TEAM OAXACA: “Crocodile” Dundee Phenomenon and Triathlon.

I am baptizing this phenomenon the ‘“Crocodile” Dundee phenomenon.’ It comes from the film (1986). Since the film came out we have accepted a way of training that has given dividends except for the last 5 years. “Mileage training improves speed for endurance athletes.” It has its bases on the way of living in Australia which has an icon in Mr. Dundee.

Rodney William Ansell (1 October 1954 – 3 August 1999) was an Australian from "the bush" who served as the inspiration for Paul Hogan's character in the 1986 film "Crocodile" Dundee. Ansell became famous in 1977 after he was stranded in extremely remote country in the Northern Territory, and the story of his survival for 56 days with limited supplies became news headlines around the world. In 1999, he was killed in a shootout with law enforcement officers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Ansell

‘’Mr. Dundee’’ is literally the “Western” behavior going to the extreme of the West. The further West that we had seen in the USA is the Marlboro “dude;” the cowboy that rides his horse alone in the desert advertising cigarette smoking. The movement of going west continued in Australia with Crocodile Dundee. I thought it was just in the film or sports but it also happened in Science:

Marshall, after having a baseline endoscopy done, drank a Petri dish containing cultured H. pylori, expecting to develop, perhaps years later, an ulcer. He was surprised when, only three days later, he developed vague nausea and halitosis, (due to the achlorhydria, there was no acid to kill bacteria in the stomach, and their waste products manifested as bad breath), noticed only by his mother. On days 5–8, he developed achlorydric (no acid) vomiting. On day eight, he had a repeat endoscopy and biopsy, which showed massive inflammation (gastritis), and H. pylori was cultured. On the fourteenth day after ingestion, a third endoscopy was done, and Marshall began to take antibiotics. This story is related by Barry Marshall himself in his Nobel acceptance lecture Dec. 8, 2005, available for viewing on the Nobel website.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall

On the way back to America, I spoke to someone sitting next to me from New Zealand; he mentioned about a film on Herb Elliot. It describes the way of training in those days. In a nutshell, “running a marathon a day,” that was the way he put it. He thought that Elliot was from New Zealand. New Zealand and Australia have the same relationship as Canada and the USA regardless that the ocean is in the middle; this is just to give you an idea to know how the region is (54,000 New Zealanders live in Australia). So what I am speaking about applies to both countries in the general sense. While in New Zealand, I saw runners on the streets; they were mid-foot runners, 9 out of 10. I assumed that there is a relationship with no shoes walking at a very young age like the videos on Elliot. No shoes, no service, does not apply in New Zealand from what I saw. This way of growing up is a good start to be a good runner. It means, on the long run, a few injuries running and the capacity of going fast. But since Docherty and Carter, there are no New Zealand threads in triathlon and hardly an Australian. There are Elliot´s descendants who had success with his method until Athens.

What follows in this paragraph could look like another matter but it is not. I saw on TV that a free trade between NZ and China was signed. Reaction from friends were present immediately, the USA wants to have a military base there to stop the spreading of China without control; otherwise New Zealand will be punished somehow. It is presented as the only way to survive in this new world for New Zealand, according to the TV program. NZ is conscious about the human rights in China, and that the USA sees this as a threat to its way of living and thinking. New Zealanders feel they need the trade with China to continue with their way of living. The TV program mentioned the slogan about New Zealand, “Many friends, no enemies.” China signed the first free trade with the West, experimenting with the Kiwis. That is the way Crocodile Dundee would go Kiwis; watch out, you know how he ended up.

I have always considered myself the generation of the last American culturally, regardless of my nationality or race. Mileage is not enough for the ITU race nowadays. We have to review technique and Physiology. Not to the degree that Marshall did as a Crocodile Dundee trying to prove to the world his point; and more importantly, trying to prove to the American’s scientific circles something that the American structure was unable to admit (Crocodile Dundee is not coherent in the American´s scientific idiom). An even then, I have to say to Marshall that the variables nutrition, rest and amount of microbes taken by mouth make the difference, and not just the “bug.” Medicine has politics and doctors play it accordingly, please see 19 avr. 2012 Treatment of stress fracture, that is why I love triathlon. In this kind of sports who enters first is the winner.

I speak of applying Physiology and Psychology without politics to maximize potential as it is not the case with Macca below. In that sense, I look for results not Nobel prizes, maybe because I consider myself a Hebrew (I let you figure out this one). Until Athens, the Kiwis and the Aussies were the best in the sport. I would say it more accurate, in the triathlon competitions; but mileage and strong sportive culture is not enough to support winning in triathlon today. The Marlboro icon stopped being the best performer as it was in the past as well as the Crocodile Dundee way of behaving stopped getting results. WE NEED TO PRODUCE SMART RACERS AND BY THE SAME TOKEN, SMART ATHLETES IN TRAINING; being fearless and adventurous in our training is not enough.

In Mexico, we have a tribe that have the ritual of following the deer to kill it for exhaustion: The statement that, "The Tarahumara may be the finest natural distance runners in the world", made by University of Arizona archeologist Michael Jenk inson, offers some insight into just how good the indians are at running (Lutz 21). The Tarahumara routinely run distances only covered by only the most advanced ultramarathon runners today. To these indians, running is more than sport, running is literally life. The Tarahumara live in very rugged land and travel by wagon or horses is usually impractical. Because of this, foot travel is more often than not the best option for getting from one place to another and it is usually the quickest. While on foot, the Tarahumara do not stroll from one place to their destination, running is used to perform everyday tasks. It is not uncommon for a Tarahumara to travel between fifty and eighty miles everyday at a "race" like pace. http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.html

The Tarahumaras had to run until the deer fell for exhaustion and it took days to run after the deer to accomplish the purpose. But they were unable to run a marathon below 2:40.

Macca says the following: On race day (Hawaii 2012) I couldn’t get my power above 250 watts, which is embarrassingly low—it just didn’t correlate. I was tired, weak and just lost time all day. On the swim I felt good early and then just struggled—it was just like I felt flat. You know when you’ve been ill for a week and you come back for that first session—that weak feeling, it was like that from the onset. The only thing that seems to add up is when we came down from altitude; it should have been at three weeks. I know [coach] Darren [Smith] is taking it really hard. He’s been on Twitter apologizing.

Altitude or/and tapering do not give you this problem. The whole training was not adequate for the type of athletes training with Macca, none of them was able to perform well (see results). None of the altitude runners do well at sea level even if they take time to adapt. To go fast requires a different training; and for that same reason Crocodile Dundee is not effective any more.

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