After taking a 3 month hiatus, I am back! I switched my focus during those months and spent more time in the gym, hopefully getting stronger. Time will tell.
During those months I was tempted to start training again for all the wrong reasons. Mainly out of fear that I would put on weight but deep down my heart was not ready to love running again. I sent Elliot another message to put off formal training for another month. I was still running, but only when I craved it. And running looked more like a warm up mile and a hard mile with a strength program wedged between. Austin summers are a tad brutal to start back up training, unless you are going for that sausage-trying-to-bust-outta- the-casing feeling. One of my runs, I finally felt like the old me. The one who felt alive. The one who was happy to be running and not concerned with metrics. It was time. We would start back up in September.
One tool I learned from Coach Dean is to find words that help me (re)focus. I am a physical learner. If at any time I feel discomfort, I have to work extremely hard to turn off my brain, embrace it and finish my run. If you have ever raced you know how rare it is to be in a feel good zone 100% of the time. I need all the help I can get when it comes to tuning out pain. Words carry a heavy weight for me. It is why I put quotes on my walls and love music so much it is constantly playing. There’s a feeling with every verse. My mood can be altered by one song. After giving it a 4 week thought, my words for this training bout are climb and patience.
CLIMB: Climb reminds me to keep going. Getting to the peak doesn’t have to mean getting to the top of a hill. It is a reminder to keep going no matter how hard or easy a run is; happy or sad I am feeling. There will be days when runs and races don’t go as planned but success comes from being able to put one foot in front of the other and doing what is necessary to get to the finish. Climb is finding the positive when every part of a run feels negative. It is not fixating on the past, but focusing on the moment. Climb is growing to be a better person, a better runner.
PATIENCE: I AM NOT A PATIENT PERSON. I place high expectations on myself and expect results immediately. Not only with running but with most things in life. I’m either all in at 100% or I want nothing to do with it. Running is a different beast. I grew up playing skilled sports (volleyball and basketball). You learn your position and you practice the skills required for said position. My main positions were setter (volleyball for those non sports folks :)) and guard (basketball). The summer before I began high school, I went to a week long setters camp. We worked our asses off. Literally. I remember not being able to walk for most of camp and getting into/out of bed looked more like a flop or roll. If you walked into the gym without your hands in what we called “ready position”, a coach would be yelling at you to hit the wall (aka wall sits) until you were excused. If a ball hit the floor without a touch, back to the wall you went. It was strict but I left with skills that would allow me to be in the regular rotation on the varsity team as the #2 setter. For a freshman who had never had any formal setting training prior to camp, this was a huge accomplishment for me. The point here is I was taught something and saw significant results immediately. Running is different. It takes time to build speed and endurance. I have struggled with being patient, with trusting the process and in races. In races I have been known to start off way too fast because I left patience at the start line. I have been frustrated during training runs because I expected something of myself that I wasn’t capable of at the time. Does not mean I won’t get there, but it’s not an overnight fix. This season, I am making being patient a priority by enjoying all aspects of training. Not only the great days.
This season I am making a promise to myself to be more gentle with my progress, to fall in love with running and appreciate what my body is capable of and less of what it is not on any given day at any given time!
Cheers!