Tireless state - an enchantingly simple term used by Lydiard to describe the goal of the foundational base-building phase of training.
Does achieving the fabled 'tireless state' mean that one is no longer tired or that in spite of overwhelming fatigue one can find the strength and will to carry on? This past year an a half I have had the opportunity to explore the meaning of this phrase. As a full-time head coach for cross country and assistant track coach (in-season 10 out of 12 months) I have also been completing a master's degree in education, co-operating a home daycare business with my wife and raising 4 children under the age of six, the youngest of which was born this past December. Needless to say the days have been full in ways that I did not think I could cope with before. However both me and my wife have adapted to this crazy workload and now it just seems normal. I think if the average person were plunked down in our life it would overwhelm them pretty quickly, but I trust that if, like us, they were introduced to it gradually over a few years they would adapt as we have. This season of life has led me to a new understanding of what a 'tireless state' is and how one achieves such a state.
There have been times throughout my younger years where I felt like I had achieved some sort of fitness level that enabled me to do pretty much whatever I wanted training-wise. I could do a moderate 16 mile run on Sunday and come back for a hard interval session two days later no problem. Although I felt tireless at times while running at this fitness level, I don't think this was truly a tireless state. You see at all times during this phase of life there was a finish line somewhere up ahead. There was always a race on the horizon and therefore somewhere I could set my sights on and steer toward when the going got hard. After those races there was always delicious rest and recovery. The weeks and months of training would build up to a peak and then...blissful relaxation. Sometimes the knowledge of how good that rest was going to feel was enough to pull me through a particularly grueling bout of training.
South African researcher Tim Noakes has outlined a theory of fatigue which he calls the 'Central Governor theory'. Its fascinating stuff. The basic idea is that, with the vast majority of people, fatigue is ultimately governed not so much by energy availability and the byproducts of anaerobic respiration, but by subliminal messages that are conveyed to the working muscles telling them to decrease output to avoid damaging physiological systems. One of the cornerstone examples Noakes gives for the presence of a Central Governor is the finish line of the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. The Comrades Marathon is a 55 mile race with a twelve hour time limit. Noakes reports that on any given year participants within sight of the finish as the clock approaches the cutoff will literally sprint in to beat the cutoff. Many of these participants are dead on their feet and are somehow given new life by the vision of the finish life and knowledge that they can make it. A tireless state, as I understand it now, implies that there is no finish line. There is no relief plug to pull and depressurize. Your only option is to adapt. I don't believe a tireless state means that fatigue is no longer felt or experienced, but that all options of relief have been excised from awareness. Initially, as all new parents are probably familiar with, this new experience brings sensations of desperation, giving way to begrudging acceptance, and, finally, realization that you are stronger than you gave yourself credit for. I would be lying if I said there weren't times during the last two years where I have physically felt the burden of responsibilities weighing down. Times where, on the verge of tears, I felt like to get out of my recliner would take superhuman effort that I did not possess. If I had been given the opportunity to tap out a take a load off, I am sure I would have. But there was no awareness of a finish line, no relief in sight and I knew I had no choice but to figure out a way forward, hard as it may have been. At all of these junctions I was able to compartmentalize, prioritize and inch forward. In these moments my tireless state was not some euphoric experience of feeling like I could handle anything, but an aching realization that there was only relief in adaptation.
As I said before I think everyone is capable of handling WAY more than they think they can. The trick is to not relieve the pressure. As a society that is very much built around the 'work hard, play hard' mentality, I think we focus too much on the light at the end of the tunnel. The problem with that mentality is that we are perpetually living for the easy times, always looking forward to a break. Breaks and relief are good, but recognize those times in your life when its necessary, even beneficial, to grind away and make a new tunnel without knowing how far you'll have to dig or when you'll see the light again.
