Love Letters to My Crew

I love my body

July 6, 2022/in Love Letters 2022/by RWadmin

Hi All!

Happy June! We have the longest days of the year coming up now – enjoy the light! Speaking of longest days, there are a few LES teams registered for the Longest Day Ekiden relay at the spit on the 21^st. It’s a fun community event that brings running clubs together. Check out our fbook page for details or if you’re not on fbook email me and I’ll send you detes.

Recently I’ve been thinking about how grateful I am for my body. Training is so cool because you can actually see in real time the adaptations that your body has made. I’ll admit I am only noticing this in swimming and biking because after 30+ years of running, I might be at the diminishing visible returns end of work/adaptation. But I just think it’s so neat to see yourself be able to do something that a year or even months go you could never fathom doing. Just by introducing the gradual stress to your body! Your good old body says “ok – if this is what you’re up to, I’ll help you out”. And it gets to work in building more mitochondria, more nerve pathways to your muscles, thicker muscle fibres, more capillaries to help you to go further …

I like thinking of my body as my friend. Sure, sometimes I’m disappointed when she doesn’t perform as I’d planned, but she’s trying! There is no little muscle fibre or nerve pathway that isn’t firing and doing their job to keep me alive. Our systems don’t know the difference between running a race for fun and running from a bear – once you have adrenaline and start to run, millions of coordinated cells go into action and give their lives in doing the best job they can. I have so much gratitude for that. Our bodies’ only goal is our survival and success in life.

And yet we abuse them. We sometimes ingest things we shouldn’t. We often don’t feed them what we should. We don’t give them enough rest. We push on when they’re sending signals that they’re faltering. We have high demands and are not always kind in return. Even when we get sick, our bodies go into over-drive, fighting for our lives. And we get frustrated that meanwhile, they aren’t letting us run and workout.

I love my body. I really truly am grateful for all the work she does for me. I know I ask a lot. But I’m going to try to remember to treat her as a close friend and ally – she really is doing the best she can.

On to tomorrow’s workout – back to Pottery Rd Hills!

It’s been a while since we’ve done these ones. Let’s just go steady up, steady down.

If you’re training for a longer event, aim for consistent effort and nudge up the volume.

If you’re training for 5K/10K’s, do a lower quantity and aim for every other one HARD.

If you’ve recently completed a marathon or half marathon, just steady and keep the volume on the low end as you get back into things.

I’ll aim to be there at around 6:15. Just start going once you get there – we’ll meet somewhere on the hill!

Seanna

Can running make you happy?

June 1, 2022/in Love Letters 2022/by RWadmin

Hi Everyone!

Huge congrats to all of our racers on Sunday. Those were some hot and challenging conditions, and you all put your hearts and bodies on the line and went for it. I am so proud of you!

What I’ve been thinking about: More than once I have heard someone say to myself or someone else: “Wow. You run/bike/workout so much. I wish I could do that”. And I think Do you? Why? If you’re happy not doing all of that so much, why wish yourself into a bigger compulsion? Running doesn’t make you a better person. But then I thought … does it – can it make you happier?

I was listening to a podcast where the guest defined happiness as a combination of these three macro-ingredients: Pleasure, Satisfaction and Purpose. The trick is in finding the balance between all of these three. Under this lens, I would say then that running certainly can provide all of these ingredients.

The pleasure principle in running might not seem obvious at first (because it takes some will and faith to get there), but there are definitely some runs I have with friends or even solo on a beautiful day when my thoughts and legs are flowing, that feel like pure pleasure. It just feels good. There is definitely a large dose of pleasure in the post-run glow of endorphins and dopamine. Again, it takes some work to get there, but it’s definitely part of the equation.

Satisfaction with running is an obvious one. We set a goal, work towards it, learn a lot along the way, and sometimes achieve it. Sometimes we don’t. But there are definitely satisfying milestones along the way. The key here is setting yourself up so that you can be satisfied. Never-ending goals always outside of your reach are not satisfying, and therefore not part of the happiness equation. But neither is never reaching or striving, and always sitting in your comfort zone, so there is an elusive balance there also. We have to learn how to make it satisfying to ourselves.

