Putting Purpose in your Run

I have really come to love my training schedule.

I love reading it over to plan ahead.  I love going through the workouts in advance and calculating my splits then writing them out.  I love keying in my results into my spreadsheet and comparing them to past results then processing exactly how I felt physically during them and tweek the plan to adjust for something I feel I'm missing.  On top of all that I love reading about coaches and athletes; how they approach the same workouts I'm using, how they overcome the same challenges I face, why they do what they do, and of course I love reading about their results.  Incredible endurance, amazing kicks and blazing top end speed.

That paragraph was awful, but I'm gushing.

I just love this!

I also love that every single workout and run has a purpose.  There is some specific focus or objective, because it is one more step in the right direction on my path.  I'm sure some people wouldn't like having that sort of mind set, and I get that.  Depends on what you want out of running.  But when there is a specific goal in mind, then everything should be aimed at reaching that goal.  Otherwise, you're just wasting time.  Everything I read from great coaches and athletes, as well as great businessmen or anyone else at the top of their field, repeats this point.

There has to be Purpose.  A reason to do what you're doing.

What started out as a sort of fantasy and tangible example of some things I always say about getting the most out of life, has turned into a real passion.  And that passion is delivering all the things I had hoped it would in the beginning.  It's become my Purpose.

First of all is the fact it's made me stronger and faster.  I still flash back on a regular basis to when I was sick.  I know that can get kind of old to hear, but I'm not going to forget it.  I'm reminded of various aspects of that time of my life almost daily.  When I ache I'm reminded of how whatever I feel right now is nothing compared to the pain I felt the first days after surgery and the months around the end of my radiation treatments.  I was triple dosing on the pain meds and still not getting relief.  Whenever I lean in and drive through a turn on the track I'm reminded of how exhausted I would get just walking up a flight of stairs.  And, of course, every time I hear of someone else who's been diagnosed with cancer I'm reminded of how lucky I've been and that I need to be there in some way for them like people were for me.

Those memories are always placed against where I am now, and where I am now is someplace I had only hoped to be.  5:01 in the 1500 and sure of myself that I can break five minutes.  Ranked 30th in the country last year in my age group for the 800 was a total shock.  That part I hadn't even dreamed about.  Racing in a national championship had never crossed my mind, but I've gotten to do it.  My running has given me strength and speed that surprises and thrills me all the time.

Secondly, because I've seeing such gains from my focus and planning on training, I'm doing the same things in work and in life.  I'm looking at something that I want to accomplish, and then working backwards with a plan.  Then, each and every day, I'm working that plan.  Some things have been in place for awhile, and others I've just embarked on.  Either way I know that I have a far better chance of reaching my goals by approaching them with purpose.

Lastly, and probably most important of all of this, is what I hear from various people I've crossed paths with since I set out on this mini-quest.  People are inspired by it.  They tell me about how they've begun running, or have decided they want to see how fast they can get.  A few have asked for help and I'm having a blast working with them to set new PR's.  I get excited knowing that, if we plan right, and the work gets done, they're going to experience the same thrilling emotions I have when they finish that race and look at they're watch.  It's so incredible.

Yesterday I read something in an article in Running Times about the best advice elite athletes have gotten from coaches over the years, and one of them was by Aaron Braun.  This guy ran 10,000 meters in 27:41.  Wow, that's fast.  His college coach told him to "run for something greater than yourself."  His point being that if you're only running for yourself, you may back off in that final lap because you know you'll just race again another time.  But if there's something outside of you that is your focus, you're more likely to push on.

I've found that to be so true.  And not just for an individual race.  It's the same for every single workout.  I push hard the last rep, the last hill, or the last mile and sometimes do "just one more" because there's something greater than me at stake.

People are watching and wanting to see good results.  It inspires them, motivates them to do better as well.

I've had Purpose in my running from the beginning of all this, but it's transformed into something else.  Other people are trying harder, exercising more, living better and smiling more often.  I want to help them along even if it's just a little thing like a random post on facebook that makes them say, "wow, that's fast" and wonder if they could do something like that.

Put Purpose in your running and you will.

I don't really like this one, but I came to far to delete it.

