Fueling Persistance

SNAPSHOT

Jealously, anger, and pride don't motivate me beyond the emotional moment. However, I still am a highly motivated person. It is an internal drive that persists on its own accord.  

DIGGING DEEPER

Yesterday, I considered writing a finish time and name on a sticky note and placing it on my bathroom mirror. I wanted to keep my focus on a certain goal to be better than a particular person's best race.  She doesn't know that I placed a target on her back.  And I am sure she does not care one little bit whether I will ever beat her PR. She probably doesn't even remember me at all.  But I have a grudge and wish I could show that I am just as valuable and accomplished. Moments later, I snapped back into reality and acknowledged that trying to fuel my motivation with jealousy wasn't going to last more than one workout, or perhaps not even a half of a workout.  Jealously just doesn't motivate me through a season.  Plus, all the bad feelings certainly don't build my character or make me happy.  You can safely assume I don't have any sticky notes on my bathroom mirror.

At a running party, an unnamed older male once made a comment about me looking pregnant (I WAS NOT PREGNANT, but just had eaten a big meal.) and that if I was not pregnant then how could I not be super skinny and still fast.  He showed up the next Monday to run with the local running group.  I, still offended, kept my mouth shut and let's say ran a bit faster than usual. And the group stuck with the faster pace and the unnamed man may have been quite sore the next day. My anger toward him could only last so long and I would have to forgive him so that it did not eat me up on the inside. I could have used that comment to become obsessed with training hard and turning into the runner body that he expected. However, my motivation for running would have stemmed from anger, not joy.  Who wants to run with someone that is angry and bitter?

"What are you training for?" I get this question posed to me over and over. Usually, after they hear of my last long run distance or when I add in a few miles after they finished running.  I respond with, "Nothing, just running."  I am not training for an accomplishment to announce to the world. Some people don't fall into the trap of pride, but it looms closely over my head.  I need to keep from boasting and my head swelling up with pride.  So I don't often articulate all my future wishes and declare all my victories. I know that there are so many many many runners better than me and that my victory is really just for me to enjoy. 

Alrighty then where in the world does my motivation come from?  I have been dwelling on this thought throughout the last month as I have hit some new highs in my recent training.  I think how did I accomplish that? How come I didn't give up and end the run early or even when planned?  How did I run for so long by myself for no race-specific reason? Why am I the only one out here on Lollipop Lane sprinting 160 meters every Tuesday? 

Explaining motivation is like the struggle to bottle up a child's excessive energy. It is abstract, individual, and ever-changing. All I can do is share some of the bubbles above my head as I have covered the miles throughout my town this spring/summer.  

"Just run for 10 minutes, I can always walk home if I hate the run."

"Run for 40 minutes then this run can be used as a restorative run for my body. Thirty minutes is only a recovery, but ten more minutes will get me into the restorative area."

"Perhaps I will find a new friend while out running. Might as well try."

"One-second faster. Can I run this next sprint just one second faster?"

"This conversation with my running friend is so interesting that I don't want to stop running and lose out on the friendship time."

"I have to keep up with her because I can't admit how hard it is to run this pace."

"Get as far from home as possible and then I get to run home without the using up motivation currency because I have to get home somehow and running will get me to a cold drink of water faster than walking."

"If I get too far away from home and I get too tired, I will just call my husband or son to come and pick me up in a car." I did have to get picked up last month because I couldn't make it home in time to leave for my son's soccer tournament.

"1:25:00 is way too close to 1:30:00, which is the Lydiard claimed boundary for a long run. I can always run 5 more minutes."

"If I have run for 12 miles, why not just go to 16 miles. It is like only running a 4-mile run, forgetting the past 12. And 16 will give me new longest run record for this year."

"I will be proud of myself when I am done. I can tell my kids how far or fast I ran today."

See my motivation has turned from outward circumstances to internal ways to positively challenge myself. I don't need to chase a race finish time or an opponent to become more fit or faster than last year.  I use knowledge and grit to take my body to the next level.  And if I don't race much this year or do race but the finish times don't reflect my fitness, it won't matter. Because I trained for myself and challenged myself and grew stronger in my body, mind, and heart. I am happy running: short, long, slow, or fast.

SOLUTION

Develop your running character to lead a rich running life.

