Hi All!

Congrats to Andrew McKay and Nir who ran the Philadelphia Marathon on the weekend! I haven’t heard their stories yet, but I know there were some battles and demons fought out there. Way to go guys.

 

Last weekend cross country fans saw the NCAA x-country championships take place. The women’s race was won from the front by Parker Valby. Valby trains very unconventionally by running only 2-3 times a week, and training on an elliptical device for her other sessions. She has a history of injuries, knows what works for her, and confidently does that. She trusts herself. This appeals to me because I think many of us could use some of this “trust yourself to go-your-own-way” confidence. I’ve been thinking about this from a personal perspective as well as I get older. There are a lot of data and experiences and training programs for endurance athletes … up to a point. There is not a lot of research or experience or training paradigms for athletes as they want to stay competitive as they get older. Many of us at the ages of 40’s and 50’s and beyond are still looking at what the best in the world are doing as our benchmarks. Cam Levins runs 280km a week and Jakob Ingebrigtsen does double threshold days. It’s easy to fall into the thinking that more is better. We know we can’t do what they’re doing, but those are the models we are following, and the closer we can get, we figure the faster, stronger we will be. And as we age, we just get worse and worse at following the prescribed program until we stop.

 

That’s how it used to be. We are a new wave of athletes. Our parents (for the most part) did not do what we are doing at our age. Not many people have. We are high performance athletes. And just as women are not “smaller men”, older athletes are not just “slower, weaker” versions of younger athletes. We are different. We have different strengths and different training needs. The problem (or maybe the exciting opportunity, depending on how you look at it), is that we are still figuring out what those needs are because there have been so few of us in the past. When I lined up for 1500m races on the track last summer beside high school athletes, I had the thought that I could never have imagined my parents racing in the same competitive races as me when I was a teenager! It would have been a spectacle. But we are doing that now. We are forging the path for those who continue on behind us. That path is no less challenging than when we were younger. And no less rewarding. I ran a tempo run with a group on the weekend that ranged in ages from mid-20’s to almost 50 (me). I was not at the front, and I was not the fastest I’ve been. But the feeling was the same. The exhilaration of working hard, legs burning, lungs heaving, body sweating in the cold air. Why would we ever want to give that up?

 

I went to a show with some high school friends last week which was supposed to be a comedy about menopause. It absolutely missed the mark for us. We didn’t understand who it was supposed to be for. It seemed to have been written 30 years ago and for people who were 20 years older than us. We ended up laughing until tears ran down about how bad it was. So at least it was a comedy. But the point is, we need a new narrative. Getting older isn’t about laughing about getting fat, hairy, hot, and forgetful. Talk about a disempowering message! I’m glad we couldn’t relate, but then we were like, “who’s writing our narrative?” I guess it’s us. So, time to take a page from Parker Valby’s playbook and train confidently in a way that works for YOU. That might mean more rest, more strength, more cross-training, more mobility, less running. But it doesn’t mean giving up, or even necessarily slowing down! Guess what: No one else knows shit, so let’s do it the way that works for us.

 

(on that note, if you are interested in doing Sunday Power and Speed with me and designed by me and Kerry, at Monarch Track on the first three Sundays in December (7:30-9:30 am – we can start at 8:00 am), pls indicate here:  Speed/Powersign-up.  It is $100/session for the group, so if we can get 10 ppl it will be cost effective – I’ll only run it if there are enough ppl)

 

On to tomorrow’s workout: Lakeshore and Leslie. 6:05 drills, 6:15 GO.

Sets of progressive 400’s with 200 easy jog. (this is forcing us to take the sting out of them – it’s all about that base!)

1 set = 4 x 400 w 200 easy jog, getting 1-2 seconds faster each one. So start out measured! 3 mins bw sets.

2 sets would be a solid workout. If still feeling good you can add a set or a couple 400’s.

 

That is all – see you in the am!

xo

Seanna

 

 

Hi Everyone!

 

Wow, what a weekend in New York! We had a such a great crew down there running AND cheering! I love so much how this team goes and supports each other in these huge accomplishments. Racing and doing SO well on such a tough course we had: Elizabeth Gladney (BQ and 2nd Canadian in AG!), Madalyn Marcus (BQ and really sent it! 2nd Canadian in AG), Laura Gage (BQ and so flippin steady!!), Samantha Farrell (BQ and also steady eddy! Feel like you could’ve handled another few kms 😉 ), Amanda Bugatto (awesome run with a questionable hip – grittiest runner out there), Jordan Stewart (PB!! On that course!! And 3rd Canadian in AG), Carol McFarlane (BQ and SO strong! Winner of the happiest runner out there), Carolyn Steele Gray (BQ and 3rd Canadian in AG!)  Way to go all. That was huge. Take two weeks off and then listen to your bodies about coming back.

