Tuesday, May 21, 2024 – Talent

Hi Everyone!

Hope you all had a great long weekend! What a glorious one for weather. We deserve this. Whether you’re walking, running, biking or swimming – get outside! This is one of the benefits of having shuffled on ice or struggled on treadmills or sweated in place on trainers – we can now appreciate moving our bodies while unlocking all our other senses. Enjoy!!!

What I’ve been thinking about recently is talent. What it means and how it shows itself. Our culture is obsessed with identifying and exploiting early talent. We look for early signs of someone being good at something, and take that as a signal that they will continue to be good and will rise to the top. Sometimes this is the case. But most of the time, the people who become really good at something, have developed or exploited different “talents” along the way.

In running, some people (kids or adults) show early success. They can run fast with relative ease, respond to training quickly, and their early success is identified as talent. But when we look at the end game and who has become successful, most often it is those who did not have early success. They wouldn’t have been deemed talented out of the gates. But their talents were there – just less visible. Some peoples’ talent is their ability to train super consistently. This is a crucial talent which many people who see early success don’t develop, but turns out to be critical for later success. Some peoples’ talent is their ability to ride the ups and downs and bounce back again and again from bad races. I was mentioning that to someone recently. I have had more bad races than I can count, and so many times I’ve just wanted to say “eff this – it isn’t worth it”. But something in me has kept me going, and after each one I’ve also had some of my best races. Is being bone-headed a talent? I might have that one. But seriously – picking yourself up after failure is crucial to longterm success – probably more important than early indicators of being able to run fast.

 Dakotah Lindwurm made the US Olympic team in the marathon this year. She is 29 years old and has been training and running since she was a teenager. As a teenager she had very unremarkable times. She would not have been deemed talented. When she went to university she joined the team as a walk-on – meaning they did not recruit or sign her, but allowed her to train with the team. Now clearly she had a talent. She is now one of the fastest marathoners in the US and is going to the Olympics. But it wasn’t early speed or progress and wasn’t visible to most coaches or onlookers. Maybe it was determination or self-belief or resilience or just years upon years of training which took that long to express itself.

The funny thing is, we know this deep down, and based on data and stats – early performers often aren’t the long-lasting successful ones – but we can’t help but look for and investing in it anyway. The downfall to that for early performers is it can lead to a fixed mindset vs. growth mindset which is limiting and hard to get out of. But those aren’t the people I want to reach with this message. It’s the people who don’t think they’re “talented” or have had a bad race or two and are questioning themselves. I want those people to know that even though your talent may not be imminently apparent, it is there. Keep going. You will discover it along the way. Don’t let society or social media culture or comparison to others throw you off. You’re on the right course. If your talent is outlasting them all until you’re 90, they will all look back and say “she did it the right way”. No one knows until you do the thing. And then they say “that is how it should be done”. So believe in yourself and believe in your talent. We are all talented.

On to tomorrow’s workout! I’m pushing hills back one week to next week. If you can, add some hill strides to an easy run this week, and choose a hillier route for your long run. Tomorrow we’ll meet at Lakeshore and Leslie – 6:05 Drills, 6:15 GO!

1. 4 x 800 w 1:30 rest. 3 min rest. 4 x 400 w 1:15 rest. 3 min rest. 4 x 200 w 1 min rest. Starting at 5K pace for the 800’s and working down.
2. If running the TO Women’s Half (Sam and Chloe!) – taper workout = 800 at HM race pace, 2 x 400 a lil quicker.

That is all – see you in the am!

xo

Seanna