"We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Bible Romans 5:3-4

Image Exposed

Disclaimer: This post has sat in my draft box for over a year.  I didn't have the courage to release it until now.  After witnessing well-known runners approach this topic, it is time we expose our stories too.  I applaud them and want to support the movement to open up the topic of running and body size. Their take on the issue is valuable.  Please check out their posts.

SNAPSHOT

My fight with my image.

DIGGING DEEPER

I remember this day, this race.  I fell apart. My mind, following my body, fell apart also. It was after a long training season where I had run all the correct training, hitting workout after workout. I had worked so hard in every running way to be a faster half marathoner.  However, the PR race didn't happen.  I still had a quick finish time but it did not match my faster training level.

At this final race of the training season, my body called my bluff and I suffered.  For the month after the race, I was barely able to run 3 miles at a time.  I had fallen off the cliff.  My friend, Joe, has always told me that, "If I tried to lose too much weight, I would lose what made me a good runner, my strength." 

Fast forward a few years...

It wasn't until I was scrolling through the old photos that I saw this picture of me in a new light. It is just crazy to me that every other time I saw this picture I didn't see how empty I looked.  How unhealthy I had become.  When this picture was taken I had stopped eating red meat and limited my calories below the amount needed to run up to 80 miles a week. Sleep at night had been put off and reduced to 6 hours.  None of these habits were what my body needed in order to recover from my training.

Take a closer look.

You may look at this picture and say, you don't look that skinny to be unhealthy.  Pause, who are you comparing me to? Are you comparing me to a different body type? Only compare me to me.

My body has a natural body weight where it functions correctly.  Once at a certain body fat percentage and on a reduced calorie consumption rate, I don't lose fat, I lose muscle, valuable muscle. That muscle is what powers me for miles through a race.

I have already ran this experiment several times in my life. Skinnier does not equal stronger. For every pound of weight you lose, 70 percent is fat, 30 percent is muscle. When I am not properly refueling my body or sleeping enough during training, my body gives strong signs that I am compromising my health. Read up on the Female Triad here and here and here.

It started years ago...

My college assistant coach, with good intentions, pinched and measured and plotted out my size then declared, "lose 10 pounds."  No education, no help, no better access to healthy food came with that prescription.  So I did what every logical college freshman would do, limited my calories to under 1,000 per day while training and competing. However, it didn't work for me. The weight scale didn't change. I had hit my own individual natural weight limit. I felt like a failure. I had to give up and try to hide that "extra" ten pounds.

So I have hidden those 10 pounds ever since. Afraid.

I often feel skinny enough when around the normal population.  However, when with competitive runners, I know I am the largest. I have to look at pictures to see what I really look like. I hide the ones that show an unflattering belly. Keeping the photos that got just the right angle, which has become harder after four c-sections.

Do you see what I see?

When I look at this picture I see a weak and frail runner, and not just because it was at the end of half marathon.  I see my body stripped of Shelly Strength.  A thin Shelly is not a stronger faster runner.   

This gets to the core of my self-image and desire to be skinny.  I have talked with friends that are "runner skinny" (super skinny) and they still seek to be even smaller.  They tell of the loss of energy and muscle and therefore no better race results.  It is an illusion that if you are skinny, you will be a fast runner or even more beautiful.  

It is true that the fewer pounds to move over a race distance, the less energy required. However, you need muscle to move over the ground. What will you do if you don't have muscle power at the end of the race when your opponent is blazing by you, is it really worth it?  

Is it really worth it to be constantly hungry and continually punishing yourself by not refueling? Do you love a finishing time or place more than the body that God gave you? Does your body truly deserve to be punished?

I don't want to be a deprived runner.  

I accept my strong body. I am thankful for my body that grew and gave birth to four incredible, make me cry with happiness, children. I stride forward to forge the road for runners that are strong mentally and physically. I am a competitive runner, one who competes to be better than I was last year.  I train and treat my body in a respectful way, honoring its strengths. 

It was 20 years ago that I joined a college team in which I ran and lived with runners that had eating disorders.

It has taken all of those 20 years to recover from the damage and to have a realistic view of beauty and strength as a runner. I declare my body as wonderfully made!

How do you punish your body?

Do you appreciate your strengths?

Do treat your body as valuable? 

SOLUTION

BE YOU!  Be the wonderfully made YOU! Like yourself.