Purpose is a big one. Can you find purpose in your running? Many people can. I believe the people who have been in it the longest have found purpose. Purpose through running can be things like finding and contributing to community. It can be the relationships. It can be being a mentor or a mentee. It can be finding the growth and learning opportunities whether you succeed or fail. It can be taking what you’ve learned and using it to help others – in running or other areas of life. I see that a lot in our community. There is a big, purposeful generous spirit here.

So, can running make you happy? Maybe it can. Win or lose, it’s being able to find pleasure in the moments, enjoying the striving, and learning and giving back. And maybe those people who wished they ran/biked/worked out more are actually wishing they had the key to happiness.

Onto tomorrow’s workout – back to Lakeshore! 6:05 drills, 6:15 Go time (we’ll be sharp bc people are back in offices now)

Cut-downs! 1600-1200-1000-800-600-400-200 – all w 2 mins. Starting at tempo and working down in pace. I leave it up to you guys how much you want to lean into these. If training for an upcoming race or trying to get your fitness up, you can start hard and finish harder. If you’re talking yourself into it one rep at a time, start easy and see how it goes. Both are fine and fit into different phases of life and training.

If doing this fartlek style, 6-5-4-3-2-1-(30sec) min Hard w 2 mins Easy.

That is all – have fun and see you soon!

Seanna

Just slow down

June 1, 2022/in Love Letters 2022/by RWadmin

Hi Everyone!

Hope you all had a great long weekend and were able to spend time outside and with family. I don’t think anyone from this crew raced anything this past weekend, but correct me if I’m wrong. Coming up we have Ottawa! Kerry in the half and Fran and Gillian in the full. Sending all our collective energy your way!

I’ve been thinking lately about big, long undertakings. Especially as I try to increase my time biking in preparation for this Ironman. One thing my training partners and I have repeated to ourselves is this: if it feels too hard at any point, slow down. It’s amazing how calming and reassuring this statement is to me. You can just slow down! We all know how to push hard and go fast and make it hurt. And it’s good to know we have this gear. But we don’t always have to use it. In fact, in most events until the very end, and in at least 80-85% of training, we shouldn’t be touching it. I find it funny that I need to remind myself that I have permission to slow down, but just telling myself this makes me feel relaxed and like I can complete what I set out to do.

I’ve even started using this in other areas. Sometimes I take a look at my to-do list and feel such a sense of overwhelm that I just start unproductively flitting back and forth between frantic things. Sure, I can try to whip through everything at hyper-speed, but just the thought of that burns me out. So I tell myself to take a deep breath, and give myself permission to move slowly and accomplish one thing. Everything doesn’t have to feel hard. I can slow down and take my time and get it done. It is amazing how just this mentality can give you breathing room and energy. For me anyway. Maybe most of you have caught on to this long ago! I am newly embracing it though. Slow is way better than “all out or nothing”. Just keep moving. It’ll get you there.

On to tomorrow’s workout – back to Leslie and Lakeshore – 6:05 for drills, 6:15 Go time.

1 mile tempo, 3 min rest, 4 x 400 w 1 min rest, 3 min rest, 4 x 400 w 1:30 rest, 3 min rest 2-4 x 200 w 1 min rest

This is a classic track workout. It’s pointing at 5K fitness, so not particularly slow. The key is the rest. It’s broken up so you can hit your times without over-extending too much. In a track workout like this, the rest interval will tell you a lot. When we give the workout to our competitive track crew, it is the rest that tells them how fast to go. Sometimes we even say 7 minutes rest before something. That doesn’t mean we are being super generous and nice. It means that next thing is supposed to be pretty damn hard and we want you recovered for it. Don’t worry – we’re not doing this at this point! But just letting you know that the longer rest in the second set implies that you pick it up a few seconds per 400.

I get that this workout doesn’t really follow the theme of my email, but in order to slow down you have to have a faster baseline which you touch sometimes. You can’t slow down from standing still.

If racing in Ottawa, sleep in if it will serve you better! If up and want company, 1 mile at race pace, then 4 x 400 just a tad quicker but not over-extending.

That is all – see you in the am!

Seanna