 

Speaking about bodies, that’s what I’ve been thinking about recently. Our bodies, how we inhabit them, and our relationships to them as we age. I love this passage by Ursula K Le Guin on how cats and dogs understand their bodies:

 

“Dogs don’t know what they look like. Dogs don’t even know what size they are. No doubt it’s our fault, for breeding them into such weird shapes and sizes. My brother’s dachshund, standing tall at eight inches, would attack a Great Dane in the full conviction that she could tear it apart. When a little dog is assaulting its ankles the big dog often stands there looking confused — “Should I eat it? Will it eat me? I am bigger than it, aren’t I?” But then the Great Dane will come and try to sit in your lap and mash you flat, under the impression that it is a Peke-a-poo.

 

Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there. It is a cat’s way of maintaining a relationship.

Housecats know that they are small, and that it matters. When a cat meets a threatening dog and can’t make either a horizontal or a vertical escape, it’ll suddenly triple its size, inflating itself into a sort of weird fur blowfish,and it may work, because the dog gets confused again — “I thought that was a cat. Aren’t I bigger than cats? Will it eat me?” “

Le Guin notes that many of us humans are like dogs – having no idea where our bodies begin and end in space and time. When we are children, we inhabit our bodies like cats – we ARE our bodies. But when we go through adolescence with so many changes, we can lose sense of who we are and there is a disconnect between what we see in the mirror and how we feel. Then she says this change happens again as we age.

When I think about this I think about how grateful I am that I am an athlete. Athletes inhabit our bodies like cats. We have learned to become aware of ourselves, and what we can do. We experience the world through the movement of our bodies. We are right there inhabiting them through all our changes and adaptations – as we grow and as we break down. Many people view their bodies as external casings – to be shaped and perfected and beautified and controlled.They are separate from their bodies and I think therefore can be pretty hard on them. As an athlete, my body is home. It is me. I really took this in the other day as I ran down a ravine path, navigating around all the walkers, feeling the heat being generated by my body juxtaposed against the cool air hitting my skin. That is when I feel like me – experiencing all the sensations that come with movement. My body looks the way it looks because it reflects the patterns of my life. Massage therapists can still tell which hip I carried my babies on when they were little because my body formed around them on one side. I’m not encouraging wrinkles, but I accept them as signs of “having been there”. I move differently now than I did in my 20’s – not always slower, but the patterns are different. It’s a different pace with the emphasis in different areas. I am working with my body and its needs – not fighting it. I don’t think you can intellectualize your way into thinking of yourself like this. I think you have to really experience inhabiting your body as an athlete does. That’s why I will continue to move and think and train like an athlete even as I age into an old lady. So I don’t suddenly feel like a stranger to myself, and like a large dog,one day try to curl up in a box that is half my size.

On to tomorrow’s workout! Back to hills! Pottery Rd for Western East-enders, Beaches  for Beachers.

 

These will be the bread and butter of our base season. Lots of great strength building and we can just go the pace that our bodies are feeling at the time. Tomorrow is going to be cold, so we should start out gently. Let’s do up to 6 long and 4 short. Up to = you can do less!

I will aim to be at Pottery around 6:15. Just a reminder – if you’re in the Beach you can meet up with that crew, and if Pottery is your closest hill just start doing them when you get there – we don’t have an official start time for these.

See you in the am!

 

xo

 

Seanna

Hey Gang!

 

Huge congrats to Mike Greenberg who ran the Niagara Marathon in a PB of 2:55! It was a windy day and not perfect conditions, so all the more impressive. Coming up, we have the Hamilton Half and the NYC Marathon in two weekends! This week is the last little push with some intensity, but taking the volume down. People who have done their fall races or are training to train,let’s bring our energy to get this crew to the start line ready to go!

 

What I’ve been thinking about recently is experience.Experience as it relates to aging in a way. There is really no way to go through life without accumulating experience, and there is no way to become experienced in things without the process of time. We eventually become a compilation of our experiences. I read this quote recently and it resonated: “a person is less like a star, whose very chemistry, the source of its light,changes profoundly over its life-cycle, and more like a planet, like this planet, whose landscape changes over the ages but is always shaped by the geologic strata layered beneath, encoding everything the planet has been since its birth.” – Maria Popova.

