Running is a tug-of-war between warrior and scientist.

The warrior within us yearns for glory each day, snubs physical limits and wants to sprint off the starting line of every race. "I was a pure passion racer," says Gerry Lindgren, one of the most celebrated American high school runners of all time. "I never wanted to win races. I wanted to win the first mile."

The scientist plans training months in advance, designs workouts to improve the physiological processes that limit performance, and knows where every step must fall to ensure the best race finish. "The 9 inches right here," says Sebastian Coe, two-time Olympic 1500m champion, pointing at his head. "Set it straight, and you can beat anybody in the world."

Wise runners drink from both wells. But embracing the irrationality of passion and the deductive reasoning of the mind demands more than brandishing a copy of Daniels' Running Formula to brush up on your VDOT while simultaneously quoting Pre: "I run to see who has the most guts." It requires a guide to this realm of interconnected opposites, and none navigates the yin and yang better than the Tao Te Ching.

A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.

As runners, we often become shackled to a single training approach. But training is a fluid process. It's not measured by the appeal and complexity of concepts. It's measured by how well its workouts stimulate real-world physical adaptations and mental preparedness.

Both intuition and deduction have driven our sport's evolution. Nineteenth century runners made long walks the centerpiece of their training, having noted the fitness gains experienced by footmen marching alongside the carriages of the English aristocracy. In the 1920s, Paavo Nurmi, the Flying Finn, correctly intuited the benefit of even-paced racing, then carried a stopwatch to ensure a strict adherence to his innovation. German coach Woldemar Gerschler, influenced by physiologist Hans Reindall, made high-volume intervals the training de rigueur of the late 1930s and 1940s. When performance gains from intervals plateaued in the 1950s, New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard conducted an "experiment of one," with himself as guinea pig, before introducing periodization and the high-volume aerobic base. Without open minds, we'd still be pacing carriages.

When the body's intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth.

When our running goes well, we trust the mantra, "Listen to your body." And we remedy our bodies' complaints with training steeped in decades of trial and error. We can see our fitness goal on the horizon, and we understand -- intuitively and intellectually -- that our path to that horizon will not always be easy, that there will be twists and turns, rivers to forge, mountains to climb and obstacles to overcome. We are patient.

But when things go wrong -- when we're injured or run poorly -- we panic. We're like a traveler who discovers he's lost, that he's veered off the path and can't find his way back. Where before we had faith in ourselves, now we'll ask any stranger for directions and then follow them. We'll suddenly accept that running barefoot renders our previous training obsolete. Or that rainforest berries will deliver the stamina that has deserted us. Or that a single workout can make us a champion. We forget about the horizon and marvel at our stupidity in having followed the path at all.

Prevent trouble before it arises. Put things in order before they exist.

I can't count the times runners I've coached have complained about injury-prevention routines included in their schedules -- they don't have time, they just want to run, and besides, they feel fine. It's roughly the same number of times those runners have complained about physical therapy bills, the loss of fitness while injured and the inability of injury-prevention exercises to double as injury-reversal exercises.

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Fitness doesn't happen in a day. Nor in a week, month or year. Fitness is a lifestyle. It happens the day you no longer seek it. It appears while you're living it.

Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else, there is no end to the blame.

So let's agree that this is the end. And the beginning. Yin and yang.

Pete Magill holds five American age-group records and is the oldest American to break 15:00 for 5K, running 14:45 a few months before his 50th birthday.



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