Archive for the 'Athletics and Fitness' Category

On “Warrior Girls”, knee injuries, and the tangible costs of adolescent perfectionism: some thoughts on Michael Sokolove’s article

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 8, 2008
in Athletics and Fitness, Body, Favorite Posts 2008, Mentoring, Sports, The Martha Complex: perfectionism in adolescent girls and Youth
. 13 Comments

The New York Times has a preview up today of a long article coming out on Sunday in their magazine: The Uneven Playing Field. It’s by Michael Sokolove, and based on his forthcoming book Warrior Girls: Protecting our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women’s Sports. (I’ve pre-ordered the book, and will review it this summer when it comes out.)

In this lengthy adaptation on the Times website, Sokolove writes about what he sees as the extraordinary number of knee (ACL) injuries that are being sustained by female athletes, soccer players in particular. His thesis:

(the epidemic is) part of a national trend in the wake of Title IX and the explosion of sports participation among girls and young women. From travel teams up through some of the signature programs in women’s college sports, women are suffering injuries that take them off the field for weeks or seasons at a time, or sometimes forever.

Girls and boys diverge in their physical abilities as they enter puberty and move through adolescence. Higher levels of testosterone allow boys to add muscle and, even without much effort on their part, get stronger. In turn, they become less flexible. Girls, as their estrogen levels increase, tend to add fat rather than muscle. They must train rigorously to get significantly stronger. The influence of estrogen makes girls’ ligaments lax, and they outperform boys in tests of overall body flexibility — a performance advantage in many sports, but also an injury risk when not accompanied by sufficient muscle to keep joints in stable, safe positions. Girls tend to run differently than boys — in a less-flexed, more-upright posture — which may put them at greater risk when changing directions and landing from jumps. Because of their wider hips, they are more likely to be knock-kneed — yet another suspected risk factor.

The rate (of ACL injury) for women’s soccer is 0.25 per 1,000, or 1 in 4,000, compared with 0.10 for male soccer players. The rate for women’s basketball is 0.24, more than three times the rate of 0.07 for the men. The A.C.L. injury rate for girls may be higher — perhaps much higher — than it is for college-age women because of a spike that seems to occur as girls hit puberty.

At this point, my heart was sinking. Was this going to be anti-feminist ideology dressed up as professed concern for the health of young women? Was Sokolove trying to scare parents into pulling their daughters out of competitive sports? I even wondered if Sokolove was some sort of shill for the anti-Title IX crowd, trying a new tactic in their never-ending crusade to roll back a policy of equal funding for women’s sports. As a passionate sports fan, married to a former club soccer star, I have a deep and abiding commitment to women’s athletics — particularly the “beautiful game” of what the rest of the world calls football.

Happily, reading the article to the end (it is ten pages long) makes it at least fairly apparent that Sokolove is committed to women’s sports. Rather than imploring parents to pull their daughters off soccer teams, he writes sensibly and knowledgeably about the causes of what is undeniably a common problem: catastrophic ACL injuries among young female soccer players. The chief culprits have nothing to do with inherent feminine weakness. Rather, they are two-fold: poor bio-mechanics and the exhausting “club” system in high school and college that leaves many talented girls playing a demanding sport literally year-round. Continue reading ‘On “Warrior Girls”, knee injuries, and the tangible costs of adolescent perfectionism: some thoughts on Michael Sokolove’s article’

Learning to rest within the run: on mindfulness, the mountains, and taking a tumble on El Prieto

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 1, 2008
in Athletics and Fitness
. 2 Comments

For the first time in a year and a half, I had a good hard fall while running this afternoon. (For those who know the area, I ran from the Windsor road parking lot up to the Sunset trail on Mt. Lowe via the El Prieto trail and the Millard campground.) Flying down El Prieto, my mind wandering on to a variety of topics, I caught my right foot on a rock and went sprawling. I had just enough time to twist over to absorb most of the impact on my right shoulder, but my right wrist and knee also hit the ground very hard.

I got the wind knocked out of me, and I lay there, alone, for a stunned moment. The ritual after a fall is always the same: turn off my stopwatch (always the first thing, as we must have a proper time for the run at the end), then start checking for injuries. There’s always that moment of great fear that I have seriously hurt myself, and will be stuck on a trail until someone comes along. And of course, the greatest and most immediate anxiety is that I won’t be able to run again for a while.

Since I started serious trail running ten years ago, I’ve had maybe a dozen minor falls and four or five fairly serious ones. A serious fall is one which causes me to miss at least one day of running as a consequence. I’m not unaware of the far more significant dangers. I was raised on the legend of my grandfather’s beloved first cousin, Walter “Pete” Starr, who famously died from a fall in the Sierras in 1933 after authoring a still-serviceable guide to those mountains. In April 2000, my running buddy Dave Trinkle died in a fall off the Mt. Wilson trail after (typically) ignoring warning signs about a decaying area of trail. These men are often in my mind when I’m running, especially by myself, in remote or dangerous areas. Mind you, I don’t take major risks! But there are dangers in the mountains that I love, and both family lore and my own memories of Dave remind me constantly that I have an obligation to balance that passion for running on dirt with some common sense.

