Archives for January 2016

Where you can find me running this year

Zoey · January 26, 2016 · 4 Comments

I feel like this post is long overdue but my life has been sucked into the vortex of school holidays. Right now I am writing this in the kitchen, partially shielded by the pantry because there is less likelihood of one of the small people noticing me and asking me for something. We’ve had a great school holiday break but no matter how great it is the last week is always like dragging yourself to the finish line. AND WE ARE NEARLY THERE.

One of the great realisations I had last year was that because I’ve been running and training for as long as I have, I know that if I’m not looking for a PB and I’m just running I don’t have to worry so much about specific training and I can just do the things that I enjoy doing and run the events that I want to run. There are some fairly heavy caveats on that of course – it’s not like if I want to run a marathon I can skip long runs – but I can take a lot more of a relaxed approach to training. Once you know what your body is capable of – that’s a huge part of the battle. So I know if I am doing a few couple hour runs here or there I can go and run a marathon. Might not be fast – but very doable.

Whereas last year, I felt like I ended up sacrificing too much of my strength work for marathon training and ended up being overtrained. So this year, I’m taking a bit more of a balanced approach and I’m not really planning on racing any events – just getting out there and having fun. Like I’ve said before you have to choose your hard. Going from a partnership to a solo operation was so much harder than I ever imagined it could be. It was isolating and where before I had someone to bounce ideas off, now I mostly internalise all of my stress. I’m working on that. As joyful and as rewarding as it is for me, all of the business type stuff that I don’t have natural talent for is hard. The coaching part comes pretty easily to me – marketing not so much. I’m also starting my Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science this year which might be a bit of a shock to the system, since I haven’t been to university in about ten years. So I really needed my training this year to be the easy, fun part of my week. With that in mind I’ve got someone to put together my programming based on not racing and running four times a week. The cool thing about that is, it does mean I can go to more events. Last year I had to be pretty strict about what I was doing because I really wanted to peak for a certain event which meant not racing a whole lot inbetween.

Maidenwell Marathon – 26th/27th March – Maidenwell, QLD
Warwick Pentathlon – 21st/22nd May – Warwick, QLD
Macleay River Marathon – 12th June – South West Rocks, NSW
Gold Coast Marathon – 3rd July – Gold Coast, QLD
Jetty to Jetty – 17th July – Brisbane, QLD
Brisbane Marathon Festival – 7th August – Brisbane, QLD
Sydney Running Festival – 18th September – Sydney, NSW
Melbourne Marathon Festival – 16th October – Melbourne, VIC

That should keep me pretty busy, right?

You might find yourself running this year too! If you are interested in Learn to Run you have a few more days to sign up, or you can join Run Club anytime!

Habits will save you when motivation abandons you

Zoey · January 19, 2016 · 1 Comment

I’m not big on motivation and the last two weeks are a perfect example of why I’m not. I have really very little interest in running or crossfit or lifting or really movement of any kind. I’m just not that into it. Don’t get me wrong, I always feel great afterwards. But I never want to do it to start off with. And I kind of dread it the night before. But still, pretty much every morning (barring a few instances of allowing myself a pyjama day) I get up and I do it. Because that is what I do. And that is what I have done for the last few years. It’s not will power or determination, it’s just habit.

It’s also the knowledge that the things that give me the greatest sense of contentment are usually things that I’m not overly keen on doing at the time. Like cleaning the house. I freaking hate doing that. But it gives me a great sense of peace and accomplishment when it’s done. Running is a bit like that too. You might feel like arse when you are getting out of bed at 5am, but you always feel awesome afterwards.

So don’t think that you need motivation to start something, or finish something. You don’t, you just need to start creating a habit. Because then even when you are having a few weeks like I’m having, the force of habit takes over – it’s like auto-pilot I don’t really even think about it that much. If you can’t love it, you can still love it done.

And that’s where I am at the moment. Loving it done is about the best I can do. And auto-pilot will save me until I get back to normal. And I’m sure it’s just around the corner.

Claim your spot in Learn to Run and get started on creating habits that will support your goals, whatever they might be.

Truth, Beauty and a Picture of You

Zoey · January 10, 2016 · 2 Comments

“Truth, Beauty and a Picture of You” – No Aphrodisiac, The Whitlams

Of all the questions I get asked, I get asked about the Truth bracelet the most.

And I’ve been thinking about it as I do some final things on the new website and a lot of the photos are of Katie and I. She gave me the bracelet, and I wear it the most.

She got it for me because I always tell the truth, even when I’m not right. Until I figure out I’m not right and then I tell that truth.

Ages ago I was watching a crappy movie and someone was explaining what love is.

“Love is when you know the worst thing about someone and it’s still ok”

That’s what the bracelet means.

It means speak the truth, even if your voice breaks.

