September 15, 2020 – Perseverence

/in /by

Hey Gang!  

 

I’m still basking in the glow of the weekend where we had a crew running the Virtual Boston Marathon and a huge turnout of supporters, volunteers, pacers, to help them out. I’ve gushed about this a lot already, so I don’t want to over-gush, but I am just feeling so grateful for the community we’ve built together and for the fact that everyone takes such joy in supporting each other and being part of it.  

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the perseverance of the racers who started training for this race LAST DECEMBER. They got a huge bulk of the way into hard training for their goal when it was pulled from under them with about one month to go. It was a bummer, but no one whined or complained. When given a new option to run the race virtually 5 months later, they all figured out how to pick themselves up and keep going. That takes a huge amount of resilience and perseverance. Regardless of race outcomes, the attitude you all showed in that moment shows true character. I just had the image of the line from the Rudyard Kipling poem “IF” come to mind: “…Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.” Sort of what all of you did. 

 

Many of us are still in the “goal pulled from under us” stage for various goals. Some have gotten injured along the way (yet still 100% show up to support those who are still running), some have had a hard time landing on a new goal, and some are fine with not having an imminent goal for now. But at some point I believe we’ll all stoop and start building up again. It’s the curse of runners. We have to rebuild our fitness Every. Single. Time. Good thing we love doing that 😉 

 

 

On to workout options for this week: 

 

  1. 3-4 x 800-400-200 w 1 min bw reps, 3 mins bw sets (I like this one but feel I’m due for hills – I may try to throw it in later or it may pop up as a workout option again next week!) 
  2. Fartlek style: 4 x 3 min Hard, 1:30 Hard, 30 sec Hard w 1 min easy – 3 min bw sets 
  3. Hills!!!! (I’m going to try to add either a lil’ tempo or some 200’s after if anyone wants to join for that fun part too) Pottery or a good Beach Hill 
  4. Short hills! Let’s do these while we can before the snow falls! So good for power and form. Something like 2-3K w-up, 5-8 x Riverdale Hill, 2-3K c-dn 
  5. Tempo: 4 x 2K @ Half Mara pace w 2 min rec 

 

See ya soon!

 

Seanna