Hi Everyone!

Huge congrats to everyone who raced the Muskoka 70.3 Ironman!  Jon McCrea who came top 10 in his age group in a big PB, Carolyn Steele Gray who came 7th in her age group – not sure if it was a PB but looked like a very fast time. And Jason Jacobs who sustained a running injury before the race, but did the swim and the bike anyway. Great perseverance. Oh – good thing I just looked up results – and Mike Greenberg who came 13th overall and 1st in his age group! Way to go crew!

Lately I’ve been thinking about races, and where and how they fit into hectic schedules and busy lives. I think we can often get caught thinking, “I’ll do it when space opens up” or “I don’t have any bandwidth for that right now”. Entering and doing a race can feel like a big undertaking, and when your head and life are swimming with too many other things, it can just feel like more than you want to take on. The start of summer is a good example of hectic schedules, new routines, different obligations popping up. I have felt this way over the last couple of weeks. Like my head has been full and I don’t even know where to start with certain projects and I’ve potentially taken on too much in some areas … And then I went to run a track race.

As soon as I arrived at the track, like magic, everything other than running melted far into the background. Everyone at races wants to support you and wants you to do well. Everyone’s expectations of you are exactly the same: go run a race. No more, no less. My mind and body go into automatic pilot. I know exactly what to do and when to do it. For the next 2 hours, I am in the zen mode of the racing bubble, and no other worries or problems rise to the surface or concern me. It’s not what many people would call the most relaxing or even pleasurable experience. There is some pre-race anxiety, there is the intensity (pain?) of racing, there is the mixed emotions of deciphering your time and effort after the race. But there is also the euphoria and release and camaraderie at the end, and the feeling or rather knowing that everything is as it should be, and everything will be ok.

There is an old Zen saying: “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you’re too busy, then you should sit for an hour.” Maybe we should make a similar rule for running: “You don’t have to race if you don’t want to. Unless you’re too busy and stressed out to race. Then, you should definitely race”. It makes sense when you experience it.

On to tomorrow’s workout: Back to hills!

I’m away so you’re all on your own for this one. Beach crew, coordinate w Tanis, Leslieville/Riverdale crew, meet at Pottery when it works for you and just roll into ‘em!

Let’s go back to the most recent favourite of: 1 long (400 m), 1 short (200 m), and 4 min tempo. Soon we’ll get back to some straight up long hills with no tempo and I don’t want any mutinees! Just warning… But for now let’s stick with these. The variety seems to elicit more intensity, so when we get back to straight up long hills we’ll have to go back to steady-eddy. 3 sets of these seems like a good number – if feeling great, 4 is max.

That is all – I won’t see you so have a great one!

xo

Seanna

Hi Everyone!

Congrats to all who ran in our Ekiden team challenge last Tuesday! Jordan, Chris, Madalyn, Jeff, Carolyn, Cindy, Laura, Sam F, Erin, Elizabeth, Seanna and Amanda! And thank you to all who came out and cheered. It is always such a feel good event of bringing runners and communities together and celebrating by doing what we love. Put the memory of this experience in a little bottle and uncork it in the depths of winter – it will bring a smile to your pale, frozen face.

This past weekend I went to see the movie Inside Out 2. It was smart and so well done. This isn’t a spoiler, but the premise is that as she goes through puberty, new emotions show up for the main character to help guide her through life. The big new one is Anxiety. Anxiety becomes a key player, and is in direct contention with Joy. Anxiety and Joy can’t both be in control at the same time. At one point, Joy realizes that growing up means that she has to take more of a backseat than she used to. And Anxiety is also there with the best interest of the main character and is trying to help her succeed.

Isn’t this true though. It would be nice if we could go through life with the pure joy of children all the time, but if we were all happy golden retrievers, not a lot would get done. Anxiety is our cue to make plans, undertake hard things, push ourselves into discomfort for growth. But the trick is to try to allow joy back in in points along the way. Anxiety tries not to let that happen because she’s a control freak. She is full of “what if’s …” She would prefer to bottle up Joy and send her far away, because Joy is not helping with the task at hand. How relatable is that. I think the lesson here is that we can’t let anxiety take over. Some of us have to try harder than others to bring joy back in, but she is there, waiting for her chance when we look for her.