I wasn’t hurt at all today, other than some scrapes and bruises. I did take the lesson of the fall seriously, however. I usually fall going uphill, when I’m less attentive; normally, I’m very careful on descents (which is normally when serious accidents occur.) Today, I fell because my mind was elsewhere. And as I got up gingerly and brushed myself off, I said “Okay, God, I get it. I need to pay attention.” I’m a good pray-er and a lousy meditator. As I ran the final three miles back to the car, I watched my foot placement very carefully. I also recited the one meditation that consistently works for me, from Psalm 46: Be Still and Know I am God. I say the line three times, and then drop the last word, repeat the shortened line three times, and so forth until in the end I’m just reciting, over and over again, “Be.” (I dispense with the “and” and the “know” at the same time.) It works when I’m quiet on the couch, and yes, it works when I’m running.

In one of his most famous poems, former U.S. poet Laureate Richard Wilbur wrote about the legendary Boston marathoner Johnny Kelley. His description of how Kelley worked the course was perfect, a reminder of how it is that I want to run — and indeed must run, if I am to stay safe, sane, healthy, and alive:

Legs driving, fists at port, clenched faces, men,
And in amongst them, stamping on the sun,
Our champion Kelley, who would win again,
Rocked in his will, at rest within his run.

I long for nothing more than to be rocked in my will, and at rest within my run. To remember how to do that well, I apparently need the occasional fall.

Of sweat and scent: in defense of infrequent bathing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 1, 2008
in Athletics and Fitness, Body and Vanity
. 11 Comments

I will be posting on various things in the week to come. I’ve got reviews of a couple of books to put up (including Men Speak Out), and will try and say something intelligent about Planned Parenthood, race, and the complex legacy of Margaret Sanger.

But it’s Saturday, and if I post at all on the weekends, it can’t be about anything too serious. My wife has been in Europe (doing various volunteer things) since last Sunday, and I miss her. She’ll be home in two days time. The stereotype of the generally neat married man who reverts to appalling slobbery when his spouse goes off for a few days is a time-honored one: yes, things are looking a little chaotic around the homestead these days. Newspapers and magazines on the floor; laundry arranged in sensible; adequately folded piles; coffee cups resting on any ledge they can find. And Hugo, unbathed as yet today.

I’ve let go of so many bad habits over the last few years. An earlier incarnation of Hugo on his own would have seen me in a home littered with filled ashtrays. Liquor bottles would have poked their heads out of the trash as well. Bits of clothing and long strands of hair, forgotten and discarded by those whose visit had had but one purpose, would have lingered under chairs for weeks or months. On these scores, all is different now. Continue reading ‘Of sweat and scent: in defense of infrequent bathing’

Fat is not a moral crisis

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 19, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Body, Feminism and Food
. 15 Comments

Zuzu has a fine post up this morning: Rejecting the Frames. It’s a follow-up to this piece at Feministing which sparked a heated — and at times — ugly comment thread.

The topic of the two posts (and this third brief, powerful one from Jill) is fat, the so-called “obesity crisis”, and the feminist response. Zuzu:

One of the things that bothers me… (as well as the whole “Diets Don’t Work!” mantra, which also usually puts in an appearance) is that it puts the focus on the individual fat person rather than on the treatment that the fat person is having to deal with. Indeed, this is a good example of the “personal is political” phenomenon as it was originally put forth: our weights may be within our individual control, but the way society treats us because of our weight demands a collective solution. Being turned down for insurance because of your BMI isn’t truly a personal problem, it’s a political one — why should insurance companies get to draw arbitrary lines to deny coverage, and by the way, why is it we still don’t have universal health care, again?

And your doctor’s berating you about your weight may seem like an individual problem, but the fact that fat hatred kills demands a collective solution. But if shame keeps us off-balance and justifying why we weigh what we weigh, or why we should (or shouldn’t) do something about that, then we never really think of the problem as being bigger than ourselves.

The self-justification also sets up a certain group (those who engage in healthy behaviors) as more worthy of being left alone by the Obesity Crisis™ Watchdog than those who don’t. But why should healthy lifestyle be the ticket to being treated as a human being? I shouldn’t have to do a damn thing to claim my right to being treated equally other than exist. Who the fuck has the right to deny me that just because I like to have a piece of cake every now and again, or because sometimes I eat too much or don’t exercise?

Amen, zuzu.

I was at my boxing gym early this morning for my regular Monday meeting with Pepe, my trainer. I know lots of other folks who work out there, and as I was packing my bag, getting ready to leave, a casual acquaintance of mine and I started talking about our Thanksgiving plans. As we said goodbye, she said laughingly, “Don’t eat too much this week. Oh, wait, go ahead — overeat! You’ve earned it!”

I was fairly groggy this morning, and didn’t think about what my friend said until I read Zuzu’s post. The language of “earning” is used a lot in fitness circles; it’s an economic and a moral term. And it’s got some fairly troubling implications. Continue reading ‘Fat is not a moral crisis’

USATF bans headphones; glory be!

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 1, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness
. 23 Comments

This is great news: USA Track & Field, the national governing body for running, this year banned the use of headphones and portable audio players like iPods at its official races.

As a veteran of 14 marathons and countless other road and trail races from 5-50K, I’m proud to say I’ve never taken two steps with music. And I’ve been jostled and pushed and run into more times than I can count by oblivious nincompoops who can’t hear my “on your left!” as I try and squeeze past them. Running with headphones in a major race is like yakking on your cell phone on the freeway — both deserve the bans that they are now receiving nationwide.

