The Beauty of Human Movement

What can't the body learn to do?

As exercise physiologists we are trained to understand and explain the physiology of human movement. Together with that, how the body can adapt to training stress and improve performance is of great interest to us, and in most cases "performance" means running or cycling or some other endurance sport (save our annual forays into tennis, soccer and rugby).

But it never ceases to amaze us how the body can adapt and learn. Again, mostly we look at how it "learns" to run faster or pace better by making adaptations to the muscular, neuro-muscular system and other physiological systems. The result is beautiful because it is an outstanding performance or a world record or just an amazing race (see the London men's race for all of the above!).

However part of understanding exercise physiology and how the body responds to endurance training is also understanding how the brain controls movement in the first place, because after all exercise is just a complex series controlled movements that produce running or cycling or swimming or anythign else, for example how it can activate the muscles in my hands and fingers in such a manner that I can type this post you are now reading. So any way you slice it, human movement and the adaptations the body makes are amazing on many levels.

I came across an amazing video that illustrates just how amazing the body can be. It is of "trials rider" Danny MacAskill and has been doing the rounds on several blogs and probably forums. The sport consists of riders jumping/leaping/riding in all sorts of manners on and over all kinds of obstacles----really, anything is game. I suspect that anyone who watches, regardless of their background, can appreciate the level of fine and gross control it takes to pull off these kinds of movements.

Call it part of our (belated) birthday celebrations, or call it a positive view of cycling, but from time to time we try to depart from the doom and gloom of doping (especially now in light of the recent CERA postives from Beijing), or the current sporting news cycle, or the performance analyses that you have come to know, and take a lighter look at exercise physiology.

So enjoy the video and hopefully you are inspired by what we can do!



Jonathan

Happy 2nd birthday to us

The Science of Sport turns 2...and Rashid Ramzi tests positive for CERA in the Olympic Games

OK, so we forgot our birthday...turns out it was yesterday, two years ago to the day that we did our first ever post.

Since then, 435 more articles have been written, read, and occasionally commented on, by you.

So once again, thank you very much for your support and continued reading of our "hobby". When we began the site, the intention was to document our insights and opinions for no reason other than we enjoyed it, and it's grown to the point where it is genuinely the most enjoyable thing we do. It is hard to document how much time in a day we spend thinking about and researching content for the site---don't tell our bosses!

Obviously, as the site has grown, it's taken more and more of our time, and that's often been time we can't give (have to pay the bills somehow - Jonathan has "overheads", Ross is saving up for his one day!). March this year was our leanest month ever, thanks to work commitments, but we've bounced back in April courtesy Boston and London, and hopefully, we'll keep the momentum going through the summer months of cycling and track and field.

Obviously, we'd love for this site to become fully financially sustainable to allow us to retire from the "rat race" and do the site even better. Perhaps that opportunity will present itself some day. We've considered the option of creating a subscription service where we'd charge a nominal fee to subscribe or to read "premium content", but that model, while used fairly widely on-line, doesn't grab us, it seems too exclusive and goes against our core value of making information available (perhaps this is the difference between scientists and businessmen!), so we're putting it off for as long as possible. Variations on that model are possible, so we'll see how it goes.

But what we have done, based also on what seems to be a trend in the online "industry", is to create a DONATION function, where you can support our efforts and time by donating to The Science of Sport. You can see that link on the top right of the homepage, and it's a pretty simple matter of clicking on "Donate" and then following the instructions. From time to time, we'll also include a small paragraph at the bottom of our posts to encourage donations, for those of you who don't actually visit the site but receive the articles in your inbox.

Obviously, no obligation, but rather just an attempt to earn something for the time and effort. We'll continue as long as possible regardless, because we enjoy it enough! At least til we're three years old!

In other news - Rashid Ramzi tests positive

A potentially big story today is that six Olympic athletes, including 1500m gold medalist Rashid Ramzi, have tested positive for CERA, the latest generation EPO hormone, which was made famous by Tour de France cyclists (Ricardo Ricco primary among them) last year.

When Ricco was caught, we did a post explaining CERA, and speculating that maybe some Olympic athletes would be jumping for cover now that a test had been developed through collaboration between anti-doping agencies and the pharmaceutical company that produced the drug for medical use.

