First, I like it a lot.
While I have all the discipline needed to follow a training program, I struggle to find the right one, the one that meets me where I am.
So many times, a training program will say to find this pace or that pace (where pace = marathon pace or 10K for example) and then it’s up to me to decide well what IS my pace? Did I pick the right one? Pace is easier if the goal is to stay in my aerobic zone (my Garmin watch tells me that), or if there’s an exact specific running pace I need to hit. But the vague ranges just annoy and frustrate me.
Or take strides as another example—when I trained for my first half marathon in 2018, I had runs that called for strides. I knew I was supposed to go fast, but how fast? How long? How many do I do in each run or per mile or what?
My coach gave the perfect definition of what’s needed for strides. He said I should feel like I’m chasing a ball, not chasing a child who ran into the street. And he said do one for each mile. The first time I had strides scheduled, our streets had a lot of black ice so I couldn’t really do one set of strides per mile. I had to take them as I had demonstratively dry pavement. But today, I did a lot better and only got mixed up once (two sets in mile two, oops). Still, that guidance has made a difference for me.
And rest days. Oh, I could go on for a bit about rest days. I’m terrible at taking them, not out of some desire to be masochistic but more wondering if I needed them that week (answer: almost certainly yes) and then I’d struggle with feeling lazy or undisciplined, neither of which are true. Knowing he’s looking at my workouts in the online training calendar is motivation to make sure I do take those rest days.
In a way, training for this marathon reminds me a lot of when I was in Basic Training. The first week I was there, the drills sergeants showed a video of everything we would be learning and all the stuff we’d be doing. I will tell you, about halfway through I thought “well that’s it, I’m going to wash out here, I’ll never make it through and be able to do all this stuff.” But then I realized they were motivated to help me learn and pass all the tests, sure I still needed to do the work, but I wouldn’t be doing it alone. That’s kind of how I feel about this, but in a much better and a lot more fun way.
While I have all the discipline needed to follow a training program, I struggle to find the right one, the one that meets me where I am.
So many times, a training program will say to find this pace or that pace (where pace = marathon pace or 10K for example) and then it’s up to me to decide well what IS my pace? Did I pick the right one? Pace is easier if the goal is to stay in my aerobic zone (my Garmin watch tells me that), or if there’s an exact specific running pace I need to hit. But the vague ranges just annoy and frustrate me.
Or take strides as another example—when I trained for my first half marathon in 2018, I had runs that called for strides. I knew I was supposed to go fast, but how fast? How long? How many do I do in each run or per mile or what?
My coach gave the perfect definition of what’s needed for strides. He said I should feel like I’m chasing a ball, not chasing a child who ran into the street. And he said do one for each mile. The first time I had strides scheduled, our streets had a lot of black ice so I couldn’t really do one set of strides per mile. I had to take them as I had demonstratively dry pavement. But today, I did a lot better and only got mixed up once (two sets in mile two, oops). Still, that guidance has made a difference for me.
And rest days. Oh, I could go on for a bit about rest days. I’m terrible at taking them, not out of some desire to be masochistic but more wondering if I needed them that week (answer: almost certainly yes) and then I’d struggle with feeling lazy or undisciplined, neither of which are true. Knowing he’s looking at my workouts in the online training calendar is motivation to make sure I do take those rest days.
In a way, training for this marathon reminds me a lot of when I was in Basic Training. The first week I was there, the drills sergeants showed a video of everything we would be learning and all the stuff we’d be doing. I will tell you, about halfway through I thought “well that’s it, I’m going to wash out here, I’ll never make it through and be able to do all this stuff.” But then I realized they were motivated to help me learn and pass all the tests, sure I still needed to do the work, but I wouldn’t be doing it alone. That’s kind of how I feel about this, but in a much better and a lot more fun way.
2 comments:
The best part about having a coach, at least more me, is having someone tell me what to do. I don't have to think at all about what's on the plan. It's nice to just focus on the work!
Ah, thanks for sharing!
-Coach Kyle
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