It was a tough week this week. And the perfectionist in me really leaned on the wise words of fellow Hiver and runner @dannewton (who hopefully I don't embarrass too much with this kind shout-out ☺️) when he gave me some very direct and needed feedback on my last marathon update post.
To paraphrase:
Caroline, it doesn't sound like you're having much fun. But I think you're doing just fine. How can you make this a little more fun and a little easier on yourself while still moving towards you goal?
(You can read the actual post along with Dan's actual, highly sensible comment here.)
On Monday, with my plan ready to go for another week and Dan's words swirling around in my head my period arrived early and threw a spanner in my already full day. 🤦♀️
I had zero interest in doing any of my pre-set training; in between my many works calls I sat on the couch and did as little as possible. 🧘
As one day rolled into the next and I continued to feel less than motivated to get off the couch, let alone run, I pondered Dan's feedback some more. The key things I was recognising were:
my tendency to expect too much of myself, think I need to do it right from the very beginning and think I need to "work hard" in relation to, well, pretty much everything. 😟
By Tuesday I was ready to do some kind of exercise, so I mowed the grass (that needed doing) for about the length of time I was due to do either an easy run or a hard walk. Since pushing a mower in direct sunshine in Brisbane in summer is hard, that was my "hard walk" done. ✅
On Wednesday I recorded no walk or run (according to Garmin) but since we've been experiencing a heat wave all week I decided that any movement, of any kind I wanted to do as I slowly eased out of my no-energy-period-days was a bonus. Somehow I (think I) managed to get just over 10K steps per day every single day other than Monday. So I'm calling that a win. 🙌
By Thursday I was ready to try a really easy run again. We were still having stupidly hot days and nights, so with impacted sleep I was really trying to be kind and gentle with myself. 😴 I took Brad's advice and shortened my stride to crazy, tiny steps and took Dan's advice to consider how it felt rather than what Garmin's heart rate zone was telling me after the fact. 🖤
I did what was probably the slowest pace I've ever actually run at (I can walk much faster 😂) and did a high cadence (steps per minute) and it was... easy. 🤸
On Friday, still tired from another hot, broken night of sleep I didn't feel like walking fast but I did feel like doing a "tapping walk". This is where I use a stress reduction tool to "tap" (or rub, it works the same either way) on meridian points on the hands and other accessible parts of the body to clear away emotional baggage. 😌
I used to do these "tapping walks" a lot a few years ago when I worked out that tapping worked way better when we're actually moving our bodies. So as of this week I'm reintroducing them as a regular part of my lifestyle. And the brilliant part of it was that once my body had had enough of processing stuff that was bothering me I was ready to walk fast! 🥳
So Friday's walk was done. Then we were into parkrun Saturday... and that was slightly bonkers because we drove 2.5 hrs north to pick up a new (5km!!) parkrun location with a friend of ours. 🙈 She and I ran together, and since she is short, she naturally runs with a faster cadence than me. So I simply tried to match her footfalls.
Thankfully it was a wee bit cooler with a change coming to the seemingly endless hot weather. And that made the 29 minute, 5km, out-and-back, gravel, shaded course reasonably pleasant. Oh, that and it's so much easier to run in the Follicular Phase (of my menstrual cycle)!!! ☺️
With much cooler weather overnight and a big day of driving to sleep off, I slept much better than I had all week. I could even handle having a sheet over the top of me. 😅
But by this morning it was obvious that Brad, the perpetual runner, was not doing any running, let alone a "Sunday long run". With no plan and no desire to leave him alone I pottered while I drank water. I ate breakfast, I drank coffee, I thought about running and the things we needed to do today, and... I impatiently waited to have a bowel movement. 🤭
Talking about toileting might not seem like the most appropriate thing (we were definitely told to avoid talking about it) however this shit gets in the way of our running training! (Pun somewhat indeed 😆)
Finally, a good kilogram lighter I got out the door for a short run leaving The Injured One behind. It was already super hot by 9:30am so I ran in a light, long-sleeved top instead of a singlet and made a beeline for the shadiest track I could find. 🥵
Overall, it was a challenging week for sure. But without diving deep into the numbers this week, here's what I can tell you:
I managed to survive a heat wave without whinging too much or crying once. 🙌
I did some kind of movement every day except Monday (which was a hard enough day just getting through it as it was). 🙌
I practiced some more of the exercises in the Born to Run 2 book - which was the whole reason I set this marathon goal in the first place: to make me implement these changes to my running style. 🙌
I remembered my love of tapping walks and have decided to bring them back! 🙌
I found a way to make my high cadence runs feel easier. And I'm less focused on hitting 180 steps per minute and more just trying to get it up higher in general. 🙌
I'm recognising (thanks for the reflection, Dan) that if something feels hard and heavy conceptually then, by definition, it's not easy. And the way to make this and anything easier is to make it more fun. 🙌
To round this post out for this week, I want to come back to the quote in the title. It's something I heard a lot as a child:
"Anything worth doing is worth doing well." (Echoing in my head as my father's voice).
But a far more interesting and useful quote was one I heard today, maybe for the very first time:
“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” (Frances Chesterton)
And I love it. ☺️
What he was trying to point to is that any new skill we try to do with the aim of getting good at is one that we are going to do badly to begin with.
If the skill is important enough to us that we really want to get good at it then we have to be willing to suck at it in the beginning.
Makes total sense to me. 😉
And it also, simultaneously, brings up all my childhood stuff around being praised for doing things well. I don't recall ever being praised for trying and failing, never for the effort I put into things, never for getting up again and giving it another go, but always for the high marks and the high scores. If that doesn't set me up to only do things I can immediately be good at I don't know what does. 😳
So, I'm moving forward into my next week of marathon training--but also in my business, my relationships and the rest of my life--with all these realisations. But mostly I'm going to remember these:
If something's worth doing, it's worth doing badly
&
It can't be easy unless you're having fun.
Have a good week, peeps.
And thank you again Dan, for caring enough to spend a bit of time pointing out some blind spots. It's helped me see a lot of new things this week. 🙏
Photos by me, taken before, during or after one of the runs, walks or movement sessions.
