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Here international cross country and track athlete Madeleine Davidson writes four articles (scroll down) about.....
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1) Setting Goals
2) Overcoming Obstacles During the Holiday Season
3) The Buddy System and
4) Running Outside Your Comfort Zone and Embracing The Uncomfortable
Dec. 14, 2015 - SETTING GOALS
I am a former Division-I and international cross country and track athlete. I met Professor Utzschneider last spring as a student in her Competitive Performance class. It was my last semester of NCAA eligibility for Boston College before I decided what role running would play in my post-collegiate and professional life. She introduced me to the MOVE!Method and the theories behind it - habits, deliberate practice, short-term successive goal setting, weekly support, and keeping logs, to name a few. During a time where I felt like I lacked a direction, the MOVE! Method helped me navigate my way.
As an NCAA athlete and a world championships competitor, I never suffered from a shortage of dreams. I have always had big goals for myself but have struggled to find a realistic way to get there often lacking an understanding of what it would take or resorting to extreme training behavior, all only to fall short.
Last spring, I set out on a goal to break 16-minutes in the 5000m deciding that if I could accomplish that, I would continue running post-collegiately and if not, I would hang up my spikes. The MOVE! Method helped me generate a specific plan on how I would get there by using successive short-term goals but also helped give me the motivation to commit myself fully by holding me accountable during weekly check-ins with my classmates and Professor Utzschneider. I missed my ambitious goal that would have required me to run a personal best by over 20-seconds. I did however manage to run 16:12 ranking me the 5th fastest Boston College Eagle ever.
More importantly, what started out as a “do-or-die” type of goal where failure meant quitting, I found a renewed belief in myself and passion towards running. The MOVE! Method helped show me that when faced with external factors that are out of your control, sometimes you need to change your goal along the way and this does not mean you have failed! It gave me the skills to reframe my performance as a success and MOVE!-on to the next goal!
This December-January I am setting a new, short-term goal as a part of my longer-term vision. This blog will track my weekly goals, hurdles I have identified, and my strategies to overcome them. Goal setting and success is all relative to one’s own abilities, passions, and past performances. What I saw as a failure was a massive success in the eyes of my coaches and teammates. I hope this blog will help others (and myself!) maintain perspective on goals and performances; one performance or one missed goal does not define an athlete, rather it is the entire length of your journey to get to that point and beyond.
My next article focuses on weekly goals, hurdles, and strategies.
Personal running bests:
Short-term goal: 3000m January 29th, 2016
Long-term goal: 5000m April-June 2016Embrac
Overcoming Obstacles During the Holiday Season - Madeleine Davidson,December 22, 2015
This was my first week of training back home without my team and I am remembering all the challenges about training alone. Despite my goal being “on-track” and taking a lot of time to plan out the obstacles ahead, I somehow missed leaving my team and coaches! This became apparent immediately as I dreaded my first Sunday long run - an hour and forty minutes, 16 miles, in the cold trying to run fast on tired legs. I survived but did not run as fast as I wanted to.
I had two hard workouts this week made even more challenging because I was alone. Having training partners is invaluable. I started out my collegiate career at the University of Louisville and quickly rose to the top of the group to the point where I ended up doing most of my training alone. My teammates started holding me back on runs ….they didn’t want to or couldn’t elevate themselves. This fueled my decision to transfer to Boston College. I believe that to get the best out of yourself, you have to surround yourself with people who are better than you. This goes for many aspects of life, not just running.
Fast forward to this week….. I am reframing my solo workouts as being as much mental as physical training. It is easy to run with a group of women and just focus on having them pull you along to fast times instead of pushing yourself alone, just as it’s easier to run a personal best in a race with others beside you. When you are alone, there are no distractions from the pain of a hard workout, no one to hold you accountable, and it is very easy to get complacent with the pace and the discomfort. This week has required a lot of mental strength for tough workouts.