Running and sports epitomize this very well. When we were kids, we all ran and played with pure joy. Why else would we do it? At some point goals, and identities and expectations and paths to “success” got brought in. I’m not saying these things are bad (again, we can’t remain happy-go-lucky children). But they are just a part of the overall picture. We can’t let them replace the joy we once had. We have to find a way to let them sit beside the joy which brought us here in the first place. I think that one blessing of getting older (way beyond teenage years), is that I find my joy in running coming back to the control panel. Don’t worry – anxiety has a large role in many other areas of my life – but she seems to have played herself out in my running. Or maybe she’s just too consumed with other areas. Either way, I’m happy to say that my joy in running never totally disappeared, even in the years of trying so hard to hit times, and caring what people thought, and judging myself by my results. Races can still bring on some anxiety – that’s natural, and again, she’s working in our interest so we perform our best. But joy elbows her out of the way once her job of getting me on the start line or up for a big training session are done.

If you look at picture from our Ekiden, you can see a lot of joy on our faces – whether running, cheering, or standing around. I appreciate this crew for prioritizing and encouraging that. I know we all know anxiety well, and most of us have to consciously work to keep joy at the forefront, but I think it’s worth continuing to pursue. In many areas of life, but especially in running.

On to tomorrow’s workout! Let’s do a fartlek on the spit. Meet at our usual Lakeshore and Leslie – 6:05 drills, 6:15 GO.

1. Let’s do sets of 3-2-1 min hard w 1 min bw reps, 3 min bw sets. Range of 3-4 sets. Go by feel.

This might be a good time to take an LES team pic so wear your LES singlets or gear if you have them!

That is all – see you in the am!

xo

Seanna

Hi Everyone!

First up, huge congrats to Chris Fortin who ran in the Buttertart Trot Half Marathon and came 2nd in his age group and third place overall with a 1:25!!! I’ve said before, sometimes the breakthrough in racing and fitness is in consistently running times that used to be unattainable. It’s not in always getting a PB, but more in raising your floor. Some people argue that raising the floor (what you can achieve on most given days) is more significant than one-off results which are hard to replicate. But either way, once you’ve become consistent with what you can do on any day, the ceiling becomes closer, and punching through more likely.

I’ve been thinking about a lot this week, but I’ll start with this one: the hard/easy/moderate ratio. We’ve all heard that only 20% of our runs should be “hard”, and the rest easy to moderate. The reason for this is that running hard is physically and mentally demanding and from decades of experience, this is where science has landed as the pattern that humans can tend to tolerate in running. This is used as the guideline for the ‘maximum’ heavy load we should do. Remember: we can only work hard and improve based on our ability to absorb and recover. I think it’s the latter parameter we’d be better off looking at when devising a training schedule. Not “how hard can I work”, but “what is my ability to recover”. This is a much more fluid and hard to pin down parameter – that is the problem. We like to plan out our work and we devise a schedule and formula which functions on our best weeks and months.Then, when recovery becomes compromised, we have a hard time adjusting. So we keep pushing, and hard becomes harder, easy is no longer so easy, recovery goes even further down, our performance suffers, and we’re left scratching our heads.

I think many of us could benefit from giving ourselves a little more grace on training when life stressors ramp up. I am not saying this just to be compassionate: I am saying this as a coach, in order to maximize your performance. I will tell you one other thing: it is much MUCH easier to maintain fitness than it is to build fitness. You can maintain fitness by doing as little as 50% of what you did to build it. So by not pushing hard all the time, and taking an extra easy day or two, you are not losing fitness. You are absorbing the work you did previously and/or maintaining where you are.

Just speaking from experience here, but here are some things that might secretly be zapping your ability to recover: a bad night’s sleep (this might take a few days to recover from), emotional stress (dealing with parents, kids, poor workplace dynamics), poor nutrition (a day or two of being too busy and missing a meal can really impact your ability to bounce back), mental fatigue (I have been told and repeat: don’t take on a new job and a training goal at the same time), and just plain aging (the formula shifts as we get older and we have to adapt to what we can currently absorb). Digging deep physically and running “hard” through all of these stressors requires a little more planning and extra recovery time.

Luckily, “easy” runs can actually improve your recovery, and keep you in that 50% zone of maintaining fitness. Things that assist recovery: social connection and community, being outside in nature, movement of your body. All of these things also help promote better sleep and a more relaxed autonomic nervous system.