It means that it doesn’t matter how many times I make mistakes or falter or fuck up there is someone behind me. And she will tell me I’ve fucked up, but she won’t move.

And I draw great, impossible strength from that bracelet. Even when my voice breaks.

How to make a diamond

Zoey · January 8, 2016 · Leave a Comment

This week in Learn to Run, someone posted about how she couldn’t imagine ever being able to run 5km with relative ease. And how was she ever going to do that?

Pressure and time. The same way diamonds are made.

Everything seems impossible in the beginning. I remember trying to run for a minute at a time and having to really focus on that tree 10m in front of me to keep going. Sometimes my body fought with my mind. Sometimes my mind fought with my body. I remember seeing other people who looked a lot like they were out for a run and not dying and honestly I never thought I would be one of those people.

The secret of running is that fitness and distance is built over years and decades, not over a few weeks. Pressure and time.

And even when you’ve achieved what seemed impossible (running 5km without stopping for example), the next step seems just as impossible. But achieving that one impossible thing once, gives you enough of a spark of madness to try for the next impossible thing. Eventually, if you do that enough times you realise that there is no impossible. There is only pressure and time.

There will be times when you think about giving up. Because it is hard to be patient with something when you aren’t blessed with natural talent. It takes patience and discipline to commit the process of mastery. But once you find once you do is that it’s the process that you love, not the outcome. You love the person you are when you have to dig deep to find something more. You are proud of the person you are when you get up early in the morning to meet the sunrise. And to become the person who can achieve the next impossible, you have to become someone pretty amazing. And all it takes is pressure and time.

The time will pass anyway, right? You might as well be great. That’s how diamonds are made.

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Why people ‘fail’ Couch to 5k (And What You Can Do About It)

Zoey · January 6, 2016 · Leave a Comment

One of the cool things about the internet is almost everything is free if you have the time. So if you are willing to research what you want to learn, there’s usually a whole swag of resources available to you. And it might take you some time to sift through the things that are genuinely going to help you and the things that aren’t worthwhile, but it’s there. And there’s a free app for almost anything if you aren’t adverse to a few ads.

And it’s pretty awesome to have access to all of that, but it isn’t without it’s shortfalls.

The first problem is when you miss a session or two or a week or a month. And because you are unsupported, it confirms your worst fears about yourself that you are weak willed and lazy and a failure and you allow that failure to sink in your skin and nest in your bones, like it lives there. Like it’s always lived there. But the truth is, it’s not who you are and it can’t stay. It’s not weakness, it’s not laziness and it’s not failure. It is simply attempting something within a construct that is not designed for success. But convincing yourself that your lazy kind of lets you off the hook a bit so you feel a bit better even if your soul weighs a little heavier.

The second problem is that often the community around Couch to 5k in forums are all new runners as well. Which is great for inspiration or motivation, but not so great when you need the voice of experience. Where you might need someone to tell you to take more than few rest days, or that just resting shin splints won’t get the job done, or what parts of your form you should be paying attention to or what to do when you lose your mojo. Or even what to do when you hit a wall not because of the running, but because you have a crisis because you feel like an imposter. So what tends to happen is one of two things – either people go out too hard, too fast and end up injuring themselves and deciding that they are not meant to run or they hit a point of demotivation and give up.

The third problem is that you aren’t guided through all of the things that you need to know. You are kind of thrown into the deep end of all of the information with no real strategy for what you should be learning first and what you should be building on. And it’s easy to think that running is simple. And in some ways that’s the beauty of it – that it’s simple, but it’s also complicated. As a whole body exercise, there are all sorts of things going on that you wouldn’t even think about. From a lax core, to an overactive quad to an under-developed glute to wild inefficiencies in form.

And the final problem is what happens next? If you do finish your mind can switch off because the job has been done, you’ve completed your task and there’s an instant lack of motivation to do anything else. How many times have you seen someone focus on a distance based goal like 5km or a half marathon and then see them falter in terms of their fitness after that. It seems really natural at the time – you’ve achieved something amazing – you deserve a break. And while recovery is really important after a big event – a few days can turn into a week and a week can turn into a month. And what your body deserves is the enjoyment of movement.

The majority of people who I coach in Learn to Run have probably ‘failed’ Couch to 5k one or many more times. So the next time you think about a program or a plan to help you get started, don’t think ‘what if I fail?’, think instead ‘what will it take for me to succeed?’ because I guarantee you can. You just haven’t found your way yet.

Claim your spot in Learn to Run today. Our coaches and mentors will support you every step of the way.

If you’d like to read more about Learning to Run, you can check out:

The one question that gets asked the most about Learn to Run

11 Things that Learning to Run will teach you that have nothing to do with running

How to make a diamond

Podcast: How to support a friend who is learning to run

You deserve to take up space

And you can download our participant guide here.