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A Conversation with Melody Fairchild - DyeStat

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DyeStat.com   Aug 19th 2015, 5:04pm
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Expert advice from XC legend Melody Fairchild

 

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

 

Melody Fairchild defined an entire era of high school running in the U.S. from the late 1980s until her graduation in 1991. She was a two-time Foot Locker champion and still owns the Balboa Park course record. 

 

Fairchild has been through it all as a runner -- from the highest of highs to lowest of lows and back again. She knows what she's talking about and when we interviewed her this spring for a feature story on Jordyn Colter, the conversation planted a seed. I knew right then and there that I'd circle back around to her in the summer and find a way for her to dispense some of her wisdom to the DyeStat audience on the eve of a new cross country season. 

 

So here it is. Fairchild -- and a couple of friends -- have taken the time to answer 10 questions that are central to the development and progress of young runners everywhere. 

 

Question 1. Melody, there are so many talented young women across the country who are striving to become better people -- and better runners -- as they work their way through high school. Do those two things go hand in hand?

 

Melody Fairchild: Anyone who chooses to devote herself to the journey of being a distance runner necessarily becomes a better person. Why? Because running is challenging and challenges build character. The four traits of the runner which form the foundation of this character and are the keys to overcoming challenges, are: passion, courage, commitment, and resilience.* Possessing enough of each of these qualities to endure as a distance runner, requires traits which lead toward being a “better” person: self-confidence and self-trust, a positive outlook on the future, patience, loyalty and perseverance. When truly nurtured in oneself, these all can be authentically shared with one’s team and community. The key is coaching the runner who is eager to be better, to have an eye and a mind for how her talents can be shared with others, as this is not always obvious to athletes who need a certain amount of self-absorption to achieve their goals. As Jordyn Colter says: “If you can believe in yourself anything is possible.” That includes believing in being a better person as you become a better runner.

 

*These are the “four pillars” of the “Boulder Mountain Warriors,” which is my children’s running club. I also use them as the core of Inspirational talk I give at camps around the country.

 

 

Q2. You have been working on something called the Body Project. Can you tell us what that's all about?

 

Melody Fairchild: The Body Project is a peer-led dissonance-based body acceptance program designed to help high school girls and college age women resist cultural pressures to conform to the thin-ideal standard of female beauty and reduce their pursuit of thinness. The Body Project, which is run in small groups, is supported by more research than any other body image program.

 

Dr. Carolyn Becker, Phd, Psychology, Trinity University and founder of The Body Project

 

In a nutshell: “Love your body, free your mind.” I have chosen to bring The Body Project into my HS girl’s camp curriculum because since my HS running days, through college and beyond, I have seen the struggles girls have with distorted body image and disordered eating limit and in many cases even put a halt to the pursuit of their running dreams. In this era of access to media of all types, at any time of day, girls never get a rest from messages suggesting that they change who they are, in order to be perfect – or to reach the “thin ideal of female beauty.” I cherish the opportunity at my girl’s camp, to provide a week of respite from these messages, where we can use The Body Project process to identify the sources of our negative self-image, enjoy the mental freedom this awareness brings and get out having fun and empowering ourselves with confidence-building training in the Colorado Rockies.*

 

*For more info on camp: www.melodyfairchild.com

 

Q3. What sorts of conversations should kids be having in their heads on long summer runs that aren't always very fun?

 

Melody Fairchild: “One step at a time.” “Each step is a step towards my goal; it’s all going in my ‘well,’ which I can draw from the rest of my season.”  “I’ve got to endure this discomfort, so that I can increase my capacity to withstand greater adversity down the road.” “I am grateful for the ‘stretch’ to my soul right now and I can only know my limits, if I push them….”

 

Also: if long summer runs are not that fun, check your pace: summer running should be aerobic or, “conversational pace.” If you can’t talk while you are in your summer aerobic base-building phase, you are running too fast and will likely get injured or burned out mentally. If it just plain isn’t fun no matter what your pace, remember that running training is a process. Hang in there and have faith in your body and mental strength, as one day you will breakthrough to a new level of fitness –and the pace which felt “not so fun,” will feel easier; you’re getting in shape!