1. The more and the harder you work, the more you should plan in or allow yourself to enjoy your recovery. Every week should not and probably won’t look the same. Some weeks might allow for three harder sessions, and some one or none. That is still progress. Adapt as needed. Just keep moving.

On to tomorrow’s workout! Lakeshore and Leslie: 6:05 Drills, 6:15 GO! (I’ll be out to cheer again but am racing on Thursday so will just be doing a pre-comp warm-up)

Let’s do a downwards ladder (credit Annick who helped author this wrkt):

1 mile, 1200, 1000 (jog to Carlaw to start 800), 800, 600 (jog to cone to start 400) 400. 2 min rest between everything except the 2 that are 200m shuffle/jogs.

We’ve been going pretty hard with our Wed workouts lately, so allowing you to tap into your energy as to what you need here for pace. If you need a little recharge and are feeling flat, start at tempo and you can either keep it tempo or pick it up as you feel. If you’re charged up and brimming to go, start at 10K pace and squeeze them down as you go.

If traveling and doing this by time, how about a nice descending ladder: 6-5-4-3-2-1 with 2 min shuffle/jog in between. Effort level as above.

That is all – see you in the am!

xo

Seanna

Hi Everyone!

Hope everyone had a great weekend. We’re definitely entering “summer-mode” now – whatever that means for you. For most it means a transition of some sort, so give yourselves some grace while your routines, energy, people around you shift and settle into a new pattern. Congrats this weekend to Brianna who ran the Toronto Women’s 5K and Sam and her daughter Chloe who ran the Toronto Women’s Half Marathon – much of it in a torrential downpour!

Today’s post is by Carolyn-Steele Gray – thank-you!

With purpose (Carolyn Steele Gray)

I’ve been thinking lately about meaning and purpose. Maybe it’s mid-life. As we approach the halfway mark many naturally start inspecting our choices, so questions around meaning and purpose start seeping in everywhere – work, family, friends, and yes definitely running, sport and competing. I even study the concept of meaningfulness as a researcher, mostly to better understand why people do what they do and why they make certain choices. In studying it as a Scientist I have found it to become a useful exercise in self-reflection. Here I’m connecting the ideas of meaning and purpose – they’re distinct but are also connected. One way you can think of these two things is that meaning is linked to what you value and believe, and purpose is more like intention and action, what you actually do that may be guided by those values and beliefs.

Leaving big , “what does anything even mean” type meaning aside, we can ask ourselves what is the meaning that running (and other sports) bring to our lives. For some the answer might feel very easy, but for others – myself included – this might be a harder question to answer than we might expect. And even if we should find an answer it’s likely to shift and evolve as we continue on our journeys as we experience new things, new people, new challenges.

But what I’m learning in my research, as well as with my own personal experiment, is that the answer seems less important than the practice. Asking ourselves what something really means to us can help us uncover the purpose of our actions and can become a tool to help us make choices and find balance. Also, it can magically be applied at all levels.

What is the purpose of today’s workout? Building aerobic capacity? Getting stronger on hills? Healing my soul with friends?

What is the purpose of this race I’m thinking about? What does this mean to me? Maybe you want to really see what you can do. Maybe you want to reinvigorate your love with running (and we had some just beautiful examples of this with some of our Boston runners this year). Maybe you just need to reconnect with the community so you volunteer for the day.

I recently got to put this exercise into practice after having gone with many of the LES crew for a long ride a couple of weeks ago. We had a huge crew, beautiful day, and nearly 3 hours of riding and chatting and general joy. When we got home I was feeling body tired but soul replenished. Until I looked at my numbers and was reminded by my coach that this was not the work I was “supposed to do” to prepare for my season (I know more than one of you have had this exact experience). It was a totally fair point. As I moped around the house a bit, my partner Ian (who had also enjoyed that ride), asked “Well. Was that fun time with your friends on your bike worth like … 3-5 minutes of your bike split on your long race this year?” In answering this question I found myself discovering the need to balance two different meanings of sport for me, which can help me to determine the purpose of that and my next ride.

As I have some big goals, I might opt for more structure another day to get ready (connecting to my “find my edge” meaning), but that first ride out was special and connected to my “joy through connection” meaning. Meaning honoured through a purpose fulfilled, and so, yes – 100% worth it.