And I may sign up to do the famous Grandma’s Marathon:

Coming up with a way to enforce a headphone ban — if enforcement is even possible — has been a challenge for race organizers. Some have already taken a hard line, like the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn., in June, which had a field of about 7,000 runners. Race officials collected iPods at the start and then mailed them back to competitors. Still, 30 maverick runners who broke the rules and used headphones were disqualified.

“We proved that it is very possible to enforce,” said Scott Keenan, the Grandma’s Marathon race director. “If other races are allowing it, then shame on them.”

Scott Keenan is my new hero.

Yeah, I’m curmudgeonly on the topic. But I feel very strongly that part of running is listening to one’s body, listening to one’s breath, listening to the sounds of the city or of nature around you. Wearing headphones to do a marathon is like wearing headphones to a wedding. Now, that’s just one fella’s opinion, and others may differ. But that doesn’t mean that wearing headphones doesn’t affect those around you, and it does place you and other runners in danger.

And the danger is real. See my post here.

My hero…

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on August 26, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness and Sports
. 0 Comments

… this morning is Haile (Heila) Satayin of Israel. At age 52, he finished 19th in the marathon at the World Track and Field Championships this weekend, in a blistering 2:22 — run in high humidity. Satayin, a Jewish native of Ethiopia who made his aliyah in 1991, has qualified for the Beijing Olympics, where he’ll be by far the oldest marathoner in the field and almost certainly the oldest Olympian. Mazel Tov, Haile!

The older I get, the fewer still-competitive athletic heroes I have. And though I can admire men and women younger than myself, I’ll admit I can only truly look up to those who have a few years on me. And no, this doesn’t mean I am an exuberant Barry Bonds fan.

A note on my first vegan marathon

Published
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Hugo Schwyzer
on August 3, 2007
in Animal Rights, Athletics and Fitness, Food and Veganism
. 9 Comments

The San Francisco Marathon I ran this past Sunday was the first marathon I had trained for as a strict vegan. I’ve been flirting with veganism for years, but it was only at the beginning of 2007 that my wife and I made the decision to remove all animal products (including dairy, eggs, honey) from our diet.

When I started “ramping up” my training in May in preparation for the marathon, I was curious to see how my body would respond to 50-60 miles a week of running while eating vegan. I was encouraged, of course, by the example of a variety of other vegan athletes — especially Brendan Brazier, the Canadian 50K champion. I began to use his product, Vega, and I was able to have a long chat with him as we jogged the Mall in Washington in April.

But Brendan, as amazing an athlete and animal rights activist as he is, is more than a couple of years younger than I am. He’s also a professional, and I’m little more than a middle-aged weekend warrior. I hit 40 just as I began this now-concluded training season, and worried that my ageing muscles wouldn’t get replenished on plant-based nutrition alone. Of course, there was no way to find out if an average guy like me could train and run on a vegan diet without trying… so try I did.

After this past Sunday, with another slow-but-steady 3:52 in the bag, I can now say definitively that eating and training vegan is possible. (I wish I could say that eliminating all animal products from my diet made me magically as fast as I was in the late ’90s!) Because I was eating lighter, I was able to sleep less and feel rested — as my body didn’t have to work so hard to digest animal fats. That meant I could get up at 4:30AM, do a middle-distance run, and then give seven hours worth of lecture without feeling utterly exhausted. In that sense, eating vegan did enhance my performance.

I drank my Vega and my hemp protein supplements, but didn’t live on bars and processed “vegan junk” food. I ate a lot of nuts, a lot of dried fruit, a lot of whole wheat pasta. I began to eat vegetables I had once scorned, developing a genuine passion for kale. (I still don’t love broccoli.) I dropped some body fat, but kept my weight at a healthy level. No one told me that I looked gaunt, and I didn’t feel as if I were in a constant state of self-denial. My cravings for meat grew fewer (though every once in a while, I would still feel a pang of longing as I drove by my favorite taco stand). Those cravings are almost gone now.

And here’s the kicker: our household food budget went down. Yes, we bought a lot of organic veggies at Whole Foods (and when we could, at the local farmer’s market). But I also ate out less — instead of buying lunch, I packed it. A packed lunch made up of plant-based food bought at Whole Foods was still cheaper than a processed meal purchased on campus. When people tell me “I can’t afford to be vegan”, I note that my savings off being vegan this spring and summer were enough to (almost) pay for a very nice hotel room in San Francisco this past weekend.

Yes, I’m proselytizing. For reasons of human health and animal rights, I’m a passionate believer in veganism. It ties in to my feminism and my Christianity; long before I embraced a cruelty-free diet, my faith and my belief in women’s rights had convinced me that I am called to do justice and mercy in every action I take. Training for my fourteenth marathon as a first-time vegan was an opportunity to match my language and my life. And saving money in the process was a terrific bonus.

