Fresh Starts – RunningWell

Hi Everyone!

Hope you all had a great long weekend. We definitely have some Fall weather turning up – exciting! As runners, Fall is our season. It’s the reward season for all of those runs endured in the heat and humidity where our legs felt like lead and our bodies craved more water and electrolytes than we could possibly carry. More runs now should start to feel a little easier – and sometimes even shockingly pleasant!

What I’ve been thinking about is how September, for many of us, actually marks the start of a “new year”. This is the season of fresh starts. There’s an energy to the “back to school” season, whether you have kids in school or not. It occurred to me that I started the Lower East Siders (very loosely) with my sister Tanis almost exactly 10 years ago. My kids were 3 and 5 and I thought I could finally include some consistent, structured training one day a week in my routine. Now they are 13 and 15 and I’ve been doing this consistently with so many great friends and training partners almost every Wednesday since then! Some of us who started connecting through running as a support system for surviving those years with young kids are now holding onto each other even tighter as one by one those kids are leaving home to create their own lives. This is a bitter-sweet milestone if ever there was one.

If we think of September as our Running “New Year”, then it might be a good time to reflect on some intentions for your running this year. Is running going to be your background scaffolding to support you while you lean into other areas of life? Maybe you want to use running as a way to connect – to yourself, to others, to nature? Or you might be finding yourself asking – what am I capable of if I really face my doubts and fears and set a goal and try my hardest? What can I learn and develop about myself through challenge? Whichever intention speaks to you, now is a good time to set up the habits to get you there. Invite someone you haven’t run with before out for an easy run once a week, make a date with yourself to run somewhere beautiful once a week (I love the Brickworks/Moore Park Ravine this time of year), run with your soulmates often, set a goal and commit to the training to get you there – just like how I started 10 years ago – it could just be “do one hard effort a week, every Wednesday” …

Whatever goal or intention you land on for your running for this year, we are here to support each other and cheer each other on and sweat, laugh, cry, complain, celebrate together. We don’t all have to be doing it for the same reasons in order to support each other. And the reason you started might not be the same reason you keep going. In the past 10 years we’ve run through new parenthood, changing jobs, new relationships, new homes, kids growing up and leaving, illnesses, injuries, many personal bests, just as many personal worsts, a pandemic! … Who knows what the next 10 years will bring. All I know is that I’m going to hold on tight and hopefully keep running with this crew!!! Happy Running New Year everyone.

Onto tomorrow’s workout: Let’s do a fartlek on the spit and we can follow-up with hills next week (some ppl have races coming up this weekend)

Meet at Lakeshore and Leslie for 6:05 drills, 6:15 Go time.

8 min tempo, 3 min easy, up to 6 x 2 min Faster, 1 min Easy

We’ll regroup on the easy sections and I’ll bring my watch that beeps every minute so we’re all in synch.

If racing the Longboat 5K or 10K or Yorkville 5K, let’s just keep it the same. This is a “training through” race for most I believe.
If doing the Erie Marathon (Andrew!) – 8 min @ MRP, and 2-3 x 2 mins a little quicker.

That is all – see you in the am!

Seanna