Love Letters to My Crew – Page 50

Happy Summer 🙂

July 9, 2021/in Love Letters 2021/by RWadmin

Hey All!

Happy Summer!!!

On many of my runs and walks this week I’ve noticed so many people out enjoying each others’ company, playing tennis, splashing in pools, playing basketball, walking, running, just enjoying life. And it makes me so happy. I feel welcomed back into our outdoor spaces – washrooms are open! Water fountains are on! We are being invited back out!

So what I was thinking, was: let’s allow ourselves to take a moment and just enjoy this. Enjoy summer. Enjoy everything we’ve put on hold. Enjoy not worrying if you’re doing the wrong thing and are about to get yelled at. Smile at people on the sidewalk! Breathe out. Pause. Let it all sink in. We deserve this.

Yes, there are still many injustices in our world and in our country and a lot of pain that we should keep our eyes and actions open to. But for a second, let’s just allow ourselves to feel happy. Feeling happy does not mean you don’t care about others who aren’t. It’s the opposite – when you really feel it, you want to share it, so it makes it easier to care. So go out and enjoy summer and spread the joy as much as you can!

I know this isn’t totally about running, but it is in a way. If you run with joy and as a celebration of life instead of as self-punishment and guilt, you will get waaaaay more out of it.

Onto workouts for this week!

I promised we’d start getting together again, so anyone who wants to join or even run by and say ‘hi’, we’ll be meeting at Lakeshore and Leslie at 6/6:15. 6 if you want to do some mobility and strides, 6:15 Go-Time.

Cut-downs. 1 mile (2 mins), 1200 (400 jog), 1000 (200 jog), 800 (90 sec), 600 (90 sec), 400
If on a recovery week, let’s work on speed and neuro-muscular recruitment. What this means: if you make the connections to engage more of your running muscles, it will be easier for your body to use those connections and that muscle recruitment when running at slower paces. This makes you a more “efficient” runner (ie. You use less energy to sustain a certain pace). But you can only specifically engage some of this “muscular reserve” by training them through running fast. Recovery weeks are a great time to work on this bc you can do it while still taking a volume break.

Good warm-up (maybe some more drills and strides than usual). 4 x 200 w 2 min rec. Focus on good form and power throughout. 4 mins. 4-6 x 100 w 2 min (or slow walk back recovery). 4 mins. 1 x 200. Cool-down.

Tempo – these are becoming specific to peoples’ builds, so if you have a plan, check those.

Enjoy and hope to see some of you tomorrow!!!

Xo

Seanna

The Art of Showing Up

June 22, 2021/in Love Letters 2021/by RWadmin

Hey Everyone!!!

First up, if you’re looking for some jolts of inspiration, motivation and just pure entertainment, I hope you’re following the US Olympic track qualifiers happening now, and this weekend we have the Canadian trials coming up! So fun.

What I’ve been thinking about this week is the art of showing up. I think this matters most when we are starting out with big far away goals. Yes, we’ll have to do a lot of work – eventually, but it’s important first to set the stage. Start by committing to showing up. Count each time out as a success. Don’t measure what you did, but the fact that you did it.

Some of us are taking up open water swimming. It hasn’t been easy with cold water and early mornings. I know it will get easier, but my goals so far have been about just getting in the water. A few times some of us have arrived early in the morning, put on our wetsuits, gotten waist deep, and then called it. I still count those sessions as a success. Goal achieved. We showed up. We can and will build from that. But that’s the first step. We’re creating routines that we know we can do.

Same goes for runs. With many of us starting training schedules, we are currently creating the patterns. We will layer on the work, but what we’re doing now is creating less mental resistance for when it eventually becomes harder. Show up for your workouts, tempos and long runs. Be there. Don’t worry about what happens once you get there for now. Just be consistent. What was once hard (creating the space for a weekend long run, or getting your body up early for intervals) will become easier, and then we can focus on adding a bit to each session. But if you’re training for something that is a few months or more away, I promise you that there is not one individual session which will matter more than the overall benefits of showing up for all (or most) of them. So let’s start with a routine you know you can do again and again. If you’re feeling exhausted and beat up after a week or two, you’re starting out too hard! Go back to just showing up. It will get you there, I promise.

