Rust Never Sleeps

Tara Welling (#55) of High Performance West, racing up front and setting the tone at the 2016 Stumptown Twilight in the Women's 5,000m — photo © kevmofoto.com

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is also called the Law of Entropy.

It states: 

“The total entropy of an isolated system can only increase over time. It can remain constant in ideal cases where the system is in a steady state (equilibrium) or undergoing a reversible process. The increase in entropy accounts for the irreversibility of natural processes, and the asymmetry between future and past."

We are physical creatures, bound to the laws of physics like all other matter upon this world, there is no escaping this truth.

Thus “training” is but an attempt to put an athlete's system in a steady state rather than submit to decay.

Often we think of training as a game where we work to “gain fitness” like at a job where we work to gain money. But this mindset is incorrect. Training is merely pruning the garden so the weeds do not over grow and take ownership of the yard.

The truth is, all matter is constantly in some degree of decay and our activities either lessen or accelerate that degenerative force. 

The words of Daniele Bolelli  inform:

“Training is like sweeping the floor. Just because we’ve done it once, doesn’t mean the floor is clean forever. Every day the dust comes back. Every day we must sweep.” 

Therefore, all the work in training performed daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually and throughout a career by an athlete are merely sanding, planting, weeding, chopping, cleaning, dusting, sweeping, etc. Nothing but a tidying up of the utmost important sort.

And when this is understood, consequently, the coach's training recommendations are simply guidance offered to help athletes fend off decay. This makes daily practice a cleansing effort — nothing more.

Thanks for reading. I'm glad you're here. // jm