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Why I don’t believe in motivation

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I don’t really believe in motivation. I don’t. I think that on any given day all of us do things that are necessary that we would probably rather not do, but the end result is a required one. Things like making lunches and going to work or any manner of other things that have to get done. Like washing dishes. Apparently they have to be done every day. We don’t require motivation for any of those things, they just get done. Ok, maybe sometimes the dishes don’t get done every day. But eventually, they get done.

The thing is that things that are good for us, aren’t going to feel good all the time.

So I might not be particularly keen on doing the dishes but I am pretty keen on not living in squalor. So I do the dishes. I might not be keen on making dinner for fussy eaters, but I do and whenever they try something new I do a little victory dance. Motivation doesn’t come into any of that.

One day I might be really motivated and think I am going to have an awesome week with my diet and then a few hours later I find myself on my third helping of cookie ice cream deliciousness. Motivation is fickle. It comes and it goes. I don’t need motivation to eat a good diet during the week. I need planning and meals ready to go in the fridge so that when I come home ravenous I have options that are immediately available.

I don’t need motivation to exercise either. I just go. I don’t give it space in my head. I have a plan, I write it down and if it says that I am running/crossfitting that day, well that’s what I’m doing. I do it when I feel like it. I do it when I don’t feel like it. I do it when I’m looking forward to it. And I do it when I’m dreading it. Because it all leads me to exactly the same place. The place where I say, wow I am so glad I did that today.

I do believe in inspiration though. That first spark that says even though I’m completely out of shape I could do that. Inspiration becomes a goal. A goal will put fire in your belly when you are doing hard workouts. A goal will help you make decisions easily. For example is this cookie ice cream deliciousness congruent with my goal? (Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.) If my goal is to run 5 kilometres in under 25 minutes then I don’t hesitate when it comes to running gruelling intervals. Because that is what is going to get me from Point A to Point B. I believe great inspiration will push you to believe that you can. And if you can see it, you can do it.

I believe in inspiration. I believe in a community of expectation. I believe in being part of a team. But motivation? It’s a waste of your time. Because you already have everything you need.

I’m always training for something

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Did you know there is a running off-season? There is! And it’s now! That’s not to say that there aren’t a few events in December and January. There are. I appear to be running 50km in December here. Who’s idea was that? But the vast majority of the bigger running events tend to be between March and October. Because HEAT. And although this might be less of an issue for certain Ballarat-dwellers who I have it on good authority were actually cold on their run on the weekend, around where I live I can look forward to temperatures of 25 degrees at 5am. Delicious.

It’s common to question what the plan is over the summer period for a whole heap of reasons.

1) It’s so hot. Like seriously gross.
2) You have that 6 week chunk of school holidays to deal with if you have kids.
3) There’s Christmas. You have to go and shop at all of these places that are not Lululemon or Nike.
4) There’s not much to train for anyway, so you might as well take it easy.

It’s true. It is hot, it is gross. I will probably have to reduce my running and crossfit over the school break because it’s just harder to get to. It’s a busy time of year. But the things I like to keep in mind are the fact that any training you do in gross heat is going to show big dividends that you probably won’t even notice until it cools down. Because there are no races to interrupt your training it is an awesome time of year to do exactly that, train. For me racing with the recovery and tapering can interrupt the flow of my training – so the summer period gives me months of uninterrupted time to train.

Top things to train for over Summer:

1) Aerobic base. I’m doing that at the moment with low heart rate training. Not having high intensity running in the heat is not something I overly miss.
2) Short distance. A great way to build towards a longer distance is to really consolidate your short distance. If you speed up your 5k run, your 10k distance is going to benefit from that. And the cool thing about training for a 5k is that most of your runs will be pretty short.
3) Strength training. Great time to focus on your cross-training efforts without being interrupted by pesky races. I’m really looking forward to spending more time at Crossfit over the next few months.

Part of what keeps me motivated is always having something to train for. Not everyone operates this way, but i certainly do. If I wasn’t training for something, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I thrive on the structure of it. If I am moving forward, I am moving in the right direction.

So, what are you training for?

Interpreting running jargon

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If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me ‘I have no idea what you just said’ I’d have about $20. That’s a decent amount of coffee. One of the cool things about any sub-culture is that it has its own language – but that’s also the kind of thing that can intimidate people from being part of it which is definitely not a good thing at all. The ultimate goal of any coach is to have as many people engaged in the sport for as long as possible. That’s pretty much it. You don’t want to be scaring people off by using words like ‘tempo’, or ‘anaerobic threshold’ to describe a type of run to new runners.  Because lets face it for the most part, to new runners, all runs feel EXACTLY the same, a bit like you are dying. Until you finish and then you are Queen of the universe.

So here it is a quick guide to runners jargon.

Aerobic

Running at an intensity that is easy enough for your respiratory and cardiovascular systems to deliver all or most of the oxygen required by your muscles and slow enough that lactic acid doesn’t build up. You will here people refer to it as a ‘conversational pace’. This means you should be able to hold a full conversation while running at this pace. It is supposed to be slow. If you have the endurance, you could run at this pace for a very long period of time.

Anaerobic

Running at an intensity where your body can’t deliver the oxygen needed by your muscles and fast enough that lactic acid begins to build up. This can’t be sustained for very long.

Anaerobic Threshold

The transition between aerobic and anaerobic  running where your body is creating lactic acid but is still able to remove it. This type of running will teach your muscles to use the oxygen it does receive more efficiently.

Bonk

Hitting the wall. When your glycogen stores become so depleted that you hit a wall of fatigue. Not an issue in short races but can be a a common experience in the marathon distance.