 

Q4. Nutrition is a concern for young developing athletes. Anecdotally, we don't see top runners with anorexia as much as we did in the past. But iron deficiencies and other problems are still out there. What are some rules to live by when it comes to training athletes and eating?

 

Melody Fairchild: Think of eating to maintain even blood sugar levels; never go so long without eating, that you feel “hangry” (combo of hungry and angry). Paramount: eat or drink something with easily absorbed carbs and protein within 20 minutes of training, when cells are “glycogen receptive.” Chocolate milk is a perfect example … Banana with nut butter. Give yourself permission to refuel and keep energy levels in balance. The positive traits of a distance runner – discipline, delayed gratification, endurance … need to be checked at the door when it comes to feeding oneself sufficiently. It is all too easy to finish a hard workout after school and say “I can wait until dinner,” which is still three hours away.

 

Take an easily absorbed iron supplement or eat foods rich in iron: red meat, dark green, leafy vegetables, taken with a source of Vitamin C for absorption.

A quote from Jordyn Colter on the topic:

“I always make sure I eat a little something before I run (bar, banana, etc). After a run, I try to eat really soon after in order to replace what I lost and then lunch and dinner according to the layout of my day. I snack a lot during the day as well which helps keep me feel comfortable. Food should always be enjoyable so I eat however much I need to feel replenished by the end of the day.” 

 

Q5. Particularly for juniors and seniors, who are juggling the pressure of producing high quality performances with the hopes of landing college scholarship opportunities, in addition to school work and other obligations, what advice do you have for handling stress?

 

Melody Fairchild: Have an “attitude of gratitude.” If every day you say “Thank You” for the opportunity to run, to compete, to be on a team, to be healthy, talented and disciplined enough to put yourself in a position of seeking a college scholarship to run, you will be hard-pressed to feel so “stressed” that the joy is sucked from your life.

 

Stay POSITIVE: focus every day on your desires and let your thoughts dwell in the sea of possibility that your efforts have created for you. Remember that running is a privilege – not a right; you are not entitled to anything – you have to work for it. And if you do that to the best of your ability and are grateful each day, you can go to bed each night satisfied that you’ve done your best.

I believe that “stress” comes from too often comparing ourselves to others. Do YOUR best; don’t try to do someone else’s best. Have one day, afternoon or even a few hours a week, away from any techno gadgets and spend part of that time – even if only 10 minutes – in nature or a quiet place and practice “emptying” your mind, to be able to notice what’s going on around you. This “Zen” practice of “being present” has been used for hundreds of years and people who do it regularly report much greater satisfaction and joy in their lives. In essence, this is what you need to do when doing the mental training of visualizing your optimal race performances, and what athletes who reach “the Zone” of optimal focus and total immersion in the moment during a race, are doing. So, it is a good way to stretch the mental “muscle” you need, for mental training; it is learning how to eliminate distractions, by tuning into your own internal rhythm, which is unique to you. Detaching ourselves from what we perceive to be a “mountain” of stress, helps bring it back to its (appropriate) “molehill” status in our minds.

 

As Jordyn Colter wisely says: Pressure is only what we ourselves make it to be and it’s up to us to decide how we view it. Doing Yoga helped me find a balance. It gave me a time to relax and be proud of what I had accomplished after a week of training. I also made sure to surround myself around positive people.

 

 

Q6. How has the high school running landscape changed from when you were in high school in the early 1990s?

 

Melody Fairchild: The level of competition has exploded. There are many more girls running close to, or faster than 5:00 minute miles and at state Track and XC championships across the country, there are now big packs of girls gunning for the top five or six spots. When I was in HS, I was winning XC races by more than a minute.

 

The internet probably marks the biggest change in the running landscape since the late 80s and early 90s when I was in HS. I see how positive it has been for creating community among runners and sharing information. The down side is the level of distraction and the fact that it is the source of much of the destructive comparing which girls engage in, which takes energy away from the quiet, confident pursuit of their goals. The internet and the capacity we have to access ever more amounts of information are here to stay. The work of each athlete is to decide for herself, how much of that capacity is healthy for her to use; “more, is not always better.”

