London Marathon Training Week 5 of 14
Being Michael Jordan
Imagine putting your brain in Michael Jordan’s body for one day. Let’s pick the day after winning the NBA Championships.
You are celebrating. You are the most famous athlete in the world. Everyone wants to know you. You live in a big mansion, you have an expensive car, all the A-list celebs are scrabbling to be near you. Also, you are in fantastic shape, 6ft6 and ripped. It feels pretty damn cool.
Brilliant day.
Imagine being Michael Jordan for one year. After the very short rest period, pre-season training begins. It is exactly as hard for Michael Jordan’s body to get out of bed every morning at 5am. It’s hard eating all the healthy food. The training is exhausting. It turns out Jordan also feels pain. Your muscles ache every day.
Meanwhile, you have all this money, J-Lo is on the phone and wants you to come for a holiday on her yacht. You can take one weekend off surely. Your standards start slipping. Bit by bit. After a year, you have turned MJ into a 6ft6 version of yourself.
Then imagine, in this brain swap, that Jordan has taken over your body. What could he do with your life and goals in a year?
I’m wondering, what would happen if he took my body and turned his will, drive and work ethic to making me faster than ever. If we swapped back, after a year, would I not recognise my own body? So ripped and tuned from a year of Jordan style training.
Maybe so. And maybe my wife and kids would be gone.
Friday Night Under The Lights 5k
I booked this race when I was in shape, before I spent 3 months struggling with a hamstring injury. Now it is here I am sorely tempted to pull out. But, my sister has just moved house, so it would be nice to go down to London and see the fam.
Standing on the start line, my abs are killing me from 2 days ago; A plank competition with the kids I coach. I promised them if they beat me I would by them a car. They are 10-12 years old and usually last no longer than a minute. Well, this time Sara lasted 5 minutes and would like a blue Lamborghini please.
Battersea 5km is Brilliant race. Loaded field, pancake flat. No wind. I get dropped within the first mile.
Coach Ken is cheering me on the best he can;
Keep it respectable Russell!
I can’t. The only reason I finish at all is because so many people have cheered my name. Honestly, if this is what you get for staying in the game this long, it is worth it. Feels amazing in a sludge of shit experience.
I run 16:00 flat. Not what I was hoping for. My clubmates are going to the pub. I go home with my dad in a huff. Trying, and failing, to explain to him, that at times like this, I feel like I have no physical talent at all. The only thing I can rely on is my brain.
Sometimes, coming back to fitness, I have races like this. Where everything feels this bad you feel like you are starting from ground zero.
But I have been here before. I know the amount of work it takes to get back. It is simultaneously scary and familiar. But. I know what to do.
I wonder if I put this brain in a non-runner’s body, same height and weight, could I turn him into a 15min 5k runner, within a year.
Obviously we can’t go round swapping brains, with the jars and the wires. So what is it that I have learnt, that I can transfer to the athletes I coach?
Best Thing On The Internet This Week
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