I had planned two strategies to overcome a lack of training partners this week. Neither was successful! I tried to meet with the University of Toronto team or find running groups but the university team was doing workouts on days that did not work for me and the running groups often meet in the evenings (I would rather be running in the mornings).
I had to think more creatively and instead used visualization and music. The night before a workout, I listened to a 20-minute visualization track to relax and picture myself running the workout successfully. I also try to imagine the pain I was going to be in and work on accepting that pain as the path to improvement. My second strategy was to listen to music as I got dressed for my run and on the warm up. I don’t listen to music during the workout because you can’t listen to music in a track race! But on the warm up, music gets me excited and makes me feel as if I have company.
So I overcame my obstacles for the week even though the initial strategies didn’t work and neither of my workouts were record breaking. But I made it through them and I think I am mentally stronger from the process. My boyfriend is my training partner and motivator and he gets home in two days! Though I may still have to do workouts alone as he is a bit faster than I am… at least he will get me out of the door in the morning!
This upcoming week is Christmas and my obstacle will be too much, rather than not enough company! My boyfriend and I are from big families. We will have four Christmas celebrations over three days -- lots of good meals, good wine, and never ending desserts.
My blog post next week will focus on overcoming peer and social pressures around food and alcohol while training at a high level - a huge challenge in a sport where leanness is essential for peak performance.
Obstacles I will face over the entire period:
1. Weight - I am 5lbs over race weight right now. I will lose that in 8 weeks as long as I eat healthy, don’t drink too much, and run consistent mileage. I also started a new strength routine 2 months ago so some of this may be muscle gain. If I try to “starve” myself to get to a goal weight I have always ended up injured. I cannot let myself fall into this trap.
2. Mental - I haven’t raced since June… I am very nervous to get back out there, especially not as a collegiate athlete anymore. I feel like I am really exposing myself to failure outside of the comforts of the Boston College uniform. I can picture people questioning why I am still running if I don’t run fast. I have to remind myself that I am doing this for me and the end goal is not a race in January… it is a build up for big things to come in the spring. To overcome this obstacle, I am going to do 20 minutes of race visualization everyday.
3. Holiday Distractions - The holidays are a hard to work towards a goal. Holiday parties, alcohol, late nights, bad food… etc. there are distractions everywhere! I chose this goal to take place over the holidays on purpose, as a way to keep me motivated. My buddy (boyfriend Matt) will be a great help for this. We will hold each other accountable as he also wants to stay focused on training these holidays.
Because none of our friends run, they do not understand the rigors of training and cannot sympathize with the need for sleep and a healthy diet. Professor U has helped me by remembering my goal is a short-term priority, I can eat and drink whatever I want in a few months but I have to focus for these next weeks. Another way I am trying to overcome this is by picking “cheat” days. For me, that will be Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years. Three days within an 8 week period will not derail my success. I am focusing on balance and moderation even with unhealthy holiday distractions.
4. Injury - I have had several stress fractures but have so far been healthy for 16 months and counting! If I can stay healthy, I know I can run fast. Consistency is the key to success. I need to make sure I am recovering.
5. Weather - If there is a lot of snow/ice on the roads over the next month, it will definitely be hard to train. I will still need to find a way to get the work in while staying healthy. Indoor track, treadmill, cross training, strength can all supplement the days I may not be able to run. I need to be flexible and don’t stress about things I can’t control.
6. Teammates - I don’t have many people to run with when I am home. From having a team for the past 5 years, I know the value of having girls around you to run with. It just makes getting out the door so much easier. I need to find people to run with for motivation. I will have my boyfriend to run with when he gets home Dec 22nd-Jan 5th but otherwise I will need others. I will reach out to the University of Toronto coaches to find some company and maybe go to some running groups out of running stores.