I have decided that it is hard to stay motivated and driven over long periods of time.  To combine eating healthy with strength training with marathon training with daily pushup/pullup goals while trying to lose weight and gain muscle is a bit of a challenge.  At times, something has to give.  This weekend, what gave was that I ate a bunch more than I have for awhile.  Not terrible, but more.  The realization hit me that I have to remain dedicated to my fitness for the rest of my life.  I have been up and down in weight.  I have had periods of intense dedication to running and lifting followed by periods of letting everything go.  When I let stuff go, I always get mad at myself for doing so, because it is so hard to get it back.  The one concession I will give to age is that it gets harder every year to get back in shape.  To lose weight.  To re-motivate.  It is so easy to put on weight and so hard to take it off.  I was chatting with a friend the other day and we both agreed that until people reach our age they will never understand what we are saying or dealing with.  At the level of activity I am at now, I would have lost weight and gained muscle and speed so much more quickly if I were 40.  Or even 45.  It can be frustrating.  Yet, I hate the standard cliches of people telling me that I look okay for my age or they would like to be in shape like me when they are my age.  I do not want any age allowances.  I want to be in good shape for someone of most any age.  That doesn't mean that I think I am the same as I was when I was 20, or 30.  Whatever.  The frustration I have with myself is the knowledge that if I worked this hard and with this kind of dedication when I was younger, my performance in everything would have been so much different.  But, I can't go back in time...yet.  I'm still working on that.

I have been reading and studying a lot lately.  About the body and performance.  The key to everything is maintaining strength, balance and form over the long haul.  When things go off kilter, that is when we get hurt.  Even though I love doing lots of things that could end up in injury, I have learned one thing.  It can be very dangerous when I have no injuries, when I feel like I am twenty.  When I feel invincible.  While that is wonderful, it also leads to potentially doing something that I probably should not do.  I know that I have to be careful with speed work.  I can never be lax with my form.  I worked hard on my running form, my stride and my foot strike a few years ago.  I make sure that I don't stray back to my old ways of landing on my heel.  Of being a plodder.  I do exaggerated strides on the football field.  I make sure I hit every hashmark.  I high kick and land on my forefoot. I feel this helps my kick and my stride and strengthens my feet and calves.  It is one of my favorite exercises.

Today, I decided to get some supplements.  I have lost close to 25 pounds now.  I feel I have done it in a wise manner.  Not too fast.  Eating good food.  No fad diets or things that could hurt me.  Just smaller portions and better quality foods.  I do not count calories, but I am careful  what I eat.  I have so many goals, that it is hard to workout and eat to reach them all.  I want to lose weight, gain muscle, get stronger, get faster, run a marathon well and get pr's in a 5k and a half marathon.  Not too easy to achieve.  But, I want it all.  That means I have to eat enough, but not too much.  Lift and run for power, speed and endurance.  Plus, I need enough energy to do my job.  I told the muscular kid at GNC all this and I think he wanted to punch me.  I remember being in my 20's and wondering why someone in their 50's would even want to workout.  Who are they trying to impress?  Shouldn't they be playing with their grandkids.  But, he seemed to know his stuff and gave me a nice supply of protein and old man vitamins.  Apparently, if I take all this stuff, I will be able to lift a tree out of the ground.  I'm afraid that I may end up wanting to hump the tree as well, because apparently it helps with your testosterone levels too.  Everyone who knows me, knows that I like trees but not in that way.  Anyhow, that is what I walked away with.

I will end with this.  There is nothing like the feeling of being strong.  Of regaining your strength.  of being in control of your body.  I love the feeling of knowing that I can do a tough run, or pick up a heavy weight or walk away from a delicious donut.   I hope this is my year of seeing the hard work pay off.

