The Hobby Jogger Experience: Visualizing and Rebuilding
Monday, February 26th — Easy Run
5 AM — 3 in 22:13
4:40 PM — 8 in 58:06 w/ 4x100 strides
I think I should write about what my junior season of track in college meant to me. Because it was the best stretch of my running career. I mean that from both a performance viewpoint and a fun viewpoint. I want to write specifically about my mindset during that 5 month stretch.
My first race of that stretch was an indoor mile in Dubuque, Iowa. I was in the second heat. I came into that race with a 4:57 PR. I remember being in fourth with 300 meters to go and just deciding to go for it. First place was about 20 meters ahead (just a guess, hard to know for sure) and I started to kick him down. In the last lap I realized that I was going to reel him in on the home stretch. And I remember knowing that when I came up on him on the home stretch, he would try to match me stride for stride. But I smiled in my head because I knew that I had another gear and could easily toast him on the home stretch. And you know what happened? Just that. I came up on the home stretch and put him away. I won my heat and I ran a big PR of 4:44. And for the first time in my two and a half years running at Cornell, I felt legitimate. I felt like I was not an impostor, like I belonged wearing a singlet and competing for a college team. (I think I’ll write about feeling like an impostor later this week).
That race, that big PR, that win, set off a big season for me. A season that saw me almost every weekend (the only time I didn’t was running the DMR at indoor conference). The crazy thing that I noticed that season was that although I was nervous on the starting line, I became convinced that I was going to take care of business. I became convinced that every time I would race, I would have a great one. And I did. It really only took a few good performances before I possessed that kind of confidence.
I do not think it takes a genius to recognize that the confidence I possessed was a big part of me reaching that level that season. And I have never really possessed that confidence since. I have fallen back into my old ways where I hold on to self doubts for way too long and let those hold me back.
I lost my self confidence that next fall (my senior year of cross country). I got hurt at the end of summer, one where I was kicking ass running wise. However, I got hurt, had to take just a bit of time off, then when I was starting rebuild I was taken away from the team and had to train on my own while I was student teaching. And student teaching was a huge struggle and I went into a dark place in my own head and quit on myself. I quit on myself as a teacher. Quit on myself as a runner. Quit on myself as a friend.
I don’t want this to turn into a woe is me story. I had a couple bad things come at me at the same time. At first I cried about it and complained about it. I stopped caring and stop trying. But at the end, I think I finally came around and just accepted that it was my responsibility to bring myself out of this dark situation. And I really came to that decision in November 2016 and since then I have been rebuilding myself, both as a runner and a person. And I am still in the rebuilding process, 15 months later. I did not think it would take that long and it has not been straight up, but I am working my way back there, both as a runner and in general.
Tuesday, February 27th — Workout
5 AM — 3 in 23:03
5 PM — 2 mile warm up
20 minute tempo followed by 4x200 up a hill with a 200 jog between each
2 mile cool down
I’m going to count this afternoon as 8 miles. I am not 100% sure if it was or not but I ended up running just over 57 minutes, so definitely over 7 miles. I would like to think that I went hard enough during my 20 minute tempo to cover more than 3 miles but I don’t know for sure. It feels good to go hard in the middle of the week. It is always a struggle to get going after a day after school. But if I want to take my running more seriously and try and get to another level, this is what I have to do. I need to hit the mileage hard and try to put in as much quality work as I can.
The thing is I know that I can work hard today, the key is to work hard every day. It is the consistency that will make me the runner I desire. It is not a single day, week, month, year. It will be consistent work day in and out for a long time. That is how I ran my high school 5K PR back to back this weekend. That was 5 years in the making. 5 years of grinding.
Wednesday, February 28th — Easy Run
5 AM — 3 in 22:37
3:45 PM — 4.5 with running club
6 PM — 3 in 21:16
Solid training day, mileage wise. Been wondering for a while just how much I get out of these days with three short runs. The runs with running club are always in the 8 to 9 minute per mile range. It is just the level that my middle schoolers are at. Am I getting anything out of that? Just something I have been thinking about since I am a little disappointed with my racing recently. Middle school track is starting up soon which means I’ll be coaching, so who knows what that will do to my training. I’ll deal with that when we start.
