Olympics

With the Olympics coming up I am looking forward to some additional inspiration.  The US team has a really good chance to medal in the Marathon, as well as other long distance events such as the 5000 Meter and 10000 meter event.  How exciting!  If that's not inspiring enough, I bet the human interest stories that are always featured will prove to be very inspiring.  They always seem to be able to find the athlete with 11 kids, grew up in poverty, had to fight a life threatening illness, but found the motivation, energy, and strength to train for Olympic gold!  If that guy can achieve his drams, so can I!  Wow, what an adrenaline rush!  Watch out world, here I come!  Get out, get moving, and run happy!

Plug for "MapMyRun.com"

So, I've been logging my workouts on mapmyrun.com, which is affiliated with MapMyFITNESS.com.  I have to say, this site is the best site to keep track of your workouts.  You can log everything you want from a walk to a swim, and everything in between.  You can even keep a food journal.  No only that, if you have a GPS watch, or an i-phone, you can upload your workout data with easy.

I map my runs ahead of time so that I know the route before I hit the road.  It works great.  Then you can monitor your progress when you run that route again in the future.  The mapping feature is easy to use and you can view your route multiple ways, including a profile of the elevation changes.

Another cool feature is that you can checkout how your friends are doing.  It's set up like a social networking site, so you can friend people you know, then either compete with them or encourage them to keep up the good work. 

If you want to follow my workouts, you can go to mapmyrun.com, look me up, and then you can see how I'm doing.  You can send me notes to encourage me, or just sit back and see the progress.  Better yet, you can start logging your own workouts!!  So get outside, hit the road or the trail, and run happy!

Goal Setting

Set goals that will push you beyond what you think you can accomplish.

I read this once in some training materials that I received from my employer.  Goal setting is something one needs to do in every aspect of their life, not just at work.  Seems to me that running a marathon fits the description above.  It's not going to be easy, but it's a worthy goal.

The alternative is to set goals that are easy.  Where it he challenge in that? If you know you can do it, without much effort, then why do it?  It's much more exiting and rewarding to do realize a goal that was a difficult.

I guess I have always done this.  When I was a senior in high school my guidance councilor guided me towards colleges that were easy to get into.  I thought she was nuts!  Yeah, you have to have a safety school (one you are guaranteed to get into) but thought it was better to try for harder schools.  I did that, and got into one of my reach schools, Skidmore College.  Once there, I continued the trend and stretch myself outside of my comfort zone.  I still do that today.

Doc Brown, the crazy doctor who invented a time machine in the 1985 movie Back to the Future, would say "if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."  I'll amend that to include your body too.

Go out and achieve something!

Neal

Endurance

Merriam Webster's dictionary defines endurance as "the ability to withstand hardship or adversity; especially: the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity".  But to me endurance is more than just withstanding hardship, or just dealing with a bad situation.  Endurance is more about transcending hardship, or rising above a difficult situation.  When we just deal with a bad situation, we are saying to ourselves that we accept that situation without question, thus addressing only the immediate hardship.  But when we rise above adversity, we enable ourselves to see over the forest to the mountains and valleys beyond.  We not only address the immediate situation, but we find the path to avoid theses adverse situations again, or at lead to better deal with these situations.

This brings me to another definition of endurance.  Permanence.  Homer's The Iliad and the Odyssey endure because the stories are so meaningful and accessible.  You many even say they transcend time!  So, when I think of endurance I also think of permanence, or "the ability to continue or remain without fundamental or marked change".

When people say that marathon runners are "endurance" athletes, most people think of only the first definition, the suffering part of endurance, but they forget the permanence part of endurance.  Marathon runners endure.  Not only can they suffer through the difficulty of running 26.2 miles, but they have the ability to run mile 1 and mile 26 at exactly the same pace, with the same amount of strength and ability.  Endurance is more than suffering.  Endurance is transcendence.

Ready to Get Back Out There

After much needed rest, I think I'm ready to get back out there and hit the road.  Well, as I said earlier, I think I'll hit the trail instead.  Trail running can be easier on the body because of the increased shock absorption of the trail surface, so may be my joints and muscles will be less injury prone.  Pavement and other hard surfaces do not provide any shock absorption, so that may have contributed to my injury.  So, I'll take it slow and easy and be gentle on the body before I jump back into my Marathon training mode. 

I've created a marathon training plan, based on the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training (FIRST) 3plus2 training program.  3 key runs per week and 2 (or 3) cross training seasons per week.  Lots of work, but lots of fun too!  Looking forward to it! 

Find a fun trail to run near you here! Your body will thank you!

Dr. Says To Take a Week Off

Good news.  My calf injury is not that bad.  Although, my Dr. says to take a week off from running.  Looks like I'll be swimming for a week.  That's alright with me.  I've always loved swimming!  Anything to get back to running again. Perhaps I'll do some trail running now that the summer is here.  The shade will make me more comfortable, and the dirt under my feet will be more forgiving on my legs.  I'll keep you posted! Run happy!!