Race day report

Well, today was race day.  I am going to give a full and detailed report of my run.  But first, I'm gonna need to talk about what happened after the run.  Most of our running group went out for lunch afterwards.  I have spent this week eating much healthier and I actually lost about 4 pounds.  In the long run, this is going to be great.  Not sure if it sapped some of my energy for the run, but that is an excuse for another story.  The point of what I'm trying to get across now is that I ate way less food this week.  Then today, I ran a half marathon and went out to lunch.  In my mind, the eating healthy and the 13.1 miles meant that I could eat whatever the hell I wanted today.  In the olden days, people would go fairly long periods without eating much.  Then finally, they would catch a bison or an elk or maybe a huge tuna and they would eat the heck out of all that.  This is where the words feast or famine came from.  People were hungry and they were famished and then they caught a warthog and really ate it.  The stories of this always made me hungry.  Stories of roasting a warthog over an open fire on a spit.  Reading of our forefathers and mothers chewing on a greasy leg of an albatross made me really hungry.    Anyway, if we can flash forward to today, I ordered a pierogi casserole.  I think the recipe for this was as follows.  Take 100 pierogies.  Add copious amounts of cheese and onions.  Stuff them in a casserole dish and serve to the masses.  I think what the recipe was calling the masses, were my love handles.  Let's just say they were happy.  My love handles are saddle bag-like remoras of skin and lard.  In times of strife they feed off the potato chips and gravy drippings that don't make it into my mouth.  I think they call this a symbiotic relationship.  I don't know because I haven't taken science since 1956.  All I know is that my love handles need me to drop food to them and I need them for this particular post.  In all actuality, I would like to get rid of them but due to the pierogie pie thing, that won't happen for awhile.  I'm going to try and upload a picture of the casserole, but if you can just imagine a throw pillow of cheese, potatoes and pierogie, that is what you have.

Now for the race.  I felt pretty good for the start of it.  Then for the next 13.1 miles I felt like shit.  When I crossed the line and stopped, I felt good again. 

I have felt like I have been overly sappy lately, but here is the reality of today.  I saw people do incredible things.  Lots of people getting pr's.  People busting their butts to get across the finish line.  People doing whatever it takes to get over the line.  People helping other people to get to the line or get medical attention.  People running that should not have been running.  Gutting it out.  Friends coming out to cheer us on.  The moments of silence for Boston before the race brought tears to many people's eyes.  When I say silence.  I mean there was not a sound.  It was really something.  You could just feel the emotions the crowd was feeling.  I have incredible running friends.  This is one of the few times that I didn't care that much about my time.  Not that I didn't try, I was spent, but just finishing was enough.  To sum it all up, it was one of those days that will leave an impression on me.

In conclusion, it was a good day.  The bad news for my love handles is that their remora days are over. Their days of wine and pierogie pie is done.  I'm on a mission to do some serious stuff.  

I think I should be one of People Magazine's most beautiful women and not Gweneth Paltrow

As I start obsessing over what will be my 8th official half marathon, I had a thought.  It is well documented by whoever listens to me that I keep swearing off anything with the word thon in it.  I actually swore off them after my first half marathon.  My first half marathon came after my first marathon.  My first marathon was the worst experience of my life.  It took forever.  I think my time was three and a half days.  As we all know, the crowds for these events are incredible.  It seemed that all of New York was out that day in 2007.  They were all cheering for me.  At least I'm pretty sure they were.    This cheering went on for the first part of the first day.  By day two, people had kind of forgotten about me.  Day three of my marathon came and the people were getting hostile.  They wanted me out of their city.  They finally said take your medal and get out.  I did, and I swore off thons.

There is an old saying that goes something like this, "If one cannot lie to oneself, then who can one lie to?"  It is old and someone said it.  No one knows who and no one really cares.  It is one of those things that someone said around a fire or beside a river and the scribes wrote it down and it got lost in the translation over time until I found it again and put it here.  I'm bringing it back because it applies to me. I lie to myself all the time.  I keep telling myself that I am not going to run this stuff anymore and then I do.  Right now I'm mad at myself because I don't feel that I am well enough prepared to do what I want to do.  Every race I run, I want it to be faster than the last.  I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen this time.  I try and tell myself that I don't care.  That I can just run and be satisfied that I did it.  But that isn't me.  In addition, I'm just never that happy running 13.1 miles.  I am the happiest guy in the world when I'm done.  Well, about 20 minutes after I'm done, but not when I'm running.  I have moments, for sure, but it ain't every mile.  I've done enough half marathons, that I know when I'm at the starting line on Sunday, I am going to say, "what am I doing here?"  I also realize that I'm lying to myself again because I know why I do it.  Because I like a challenge.  I like to push myself.  I love the feeling when I'm done.  I say this to anyone...just running 13.1 miles is an accomplishment.  There was a time that I could barely run from telephone pole to telephone pole.  I know there are many people who can relate to that and I appreciate all the work that runners put into running.  I appreciate all the work people put into life.  It is not easy.

