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NBR Profile No. 12

Rodrigo Toscano talks with SAYO YAMAGATA

Sayo Yamagata’s very first NBR group run was a Tuesday Night Tempo Run deep in the winter of 2010. Her regular running buddy had opted out that particular night (buddies—take heed). She had figured that there just had to be an organized group somewhere in the area, folks who could relate to her the safest running routes, folks who would pull her along like a sled attached to well-trained and even better groomed huskies. As it turned out, she DNF’d (“did not finish”) that fateful run. Howling huskies faded as they traipsed over some bridge or intersection. The “core” NBR runners she met that night have since been superimposed into a single composite image (the NBR runner will be unveiled in the next profile, stay tuned).

Scroll ahead two years: Sayo takes 1^st place in the Valentines 5k in Prospect Part, 2^nd place in women’s overall at the Greenpoint 5k (with a time of 18:19), 3^rd in her age group at the Queens Half Marathon, and places top ten in two 5k’s and the 5^th Avenue Mile. She mainly competes in “club points” races (“heart points” / non-team scoring NBR runners are toootally cool with that!)

Sayo is originally from West LA/Malibu/Pasadena/Santa Monica. She’s been a swimmer, an equestrian, and an ice skater. She now does Yoga (regular and hot), cycling, plyometrics, and apple or pear fig or peach bourbon or classic pumpkin—“a variety of other wintery potpies—what have you.”

What we have here is a musicologist runner who lives in Bushwick that can run you a 3:14:50 marathon after only a month of crash training. Perhaps not “professionally” recommended, but über gutsy, vintage NBR.

RT: That it’s the result of trauma, that it’s sadomasochism, that your knees will surely pay the price, that it’s a transposition of a previous (or repressed) worldly ambition whose requirements are grotesquely played out by training regimens – Oh, of course, this too, that’s it’s age, that one is flailing out at aging, pure and simple…what else…that it’s because you want more things in life, or that it’s because you want less things in life, or that you want to hover gloriously between wanting and not wanting, and high on that mount, that anyway, you spend way too much time, effort and desire on RUNNING.

You know what I am talking about? It seems that not a week goes by that some non-runner scoops a little bit of bad vibe our way. And much of it is not malicious or even conscious, I’d say, but we hear it, loud and clear! So we band together as runners, and celebrate and commiserate or even (and this might surprise some of our friends) express existential doubts about running.

In terms of both “tribal” and “non-tribal” dealings, how’s running feeling to you these days?

SY: Well, the majority of my friends who don’t race or run definitely think I’m crazy for the amount of time I put into this sport. What with dressing up and down, stretching, showering, and cross training, I figure I put in at least 16 hours per week. But if you ask any other runner who really wants to get faster, they’ll agree that once you start training, it’s challenging to resist the momentum that builds with it.

This year, I can confidently say that I reached a new height (or low point?) of re-dedication that would even give pause to my runner friends. So my goal for this season was originally to train for and race nothing over a 10K. The intent was to start building base in December and peak for a 5K at the end of spring.

However, the problem now is that I’m signed up for a marathon that’s right around the same time. Cheapness and stubbornness have given me little recourse but to change my plans. So now this means that I’ll be training for a successful 5K and a decent marathon that fall roughly 2 weeks apart.

I’ve been pretty anxious about these back-to-back races, but recently spoke to James Chu who’s agreed to guide me through my training this season. He’s been doling out these really punishing workouts: the kind in which you don’t even notice when clots of ice start forming in your hair because you’re running with such concentration. So far, a good number of them have been simple workouts (like 6-mile progression runs) meant to build threshold strength. One of the more interesting, “creative” workouts he’s sent me is his “VCP Sim”, meant to simulate the XC course at Van Cortlandt Park. At a glance, the workout looks like this: “WU, VCP Sim – 2 mi tempo, 0.5 jog, 8xhill, 0.5 jog, 2 mi tempo, CD.” To translate, after warming up, it starts with a 2 mi tempo, followed by a half-mile recovery, 8 hill sprints, another half-mile jog recovery, a second 2-mile tempo, and then a cool down. The hills, he says, are meant to be short (about 100m) and steep, like the ones found at Fort Greene Park, and though they’re only supposed to last for about 20 seconds each, you really start to feel it burning deep in your butt, quads, hamstrings and calves while working through the sixth one. By the second 2-mile tempo, all that lactic acid feels like lead in your legs, but such is the price for a little extra power and speed.

At this point, I can’t be too sure about how the 5K/marathon will go, but I’m excited to take on this weird challenge.

