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Month: February 2013

Teaching myself to keep calm and rock the fuck out

Teaching myself to keep calm and rock the fuck out

I should really work on applying the same amount of discipline I do to my running and health to my writing; that way, a) you’ll have more frequent musings from me, and b) perhaps more importantly, the musings you get won’t be garbage.

Er wait, backing up…

b) they’ll be more effective, rhetorically, and better for you, my reader, since I’ll be chillin’ in the writing groove. When I write more often, more frequently, my writing is sharper and conciser, and that ultimately results in a better piece. My message is more cohesive, my language is more powerful, and it is a more enjoyable read (and write).

See what I did there?

I’ll explain.

I’m not Catholic–though probably 95% of the folks in my hometown are (somehow, I guess my family missed the Catholic boat)–but for whatever reason, when this Lenten season rolled around, I got inspired to change a habit in the name of self-improvement. I settled on two:

1. Stop weighing myself everyday (that warrants its own post) and

2. Stop doggin’ myself and purge the self-degradation I so often use, even jokingly, because (I’m assuming) it gets old quickly, and it’s killing my mental muscle–in my everyday life and, more relevant here, in my running.

Though I would like to think that my running career will last until the day I’m six feet under, I think I’m already fairly deep in, with over 80 marathons down to 5ks under my belt. I’ve met some awesome people along the way in these past going-on 7 years, I’ve learned some great stuff about everything from eating to chafing to foam rollers to how to avoid having a GI catastrophe when you’re running, and I’ve learned how to maintain fitness in all my other bodily parts that perhaps don’t get as much love from running as, say, my legs.

Despite my experiences, though, and the knowledge I’ve gleaned from others and gained over these thousands of miles, I’m still deficient in one super-critical muscle: the mind.

A cursory Google search will yield a ton of results for “mental training for the marathon,” and the results range from positive visualizations, memorizing and using some mantras, playing mind games with yourself, you name it–someone has probably recommended that you do it during marathon training to make yourself mentally tough.

To be fair, I’ve always been a fan of mantras because they’re concise and easily memorizable, but what good is a mantra when you don’t feel in your heart of hearts that you’re capable of accomplishing that goal that you’ve been chasing for the past X number of weeks in your training? You can tell yourself a million times on race day “I’m a rock star,” but if all you’ve heard during your training is “maybe I just have to settle with being a back-up dancer,” no amount of self-talk is gonna undo that nasty damage.

This is where my Lenten goal of eradicating my self-deprecative habits comes into play.

I’m looking at it in this way: flexing this mental muscle for the rest of my Eugene training will make me that much sharper, and–what it boils down to–that much more confident come race day. I can’t expect to go sub-3:30 if the rest of my training cycle finds me straddling the line of “perhaps, maybe, I could probably do that, but only if the cosmos aligns”; eff that.

That’s a waste of time and energy.

It behooves we runners to believe in ourselves, every step of the way, after every run, good, bad, hard, and easy, and the majority that constitute the “in-betweens,” if we expect to rock our A-game on the day it matters most: race day. (btw, professional American marathoner Kara Goucher has some awesome tweets related to this. Check her out @KaraGoucher).

I’ve gone public with my friends and family about my desire to re-frame my language use in this regard, so seriously, that silly opening paragraph? Where I refer to my writing as “garbage” and then back-track and explain how better writing comes from consistent writing, yadda yadda yadda? Yup, I’m doing that now in my day-to-day conversations.

It is SO much easier for me to dog myself, to sandbag my efforts in comparison to my goals, or to be just generally wishy-washy about how hard I’m working, or how much ass I’m hauling, to become a better runner. SO much easier. Words are powerful, kids. Part of these self-deprecating habits, no doubt, stem from some confidence issues. I’m sincerely working on trusting my training, or more importantly, my body (as much as one can trust her body) because physically, physiologically, my body knows what’s up. She knows why I’ve been training her as I have. My heart knows it, as well. My body and heart (not one in the same) know how to keep calm and rock the fuck out–which is my running mantra of choice, by the way.

It’s just the ladies controlling the command center up top that I have to tell what’s up 🙂

As I come close to finishing up this first mesocycle of Pfitzinger’s 55 mpw plan, I’m finding that my outlook on training has been refreshingly different, my focus sharper, and my mind clearer, even after coming off a PR in January on training that could be described as “maintenance,” at best. I’ve been trying my best to flex this new mental muscle I’m toning on a daily basis, in the hopes that it becomes habit post-Lent (whenever Lent ends…April?). Perhaps like any muscle, it gets sore from time to time, but the more I practice, the more natural it becomes.