The Buddy System - Jan. 8, 2016
Christmas and New Years have come and gone and with it hopefully so have the late nights, turkey dinners, and too many glasses of wine as well. The holiday season is filled with distractions that can uproot even the best habits an athlete has created for themselves. Fortunately for me, by using the MOVE! Method, I was able to forecast these obstacles and create a plan of action to maintain the highest level of training possible.
I had two important strategies that enabled my success - the buddy system and planning ahead.
Finding a Buddy
After my blog post last week discussing the loneliness of training and challenges around motivation, my boyfriend Matt returned home. It is a huge challenge to keep your goals in sight when you don’t have a “buddy” such as a coach, teammate, or friend to hold you accountable to your training. If you are looking for excuses not to train, they are never hard to find… but a good buddy won’t let you use them!
Lucky for me, Matt is a runner as well… although MUCH faster! Having him around as a buddy pulled me “back on track” immediately. When you have a buddy to run with or even just report your training back to, you think twice about not getting out of bed in the morning or skipping a gym session after work. After Matt’s overnight flight home, he was pulling me out of bed at 7am for a run! He wouldn’t let me take a day off when I didn’t plan one or run shorter or slower just because I was tired or feeling lazy; he held me accountable to my training and his company helped me to enjoy running again.
Cathy Utzschneider taught me the importance of having a buddy in your training but I didn’t fully understand until these past three weeks. A buddy is invaluable especially on the inevitable days you just don’t feel like getting out the door.
Strategies:
The Importance of Planning Ahead
Despite my renewed motivation with Matt’s return and company, we are both training for different goals and with that means different schedules. I had only a rough plan of what I wanted to do, two workouts and a hard long run, but nothing written out or dictated by a coach. Because I didn’t have a firm plan in place and doing a workout when he had an easy run would mean running alone, it was easy for Matt to persuade me to run with him instead of executing my own specific training. I ended up only doing one workout that was much shorter than it should have been and a slow long run.
I learned that when working with a buddy, you have to come up with your own plan of what’s best for you and then work to match up with your buddy after. You cannot just execute their training and expect results in your own.
Strategies:
Run Outside Your Comfort Zone and Embrace The Uncomfortable - Jan. 21, 2016
NCAA and international cross country and track and field competitor; former Boston College Cross Country Captain; now assistant track and field coach, Boston College.
“Keep your faculty of effort alive by little gratuitous exercise; every day, do something for no other reason than that you would rather not.”
“I’ve failed over and over and over again throughout my career. It’s a bummer, I don’t want to go through it, but I’m not afraid of it… I have so many failures throughout my career but I needed them to have the success.”
-Ryan Hall, American Record holder in the marathon
These quotes highlight a powerful theme of MOVE!: Embrace The Uncomfortable – a phrase that can transform fear into victory……Fear, of course is in our minds, and as my coach often says, running is 90 percent between your ears. Of course, there are physical limitations to the body but so many can be overcome if your brain is in the right space. After being pushed into a few athletic situations these past few weeks that made me quite nervous, I have thought a lot about the emotional strength that can be gained from stepping outside my comfort zone.
In my last post, I wrote about the importance of \a buddy. Lucky for me, once my boyfriend left town, I found a few new fast friends to help out in my training. Two women in particular, both a few years older, are on Olympic campaigns and boast personal bests I can only strive to reach someday. Needless to say, I was pretty anxious when they invited me to their workout.
I knew joining them on the track was sure to be a pain-filled and potentially embarrassing afternoon if I were to get dropped but after being honest with myself, I realized that my fear is no excuse not to try.
Fear, though I did not recognize it until recently, is something that has held me back repeatedly in my racing career. I have rarely run personal bests that weren’t within my training potential or won races that I didn’t truly believe I could win. I think this is because we often attempt challenges that we know we can succeed at. For example, from my freshman to senior year in college, I have only improved my mile time by 8-seconds; I have cut a few seconds off every year but never any big jumps. I think this is because I often feared going out fast enough to run an exceptional mile time… or fast enough to hit a colossal wall.
