Adjusting Expectations

The article below is from the newest edition of an online newsletter from USA Triathlon.org. It speaks to some of the concerns and thoughts I've had recently, particularly numbers four and five.

By Marty Gaal

Part of any well-rounded athletic training program includes realistic goal setting. Goal setting can be as simple as losing X amount of weight and ‘getting into better shape,’ or targeting a specific time or performance goal at a specific event. In the endurance athletic world the tendency is toward the latter although there is nothing wrong with the former.

As the season progresses, you should see measurable results via improved body composition, increased endurance and increased speed at certain effort levels. These interim milestones allow you to adjust your future expectations upward or downward.

Interruptions and adjustments are a part of life. Most adult triathletes have multiple commitments including family harmony and work-related stress like travel, deadlines and unsupportive bosses. Your initial goal of winning your age group in a big race may not be realistic after you had to spend two weeks visiting multiple job sites and working 15 hour days. Or you may run into the cold, hard reality that you are not, in fact, Superman or Superwoman and can only burn the candle at both ends for a few days at a time before you need time off of training to mentally rest and relax.

In an ideal world, you will successfully handle all of the above as well as the sort of training required to meet your goals. You’ll arrive at your goal race well-prepared to execute and meet or beat your personal goals.

However, that’s not always the case. Everything in sum may become overwhelming. If this sounds like you, here are a few tips to keep yourself motivated and enjoying all the training you are able to complete.

1.      Prioritize. Make sure you understand what is most important to you and then work from there. Most of us put more value into keeping our families happy and keeping our jobs.

2.      Adjust your time commitment and performance goals. If your original Ironman season plan had you averaging 15 hours of training per week (for example), accept that this may be unrealistic for you. Slice a couple hours off and expect to be five to 10 percent slower than you would have been. You can still have a great day and will be in terrific shape.

3.      Make it social. Endurance athletics is ultimately an individual sport where you excel through your personal work habits and individual ability. You can take some of the sting out of lowered expectations by expanding your worldview to value the social side of training with groups and friends.

4.      Enjoy the little things. Rather than stress about not being able to repeat sub-6 minute miles (for example) on a running interval day, revel in the fact that you can do several miles at sub-6:30 pace and come back to train again the following day.

5.      Take the long view. While this particular season or training cycle may not be the best you could have achieved had everything else in your life gone according to plan, doing the best you can with the time and energy you do have will set you up for future successes, when life outside of athletics may not be so challenging.

Success in endurance athletics is not built on one season of training and racing alone. You may have heard of the 10,000 hour rule. This is the idea that it takes that many hours of practice to become truly skilled in an endeavor. While it may not take quite that much time for each individual, it gives you some idea of the amount of work it takes to become really, really good. Those superfast athletes you are hoping to mix it up with did not start out that way. All of them have practiced consistently for years and years. No one can jam that much practice into just one season!

When push comes to shove, your satisfaction in sport is based on simple factors: Accepting your current limitations and doing the best you can to challenge those limitations within the framework of the rest of your life. Do that, and you will have the mental capacity to repeat the athletic goal setting process for the rest of your life. Rage against the machine and you will experience untimely burnout and frustration, which will negatively affect both your physical and mental well-being.

Marty Gaal, CSCS, is a USA Triathlon Certified Coach. Along with his wife and partner, Brianne, he coaches athletes around the world from their home base in Cary, N.C. You can read more about One Step Beyond coaches and services at osbmultisport.com.

Mudslog

Trotting through idyllic pastures, prancing up steep hillsides, gliding over horse jumps, sprinting through the stalls to finish in the show arena sounds like a great adventure for horses and riders, right? Well, what if you are a runner doing that for 7.5 miles; would it still be so great?

Eileen, Jan and Mike W. decided to seek out adventure and try a trail/obstacle course race at the GVH Mudslog held on the Jensen Stables farm in Perinton, NY and nearby roads and trails. (photo - Jan in Fleet Feet team shirt, Eileen next to her in black).