Thursday, March 1st — Easy Day
5 AM — 3 in 23:03
4 PM — 6 with running club in 49:23
Gave you the time for the running club run just so you could see what it’s like (if you are into that sort of thing). Lucky to get this much running in on what was an extremely busy day at work. I find when I get busy at work my running suffers. I eat bad (lots of treats), don’t get enough sleep (barely sleep) and just stress out more. It is a bummer cause I think it affects my training. However, I am in control of all these things. And I just need to be better at controlling these things if that is something I want to do. It is just I can’t live like a robot. I am lacking that level of discipline (thank god).
Friday, March 2nd — Easy Day
5 AM — 3 in 22:37
4:30 PM — 5 in 35:35
Beautiful day out today. Too bad I didn’t get near enough time to spend it in the sun. Enjoy this running photo they took of me last week, while I was trying to cool down. I tried to cover up my bib as you can see haha.
Saturday, March 3rd — Workout Day
8 AM — 2 mile warm up, 2 miles in 10:59, 2 mile cool down
10 AM — 1 mile, 1 mile up the incline (35:43), 3 miles down
This morning was hard. It was a lot to do in one morning but I wanted to really challenge myself physically. I did the Nielson Challenge in the morning and although it did not go as well as I would’ve liked, I think it still was some quality. And considering I was going to be doing the incline later in the day, I think it was fine.
If you don’t know what the incline is I’ll summarize it here for you: 1 mile straight up a mountain. It is about 2,000 steps and 2,000 feet of climbing (at least that’s what an article said that I read). Here is a picture.
The point is, it is really hard. It took me 35 minutes to do one mile. The record is like 18 minutes. It is really hard and very different than the typical training I’ve been doing. And it was fun to do something different. We just ran easy on the way down, which was all downhill. Really easy running but I liked racing and then having to immediately do another thing challenging.
With my running feeling stale, it was nice to do a different kind of challenge. Sometimes to motivate yourself, you need to take on new challenges.
Sunday, March 4th — Long Run
10 AM — 12 in 83:02 (Last two mile in 12:02)
It feels good to get a big run in at the end of a solid week of training. It was a really good week mileage wise. 73.5 miles total this week. A big mileage week which will really help my aerobic base for next month’s half marathon.
I realized today I think part of the lack of motivation is because I have spent almost little to no visualizing my races since I ran that 10 miler in January. For whatever reason, I just could not get myself to visualize a race. I think a big part of me being excited for a race and having a good performance is visualizing what that race will be like. So I took the time on some of today’s run visualizing what it would be like to crush the 5K I’ll be doing in two weeks and to also visualize what it would be like to have a good half marathon. And just visualizing what that would be like has me more excited about these races. I think I will spend some runs next week just imagining what having a good race would look and feel like. I want that feeling again.
I know I’m in better shape than a 36:41 last week and a 10:59 yesterday and I am looking forward to showing that to you guys. I am also looking forward to showing that to myself. I try not to let my running be the defining thing in my identity but I will admit not doing well in my running makes me feel frustrated and wanting more. Right now running is not serving as an outlet in my life, which is healthy. I am in a good place with where my life is at. Running is another activity in my life that I take pretty seriously. With me being in a good place, I think that should be good for my running. I think that I am getting back a sense of my hunger and wanting to prove myself, which I think leads to my best races.
Yesterday was really about hunger and this desire to prove myself. I can do a two mile race and then go crush the incline. I certainly had a period where I lost my hunger there and I think it showed in racing and training. I was still putting in the work and putting in that solid race performances, but I was missing the extra edge. And I can feel that edge coming back right now. Right on time too, cause I am 5 weeks out from my next half marathon and I think if I have that hunger these next few weeks, I will reap the benefits in that half.
Thank you for reading this week. 73.5 miles is a solid number to hit. I hope you get something out of reading this. There are sometimes where I feel like all I’ve written in a week is bland. This week definitely had some of that. I think Monday and Sunday have some spice and some quality, but I know in the middle there I was struggling. Perhaps it is part of the process. I love you.
Tucker
