Tuesday, August 26, 2025 – Be here now

Hi Everyone!

I don’t think there were any running races this past weekend. Don’t forget to send your results in to me if you do race! Coming up the weekend after this we have the Yorkville 5K as well as the Georgina Half and Full! And the perfect racing weather has arrived just in time.

This week is the last week of summer. As if I needed to remind anyone. Everyone is off to university, or getting ready for a new grade in school, or getting prepared to head back into the office a lot more. It’s a change of seasons and a change of routines and activities. We all approach this with different mindsets. Some love the energy of fall and fresh starts, some feel nostalgia for the summer and lack of structure which already feel in the past, some have a bit of dread for the oncoming winter, some look forward to the cozy shortening of the days. Count me as having a little bit of all of these feelings. Transitions are great because they help us appreciate where we’ve been, and plan for where we’re going. But it’s important to remember to not always look ahead and behind, but to sometimes appreciate fully being where we are. I came across a quote to this end by philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau:

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”

Basically – be where you are now. There are pluses and minuses to every season and stage, so just fully immerse yourself in the one you’re in.

I was trying to embrace this concept as I did my first long(ish) run this week. After enjoying a season of short, fast running, with low mileage followed by a week off, my long run did not feel like it had when I had left it a few months ago. My usual impulse to pick up the pace and enjoy the effort of speedy flow did not kick in the way I remembered. I felt tired early on and my legs were not flowing and did not want to keep going. Which was a bummer. But then I reminded myself “just be where you are”. I do not regret the season I just had. I hadn’t been doing long runs because I needed to focus my running energy elsewhere. And I don’t regret my week off because my body needed to heal and rest up and recover. I know I now have to build in order to get into a different kind of shape. This is just the season I am in. And with running, we might all be experiencing different seasons at different times. So we can’t compare with each other either. I remember listening to professional marathoner and Olympian Des Linden talking about the process of getting into marathon shape. She said, there are weeks on end where you’re not in the shape you need to be and it’s just a lot of grinding and working and wondering if you’ll get there. Then there are about two weeks where it all comes together and you feel fit. Then you have to taper and you feel awful. Then you race. Then you have to let yourself get out of shape in order to start over from the beginning. In about a 12-14 week span, there are hopefully about 2 weeks that you’re where you want to be. She had a humorous philosophical take on it, which I guess you’d have to if you made it your life’s career, and I found it very relatable. So instead of thinking about how fit I once was, or wishing I was a few weeks ahead in fitness, I’m going to just be where I am, breathe this air, and live in this season. Because all we know for certain is that this too will fade away and become something else.

Good luck to all the back-to-schoolers, leaving for university-ers and back-to-the office-ers! We got this.

On to tomorrow’s workout: Hills + Tempo!

It’s cooler now, so we can keep including the longer hill. Let’s keep it the same as last time with 1 long (400m), 1 short (200m), and 4 min tempo. Beachers at Glen Manor, Riverdalians at Pottery Road.

That is all – see you in the a.m.!

Seanna