There are hundreds of inspirational quotes on the fear of failure because it is something many of us face regularly in our athletic pursuits; fear of stepping up in distance to a full marathon, fear of going to a new spin class, or for me - fear of running with a slightly faster training group.
There were a few things I learned by running out of my comfort zone and attempting a workout with athletes who were faster than I am.
Don’t make an assumption about how the workout is going to go before you start – Or as I’ve been taught, don’t judge a workout by how you feel on the warm up. It’s okay to be nervous as long as you don’t use it as an excuse not to try. Before the workout I said to myself, “Okay Mads, this is going to be tough but you are going to give it your all. If you get dropped, that’s okay as long as you hold on for as long as possible. Whatever happens, happens… but you have to try.”
What’s the worst thing that could happen? And what’s the best? - The worst thing that could happen was that I could get dropped… but life would go on. It didn’t matter how fast I ran! It was just a workout! No one wins Olympic medals for the fastest training runs. Once I put that into perspective I realized that having a great workout or even just a mediocre workout gives you a taste of where you are right now but more importantly, where you want to be. No pain no gain right?
I ended up having an AWESOME workout – After a month of doing all of my workouts alone, this was the first one that I was really happy with and definitely my best workout since last track season. I could not have done it without faster people pushing me. I committed myself to giving it my all and ended up surprising myself. After my little self-pep talk, I was able to turn my brain off and just run.
No overthinking – The workout was brand new to me and we did it on a 250m loop around a turf field (a surface I haven’t worked out on since sophomore year of college when my PR for 5k was one minute and a half slower!) This relieved some of the emotional stress; I had nothing to compare my workout results to. I was still nervous but it no longer mattered how fast I ran. All I had to focus on was staying with the other girls.
You can get a similar feel by changing up your own workouts. For example, instead of doing the mile repeats on the track where times mean everything, find a nice clear loop somewhere outside and run for 5-7 minutes hard (depending on your mile pace) with 3 minutes walk/jog rest in between. It is basically the same workout but without the stress of hitting times. Or if you always do a certain specific hill repeat, try instead to run for 30-50 seconds up then drop a t-shirt and make that the length of your repetition. Then take watch off and focus on consistent effort for whatever random distance you’ve chosen (as long as you’re honest with yourself!) You’re getting the exact same workout goal without beating yourself up trying to hit a time.
Just as in any other area of life, you will always learn something new by meeting new people – One of the girls is in law school. The other is working full time in marketing. It was really interesting to hear how they both managed their professional careers and their lofty Olympic dreams. Overall, though, it is revitalizing just to run with new people who have different experiences and perspectives on the track world.
Most of us have our closest running friends who we know we can count on to go easy on an easy day, our favorite distance to race (that sweet spot!), or our go-to workouts when we are in great shape but it is crucial to “run” out of that comfort zone if we are going to grow physically and emotionally as athletes. I believe that this translates to other aspects of life as well. Maybe you’re afraid to quit your safe job in search of your dream job, or afraid of going back to school, or nervous to try out a new hobby you’ve always wanted to. By practicing Embrace The Uncomfortable and running out of our comfort zones, we pave the way to brave our fears outside of the oval.
2) Overcoming Obstacles During the Holiday Season
3) The Buddy System and
4) Running Outside Your Comfort Zone and Embracing The Uncomfortable
Dec. 14, 2015 - SETTING GOALS
I am a former Division-I and international cross country and track athlete. I met Professor Utzschneider last spring as a student in her Competitive Performance class. It was my last semester of NCAA eligibility for Boston College before I decided what role running would play in my post-collegiate and professional life. She introduced me to the MOVE!Method and the theories behind it - habits, deliberate practice, short-term successive goal setting, weekly support, and keeping logs, to name a few. During a time where I felt like I lacked a direction, the MOVE! Method helped me navigate my way.
