Time Capsules: Their Changing Nature

Every competitive runner has his window of opportunity, his limited amount of time to make his maximum impact; his time capsule.  This time capsule changes for runners as they age and enter new arenas of competition.

When we were young, we had goals that were undoubtedly unique to youth (namely high-school athletes) and were one-shot kind of situations.  For the high-school runner, it was the State Meet, and more specifically their Senior State Meet.  States is the time to put forward the culmination of all of your races and all of your training.  The average high-school runner has roughly four years to prepare for this climax, and really only a handful of months in a single season.  For the rest of the year, it is up to the individual to make the choices necessary during off-season training to achieve maximum success.  This becomes hard for the easily distracted adolescent.  Thus, this is why un-detered focus is vital.  Put away your Nintendo, avoid those parties, and nourish that body because you only have one shot at this before you feel the toll of age and enter a bigger world.


When you go to University, there is a whole new TC (let's use TC as short for Time Capsule).  Some young men and women choose to take there distance running to the collegiate level, and some don't.  So here is where the first big transition takes place for most of us.  To compete or not to compete, that is the question.  The important thing is this: now it is more acceptable to say "no" to competing.  In high-school, you really had no choice because of the time limitation and the need to make your mark at a young age.


Now, as an aging man or woman, the avenues of running become more broad.  For me, backing off of the competitive approach after a one season at the college level allowed me to have a "breather" and allowed me to see things from a different perspective.  I was able to let my body and mind rest (although I could have done with a few less beers).  Some people burn themselves out.  The thing is, we all "burn" at some point, but it is a matter of how we "burn" ourselves and how we manage and maintain our minds and bodies.


You do not have to experience a burn out and that is the bottom line.  This is critical to understand.  I say this because now you can realize that your TC is actually the rest of your life.  The only limiter becomes the toll that time and age take on the body, and thus it becomes crucial to strictly monitor your health and training habits.  It's okay to take time off, just like you did between seasons in high-school, even though you still trained at some level during the off-season.  The only difference is that during that off-period, you approach the training with less intensity and demand.  Now that you are an older, more experienced and independent runner, the climax in your training is up to you and not dictated by the prescribed season and a coach's program.


So in the end, I am saying that it is alright to breath easy as your windows of opportunity become less constricted by the demands of a teenage sporting life and a rigid competitive field.  Even though time seems to move so much faster as we get older, we still have the power to shape our own TC's based on the relativity of our own individual lives.  For me, it's one Marathon at a time, with my own needs being met on the training grounds, governed  by my body's needs and my heart's desires, knowing that I am inevitably aging and still have a restricted window of opportunity for certain achievements.  What those achievements are is up to you as a constant runner.




Always searching for the next Key Experience,


- J. Brewer