RT: I hear you, that combo of races presents an interesting problematic. I’m sure James will cook you up a variety wintry workouts to sweeten the whole deal. One of the things about “VCP Sim” (and host of other workouts by JC) is that it includes first, a quality ease-in (something to make you feel like a chrome plated cheetah), then a tough conditioning component (something to rip muscle fibers, stimulate capillary growth) followed by something to approximate race-day feel effort. That last mile of the tempo set I bet felt like mile 6 of a continuous tempo run. So there’s a conditioning aspect to the workouts, with a race-day nibblet is thrown in. But that was a nubblet!

I like this notion of “rededication” you touched on. It implies that one has lost (or traversed) a previous phase of dedication. It seems like even the mental part of running comes in cycles, akin to the physical cycles we go through. Sometimes we see a lapse in “dedication” with runners that plateau for long periods of time. At other times, we see it when people—because of busy work schedules or injury—get thrown so off their ideal version of a training cycle that they pass up on race after race.

What’s got you back into racing this time? And does it align with some phase or challenge in your non-running life?

SY: Well, when you put it that way, it’s easy for me to recognize those moments when running life and work life become coextensive to each other—especially as domains that are both voluntary and vocational, pleasurable and necessary. I hope it isn’t totally transparent that, in reaching this new phase of training, I’m somehow declaring something deeper and more personal, but you seem to have cornered me here.

I’ve struggled for the past few years with the idea of completing this degree in musicology, weighing the incredible time and energy it requires with what little economic benefits it ultimately yields. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to many of my friends who’ve already heard me complain so much about how impractical it is, and about the terrible state of the job market for new professors.

But I’m starting to reevaluate grad school: I’m recasting it in my mind as less of a giant obstacle course filled with flaming hoops and more as a kind of training ground. Psychologically, it puts me more at ease to think about the whole process as another training regiment—in the fiber-ripping, bodily-conditioning sense you describe above. So at present, I’m into this notion of following through, however ruinous it may be.

RT: I totally appreciate your candidness. One thing that our most experienced runners are saying increasingly loudly these days is that there isn’t a magic bullet workout of any one kind that will bring immediate results, but rather that conditioning happens over time, that’s it’s more of a sedimentation process. To think of one’s pursuits (or relations) in the manner of fitness through sedimentation—that attracts me.

Added to that is a core principle of any running program worth its weight in salt has to meticulously guard against injury. Oh my god—you know, I work as a coordinator in the field of Health, Safety, and the Environment. Every year, about 4 million workers in this country get injured on the job because unsafe conditions (averaging 13 deaths every single day). The combination of irrationally planned speed-ups and no time or space to talk about hazard identification, plus suppression of accident near miss reporting, all leads to the carnage. I often feel—and thanks for the wonderful word, “coextensive” deep concerns between athleticism and ergonomics. Anyway, there’s definitely a spirit of mutual aid that’s taken hold of the club and it’s awesome.

What are your current thoughts on the club as a whole? How has your relationship to the club changed over the years?

SY: Your two comments about “mutual aid” and training as a process of “sedimentation” speak well to the kind of role that NBR currently plays in my life. Beyond helping runners break through plateaus and pushing their imagined physical limits, NBR provides a supportive network of people who care for each other. Most often, they’re the rational voices who warn against the dangers of overtraining, who tell me I need more sleep, and who give me advice on strength training to prevent injury. In the end, these experienced voices are necessary because—in trying to get faster and to give something back to the club—we are, after all, putting ourselves at risk of bodily damage.

For me, this kind of nurturing atmosphere has only developed within the past year, and in hindsight I see that it vastly differs from the attitude I had when I first joined the group. I hope I’m not being too presumptuous by stating that it’s typical for new members to throw themselves into intense training regimes with the hope of reaching immediate results—there’s always a certain amount of social capital that accretes around fastness and dramatic self-improvement. The obvious problem with this approach is that it most often leads to overexertion and injury. Sure enough, this is exactly what happened to me a little over a year after joining the club.

RT: We’ve also become quite tolerant of zombies over the years; maybe not of their vomit just yet, but enlightenment once unleashed is not easily chased down and kenneled.

And speaking of brass hunting horns, the production and distribution of collective libidinal wealth, competitive thumb wrestling, and the after-after parties in a parallel universe happening right now… I am in great of need some Race Day advice from you. How do you deal with all the pre-race anxiety and the chorus of quit-demons while running?

SY: Start a very slow and measured countdown from 100 and imagine everyone there is naked.

Have you missed any of profiles 1 – 11? Check them out here.