As an NCAA athlete and a world championships competitor, I never suffered from a shortage of dreams. I have always had big goals for myself but have struggled to find a realistic way to get there often lacking an understanding of what it would take or resorting to extreme training behavior, all only to fall short.
Last spring, I set out on a goal to break 16-minutes in the 5000m deciding that if I could accomplish that, I would continue running post-collegiately and if not, I would hang up my spikes. The MOVE! Method helped me generate a specific plan on how I would get there by using successive short-term goals but also helped give me the motivation to commit myself fully by holding me accountable during weekly check-ins with my classmates and Professor Utzschneider. I missed my ambitious goal that would have required me to run a personal best by over 20-seconds. I did however manage to run 16:12 ranking me the 5th fastest Boston College Eagle ever.
More importantly, what started out as a “do-or-die” type of goal where failure meant quitting, I found a renewed belief in myself and passion towards running. The MOVE! Method helped show me that when faced with external factors that are out of your control, sometimes you need to change your goal along the way and this does not mean you have failed! It gave me the skills to reframe my performance as a success and MOVE!-on to the next goal!
This December-January I am setting a new, short-term goal as a part of my longer-term vision. This blog will track my weekly goals, hurdles I have identified, and my strategies to overcome them. Goal setting and success is all relative to one’s own abilities, passions, and past performances. What I saw as a failure was a massive success in the eyes of my coaches and teammates. I hope this blog will help others (and myself!) maintain perspective on goals and performances; one performance or one missed goal does not define an athlete, rather it is the entire length of your journey to get to that point and beyond.
My next article focuses on weekly goals, hurdles, and strategies.
Personal running bests:
- 10,000m - 34:12 (2015)
- 5000m - 16:12.24 (2015)
- 3000m - 9:28.59 (2014)
- Mile - 4:52.17 (2015)
- 1500m - 4:22.54 (2015)
Short-term goal: 3000m January 29th, 2016
- A - 9:20-9:25
- B - 9:25-9:30
- C - 9:30-9:35
Long-term goal: 5000m April-June 2016Embrac
- A - 15:50-15:55
- B - 15:55-15:59
- C - 16:00-16:10
Overcoming Obstacles During the Holiday Season - Madeleine Davidson,December 22, 2015
This was my first week of training back home without my team and I am remembering all the challenges about training alone. Despite my goal being “on-track” and taking a lot of time to plan out the obstacles ahead, I somehow missed leaving my team and coaches! This became apparent immediately as I dreaded my first Sunday long run - an hour and forty minutes, 16 miles, in the cold trying to run fast on tired legs. I survived but did not run as fast as I wanted to.
I had two hard workouts this week made even more challenging because I was alone. Having training partners is invaluable. I started out my collegiate career at the University of Louisville and quickly rose to the top of the group to the point where I ended up doing most of my training alone. My teammates started holding me back on runs ….they didn’t want to or couldn’t elevate themselves. This fueled my decision to transfer to Boston College. I believe that to get the best out of yourself, you have to surround yourself with people who are better than you. This goes for many aspects of life, not just running.
Fast forward to this week….. I am reframing my solo workouts as being as much mental as physical training. It is easy to run with a group of women and just focus on having them pull you along to fast times instead of pushing yourself alone, just as it’s easier to run a personal best in a race with others beside you. When you are alone, there are no distractions from the pain of a hard workout, no one to hold you accountable, and it is very easy to get complacent with the pace and the discomfort. This week has required a lot of mental strength for tough workouts.
I had planned two strategies to overcome a lack of training partners this week. Neither was successful! I tried to meet with the University of Toronto team or find running groups but the university team was doing workouts on days that did not work for me and the running groups often meet in the evenings (I would rather be running in the mornings).
