Perseverance

SNAPSHOT

Expect Pain

DIGGING DEEPER

Kristen’s Story

Remembering a snippet from a conversation at the summer pool enabled Kristen to train for her first marathon. “It is ok to feel pain while and after running.  However, you don’t want it to get out of hand and change your running stride,” were the words that kept her on track to obtain her goal.

Yes, I said it will hurt to run.  Your body is not accustomed to jumping from one foot to the other in a continual quick motion.  You are shocking it.  Even if you have run ten miles before and are only running one more extra mile, your body has not run this extra mile recently or perhaps even ever.  It is ok to feel pain.  You will make it.  Keep putting one foot in front of the other and you will reach the end.

However, there is a bad pain that is not good.  It leads to injury.  You will know if it is a bad pain if it causes you to change your stride or limp.  At this point stop running and seek rest and help. It does not mean that you are done running forever and need to lay on the couch for the next two weeks in mourning. If often means your training will change to cross-training until your amazing body heals itself.

For the pains that are not changing your stride try this method. When you have pain, pause and stretch the area.  Try to relieve the pain.  Then attempt to run again. 

If your pain decreased, continue for your allotted distance.  

Pain that increases will change how you land or move through the air, causing a more serious injury. This is the point where you rest and seek professional help.

Runners persevere through hardship and strive forward through pain and discomfort.  The reward is worth the effort.

SOLUTION  

Your determination will yield rewards, but be wise.

Share with me your perseverance stories by clicking comment below. I am so curious.

No Days Off

SNAPSHOT

No Days Off encompasses awareness, honesty, and devotion.

DIGGING DEEPER

"KEEP YOURSELF HONEST...No Days Off is not a race towards your physical breaking point, but rather a call for moderation – a daily greasing of the groove where today’s run is only as important as what you are able to do tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that . . ." Tracksmith

I have fallen in love with the concept of being aware of your body's needs every day.  To care for your body and mind with honesty and devotion.

My body does not need to run 365 days a year but it does need to recovery from yesterday and prepare for tomorrow. I strongly suggest for a runner to have days off from running, to give the body rest.  It is only during rest that the body can repair itself and prepare for the same feats in the near future.

However, there is also a need for perseverance and devotion in order to strengthen the body and mind.  We need to run often in order to increase our abilities. Running most days for an intermediate runner causes the correct amount of adaptions.  It is when a runner gets too greedy and doesn't allow for recovery that injury and exhaustion occur.

The fine line between these two zones of recovery and training is where awareness and honesty keep us healthy. Awareness of how much we are asking of the body and the need to rest in order to become stronger keep us from overtraining.  An honest look at our weaknesses, and devotion to continue when we don't feel like it, pulls us up to our potential.

When training a runner, I seek to balance to training and recovery.  Here is a sample of an average week for an average runner that I coach.

Look at how hard days of running are balanced with easier days.  Notice that there are two days of no running but instead, they are replaced with either core strength or active recovery.  Every day the runner is progressing toward their potential and yet giving the body and mind the rest that is needed.  

Special Note: Please don't use this training schedule next week.  This runner has spent many months preparing themselves for this volume and intensity of running.  On the other side, don't be afraid of it.  This runner was not a runner one year ago.

RECOMMENDATION

I recommend using Tracksmith's No Days Off Desk Calendar or Poster.  I am giving them away on my Facebook live video on New Year's Day!

This instrument can help to keep you aware of your devotion through honestly evaluating if you cared for your body that day.  If you ran when you needed a run, then mark the calendar.  If you performed your yoga or Pilates routine in order to give yourself core strength and active recovery then mark the calendar.  On the day you truly needed an hour laying comfortably while reading instead of pounding the pavement then mark the calendar.  

The day you don't mark the calendar is when you turned away from your planned training or recovery to eat nachos and feel guilty. There will be the next day when you can accomplish and mark your calendar as a reward for your awareness, honesty, and devotion.

SOLUTION

Every day embark upon becoming stronger through either running or recovering. 

The Elusive Sense of Balanced

SNAPSHOT

Life feels crazy and out of control. 

DIGGING DEEPER

As we are tossed and turned by the winds of the day, we seek peace through balance.  There is a constant striving for that mystical equilibrium that evades our senses.  We say, I will shore up this pillar, I will wind around this trail in just the right way.  I can find a way to be balanced.  Yet, our fault is trying to control the circumstances instead of controlling our focus.  There will always be distractions, disappointments, and disasters, but it is where your eyes and mind are focused, that keeps the balance. 

Seeking to balance with all four limbs on a large therapy ball, I noticed the parallel to the balancing that happens in my life.  Distractions by my son pounding into the room or the dump truck rumbling through the streets right outside my window, try to pull my mind away from the balancing exercise.  I crash to the floor with the ball ending above me. A mess.

Remember the key to balancing is starting with your intention on a focal point.  Specifically, that one corner of the sofa, or flower in the design of the rug, can gather all your attention.  Balance is all about that focal point.  There will be distractions, no matter how much you try to eliminate them. There will be disappointments no matter how positive you will yourself to be.  Sadly disasters will befall you and those you love.  Those elements surrounding, you can not control.  However, you can control what you focus on.  The tossing and turning you are feeling in the rough waters of life are because you are losing your focus.

