Don't Think ... Just Run

"I just have work to do; I just do it." - Ian MacKay


So this morning The Queen woke up early to get her run in before the real heat of the day set in. If you aren't in the Northeast right now, good for you. It is waaaayyyyyy too hot these days. Looking like it will be in the mid-90s all week, breaking by Saturday. Heading to NJ for an outdoor wedding so I hope the weatherman is right this time!!! (Note: I understand the idea of an outside wedding can be compelling but there is too much weather risk. Heat, humidity, rain, snow, hail ... none of that generally happens inside).

Anyway, so The Queen is mulling around the kitchen, clearly thinking about the weather outside. My advice to her: Don't think, just run. 

Lake Carasaljo in Lakewood, NJ

Physically getting started can be the hardest part of a workout. While I learned how to swim as a kid, I am by no means a "swimmer." I learned to swim by getting thrown off a boat in the middle of Lake Carasalgo, not in a pool with a coach on the deck. Staying focused on my own at the pool can be a challenge. And I
cannot tell you how many times I have sat on the edge of the pool just thinking about what I am about to do. Haven't talked myself out of a workout yet, but ... well ... haven't always done what I had originally wanted to accomplish either. I'm not talking about swimming a few seconds per 100M slower because I didn't have it that day. No, I'm talking about not doing all the work planned for that workout. Talked myself right out of whatever it was I planned for that session. Should have just jumped in the pool and got the work done.

And the thing about swimming is that there are really no weather considerations, unless your pool is outside. For me it has never been a problem to get outside for a run if it is at all possible to be outside. There was a time, many years ago, I was meeting G-Boy and Low Jack on a very cold February morning for a long run. Jack bailed and hit the elliptical before I even showed up, G and me were too hard headed to stay inside. It was somewhere around 10 degrees outside, maybe ... not really all that bad ... until ... we turned directly into the wind. O.M.G. was it freakin' cold. Numb legs type of cold. Teeth hurting kind of cold. We eventually came to our senses and cut it short, but we didn't think, we just ran.

The other common excuse for bagging a workout is usually some form of  "I feel like crap" or "I have a pain in my calf/quad/hamstring/name your body part." At 43 years of age, if I didn't have one of these excuses on any given day I would be asking what's wrong. A real injury, of course, is not something to take lightly. But injury isn't what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the feeling of work in your legs.

Funny thing about this excuse, it tends to not show up when you have an easy 5 mile recovery run on the schedule. Not feeling your best, no big deal, its an easy run. No, this one shows up when I'm heading to the track for a fun, early morning 16 x 400 on the track or when I'm headed over to Applebutter Road for some seated hill repeats on the bike. I always make it out of the house and give it a go (assuming that the pain in my hamstring isn't a pulled muscle), committing to the first 20 minutes before I declare my legs unsuitable for hard work. Almost every time it starts this way, the workout is over before I remember how bad I felt pre-workout. No thinking, just gettin' it done.

Same thing goes for early mornings, late evenings, those horrible workouts in the basement when there is ice on the roads. Don't think ... just run.

Train hard. Stay focused.
Jon