According to reports, the IOC went back and retested samples from Beijing, and found that two medalists were using CERA. According to this article:

"The person, speaking on condition of anonymity because the names haven't been released by the IOC, said a male track and field athlete who won only one gold medal was one of the athletes. The other medalist was in cycling."

As you can imagine, great debate today about who they were. The cycling positive is rumoured to be Davide Rebellin, who won silver in the men's road race. The Italian news media are reporting this, though the Italian Anti-doping Agency (now there's an oxymoron if ever there was one) is not naming the athlete, stating that first the "B" sample must be tested before they will confirm the identity.

Who is the male track and field athlete? Speculation time!

As for the track and field athlete, the very latest news, which just came out about two minutes ago, is that it's Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain!

Earlier today, it was still unknown, and so Ross played around with some possible names. However, now that the news has apparently been confirmed by the Bahrain Olympic Committee, speculation no longer seems required, so I edited the post. For the record, though, I thought it more likely to be one of the race-walkers, particularly the Italian Alex Schwarzer, since most of the athletes tested positive for CERA so far are Italian, and this would be consistent with the idea that the doping practice can be traced back to a common source.

However, turns out I was wrong (apologies to the race-walkers! But it was our birthday, I took liberties!), and that the positive test belongs to Rashid Ramzi, the winner of the men's 1500m title. He also won the 800m-1500m double in 2005, and then promptly disappeared from the scene for the next few years. A few very weak showings, interspersed with what was a completely dominant performance in 2005 aroused a great deal of suspicion, because it is consistent with doping. The fact that he has now been caught will give great satisfaction to many people who have "known" or suspected it all along.

In fact, all of today, there has been a poll on LetsRun.com, where you can vote for your likely "doper" - they didn't have the race-walkers in, so they were a step ahead of me, but Ramzi is winning by a clear majority - 54% of the vote last time I checked.

Also, there's an entertaining read on their world famous Message boards, to add some humour and opinion to the piece.

OK, but seriously, I'm joking around (it's our birthday after all, we're allowed) about a serious topic. Ramzi becomes one of the first high-profile positives in track for a long, long time. Justin Gatlin was maybe the last (I stand corrected) gold medalist caught, and in distance running, there has been no one on the men's side for a while. I'm interested to see what the fall-out is. Will he do what most athletes seem to, and simply deny it? "It must be a mistake", or "the lab is out to get me". Or will he confess and take whatever punishment is dealt. That will be interesting, because currently in cycling more and more dopers who get caught admit it hoping that the UCI will go easy on them and reduce their two-year ban by some amount. But in athletics there is no precedent for this kind of "strategy."

A final thought - given that athletes knew that a test had been developed for CERA in July (thanks to Ricco's bust in the Tour), to continued taking it through to the Olympics in August suggests that athletes are either:

a) incredibly stupid, knowing it's detectable, or
b) relying on other methods of avoiding detection, and not 'tester blindness'

That is, it suggests to me that they may have tried tricks to avoid the testing process, perhaps involving substitution or collusion to get away with having a banned substance in the sample. Surely they wouldn't be so stupid as to go blindly into providing samples knowing they're testable - plan B must exist. And it seems to have failed in this case!

That's it for today. Again, thanks to everyone for your support over our two years of existence (or the two weeks you've been reading), and let's hope the third year is as successful!

Ross & Jonathan

London 2009 revisited

London 2009, on closer inspection

Yesterday's London Marathon closed off the big marathons for the next few months, and we now get to look forward to the Fall season, with Berlin (times two, with the IAAF World champs there as well), Chicago and New York the highlights to come. But now might be a good time to look back over the last month or so of marathon racing, which has been enthralling and high quality.

First came the "weekend that changed marathon running forever", when Rotterdam saw two men race to 2:04:27 times. That a man can lose a marathon running that time says something about where we are in the sport today. This was followed by the Paris Marathon, where the course record was broken (2:05:47) and another five men broke 2:07. All in all, 13 Kenyan men broke 2:09 on one day, and people spoke of the new dawn for the marathon.

It was perhaps inevitable, when you look at the half-marathon, where sub-60 minute times are now commonplace. Eventually, this kind of speed would impact on the marathon, and we're seeing a different pattern of racing emerging - competitive races are now being run aggressively, with favourites hitting the front earlier and harder than I can recall. There was a time when a record attempt was a record attempt - Gebrselassie in Berlin keeps this tradition alive - and a race was bound to be slow and tactical. But Beijing last year, Wanjiru in London, even Hall in Boston, have shown that competitive racing is now aggressive racing, and that has changed the face of the marathon.

