On strength training and habits and deeds and forward motion...

I hate lifting. I hate burpees. I hate strength training. I hate planks. Yeah. I've said these things for years. When I first started out training and racing for triathlons, I could rely pretty heavily on the balance between swimming, biking, and running to make up for any deficits I had even though I wasn't strength training. So rather than do an upper body workout with weights, I'd swim a couple of miles and call it a day. And man, my arms were ripped, so I didn't see the point of lifting. I looked good; I felt good. I was a hella fast swimmer compared to most of my competition. Why lift? I was also often doing two-a-days to try to get in the mileage in the three disciplines, so who has time to lift? And why should I do something I don't want to do when I'm getting the results I want doing the things that I want to do? 

Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.--attributed to just about everyone but me...

I often see this on an inspirational poster in a classroom or quoted in some leadership text. I'm sure you've seen it or some version of it. And I am a firm believer in the power of language to inspire and effect change, so some of this certainly rings true to me. I don't know that I see the relationship between "words" and "deeds" and "habits" the way that this speaker implies, but this isn't a philosophy blog, it's a running blog, so I need to dial back the teacher brain a bit.... on to the point...

I think that I have been saying that I hate lifting and burpees and planks for so long that it has impacted my ability to find a way to do them. My words have become deeds and habits and... well, not character, honestly. That's taking it a bit too far. Really more just like excuses. "I hate burpees" isn't about character. Let's be clear. 

But my physical reality has shifted substantially in the 18+ years that I've been training and racing. My daughter is now 7 1/2, and in the 7 1/2 years since she was born, I have spent nearly all my training/racing time running. Not biking. Not swimming. Not competing in triathlons. Missing-in-action is my ripped upper body (for now, at least), and it's been replaced by arms perfectly capable of swinging a 7-year-old girl around when she wants a dizzying spin in the yard, but those arms are unrecognizable to my triathlete self. And out of the mouths of babes, add to that the fact that my filterless-mouthed daughter so nicely pointed out to me that the skin on my arms looks a little like the skin on our Basset hound (OUCH!). She thought it was funny. I cringed. 

My "I hate" words have come back to bite me in that I've allowed my dislike for lifting and burpees and planks to override what my body needs. I am amazing at moral licensing--that mental glitch that allows me to think that because I'm doing something good (running 100+ miles a month), I am somehow licensed to also do something not-so-good (skipping the stuff I've mentioned here). And I just have to do better.

Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do in order to be able to do the things you want to do. 

True that. I wonder, though, if it would be more useful (herculean?) for me to change my thinking about strength training altogether so that I start to think of it as a thing I want to do. (Is that even possible?)  I certainly want the results that it promises. So perhaps focusing on the results will help me overcome this mental hurdle? For now, though, I'm taking the "streaking" approach. If I don't like doing something, I just do it a whole lot until I like it. Like every day. So I started this morning--planks and burpees at the end of my run. And planks and burpees every day until they become habits. And results. Wish me luck. Relentless forward motion, friends.  

Day 18--January 18--Nirvana

Everything came together today. I wanted to do a long run, and after the weather of the last three or four days, anything about thirty degrees outside was a gift. So when I woke up to overcast skies, a slight wind, and temperatures in the 30s, I thought it might be a perfect day for a run. I set out to do what has now become the loop--a 7.67 mile run from our house and, as the name implies, back to our house in a circular route. I haven't run this distance since early December. In fact, the closest I've come to it was last weekend when I ran four. (Was that last week?) So I wasn't planning to break any speed records. Just wanted to cover the distance. 

I play a lot of mental games on long runs. One, when I know I'm not in shape to cover the whole distance running is to plan out when my walk breaks will happen. For the first three miles, it was run a mile, walk a minute, then finish out the mile in which I had walked. Repeat. At four miles, the mental game switched over to being musical. Run through two songs, walk for a minute, then run through two songs. For a while, I was walking the first minute of a 10 minute block. Then running four. Then walking one, then running four. That didn't last long, but I kind of liked that one. I also did the mental game of walking the first minute of a song, then running through to the end of the song. And I ended the run by counting telephone poles--run three poles, then walk to the next one. That was the last half mile or so. My legs were done at 6.6 miles, so I had to tough it out for the last mile. 

But it felt awesome. I was running through all kinds of agendas in my head. Teaching: Figuring out what to do with the kids this week in reading as we are starting our new program. Figuring out what to do with the kids while I'm away in Phoenix. Running: To run the marathon or not? How did I ever not like running? Baby: Heading to Nashville tomorrow. Wonder what will happen next. I bet if I sign up for a marathon, we'll get pregnant. All that and more. Oh, and I composed a message to the person who beaned me in the head with the soda can back in August. In my mind. I guess I'm still angry. 

When I got home, I crashed on my front lawn. Just laid myself out on the grass right by the road and cooled off. Thought about how much I love running when it goes like this. How much I love living here in this house, on this route. How much I love my husband and this life we are building together. Just one of those feel-good run days, which, after the last few days of just toughing it out, I really needed. 

January 13--Day 13

The weather has become bitterly cold here. Okay, not bitterly cold. But everyone always says "cold" and "bitterly" together, so I thought I might as well join the crew. I'd say it's more like just cold. So the key to keeping up running when it is cold is to not ever stop. From the moment I get out of my truck coming home from school to walking in the door to putting on running clothes to heading back out again to run... don't stop. You probably thought I meant something about not stopping while on a run. Nope. Once you're running, that's the easy part. It's getting out to run that's hard. So don't stop. Get dressed. Go. Don't think twice.

