Re-Entering – RunningWell

Hi All!

I’m feeling exciting times coming up. Things are opening, people are getting vaccinated, REAL LIVE events are popping up on our calendars. What I’ve been thinking about all of this is that some of us feel like water that has been held back by a dam and it’s about to burst. We are ready to charge forward and explode into action.

I know many of us have gotten excited with the prospect of real races and are about to launch ourselves into training programs. But despite the pent-up energy, I would advise a slow and cautious approach here. Don’t look at where you want to be and try to get there immediately. Take one step from where you are now. That’s why I don’t like writing programs with too much detail too far out. A) We don’t know how you’ll respond to everything and B) You don’t need to be concerned about 3 months from today now. What you need to do today is to build on yesterday. You can’t leap-frog any of it.

The same cautious approach applies with how we re-enter our “busy lives”. Just as in any training program, we should maybe start based on where we are instead of where we intend to be in a few months, or have been before. There will be an adjustment for many. Just because programming and lessons and races and events and parties and reconnecting in person (for work and pleasure) will become available, it does not mean we need to rush to do it all at once. It would be wise to have patience with ourselves and others who will need to readjust to the pace slowly. Just because something is available and you’ve been waiting for it, does not mean you have to jump into it immediately. Go gently with yourselves. If you want to enjoy your training program and your pace of life, then it’s a good idea to keep yourself a little hungry for what’s coming next.

The primary role of coaches for very motivated high-performing athletes is not to crack the whip – it’s to hold them back when they need to (which is actually most of the time!) There is a lot of hard training coming up and we all have big, busy lives waiting for us – let’s be smart about how we take it all on.

That’s my 2-cents. Onto workouts for this week!

Hills! Yup, perfect time for these. Some good ol’ strength. When doing the longer ones, aim for volume, when adding the shorter ones, aim for power and quality. Or mix ‘em up.
Tempo option: 15 min – 10 min -5 min (OR if you’re just getting back to these, 12-8-5)

Enjoy all!!!!

Seanna