Boston and London were actually quite similar in this regard. In Boston, the fast early pace (albeit on a downhill part of the course) was created by Ryan Hall, and then when it began to slow, Deriba Merga threw in surges over the Newton Hills to break the field open at about 30km. Yesterday in London, the pace was set, ridiculously fast, by the pacemakers, before Sammy Wanjiru blew the race open with a 4:25 mile, at roughly the corresponding distance to where Merga made his move.

The pacing strategy - great for a race, not for a time

One thing I can say with pretty high certainty is that this kind of racing strategy is not conducive to optimal performance. I know that is picking holes, given that Wanjiru broke the course record, but the way the race was run is certainly not how anyone should aspire to run for a fast time.

Yesterday, I compared Wanjiru's winning run in London to Gebrselassie's world record, and it was quite clear how the better pacing of Gebrselassie told in the second half of the race.

To look at this a little more in detail, I have put together the following diagram. It shows the gap between Gebrselassie (in green) and Wanjiru (in red), at 5km intervals during the marathon. Obviously, we're comparing London to Berlin here, so it's not a direct comparison, but it illustrates the point quite clearly.


It's pretty obvious that Wanjiru went out way too fast, and built up a lead of 51 seconds over Gebrselassie at the 15km point. From then on, though, it got progressively smaller and smaller, until eventually Geb "took over the lead" just before 30km. If it were possible to super-impose the races, it would have made for great TV as Geb would have come up onto Wanjiru's shoulder at about 29km and then begun to move steadily away!

But what is interesting is that the biggest gap of all comes between 35km and 40km. That's where Gebrselassie, you'll recall from Berlin last year, put the hammer down and really created the sub-2:04 time (which up to that point had been an outside shot). He ran that interval in 14:29, whereas Wanjiru, despite having Kebede right behind him, ran a 15:14 interval. That was where the real effect of those first 10km told, because all through the race, gaps were opening up big time in this section. In the end, like in Beijing, Wanjiru got the closest to an "even-split": his first half was 61:36, and his second 63:34. That's a positive split of close to 2 minutes. Gebrselassie ran a "negative split" by 7 seconds!

A super-fast start, combined with the surges at 28 to 30km all add up, and that's why if you want a world record, you really have to have the right day, at the right pace, in the right race situation. Whether Wanjiru will ever get that, time will tell!

The pace - some questions

Speaking of super-fast pace, I'm still confused as to what was going on in the men's race yesterday. The first mile was run in 4:38, which already projects a sub-2:02 time. Now, I'm led to believe that the clock on the car right in front of the runners was showing them the time, and was giving a PROJECTED time. This means that within the first 5 minutes of the race, the elite men MUST have known that they were going at 2-hour pace. By 5km, in 14:08, they'd have seen that they were on for a 1:59 marathon.

Now, why someone did not signal for a slowing down is beyond me. We know this didn't happen, because the second 5km interval was run in 14:22, which is still too fast - the target time per 5km interval would have been 14:42. So they have "ignored" the signs at 1 mile, 2 miles, 5km and all the way through to 10km, and so it is amazing to have heard Wanjiru say that he hopes for "better pace-making" next time. I find it absolutely extra-ordinary that not a single person, not a pace-maker, not an elite athlete, not an agent, not the race director, would have at some point in the first 5 minutes sent a signal to ease off.

Therefore, I'm left to make the same conclusion that Amby Burfoot made in his comment to our post yesterday, that this was a deliberate, stated instruction. Perhaps these races are sending the pace-makers out too fast, trying to capitalize on slight downhill sections, and hoping that athletes hang on long enough to keep the advantage.

Unfortunately, this flies in the face of everything we know about optimal pacing. That is, if you want to run the best time, you must aim for even pace. That's been pretty well shown in lab studies and by Gebrselassie in his two world records. So someone is missing a trick if the instruction is to go out too fast. Hopefully, lessons will be learned for the future. It did make for a super-exciting second half of the race though, because a progressively slowing pace sets it up perfectly for aggressive surges.

