In defense of Princeton girl, per Emma's instagram (reels in particular, which vanish), there is something weird about her current excessive training. Yes, that is a vague statement.
Also, wasn't aware that Lets Run forums are academic-level discussions where all posts must have full bibliographical citations and be peer reviewed before hitting send.
obviously you dont HAVE to cite on the message board, but posts are GREATLY enhanced by information that backs up whatever you are saying. a link, a quote, general background info. whatever.
Right, never seems to stop those that throw dirt at coaches, athletes or even the owners of this site. Proof? Who needs proof or validation?
you give no numbers to go with your statement. "copious hours of cycling". then you give an amateur therapeutic / psychological reason for all this supposed copious amount of cycling she is doing. and what is to you anyway concerning the reasons she is riding so much. it sounds like you have no clue as to how many hours of training are done by any pro athlete in any sport. are you currently a student at princeton? if you are, it appears you're going to have a rough road to graduate. if you already graduated from there, it must have been in theater, or art. something along those lines.
Emma regularly posts stories and reels (that disappear so you can't link them) that she stationary bikes upwards of 5 hours a day plus right now 40 miles of running.
When she was first coming off her surgery, she took..less than a week off fully and posted a story of her proudly working out on the stationary bike in her boot. And she posted the amount of time riding, it was around 3-4 hours a day.
A few things: she rarely posts about rest or recovery.
She said at the time her Dr cleared her to workout. Ok, maybe. It seemed so odd that there wasn't a more..conservative recovery process and tbh, the writing was/is on the wall: the season was lost, so just fully rest. But NOPE! it was incredibly "look at me! I won't stop!"
2. Emma actually posts about this pretty regularly. If you don't follow then you don't see it, but it's there and they are right: it's weird. Its strange to promote hours and hours of cross training when logically your broken and pinned ankle probably needs rest. You know what else is weird? The blind acceptance and worship of the behavior. Everyone on her comments gives her praise about how big a "warrior" she is, her dedication to the pro lifestyle etc. It's happening here, in these comments. The op is questioning THAT..why does sport endorse such extreme behavior and act like if we don't we can't be great.
What's the consequence?
Thanks..this was immensely clarifying. Herd behavior is a weird thing. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out.
didn't have a uci pro license so won't claim i was pro, but i did guest ride for a few teams (was exceptionally strong, but got into the game very late and was playing checkers whereas the top guys with experience were playing chess)
anyways, i very much think the relative ratio that the body can handle (avg of large groups, individuals vary of course) when it comes to running : non-impact sport is 2.618 (phi squared). i don't have the studies in front of me and ain't looking anything up, but as i recall the efficiency (apologies if not correct scientific term) for cycling is .25 (meaning 3 units of heat created for each unit of energy delivered to ground/propulsion) whereas in running it's right around .40 or just over for those with good elasticity.
the body transmits ~ 1.618x (phi = 1.618....) more energy relative to cycling and thus somehow to me at least it makes sense that the ratio of time one can sustain it is phi^2
anyways, i think the best runners in the world tend to be able to handle the high loads (12 hours a week at an avg. of 6:00 pace is 120 miles) which is why we don't often hear about cross-training really working, but i do think someone that can only handle 70-80 miles a week could get a massive boost from doing the right type of cross-training.
what is the right type of cross-training: NOT CYCLING, i can assure y'all of that. xc-skiing is likely the best and i like to refer people to Ingrid Kristiansen as the supreme example of a high-level runner putting in serious volume of running and cross-training concurrently.
lest you don't know your history, Ingrid Kristiansen held the 5000, 10000 and MAR WR simultaneously. she reduced her off-season running down to about 70-80mpw and comensated it with the equivalent amount of xc-skiing that would get her up in that 110-120 mpw range (if you use the 2.618 conversion for xc-skiing to running) then would drop the xc-skiing completely and ramp back up to 110-120mpw
*if Emma is doing 25-30 hours a week on the trainer, then she is 100% certifiably insane (she's a pro athlete though so kinda knew that by default right)
I never said being a pro exempts a person from ED.I said that we can't use the schedule of a pro athlete as evidence of exercise addiction. Exercise is literally the job of these athletes.
I also said that Emma's history does not indicate an ED. If you think coming in 8th in a 3000m race as a 31-year-old (five years after winning a World Championship) is a poor performance, you have strange metrics. It's not uncommon for people to get stuck in an injury cycle or to have periods of sub-par performance. She won 10 consecutive national championships! I seriously doubt a person with an ED could do this. Long periods of superior performance are inconsistent with ED.
People with EDs often cannot make it to the line for years at a time. We often see a history of 10+ stress fractures. This very different that sustaining a traumatic injury after clipping one's foot on a steeple barrier or straining one's hamstring.
Maybe she needs a break, or maybe people need to avoid jumping to conclusions because they don't have enough information.
Thanks for your reply. It's rare to get a reasonable discussion on these forums, I appreciate it.
I do agree with you that Emma's overall history does not indicate ED (and I'm not an expert at all!) I should have been more clear that the drive to exercise and not take any rest is concerning and could suggest something else. But you've convinced me that ED is probably not the case and is quite a stretch.
That said, I still don't understand why can't we use the schedule of a pro athlete as evidence? Just because it's their job? There are plenty of pro athletes who have EDs and are open about it. But that's probably a worn-out discussion/thread for another day.
Lastly, I do agree with you that maybe she's needs a break. I'm not jumping to conclusions, just expressing some possibilities. I just wish she would rest up for a bit!
