Tuesday, August 20, 2024 – Experience

Hi Everyone!

Congrats to Monica and Bob G who raced the TrackSmith 5K on Saturday, both breaking the 20 min mark! That was run under very humid conditions, so way to go guys. We’ve been battling through a lot of heat and humidity, and every now and then we get a break, and boy, you notice it! Whenever running feels so good with a cool break, I am always grateful for having trained through the hot bits – otherwise it wouldn’t feel like such an advantage when it gets cool. Just another reminder that we need the polarities in life.

What I’ve been thinking about this week is experience – and how we can undervalue it, but how much it counts for. It’s funny. We can look at data and metrics and potential and think: with these abilities, this person should be able to accomplish this. And sometimes they can and they do. But usually, not right off the bat. There is a reason why teams send young athletes to international and Olympic competitions when they likely won’t medal. It’s so that they can gain the experience they will need to become more successful later. Experience is not something that can be coached or read about to be learned. As the name implies – it has to be lived in order to be obtained. I often think about this when I coach. Athletes can follow a plan and become fitter and get faster. If there were some big, obvious gaps from where they were to what we’re adding, results will come. But often, what they really need is just some time and experience doing the thing. Understanding what it feels like to run at a certain effort for a certain amount of time, or what their bodies can do when they line up to race. These things aren’t given based on metrics. They take going through the process again and again in order to get better at it.

I’m currently helping to teach my teenager to drive. It’s an eye-opening (and mildly terrifying) experience. He’s read the books, taken the tests, watched others drive for many many hours. But he lacks practical experience – and the only way to get it is to do it. He is stronger and faster than me, has better eyesight than me, quicker reflexes, and is very motivated. But still…. he’s a way worse driver. Things that I thought were intuitive –like noticing break lights 5 cars ahead and starting to slow down – are obviously not, as he continues to accelerate towards the oncoming lurching stop. I’ve been driving for over 30 + years. I forget what I once didn’t know and forget that these things have to be experienced in order to be learned. He needs to spend time accumulating data through imperfect and sometimes perfect execution.

The same is true for runners. Every experience becomes a data point which informs us. Bad races are a data point. Good races are a data point. Training too hard, not getting enough sleep, running well rested, running in the heat, running in the cold, running after strength training, getting injured, running in a body that’s ageing… We are all continually learning and becoming more experienced. We are becoming experts at running in our bodies. None of this is intuitive. Every experienced runner will have to go through all of these things. Are we all becoming better runners? Depends what we mean by better. We’re not all getting faster, that’s just impossible after a certain point. But I do think that the more we do it, the better we get at understanding what brings out the best in us. If that’s a race result, the experience of joyful running, the ability to make running complement our lives… we’re getting better at all of that for sure. If you’re newer to this running thing, be patient with yourself. It takes time to figure it all out. Try to go into each experience with an open and curious mind, and try to embrace the good and the bad, the hard and the easy, because it is all just making you wiser and better.

On to tomorrow’s workout: we’re back to hills! Pottery Road for the Leslieville/Riverdale Crew, Glen Manor if you’re closer to the Beach. (unless you’re racing in the next week or two in which case I’ll give you your own workout – msg me if any q’s)

Pottery Rd hills – we meet anywhere between 6 and 6:30, and just start doing them when we get there – less formal meet up time.

Glen Manor hills – meet at the bottom of Glen Manor at 6:00 am.

The workout: back to sets of 1 full (400m), 1 half (200m), 4 min tempo. 2-3 sets. Note: 4 is a LOT. If after 3 you still have some mojo, you can add any combination for the end (ie. Just a full or half or tempo).

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

xo

Seanna