I had to think more creatively and instead used visualization and music. The night before a workout, I listened to a 20-minute visualization track to relax and picture myself running the workout successfully. I also try to imagine the pain I was going to be in and work on accepting that pain as the path to improvement. My second strategy was to listen to music as I got dressed for my run and on the warm up. I don’t listen to music during the workout because you can’t listen to music in a track race! But on the warm up, music gets me excited and makes me feel as if I have company.
So I overcame my obstacles for the week even though the initial strategies didn’t work and neither of my workouts were record breaking. But I made it through them and I think I am mentally stronger from the process. My boyfriend is my training partner and motivator and he gets home in two days! Though I may still have to do workouts alone as he is a bit faster than I am… at least he will get me out of the door in the morning!
This upcoming week is Christmas and my obstacle will be too much, rather than not enough company! My boyfriend and I are from big families. We will have four Christmas celebrations over three days -- lots of good meals, good wine, and never ending desserts.
My blog post next week will focus on overcoming peer and social pressures around food and alcohol while training at a high level - a huge challenge in a sport where leanness is essential for peak performance.
Obstacles I will face over the entire period:
1. Weight - I am 5lbs over race weight right now. I will lose that in 8 weeks as long as I eat healthy, don’t drink too much, and run consistent mileage. I also started a new strength routine 2 months ago so some of this may be muscle gain. If I try to “starve” myself to get to a goal weight I have always ended up injured. I cannot let myself fall into this trap.
2. Mental - I haven’t raced since June… I am very nervous to get back out there, especially not as a collegiate athlete anymore. I feel like I am really exposing myself to failure outside of the comforts of the Boston College uniform. I can picture people questioning why I am still running if I don’t run fast. I have to remind myself that I am doing this for me and the end goal is not a race in January… it is a build up for big things to come in the spring. To overcome this obstacle, I am going to do 20 minutes of race visualization everyday.
3. Holiday Distractions - The holidays are a hard to work towards a goal. Holiday parties, alcohol, late nights, bad food… etc. there are distractions everywhere! I chose this goal to take place over the holidays on purpose, as a way to keep me motivated. My buddy (boyfriend Matt) will be a great help for this. We will hold each other accountable as he also wants to stay focused on training these holidays.
Because none of our friends run, they do not understand the rigors of training and cannot sympathize with the need for sleep and a healthy diet. Professor U has helped me by remembering my goal is a short-term priority, I can eat and drink whatever I want in a few months but I have to focus for these next weeks. Another way I am trying to overcome this is by picking “cheat” days. For me, that will be Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years. Three days within an 8 week period will not derail my success. I am focusing on balance and moderation even with unhealthy holiday distractions.
4. Injury - I have had several stress fractures but have so far been healthy for 16 months and counting! If I can stay healthy, I know I can run fast. Consistency is the key to success. I need to make sure I am recovering.
5. Weather - If there is a lot of snow/ice on the roads over the next month, it will definitely be hard to train. I will still need to find a way to get the work in while staying healthy. Indoor track, treadmill, cross training, strength can all supplement the days I may not be able to run. I need to be flexible and don’t stress about things I can’t control.
6. Teammates - I don’t have many people to run with when I am home. From having a team for the past 5 years, I know the value of having girls around you to run with. It just makes getting out the door so much easier. I need to find people to run with for motivation. I will have my boyfriend to run with when he gets home Dec 22nd-Jan 5th but otherwise I will need others. I will reach out to the University of Toronto coaches to find some company and maybe go to some running groups out of running stores.
The Buddy System - Jan. 8, 2016
Christmas and New Years have come and gone and with it hopefully so have the late nights, turkey dinners, and too many glasses of wine as well. The holiday season is filled with distractions that can uproot even the best habits an athlete has created for themselves. Fortunately for me, by using the MOVE! Method, I was able to forecast these obstacles and create a plan of action to maintain the highest level of training possible.
I had two important strategies that enabled my success - the buddy system and planning ahead.