That said, I think next week will be a good time to start meeting again for Wednesday workouts! I’ll wait until then because that’s when it will be officially ok to get together outside for up to 25 people. I can’t wait to see many of you!!!

For this week, let’s continue to work in whatever groups are working for you and we’ll get into a good group routine soon.

Workouts for this week:

Marathoners: 6 x 800 w 1:30 rest, 3 min, 2 x 400 w 1 min. The pacing of these is important. First 2 @ marathon pace – (basically a good extended warm-up); Second 2 @ ½ mara pace (~ 10 sec faster), Third 2 @ 10K pace (another 10 sec faster); 400’s @ 5K pace
If training for 5K: 4 x 800 w 1:30 (2 @ ½ mara pace, 2 @ 10K pace), 3 min rec, then 4 x 400 w 1 min @ 5K pace
Tempo (if not otherwise written on your plan): 5 x 6 min w 1:30

Have fun everyone and can’t wait to see you sooooon!!!!!

xo

Seanna

What are you measuring?

June 22, 2021/in Love Letters 2021/by RWadmin

Hey Crew!

What I’ve been thinking about this week is about being deliberate about knowing what we’re measuring and why. I think we all get in a trap of thinking certain measurements mean more than they do. Mileage, for example. We count it, track it, try to boost it. But that might not be what is helping you get to your goals. We get so caught up in getting to a certain volume, but weekly mileage is a false target. Running volume should be an indication of where you are in your training (ie. This is what it takes to support the amount of work you need to get done) vs. an erroneous target you’re trying to hit regardless of how you get there.

I coach a group of athletes who are divided into Middle Distance (400m-1500m racers) and Long Distance (5K and up). At certain times of the year, their workouts are somewhat similar, but as we get closer to race season they diverge quite dramatically. The other day the MD group had a TOTAL of 1200m in intervals. One of them remarked on how they were running ¼ of the volume of the LD crew. I reminded them, that’s not what they are measuring. I read that on average, Usain Bolt struck the ground when sprinting with 1,080 pounds of force. He needed to be building and measuring force and power so he could run fast. I bet he didn’t even count his milage. Middle distance runners (or long sprinters as they’re also known) – fall closer to that side of things when they’re in their competitive phase. The number of kilometers covered means nothing.

My point is, know what your goal is so you know what to measure and what doesn’t matter. If you’re injured, I think you should be measuring hours of sleep. That’s the only thing that directly helps you to recover. If you’re supplementing your running with other activities, start measuring time instead of km’s. KM’s don’t tell you the whole story. If you have a hard time keeping your easy days easy, you can do what the Bowerman track club does: count every KM as a standard measurement of time. For instance, every 5 minutes = 1 KM. Whether you’re going fast or slow. That way, you won’t be tempted to speed up on your easy days – you only get to count a kilometer for every 5 mins – even if you’re running 4:40’s (this also makes sense because your body knows how long it is spending doing something, not how much ground it is covering – so it does make sense to train that way).

So that is all – just a reminder to re-evaluate what you are measuring to make sure it is aligned with your goals.

One more thing: I am honoured to be doing a small contract working with War Child. I’ve become very moved by this organization and the big, hard work they do protecting children who have experienced war. They are holding a fitness fundraiser coming up in September (12-23 – around International Day of Peace). I will be entering an LES team, so I will hit y’all up to join that, but also wanted to put it out there that if anyone thinks their company or workplace would be interested in entering a team, please message me and I will send you more information. Thank-you!

Workouts for this week:

Hills! If you’re building for Fall marathons, let’s just build the volume back up on full hills. Workin’ on that strength. If you’re looking at a track 5K this summer, do an equal number of half hills to full (added on at the end). You will need to be able to call on power when fatigued.
Tempo: 3 x 6 min w 3 min easy (some of you are doing progression run vs. tempo, so no tempo for you this week)

That is all – enjoy!

xo

Seanna