Why?

Because if you think twice about it, your mind starts to take over and it starts thinking that going from a perfectly warm place to a perfectly cold place is just perfectly stupid. It starts thinking things like, "I can run later. No big deal." It starts rationalizing. And running in cold weather isn't remotely rational. It just isn't. 

So on day 13, I went into auto pilot. Went for a run (longer than my normal during the week runs), and had only muscle spasms in my back put a stop to the insanity. But I have thirteen days under my belt and 18 to go. 

Day 9--A running streak

Turns out I'm not eligible for membership in the United States Running Streak Association until after a full year of being on a streak. Well, at least not eligible to be listed on their website as having held a streak for more than a year. This inspired me to consider extending my streak. But then I thought, "Well, you almost didn't make it past day 7." So I'm thinking I might be better off just sticking with the "31 runs in 31 days" goal for now and then re-evaluating at the end of the month. This would give me a natural place to end (or to begin a new streak). 

It continues. Day 9. 

Day 8--it's been a rough week

time: 11:15

distance: 1.1 miles

It's been a rough week. My aide was out of class today, and I'm wiped. The kids were great, but it doesn't matter... no matter how great they are, it's tough to stay patient all day long when there's no one else there to help sort and filter through the kids' 1000 questions. 

So runs have been rough, as well. Short. And I've been whiny. But I've been doing them. Last night I came close to staying home, but I committed to 31 days of running. And last night was... well, I had a headlamp on and was running up our road in the cold of the night thinking, "Fuck. I hate this." But there's also something to be said about doing something no matter what. No matter what. 

Day 5--cold running

Distance: 1.5 miles

Time: 15:12

I certainly didn't want to go out today. It was cold (upper 20s/low 30s), drizzly wet, and windy. And I knew I wasn't going to be out for long. And I knew that it wasn't going to be all that much fun. But I made a commitment, and I went. Out. 

I actually tried to go hard for part of the run--thinking that even though I wasn't going to run long, I'd maybe benefit from going faster. I don't really have a faster, honestly. But I gave it a whirl. I'd like to be faster, theoretically. And every time I take a break from running, I somehow think that I'm going to be able to just be faster when I come back. I mean, my husband can run an 8-minute mile without blinking. Why not me? Well, not me. 

But I ran today. Day 5. Gotta keep running. 

Day 4

Distance: 4.00 miles (on day 4...how appropriate!)

Time: 42:13

Cumulative distance: 10.8 miles. (HEY, that's not bad!)

It's amazing to me how I can be all revved up and ready to go on a run, step out the door, and one little hitch will make me change my whole plan. Tonight, it didn't. But I admit that as I stood on the front porch of the house in the misting rain waiting for the Garmin to pick up the satellites, I felt the run number in my head changing lower and higher and lower and higher. And as that little black line flirted with getting itself all the way across the screen and then jumped back, then forward, then back... I felt my brain clicking through the "How far do I really want to go today?" thought process.

I had it in my head that I was going to do 4. That changed to three. Then even down to one when my feet hit the road. But as I started to put one foot in front of the other, to feel the chill of the misty rain hitting me in the face, and to listen to Garrison Keillor telling the Tales from Lake Wobegon on my MP3 player, I found myself just getting into the rhythm of the run and going. 

At the 2 mile turnaround, I was debating taking a walk break. There also almost always comes a point in a run where I have to decide how hard I want this to feel. Pretty tough today. I was running the whole thing. And I did. I finished relatively comfortably. Again, not as fast as I thought I would be... but having covered the entire distance running, I was content. Now, it's back to school tomorrow. 

Day 3

Distance: 2.0 miles

Time: 20.04

Running total distance: 6.8 miles

Day 3

We spent a large chunk of the day today in Louisville celebrating my father-in-law's 60th birthday. I didn't have a lot of motivation to run when we got home. The temp was in the 50s and threatening rain. I was stiff from driving for three hours, doing some sitting at my sister-in-law's house, eating poorly while there (we were promised pizza... there was no pizza). But running no matter what is a pretty simple concept. Love it.

So I went down to the Oakland school track and set out to run a mile and a half and ended up running two. Right on. 

Day 1

Run: 3.00 miles

Time: 32 minutes

Route: Oakland School Track and back

Weather: 40s, sunny, headwind on the way out, tailwind on the way back

Post-run: wheezing, red-faced, feeling good

Today is day 1 of my 31 day running streak. I set a goal of 31 days to see where it leads me. The only parameter for the streak is that I have to run every day. Shooting for at least a mile for it to count as a run. But really, the focus is on getting out there every day no matter what. 

I'm not sure why.

Sometimes I train for a race. Sometimes I train for fun. Sometimes I train from guilt. The goal of running for the sake of maintaining the streak is something new for me. So I thought I'd try it. 

Day 1

My ass felt huge. I suited up. Told myself not to beat myself up and headed out the door like millions of other Americans who are using today as an excuse to start again. Some people mock that idea. I figure today is as good of a day as any, so why not start today? Should I put it off until tomorrow just to avoid starting on January 1? Silliness.

So I set off to run. And I ran a mile and a half before I took a 40-step walk break. Then another half mile before a 35 step walk break. Then another half mile before a 40 stepper. Then the rest of the way home. It didn't feel bad. I am working hard to tell myself positive things. Not to dwell on where I once was or where I feel I ought to be, but to run where I am right now. And see where that will take me. 

Post-run, I'm feeling wheezy and red-faced but strong. It's the start of something new. And something new is always exciting for me.