I have set a new goal for myself and that is to try to eat healthier.  I've rationalized long enough that I can eat what I want because I exercise a lot.  At my age, that is not the case.  It is hard to keep the weight off.  I have a goal weight in mind.  I want to make sure that I'm getting proper nutrition to ensure I keep muscle on while losing the weight I want.  I really want to see how fast this old body can go.  I do not feel I am at a plateau yet and I feel the need to really push.  I hope I have the will power to push it where I want it to go.  I would like to know, just once, that I reached some sort of potential that I have.  I love the quote by Steve Prefontaine.  "To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift."  We all have gifts, very few really appreciate them or use them to their potential.  I know I haven't.  I don't think it matters whether you are faster, stronger or smarter than someone else.  What matters is that you are as fast, strong or smart as you can be.  Wasted potential is a sad thing.  As you get older, it becomes more profound.   The feeling of lost potential.  You cannot get that time back, but, if you are lucky, you do have tomorrow.  I have tomorrow and there are some things that I want to do.

In conclusion, my concentration has been ruined by Jeopardy.  It is on, and I am trying to finish this and answer questions to Trebek.  If I were on that show, the realization has hit me that he would say, "Nourse, stick to running and lifting weights."  I'm okay with that.

Plan Training to Build Confidence

I'm finishing up about a week of gently training my way through flu recovery and have been asked to give advice to a number of friends, family and a new member of our Master's Track team and then I read Bob's most recent post and I noticed there's a theme to all of the advice I'm giving, and using myself, these days.

Make Confidence a goal of training.  Right up there with endurance, speed, strength and weight loss.

We all have those things in mind as we map out our training plans, jump into them enthusiastically, but so often we don't achieve the goals we set because something stops us.  We fall off the band wagon, lose sight of the goal and then just go back to where we were to start with.  Not at all what we want, and yet there we are.

Why?  What the hell happens?

Looking back honestly at my own behavior I've seen injuries, illness, job changes, life changes, bad weather and just plain bad decisions derail my plans.  But I also noticed something else that is by far the biggest culprit in my failures.  The plans themselves.

With all the Sales training I've been through and taught others I can spout off all sorts of aspects to a good plan with no problem at all.  The most important one I always preach is that you must set a goal that is both measurable and has a time table.  But all my advice this past couple of weeks is about another piece of setting that goal.

Set progression goals, too.

Those also must be measurable and have a time table, and have one other very important part: they should be easy to achieve.

Progression goals help you lay out a path and time table to reach your big goal.  Making them easy to achieve will help keep you on track if something temporary, like bad weather, pops up.  If I have a weekly mileage goal that's not a huge stretch, missing a day is not going to blow my week.  And that leads me to the most important part of having easy to reach progression goals.

Little Victories.

My biggest problem in reaching goals is that I've gotten hit with something temporary or had a setback of some sort, fall off track and then before I know it I'm not getting near my goal anymore.

So with all the folks I've talked to about running the past couple of weeks I've emphasized setting easy to reach progression goals that will help them reach their big goal.  And I mean REALLY easy.  You should be able to celebrate a Little Victory every day or so.  One person I talked with wants to race a 10K next fall.  Not just finish it; she's done that before.  She wants to race one and we picked it out and have the date.  Next we talked about the sort of distances and workouts that she'd be doing, but then I went to the easy progression goals.  The first one we set was to put on her running shoes every day.

That's it.  At the end of every day she needs to have put on her shoes once that day.  No excuses.  Some of the days in that week she'll run, but every day she'll put on those shoes.  She might get sick, real busy or something and forget it once or twice but that can be handled by putting them on twice the next day to make up for it!  Little Victories!

Experts generally agree that in order for us to establish a habit we need to do something every day for 21 days.  Sounds like a piece of cake, but if the habit we're trying to form feels like work or is overly involved we probably won't make it through those 21 days with a new habit at the end of it.  But if that activity is easy and even fun, we'll get it down no problem.