 The race began in a cornfield and within .75 miles went up a ridiculously steep, long hill. I don't know how horses grazed on that pasture without toppling over and rolling down. After five miles the runners headed into steep single track trails through a nature park. Welcoming them were two stockade fences to climb over, one about four feet, the second seven feet tall. (photo, Eileen waiting for Jan to climb fence)

From there they ran in a creek (yes, in it), crawled under fencing and a bridge, through more mud and back up to the real trail.(Jan coming out from under bridge).

Finish area. Next time maybe they'll take a horse ride instead? The official race name is GVH Mudslog. The winning time was 9 minutes a mile, that's how tough the course is.

Historic Two Mile Race

The video below is from a track meet being held in Hawaii during the summer of 1969. I love that films like this are available to watch. Though there are only four runners in the two mile race on an old cinder track, look at who they are;
Steve Prefontaine- 18yr old, just graduated from high school and in three years will be our star 5k Olympic medal contender.
Frank Shorter - In three years will win the gold medal in the marathon and 1976 follow that up with a silver.
Marty Liquori - A year before, as a high school senior was only the third high school student to run under 4 minutes for the mile. Marty was a 1968 Olympian, finishing 12th in the 1,500m race (with a stress fracture). Eventually ranked #1 in world for 1,500m '69 and '71, 4x American record holder, ran a 13:00 5k, had mile pr of 3:52.
Gerry Lindgren - Ran a 13:44 5k in high school, a record that stood for 40 years. Still holds 2 mile high school record (8:40) for American born student. 9th in 1964 Olympics (just after graduating high school), set 6mile world record in 1965 along with Olympian Billy Mills. A mysterious man, Gerry disappeared from the running scene for a long time.
The clock on the screen is weird, counting up from 35 minutes.

Running Naked!

I ran naked last Sunday. It was a scary, what do I do now, moment, being in the village of Spencerport, ready to run on the canal path and realize what I had done, or in this case didn’t do.

My Garmin was at home, still plugged in to the charger. My Timex sport watch was sitting on top of the refrigerator. Sure, MW, who was going to run nine miles with me, had his Garmin. But it wasn’t the same. I hadn’t run without the Garmin or sport watch for …well…for years? How was I going to keep pace? What if the pace felt fast, or slow, but wasn’t? I couldn’t tell. Basically I would have to run by how fast my body felt like going and not sweat whatever the pace was. Now I couldn’t glance down every two minutes to see my current pace or distance covered. Without a satellite following my progress at every second would the training still count? What would I put in my running log book? I ran today? That seemed bogus. I need to count the time, the miles, and the average pace, maybe mark my best mile. With my logs I can go back 25 years and tell you what the weather was on any given day I ran. Isn’t that important to know? I can point to the day I did a tempo 4.4mile run from my home on Ridge Meadows Drive to the Trimmer road bridge and back in 30 minutes, knowing that then I was getting in good shape. 

This Sunday I wanted to write down in a new logbook that same type of data, except I was naked, without the watch or Garmin. At the end MW gave me the approximate time, since he began running .7miles away, from his home, and the approximate distance. It was strange how many times I looked at my wrist or went to turn the watch off. Maybe someday I will not worry as much about time or distance and run naked more often. But not today, or tomorrow, I hope. I still need to quantify and qualify for the logbook. I am locked into the technology. Last night I ran on the high school track. It was comforting, doing 400m repeat laps which turned into mile repeats, knowing the distance was uniform and my watch was adding up the time. I came home feeling great about the workout and able to calculate the pace and didn't run naked, which is good when you are around a schoolyard!

So You Say It's a 10k?

Absolutely the race that will get me out of my doldrums will be my old standby, the Race with Grace 10k on Thursday, November 28 (Thanksgiving). This is the 23rd time this race will be run, 20x by me. Race director Bob Dyjak does a great job organizing every detail of the event. Is there a better holiday than Thanksgiving? A great race in the morning at my favorite distance, family, food and football!

With ten weeks to go I needed a training plan, but wanted to keep it fairly simple, yet tough. I found what I was looking for in a 2010 Running Times article written by Greg McMillan.  The rationale behind the plan is in the article. It is important to have a reasonable goal pace/finishing time. If you are struggling at week 4 with the pace, adjustments may be necessary.

