Intimations of (running) Mortality
In the end, the dark tunnel down which my runner persona was hurtling was just the final weeks of the worst winter in 36 years, and the bright light at the end of it, the spring sun.But a near-running...
View ArticleTalent or Drive: That is the Question (or is it?)
We in the coaching business are often asked: What is more important for success in the sport, "natural" talent, or a willingness to go the extra mile in training (aka "drive")? After all these years of...
View ArticleThe Antinomies of (Men) Coaching Female Runners.
If you're a male coach of serious female runners, and if you approach your job with even a flickering awareness of the history of women in sport, or of the many double-binds that still characterize the...
View ArticleRaising Runners
Like most other sports these days, competitive running has become, overwhelmingly, a sport for children. While a significant (and perhaps growing) number of the adults who make up today's massive road...
View ArticleFan-ing The Flame
In a broader culture that values doing over watching (even if that culture doesn't actually practice what it preaches), being a sports fan tends to get a bad rap. And it's true that fans, with their...
View ArticleForm and Substance: The Logic and Style of Workout Design
Beginning and veteran athletes alike might occasionally find themselves wondering how their coaches come up with the workout designs they do-- and, the truth is, the formula is often unequal parts...
View ArticleGeorge's Pictures
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,Time held me green and dyingThough I sang in my chains like the sea. -Dylan Thomas, Fern HillWhat, I asked myself, is so mesmerizing about George...
View ArticleDistance Running's Generation F(ollow)?
Unlike our science-phobic Prime Minister, I am not afraid to "commit sociology" to explain novel patterns of human social behaviour when I see them in my area of expertise. I refer in this instance to...
View ArticleXC: Birth, Death, and Rebirth(?)
In our part of the world, distance running careers are typically born on the green grass of early autumn, and individual competitive seasons die in the cold mud of late November. But the 2015 Canadian...
View ArticleThe Post-Nats XC, PK POM Edition, FYI
After two successful appeal hearings and nearly two years of planning, we finally got what we wished for-- to actually stage a Nationals XC championship on the Old Fort course, with downtown Kingston...
View ArticleQuest for Integrity?
Fans of cycling had to endure years or it. Followers of the big North American professional sports (and NCAA "revenue" sports) had to price it into the bargain of fanship beginning decades ago. Even...
View ArticleQuest for Intergrity Continued: Lessons in Impunity
Unfortunately, the scandals-- big and small-- that were the subject of my last post played out more or less as expected. The simple chutzpah that seems to propel unethically self-interested behaviour...
View ArticleOne More (and final?) Time for Gender Equal XC Distances
Aaand, we're back! Back, that is, for another round of the debate that should never have been in the first place, or at least not this side of 1984!The question is, or should be, primary-school simple:...
View ArticleMaking Distaff History at the Old Fort
In a sport as old as foot-racing, it is not easy to make any new history. But, it is in dubious thanks to all those collegiate XC coaches over the past three decades who have either ignored the issue...
View ArticleFarewell To, and Reflections On, Junior Coaching.
Apart from the rookies who enter my team at Queen's in the future, and from the precocious Brogan MacDougall (who, while still in the junior ranks for another 3 years, is already a senior elite athlete...
View ArticleAppearance vs Essence: Coaching and Counter-Intuition
We know from the history of science that genius initially resides in having seen beyond the appearance of phenomena to their deeper essence. Consider, for instance, Nic Coperinus-- he of heliocentrism...
View Article#feminism? and Women's Distance Running.
Most of us are by now at least dimly aware that the phenomenon known as "feminism" has passed through a number of different phases, from the movement known as "progressivism", which brought North...
View Article...I Die a Little: Running and Intimations of Mortality
It is early in the new century and the scene is the driveway of an old and dear running friend. It is post-run and a spring sun is warming us pleasantly. We are both newly 40 and fathers, yet we are...
View ArticleRunning and "Movement Optimism"
Personal acquaintances and regular visitors to this space have probably clicked (or not, as per their predilections) thinking they are about to read (or avoid reading) something about capital P...
View ArticleHopping Along: On Beer and Running
I had my first swig of beer-- a thirsty, breathless pull on my dad's pint as he sat in a lawn chair and I ran around the yard under a scorching July sun-- at the age of 8. I can't say I liked it, but...
View ArticleNo Great Coaching, Only Great Re-Coaching
The late Justice Louis Brandeis' famous advice to authors everywhere about importance of assiduous revision and editing over first-draft inspiration-- that there are, ultimately, "no great writers,...
View ArticleSex, Gender, and the Tragedy of the Castor Semenya Affair
The Caster Semenya Affair is a tragedy, and a very modern one-- turning, as it has, the world historic movement for women's/gender liberation against itself, and reducing the human rights of at least...
View ArticleThe Lessons of Lyndsay Tessier
As serious Canadian running fans will have noticed-- and possibly marveled at-- 41 year old primary school teacher Lyndsay Tessier was named to the Canadian team (in the marathon) for the upcoming...
View ArticleSport, Politics, and Infantalization
Modern sport and politics, writ large and small, have a tortured relationship going back many decades. Organized sport is, of course, a salient feature of modern societies at every level. It is engaged...
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My Queen's Saga: The Inside Story in 25 Emails.
SBs voice and the audience came from his position as Head Coach at Queen's. To think of a different scenario, imagine a senior member of the advancement department ripping apart a sister university for...
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