Control
Hi Everyone!
Hope you’re all taking good care of yourselves. Whether you’re sick or not, good rest and food are so so important.
I have to say, this is the most pivot-involved season of coaching I’ve ever experienced. Most of this has to do with people training and racing during a pandemic. We do plan for some things to go not according to plan. And to be honest, that is fine. I think a big part of what we’re learning through this is “going with the flow”.
Here’s what I keep thinking about: the skill of only concerning yourself with what you can control. There are some things that will just be out of your control, and you can’t waste mental energy on those. This is something many athletes who experience race anxiety work on before big events. There is a looming feeling of generalized stress because they’ve put a lot of work into it and are unsure of how things will play out. But once you realize there are certain things you can control (your internal dialogue, what you eat, your warm-up routine, your race/pacing strategy) and some things you can’t (the weather, your competition, mechanical or equipment mishaps), you can work on being confident in what you can do, and let go of what you can’t. Once you let go of worrying about the things you can’t control it takes a big load off.
Many of our group here have experienced hiccups of varying degrees through this training cycle. And what’s done is done. Whether you got sick or injured or experienced some other set-back, the best course of action is acceptance. Don’t stress about what is outside of your control. That is wasted energy. Just do what you can do now. And going forward, do what you can to avoid illness and injury, but once you’ve decided what you’re doing, put the rest out of your head. You can’t control everything. You can only control what you can control and many things can and will happen that are outside of that. Deal with them when you get there, but don’t stress about them beforehand. As long as you’re comfortable with your plan, just stick with that. You’re good! And now, you have a little extra energy that you’ve just freed up.
On to our workout for tomorrow!
I’m thinking we could use a social fartlek type workout. I like these because you can lean in or back depending on where you are in your current phase and energy cycle. It’s also a great way to work on internal pacing based on how you feel vs. what your watch is telling you. These were my bread and butter workouts through much of my university days and beyond. They can get you really fit, and they keep you in the game whether you’re having a “good one” or not. (my fave way is to use the good ol Timex watch vs. gps. Sorry Strava lovers! Guess what – it will be ok if you don’t know your paces I promise). If you have a mental compulsion to track and measure everything, see if you can force yourself to break that this once. You can guess your overall mileage like we did in the “olden days” and I guarantee you won’t be more than 1KM off up or down. NO biggie!!
Meet at Leslie and Lakeshore – 6:05 for drills, 6:15 Go Time.
10 min easy jog, then 3-5 sets of 3-2-1 min Hard w 1 min Easy; 3 min easy jog bw sets
(5 is a lot – not sure if we’ll get there – we used to do 3 but we were middle distance runners and ran everything at 1500m/3000m race pace – we’ll find a rhythm and see what we can do)
Boston racers! Do three sets and just find your wheels and your rhythm. Keep it smooth and controlled. Don’t worry about pace – this won’t make you faster for race day and it’s not a “test of where you are”. Just find that good smooth/fast feeling.
That is all – see you in the am!
xo
Seanna