This is an email I sent to my group participants at Life Time Run at the end of my first Denver Rock n' Roll Marathon training cycle as a coach back in 2014! I love this email and would send it at the conclusion of every group training cycle thereafter. When I wrote this email in 2014, I was pregnant with my third child! MIND BLOWN.
Well done, everyone!!!! Sorry I missed everyone at the finish, took me a little longer to finish than I expected since so many porta potties were locked!!! aaargh! SO PROUD OF ALL OF YOU!!!!!
Many of you have already written or texted to ask what's next, and here is my answer: rest.
An old coach told me once that you can only be 'excellent' in any one area of your life at a time, and the name of the game is to ensure you aren't less than 'good' in any other area (family, work, etc) because once you become 'bad' (bad parent, bad friend, bad employee, bad spouse) you just nullified your excellence. I find this to be remarkably true. Training sucks up a lot of time and we have to make hard choices in order to stay on track. You guys have been excellent for he past 3 months. For the next two weeks you need to rest, reconnect, revisit and reevaluate.
Week 1 starts now, and this week's theme is 'reconnect'. I want you to call every friend/family member or person you have missed or not been able to see since you started training, and I want you to have drinks/coffee/dinner with them, tell them what training was like and if it was worth it and would you do it again. If that includes your kids, do something special with them (we are going to see Punkin Chunkin next weekend then have a Disney movie and pizza marathon!). Schedule a date night to thank your spouse/partner/significant other for supporting you to the finish. Reconnect with who you love.
The following week, week 2, The theme is 'revisit'. I want you to revisit every physical activity you couldn't do while training. Have that fourth glass of wine on Friday night since you won't have to run for 2 hours at 7am on Saturday. Hit Stampede with Shannon on Wednesday night. Play soccer or softball with a league. tailgate. Go do yoga or take a kettle bell class with Mary. Revisit everything that you used to do that got squeezed out or that you wish you had time to do while you trained.
By the end of week 2 you should have had enough conversations about the past 3 months and enough fun that you've missed to re-evaluate your goals and decide where to go next with your training journey. I hope this time leads you back to me, but I accept that it may not. 2 weeks is the minimum time it takes for the benefit of a workout to present, and thus 2 weeks is the maximum time off you can take without seeing steeply diminished returns (especially before the holidays start- we need to get running back in the schedule pronto if we are going to stay on track!). By then you should be able to decide whether or not you want to set a time goal for your Spring race, run a longer distance, or if running is something you want to do socially and accept that you aren't willing to work towards a goal. The only wrong answer is a dishonest one and it hurts you, not me.
This email is long enough, so I will cross my fingers that at least 3 of you read it all the way through and give you a day or two to digest it before sending you options for November training.
I hope you are RESTING today and wearing your medal to work. You should be- you earned it!!!!!!!
High Fives all Around!
Coach MK
Photo credit: Talia Kite @ http://taliakitephoto.com/
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