RunningTimes : The rise, fall and rebirth of Josh McDougal

Runningart2004 wrote:

There's no way he added "about 5lbs of muscle" FROM lifting while also doing the running he was doing. NOW, I do believe he could easily have put on 5lbs of muscle simply due to the fact his body matured as testosterone production peaks around your early/mid 20s. 5lbs isn't enough to slow you down.

This is all bullshit. I don't know what your running background is, but trust me, even at 100 or more miles a week, if you go from no strength work to daily strength work, you can, if you have any mesomorphic tendencies at all, add a modest amount of muscle. And since you don't contest McDougal's claim of gaining five pounds of muscle by some means, I don't know how it would be possible, in this or any instance, to discern what fraction of that was the result of inevitable physical maturity and how much was the by-product of anabolic exercise. But if an adult male says he's started lifting and has put on five pounds and everything else is pretty much the same, I know what the most likely "culprit" is. No need to complicate anything.

Not only *that*, but the issue isn't McDougal having slowed down; it's his having been injured, which he associates, right or wrong, with the lifting in some way throwing his form off. But I think you're wrong about five pounds not being enough to slow someone down, although this varies from runner to runner and depends on how scrawny the person is to begin with. And finally, not that it's relevant, but testosterone production in males can peak anytime between the late teens to the late twenties, in most men remaining for all intents and purposes the same throughout this period.

So in summary, if anything you wrote in the section I quoted is accurate, I'm not seeing it.

The fate of Ryan Hall? Oh that would be so terrible. Anyone who only accomplishes what Ryan Hall has in the last 6 years should just commit suicide then, because that would be a terrible fate. How does your view on religion or politics or really anything mean that they are "dithering and crazy" and will automatically lead to a broken running career worthy of public disregard. That would be like a Christian runner saying, "wow, that pro runner is totally worthless because he is an atheist." How do beliefs change anything about someone as a runner or cause them to be injured? Because then your own argument doesn't pan out because McDougal has had injury problems, has Hall? Not really. Out of all the ignoramus people on this board, you are in the top 10.

Muscle mass isn't necessary to distance running so when you're running 100+ miles per week, your body is burning muscle as fuel making it extremely difficult to gain muscle mass through lifting. However, if he says he gained 5 lbs of muscle from lifting then he quite possibly did. Either way, this little argument is pretty pointless.

Sounds to me like he finally found a PT or trainer who must have told him that the weights were affecting his stride somehow negatively. I've had an athletic trainer tell me the same thing about leg weights. I'm not exactly sure why that would be true or how it would happen but I have been told that leg weights screw up your form, tighten muscles that shouldn't be tight, etc.

Arizona runner wrote:

...Out of all the ignoramus people on this board, you are in the top 10.

Dang! And I thought I had all 10 of the top 10 spots wrapped up.

I can't help but think that if he was to quit, he'll regret it later. Be honest, how many people in the world really "enjoy" their careers, or really excel at it? Going to work everyday to collect a paycheck isn't the height of happiness. And be honest, most people do just that. They aren't in a dream job where they couldn't be happier.

Craig Mottram just ran a 13:25 to open the season. He's had some serious injury layoffs as well. In his post-race interview in Melb he mentioned the difference between being "training fit" and "racing fit". Mottram's self forecast is that he is training fit with the hope that he will soon be fit enough to race...and win.

I get the impression that Josh is "training fit", which is a good thing. It's hard to find a negative with being healthy and running after a serious muscular/gait breakdown.

I also don't think Josh can responsibly hang up his shoes unless he gives it one more shot. I am still hopeful that the Toronto 14:29 wasn't that shot.

Can anyone shed some light on that 5k in TO? That was back in June'09 and what we still thought then not too far removed from when his leg issue sprung up.

I am only a rec runner and not very good, but I've had similar hip problems. And very interesting b/c I felt like I was running more on one leg, exactly as he described, and one of my calves was about 1/3 smaller than the other, and my PT says same side glute is much less tone (this both on the injured side). I've been in PT for gees 8 months now and still no cure.

One thing I'm wondering is whether he was evaluated for a labral tear, which is the thing I'm wondering about myself. You would imagine since he has been cross-country visiting numerous specialists they would have checked. But I've also heard in my own travels that labrals tears often go for years being missed diagnosis. And there was no mention of an MRI in the article. Can't imagine they haven't done an MRI but just curious.

How can there be a hip problem that no one can figure out??!! So frustrating!!

What physical/medical condition is he describing here?

"I spent the summer sleeping on the floor of the bedroom I grew up in because I couldn't sleep on a bed," he says. "I couldn't use a pillow . I just slept in the crucifix position because of the pain that had built up. I could barely walk. I would limp around the house. The muscles of my leg, you could literally pick them up. You couldn't squeeze them; they were rock hard. I had just run on them so hard."

Hey Wejo, what's your take here? Mcdougal finished, or will we see him racing again?

Runningart2004 wrote:

It's his fault he was doing "pointless lifting". If he was lifting he should have had a better plan.

And that plan should have been to quit.

You are running 130 mile weeks, and one of the best runners in the country. You are already thin and toned. Why are you lifting? Lifting weights is unfortuntely a very dumb trap that many runners fall in to.

What is it that Solinsky said in regards to his breakthrough performances last summer...wasn't it something like "me and jerry thought about it, and we wanted to get better at running. So, I started running more."

