I stated writing this for my crew of Love Training athletes who I coach but then decided to post it here for the collective “all” of us. Because maybe like me, your social media feeds something a little different.
This post started with me doing my Saturday long run on Friday because I am a public health nurse. I needed to do Friday long because I knew that I was called into work for Saturday and Sunday. I have been a public health nurse for 12 years. I love my job protecting and promoting the health of my community. I am fine to go into work on Saturday and Sunday because my community needs me and equally, I want my public health nurse colleagues/friends/work-family who worked Monday to Friday )or Monday to Saturday) to have a much needed break. This post isn’t about my nurse life though, it’s about my athlete and coach life.
So off I venture on my long run, satisfied with my work schedule. But a bad attitude about running.
I have been talking to the athletes who I coach about scaling back. About listening to tired and stressed bodies and responding with less training work because the body only knows stress, whether that’s from training load or a global pandemic. I shared with a few that my own still-not-cancelled July goal no longer felt close on the horizon. I was dropping my long runs from 20-23km to 18-19km. My goal was 18km for today.
Here are the 17 steps that led to turning around my bad attitude about running. I didn’t celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day so adding an homage to 17.
1. Off I go from my parents’ home on PEI. It’s wildly windy and I am running straight into the wind. It’s raining. It’s not cold. But there are puddles everywhere. This sucks. Ok, girl, you gotta at least run 2.5km away from the house because we don’t get dressed in running clothes for less then 5km. I give myself the option of turning back at 5km.
2. I rationalize that if I am running in the wind now in this straight shot down to Victoria Park, then the way home will be awesome. This is not at all awesome. It sucks.
3. The sidewalks are rivers. The river bank is muddy, mucky raised goop and I don’t trust my clumsy self to hop up and down said muck. I run through the puddles. Socks = wet by 1.5km. Boo.
4. Oh Hey, my Hoka Carbon X’s are raised so high off the ground that even mid-puddle foot fall doesn’t fully soak my socks. Small smirk at Fast Colleen who has teased the Carbon X for their silly raised appearance. X gets last only mildly wet laugh.
5. Turn into neighborhood, oh, I’m at 3km. I forgot to quit. I will divide this up into things. The first thing is simply to get to Victoria Park, 5km from home. Then I can decide if I am quitting or if I am doing the workout intervals assigned by Coach Lee.
6. Wind. So. Brutal. It’s hateful. The way back has to be better.
7. Some sense of contentness on these roads that are included in most downtown PEI races.
8. I’m at 5km. That concludes warm up. My body is dragging so much stress-induced fatigue. I don’t know if I will do the workout. I came this far. I will start it. I eat half a gel. I’m home on PEI without all of my running gear and no water bottles. So I eat half the gel and I punch a hole in a snowbank with my elbow to get to clean snow underneath and I eat some. Hydration. For a moment this feels child-like. It feels good. I harness that good to start my workout.
9. Interval #1 = 8 minutes at threshold. I have come down to the Victoria Park boardwalk because it’s beautiful. It’s also the windiest place in the city. I struggle into the wind. But my faster pace feels better than the warm up slog. I’m ok with this interval being effort-based. I’m satisfied that I am onto the second thing in my run. Yay me. Split 4:22/km.
10. I run my 3 minute rest about Rochford Square and the beautiful old homes of downtown Charlottetown and I like this.
11. 8 minute interval #2, mix of everywhere wind and wind at my back on the way back along the boardwalk. Split 4:01/km.
12. Last 5 minutes at fartlek pace, split 3;53/km. I’m happy with myself, I did all the things that added up to a workout. Now I get to run home, through the puddles, with the wind at my back.
13. I arrive at the last intersection before my parents’ home at 14.5km. Goal 18km. I can’t enter my parents’ neighborhood, I know that my feet will lead me immediately home and I will have a workout, not a long run workout. I head to the neighborhood across the main road instead. This is the neighborhood where I taught myself to run at age 16, when my basketball coach told us that we had to run for fitness and I was better at the fitness running than the basketball.
14. My tunes are blasting, my favorite workout tunes, Friendly Sessions Bootie-Mix. A Beyonce mash-up comes on. I’m in that sought after clear-off-mind just running zone. This organic thought pops into my head: “This is fun.”
15. It was fun. Up until this moment, this run was simply a struggle-survival-session. But this moment, it was fun. I looked at the familiar road ahead where I learned to run as a kid, some 23 years ago. I could almost see my 16 year old self on the road and had this vision of my 39 year old self merging with her. I ran out my distance to 18km and it was fun.
16. Also ahead on that road up ahead, I could see my next goal on the horizon a little clearly. It didn’t seem futile. But also, this felt more like running for myself. For me. Maybe there’s training for a performance goal and there is training that is just for yourself. Training for myself felt good.
17. The road did rise to meet me. The run started out full on suck. It ended with suck replaced by optimism. If I had given up on myself, I would have missed it. I needed to be out there to run into that moment on the road.
Wishing all of you similar moments where the road rises to meet you. And you won’t find them if you give up on the road amidst this uncertain time.
Last week, I was looking for a meme about the race cancellations that abounded. I wanted meme for the sadness and disappointment that comes with your goal being cancelled, even when you know it was the right decision. It’s ok to feel it. It’s painful, it truly is. So go ahead and feel it. But you can’t stay there, and you already know that.
When you are ready, get back out on the road in search of those moments.
And finally, this run presented some fuel for the coming week: “Mamba Mentality.” I also coach a high school track and field team and 2 years ago at a very rainy provincial championship, my team found itself huddled under a batting shelter, waiting out a very long delay. The high school boys started assigning each person a celebrity athlete persona. They assigned me, “Retired Kobe Bryant.” A coach-life highlight moment. My run friends sometimes remind me of this, like today. Thanks Patrick!
