Marathon Training and the Regular Cycles of Life

 

Reset the Cruise and Reset Your Mind: Group Training

Another cycle of group training is here after a short off season.

For the last few years, I’ve been staying in the game by jogging 3 to 4 days per week and not missing a lot of ground. Its much easier to stay fit instead of trying to retrain after every off season. That sounds obvious. Don’t let yourself get too out of shape and you won’t have to climb a fitness mountain every season. But we get lazy. Life and obligations change. Injuries alter the direction of our climb. It’s never an easy thing to do. Much easier if like me, you’re single and have minimal obligations. I recognize how unusual this is for most people and I remain circumspect about it. But like all routines in life, we can get to a place of cruise control with enough conscious effort.

Cruise Control

I don’t mean cruise control like it’s easy. But when you take a road trip you expect to use the cruise feature in the car. You disengage through the cities when the traffic is heavy and slow down through road construction zones. But once you’re back in the open, you reset it at a comfortable speed. It’s the most efficient way to drive on the highway. The cruise control reset puts you in a familiar state of mind.

Fitness routines are a lot like that. The quicker you can get to a regular time of exercise or weights, the more efficient your body will be. It learns the rhythm of your stress peaks and valleys. Maybe you like to hit the gym after work and lift heavy. Maybe, like me, you prefer a first thing in the morning run or lifting regimen.  

Either way, when you get into a cycle your body responds and your mind focuses. It’s not as difficult to stay the course once you’re engaged. What’s difficult is not having a routine and struggling with the inner war of wills. Routines are a bulwark against laziness. The more specific the better. I keep my running schedule every Saturday during the offseason because I want my body to know it’s the day we go for a long run. It’s never foolproof of course. Events come up. Work bleeds into the weekend on occasion. Volunteer activities at church force me to miss the occasional day. Thunder storms might ruin plans, but I’m back at it on Sunday. Or, I try to makeup the miles during the week.

Competitive Juices

This isn’t to brag. I’ve met runners who really train. One guy in my group was jogging 60 miles a week when training for a 100 mile trail run a few years ago. I don’t want to do that much. Besides, that’s usually a specific time in a person’s life. Very few people can keep up that schedule year after year. It’s not really the distance or the hours that matter. The growth is in being consistent and understanding how critical your fitness is to the later, and current, years of your life. I’d rather have a steady 20 miles per week for 5 years than do 60 miles a week for a year. Some people are more competitive though. I used to tell people I was competitive because I thought it showed inner strength or something. But the truth is I’m not that competitive. Certainly, I want to win and improve and overcome.

But I don’t need to win at everything. I don’t need to be seen as the best or stand out in some way. For a long time I worried that I was too complacent. In some areas of life I probably am too complacent. But competitive people can’t appreciate improvement over the long term. They can’t have fun because they have to win. They experience an emotional low when they fall short. It's a miserable way to live.

Conclusion

 I was like this a lot when I was younger. Not extreme or aggressive in competitive sports, but I felt that sharp emotional pain of losing and the lasting joy of victory. I prefer jogging now for a lot of reasons. One is the interpersonal nature of it, the grinding, sweaty summers and blustery winters. It’s at once grueling and rhythmic. It’s designed to build up by tearing down. Everyone improves at different rates. My progress has been slow up till now, but that’s also because I’m content with being consistent and steady.

This year I’m trying out different strides. It could use an overhaul. After watching a few You Tube videos from world class runners, I want to try some different things. I’m praying it goes well and cuts down on my exhaustion in the long miles.