Cadence

The number of steps per minute. Believe it or not, for efficient running you are looking at 180 steps per minute. Fast feet!

Chip Time

During most races your bib will have a chip to record when you cross the start line and when you cross the finish line to give you your chip time. This gives you an accurate time for your race. When you are reading results you’ll often see ‘gun time’ vs ‘net time’. Net time is the actual time, whereas gun time is from the start of the race. They can be several minutes apart, depending on how long it takes you to get to the start line!

DNF

Did not finish

DNS

Did not start

DOMS

Delayed onset muscle soreness. This usually peaks around 48 hours after a high intensity effort, weight training or a long run.

Fartlek

Swedish word meaning ‘speed play’ –  a mixture of slow running, steady running and fast running.

Foot Strike

Describes the first part of the foot that hits the ground when running. Some people will be heel strikers because the heel hits the ground first. Others will be forefoot or midfoot strikers.

Intervals

Intervals are typically shorter sprint distances (commonly 400m or 800m) followed by a period of recovery running. They build speed and endurance.

LSD

Typical abbreviation for the long run – long, slow distance.

Negative splits

Running the second half of a race faster than the first half.

Splits

Your time for each kilometre.

Strides

Short and fast accelerations to maximum speed, followed by a deceleration. A stride would generally be 50m-150m.

Taper

Runners reduce mileage (or taper) anywhere in between one day to three weeks depending on their race distance. This helps your body to recover to be at peak performance on race day.

Tempo Runs

Tempo runs are often described as a comfortably hard effort. In reality it’s about half way between your interval speed and your easy speed. You should be able to talk in short phrases on a tempo run. A tempo run is designed to get you comfortable sitting on your lactate threshold and should raise your lactate threshold so you can run faster.

VO2Max

This is a measure of aerobic fitness and is the maximum rate of oxygen consumption.

Any other words that we should add to the list?

 

5 Things you might not know about Crossfit

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1. It’s not as intimidating as it seems

A lot of people have an impression of Crossfit as a place that they are not coordinated enough for or fit enough for or that it would be too scary for someone who has never done weights before. The reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. There’s always a modification to an exercise that you can do so you are still getting the benefit of the movement. I can’t do pull ups. I can’t do negative pull ups. But I can do ring rows.

2. You are just as likely to be encouraged to go down in weight as you are up

I often get told to go down in weight. You go up as long as the technique is still good. But once the technique suffers, you go down.

3. People are competitive with themselves but it’s a team environment

It doesn’t matter what level you are at, you are going to receive just as much encouragement as everyone else and people are going to celebrate your achievements with you. One of the things I really enjoy about Crossfit is the community aspect.

4. There is more to it than the high intensity workout

The high intensity workout will often only last for ten minutes or so and is done at the end. But the part that I most enjoy is the Skill/Strength section that you do before that. That’s where you build up to a heavy weight doing a dead lift or work on the technique of a particular lift. That is fast becoming my favourite part.

5. It’s no more or less risky than other types of exercise

Risk is a comparative thing really. But in terms of injury it’s pretty much on par with any other type of training you would do. I guess the benefit of Crossfit is that when I’m doing something with poor form there is someone there to tell me that. Don’t have the same benefit when I’m out on a run and my core isn’t engaged.

How weight loss might be sabotaging your training

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You would think that running (or any form of training) and weight loss would be happy partners, but actually they are not. It seems like they would be great friends at first. If you are lighter, you can run faster, right? And often you feel a bit healthier being a bit lighter too and that’s bound to be a good thing, surely?

The problem is that for performance you need to eat quite a lot. That’s true for running and that’s true of weight training. If your body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs then you are going to feel tired and sluggish and you aren’t going to get the results out of your workouts that you want. I find particularly for me as a vegetarian getting all the nutrients I need can be quite challenging. Some days it feels like I eat all the time! Getting all the carbohydrates, protein and fats to get me to peak performance means that I can’t really afford to cut any calories out.

So what do I do when I want to get down to racing weight?

1) I aim for a calorie deficit, but it’s a really small calorie deficit. So on days when I do no exercise I try to keep myself at about 1900 calories – which is about 100-200 below my maintenance. On days when I do exercise I add those calories on, so I still only have a very small deficit. On a day where I do crossfit and go for a run eating 2,500-3,000 calories would not be unusual.

2) I put a higher priority on nutrient dense foods than on staying under a calorie limit. I keep track of the calories more to make sure that I’m getting enough protein and carbohydrates and so I’m being mindful in my food choices. Ultimately, I know I am in a better position for performance in training and for weight loss if I eat 3,000 calories of nutrient dense food as opposed to 1,500 calories of processed food.

3) I eat six meals a day and I focus on eating soon after I’ve gone for a run or been to crossfit. Food for me during the day might be a green smoothie, a fruit salad with greek yoghurt and LSA, a chickpea salad, vege sticks with hummus, a tofu and vegetable stir fry and a protein shake. Like I said, it’s a lot of food.

4) To keep track of my progress I pay more attention to measurements than to the scale. Because I’m lifting weights I’ll often lose centimetres but gain weight.

5) I stay focused on what my goal is. The goal is what my body can do. Performance is more important than what I look like. The changes in my body are just icing on the cake.

6) I don’t stay overly rigid. Last weekend I had a date night that involved dinner and a movie. I had entree. I had main. I had dessert. And I had a huge amount of popcorn and ice cream. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

I’m happy for my progress to be slow. Because the number I really care about is the one on my running watch and the weight on my bar.