 

I like the dichotomy of this as it applies to getting older.Yes, as we age our muscles become less powerful, our tendons less springy, our joints more creaky. It takes us longer to recover from efforts which aren’t quite as fast as they once were. But we have behind us and are still laying down layers of experience. Marathons can really highlight this dichotomy. It is not always the fastest person in workouts nor the person with the highest VO2max or even the person who has strung together the most impressive training cycle who comes out on top. Often it is the person with more experience – whose mind and body know what to expect and how to react to it –who does well. This is not something you can read about to learn – it must be experienced.

 

I was chatting with a friend about the funny phenomenon that once someone breaks a certain barrier (a time barrier in running for example),it is much easier for them to do it again. It’s because their body and mind have carved the path. They’ve been there. They can’t intellectualize it, but they know how to do it. And often they can do it again, even when their training doesn’t indicate that they could.

 

I’ve mentioned this anecdote before but it’s worth mentioning again. When world renowned coach Renato Canova was asked why his world record athlete in the steeplechase wasn’t doing as high mileage as he once had, he responded that he had already developed that system as far as it could take him. He could now count on it, and focus on developing other areas. What I take from that is that the training that we are doing when we are building, is not the training we have to keep doing in order to maintain. And this applies over a life cycle of training. How we trained in our 20’s is not how we should be training in our50’s and beyond, and this does not mean we’re doing it worse. It means we are relying more on our experience and wisdom, and less on our ability to pile on more and more work. And guess what – we may land on very similar results for the effort. And you know what else? We deserve it. There are advantages to getting older and accumulating experience. So to those with a fair bit of experience: take confidence in that. You don’t have to replicate the training you did in order to get there. And to those still accumulating experience:accept the process. Every race becomes a data point and a foundational layer onto which the next ones will be built.

 

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

 

1.    1.5 miles @ Marathon pace (3 straightaways), 3min rest, 1 mile @ HMP, 2 min rest, 800m @ 10K pace, 1:45 rest, 600m @ 5K pace,1:30 rest, 400 @ a lil faster, 1:15 rest, 200 light and quick. Yes, this is not un-similar to what people training for Hamilton did last week – this week you’ll just do it with more company.

(So it looks like: 3 laps, 2 laps, 1 lap, 600, 400, 200. It will make sense when we get there.)

 

2.    If still recovering and coming back from having raced, feel it out. Start at Marathon Pace, and if your legs don’t want to go faster, stay there.

 

 

 

That is all – see you in the a.m.!

 

xo

 

Seanna

Hi Everyone!

 

Huge congrats to all who raced this weekend! Andrew Higgs in the Chicago 5K who raced into crazy winds and flying blind bc there is no gps signal there, and matched his time from the track. I think that’s worth about 10-15 seconds. And then in the marathon! We had myself (BQ), Steph (BQ), Miguel (BQ)and Clare (BQ and PB). We all ran super strong races. And I’m reminded once again that the marathon really is a celebration of all the training we’ve done and that getting to the starting line in one piece ready to go is a victory in itself.

 

Having just run my first marathon in 4 years, I thought I’d reflect on and share things I thought I did well, and things I could learn from and improve on in case they resonate for anyone else.

 

Things I could learn from and improve on:

 

·     My mindset in the weeks leading up to the race. I kept reminding myself that I was older and therefore should be slower than I had been in the past. I tell my athletes that fatigue during this period is what it’s all about and that work is work, but I had a hard time buying into that myself and talked myself out of going for an A goal. What I forgot is that older also means wiser. One time when I was in my 20’s I ran the Chicago marathon and PB’d through the half and broke down at 30K. I was faster then, but I am smarter now. Also, many women in my age group ran faster than me, and a handful in the group ahead of me did too! So I will try to keep looking ahead and getting smarter, and learning from those who are blazing the path.

·     The comparison trap. I kept looking at past workouts I’d done to map the times I was running currently on top of them,forgetting that every training cycle is unique, and I bring different strengths to each one. Also every training cycle we go through becomes a bedrock layer onto which the next ones are built. So you really can’t compare. Just do what you can in the moment.

 

Things I did well:

 

·     Taper. Tapering is one of my great strengths. Lol. It does feel hard to rest completely after running has become such a part of your every day existence, and it does actually take some will power and doesn’t always feel great. But man, does it make a difference to show up rested. Less is sometimes way more!

·     Nutrition. I took more gels than I ever have in a marathon (7) and sports drink at every station. Energy was never my problem in this race – I felt topped up right till the end.

·     My mindset on race day. My self talk throughout the race was entirely positive, engaged, and optimistic. Sometimes you have to work for that mindset, and sometimes it shows up. I credit surrounding myself with great, positive people before the race, and also the fact that there was no gps signal and I couldn’t find the pacers, so I just ran by feel. No pressure, and no constant reminders telling me my pace. So I just kept telling myself I was doing great and it worked out. I also really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun. Yes, it helped that conditions were perfect and the crowds all the way through were spectacular. So the mindset flowed more easily. But now, knowing what I want it to be, hopefully I’ll be able to get back there even when the external circumstances aren’t as ideal.