On to tomorrow’s workout – Hills!!!

Riverdale/Leslieville crew will do Pottery – Beach Crew Glen Manor.

For Pottery, sets of 1 full hill (400m) followed by 1 half hill (200m) followed by 4 min tempo

3-4 sets sounds about right. We shall see how it feels and shakes out!

I’ll aim to be at the hill around 6:20. As usual, just start in when you get there.

See you in the am!

xo

Seanna

Hi Everyone!

Congrats to everyone who raced or lined up at the Sporting Life 10K on the weekend! In our group we had Ingrid, Cheryl, Jen, Pearce, Michelle P (trains w us virtually) and myself. Some super fast times, some solid races on which to build, and some learning experiences.

One thing I love – or rather appreciate – about racing, is how it opens us up. We are completely vulnerable when racing, and the full-hearted effort, whether we are happy with the result or not, demands humility and compassion towards ourselves and others.

Often I can go about life a bit busy, a bit task-oriented, a bit insensitive. And I don’t mean insensitive in the sense that I don’t care about other peoples’ feelings – more in that my senses aren’t open. I might hear a song, or see some art, or read a poem, and it slides off me. I’ve been to museums when I wasn’t in the right mood and I try to “understand” it or be touched by it but all I can do is be impressed by the artists’ talent (which I am sure is not the point of creating art). Similarly with poetry. Sometimes I try to read the words in order to understand, and they just don’t penetrate. Or I sit in the car and just flip from station to station, never landing on a song for its duration.

I am not an artist in the conventional sense. But running and racing are my expression of myself in the world. When we are out there – alone in nature or trying our hardest publicly, we are expressing something about ourselves through physicality. I believe that is my art, and it in turn opens me up to appreciating other forms.  

Often it is when I’m in this state of physical expression that I find myself in a mood where I have some cracks, and the other art can come in. I’m not sure why running and racing open this porthole for me.  Maybe it’s the combination of mental and emotional vulnerability accompanied by physical exhaustion, or at least sedation. And then I find myself seeking out the poetry or songs or art that now make sense. Ethan Hawke has spoken about art in this way in his great Ted Talk on creativity. Most people don’t need art in everyday life, until they go through something – grief, heartbreak or even something positive like the euphoria of a certain state or falling in love. And then there is nothing more important in the world than an artistic reflection and recognition of what they are experiencing.

I think some people live their lives open to this state quite a bit – or at least have easy access to it. We call these people artists. Running and more so racing seem to be my entryway. Searching my physical limits, testing myself, immersing myself in contemplation and reflection – pulls back the curtain to a dimension that’s not always available to me. I don’t think I could handle hanging out there all the time. For me, I like feeling like I can understand art every once in a while. And I’m grateful that from these glimpses of understanding, I can sometimes find meaning in my “impossible to explain” experiences and emotions which arise and are expressed through running. It is then that art, poetry and music not only make more sense to me, but they are the only things that do.

On to tomorrow’s workout – Lakeshore and Leslie – 6:05 Drills, 6:15 GO!

Speaking of racing, summer is a great season to get in some shorter distance, less “all in” races between marathon seasons. If you’re racing a marathon in the Fall, I highly recommend doing some shorter distance races this summer. A few reasons: A) We all have some “bad races” in us, and it’s good to get them out of the way before the big one. B) Racing shorter distances puts marathon pace and effort in its place and becomes a mental and physical strength for the marathon. C) Racing is a skill which we can only get better at by doing it.

On that vein, we will start sprinkling in some shorter distance oriented workouts:

1. 1 mile progressive tempo (I think this is a good way to warm up before launching into faster speed in the am). 2 min rest. Then 3-4 sets of (600-400-200) – 1:30 between reps, 3 min bw sets. 600’s at at least 5K pace (see if you can get down to 3K pace), then faster for the rest.
2. If you raced Sporting Life as a through-race and are still sore, do the mile tempo and then feel it out (will vary depending on how sore and how well you’re recovering).
3. If you raced Sporting Life as your goal race for the build – take a break before re-setting!

That is all – see you in the am!

xo

Seanna

p.s. Still taking guest entries for the newsletter – please send any random or concrete thoughts my way!