The real Strong Shelly two years ago at the end of a half marathon.

Not Just a Daily Run

SNAPSHOT

A daily run is so much more than just a few miles on a road, it is the peaceful moments that cultivate who I am.

DIGGING DEEPER

Many miles into my 6 am weekday run I spy an older woman in her dark long pants and white shirt. Sheltered by a sunhat she is bent over engrossed within her morning work of weeding. Her box of tools consisting of a spade, hoe, and trowel was within feet of her position. She never looked up, just kept bent over, nurturing her garden. The hot August sun did not give her a break even in the early morning hours. We were the two lonely people out working in the morning air as the early sun rose.

I was caught off guard because she was in a huge field that at a one person weeding rate would be endless. Why was she working so hard at something so repetitive and vast that it seemed meaningless?

Suddenly, I was struck by the reality that I too was a lonely gardener weeding my vast field.  Having not seen another runner in the town at that early morning hour for the past week. I was that one runner that encircled the small Minnesota town without skipping a wake-up call. Each step was another weed pulled, each morning's run was another row in the field.  With each November becoming my fall season of harvest.  The planning of the spring,  hot summer runs, and the never giving up attitude of a sport that goes for all 12 months, is my gardening.

Many would have driven their cars quickly by on their way to work without even a glance over the field.  No one would notice a lonely gardener in a field that machines should tend to. Her work only had meaning for herself.  As my work only has meaning for myself, valuing my own harvest without performances worthy of notice.

I was adding up 12,000 weeds pulled or steps taken each morning.  Why was I so diligent at this meaningless or meaningful work? After each breath in, I was breathing out stress, frustration, sadness, and worry. Without those releases, I would be bound and chained by my life's disappointments and inconsistencies.  The release of expectations and the birth of new creative solutions made my day approachable.  By halfway through my hour tending my garden, my body, I felt alive again. I could see beauty and knew my diligence would reap rewards. 

My 6am gardener in a sunhat with her garden tools near at hand and I are one and the same.  When I rise in the dark and kept moving toward the door and trail beckoning my name, my gardener and I rise together, step together, knowing that our diligence will reap the fall harvest.

SOLUTION

Not alone in my vast garden.

Press Play

SNAPSHOT

PODCASTS = Top Platform for gathering knowledge on running and life!

DIGGING DEEPER

Since 2013 PODCASTS have enlightened, informed, entertained, and challenged me as a runner. Some of my top reads have come from podcast author interviews. The relaxed nature allows for the conversations in the podcast to be realistic and eye-opening. The FREE aspect gives me the opportunity to sample different tenants of our sport. I have learned so much about ultrarunning, strengthening, training connections of different sports, psychology, injury, running form, the health of the Track and Field sport, coaching, etc...

Here are the sports mainstays that fill my queue and ears.

The Strength Running Podcast

Endurance coaching topics with many author interviews

The GAINcast

Old school coaching meets innovative theory

Magness & Marcus on Coaching

The insides of elite coaching and the sport of Track and Field/ Cross Country

Trail Runner Nation

Ultrarunning conversations galore, you will think you are on a long run with friends

The Rich Roll Podcast

In-depth interviews on life and endurance running

I navigate through the recent episode lists finding those that appeal to me. Often listening to them in the background of my run, drive, or housework.

SOLUTION

Download your device's Podcast app and press play.

Question for YOU

What podcasts do you recommend?

CHANGING THE WORLD by Passing On the Joy of Running

SNAPSHOT

How can you introduce and include running in a child's formable years?  Freedom

Run alongside a child this week. You will change their world.

DIGGING DEEPER

Set aside your usual view of children's running and foster a theory of freedom. Children intuitively train their bodies through the phases of early growth. From rolling to walking to running from you, they challenge their bodies to develop stronger muscles and greater stamina. The child who falls asleep half way through his or her dinner has eaten just enough to let the need for sleep take over. This is intuitive and natural. They know when to rest and when to play. Read more of the Passing on the Joy of Running, Adirondack Sports article.

SOLUTION

Share the benefits of movement with the young around you.  Volunteer and support groups that provide running teams for children. See links below for local youth programs. 

Girls on the Run 

Just Run

USATF Adirondack Association

I must add STEM RUNNING to the list even though they are a group for adults.  They are passing on the joy of running with great passion!