Finding a Buddy
After my blog post last week discussing the loneliness of training and challenges around motivation, my boyfriend Matt returned home. It is a huge challenge to keep your goals in sight when you don’t have a “buddy” such as a coach, teammate, or friend to hold you accountable to your training. If you are looking for excuses not to train, they are never hard to find… but a good buddy won’t let you use them!
Lucky for me, Matt is a runner as well… although MUCH faster! Having him around as a buddy pulled me “back on track” immediately. When you have a buddy to run with or even just report your training back to, you think twice about not getting out of bed in the morning or skipping a gym session after work. After Matt’s overnight flight home, he was pulling me out of bed at 7am for a run! He wouldn’t let me take a day off when I didn’t plan one or run shorter or slower just because I was tired or feeling lazy; he held me accountable to my training and his company helped me to enjoy running again.
Cathy Utzschneider taught me the importance of having a buddy in your training but I didn’t fully understand until these past three weeks. A buddy is invaluable especially on the inevitable days you just don’t feel like getting out the door.
Strategies:
- A significant other can make a great buddy even if they just act as someone to go to the gym with or talk about your progression; but if that doesn’t work, there are a ton of other great resources.
- Almost every running store has a run group associated with it - any Nike store is a great place to start to make some new running friends and find a coach to help plan workouts. Don’t be intimidated, you’ll find runners of all paces, ages, and levels out there.
- Once you’ve tried out a run group, you’ll meet runners of different ages and abilities in your area. These athletes are great people to connect with outside of a run group to meet up with at times that work best for you.
The Importance of Planning Ahead
Despite my renewed motivation with Matt’s return and company, we are both training for different goals and with that means different schedules. I had only a rough plan of what I wanted to do, two workouts and a hard long run, but nothing written out or dictated by a coach. Because I didn’t have a firm plan in place and doing a workout when he had an easy run would mean running alone, it was easy for Matt to persuade me to run with him instead of executing my own specific training. I ended up only doing one workout that was much shorter than it should have been and a slow long run.
I learned that when working with a buddy, you have to come up with your own plan of what’s best for you and then work to match up with your buddy after. You cannot just execute their training and expect results in your own.
Strategies:
- Decide on your training before your week begins. Pick key workout days and have a rough outline of what you are going to do. The recovery days in between can be more relaxed or cut shorter if necessary. Plan your workouts on days where you know you’ll have more time and be well rested.
- Write it down!!! I cannot stress this enough! Writing your training plan down holds you accountable if you try to make excuses to change it later on.
- Call your buddy to match up for training. Find a balance between sticking to your plan and being flexible enough to get help from your buddy where necessary. Remember, having a buddy is a two-way street; on the days you are feeling motivated, it’s your job to get your partner out the door as well!
Run Outside Your Comfort Zone and Embrace The Uncomfortable - Jan. 21, 2016
NCAA and international cross country and track and field competitor; former Boston College Cross Country Captain; now assistant track and field coach, Boston College.
“Keep your faculty of effort alive by little gratuitous exercise; every day, do something for no other reason than that you would rather not.”
“I’ve failed over and over and over again throughout my career. It’s a bummer, I don’t want to go through it, but I’m not afraid of it… I have so many failures throughout my career but I needed them to have the success.”
-Ryan Hall, American Record holder in the marathon
These quotes highlight a powerful theme of MOVE!: Embrace The Uncomfortable – a phrase that can transform fear into victory……Fear, of course is in our minds, and as my coach often says, running is 90 percent between your ears. Of course, there are physical limitations to the body but so many can be overcome if your brain is in the right space. After being pushed into a few athletic situations these past few weeks that made me quite nervous, I have thought a lot about the emotional strength that can be gained from stepping outside my comfort zone.
In my last post, I wrote about the importance of \a buddy. Lucky for me, once my boyfriend left town, I found a few new fast friends to help out in my training. Two women in particular, both a few years older, are on Olympic campaigns and boast personal bests I can only strive to reach someday. Needless to say, I was pretty anxious when they invited me to their workout.
