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Posted: October 30, 2005

Science of Sport: Your Future As An Athlete

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

For an athlete, it is important to be able to peer into the future in a perceptive way. A bit of foreknowing can help with goal-setting, the creation of an optimal long-term training plan, and even the selection of an appropriate coach.

As a young man, I "dropped out" of the first college I attended, "dropping in" to a life of driving taxis, painting houses, working on construction, and playing drums in a blues band.

When my group dissolved after an Earth-Day concert at the University of Rhode Island, I suddenly found myself unable to go through a round of rehearsals with a new band and unwilling to return to a life of servile sweating with a shovel in my hands. Impulsively, I applied to the University of Rhode Island. Impulsively, the university accepted me.

A meeting was set up with the Dean of Men, at which I was to declare a major and plan two-and-one-half years of study at the lovely Kingston campus. On the morning of our get-together, I nervously rode the bus down from Providence, aware that I was as likely to blurt out "Astronomy" or "Zoology" as my new-found major - or anything in between. I had no idea what I really wanted to study - and no logical framework with which to make such a fateful decision.

Fortunately, the Dean had been called away for an emergency, and I was told to return in two hours. The administrative building in which the Dean's office was housed stood at the edge of campus, next to a forest, and I impetuously walked into the woods, noting within myself a strange feeling that it would not be such a bad thing to get totally lost.

I thrashed through the scrub for about 30 minutes and suddenly found myself in a small clearing, at the center of which was a tiny, temporary pond, the kind of puddle which holds water for just a few days after the first warm days of early spring.

The water in the pond was surprisingly clear, and I felt a strong desire to take a drink. As I bent over, I saw myself, a confused young man, in the clear mirror of the water surface. I was shocked by the emotional turmoil which the pond was accurately reflecting back to me, astonished to see my discomposed face ringed by the dark leaves of the trees above.

Fortunately, I also saw something else. Just a few inches below the water surface, dozens of small, translucent, fresh-water fairy shrimp were swimming back and forth. Their incredible beauty touched my heart instantly; their ability to survive with beauty and grace in such a hazardous, impermanent environment was clearly a miracle.

Back at the Dean's office, I was finally ready, and it was the Dean's turn to be astonished. When I pronounced myself prepared for a career in biology, he stuttered "But you did not take a single course in science at your previous college!" "No worries," I said, "I'll survive it."

The Dean quickly signed me on for a first term of Zoology 101, along with advanced courses in Anatomy, Genetics, and Animal Ecology, along with solid doses of chemistry and physics. I never looked back, was named the most-outstanding student at URI my senior year, and earned a Ph. D. at Michigan State a few years later.

Dear reader, I hope that you have also found a clear pool in which you could encounter yourself and find the path to a happy and fulfilling life.

I also hope that you, as an athlete, have been able to take a clear look at your future, that you know what races you would like to enter, that you have established exciting goals, that you have settled on the best training plan for you, and that you have a sense of where the finish line will be.

One of my most-exciting and rewarding goals is to help you attain this kind of precognizance. In our newsletters, I write for you, so that you can throw away bad training techniques, settle on training methods which bring out your best performances, and set the right goals for your future.

Recently, I created two training programs for those of you who are interested in the marathon. These schedules are totally different from any marathon program you have ever seen. They are not simply ways of filling in marathon logbooks with miles; rather, they provide the running and strengthening workouts which optimize all of the variables which have an impact on marathon performance and which allow you to run your fastest-possible marathon. They are the kinds of schedules which totally transform your running, just as that small pool in Rhode Island transformed me.

To obtain either program, simply click here to be taken directly to the marathon schedules in our store. Here you will be given an opportunity to purchase and download either (or both) of the 26-week packages. The price is just $199 for the intermediate program (about $7 per week) and $299 for the advanced schedule ($11 per week) - real bargains for more than six months of scientifically validated training which has been tested on runners with a wide range of abilities. Please act soon, though, as the prices will increase to $299 for the intermediate and $399 for the advanced program on Tuesday, November 1, 2005.

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