Runners are very conservative creatures: they rarely change the model and brand of shoes they run in nor even the type of training or race they do. Not even if the results don’t show up or are always the same and unsatisfactory are they willing to accept that maybe something needs to be changed somewhere. After all, Einstein said it himself, “Foolishness lies in doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results,” and who are we to contradict him?
Yet there are imponderable and unpredictable moments during which we need to review our habits and goals-in short, we need to change our perspective. What better time then to welcome change to achieve different results, motivate oneself, and improve? Instead of welcoming (or rejecting) them as accedents and impediments, why not use them to finally experience what you had never dared before for fear it would distract you from your comforting routine?
So here are some tips for managing the change and coming out even stronger than before.
1. Change target
Have you always planned to run a 21k or marathon? Personal coach and Olympian Judi Benson has radical advice: twist your goals by focusing on the opposite extreme. If you were planning to run a marathon, train to run a 5k or 10k. Remember that a shorter race is not a fraction of a longer one (a 10k is not a quarter marathon): these are completely different races that require different training. If for the marathon you build endurance, for a 5k or 10k you have to work on speed and perfect execution: you have little time and you have to minimize it to cover the distance.
Changing your focus allows you to concentrate on work that you had neglected: in the present case, it allows you to increase the speed and, above all, the efficiency of the athletic gesture, which must strive for perfection in order to be as energy-accurate as possible (it must be “economical,” meaning that it must allow you to achieve maximum results with the right use of force, that is, without wasting a drop).
2. Work on your weak points
When you prepare for a race, the only goal is the fateful day, which often results in neglecting certain flaws because to fix them you would have to distract yourself from the schedule. But what if there are no competitions to be had? Magically time was freed up to fix those things that are wrong. The time has come for you to sit down and write on a piece of paper everything you have always avoided doing because you don’t like it or you don’t do it well: do you hate run time? It is time to incorporate at least one session per week. Have you always avoided repetitions? You do the repetitions. Does mountain training seem too strenuous or do you not understand the point of it? Well, you get the game: you have to do what you don’t want to do normally. After all, change is always a positive force.
3. Increases mileage
Are you a 20-mile-a-week runner? Always try to add a little more, either by increasing the distance of each session or by adding one or two a week. You can also try (finally!) adopting the 10+5+0 rule, specifically designed to help you progressively go further and further, raising your endurance threshold.
One more thing
As you may have guessed, all these suggestions are linked by a common thread: managing change instead of being overwhelmed by it. Changing consciously and because you want to helps you regain awareness of your abilities, bringing enthusiasm back into your workouts and the joy of new achievements. They may not be those of a race, but they are still satisfactions related to realizing you can do something you didn’t think you could do. It’s not that you didn’t know how to do it, it’s that you were too focused on the race objective and didn’t let anything distract you.
Change can be the perfect time to work on weaknesses and accumulate small satisfactions that, when added up, will be joys.
(via Podium Runner)