Sammy Wanjiru - fearless and fearsome

And aggressive surges are the name of the game for Sammy Wanjiru. Last year in Beijing, he set the race up by hitting the first 10km at sub 3min/km pace, despite the heat and smog and humidity. Then he threw in surges in the second half, at that pace in those conditions! It was the greatest marathon performance ever. London yesterday saw Wanjiru race the same way - surging off the front off a fast pace, from a long way out.

I am loathe to describe Wanjiru as "gutsy" because I've always felt that "gutsy" implies that the person lacks some talent, but makes up for it with courage and heart. Wanjiru, by that definition, is not gutsy, because he has extra-ordinary talent. But he's absolutely fearless, so aggressive and courageous with the attacks. It really is a wonderful sight. When Kebede seemed to be reeling him back at 40km, he found another surge and the gap was created for good. It's brilliant racing, and one wonders whether anyone in the world could match it? Lel, perhaps - big disappointment that he couldn't race. Merga is a guy who seems to race the Wanjiru way, that would be a fabulous race! Gebrselassie? Can't say I'd back him against what we saw yesterday.

Zersenay Tadese - back to the drawing board

Finally, a word on Tadese, the debutant who carried much hope into the race. He eventually bailed at 35km, after running the interval from 30km to 35km in 16:47. It was a forgettable first marathon for the half-marathon world champion. I'm not sure whether he might have had a problem, but I was really surprised that he folded as early as he did.

Once could blame the fast early pace, and the distance, but the fact remains - he didn't make 30km with the other 6 guys, most of whom he is at least equal to over 21km. That's not the marathon distance that undid him, it's 28km, which shouldn't happen.

Now, I'd fully expected that he's struggle in the final 3 or 4km, that is where the distance will tell on the novice. But at 30km, he should have been able to hang for a little longer. Consider that his 10km best is more recent and just as fast as anyone else's, his 21km performances are at least as good as everyone with the expection of Wanjiru, and yet he was blown right off at 28km. Perhaps something went wrong in the training?

Hopefully he'll be back. What he needs now is to find a second-tier marathon, and get a 2:06 time under his belt, learn the race a little, and then hopefully return to a major in the future with a little more nous and experience, and maybe he'll turn his 21km performances into marathon greatness. Bad marathons happen, perhaps he just got his worst one out the way early!

Looking ahead

That's a wrap of London. Looking ahead, the track season starts soon, and so do the Grand Tours of cycling, which should provide some debate. We've also got our analysis of the Michael Ashenden interview to do, and I'm sure more will come up!

But bring on the Fall season!

Ross

London 2009 Race Report

Wanjiru is the man in a fast war of attrition in London

Olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru has won the 2009 London Marathon, in a course record of 2:05:10, beating out the challenge of the two other Beijing medallists, Tsegaye Kebede and Jaouad Gharib. Kebede, third in Beijing, was one better this time, in a time of 2:05:20, with Gharib a further 7 seconds back.

But it was the Sammy Wanjiru show, at least in terms of the final outcome, and the racing over the final 12 km. The other big talking point was the pacing strategy, with the incredibly fast early pace ultimately putting paid to any chances of the world record that had been spoken about before the race.

The pace - how it unfolded

That early pace, which saw the athletes go through 5km in a sick 14:08 and 10km in 28:30 (14:22 for the second 5km) was always going to see a drop at some stage. That drop happened from about 15km up to 30 km, where the pace dropped below 3min/km. The projected time of 2:02 had fallen to 2:05, and the world record seemed safe once again. The graph and table below summarize the pace at 5km intervals (click on them to get enlarged version):



You'll see from this chart and graph that the pace got progressively slower, right from the start, but it was only between 15 and 20km that they dropped below the WR pace, where it remained up to 30km. That period, the inevitable result of the suicidal early pace, would set the race up for surges and survival in the second half.

The half-way mark was reached in 61:36, but even that does not account for how fast the first 10km were. It was always going to be a race of attrition, and even this early on, it was clear that the athlete who ran the LEAST positive split would be the winner. The chase group, which included the USA's hopes Meb Keflezighi and Dathan Ritzenheim were by this stage already minutes behind, and so the winner was coming from this group.

The race - Wanjiru, Kebede, Gharib

The real racing began just before 30km, however, when Hendrik Ramaala (who was running out of his socks) pushed the pace slightly at about 28km. That spurred the big names into action: Wanjiru responded immediately, and then after a moment or two of "calm", he threw in his own surge. It was reminiscent of the Beijing Olympics, when Wanjiru attacked aggressively off a fast pace.

