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Posted: November 16, 2005

Science of Sport: Why King Saul Set So Few PRs In His Later Years

By Owen Anderson, Ph. D. (Copyright © 2004-2005)

As 2005 gradually comes to a close, many runners are contemplating the events of the year - and beginning to make plans for improving their running in 2006. It is only natural for a fair number of runners to entertain the idea of working with a training partner in the months ahead - as part of a serious effort to upgrade workout quality.

Scientific research has been fairly kind to this notion. Basically, exercise physiologists have been able to show that working with a good training partner can make challenging workouts feel easier - and thus more sustainable, compared with tackling the same exertions solo. This, of course, is only true if the partner is "positive" in her/his approach to the training (and has the fitness necessary to pull the sessions off); a negative co-exerciser can make demanding workouts much-more difficult to handle.

Anecdotally, many runners report that the quality of their workouts soars when they begin conducting one or two training sessions each week with other runners, instead of staying single. This seems to be particularly true when the chosen partners are slightly fitter than the individuals who have "adopted" them.

Strangely enough, one of the biggest problems associated with such arrangements can occur when a runner is transformed by the with-partner training and runs an over-the-top race. The trouble can come when a runner believes that he/she is dependent on the partnered workouts to perform at the new, loftier level.

In the Old Testament and Torah, we learn that Saul was an ordinary man, a runner who was too slow to chase down mules which had gone astray in the fields. When he met the great judge and prophet, Samuel, however, he was transformed by their interaction and eventually became a kind, just, and generous king.

Saul led his armies to victory in battle, and he was intensely devoted to his people. He became a successful leader, but always, in the background, stood the towering Samuel. Because Saul thought that Samuel was the true source of his triumphs, he did nothing without consulting the prophet. Saul eventually became deeply troubled by the knowledge that he would never be able to free himself from his mentor. Saul was unable to dispel his doubts about himself, and his life (and kingly reign) spiraled downward in circles of jealousy, suspicion, repudiation, and ultimate failure.

More recently, another prophet named Samuel found a laborer laying rails for the Kenyan National Railroad, toiling to near collapse under the flaming African sun. Samuel took the moiler, Musa, into his home, fed him, taught him how to run. Soon, Musa was beating Samuel in their runs across the veld near Eldoret, and in an informal half-marathon in Nairobi Musa finished far ahead of his world-famous mwalimu.

Musa was physically ready to win international competitions, but always in the background stood Samuel. Musa believed that he was on the international stage only because of Samuel, and therefore he could not truly be superior to him - he could not be better than someone who had found his own way to the heights. In important races, Musa always ran hundreds of meters behind his deliverer, Samuel Lelei.

Thus, it is important to remember that if training with a yokemate transforms you, you will remain transformed even if you choose to forge ahead without your accomplice. As the great coach Jack Daniels once said, "If you're better, you're better." Translated, this means that your gains in performance capability remain inside you, ready to be expressed whenever you decide that they should be placed before the world to see. You are not dependent on others; once you have climbed your performance ladder to the very top, you may remain there - even if someone who has climbed with you is called away. As always, to achieve your best performances you are dependent only on the work which you complete in your training and on the quality of the confident, steady fire which burns in your powerful heart.

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