Cheryl Cannon smoked me yesterday: a note on marathoning and sexist marketing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 30, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Feminism and Sports
. 9 Comments

On Saturday afternoon, my wife went on a shopping excursion along Maiden Lane and Post Street while I relaxed in the hotel room, resting and snacking and preparing for Sunday morning’s run. A front-page article in the Chronicle naturally caught my eye: For a relaxing girls’ getaway, try a marathon. Written by long-time Bay Area sportswriter C.W. Nevius, it’s a frustrating but still interesting exploration of the boom in women’s running in the past decade. Excerpt:

“It’s a tidal wave,” says Amby Burfoot, executive editor of Runner’s World magazine and former winner of the Boston Marathon. “Thirty years ago, less than 5 percent of marathon participants were women. Now it is 40 percent.”

And higher. Race officials say the San Francisco Marathon is split almost exactly in half — 50 percent women, 50 percent men.

A group of five women from Fort Collins, Colo., represent the demographic perfectly. Tiffany Green, Connie Le, Kris Baugh, Erin Thomas and Stephanie Rogers are all in their 30s, married with children, and here on a running vacation.

“It’s girl time,” says Green. “We’re using this race as a reason to get away.”

This is not news, and it’s something I blogged about after I ran a marathon in June 2005. Nevius explains one reason for the change:

The new marathoners make it on a much lighter workload. Cheryl Cannon, down from Sacramento to run the marathon, says she rarely logs more than 40 miles in a week. Cannon, 42, started running only five years ago, but this will be her sixth marathon. Like many women, she runs with a regular group, which meets three times a week to jog 6 miles.

“We go out there and chat,” she says, “and the trees don’t repeat the gossip. We’re all in our 40s, have kids, and in much better shape than our husbands.”

That’s a good point. While big running events are booming, participation by men has actually gone down. What’s the reason for that?

“First,” says Burfoot, “it’s not a strength or skill sport. And second, success is measured in discipline, determination and consistency. Those are traits that women are all good at.”

Okay, so I looked up Cheryl Cannon’s results online — and two years my senior, she smoked me by fourteen minutes, running a 3:38 and finishing 11th overall among women in her age group. Nevius’ article suggests she runs only for fun and companionship. But her outstanding time, which puts her in the top 5% of her age group, is the result of hard work as well. Reading the whole article, one might have expected ol’ Cheryl to barely squeeze in under the six-hour cutoff. Continue reading ‘Cheryl Cannon smoked me yesterday: a note on marathoning and sexist marketing’

Home, and an initial marathon report

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 30, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Sports and Traveling
. 1 Comment

We’re home from a happy weekend in the Bay Area.

I ran the San Francisco Marathon yesterday morning, finishing in a pedestrian 3:52:44. I’d had a good season of training, but despite the pleas of my good running buddies, I hadn’t done a lick of “speed work” all spring or early summer. And yesterday’s run result reflected both the good and the bad of the last few months of work: I ran at a remarkably steady pace, hitting nearly perfectly even splits for the entire race. I ran the first half in 1:56:16, the second 13.1 miles in 1:56:28. In my thirteen previous marathons, I’d always run my second half at least two minutes slower than my first, so it was nice to show some consistency. (And I can account for those twelve second-half seconds: Hugo had to duck into a bush in Golden Gate park just past the half-way point. I know, far too much information…)

My last three road marathons have all seen me finish in the 3:50s, though I was faster yesterday than I was in my previous two (3:54 and 3:57). And I felt very strong at the finish, crossing the line with a sense that if I had had to do a few more miles, it would have been okay. The walk back to the hotel — a good mile and a half — was relatively easy, which was a relief. So, bottom line: I had a great time, particularly while running across the Golden Gate Bridge, and finished in a time that was consistent with my “heavy on long, slow distance; short on speed work” training regimen. My now eight-year old personal best of 3:13 is safe, assuredly forever.

I can highly recommend Millenium, the superb vegan restaurant we went to on Saturday night. A fine place to fuel up for a marathon; my wife and I shared a delicious tasting menu of plant-based foods that were all locally and organically produced. Millenium is worth a trip to the City.

Perhaps some more marathon reflections later.

Friendship, weight, and the collective rejection of an unattainable ideal

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 26, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Body, Eating disorders and Food
. 9 Comments

I know everyone else in the ’sphere is writing about the major new study on obesity and friendship, but I can’t seem to resist weighing in (ouch) as well.

The opening sentence in the Times report yesterday left me wincing:

Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When a person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too.

My first reaction is fury. Fabulous, another excuse for the shunning and shaming of fat folk. I can almost hear it: “Bob, you know I love you. But the New York Times says that obesity is contagious, and I’ve noticed you’ve gained a lot of weight lately, so I’d rather not spend as much time with you because I’m afraid you’ll infect me.” The phrase “much like a virus” is infelicitous at best and genuinely misleading at worst, and to have it in the opening sentence is deeply unfortunate.

The study’s point, of course, is that other people’s behavior and appearance can impact our feelings about ourselves.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the new study, says one explanation is that friends affect each others’ perception of fatness. When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad.

“You change your idea of what is an acceptable body type by looking at the people around you,” Dr. Christakis said.

I’m not entirely sure that this is a bad thing. After all, we’re all well aware that the media (in its nearly infinite manifestations) has a huge impact on women’s self-image; the endless message that one must be thin and toned has done demonstrable damage. The struggle to emulate movie stars and supermodels, the struggle to achieve an unattainable ideal, breaks hearts and spirits and bodies year after year after year. For most women, that struggle is played out in two dimensions — in private acts of self-denial and in public, shared acts of self-loathing. Poor body image is reinforced by peers (or parents) who make self-deprecating remarks about their own bodies, and it’s reinforced by the common and unhappy practice of “bonding” over mutual self-hatred.

