Getting Groovy – RunningWell

Hi Everyone!

We had one racer this past weekend – Andrew Higgs who nailed his sub-3 marathon in Duluth with a 2:58! Huge congrats. And Ingrid who raced the Toronto Waterfront 10K in very tough conditions and nailed a solid pace in that wind. Way to go! As always I hope I don’t miss anyone and please message me if you’ve raced anywhere. We all want to celebrate it!

Speaking of celebration, we are celebrating the Summer Solstice this eve with the Ekiden Relays! I believe we have three LES teams. Huge thank-you to Madalyn for picking up all the race kits. I believe the races start at 7 pm at the entrance to the spit, so I’ll plan to be down there around 6:30 pm. If you’re not on a team but want to come to cheer, please do! It’s the best way to kick off summer. Or at least it’s a tradition… 😉

What I’ve been thinking about lately is grooves. As in finding your groove. Many people are just getting into fall marathon training, and the biggest advice I can give is just start by creating the space and patterns that you will build on. You don’t need to be killing it now, but you need to create the space that you’ll be able to lean into later. Set up your routine so that getting out the door is never a negotiation. What you do once out there will change, but you just flow and show up where you need to be. For example, if you have a workout day, a tempo day and a long run day, make sure you start now with even little bits of those. You might not be in your best tempo shape, and your long runs aren’t super long yet, but get in the groove of showing up. You don’t have to worry about what you’re doing when you show up yet. Just get something done. And you’ll be amazed how much easier it is to do things when you don’t have to negotiate whether you’re doing it or not. There will likely be a time where the effort and enormity of the task will present a barrier. But you’ll go and do it because you’ve created that riverbed which makes it all flow more easily. So start with a trickle. This is where you need to be.

Some of us who are training for a summer Ironman are in a groove. It’s kind of cool. I never would have thought I could do as much as I’m doing, but that’s the thing – I’m not thinking about it. I’m following the patterns I set up months ago and just adding a bit more and leaning a bit more in each time. I’m not starting from scratch with each big effort. My goal used to be “just get in the water” or “join the bike ride and see what happens”. And now it really isn’t that hard! I get up, and do what I’ve been doing for a few months. I’m in a groove.

So start slow, get your body there and see what happens, and make the routine the goal for now. Don’t think about what’s to come. You’re just getting groovy!!!

I’ll see many of you tonight at the spit. For those doing the Ekiden, just a social on Weds am. For those not doing the Ekiden, we can start out together and you can do a fartlek (I think we can run into the beach and back).

Workout: 6 min tempo, 2 min easy, 2 x 3 min Fast with 1:30 easy, 2 min easy, 2 x 2 min Fast with 1:30 easy, 2 min easy, 5-6 x 1 min Fast w 1 min easy

Or if it’s easier to read this way: 6-3-3-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1 w 1:30 bw reps, 2 mins bw sets (except 1 min bw all the 1’s)

See you tonight at 6:30/7 and tomorrow at 6:05!

Seanna