I'll pull another quote out of the bag, one of my favorite quotes Ive ever heard actually:

"I Hope you come to enjoy running as much as I do, there is something magical about its simplicity and beauty."

Don't overcomplicate things. Run. Do strides. If you feel bad or like you might possibly be getting injured, run less for a few days. Listen to your body. Running is simple. Don't complicate it. And, just don't destroy it with weights.

It's easy to understand how the lifting could have hurt him. My most recent calf injury came at the end of a treadmill tempo when I upped the pace for the last quarter, so you could call it a running injury, but just before the tempo I had done a bit more weight work than usual and I think that the extra strain on the calf came from that. But in general it sounds like what happened to McDougal is that his haphazard weight work created a muscle imbalance that generated an injury in running. When you strengthen muscles, you are going to create tensions on bones and other muscles and tendons, and so you have to do a wide range of exercises to alleviate that tension, strengthening the other affected muscles and maintaining flexibility. If you don't, injuries are likely.

I read this article and find myself thinking of Chris Solinsky and how he is even tougher than I thought.

When the web editor at Running Times let me know the print version had been released online, I had no idea it would stir up so much interest in the LetsRun community. That said, if anyone's interested, I wanted to clarify a few of the recurring misconceptions.

First of all, the weight lifting thing has come up over and over again. McDougal wasn't saying that weightlifting was inherently evil, just that the way he did it (always right before or right after a run, in a non-running specific way) was counterproductive. He felt that since his motor patterns were poor anyway, the lifting exacerbated these woes. And when you're only taking one class in your last semester, and you've got all the time in the world and can't realistically run any more miles...well, you can see what would happen.

Yet the very thing which McDougal cites as breaking him also helped bring him back to place he's at now. Bryan, the Athletic Republic guy, used weights and other forms of resistence to help "balance" out McDougal, if you will. So all those imbalances and poor motor patterns were remedied using the very thing that he believes hurt him in the first place.

As for the Solinsky example, you're a little off base. While his mileage has certainly continued to increase over the year, he and the rest of the Schumacher group all lift weights and perform other running-specific core/flexibility work under the guidance of Pascal Dobert, who is on the Nike payroll to provide exactly that component for the team. At the NXN coaches clinic, Schumacher spoke to how he let Dobert control that aspect in its entirety, and that his only input was lessening the load if a key workout was coming up. So while Schumacher's group is definitely more "old school" in its training than Alberto's group, that doesn't mean they're not doing core/lifting/drills for an hour a day as well.

I also would not take offense when McDougal talks about it being a waste of his time to spend 3 years trying to take 5 seconds off his PR. This is a guy who gave it his all in college, and after so many injury woes, I think you just start realizing there's a law of diminishing returns. But this is also a guy who wants to encourage others to give it their absolute all as a coach. And while I and most others on this board would kill to have his talent and are steadfast that we'd do anything in the world to fulfill it maxmially, we've never walked in his shoes.

As for the happiness factor, while McDougal definitely was pretty down and out when discussing the turns his running career has taken, in the rest of his life he came off as very happy. I was able to spend 2 days in Lynchburg with him last September to conduct all the interviews and add some depth to the piece, and between watching Monday Night Football, going out for Mexican, and seeing him with his housemates (all current or former Liberty athletes), he seemed happy in his day-to-day life.

Lastly, the God factor. Comparing him with Ryan Hall at this juncture makes no sense. When I went back and looked through my interview notes, there is actually no mention of God or Jesus until over an hour and a half into the interview, at which point I asked how his well-known faith was affected by these trials. He gave a short, forthcoming answer, and then we moved on. I love Ryan Hall as an athlete and he seems a good person, but McDougal is certainly more secular in that regard.

I don't mean to come off as a McDougal defender, it's just that when you have 2 days of material and only 3,000 words to write, misconceptions like these happen. Everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinions - just thought this might shed some light in this on-going debate.

Peter: Did not care for The Godfather.

Peter: Didn’t like, did not like it.

Peter: ROBERT DUVALL! Fine, fine actor, did not like the movie.

Peter: Did not… couldn’t get into it.

Peter: It insists upon itself, Lois.

He ran mega mileage in high school and had nowhere to go. Most high schoolers run much less mileage and then increase mileage in college and improve from there.

He had nowhere to go mileage wise.

Wasn't he homeschooled? While the 50-60 mpw warriors were walking school halls and siting in cramped desks and playing other sports in gym class, he was sitting at home, resting, recovering, and running unbelievable times.

That said: I'd love to see him come back.

May you find Him.

Runn - you are an idiot. Especially 'nowhere to go' mileage wise.

There are plenty of ways to take 130 miles a week and make it 'better'. Faster regular runs, faster tempo runs, longer long runs, faster long runs, more quality work, etc.

You are the same type of idiot who says the reason Haile is great is because he was running 12 miles a day as a 12 year old, but bash the Americans who ran more than 60 miles a week in highschool.

Phil Latter,

Yes, weights may have helped him come back--but how many miles a week was he doing when he was "coming back?" Probably between 0-20/30. Not 130. If you are only doing a very small number of miles, you can do some weights and it MIGHT not mess you up (but still might make things worse, mind you), but if you're one of the best collegiate runners in the country running 130 mile weeks, and 115 the week of nationals....you don't need weights.