March 3, 2020 – Trust Yourself
What I’ve been thinking about this week is the concept of trying things out for yourself. Trusting yourself. What you see written down or what other people are telling you might not always be what works best for you. Sometimes you can only really learn and become wise by trying things out for yourself.
This past weekend my 12-year old asked me to take him to a park to try “street snowboarding”. In his head he had an idea of launching himself and his board off snow jumps he’d build in connection with man-made obstacles. I did not really understand it and I did not want to endorse it. In my head I had a vision of total failure. But I knew he wouldn’t accept my telling him it was a bad idea as the truth. He had to try it or he would never be satisfied. So I spent a fair bit of time in the cold, watching him shovel piles of snow to build a jump so he could launch himself down a hill and off a brick wall. To my surprise, it actually kind of worked. Way better than I’d imagined anyway. It was way less glorious than he’d imagined, but his curiosity was satisfied and he learned what would and wouldn’t work in a way he wouldn’t have if I had just told him. And to be honest, he actually has a better grasp of it now than I do.
It’s very similar to running plans. Sometimes you just want to try something, despite cautious people advising you not to. No one really has a glass ball and can tell you exactly what will or won’t work out. Even if it doesn’t work out perfectly, you will learn. I have a coach who has known me for 30 years and I still feel I know my body better and will add or miss workouts as I feel. Only I know my sleep, energy levels, cumulative fatigue and motivation. Sometimes I have extra, sometimes less. I use it as it’s available and slow down when it isn’t. This isn’t a formula. It’s life.
If you have the drive and motivation of an adventurous 12 year-old, you’re likely to need to just try things for yourself, despite what the cautious people in your life are telling you. That’s ok. The fact is you will learn more about yourself by doing it. Sometimes it will work out, and sometimes it won’t, but you’ll have discovered this for yourself. And that is deep learning! As a coach (and parent) I would rather see people learn than to have a specific outcome. And I do think the culture of our group is that we’re doing that, so that makes me happy!
Onto our results at the Chilly Half Marathon where there were PB’s galore – what a day!
Karen Chien Nicklin – 1:44:16 – PB!
Adam Nicklin – 1:34:38 – PB!
Jason Jacobs – 1:26:47 – PB!
Nir Meltzer – 1:28:59
Chris Robinson – 1:36
Jon McRea – (I know you were in there but can’t find your result!)
Roz Morton – 1:23:55 – PB!
Emily Ryan – 1:24:29 – PB!
Awesome job guys. Chilly racers, no hills for you. Can ease into pick-ups in the latter half of the week if feeling good.
The rest of us: Pottery Road!
Let’s do a bunch of long hills followed by a shorter number of half hills to finish. I’ll leave the number up to you, but I like the long hills for the aerobic and strength efforts they build. Don’t do your max # though because let’s leave ourselves 4-5 half hills to finish. These fine tune your power and they’re way more fun 😉
Don’t think I can bring shirts all the way to Pottery Rd so will bring the remainder to Lakeshore next week.
Thanks guys – see ya in the a.m.!
Seanna