Inspiration

 

One thing about starting over is that because you’ve done it before, you know you can do it, but you are also keenly aware of how far you have to go. That can go one of a few ways. It can either be demotivating, or you can approach it in an entirely different way, and get excited about it.

You can’t really kid yourself, it IS going to be a lot of work.

The trap can be that you let that work intimidate you, rather than seeing all the opportunities in it. What’s that old saying, people miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like hard work?

It’s a bit like a race, it can scare the pants off you in the beginning, all that road stretched out in front of you. So far to go, no idea what you are capable of or how much it will hurt, or how deep you will have to dig into the well. But also, while we tend to think or races as distances, they are actually a whole bunch of tiny moments strung together. You might think of it as 10km or 21km or whatever, but it’s actually that moment when you got to start and you felt free, and then that bit when you thanked a volunteer for being awesome, and then that kilometre you helped someone out who was struggling and then the moment where you saw a friendly face when you needed it, and then that final stretch when you knew you were going to do the impossible. It only looks like a straight line from far away. So in the beginning, it could feel like you have to grind out all the things you’ve worked so hard for and already done. Or, it could be an opportunity to fall in love with all of those things all over again.

 

Don’t undervalue where you are

Going back to less runs per week or walk/run when you normally would be continuous can feel like a step back, but those building blocks are important and you can enjoy that building process. How often do you get a do-over with the process of learning to run (again) embrace how fun it is to see that big progress week to week.

 

Take your time

It took time to get where you are, it’s okay to take the time again. You might even discover along the way that there’s something you like even more than what you were doing before. It’s a great time for exploration and adventure.

 

All work is worthwhile

Not all work is in workouts, sometimes the work is in building a base that is strong, broad and resilient. That doesn’t mean that work isn’t worthwhile just because it happens to be repetitive.

 

Maybe this is a chance to do something differently

Looking at your running history, has there been an obstacle in your way? Maybe it’s time to re-write your story.

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I’m writing a book about how to love running enough for it to change your life.

The book is going to focus on my journey so far, the when the why and the how of the workouts and of training, but also how it all connects to things that are far bigger than running. I’m taking up the challenge of writing a book in 30 days. Which is a lot of writing, but hopefully just enough pressure to keep the momentum going. You can sign up to read the daily words on patreon and get access to a whole range of bonus podcast episodes, and an ebook with 52 running workouts, so you’ll never be stuck for ideas ever again. Stay up to date on:

• instagram @opmove
• facebook @opmove
• Our community group has moved! Check us out at sisterhood.opmove.com

Getting mentally stronger for workouts, don’t we all want that?

Mentally stronger for workouts or just mentally stronger for life in general. The truth is, my approach to doing things that are hard or overwhelming is exactly the same regardless of whether it’s a project with a deadline, or a workout. It’s all about breaking it down into bite-size pieces. This helps to take me out of overwhelm and into a place where I feel like I can be useful and productive.

Have a plan

A plan calms down all manner of fears. It gives you a path to follow, it gives you options and by creating a little bit of structure you can keep that anxious brain distracted while you get down to work. This might mean talking with your coach about a pace guide for your session, or a certain heart rate range. It might also involve taking down the expectation for the workout. If the idea of running something at 6:30 min/km pace is a bit too intimidating. Take it down to 7:00 and then just see what happens. Nine times out of ten when you aren’t stressed about aiming for a certain pace, you’ll go faster than you think you will.

Do the easy part first

In our case, the easy part is the getting out the door and warming up. Sure, getting out the door might not always feel super easy but that’s usually because of what comes after – not the warm up. So focusing on the easy first steps that you can do helps to put you on auto-pilot.

Break down the hard parts into manageable pieces

I like to break workouts down in a variety of ways. So let’s say if I have 5 x 1km at tempo pace, that’s 5km of work at my 10km race pace. Which is 50% of my actual capacity. See how it sounds way easier? Or if I have 6 x 400m that’s only 2.4km of actual work with loads of recovery in between. Or if I’m doing a fartlek with the intervals at 5km pace and let’s say the intervals are 2:00. A great 5km would take me 24 minutes at the moment. I’m running 1/12th of that. Those types of things help because apprehension of failure is worse than anything that might happen during the session. It should feel good (for the most part!) If it doesn’t, it’s probably an over-reach.

Create milestones

In any workout, I will tick off 1/4 done, 1/3 done, 1/2 done, only 10% to go! It helps to keep mentally ticking off those segments as you work your way through and self-talk your way through some of the tough bits. In reality I’ve had plenty of workouts go really pear shaped, but I’ve always finished them, but in my mind I’m thinking doing 1/2 is good if that’s all I’m able to do, doing 2/3 is great, doing 3/4 is awesome and doing it all is outstanding. So I’m getting little pep talks about where I’m up to the whole way through.

Acknowledge what you just did.

While the temptation might be to downplay your efforts, or focus on the things that you would have liked to have gone better, you need to create the narrative for the next hard thing. If after every session, you focus on what didn’t go well – that’s what you are going to remember next time. So instead of thinking ‘gee that last interval was really slow’, I tend to go with ‘how cool is it that I didn’t have anything in the tank at the end, but I still finished’. Then next time you will remember that you are capable of leaving it all out there and having fun doing it too. Getting mentally stronger for workouts is a whole lot about practice, but it’s also about the story you tell yourself. So make it a good one.  

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I’m writing a book about how to love running enough for it to change your life.

The book is going to focus on my journey so far, the when the why and the how of the workouts and of training, but also how it all connects to things that are far bigger than running. I’m taking up the challenge of writing a book in 30 days. Which is a lot of writing, but hopefully just enough pressure to keep the momentum going. You can sign up to read the daily words on patreon and get access to a whole range of bonus podcast episodes, and an ebook with 52 running workouts, so you’ll never be stuck for ideas ever again. Stay up to date on:

• instagram @opmove
• facebook @opmove
• Our community group has moved! Check us out at sisterhood.opmove.com

“It is only process that saves us from the poverty of our intentions.” – Elizabeth King

I’m a person who needs a deadline. In everything. In my technical writing career it was often commented that possibly I skated a little too close to that line. But without it, I end up being a victim of too much time and not enough pressure.

I have always meant to write that book, but there’s always time, you know?

Except that’s only true if you do the work. And I have not been doing the work.

And here we are, the day before November. You might not have heard of it but NaNoWriMo has been going for many years. (National Novel Writing Month) and the premise is that instead of taking years, you take 30 days to write your 50,000 word novel. Now, I’m not writing a novel, but I am using the structure to create just the kind of pressure I need.

My project is – Run Your Heart Out – part running memoir, part training theory and application. Everything I wish every runner could know to create joy and confound their own expectations. And I’ll be releasing daily words on my patreon support page if you’d like to take a peek at what I’m working on.

But, as my book is probably not going to be as long as a traditional novel (or need to be!) I’ll also be doing one blog post per day and adding that to my overall word count. Side note: if you subscribe to get blog posts via email and don’t want to get an email every day, now might be a great time to update your preferences!

I got a great reminder today that there’s no such thing as writers block, there’s just a fear of bad writing. But there is no way around it, the only way is through.

There are always points where you think you should give yourself an ‘out’. Yesterday I got confirmation on another grant writing project which is due in at the beginning of December. That would be easy for me to say, I can’t do this right now. But the truth is, there’s always something. And this time, I’ve decided to keep myself on the hook.

I’m going to need all the support I can get. If you have any specific questions or topics you feel isn’t well covered, I would love to hear them.

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