I knew joining them on the track was sure to be a pain-filled and potentially embarrassing afternoon if I were to get dropped but after being honest with myself, I realized that my fear is no excuse not to try.
Fear, though I did not recognize it until recently, is something that has held me back repeatedly in my racing career. I have rarely run personal bests that weren’t within my training potential or won races that I didn’t truly believe I could win. I think this is because we often attempt challenges that we know we can succeed at. For example, from my freshman to senior year in college, I have only improved my mile time by 8-seconds; I have cut a few seconds off every year but never any big jumps. I think this is because I often feared going out fast enough to run an exceptional mile time… or fast enough to hit a colossal wall.
There are hundreds of inspirational quotes on the fear of failure because it is something many of us face regularly in our athletic pursuits; fear of stepping up in distance to a full marathon, fear of going to a new spin class, or for me - fear of running with a slightly faster training group.
There were a few things I learned by running out of my comfort zone and attempting a workout with athletes who were faster than I am.
Don’t make an assumption about how the workout is going to go before you start – Or as I’ve been taught, don’t judge a workout by how you feel on the warm up. It’s okay to be nervous as long as you don’t use it as an excuse not to try. Before the workout I said to myself, “Okay Mads, this is going to be tough but you are going to give it your all. If you get dropped, that’s okay as long as you hold on for as long as possible. Whatever happens, happens… but you have to try.”
What’s the worst thing that could happen? And what’s the best? - The worst thing that could happen was that I could get dropped… but life would go on. It didn’t matter how fast I ran! It was just a workout! No one wins Olympic medals for the fastest training runs. Once I put that into perspective I realized that having a great workout or even just a mediocre workout gives you a taste of where you are right now but more importantly, where you want to be. No pain no gain right?
I ended up having an AWESOME workout – After a month of doing all of my workouts alone, this was the first one that I was really happy with and definitely my best workout since last track season. I could not have done it without faster people pushing me. I committed myself to giving it my all and ended up surprising myself. After my little self-pep talk, I was able to turn my brain off and just run.
No overthinking – The workout was brand new to me and we did it on a 250m loop around a turf field (a surface I haven’t worked out on since sophomore year of college when my PR for 5k was one minute and a half slower!) This relieved some of the emotional stress; I had nothing to compare my workout results to. I was still nervous but it no longer mattered how fast I ran. All I had to focus on was staying with the other girls.
You can get a similar feel by changing up your own workouts. For example, instead of doing the mile repeats on the track where times mean everything, find a nice clear loop somewhere outside and run for 5-7 minutes hard (depending on your mile pace) with 3 minutes walk/jog rest in between. It is basically the same workout but without the stress of hitting times. Or if you always do a certain specific hill repeat, try instead to run for 30-50 seconds up then drop a t-shirt and make that the length of your repetition. Then take watch off and focus on consistent effort for whatever random distance you’ve chosen (as long as you’re honest with yourself!) You’re getting the exact same workout goal without beating yourself up trying to hit a time.
Just as in any other area of life, you will always learn something new by meeting new people – One of the girls is in law school. The other is working full time in marketing. It was really interesting to hear how they both managed their professional careers and their lofty Olympic dreams. Overall, though, it is revitalizing just to run with new people who have different experiences and perspectives on the track world.
Most of us have our closest running friends who we know we can count on to go easy on an easy day, our favorite distance to race (that sweet spot!), or our go-to workouts when we are in great shape but it is crucial to “run” out of that comfort zone if we are going to grow physically and emotionally as athletes. I believe that this translates to other aspects of life as well. Maybe you’re afraid to quit your safe job in search of your dream job, or afraid of going back to school, or nervous to try out a new hobby you’ve always wanted to. By practicing Embrace The Uncomfortable and running out of our comfort zones, we pave the way to brave our fears outside of the oval.