backfire

My plans I laid out have backfired, instead of keeping me motivated and fired up they have led to overuse injury, exhaustion, and burnout.

I am, for now, making my training plans week by week.

This week, one easy run, one fun run, and one trail half marathon at Fall Creek Falls.

Making Adjustments

It has become pretty obvious that I bit off more than I could chew. Running, biking, strength training, conditioning, kung fu, two jobs, parenting. . .

So I am adjusting my goals week by week. If I wind up short of my originally projected numbers, so be it. If I wind up ahead, awesome.

Do It Anyway

The theme for my workouts this week has been, "Get up and do it anyway." My motivation has been low, but I've been doing my best to get up and go do my workouts anyway. I've had some success with this. My plan had been to run in the mornings and do my other workouts in the evenings. The runs all happened, but not much else. It seems by the end of the day my willpower is less strong.

So, time to refocus and head forward again.

12 mile trail race in 4 weeks.

Nebulous

My goals for this journey are concrete, but still feel nebulous. I have found I perform better the more concrete my goals are. 100 pushups in a minute, yeah, I can measure that, 20 minute 5K, I know exactly how much faster I need to get. This kung fu stuff though, is so much more vague. It is harder to measure my progress. Yes, I could memorize more forms, I could do a certain number of repeats, but I still haven't really found a way to make it feel solid.

Out of the Comfort Zone

I happen to like my comfort zone. It's. . . well, it's comfortable. It's easy to keep doing what I've been doing. It's comfortable to lather, rinse, repeat, without thinking about it. To stay the course without new challenges, without new fears, without new experiences. I honestly don't crave adventure much.

Those of you that have been around me the last few years may think this sounds a bit strange considering all the new adventures I've been taking on, but the truth is my inclination to stay in my box is exactly why I keep challenging myself.

Master Tom Pardue often says there is a difference between having 20 years experience, and having one year experience 20 times. That is what I'm striving to avoid, one year experience 20 times.

At times, it seems that this process has drawn people to me, at other times it seems to have driven them away. I have gaines some great students in this process, I have also lost some cherished students, others have stuck with me through thick and thin.

I don't know what it is about this journey I'm on that draws some and pushes others away. I won't pretend that I have all the answers. I will say this, I'm on the adventure of a lifetime, and I intend to keep it that way.

Me Vs. Ego

I use the "smartcoach" at Runner's World to plan my running workouts. I put in a time for a race I've done and what race I'm training for and it puts together a workout plan on what distances and speeds I should be running to train for the race.

Lately I've been consistently slower than the pace set out by the smartcoach, so I had this conversation with my ego.

Me: I think I need to adjust my training plan, I'm not able to keep up with these times.

Ego: Naaah, this is based on one of your 5K races, you can do it.

Me: Yeah, but it's based on a 5K I did 3 months ago when I was running, and swimming, and biking regularly. Since then the weather has interrupted my biking and my schedule has cut out the swimming, and on top of that, an injury cut out a lot of my strength training.

Ego: but, but, if you lower your scores your RACE TIME will be lower.

Me: Look at what's going on ego, my race time is about to be lower anyway, and I'm going to get hurt along the way, it's time to slow down.

Spaz!

I have a spasm in a muscle in my neck/back. It's not cripplingly painful, but I don't want it to get that way, so I've been easing off on the workouts for about a week.

Running seems to actually help it, but kettlebells, kung fu, pushups, and biking are on hold.

Sometimes setbacks are part of the journey.

Trying Harder

On my bike ride in to work today, with plans to "go fast", I didn't manage to go very fast. So I analyzed my effort. I realized pretty quickly that in my 23-25 minute rides to work and my slightly longer rides home (It's mostly downhill there, mostly uphill back), that I was not feeling at the end of my rides the way I feel at the end of a 5K running race. The easy conclusion is that I was not working as hard on my bike as I work when I run.

So I decided to focus on effort level for the ride home.

I made it home in my fastest time ever for a ride home from work.

I thought I was trying hard, but I got tricked by my brain again.

I just had to try harder.