Caring – RunningWell

Hey Everyone!

Happy day-after Halloween! Hope everyone had a fun, spooky and candy filled day. No races were run this past weekend, but coming up we have New York (Lori) and Hamilton (Sean and Zoë in the Full and Shauna, Steph, Elese, Andrew H in the Half). Good luck all and please set up a time w me to chat race plan if we haven’t already!

I’ve been thinking this week about how much we care about our running. It is a great thing, but also a double-edged sword. One of those tricky things in life which we constantly have to work on and self-monitor to get it right. Caring is great as it provides meaning and leads to learning and growth. Caring too much, and attaching so much meaning and self-worth to results that it becomes scary or paralyzing to try hard or race, can be a problem. Sometimes it’s good to remember: it’s just running.

In high school I cared a lot. I trained with a club and ran “for serious” while many kids entered our regional inter-scholastic races “for fun”. I can remember feeling envious of them. I wanted to be able to run “for fun”. Of course, I loved to run and train and race, but I also wanted to not care as much as I did. I wanted to be able to laugh and goof around and enjoy the day instead of being a stressed-out ball of nerves where only the outcome would determine whether I would be happy or not. My goal became to learn how to keep what I loved about training and racing, but learn how to become one of the more laid-back kids who didn’t seem to torture themselves the same way I did.

I care. Of course I care. We all care. We’ve all heard those people who say to us “I wish I could do what you do”. And you think, “well, if you cared, you would”, and you think how lucky you are that you’ve found something you care about.

I’m sure we’ve all also experienced those races where we’re standing on the start line full of nerves and adrenaline, and we look back at the fun-runners laughing and chatting or still wandering around, not worried to miss the start, and we think “that must be nice”. But we can’t go back. We care, damnit. And there are so many good things that come with caring. So, we just have to continually work on that balance. There is no easy answer – it’s just self-discovery. Keep it in that zone of caring enough, but not too much. I’ve been working on it for over 30 years and the pendulum still swings too far sometimes one way or the other. I feel for the most part I’ve found the balance, but I guess I’m also ok with the roller-coaster.

“If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;” – Rudyard Kipling

On to tomorrow’s workout – we’re back to hills!!! (racers – scroll down for your workout)

I’ll keep the tempo bits out for now. Those are great to add in when we’re in race-mode, but I think most of us are back to base-mode.

Pottery Road: Steady. 5-8 x full hill. Steady up, easy down (fast down sometimes has a purpose but really risks injury, so for now, easy). Get there any time and launch into it. I usually arrive around 6:05-6:10-ish.

Beach Hill: 5-8 x 400m steady up, easy down. (coordinate timing w Tanis if doing this one).

Half Marathon racers: 2 x 800 @ race pace w 2 min rest. 2-4 x 400 a tad quicker, but NOT 5K pace with 1:30 rest.

Marathon racers: Can do the same thing (will be slower obviously) – or opt for sleep in and 3-4 x 60 second pick-ups in a run. Sleep might serve you better at this point.

That is all – see some of you in the am!

Seanna