Just like it took me time to go from years of not running at all to running and racing marathons for kicks, so, too, do I expect this “linguistic reframing,” if you will, to become something of a journey and process as well.

So, what’s your story? How do you train the ladies or fellas up top that you’re capable when the rest of you knows how to keep calm and rock out already?

PS- Here’s a reading list related to this topic that I’ve been finding particularly insightful and interesting, beyond the usual suspects that comprise mental training for the marathon.

http://running.competitor.com/2009/10/training/focus-on-mental-toughness_6115

http://ramscrosscountry.blogspot.com/2008/07/mental-toughness-for-runners.html

http://www.saltyrunning.com/2012/08/21/mental-toughness-where-to-find-it-when-you-need-it/

Castles in the air and burned boats

Castles in the air and burned boats

I’m a sucker for inspirational quotes. I often find them on Twitter (usually thanks to Mike H. – hey!), retweet them, and then quickly forget about them or whatever “deep” meaning I transferred to them. However, I’m finding a couple I came upon in the past few days particularly motivating and ass-kicking as I *officially* dive into my Eugene Marathon training this week and another attempt to break 3:30.

What were they, you say?

Tweeted by RealRunners (@RunningQuotes), quoting businessman Vivek Paul: “We have to go for what we truly think we’re capable of, not limit ourselves by what we’ve been in the past.”

&

Tweeted by Desi Davila (@des_davila) (one of my favorite professional marathoners… this woman is badass), quoting Thoreau:

thanks to inspiremeplease.wordpess.com for this
thanks to inspiremeplease.wordpess.com for this

Both these quotes, as well as what Matt wrote earlier, in 2012, about burning the boats and going balls-out with our goals-setting, is so appropriate, and I think pretty universal, for any runner aspiring to realize any goal–whether it’s time-specific for a particular race, simply completing a distance (which we all know, often isn’t a “simple” thing at all), or even running those first few agonizing steps after a long period of less-than-ideal living.

Just because we’re all carrying with us some sort of history when we toe the line at our respective events doesn’t mean that said history will dictate our success–or promise our failure(s)–today.

Roughly forever ago, in my middle and high school running days, I was a sprinter–100, 200, and 400m, and their respective relays–and when my coach toyed with the idea of making me into an 800 runner, I told him I would have nothing of it. In fact, I think I told him I would quit. (Of course I wouldn’t, but still. Two times around the track!?)

My, how people, and times, change.

Earlier, I mentioned that I’m taking a leap of faith and going for gold as I train to break-3:30.  I wanted to do it in Houston but just missed it, so Eugene will be my second go at it, and this time around, I’m planning to do this by following one of Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning plans.

While I have a healthy amount of marathoning (and running) experience under my belt, to say that I’m somehow “advanced” is a little… weird. I still make stupid, novice-y mistakes when I run or race (hello, first mile of the 10k I raced last Sunday), but I guess it’s these dumb things that I do pretty regularly (ha) that allow me to keep learning in this sport and super critically, to keep improving.

In Pfitzinger’s book, which is a most excellent read, by the way, Pfitzinger suggests that all marathoners have a series of goals–namely, a career goal, something that you want to realize before you retire (something that might even make you sound a bit cocky if you share it with others!), a goal for your next race, and then mini process-goals that help guide you toward your next race goal (which should feed into your career goal). As I was reading through the book the other day, I found myself incredibly energized because, like probably any runner, goals motivate me and help me in the decisions I make in my day-to-day life.

Sitting down and actually writing out my career, next race, and process goals, though, is what really sealed the deal for me.

That’s when those castles in the sky–all of ’em–suddenly became much more real.

When I realized that the experience and wisdom (ha) I’ve gained from racing, training, and surrounding myself with inspiring, knowledgeable, and motivational people in this sport (generally, people who just kick a lot of ass) will be (read: are) the elements that will be crucial for me as I go from being wishy-washy about my goals, uncertain about my ability or drive to attain them, to making it a matter of fact, a confirmed reality.

I probably sound like I’m totally confident in my abilities to do what I never in a million years thought I’d be capable of doing, and I’m not.

It will be hard.

But that’s what makes it rewarding.

I’ve burned my boats and built my castles. What are you doing?