The Journey Begins
I started a new training block for a couple of races coming up in September and October, leading up to the Malaga Marathon in November. I’m taking the lessons I’ve learned from the races and training I’ve done so far this year to help shape the new plan to help me achieve my goals.
The thing is, this training block is more than just about a few races, key workouts to run certain times and perhaps get a PB in the Marathon in November.
I’m doing this for me.
I’m putting myself first, create something that challenges me, excites me, love every run regardless of whether it was good or bad and love the process for the person I’m becoming and how it’s helping to reshape my future.
In effect, I’m not creating a training plan, I’m creating a masterpiece.
The Challenge
The challenge here is not running a marathon, or any of the races leading up to it. The challenge is in shifting my mindset from fitting in my training sessions around helping others to putting myself first, making my training the priority and build everything around that.
It sounds rather selfish, and it is, it has to be. The way I see it is that if I’m in my best shape, I’m in a better position to help my clients.
Falling In Love With The Process
This is the best bit! It’s not by doing the sexy workouts we see on social media or by buying shoes with carbon plates. The real difference in running comes when you get stuck into the training and learn, mostly by failing.
I’m not the kind of person who’s content with just trying to get round the races. I want to do my best, run fast times and discover what I’m capable of. The real goal is to become the best I can be.
When I focus on becoming the best I can be, the times and performances will come. Right now, all of that is put to one side and I won’t think about that until closer to race day.
My focus is on what matters the most, building a plan that works for me and being consistent with it. It’s not just about running though, it’s about getting better sleep, fine tuning my diet, improving my body’s ability to move the way I want it to and also training my mindset to use this journey as a filter to govern everything I do. The interesting bit of this so far has been realising how much time I’ve been wasting on doing things that aren’t important and how many things that were part of my normal routine I am now saying no to.
Less Is More
There are no perfect sessions, diets, workouts etc. Performance metrics aren’t important in the early stages, it’s about finding a starting point, trying lots of different things to see what works, what doesn’t work and make continuous improvements.
It’s like putting a jigsaw together, tipping all the pieces out, starting to put the outer edge bits together then work your way into the middle. You find the bits that connect together by finding the bits that don’t.
This is essential for growing and getting things wrong doesn’t mean I’ll have to train harder or do more.
Ultimately, less is more. You start refining everything you do until you find what works for you, feels easy to fit in, finding quality over quantity so you feel like you’re ticking over like a finely tuned car without feeling overly exhausted, injured or no longer enjoying what you’re doing.
The real fun comes from being willing to try things without the fear of being judged, not being good at them but instead embracing them as an opportunity to learn, work out what we need to change to do better and continuing to practice.
Just like how we approached playing or learning how to ride our bikes when we were kids.
The thing I’m most excited about IS NOT the performance aspects but in discovering what I become able to do and the person I become as a result of this journey.
You can do this too :)
