There's a LOT of privilege baked into the 'running by feel' concept. Thin privilege, fit privilege, white privilege, male privilege...the list is LONG and is defined by who is able to work without worrying about fighting off the labels 'weak' or 'lazy'. Some of us were conditioned to believe that we were weak, to ignore every signal our body sends, to work until we drop, that harder is better and weak is bad and girls are weak and girls are bad etc...then suddenly we are supposed to set allllll that aside to train for a marathon/half-marathon/ultra? COME ON.
There's work to do before any of my clients are comfortable feeling anything, much less recognizing and acting on those feelings. My clients are NOT lazy. They are the opposite of weak. They have more mental strength and can push themselves harder then anything I've ever seen. And STILL they have been gaslit and told over and over that when they back off that they lack mental strength; they have never truly been celebrated for listening to their bodies. They've been punished and ridiculed for it.
My entire coaching philosophy is based around learning what easy effort running is, as well as recognizing, and pushing back against, all the factors in society that have prevented you from going easy (or make you feel guilty/'that wasn't a workout'/'that wasn't hard enough'). We spend SO MUCH TIME embracing the jog, then and only then do we introduce the EAT so you start to feel out different effort levels in the 'not easy;' category.
The EAT is not a race day prediction (even though many of my clients treat it as such) but rather an understanding of the nuances and differences between the effort levels at half-marathon pace, 10k pace and 5k pace. The EAT not a test you can pass or fail, it's a data-gathering mission about yourself and your body at a single point in time. It should never define you, just guide decisions on a race no more than 10 weeks in the future.
The space between where you are and where you want to be should motivate you, never shame you. Welcome to the Fitness Protection Program. We aim to protect you for life, and it starts with embracing easy efforts while respecting hard efforts. We don't discriminate on the basis of pace (and we never will). We celebrate all efforts, all the time.
BONUS MATERIAL
Before listening to the podcast, CLICK HERE to get free bonus information about the Enhanced Anaerobic Threshold workout.
After listening to the podcast,
1. CLICK HERE to look in the shownotes
2. click the link in the shownotes to download #moarmath
3. watch the video below as I walk you through EAT Math, Step 1.
We are intentionally withholding EAT Math, Step 2 to make sure step 1 sinks in effectively.