When a good friend or family member begins to gain weight, it’s as if he or she has “opted out” of the destructive pursuit of an eternally elusive ideal. This opting out provides an alternative model for friends and family. Seeing a good friend gain weight can be liberating, as it raises the prospect that if you yourself put on some pounds, you won’t be alone to face the judgment of a hostile and censorious culture. Most of us who teach and practice feminism, after all, are eager to create “feminist communities” in which women and men consciously reject the culturally prescribed ideals for our appearance and our behavior. We know that it’s hard to opt out alone, and much easier to do so when you have visible allies. This study reinforces the importance of those visible allies.

While extreme obesity may be unhealthy, it may well be that the negative effects of modest weight-gain are exaggerated. Certainly, the social and psychological costs to dieting are immense. The damage that pursuing the thinness ideal does to men and women (especially women) is colossal. In many ways, the physical and spiritual damage brought on by a lifetime of dieting and self-loathing may be far worse than the threat posed by twenty, thirty, or even fifty “extra pounds”.

I’m a recreational athlete who is married to a recreational athlete; we spend a lot of our social time with other recreational athletes. We belong to a subculture in which exercise and competition is normative, and where discussions of the latest “brick workout” or the benefits of heart-rate monitoring are common at picnics and luncheons and around the dinner table. We reinforce not self-loathing, but a sense that a physically active life is an important one. This doesn’t make us in the least bit more virtuous; we’re simply competitive people who love exercising outdoors. The point is, we’ve created a small subculture in which our lifestyle choices are supported and reinforced. There’s nothing wrong with that, just as there’s nothing wrong with a group of people who don’t enjoy exercise and hate dieting mutually supporting each other as they collectively reject a societal ideal of thinness.

So there’s much about this study that is, frankly, potentially encouraging. But my fear is that the way in which it is being reported, and the way it is being discussed, will morph into still another tool with which to shame and shun those whose bodies don’t meet our societal standards.

A no-doubt dull report on this morning’s run, and a note on why I hate fishing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 24, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness and Environmentalism
. 6 Comments

If there’s one paved run I enjoy more than any other, it’s the run up to Cogswell Dam along the West Fork of the San Gabriel River.

This morning, the alarm went off at 4:40AM, and I was at the trailhead out on state route 39 above Azusa by 5:55. After putting on the sunscreen and the body glide and triple checking my gear, I headed up the road.

It’s about eight miles of paved road up to Cogswell, so a round trip is sixteen miles. I needed more miles today, so I ran about two miles up, turned around, came back to the car, and started over again.

Though it was very early on a Sunday morning, there were already a number of folks with fishing poles — some of whom had clearly camped over night — along the West Fork. The river is stocked with Rainbow trout, Speckled Dace, and something called the “Arroyo Chub.” I like the name, and when I’m in a self-deprecating mood, I apply the monicker to myself. (When you run with folks who are truly rail-thin most of the time, even a few extra pounds leaves one inclined to pick such a label.)

Even before I became vegan, I had no interest in fishing. I can’t imagine an outdoor activity I would like less, frankly. My second wife loved the outdoors, and was an avid fan of camping and fly-fishing. We honeymooned at a remote lodge on the Mackenzie River in Oregon, about thirty miles east of Eugene. We fly-fished every day. I found the waiting around tedious beyond words, and the actual catching of the fish (something I never succeeded in doing, but something she was really good at) to be ghastly. I wanted to be running, or at the least hiking through the woods, keeping my heart rate happy in the triple digits. My ex-wife wanted to stand in the water in waders like something out of “The River Runs Through It” (which, incidentally, was her favorite film). I ought to have known that marriage was doomed.

So today I made my way past the fisherfolk, and eventually hit Cogswell dam itself. Cogswell is a glorious example of 1930s WPA engineering. The last time I was at Cogswell was nearly two years ago, after our record rainfall of the previous year. I was heartsick to see how low the water level was today behind the dam, lower than I’d ever seen it before. It’s only June, and it’s six more months until we can begin to hope for some good rain. I’m so anxious about fires, and anxious about the impact of this drought on the ecosystem. (Of course, my first thought is for the small mammals who are my special loves, but I know the whole danged food chain is suffering right now.)

I was feeling good, so I decided to go over my scheduled miles, and I ran the trail behind the dam for a bit; the fire road continues for about a mile and a half past Cogswell until it comes to an abrupt end. It was only at that dead end that I turned around and headed back. My goal was to cover the distance home at “marathon pace”. I covered the nine miles back in an hour and fifteen minutes, which is right about the 8:20 per mile pace I want to try and run in San Francisco next month. It’s a far cry from what I used to be able to do, but it’s a reasonable goal to have for where I am these days.

Counting the four miles I did as a warmup, that gave me twenty-two miles of running for the day. I was done by 9:25AM, exhilarated and happy beyond words. I drove back down the 39 into Azusa, where I stopped to have Inge the Solara washed by the Azusa High girl’s volleyball team. They did an enthusiastic if spotty job, and while they were hosing and washing and rubbing the car, I ducked into a store and bought myself 24 ounces of coffee. Endorphins last longer, folks, if you add caffeine on top.

