Keepin it fun :) – RunningWell

Hi Everyone!!!

Huge congrats to everyone who ran Boston yesterday!!!! Madalyn, Andrew, Patrick, Carol. And huge hugs to those who qualified and trained for it and cheered on their teammates from home. In witnessing the stories of people I know and of elite athletes, it looks like there was the usual mix of victories, heartache, celebration, disappointment, tears of joy, tears of pain … ah, marathons. And Boston seems to bring out the highest highs and lowest lows. This is what we sign up for!

On that note, just a reminder to check in with yourself and make sure that while you’re learning, growing and building character, you’re also enjoying it. I love running, working out, moving my body. I love racing with others who are all out there trying their hardest. That is fun for me. I love challenging myself and doing hard physical things. And mostly I love doing all of this with people I love and whose company I enjoy. But. Every now and then I can get caught up chasing it, and then I can get a bit burned out. If something used to make me feel good, I do it more, and again, and again. And it takes me a while to realize it might not currently be fun or making me feel good. This might be when my energy or time availabilities don’t fit with what I’m trying to do. Or maybe I’ve been doing the same thing too repetitively and there’s no more novelty – I’m bored. Or maybe I’ve been hitting my head against a wall pushing in a certain direction where I’m not getting much positive feedback. I like to think I’m pretty good at noticing when this is happening, and I’m pretty good at changing course to keep it fun. I’ll race 1500m on the track, a x-country ski race, an Ironman, a 100K gravel bike ride … I do tend to come back to running, but only if it’s fun. This is the only reason I can think of why I’m still doing it after 30 plus years!!

I just want to give you all that little self-check reminder. We can get very serious when we’re chasing goals. That’s fine. It is extremely rewarding to set and achieve big goals that you thought were outside of yourself. But just keep a little eye on your motivation and whether you’re still excited and finding it fun. If you have one big goal that you just want to put to bed and then be done with the whole thing, fine. But I suspect most of us are here because we want to keep doing this for many years. So relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw, take a deep breath, and maybe even laugh a bit. This is fun.

Onto tomorrow’s workout!

Let’s go back to Lakeshore and Leslie to support our Toronto and Mississauga teammates who should be done with hills until after the race. If you’re not doing either of these, throw in 5-6 x short (15-20 sec) hill sprints at the end of a run – probably Friday.

Leslie and Lakeshore: 6:05 warm-up, 6:15 Go time!

1 mile tempo. 3 min rec. 4-6 x 600m (5K-8K pace) w 1:30. 3 min rec. 1 mile race pace (mara or half).
If doing this fartlek style: 7 min tempo, 4-6 x 2 min Hard, 1:30 Easy, 7 min tempo

That is all – see you in the am!

Seanna