Hello everyone! What do you know? Old Man Winter is slowly relinquishing
his grasp on upstate NY! Whatever Mother Nature is doing to get the
cold-hearted bastard to move up north, I hope that she keeps it up! I know that
I write for many of you when I say that looking up to a cloudless sky and
feeling sunshine on my face is an amazing feeling! I've forgotten how good that
freaking felt! Hell, I may even go outside for a run. But, I realize that this
is Rochester . So, I wont put away
the snow shovel or parka just quite yet.
Things are going good. I've suddenly come to the end of a two-week
"staycation" wondering where all the time went. I did manage to use
some of my time wisely: I revamped my cross-training schedule, downloaded some
fresh music for my running playlist, finished Dan Brown's Deception Point and
started his Digital Fortress, downloaded a slew of new e-books, caught up on
reading comics to the little man, finished watching the True Detective and
American Horror Story: Coven series and even had the pleasure of marching in
uniform in our local St. Patrick's Day parade! I think that's enough! I finally
managed to figure out how to create some widgets for the blog showing how many
days I've been running in a row and how many days until the big 50K. Updated
the look of the blog too. Hopefully it's easier to read and looks a little
better!
My training is progressing
nicely! I've made the conversion from running for mileage to running strictly
for time on all of my training days except my long distance day. I've decided
on what I think is a good training plan from Competitor Running. It has a heavy
emphasis on running for time and cross-training. Hence my pre season
adjustments. It's going to be really strange to not do any speedwork. Even
though I don't know what I'm doing with regards to ultras, I can see that it's
pointless to train with speedwork for a race of this distance. I just want to
be able to finish the dang thing! My hamstring continues to keep fluctuating
between being awful one week and great the next. Still continuing on with the
yoga and foam rolling. It's gotta get better at some point! Right?
A friend on Facebook posted an entertaining video earlier this week showing
what is was like growing up in the 60's, 70's and 80's compared to growing up now.
It made me laugh. That got me thinking about my own childhood and what the
future holds for my son. I realize that I'm like most first-time parents in
that I don't have a clue what I'm doing most of the time. As parents, we draw
heavily on our experiences when we were children. Hopefully if you're like me,
that means trying to filter out the negative and include the positive into your
children's lives.
Most of the time what I write in this blog is related to running. While
I think there's a lot of different topics that I can still and will write about;
this particular post will focus on four positive strategies that I experienced while growing
up. I think each could help you succeed at discovering a healthier you. They've
helped me and I try to use them with my son on a daily basis.
Freedom. Don't let anyone tell you what THE sport for you is. Nobody
knows what's right for you other than yourself. While I'm obviously in love
with running; I realize that it's not for everyone. Some people like swimming.
Some people like walking. Some people like weight-training. The list is just endless.
I think that each has it's advantages and disadvantages. Don't be afraid to try
new things. Just remember that depending on what you try, some activities
require practice and skill. Get professional guidance from a coach if you have
questions. Try to look for some variety in what you choose. Breaking up the
routine can keep you motivated and help prevent boredom. Strive for a balance
when exercising and shoot for activities that work to improve you as a whole.
There're several different paths to fitness. Explore all of them and discover
what ones are the right fit for you. As human beings, we're all different. What
works for one person may not work for another. Luckily, my son seems to like
the idea of being a runner!
Failure. I've talked about it before. For some reason, failure has
become an extremely dirty word in today's society. Whether it's in the world of
professional sports, business or free time, failing has become unacceptable.
Why? How are we as individuals supposed to grow, change and improve unless it's
through trial and error? Even with something like running, which your body does
automatically, there's a learning process of trial and error that occurs when
you begin to train. Unconsciously, your body makes adjustment after adjustment
until you're running as efficiently as possible. There're further tweaks and
techniques that a you can consciously use to further improve. But, overall what
you have, is what you have. Gone are the days of trying out for the school's baseball
team and not making the cut. Everyone gets on the team. Everyone gets a swing
and runs the bases. At some point, after never being allowed to fail, when faced
with failure for the first time it will be more devastating that it really needs
to be. Most successful people fail more than they succeed. They learn from
those failures and that's why they become successful. Nobody is born knowing how
to do everything. It's heartbreaking to watch my son when he fails. But, it has
be done.
Responsibility. What a great concept! It's easy to say that you know
what it is. But, do you really practice it? In my line of work I see person
after person who doesn't take responsibility for their actions. It was never
their own fault. Yes, certain situations are out of our control. But, many of
the difficult ones are created by the direct result of our own choices. There's
easy and quick ways to achieve some fitness goals. But, many of those are
unhealthy and downright dangerous. There's no reason for someone to take
medication to speed up their metabolism. There's no reason to starve yourself
everyday. There's no diet drink worth a damn unless you plan on drinking that
shake for the rest of your life in place of healthy, real food. Fitness isn't
something that's given to people. Yes, there're some genetically gifted people
out there. But, for the most part, fitness is earned. If you step inside gyms
around our country you'll see people working hard everyday to improve
themselves. If you don't take the time to take responsibility for your health,
you won't get the sort of results that you want. My son worked hard last summer
running with me. At the start he could barely do a mile. By the end, we managed
a two mile long run. Hard work plus responsibility equals...
Success. There it is! What everyone wants! For as much as failure is a
dirty word in our society, success can sometimes be something not talked about
either. For example let's take a look at Facebook. Some people just hate it.
They claim that all it does is depress them and make them realize how terrible
their life is. What's wrong with someone posting a picture of their new car,
vacation snapshots or motivational quotes? Nothing. Maybe some of those
negative people should take a serious look at their own lives and work on
improving them. Runners do this a little better than others. We post our
workouts through social media, proudly display our 5K, 10K and 26.2 stickers on
our cars and have more races shirts in our closets than regular ones. If you
are good at something, enjoy it, promote it and improve the hell out of it.
Life is full of boring meetings, traffic jams and mind numbing TV. Celebrate
the victories, they're yours and you earned them after all. When my son has a
win, it's a win. Not something to be casually overlooked. Feeling success is
good. It makes you want to achieve more.
I didn't intend this to come off like a rant. I hope that it didn't.
Just someone who believes that everyone has it within them to improve. Hope all
of you have a great week! Put some miles into your life...
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