So now it’s off to the gym, and then home to some quiet time with the paper. Our son Dudley might get some extra afternoon out time today.

Serious blogging will return this coming week.

A note on Title IX, proportionality, and why some girls aren’t playing… yet

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 22, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Feminism, Sports and Youth
. 13 Comments

I try to stay out of the ongoing arguments over Title IX, proportionality, and women’s sports. (I’ve mentioned Title IX once or twice) but I’d rather leave the defense of Title IX to those who are best equipped to do that — the good folks at the Women’s Sports Foundation.

But sometimes, the issues raised in the ongoing debate over proportionality (the principle that spending on men’s and women’s athletics by colleges should match the percentage of the respective genders in the student body) get me really interested. On Wednesday, the National Review published this piece by Jessica Gavora, who is associated with the nemesis of women’s sports, the College Sports Council.

Gavora is worried that having had great success in defending the proportionality rule in colleges (which has led many schools to cut certain men’s sports, like wrestling, in order to meet quotas), the advocates for Title IX are going to push for similar measures in high school. Gavora, like most conservatives, is a fierce believer in gender essentialism; she is convinced that girls “just don’t like sports” as much as boys do. Thus mandating equal funding for both sexes unfairly punishes boys for their “natural” competitive nature. After all, many conservatives seem to believe that most real women would rather be at the quilting bee (or shopping at the mall, or writing sonnets in imitation of Millay) than running, leaping, or striking at balls with their bats or their cleats.

Okay, so maybe that’s not fair. Here’s what Gavora says that I did find interesting:

The reason high schools are having trouble finding as many girls to play sports as there are boys clamoring to take the field is apparent to anyone who takes the time to look: Girls have more varied extracurricular interests than boys. Girls out-participate boys in every extracurricular activity — band, drama, debate, student government — every one, that is, except for sports. The extracurricular gender gap so favors girls that the Independent Women’s Forum calculated that if the government were suddenly to require the same gender quota for participation in other extracurricular activities that it does in sports, 36 percent of female choir members, 25 percent of female orchestra members, and 33 percent of female debaters would have to be eliminated.

The implication of this is clear: If high schools follow colleges and universities in instituting gender quotas in athletics, boys will be forced to pay the price in limited or eliminated opportunities. Girls are too busy doing other things after school to turn out at the same rate for sports.

Bold emphases mine. There’s a grain of truth in what Gavora says, though it’s hardly an argument against proportionality. I’m convinced that the primary reason some schools have a hard time getting enough girls to come out for sports is not because of a lack of interest, but because of a perception on the part of these over-scheduled, over-pressured young women that sports isn’t the best use of their time. I’ve written before about the colossal pressure we put on this generation of young women to be successful; all things being equal, it does seem clear that our daughters are more anxious to please and to achieve tangible signs of success than many of their brothers.

It’s not that girls are any less competitive, any less interested in getting sweaty and dirty, any less interested in victory than boys. But as they think about college applications, as they look to their parents and adults for cues as to how to succeed, they are more likely to be pushed towards student government, the debate team, the French Club, or massive amounts of community volunteering. That’s not a function of nature — that’s a calculation about what will look good. When applying to a selective university, these girls imagine that being president of the student body will look more impressive than being an all-league mid-fielder on the soccer team.

Not everyone wants to play sports, of course. There are plenty of boys (I was one in high school) who have no interest in being athletic, and I know perfectly well that there are lots of girls who find the idea of playing on a team to be a dreary one. But I know full well that those boys who are interested in playing are more likely to be encouraged to do so, while their sisters are more likely to be pressured to choose other, seemingly more “prestigious” extra-curricular activities.

Applying proportionality to the high schools will force a necessary cultural shift. We’re going to need to do more than demand that dollars spent reflect the percentage of girls and boys in the entire school. We’re going to have to challenge the “culture of perfection” in which so many young women labor, a culture which often discourages girls from putting their hearts, bodies, and souls into sports. (Courtney Martin writes very well about that culture, I reviewed her book here).

And we’re going to need to get some boys up off the damn couch, away from the video games, and into not only sports, but those activities now so often dominated by girls: debate, band, student government.

Bring on proportionality.

Up early

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 20, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness and Body
. 0 Comments

This summer, my Wednesday mornings are going to start around 4:15AM. My poor showing in my last two marathons was due to too little mileage; one thing I’ve learned over the years is the value of a mid-week middle distance run. If I do a long run (16-22 miles) on Sunday, and I do a middling run on Wednesdays (10-12 miles, perhaps picking up the pace a bit during it), then I’m going to be much better off come marathon time.

Of course, with the temperatures starting to climb, and an 8:00AM class, that means I have to run very, very early. Getting up early isn’t hard for me; going to bed at a reasonable hour often is. Since I was a small child, I’ve liked getting up early; I hate being in bed when it’s light outside. I’ve never been much of a night owl either; much to my wife’s dismay, if I really had my way in all things, I’d go to bed at ten every night and get up at 4:30 every morning. When I’m eating right and light, I can do fine on 6 hours of sleep. If I start eating a lot of sugar or other heavy things, then I find I need another hour or two to feel rested.

