Momento Mori – RunningWell

Hi Everyone!

Wow – what a weekend of watching races. From the men’s and women’s Ironman World Championships in Kona, to the Victoria and Chicago marathons, I feel emotionally spent! Huge congrats to our LES athletes and friends who put themselves out there this weekend! Samantha Farrell, Amy Hayes, Elizabeth Gladney, Kerry Kuluski, Madalyn Marcus, Lyndsay Hayhurst, Colin Stevenson, Carol McFarlane, Nir Meltzer, Ingrid Ambus, Bob Hayes. Everyone put their hearts and bodies on the line and made us so proud! Also, nod to Emily Sisson who took down the US Women’s Marathon record, running it in a time of 2:18:29. I can distinctly remember a loooong stretch of time when that would have been the world record. Humans are amazing.

This weekend I’ve been noticing and really relishing in the fall colours. They’re so vibrant and gorgeous right now! I think part of what makes us really appreciate them is the fact that we know they’re so short lived. In a few weeks, they’ll be brown and then gone altogether. We know and accept this, and it’s part of the reason we make trips and hikes specifically to appreciate and enjoy their beauty. If we had them year round, we’d probably take them for granted and forget to let them awe us. I’ve been thinking about how we could benefit from using this perspective in more areas of life. This is a philosophy that the Stoics called Momento Mori (remember you will die). This sounds depressing at first glance, but actually, it’s the exact opposite. It’s the philosophy of not putting your head in the sand and pretending that you’re immortal, but acknowledging your mortality and therefore truly living life awake – with purpose. Many Buddhist practitioners have this as one of their most important meditations. Understanding and accepting that we will all die allows you to let go of fear, pride, embarrassment, greed. It lets you trade in consumerism for experiences, vanity for purpose, jealousy for compassion. I’m no expert, and just exploring this philosophy myself, but it does make me think that having experiences like running races and testing our limits in physical challenges, really helps to make us feel connected and alive. There’s nothing sharper to bring you immediately into the here and now than the starting gun of a race. And that euphoria we feel afterwards – whether we nailed our goal or not? I think that’s the feeling of truly experiencing being alive. So don’t get down and depressed about it – instead, take the opportunities and chances that come your way – whether you’re “ready” or not, whether you’ll run “fast” or not, whether your training has gone well or not. We have to remember to live now. Appreciate the colours, the races, each other, because we can. That’s the gift of understanding the impermanence of it all.

On to tomorrow’s workout!

We are back to hills! Ppl running Toronto Full or Half – taper workout – no hills.

Unfortunately there is covid in my house, so I won’t make it out. Ugh.

Let’s do Pottery Rd Fulls and Halfs (halfs start at the construction/stairs)

Sets of 2 x Full, 1 x Half

Repeat 2-3 times

People in the Beach, please coordinate and do similar. Fulls are around 400m, Halfs 200m.

People racing: let’s give you what we gave the Chicago crew last week: 1 mile @ race pace, 2 min rest, up to 4 x 400 a little quicker w 1:30 rest.

That is all – major fomo already for all of you!!!

Oh, and check the fbook page and please sign up for our Cheer Station for the marathon! I will repost with more details.

Seanna