A friend of mine posted this on facebook this morning: “I’m not telling you to jump off tall buildings, or swim with whales, but to live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle.” It was a timely reminder for my Tuesday morning ritual.
I met two of my favorite running buds, Janice and Katherine, this morning for our weekly track workout. It’s always great to have moral support on a tough workout. As we were doing some striders to get ready for our impending loops around the track, Janice remarked, “I hate this.” And that is exactly why we do it. Because doing it is hard and it makes us faster. And while we may hate it in the moment, we finish feeling more empowered and stronger for our efforts.
If you’re not familiar with what a track workout is, you are typically doing speed intervals around the track. That means you are running very hard (i.e. sprinting) for a lap or two or three or four. After a brief recovery period, you repeat the process again and again. The goal is to hold your pace from your first interval to your last.
Of course, the more you do, the more tired you are. So maintaining your pace gets harder and harder. I was running 400s (one lap around the track). And I had eight repeats on my training plan. I also had a predetermined heart rate zone and pace to hit; designed to push and humble me.
As I was sprinting on my last lap; I was winded and tired. My legs ached. But I knew I had to push myself harder, because this is where the gain is made. You don’t get faster by doing the first 400 super fast and then crashing (in the coaching world, we call this going from ‘hero to zero.’). Progress is made by being consistent for all of the intervals, but particularly in doing the last lap as fast or faster than the first. That’s when your body makes physical adaptations to the stress and actually gets stronger.
Is there anything that you need to do that is really hard? And while you may not look forward to it; you know that you’ll feel so much better when it’s done. You know that if you push yourself, you can accomplish what you set out to do. And if you can do what’s really hard, over and over, you’ll reap the rewards. You’ll get stronger, faster, or more productive. You’ll also get more confident. So the next time you go out, you’ll be able to do even more. You’re making positive adaptations. You’re conquering your challenges. And you’re not settling.
To summon all the motivation I could muster on the last lap, I remind myself that all of the laps up to that point were just my warm-up (even though technically I did a warm-up by running from my house to the track). It’s a mental game I play with myself when I need an extra dose of mojo. What I want to impress upon myself in that critical make-or-break moment is that I have pushed my body to get through the first seven laps. But if I ease up now, I’m actually doing myself a huge disservice, since my goal is to complete eight laps. And I know it was too hard to get to that point to throw in the towel now and not reap the full benefit of all the work I just completed. This is the point in the workout where the rubber meets the road.
So I push. I gasp. I dig deep. I move my legs faster and faster as I sprint down the homestretch of my last interval. I feel like I can’t go any further without easing up. But I don’t ease up. I hang on. I charge through to the end. I glance down at my Garmin as I cross the line. Exhausted, but elated. My last interval was four seconds faster than my first.
As I recover, Katherine rounds the track on her last 800. I join her for her last lap, to push and encourage her. She hits her mark too! As she comes to a stop, she pants, “I may throw up now…but it’s done!”
We all jog away from the track, ready to tackle the day.