I hit the pavement this morning just before 5:00, running a loop that takes me over into Glendale (for the locals, I ran from my house to the Rose Bowl, up Lida, past Art Center and into Chevy Chase Estates before swinging down through LCF and home). In the hills, I saw lots and lots of rabbits; the best time to see the bunnies is always right at dawn. I worry about them — the hills are so dry this summer, and they, like all the other critters, have to get closer and closer to people’s lawns and pools and bird baths in order to find water. That means a whole new set of dangers. I worried a lot about a lot of animals this morning as I ran, but I comforted myself with the certainty that the God who watches over me watches over them as well.

It’s a long day of teaching ahead — I do about six hours of teaching a day during summer school, all lecture or discussion moderation; it’s hard to be “on” for that long day in and day out. Caffeine helps, and the sublime endorphin high of a solid 12-miler will see me through the morning.

A note on a father’s day run

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 17, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness and Father
. 2 Comments

It’s just after 12 noon on Father’s Day, my first Father’s Day since my Dad died nearly a year ago.

Last Father’s Day was the last time my father and I were able to speak. He was in the very late stages of dying of cancer, and we knew he had only a few days left. He was still coherent most of the time, and — blessedly — in virtually no pain. My wife and I spent the day with him, my stepmom, and my two sisters in Santa Barbara. He dozed most of the day in his easy chair, periodically waking up to chat with us or smile at us while we held his hand. He died four days later.

I woke up this morning very early, even before my alarm went off at 5:00. I went downstairs, meditated for a bit, and thought about the fact that this would be the first Father’s Day of my life without my Dad. I remembered the little gifts and cards I made him in elementary school; I remembered the lunches I took him out to in more recent years. I thought about last Father’s Day when, in the evening, we put Dad into bed and I heard him say — for the last time — the same words he had been saying to me for nearly four decades: “Good night, Huggle.”

I’m in the heart of my marathon training now; today’s run was a hard twenty-miler from the Aquatic Center parking lot south of the Rose Bowl to the top of Brown Mountain in the Angeles Forest. I was looking forward to the run today of all days because it would be something joyous, liberating, peaceful, exhilarating.

I ran with two of my buddies, Caz and Mark; both are fathers. Both knew my Dad. I didn’t talk much about missing my father, but I was soothed by the presence of these old companions of mine; their gentle maleness is reminiscent of my papa’s, and I needed some gentle masculinity today.

The last stage of the run was grueling. We had added in an extra section that gave us another mile, so I was doing a solid 21 this morning. I ran the last four miles alone, in the blazing sun, down through Devil’s Gate dam and along the east side of the Bowl. I felt my father with me as I ran; it was he, after all, who taught me to run thirty years ago, back when he was briefly caught up in the “jogging craze” of the mid-to-late 1970s. And when I came to a stop near my car, soaked in sweat, my skin coated in dust and salt, I felt the tears well up. Running, for me, isn’t really an escape from emotional pain; it is in my running that I draw closer to my own woundedness, my own grief — it is in endurance athletics that I find a kind of catharsis and healing that I find nowhere else, not even on my knees at the communion rail.

And doing 21 miles of long, slow, painful distance on this Father’s Day brought me very close to the pain of losing my father a year ago. But it also brought home for me the Great Hope that I hold in my heart, that I will be with him again in another country. Perhaps when I join him there, they will have hills and fire roads, and we will run a very long time together.

That’s not just my hope, that’s my certainty this Father’s Day.

The chinchillas got their dad a dozen yellow roses and a gift certificate to the movies. Their papa is grateful.

Loving the look, ignoring the sport: some thoughts on Allison Stokke: UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 4, 2007
in Athletics and Fitness, Feminism, Sexual harassment, Sports and Youth
. 22 Comments

It was a busy weekend. My wife and I were able to spend some excellent time together, and on Saturday night — before heading out for some vegan Nepalese — I got some of the live coverage of the California high school track and field championships. I got to see the future Golden Bear running back, Jahvid Best, show some awesome speed in the 200; I got to see the remarkable Jordan Hasay (whose career I’ve been tracking since she was an eighth grader) lap most of the field on her way to another easy victory in the two-mile. Hasay is only a sophomore, and if she keeps her composure and stays injury free, she’s going to be a household name outside of the track world very soon.

Track doesn’t get much coverage in the mainstream press, even in the sports section. But Friday’s LA Times featured a front-page piece on Allison Stokke, a high school pole-vaulter from Orange County. Allison’s a fine vaulter (though she finished fourth at state on Saturday), and I’m happy to say she’s a future Cal athlete. But the article was about the attention Allison has drawn for her looks:

…intelligence and athletic ability aren’t what made her the most-watched athlete at the state high school track and field championships in Sacramento on Friday.

It was the Internet.

Stokke happens to be physically attractive, with shiny dark hair; flawless olive-colored skin; a wide, bright smile; and the toned 5-foot-7 frame of a well-trained athlete — and that’s why her name has become among the most searched on the Internet, making her a flashpoint for debate about 1st Amendment rights and who can post what about whom in cyberspace.

One day she was just another accomplished high school athlete. The next, she was the topic of media reports from London, Spain and Italy; her YouTube video got nearly 200,000 views; and photos of her were posted on college message boards around the country and linked to by bloggers around the world.