 

Coach Travis Floeck, head women’s XC and Assistant Men’s and Women’s Track coach at the University of Idaho likes the current landscape:

 

“DyeStat changed the world of running. It paved the way for sharing information and athletes have greatly benefitted from this. The training is better. High school coaches are incredible at laying down a foundation for success. This has created better overall athletes in the running community. High school runners are just faster overall these days, but that doesn't mean they are more talented.”

 

 

Q7. There is a push and pull sometimes between athletes who want to test themselves and be great now and coaches who take a longer view and want to bring athletes along slowly so they continue to make progress in college and beyond. How do you weigh in on that aspect of high school running?

 

Melody Fairchild: To echo the answer to Question 6, I think that the “push” from athletes for instant success is due in part to their ability to get so much information on their own, from the internet; anyonecan become an “expert” by reading the endless sources of information available to us.

 

Regardless of whether “knowledge is power,” young athletes need the WISDOM of a coach who knows that distance running is a long term endeavor and if approached with patience and an eye on the big picture, it can be a life-long sport. From working with girls over the past 20 years, what I hear is that they want to be running for years – even decades –after college, so it saddens me to see the level of burnout and anguish over not being able to continue due to injury. These two things happen, when girls do not listen to their bodies in high school and delay the growth which is natural for a young woman to go through, in desperate attempts to get marks good enough for college recruitment. The high value of college scholarships these days can unfortunately spur an athlete to want instant success, and put her at risk of injury and induce massive disappointment. If Passion is the driving force behind one’s running, all choices made will stem from the desire to “protect” this thing that we love to do: we will nourish our bodies so we can run to the best of our ability, we will keep the “big picture“ in mind take it in stride. It is not an easy Balance to find, but I find inspiration in the journey of Jordyn Colter, who experienced extreme pressure after winning the Colorado state Class 5A XC championship as a Freshman, followed by two years of struggles to regain that form.

 

Through all of it, she sought to grow and learn and had an attitude of gratitude. It paid off: she went out on top as a senior, setting state records and making nation-leading marks before graduating from high school and has the wisdom of a great champion.

 

Jordyn: “It took failing multiple times to realize that running was so much more than winning the race and being in the top rankings. It’s about pushing yourself to limits that seem unimaginable and enjoying every step you take. I started enjoying the ride more because life is way too short to waste positive energy….“Pressure is just one of the things that comes with running and it took me a lot of practice learning how to turn my negative attitude towards pressure into a positive one… My change in perspective came with maturity but after experiencing challenges I knew I wanted to change. It takes inner strength and confidence but if you can believe in yourself anything is possible.”

 

 

Q8. Boys and girls obviously do not progress as runners through their high school years equally. How do you counsel girls who are maturing naturally but seeing their progress as runners slowed?

 

Melody Fairchild: I tell girls that this is the most important time to trust the messages their bodies are giving them, listen to their intuition and to keep the vision they hold for their future intact. Listening to our bodies -- allowing the natural processes of beginning menstruation and the natural weight gain accompanying it – is essential for long term health as a woman and a runner. Low body fat causes hormonal imbalance in the body which can lead to amenhorrhea, or cessation of the menstrual cycle. Gone on too long, this can lead to decreased bone density, which leads to stress fractures, the “Female Athlete Triad.” Many girls who run enter high school before they hit puberty; they are running machines and can run very fast on their tiny frames. When the process of growing into an adult woman’s body begins, there is a natural weight gain and slowing of times -- only for a while --until an equilibrium with the “new” self has been found. Our system does not allow time for finding this equilibrium to be seen as a natural and even enjoyable aspect of being a woman, because of pressures to “remain” at levels of performance achieved with a completely different body. The conflicting messages a HS girl runner gets from her body and from the running world can be very frustrating and overwhelming to manage, so I counsel girls to be patient, even when the world around them is not. This is the first and most important lesson in self-trust that a young woman athlete encounters.