I appreciate your reply, as well. To clarify, I definitely don't think Emma's history is consistent with an ED, but I see the point about her string of injuries and her tendency to jump right back into serious crosstraining.
I have a strong reaction to accusations of ED and exercise addiction for a few reasons: 1. it paradoxically "normalizes" ED and makes it seem like a huge percentage of elite women have ED. I don't think this is true because health problems from ED interfere with high-level training. However, if teen girls and young women believe that a huge proportion of successful distance runners have ED, they may be less likely to understand how destructive these behaviors are. ED are "contagious."
Secondly, I'm all for encouraging healthy behavior, but I don't like the creeping pathologization of extreme behavior. Many of the most remarkable people in history are "extreme." Some people work all day because they're inspired and driven, not because they have a problem. Running 130 miles a week is probably destructive and miserable for most people, but it produces greatness in others. I think Nikola Tesla slept only 4 hours a night because he was one of the rare people who actually don't need 8-ish hours of sleep.
On the point about not using an elite athlete's schedule as evidence. It's sort of the same point as above: elite athletes are often physical/mental freaks of nature. They can handle things that others cannot. That's what makes them special. Obviously they, too, can go to extremes, but their normal training could be an indicator of pathology for normal people.
I just want to congratulate the OP on making much ado about nothing. I want to tab a few points:
1) Emma has an established aerobic tank that she built and needs to maintain
2) She is not the only "elite" who went through a bike phase. Colleen Quigley did too. And I just want to say, like a runner gone swimming, that regimen has an early window of time in which athletes not used to the exercise totally reap the benefits.
3) Depending on where she is in the United States currently, if she is at home, it was just the height of famous wilflower season in the wildflower capital of the world. Instead of running, she could take a highly equipped bike between her home, its outskirts and all the way to Aspen for some of the best raw mountain biking in the USA. More power to her if she did this to stay fit and enjoy herself for once.
4) She needs a reset. This recent olympic cycle was a letdown and it puts Tokyo under microscope as the one that got away. She has a lot to process, perhaps some things that she put off.
5) Emma blossomed somewhat late as an elite runner. There was always more to Emma than running. Perhaps this influx of biking has some personal meaning and set of goals attached. She's not a kid by age but she devoted her entire 20s to running ... so let the kid have fun!
I have no more points to share at the moment but there are plenty more.
Oh, and god d*mn you people suck.
This is all nice. She sits on her stationary bike for hours and watches Netflix though.
Thanks for your reply. It's rare to get a reasonable discussion on these forums, I appreciate it.
I do agree with you that Emma's overall history does not indicate ED (and I'm not an expert at all!) I should have been more clear that the drive to exercise and not take any rest is concerning and could suggest something else. But you've convinced me that ED is probably not the case and is quite a stretch.
That said, I still don't understand why can't we use the schedule of a pro athlete as evidence? Just because it's their job? There are plenty of pro athletes who have EDs and are open about it. But that's probably a worn-out discussion/thread for another day.
Lastly, I do agree with you that maybe she's needs a break. I'm not jumping to conclusions, just expressing some possibilities. I just wish she would rest up for a bit!
I appreciate your reply, as well. To clarify, I definitely don't think Emma's history is consistent with an ED, but I see the point about her string of injuries and her tendency to jump right back into serious crosstraining.
I have a strong reaction to accusations of ED and exercise addiction for a few reasons: 1. it paradoxically "normalizes" ED and makes it seem like a huge percentage of elite women have ED. I don't think this is true because health problems from ED interfere with high-level training. However, if teen girls and young women believe that a huge proportion of successful distance runners have ED, they may be less likely to understand how destructive these behaviors are. ED are "contagious."
Secondly, I'm all for encouraging healthy behavior, but I don't like the creeping pathologization of extreme behavior. Many of the most remarkable people in history are "extreme." Some people work all day because they're inspired and driven, not because they have a problem. Running 130 miles a week is probably destructive and miserable for most people, but it produces greatness in others. I think Nikola Tesla slept only 4 hours a night because he was one of the rare people who actually don't need 8-ish hours of sleep.
On the point about not using an elite athlete's schedule as evidence. It's sort of the same point as above: elite athletes are often physical/mental freaks of nature. They can handle things that others cannot. That's what makes them special. Obviously they, too, can go to extremes, but their normal training could be an indicator of pathology for normal people.
Yes, I see your point. "ED" is one of those terms that is too easy to throw around, like "doping". So-and-so looks skinny, they must have an ED. So-and-so dropped their PR by ten seconds, they must be doping.
Overuse of these terms reduces their currency for when they really do apply.
I agree too that "extreme" behavior should not be automatically criticized. Pushing the limits and reaching very far make life interesting. Pro athletes purposefully walk that line between maximum pushing for results and destruction; they've chosen to do just that, and its up to them to navigate it.
I guess the Emma cycling thing interests me because it seems that in this case there is something different, outside of the logic of a pro athlete trying to gain maximum advantage. Again, this is instinctive speculation on my part, I wholly admit.
Bernard Lagat used to take off I think 3 three weeks -- whether he was injured or not -- after every outdoor season.
The recent post by "hmmmm......." at 07/22/2024 1:50pm articulates what I noticed quite well!
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Emma takes a full day off a week. She takes a ton of days off during her off season. She’s running 4 or 5 days a week right now. These are all things she has posted. She has also posted she is training to race this year still…what else should she be doing with her time?
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