Keith Richmond, chief executive of Break.com, has a term he uses for the instantly famous: “e-lebrities.” His site bills itself as an “entertainment channel for guys fueled by user-created media.”

The Times, helpfully for those who don’t follow the sport, offers two pictures of Stokke, one vaulting, one just smiling for the camera. The latter is captioned “head-turner.”

On so many levels, this is so infuriating. For starters, it’s one thing for the Times to report on the unseemly obsession that many men (who probably know damn all about field events, and couldn’t name one of Stokke’s competitors) have with a high-school aged female athlete. It’s another thing for the Times article (written by Diane Pucin) to label Allison a “head-turner” and rhapsodize about her “flawless” skin. A whole lot of folks who didn’t know about Stokke before surely did internet searches for her after reading the paper last Friday. And how the heck can Pucin be sure that Stokke was the one all the fans were focused on? Can she not draw a distinction between drooling middle-aged men on the Internet surfing for T&A and serious aficionados of T&F?

I’m angry about the way in which the attention paid to Stokke marginalizes the many other athletes in the sport. Stokke is a great vaulter, but as any T&F fan will tell you, the best in the country right now is Palo Alto’s marvelous Tori Anthony, who this past weekend became the first high school girl in the United States to clear 14 feet in outdoor competition. Anthony has been consistently ahead of Stokke all year — except in camera attention. (To be fair, Stokke is no Anna Kournikova, the Russian tennis player who never won a significant tournament but made a fortune off her looks; a better comparison might be to Maria Sharapova, another Russian player who gets tremendous camera attention for her physical features but who also has two grand slam championships to give heft to her credentials.) Thirty-five years after Title IX, and women’s sports still get far less media attention and financial support than do boys’ athletics. Paying attention to one bright and talented athlete among many, merely because she is judged beautiful, isn’t healthy for women’s sports. And it certainly doesn’t leave many of the women who are competing in track and field feeling good.

I’m also angry about the way in which we legitimize the eroticising of adolescents. I’ve spent a fair amount of time at track and field events over the years, and I’ve noted not insignificant number of creepy lookin’ guys with cameras who seem unduly interested in taking pictures of just one or two female athletes. A few years ago, I was at the big Arcadia Invitational meet, watching the high jumpers. One girl was wearing a particularly tight outfit, and as she flopped over the bar, a man a few rows behind me frantically clicked his camera with its long lens. “Ve-ee–ee–ry ni-ii-ii-ce” he muttered excitedly at one point, studying the digital images he had just taken. Like the guys at football games more interested in snapping a photo of a cheerleader’s kick pants than the action on the field, there’s a small cadre of these characters who make the circuit at track events. They aren’t generally asked to leave unless they make trouble, and most of them don’t. (I’ve gotten into it with one of them, and nearly got myself thrown out of the meet for my trouble). The pictures they take do end up all over the internet, and they are usually much the same. (You can imagine what body parts they like to focus on.)

All things being equal, there are more white girls than young women of color doing vaulting and high jumping. While events like the long jump and the triple jump tend to be dominated by young African-American women, pole vaulters and high jumpers are largely drawn from the ranks of former gymnasts. Gymnastics lessons are priced for the middle and upper-middle classes, of course, and thus there ends up being an economic and even ethnic component to women’s track and field competition. We live in a culture that tends to erotically fixate on tall, slender, pretty white girls — and in track and field, they are disproportionately found in the pole vault and the high jump. Thus, there’s a classist, racist, and sexist element in this focus on Allison Stokke.

I like Allison Stokke. I’m a fan (especially since the smart gal has chosen to go to Berkeley). But I’m also a fan of Tori Anthony. I’m an even bigger fan of Hasay, and of Jamesha Youngblood, who brought home two state titles this past weekend. The latter is probably the most dominant female athlete in the West right now. But her pictures aren’t plastered all over the internet.

Straight men don’t love their male athletic heroes because they’re sexy. Teenage boys are quite capable of idolizing LeBron James or Peyton Manning without fantasizing about them. They fantasize about being them, which is very different. But we live in a culture where a great many men can only identify “hot” female athletes. As a sports fan, a teacher, and a mentor, I find that exasperating, disappointing, and even enraging. I can idolize a female athlete as easily as a male one. Growing up, Martina Navratilova and Bjorn Borg were my tennis heroes. I wanted to emulate both of them, and I was sensible enough to see that I had no reason to identify with Borg more merely because he was male. I had no more chance of being as good a tennis player as Borg than I did of waking up one day as a woman; even as a child, I knew that much. And so I could look up to, be inspired by, and want to emulate athletes of both sexes equally. And though as a lad I certainly had my athletic crushes (even a few with a sexual component), I never picked who to root for — of either sex — based on looks. Surely, I’m not that unusual a bear.

So google Allison Stokke. But then google Jordan Hasay, and Jamesha Youngblood. And remember that whatever they look like, they are simply young women of extraordinary ability and talent who deserve to be recognized on the basis of what they achieve alone.

UPDATE: Twisty at I blame the patriarchy has a long post on this subject with over 100 comments; she posted on Saturday, and I ought to have done a search to see who else had touched on the issue first. As usual at IBTP, the language is raw and eloquent. Twisty and I have, in the end, much the same view. Read it.