Posts Tagged 'what it takes'

Boston Super NOVA

Published April 18, 2008 Sports, Play & Games , The Body, Health & Exercise 0 Comments
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Boston MarathonI just arrived in Boston to run the 112th Boston Marathon on Monday, the most historic and famous footrace in the world. With the marathon just a few days around the corner, it seems an appropriate occasion to revisit the opportunity to enlist the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as your new marathon coach…

Last year, PBS’ NOVA documentary series aired a fascinating program, aptly titled Marathon Challenge, that “explores what it takes, physically and mentally, for novice runners to make it through a classic test of endurance [a marathon].”

And not just any marathon. Thirteen newbie runners were put through a nine-month regimen designed to prepare them for the 2007 Boston Marathon, the granddaddy of all road races.

Created in cooperation with the Boston Athletic Association, which granted NOVA unprecedented access during the 111th Boston Marathon (April 16, 2007), and Tufts University, the film takes viewers on a unique adventure inside the human body, tracking changes in the runners’ bodies.

NOVA is the highest rated science series on television and the most watched documentary series on public television. It is also one of television’s most acclaimed series, having won every major television award, most of them many times over.

The series originally aired last year, but is sometimes re-aired on your local PBS affiliate. If you can’t catch it on the boob-tube, you can watch NOVA’s Marathon online.

Boston weekend bonus: Bill Simmons’ “Idiot’s Guide to the Boston Marathon.”

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

What It Takes: The Agony of Victory

Published March 30, 2008 Brain Sciences , People & Society , Sports, Play & Games , The Body, Health & Exercise 1 Comment
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What It TakesA while back I came across Newsweek’s Fast Chat with Steve Friedman, author of the book The Agony of Victory.

In the book, Friedman examines “the dark nights of the soul of elite athletes” to shed light on the mental state of athletic champions.
He says that many elite athletes “succeed in their sports because of a yarning hole in their lives. These are people who felt a lack in their lives that only athletics could fill.”
On the other hand, athletes who enjoy their success, “people who seemed perfectly content and happy … tended not to be champions.”
Reading about Friedman’s book reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a buddy of mine. This friend was born and raised in a poor African village. He represented the United States at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and is representing his native African country at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
“The school I attended when I was a little kid was miles from my home and the only way to get there was on foot,” he told me.
“My friends and I — we always ran to school, but we raced to get home.
“During the first few years of primary school, I could keep-up with the older kids, but I could never beat them.
“And there was a girl — an overweight girl! — who always seemed to win. My goal, every day, was to beat her home. But I never could.”Then one day, I ran harder than I ever had previously run. And I got home before she did.
“I was happy I beat her, but I as soon as I stopped running I was doubled-over in pain.
“My stomach hurt — it felt like it was all knotted — and I was coughing-up blood. I had run so hard that I was coughing-up blood!
“I still have that metallic taste of blood in my throat. And now, every time I race, my goal is to run so hard that I cough-up blood again.
“This mindset is how I got to the Olympics. I want to hurt myself when I run.”

The agony of victory, indeed.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

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J.R. Atwood

I am an avid trail runner and a doctoral student at U.C. Berkeley with research interests in the fields of psychology and education. This blog is a forum to share some of my thoughts and the news related to brain and exercise science. More

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