Wanjiru ran the 19th mile in an astonishing 4:25. That split the field, and the only two who were able to respond were Tsegaye Kebede, and Gharib, albeit a little more slowly. This surge in pace is not reflected in the graph above, because the pace leading up to the surge was very slow, which partly explains why Ramaala was the man going to the front.

One of the first names to fold under this pressure was Zersenay Tadese, the debutant who had stimulated much excitement. The world half marathon champ, and a man with a 58:59 seems born to run the marathon, but he found this race too hot to handle. That's perhaps not that surprising, given his inexperience, but it was slightly surprising that he fell off so soon and so quickly. He covered the 5km stretch from 30 to 35km in 16:47, showing that the wheels had well and truly come off for him. In truth, the pattern of the race would not have suited him, especially in a first marathon. Hopefully, he'll be back in the future.

The final kilometers - a brave Kebede hangs, pulls back, and then falls off

The group of three now formed, it was always a question of who had the most left after the brutal early pace. It turned out to be Wanjiru, though quite how he created the decisive gap, I don't know. At the time that Wanjiru was pulling clear, we were being treated to glorious coverage of the sixth to tenth women coming over the line. So everyone missed that.

Once the men's race was covered again, Wanjiru led by about 8 seconds from Kebede, with Gharib another five or six down. Kebede was fighting bravely, however, and he managed to very slowly claw back the gap, and had Wanjiru within his reach at the 40km mark. It seemed as though Kebede might have enough to force Wanjiru to sprint for the title, but it was not to be; Wanjiru looked behind and realizing that Kebede was in contact, he surged again and soon managed to open what was the decisive lead.

A few minutes later and it was Wanjiru turning right in front of Buckingham Palace, with the title and course record in his sights. He duly went on to break that record in 2:05:10. Kebede was ten seconds back, and Gharib finished in 2:05:27. He was the big improver of the day, since his PB coming in was "only" a 2:07.

The number 1: Wanjiru consolidates after Beijing

So that leaves Wanjiru pretty firmly entrenched at the top of the marathon tree. A win in Fukuoka, second in London 2008, then the awesome Beijing performance, and now this win place Wanjiru securely in number one. Question marks had been raised in recent months. The Beijing win was one of the greatest races ever run, and possibly the best marathon performance ever. However, since then, Wanjiru had a couple of DNFs and a relatively poor showing in Lisbon. However, this win puts those races in context, and certainly confirms his status.

Martin Lel, who has won London for the last two years, would be the other contender, but failing to make the start line of London with a hip injury means he now has to prove his racing credentials again if he is to be considerd number one in the future. His absence was a big blow, for I'm almost certain he'd have featured in the race.

The other name is Haile Gebrselassie. The World record holder has seen his record survive another season, challenged by the 2:04:27 times in Rotterdam, and now this race, where poor pacing may have cost the chance of the record. He'll no doubt be back in his time-trial mode in Berlin later this year, trying to lower his record further. What a shame that we'll never know how he would have handled this 28:30 first 10km and Wanjiru's surges. I still rank him the greatest ever, but he's only the third best racer in the marathon.

Comparing races: Wanjiru vs Geb from Berlin

Just to put into context the difference in the London 2009 pacing and Geb's world record in Berlin last year, the graph below shows the 5km intervals from each.


It's pretty clear that Geb's world record was achieved with extra-ordinary pacing, as he started a little quickly, then settled down and then got quicker and quicker. Wanjiru, on the other hand, started far too fast, then slowed down far too much, and then threw in surges to win a race, slowing down again at the end.

It's not the ideal way to race. In fact, it's a pretty poor way to pace the marathon. But perhaps Wanjiru will get himself onto the start line of the Berlin time-trial in October, and then he'll benefit from the same pacing strategy that saw the 2:03:59.

I believe that he'd break that record, on the right day. Then again, so might Kebede, Gharib, Lel, and then Merga and a host of others. All in all, men's marathon running is in awesome shape, and I can hardly wait for the next batch of marathons in October and November.

There is bound to be more to say about this race, so the rest of the week will be devoted to that. Thanks for reading, and join us again soon!

Ross