Came across an interview with Brian that TriMax Fitness posted recently, in which they call him “The Most Dangerous Man in Endurance” and then use an unnecessary exclamation point.  Grammar aside, it’s a good read.  Here’s an excerpt:

If Chris McCormack came to you and said “I want to win Kona this year (again)” how would you train him?

I’d tell him I can’t train him. An athlete like that is such a specialist that it would take me 2-3 years just to get him moving correctly enough to handle what I wanted to do to him. If I had 2-3 years and we could change his nutrition, and put some size and strength on him, all the while he still could move efficiently, then I would never let him do an unnecessary mile or minute of training again. Unfortunately, he probably wouldn’t be able to wrap his head around that, and have a break down, and secretly go out and swim/bike/run real long. I can’t give you his code for training because they are all different, but I can tell you he would not only not survive with me but would not win Kona if I only had a year.

The article has inspired (instigated?) quite a firestorm amongst the forum-folks of Slowtwitch, their major beef seeming to be the argument that until people who are utilizing CrossFit and CFE as their training regime start placing higher at Tri’s, then they’re going to stick with their LSD.  That, and it seems they don’t like tattoos very much.

It seems to me, after reading through as much as I could handle (they start to get repetitive after about 5 or 6 pages), that it boils down to two things: Results and Perception.

The LSD crowd claims to see no results, while Brian and the CFE folks claim to have them.  Brian, again in the TriMax interview:

When you look back at all the endless hours you spent in long, slow distance work you did prior to CrossFit Endurance, what are your biggest regrets?

Not one! We basically wrote a PHD in our experience from LSD to CFE. Will we ever be recognized like that? Not by anyone I care to be around or look up too. I’ve studied HR, VO2 Max, blood lactate, and everything that goes with it. I’ve got 5+ years of heart rate data on clients and my own training. I’ve got a VO2 Machine that I used to use for everyone I trained. I’ve personally tested blood lactate levels on hundreds of athletes. It all came down to this… When we got rid of the slow stuff, added intensity, and heavy weights, everyone got faster, and everyone got healthier.

And perception: The notion that the only way to have the capacity to S/B/R long is to swim long, bike long and run long.

Perhaps the latter will fall if the former does?  And can results only be substantive if they come in the form of winning races?

Either way, it certainly indicates a fundamental divide in training philosophies.

You can read the full interview with Brian here.

Safe training,
Patrick

While speaking to a group of participants at a recent CrossFit Running and Endurance Certification, Carl talks about an important lesson learned from his previous 100-mile attempt.

Here’s a great interview with Brian that Jon Gilson, of Again Faster, did a few months back.

Just an excerpt:

Jon: Let’s talk about that experience, running 100 miles.  I ran five miles once.  That sucked.  Tell me about going 100.

Brian: One hundred, it’s like experiencing every single emotion you have on, I don’t know.  I’ve done quite – I’ve experience the drug and alcohol thing at a very young age.  And none of it could even compare to the levels of what I experienced out there.  I mean, just deep, deep values of pain and sorrow and extremely high highs of just complete glory, and understanding that what you’re doing is – because you don’t really know when you first run 100, when you first start to run 100 miles if you’re really capable of running 100 miles.

Finishing 100 miles, they actually, a photographer, my first 100 mile experience was like they had a cameraman sitting there at the finish line.  He was just snapping photos of everybody.  Hired guy and I guess he’d been sitting there for maybe 30 seconds, 45 seconds and had just been snapping photos of me.  He got one of me just kind of looking up at the sky, just kind of like, “Fuck, thank God that’s over.”  But it was like at that time, it was just like, “I can’t believe I just finished running 100 miles.”

I’m by no means somebody who considers himself a runner.  I don’t really enjoy running all that much.  I think I just like going through the pain and suffering of getting through something, accomplishing something.  The 100-mile thing was something I read about and couldn’t believe that people actually did that and the stories that I found that people were experiencing off of it was something that I felt I needed to experience, much like a religious experience or some sort of spiritual experience.

I definitely had that with this.  I’ve definitely had the spiritual experiences.  I don’t think you can’t run 100 miles and not have some sort of a spiritual experience, because you are going to get to know yourself real well.

You can read (or listen to) the rest of the interview here.

Production is set to begin in a week.  I’m lucky enough to live in Boston, so I’ll be up and out early on April 20th to film what I can at this year’s Boston Marathon.  If I can maneuver my way to the start line, I’m hoping to be able to do some quick interviews with the participants–I’ll be curious to know what their training looked like prior to the day, if they did any strength training or if they stuck to the LSD.

There’s also a chance I might be able to get the camera into the night prior’s pasta festivities, where traditionally athletes “carb up” before the big day.

The morning will be quick, however, as I’ll be jumping on a plane down to Key West to meet up with Brian and Carl, who will be putting on their Running and Endurance Cert for some guys in the Special Forces.

Check back often, as we’ll do our best to keep any and all interested up-to-date with the progress of the production.  We’ll upload photos and video clips when we’ve got ‘em, link to articles we find interesting and anything else we find pertinent to telling and understanding this story.

This should be quite the adventure.