And with that new habit we'll get that supremely important sense of accomplishment.  That's supremely important because it will help us keep moving towards the big goal.  Without it we will probably get derailed and lose sight of that goal.  And those easy to reach progression goals give us the opportunity to get that sense of accomplishment whenever we need it!

A variation on that theme of setting easy to reach progression goals is to plan your workouts to do the exact same thing.  A long run doesn't happen in an instant.  Hell, neither does a sprint workout.  There's time and reps and opportunities to feel good about what's happening if we plan for them.

This morning I had on my schedule to do 800's.  I wrote that done when I laid out my training plans to get me to the Indoor Nationals I'm running in at the end of March.  Then I got the flu and it wrecked all that.  Or could have.  But I have progression goals all through my plan and I've been thinking through each workout or run in a way that will make me feel like I'm getting somewhere.  So this morning it was cold and raining and I was NOT going to go out feeling like I'm 80% just so I can get sick again and lose another couple of weeks.

Instead I had figured out how I would do the same workout on a treadmill, so I was going to get this done despite the weather.  I got to the gym, got the machine going and figured out how to do the speed controls easily.  Little Victory number 1!

My original plan had me doing six 800's because I was only able to do four three weeks ago and figured I would be in better shape right now.  But I'm not.  I'm still coughing and not entirely back up to strength.  Knowing that, but really wanting to get the full workout in, I decided to make the first ones slower than I would have.  The treadmill made it easy to set a 3:20 pace so that's what I did for the first two dropping down to a walk, then jog of 12 minute pace for a quarter mile between each rep.  This meant I would be resting a little longer than my typical three minutes, but I was also covering a 400 between each 800 which I never do.  Little Victory number 2!

The first one felt tough, but the first one always feels harder than it should.  It's called warming up.  The second one felt like I didn't even really try and I was breathing pretty well with only a little bit of a cough here and there.  I picked up the pace to 3:14 for the next two reps, was breathing hard, but breathing.  It felt like running!  I knew I could get two more in no problem.  Little Victory number 3!

Telling myself to celebrate those Little Victories got my confidence rising and I decided to push the last two reps.  800 number seven I clicked through in 3:04.  That had me gasping pretty good, but I felt strong all the way through.  One more and I was going to go sub-3.  Once again I set myself up to succeed and celebrate by setting the pace on the treadmill at 6 flat, or 3 flat for the first half of the last 800.  When I had one quarter to go I was huffing, but hit the speed button just once to drop two seconds off the last "lap."  I lengthened my stride and grinned my way through that last 400.

All six 800 reps in!

Little Victory number 4!

I set the pace to 8:30 and ran the last 3/4's of a mile to get me to six miles for the morning.  That little bit put me at 11 miles for the week.  Which means I have two more days (tomorrow is a rest day for the legs) to get in 10 miles which will put me over 20 miles for the week.  And that will get me ANOTHER Little Victory!!

Dude, I'm so fired up it's funny.

Even though I'm not all that strong lung-wise right now, and I've missed two weeks of training, I still got in a full, real workout that my legs are feeling tonight as I write this.  And that will pay off Saturday when I got out to run, and pay off again next week when I hit the short hills again.

This morning's workout had pieces built in that would be easy to hit, too.  Those easy to hit targets gave me reasons to celebrate along the way, built my confidence and helped me succeed in my goal for the morning: 6 x 800's averaging below 3:15.

And that's important for the long range goals, too.

We've all got the big goal out there.  Now figure out some progression goals to work into your plan that will help you reach your big goal.  Then make sure at least some of those progression goals are easy.  Ridiculously easy.  So there's no way you can make excuses and you'll form the habits that will get you to your big goal.  And celebrate those Little Victories every time you reach one.

That will build your confidence, which builds your enthusiasm, which will carry you to success.

I Did It

The Confessions of A Former Runner Turned Non-Runner Who Was Dragged Into Running the Marine Corps 10K by His High School Friends

By Darren

About 14 months ago, I met up with some friends of mine from Mt. Vernon High School. Yes, we are all aging extremely well (if I may say so myself), and I noticed the common thread was that we all were still active and exercising. If you underestimate the importance of doing both - staying active and exercising - we've all seen where that leads. I digress, and will step off the soap box now...