 

Keeping the vision you have for your future intact, even if your times are a bit slower because your body is going through changes, is extremely important, as friends, family and coaches may react to your up and down performances negatively and it can be hard not to internalize this. I tell girls that the wisdom of being a woman is in your knowing that “this too, shall pass,” and “I must be present to what is happening for me, right now,” not trying to be someone or something that I’m not. To quote Jordyn Colter again: It takes inner strength and confidence but if you can believe in yourself anything is possible.”

 

Coach Travis Floeck: “I think as a college coach I've seen female athletes have a renaissance with running, sometimes running as fast or faster as those early years before they grew into adult women’s bodies. That's really rewarding to see. If they stick with it and find joy in the process of the sport and their team, it gives them a great chance to get back to where they've been, but in a healthier way. Melody you're a giant example of that. Never gave up, so inspiring. 

 

I just always try to coach them up and I want them always feeling I believe in them. They can have that same renaissance even without running as fast as they had. The most important factor is they are loving what they do and themselves.” 

 

 

Q9. What tips can you share about goal-setting?

 

Melody Fairchild: Do it. Always. We need the incentive to go out and challenge ourselves each day and to add more “drops” to that “well” we are filling with every step towards our goals. Keep it in perspective: if you don’t reach your goal, allow it to make you hungry to get out and try again and think back on what you learned from the process of striving for it. Have different types of goals: Daily “maintenance” goals, such as “I am going to ice after every hard workout to avoid injury” … or “I’m going to eat 150 calories of something healthy within 20 minutes of working out, so I recover and can remain consistent…” and Short term goals: “ I will do one more hill repeat next week.” Long term goals: I want to be top 10 at state…”

 

Big Picture goals: “I want to be an NCAA all American…” or “I want to run a marathon someday…”

 

To accompany your goals, write in a running log, to record the journey. You can see what has worked and what hasn’t, in reflecting on your pages down the road, and add meaning and richness to your life, as you realize that yours is a really exciting and interesting one!

 

Q10. We are witnessing an era when female stars are emerging in U.S. distance running before they leave high school -- such as Mary Cain and Alexa Efraimson and Elise Cranny. What impact do outliers like these have on the girls around the country who want to be like them?

 

Melody Fairchild: It seems that the feedback is nearly unanimous, as I travel to camps around the country and coach high school girls: The impact is positive and these girls are an inspiration.

 

Personally, I don’t like to see HS girls foregoing the formative years of university life to go professional. Even in 1991 I was encouraged by my HS coach not to go to college and to train for the Olympics. Many people in my community were telling me I could be an Olympian at age 18. (Why that didn’t happen is a story for another time). I made my best friends in college (University of Oregon) and to this day, call Eugene my “second home.” I learned how to fail, to get back up and keep going. In HS, I was not treated with “special treatment” and did not have an entourage of people paving the way for me to run PRs (Mary Cain broke my indoor record in a professional race, with Dibaba pushing the pace). As my orientation is on the “whole person,” I will always believe that having to find out what you’re made of by risking falling and failing is the most valuable thing we can hope to experience. I, too, admire these great talents, but I hope that their choices to go professional and take big contracts which require them to live solely to run, are not interpreted by girls around the country as the “necessary” way to go about achieving the top level of the sport. We need even more examples of athletes who choose to take on the challenge of engaging in a rich and varied university life, full of choices of activities and types of friends … who find a path to fulfillment and success through the journey of becoming a well-rounded woman, passionate about giving back to her family, team, community and the world. To circle back to question #1, finding the strength and perseverance to stick with running through the high school, collegiate and post collegiate phases. It will develop the character to be a “better person” without a doubt.

 

Coach Travis Floeck: “My observation is that they inspire other young women, there is no doubt that is happening. Even my college athletes get excited by what they do, even the men. They bring more attention to our sport, because everyone loves the prodigy story, but they have the potential to rewrite the typical ending to the Bobby Fisher type story.

 

They can compete at the highest of levels and inspire the next generation. 

 

 

Jordyn Colter: “I think runners such as Alexa and Mary are such amazing influences amongst the running community. I think they embody what it means to be a part of the golden age of distance running. I also think they are both constant reminders of strength and confidence. I admire them both so much and I look at them as an inspiration to young runners that dreams do come true as long as you are willing to work towards it.”



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