Running Speeds

I used to like watching the Special forces selection process TV shows. They would claim that mostly people failed due to mental fortitude. The problem was repeatedly in these shows you would see people who weren't fit enough, whose muscles were not capable of the physical strength and stamina necessary to push like this. Many had trained very hard and were in very good shape but they just couldn't sustain it in the cold. These peoples bodies broke down too fast. Mental fortitude only seemed to come into it when you got down to the final few, 90% of people their bodies failed before they got to the point where mental fortitude mattered.

I can well believe there are multiple factors that goes into being able to make it through such a test or being very fast. We just don't understand these genetic factors yet.

> If you take that model seriously, Usain Bolt could have been anybody in the entire history of mankind.

No model is perfect, but I don’t have the slightest clue why you think that would follow.

Yes, the mental fortitude is much overblown aspect.

Yes, there is this thing as mental fortitude and you can even train it to persist to run hard, especially when you "kick" at the end of a race.

But this only helps to a very small degree, the most of the result is due to more mundane aspects like your experience with running, your running efficiency, your aerobic capacity, your additional fat you are carrying with you, whether you have been running regularly recently, etc.

I am regular runner (10 miles every morning). If I have an injury and are out of running for two months, I will have very hard time at the same speed and duration as before the injury and no mental fortitude will help me get the same result come race time. My mental fortitude counts for less than my last two months of running history.

Even just a tiny bit of experience with running can dramatically improve your results. And that is not necessarily by improving your fitness. I remember when I started running I would get large increases in results every single day. I was very proud of myself until somebody told me this is normal and has nothing to do with my fitness -- my brain is getting rewired to coordinate my movements better and this helps running efficiency. Another important aspect of running you learn within first days is how it feels to be running at a sustainable pace. If you don't have any experience you are very likely to run too fast, accumulate lactate and be unable to finish the distance or have to slow down considerably. Because you don't have any idea how hard is appropriate for the challenge and your ability.

And one more argument against mental fortitude. I think it has very little value the better you are at running. The better you are at running the closer you run to your physical limits and once you understand it, the brain alone cannot make you run faster if your body simply is not able to produce required output.

If you observer Eliud Kipchoge, for example, beating yet another marathon record, you will notice he is feeling good and smiling throughout the race and at the finish line. Yes, there is probably some pain and discomfort but really, he is just executing a meticulously prepared plan. The work has already been done and he can't run faster than his ability and he knows is ability to perfection. He knows if he runs even a tiny bit faster than he should, it will actually put him above his ability and produce a slower result. There is maybe last couple miles where he is judging his reservers and decides whether to run a tiny bit faster or stay at his plan and that's about it.

I had to use mental fortitude to finish my first marathon (when my body cut the power at 20 miles), but that's just because I was undertrained and unprepared. Now when I run I know perfectly the pace I need to keep to finish the race and there isn't temptation to "push it" because I know if I do this it will produce a worse result.

(yes, I know running long distance like 5k-42.2k is very different from sprinting. I am just an amateur who runs a lot who is also a nerd and want to understand a lot about everything I do.)

Records would never get broken, then.

That's why most professional sports organizations have specific standards for fields, tracks, equipment, etc.

On the last part the author was comparing Bolt's time to that of the collegiate record and The Freeze's PB, all three of which were probably set on higher-quality tracks.

But, some records might include factors likely wind direction, which might add an asterisk to indicate a special condition.

> can’t get algebra to sink in properly yet. Doesn’t really click in the time we have and with the teacher he has (me). But in Python he is giving variables a name all the time. Perhaps there is something about programmatic math that helps, not hinders education.

On the hinders side though, I can understand it being confusing to try to grasp:

    y = x + 2

As being sort of 'constantly updating', referring to x in abstract, when you've just learnt that Python will assign (once) the result of computing x (at that time) + 2 to y.

You could def y as being x() + 2, but you might just be delaying the confusion to when you try to introduce functions in math and find yoursel saying 'no no that was just a hack to get python to behave more like algebra'.

Is there any language that allows this I wonder? Where you can do something like:

    y = &(*x + 2)

That is, y is a pointer to the result of adding 2 to the value pointed to by x, and this is somehow kept up to date, by tracking references like garbage collection perhaps, or at compile time by inserting the code to update y whenever x is updated. (Names would need to be globally unique I suppose, or else x transformed in to some kind of struct that could contain y and other dependents I suppose, and then also a link from y to x so you can remove that if y definition changes.. but that's a lot of load for the humble assignment operator!)