In the late 1970s, I was a Mount Vernon track stud, along with Ed Montgomery and Bob Nourse, the founders of this illustrious blog. Unlike Ed's lifelong love affair with distance running, my path ran more like Bob's...middle distance runner who used to wish evil things upon MVHS track coach, Ken Gaudreault, when it was suggested we run over 1 mile. We'd complain the whole time, and act like we were the Greek messenger sent to Marathon, Greece (and subsequently died upon running the 26 miles). To put it mildly, we didn't run much distance, and, I must confess, really didn't know how.

So, when my dear friends (who I wished evil things upon when they tried to talk me into running the MCM10K) suggested I run with them, I initially said "No", and probably looked like a toddler throwing a tantrum at the same time. I left the restaurant that evening wishing them well, but not wanting any part of their proposal.

Well, I am a lifelong recreational (some competitive leagues "back in the day") softball and basketball player. I also like a challenge. I also hate to be challenged, and fail. I'm also about 10-15 pounds overweight...or was at the time. Put them together, and you have me messaging them shortly after that I wanted to run with them in this year's MCM10K. Great! Except, I have no endurance, and really never have. Damn!

However, I had a year in my favor, a challenge in my head, and friends that I would not let down. So, first things first...buy some running shoes, and dip into the pool slowly. I have trained for things before, and know that going out and running a few miles the first day, or pushing too hard leads to injury, dejection, and quitting.

My wife and kids laughed at me when I ran around the block a couple of times a week for a month. The wife runs all the time, one daughter lettered every running season possible in high school, and the other daughter is a competitive soccer player...so, all run, and all have endurance - and the will to tease. All of their good-willed teasing just provided motivation...so on to running an entire mile in one day!

Well, you know the story, as all of you reading this are probably runners. The really discouraging moments, though, came during basketball and softball seasons, when little injuries popped up, or when the work/family schedules consumed my time. It may not be a problem for someone training to run regularly, but the "work stoppages" made it really difficult to get going again.

This is where I will recommend to anyone getting started in running that, to do this right, you need a support structure of runners. They're infectious, energetic, motivated, and generally wonderful people, who have had a lot of "alone time" to think about things. It was wonderful to receive the advice, motivation, and positive thoughts from my runner friends, and it pushed me through beautifully.

 

Let's make a long, boring story a bit shorter, and jump to a month before the MCM10K. I still hadn't really progressed past 3-3.5 miles. Finally, Tina sent me a training schedule for one month out, and Shelli, Teri, Carol, Jon, Bob, and Ed were wonderful in asking me how things were going. Exactly, 3 weeks out, I had an epiphany, and it boiled down to me not wanting to disappoint them - and myself. So, I gutted out a 5.5 mile run, which in the grand scheme of things was more mental than physical, and knew I was ready.

The big MCM10K weekend: First, let me just say that red wine and gourmet appetizers are not good "carb loading", but that's another post...

 

After riding the train with Shelli, Teri, Carol, and my new BFF, Karl, it was time to do this thing. Miles 1-3 were a little sketchy, but the crowd sort of sweeps you up in it all, and keeps you going. It was at this point that I realized that to train for a city run across bridges, highway ramps, etc., that you MUST put some hill work into your training. Sadly, I did not.

By the way, why do they go out of the way to call it a 10K, if they're going to put mile markers all along the course (not one marker with a "K" on it)? Anyway, miles 4-5 were a "bitch". They were lonely and they were hard, but having about 1000 Marines, and other "motivators" is a total winner. It's what made this race possible to finish, because it certainly wasn't my magnificent training.

MCM10K isn't all roses, however. Miles 5-6.2...designed by a Marine, I am sure. They happen on Route 110, at the Pentagon, by Arlington Cemetery, and into the Iwo Jima Marine Memorial...all uphill, progressing into this, what I thought to be about a 30% uphill grade. Three thoughts popped into my head: 1. Hey, there's Carol...catch up to Carol! 2. If all these amazing people in Arlington Cemetery gave the ultimate sacrifice, the least I can do is shut up and finish the race. 3. The cheering of the race supporters was drowned out by the internal voices of the friends that talked me into this in the first place. Finish and you'll be one of them...for a day, at least.