Hey Everyone!

What another great weekend of racing! In the Mississauga Half, our very own Kerry K ran 1:40 and came in first in her age group!!! Proving that strength = fitness. Don’t shirk your circuits! And in the Bum Run, Jeff Smith ran 18:44, coming in 1^st in his age group! This weekend we have a few more racing Georgina and Toronto half and full.  You guys got this! Everyone else, if you think you might want to “jump in” some 5K’s or 10K’s this spring/summer, I advise you to plan them out and register. They sell out fast these days. Coming up are: Sporting Life 10K, Toronto Women’s 5K, Pride 5K, Rev and Run 5K, UnderArmour Toronto 10K. Some of these are already sold out, but keep your eyes open for people selling bibs.

I’ve been thinking about the act of stepping on the line. Many people see racing as a fun challenge – an inconsequential (in the grand scheme of things) way to push ourselves, test ourselves, answer questions about ourselves. They are often exhilarating and rewarding and we get a medal and are celebrated – as we should be! So … why don’t we do them more often? I think part of the answer is that we’re afraid of failing. What does it mean if we come up short of our own or others’ expectations? What if we try our hardest in front of everyone, with no excuses, and we still fail?

This happened to my daughter recently. She ran a race which she considered a giant failure. She was pretty devastated. In trying to come up with some perspective to offer her, my friend shared with me what her daughter had learned by going through rounds of interviews for universities: the most commonly asked question by all of them was “Tell me about a time that you failed”. The universities are likely interviewing successful kids who are used to succeeding. They don’t want to hear about that. They want to know that the person who they accept knows how to put themselves in uncomfortable situations where the outcome is unknown. That they are prepared to fail. And they know that failing is the fastest path to growth and learning. If you learn to be ok with failure, you are way more likely to achieve great things. If one out of every five races are great, then you just have to learn to accept not having a great race four out of five times. That’s the price. If you can’t handle that, you won’t get the great ones. Universities know this, hiring teams know this, coaches know this. If you can’t learn to fail, you won’t succeed. It’s all about the failure.

As much as we want our kids to succeed, we should also want them to fail. And help them to deal with it positively when they do. Similarly, we should look at ourselves and ask ourselves what we’re afraid of trying because we might fail. I have a list. I’m going to start on it.

On to tomorrow’s workout: Lakeshore and Leslie. 6:05 drills, 6:15 GO.

1.       Sets of: 800-600-400 (90 sec bw reps, 3 min bw sets). 3 sets sounds reasonable. 800’s at ~ 5K pace, 600’s a lil quicker, 400’s~ 3K pace

2.       If racing this weekend: Taper workout!

The usual: 1 mile @ race pace, 3 min rest, 4x 400 a lil quicker w 1:30

That is all – see you in the a.m.!

xo

Seanna