The Art of Showing Up

/in /by

Hey Everyone!!!

 

First up, if you’re looking for some jolts of inspiration, motivation and just pure entertainment, I hope you’re following the US Olympic track qualifiers happening now, and this weekend we have the Canadian trials coming up! So fun.

 

What I’ve been thinking about this week is the art of showing up. I think this matters most when we are starting out with big far away goals. Yes, we’ll have to do a lot of work – eventually, but it’s important first to set the stage. Start by committing to showing up. Count each time out as a success. Don’t measure what you did, but the fact that you did it.

 

Some of us are taking up open water swimming. It hasn’t been easy with cold water and early mornings. I know it will get easier, but my goals so far have been about just getting in the water. A few times some of us have arrived early in the morning, put on our wetsuits, gotten waist deep, and then called it. I still count those sessions as a success. Goal achieved. We showed up. We can and will build from that. But that’s the first step. We’re creating routines that we know we can do.

 

Same goes for runs. With many of us starting training schedules, we are currently creating the patterns. We will layer on the work, but what we’re doing now is creating less mental resistance for when it eventually becomes harder. Show up for your workouts, tempos and long runs. Be there. Don’t worry about what happens once you get there for now. Just be consistent. What was once hard (creating the space for a weekend long run, or getting your body up early for intervals) will become easier, and then we can focus on adding a bit to each session. But if you’re training for something that is a few months or more away, I promise you that there is not one individual session which will matter more than the overall benefits of showing up for all (or most) of them. So let’s start with a routine you know you can do again and again. If you’re feeling exhausted and beat up after a week or two, you’re starting out too hard! Go back to just showing up. It will get you there, I promise.

 

That said, I think next week will be a good time to start meeting again for Wednesday workouts! I’ll wait until then because that’s when it will be officially ok to get together outside for up to 25 people. I can’t wait to see many of you!!!

 

For this week, let’s continue to work in whatever groups are working for you and we’ll get into a good group routine soon.

 

Workouts for this week:

 

  1. Marathoners: 6 x 800 w 1:30 rest, 3 min, 2 x 400 w 1 min. The pacing of these is important. First 2 @ marathon pace – (basically a good extended warm-up); Second 2 @ ½ mara pace (~ 10 sec faster), Third 2 @ 10K pace (another 10 sec faster); 400’s @ 5K pace
  2. If training for 5K: 4 x 800 w 1:30 (2 @ ½ mara pace, 2 @ 10K pace), 3 min rec, then 4 x 400 w 1 min @ 5K pace
  3. Tempo (if not otherwise written on your plan): 5 x 6 min w 1:30

 

Have fun everyone and can’t wait to see you sooooon!!!!!

 

 

xo

 

Seanna