Combined with weekly 8-10mile workouts with the last 2-3 miles run a bit quicker, I should feel confident come race morning that I can run well. (M=mile, m=meters)

SIMPLE EIGHT-WEEK WORKOUT SEQUENCE FOR A FAST 10K

Week	Key Workout	Notes
1	6 x 1M	3-minute jog between 1M repeats
2	10-12 x 400m	Run the 400m repeats at 5K race pace; 200m jog between
3	2M + 4 x 1M	5-minute jog between 2M repeats, 3-minute jog between 1M repeats
4	3M Tempo Run or 5K Race	One simple prediction method is to double your 5K time and add 1 minute to get your 10K time. Are you on track for your goal 10K time?
5	2 x 2M + 2 x 1M	5-minute jog between 2M repeats, 3-minute jog between 1M repeats
6	20-24 x 200m	Run the 200m repeats at 5K race pace; 200m jog between
7	3 x 2M	Run the 200m repeats at 5K race pace; 200m jog between
8	RACE: 10K

GREG MCMILLAN is an exercise physiologistand USATF-certified coach who helps runners via his website mcmillanrunning.com.

RWLTM Club

Today I attended my first meeting of the "Runners Who Lost Their Motivation" (RWLTM) club. True, I was the only person in attendance, but sometimes admitting a problem intrinsically is the first step to finding a "cure".

How did I lose my motivation for really running fast in training or especially in races after 30 years? I'm not entirely sure. For most of this year I believed I was training the right way, at least to succeed in anything from the mile to a 5k. But really my weekly miles were low and biking way less than the previous three years. Weightlifting is going well, though no one but me can tell as I never have and evidently never will get muscles that pop out, even if I am stronger.

Maybe training for months two or more times a day to be able to complete the Tinman Half-Iron distance last summer and then the Marine Corps Marathon took a mental toll. I know last winter was waste as I didn't snowshoe once.

So, what are the steps involved in the RWLTM cure? Unlike the 12 step Alcoholics Anonymous program, there are 10 steps!

10. Admit to others that I have a problem  (done)
9.   Desire to train hard again (work in progress)
8.   A power greater than myself will help in getting me re-motivated (Jan, Mike W., Lou, ...etal)
7.  Learn to run again even on days when I'm tired, thereby building an aerobic base.
6. Embrace quotes such as; "If I'm standing at the end of the race, hit me with a board and knock me down, because that means I didn't run hard enough." --Steve Jones, former marathon world record holder
5.Losing weight, for real. 6'1" and 176 might be light for normal people, but is ten pounds more than I need to be to run fast.
4.Stop using age as an excuse. Forget about my times during my 30's or 40's, I was faster on snowshoes five years ago in a mile race than I am now running on the track.
3.Made an inventory of my training log over the past 10 months and can see where I've failed and need to improve.
2.The need to find a goal race and time to focus on. (Race with Grace 10k - Thanksgiving)
1. Stay injury free (which I have thankfully done well at this year)

That's it, the RWLTM cure. If you are suffering from this mental disorder, don't give up, there is always a chance you, too, can recover.

Vino and the Beast

What could motivate Jan more than the opportunity to run a race with her daughter Amanda than wine and beer tasting at the end? It didn't take much convincing on Amanda's part to get Jan to register for the Vino and the Beast 5k. The race took place among the vineyards and nearby roads around Three Brother's Winery on the east side of Seneca Lake on a beautiful mid-August afternoon.

Runners were placed in groups of about 30 and sent off every five minutes. They had to crawl, climb, swim and jump over ten different obstacles, including a 30 foot wall near the end. YellowJacket racing did time the race, but time seemed to be secondary compared with everything else. Competitors never knew how long they would have to wait at each obstacle for slower individuals to complete the task. Unless you were in the first group or two chances of competing for an overall or age group prize were slim.

All the competitors seemed to have fun and for $40 you got the race, wine glass, free tastings and shirt.