In the past year, I've doubled down on stoicism — it emphasizes being mindful, acknowledging that not all things are in our control, but that we have some agency in how we respond. It's a useful mantra for runners, either when we're competing in the race we trained for, or (in my current case) building back up fitness & passion.
My old running coach used to drill this mantra into my head: "You cannot control what happens, but you can control how you respond." That's the crux of stoicism! I'd been thinking of writing more about this on my newsletter
Morning! I was doing great in November and December, but my running has been on hold since early January, when I and the whole family came down with Covid. (We're all okay, thankfully we had very mild cases.) I'm actually a little nervous about getting back to running -- though I really want to -- b/c of all those cases we all heard about college football players developing myocarditis when they went back to working out with their teams. My desire is still there to get back out and run, though!
I'm glad you guys are ok. I've been interested in hearing from those who have gotten "mild cases". It's been an interesting range of things coming back to normal, to not gaining things back for weeks or months. Did you lose your sense of smell?
A little bit. I never lost my sense of taste, but the whole reason we got tests in the first place was b/c my wife had lost her sense of taste and smell. It's a weird thing!
I've been able to rebuild my fitness. Before the pandemic I didn't have enough time to train more than a couple days per week (yes, really :/ ). I walked at least 5k every day during my commuting, though. Now I'm doing some form of intentional exercise 4-5 days per week, including strength training. I want to increase the distance and number of days per week that I run.
Walking is still exercise. I'm glad you're able to get intentional runs and workouts in too now. I've been trying to do more strength training as well.
Have not done much new, but this spring/summer will concentrate more on speed then I have past couple years. Since I started training/racing ultra's have gotten away from speed work and look forward to some half marathon paced runs. Would like to try and run some half marathons in next couple years and see if I can improve my times at my advance age (64).
I'm less obsessed with my workout paces and able to view the big picture more objectively. My daily schedule hasn't changed (I work in healthcare), but with lack of races I haven't been worried about whether or not I hit "key" workouts or certain performance indicators, which is something I was too worried about when I was aiming for a specific marathon time.
Two changes...first I stopped long runs during the summer. With no marathons really to train for I thought why beat myself up during the Texas summer. Second has been many many more solo runs. I still with a few of my peeps, but the groups are smaller and much less frequent.
In the past year, I've doubled down on stoicism — it emphasizes being mindful, acknowledging that not all things are in our control, but that we have some agency in how we respond. It's a useful mantra for runners, either when we're competing in the race we trained for, or (in my current case) building back up fitness & passion.
I’ve actually never heard of stoicism until you mentioned so thank you. It’s so true about things being out of your control.
My old running coach used to drill this mantra into my head: "You cannot control what happens, but you can control how you respond." That's the crux of stoicism! I'd been thinking of writing more about this on my newsletter
And I did write about it, in case you're interested = https://mcgaritydotme.substack.com/p/control-and-response
Morning! I was doing great in November and December, but my running has been on hold since early January, when I and the whole family came down with Covid. (We're all okay, thankfully we had very mild cases.) I'm actually a little nervous about getting back to running -- though I really want to -- b/c of all those cases we all heard about college football players developing myocarditis when they went back to working out with their teams. My desire is still there to get back out and run, though!
I'm glad you guys are ok. I've been interested in hearing from those who have gotten "mild cases". It's been an interesting range of things coming back to normal, to not gaining things back for weeks or months. Did you lose your sense of smell?
A little bit. I never lost my sense of taste, but the whole reason we got tests in the first place was b/c my wife had lost her sense of taste and smell. It's a weird thing!
I've been able to rebuild my fitness. Before the pandemic I didn't have enough time to train more than a couple days per week (yes, really :/ ). I walked at least 5k every day during my commuting, though. Now I'm doing some form of intentional exercise 4-5 days per week, including strength training. I want to increase the distance and number of days per week that I run.
Walking is still exercise. I'm glad you're able to get intentional runs and workouts in too now. I've been trying to do more strength training as well.
Have not done much new, but this spring/summer will concentrate more on speed then I have past couple years. Since I started training/racing ultra's have gotten away from speed work and look forward to some half marathon paced runs. Would like to try and run some half marathons in next couple years and see if I can improve my times at my advance age (64).
Hey now Larry, you are definitely not advanced age! There are people running track meets at 100! I've been enjoying speed work too.
I'm less obsessed with my workout paces and able to view the big picture more objectively. My daily schedule hasn't changed (I work in healthcare), but with lack of races I haven't been worried about whether or not I hit "key" workouts or certain performance indicators, which is something I was too worried about when I was aiming for a specific marathon time.
Being objective is one of the hardest things we can do. We’ve all been there about getting overly into hitting a certain pace for a race.
Two changes...first I stopped long runs during the summer. With no marathons really to train for I thought why beat myself up during the Texas summer. Second has been many many more solo runs. I still with a few of my peeps, but the groups are smaller and much less frequent.
Co-sign on Texas summer runs being worthless!
Texas summers are rough! I trained for my first marathon in Del Rio during the summer. Do you have any races Ken?
Not right now Hollie. Keeping an eye on the B.A.A. to see what they ultimately decide.