So what to focus on?  Focus on what is valuable to you.  What inspires and leads you? For me it is God.  When I have my focus on God, then I am balancing.  Note I did not say balanced.  We are NEVER going to be absolutely balanced.  The earth is turning and you must always adjust.  However, you can be balancing.  When on the ball in my living room, I can be balancing for minutes.  I can be in a state of balancing.  It is active and takes my whole mind.  I sift out the sounds and movements around me.  I know what is happening and care about those circumstances.  I am aware, but I don’t take my eye off my focal point.  

RUNNING FOCUS

How does this happen in running?  Your focus may be a particular goal race that you are training for.  When a long workday, seasonal sickness, or a small injury, keep you from a planned run, don’t toss in the towel.  Keep your eyes on the goal race and make the needed adjustments to your training plan and continue on.

Last week just after reaching a new level of fitness, I pulled a shin muscle and needed 5 days off from running.  I was not panicked. Patience and wisdom guided my actions and thoughts. Instead of worrying, I enjoyed the extra hours of reading, knowing that I would soon be back on the road with little time to read. With my eyes on my goal of a strong base mileage phase of training, I knew the rest was going to be good for my body.  Balancing through the ups and downs of training can keep me on the path to accomplishments. 

The craziness of a family of six

PARENTING FOCUS

How does this happen in parenting?  Your focus may be to raise your children to be contributing adult citizens to their community.  There comes that disappointing decision your child made. Your heart is hurt and you are embarrassed. Don’t throw in the towel and say all is lost and you failed as a parent. Instead remind yourself that it is an up and down journey for your child and keep focused on the goal of raising them to be a contributing citizen.

SOLUTION

Balance with calmness by having your eyes on the focal point.

June 2011

The Training Secret

Bridge of Flowers 10K 

SNAPSHOT

Slightly undertrained with daily recovery and consistency are the secrets to success.

DIGGING DEEPER

Do you wonder what the secret workout is that gets runners to the podium?  It is not so secret as you may think.  In addition, the method is not just for the elite.  

It is quite simple to explain. Train the body to adapt at it's highest possible rate without causing too much trauma or stress. Allow the adaptation to occur under the most optimal recovery circumstances.  All the while adding each adaptation upon each other without setbacks or plateaus, therefore creating a consistent training year.

Theresa Loomis racing in the YMCA 10 miler in May 2016.

The complexity is in the individual differences between each human.  One runner's maximum weekly mileage is another runner's low level. Each body is unique in its making and ability to withstand the pressures of running. We all need different amounts and elements to recover optimally.  The stress of our life intervenes with consistent training.

So what does this all boil down to?  How do you get faster, better, stronger?  Listen to your body. With the knowledge that slightly undertrained with daily recovery and consistency are the secrets to success, do as your body needs.  Train hard using your internal motivation, tread carefully the rest of the 23 hours of the day in order to recover, and plan carefully causing a consistent training schedule.

It is simple yet complex.  This is where turning to a coach will improve your running. A running coach keeps you on the right track towards appropriate training and adequate recovery.  They should be sensitive to your recovery at the same time challenging you just enough to cause adaptation and increased fitness.  A coach sets out your training plans and keeps you accountable.

Your finish time should not dictate whether you deserve a coach.  Whatever level you are running at, you still need someone to guide you. I have a coach.  Even this coach needs a coach to run optimally and to reach her potential. Reach out to a runner around you that inspires and encourages you.  Ask them to guide you through a successful 2017.

SOLUTION

Secret exposed, what are you going to do with it?

SIT SIT SIT

SNAPSHOT

Oh sitting, how you have crept into my day.

DIGGING DEEPER

During breakfast, traveling, desk work, waiting room, coffee with a friend, phone call, lunch, dinner, kids' swimming and soccer practices, and on the sofa, we sit, sit, sit.  Look deeply at the normal physical routines of your day. Does sitting consume your body’s day? 

Throw running into the equation, which relies heavily on the hamstrings, glutes, and core to move the body forward, and you have a combination for lower back pain.

The one semi-heavy object that you lifted that caused you to drop to the floor and live on the couch for a few days wasn't the culprit.  It was weeks or months of strain and weakened muscles shouting, “I QUIT!” 

Sitting with a ninety-degree bend in each of the hips and knees creates a strain on the hamstring and glutes.  It also weakens the surrounding muscles since they go unused for many hours of the day. You can imagine and feel the damage of sitting.

I am not taking this battle sitting down and am seeking a healthy restful position to impact this world. This is my change list:

• Sit in the lotus position whenever possible
• Stand when on the computer 
• Keep a straight back when sitting, with my shoulders on by back
• Stroll throughout my thinking and talking periods of the day
• Pilates class once a week
• No screen time after 8 pm

Recommended Book- Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World by Kelly Starrett

SOLUTION

Copy this list and stick it near your computer for a reminder of avenues to better physical health.