 

So that’s it. Sorry to make this one all about me. But I do think regardless of the times we run, we are always learning, and why learn something and not share it. We are all only getting older and wiser – a true gift.

 

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

 

1.    2 x 1 mile w 1 min rest. Start at marathon race pace, and move into half marathon race pace for the second one. 2 min rest.Then 4 x 800m w 1:15. Closer to 10K pace. If you can work down to 5K pace for the last one, amazing. If not, just keep a good rhythm.

2.    If racing the TCS Full or Half this weekend:Taper workout! I’ll give you what we did before Chicago bc it seemed to do the trick: 1 mile at race pace, 2 x 400 a lil quicker. If doing the half, you can do up to 4 x 400 if feeling good. (you don’t need quite as much rest as the full marathoners)

3.    If racing the TCS 5K: 4 x 400 w 1:15 rest @ race pace. 3 min rest. 4-6 x 200 faster w 1 min rest.

 

That is all – see you in the am! (I’ll be cheering – might have to ride my bike there lol)

 

xo

 

Seanna

Hey Gang!

 

Happy September and Back-to-School and X-Country! Yes, that’sall the same season and will represent those things for me forever whether Iparticipate in them or not. There is a bit of melancholy that sometimes comeswith change, but there is also an energy – particularly with this specificseason change. I often tend to get butterflies of excitement in the fall, evenwhen I can’t pinpoint the source. 

The summer generally represents fun, less structure, relaxing,playing it by ear… many people thrive on this. I think it’s a good mode to get into at times. I can definitely lean into sloppy, chill, go with the flow mode.But then September brings a vibe of “tightening up” and I don’t mind this transition either. More structure, more predictability. And yes, it’s often busier. So now is a great time to set up systems which can help us manage everything we want to get done.

Many of us are experiencing various changes this season,with kids in new routines, maybe some or all kids have left the house,workplace energy shifts, the starting of different roles at work, etc… And of COURSE we still have our training goals and objectives. Summertime is not a time for rigid schedules and routines – that defeats the purpose and we would be zero fun. But now that things need to get done and multiple objectives need to be met, it’s a good time to find some systems that work for us and which we can fall back on so we don’t lose our minds.

Some examples of systems that provide structure and help get shit done:

Run early in the mornings, show up to Wednesday workouts(whether you just get mileage in or join the workout), run commute two days a week, plan at least three dinners for the week on the weekends, have certain days that certain people in the house cook, pay a high school kid to pickup/drop off your younger kids from school/activities, share carpooling with other parents, join a gym that is close to you (I’ve learned that pretty much all that matters in a gym is proximity to you), hire someone to deep clean your house once a month so it isn’t constant background stress, pay your bills on every x day of the month, hire a tutor if homework is a nightmare, be set up to make a smoothie with protein every morning, pre-set your coffee machine the night before a morning run, meet the group for a weekend long run in the morning even though it’s the weekend, … you get the picture. Whatever your barriers tend to be, or whatever tends to get you running around like a chicken with its head cut off: create a system for that.

This might take some time because as most of us are in the midst of some sort of change, we may not yet know what we need or what our stumbling blocks will be. I’ve also noticed that many of the things on the list above require other people’s help and support. This is a key part of the system! Know when you can’t do it alone and ask for help or outsource the task completely.That is OK! Just set up the expectations and put the system in place. We got this team – good luck on a new season everyone!!!

 

(On this note, one of my new systems is this newsletter format. Turns out gmail had identified me as spam, so my emails weren’t getting through. Trying this out as a new system which should save me some time. Hope it works for y’all!)

On to tomorrow’s workout: Lakeshore and Leslie. 6:05 drills, 6:15 GO.

1.    Let’s roll back to our standard 800’s. 6-8 of them with 1:30 rest. This is a good check in workout and gives options of leaning in or back depending on how you feel.

2.    If you are still working on developing multiple gears for different paces, do the 600 of the 800’s. You will build up to doing 800 at that same pace. But start here.

3.    At any time you can do a 600 of any of the 800’s if you need a tiny breather.

4.    People running the Georgina 10K, 5-6 x600 @ 10K pace.

5.    People running the Georgina 5K and the TrackSmith 5000: 4 x 400 w 1:15, 3 min set rest, then 4 x 200 w 1:00

 

That is all – see you in the am!

xo

Seanna