on the track, doing longer
runs, etc., might be more qualified as an expert. Do I think he IS an expert in the field of
running? Not really. Do I think Andy is an expert in
ultrarunning? Not really. But then again there’s no true way to measure
whether they are or aren’t, so I can’t be wrong. Do I think Alberto Salazar is an expert in
the sport of running? Yes. He has years and years, and more years, of
experience and being around runners of different calibers from which he draws
his training programs. I think he is
more well-rounded and knowledgeable about running than anyone else,
anywhere. It’s sort of like History
majors…we always want to poke fun at them while we’re in college, but now we
all work for one…probably because they spent 10,000 hours reading and studying
while the rest of us spent 10,000 hours partying, running, hooping…
This brings up arguably the most important and most
debatable question that we should all be scrambling to answer: What defines
someone as an expert runner?
Many questions branch off from this: What is the unit of measure
to determine whether or not someone is an expert runner? Is it a question of quality or quantity,
meaning the number of races won or the number of races raced? Or is it a matter of neither quality nor
quantity of racing, but of quality or quantity of coaching experiences? Or is it simply the educated runner who has
read every piece of literature, every magazine, every article, etc., but who
has never won a race? Is it the runner
who has logged 100,000 lifetime miles?
200,000 lifetime miles? Is it
Scott Jurek? Is it Dean Karnazes? Is it Kimetto? Does someone have to look like a runner to be
considered an expert? If so then Salazar
is out. How do we define mastery in ultrarunning? We can take this in so many different
directions that it boggles my mind. How
people define an expert runner could
be drastically different than what people perceive
an expert runner to actually be.
This is fundamental to the study, but I’m not about to offer a solution
to this just yet.
The second thing
Christopher wrote that made me physically laugh was, “You become a
mystic being – a flow warrior.” This is
awesome! I don’t agree or disagree, it’s
simply just too crunchy for me…
At the end of the day, I had fun researching and writing
about this theory. Reaching 10,000
hours, for me, seems out of reach until my 50’s, which is fine. I’ll continue logging my training and racing
simply because I’m a math geek and I think Microsoft Excel is possibly the
greatest invention ever. I know my
brother Alex would agree. He’s an
accountant. I’ve seen his work. It’s well
above average.
After reading this you might be thinking, “What was his
argument?” That’s because I didn’t
really make one. It’s too early into my
running career to be scientific about this stuff. Plus, I haven’t done legitimate
research. I’ve merely read a few
articles, books, and magazines. This
paper was mostly an exercise in copy-and-paste and compare-and-contrast. I intend to continue writing about this as
the years go on and I continue to work towards 10,000 hours of running. Not because I want to reach 10,000 hours, but
because I enjoy running and racing. I
still contemplate many questions, though.
First, and most importantly, how many hours have I racked up
so far? I’ve only logged the last year
and some change, but what about the previous 28 years of my life? What about 2012 and 2013, when I raced about
10 times each year? How many hours did I
spend training for those races? I don’t
have a clue.
What counts as time spent running? Do the times I spent chasing frisbees at the
park when I was 7 years old count towards my 10,000 hours? If so, how do I measure the amount of hours I
spent running 20 years ago? I’m
certainly not going to throw a guestimate on a spreadsheet. If I ran to the mailbox and back to get my
mail, but I focused really hard on landing softly on the balls of my feet,
should I add 23 seconds towards my 10,000 hours? I might be getting a little ridiculous with
this, but seriously…that all counts, right?
Before every football practice, baseball practice, and basketball
practice, we would do some warm up laps around the field/court, some suicides,
sprints, you name it. Do those
count? What about the running during the
practices themselves? Does that count? During football we were always running, but
we were mostly focused on something else – carrying the ball, catching the
ball, chasing the dude with the ball, etc.
So, since I wasn’t deliberately practicing running, do all those hours and hours count towards this
study? Should I consider other fitness
activities towards my 10,000 hours of running, since they also increase stamina
and may contribute to decreased 5k times, 10k times, etc.?
I like where this could go and I really enjoy thinking and
writing about it. In another year, look
for the dash-2 to this paper…
Feel free to comment on this post and let me know what you
think. Am I jacked up? Did I say anything that doesn’t make any
sense at all? Don’t be afraid to tell me
I’m an idiot, as long as you have some ammo to back it up.
References
Alex Hutchinson.
August 22, 2013. “On Malcolm
Gladwell and ‘Naturals’.” Runner’s World.
http://www.runnersworld.com/general-interest/on-malcolm-gladwell-and-naturals
Andy Jones-Wilkins. March 22, 2013. “Running and the 10,000 Hour Rule.” iRunFar.
http://www.irunfar.com/2013/03/running-and-the-10000-hour-rule.html
Cathy Utzschneider.
“Ten Years or 10,000 Hours to Excellence.” Human
Kinetics. Excerpt from
Mastering
Running.
http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/ten-years-or-10000-hours-to-excellence
Christopher Russell.
May 28, 2014. “Finding Flow in
your running and your 10,000 hours.” Run Run
Live. http://runrunlive.com/finding-flow-in-your-running-and-your-10000-hours
Maria Popova.
“Debunking the Myth of the 10,000-Hours Rule: What It Actually Takes to
Reach Genius-
Level Excellence.” Brain
Pickings. http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/22/daniel-goleman-
focus-10000-hours-myth/
Steve Magness. “The
10,000 hr rule and why talent and genes matter.” The
Science of Running.
http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2010/07/10000hr-rule-and-why-talent-and-genes.html
Steve Magness. “Why
‘Gladwell’s’ 10,000 rule is just plain wrong.”
The Science of Running.
http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2014/03/why-gladwells-10000-rule-is-just-plain.html
Todd Hargrove.
October 2, 2014. “10,000 Hours
and Marathon Records.” Better Movement.
http://www.bettermovement.org/2014/10000-hours-and-marathon-records/
Ultra Signup. http://ultrasignup.com/
